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SELECT 



ilTISH ELOQUENCE: 



EMBRACING 



THE BEST SPEECHES ENTIRE, 



OF THE 



MOST EMINENT OEATORS OF GREAT BRITAIN 

fn tljt Inst ttna €m\\\xm ; 



VITH SKETCHES OF THEIR LIVES, AN ESTIMATE OF THEIR GENIUS, AND 
NOTES, CRITICAL AND EXPLANATORY. 



BY CHAUNCEY A. GOODRICH, D.D., 

PROFESSOR IN YALE COLLEGE. 



NEW YORK: 

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

329 & 331 PEARL STREET, 
FRANKLIN SQUARE. 

MDCCCLIL 



.G4 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-two, by 

Chauncey a. Goodrich, 
in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court of the District of Connecticut 



PREFACE, 



Mr. Hume has somewhere remarked, that " he who would teach eloquence 
must do it chiefly by examples.'''' The author of this volume was forcibly 
struck with this remark in early life ; and in entering on the office of Pro- 
fessor of Rhetoric in Yale College, more than thirty years ago, besides the 
ordinary instructions in that department, he took Demosthenes' Oration for 
the Crown as a text-book in the Senior Class, making it the basis of a course 
of informal lectures on the principles of oratory. Modern eloquence came 
next, and he endeavored, in a distinct course, to show the leading character- 
istics of the great orators of our own language, and the best mode of study- 
ing them to advantage. His object in both courses was, not only to awaken 
in the minds of the class that love of genuine eloquence which is the surest 
pledge of success, but to aid them in catching the spirit of the authors read, 
and, by analyzing passages selected for the purpose, to initiate the pupil in 
those higher principles which (whether they were conscious of it or not) 
have always guided the great masters of the art, till he should learn the un- 
written rules of oratory, which operate by a kind of instinct upon the mind, 
and are far more important than any that are found in the books. 

Such is the origin of this volume, which contains the matter of the second 
course of lectures mentioned above, cast into another form, in connection 
with the speeches of the great British orators of the first and second class. 
A distinct volume would be necessary for American eloquence, if the lectures 
on that subject should ever be published. 

The speeches selected are those which, by the general suffrage of the En- 
glish public, are regarded as the master-pieces of their respective authors. 
They are in almost every instance given entire^ because the object is to have 
each of them studied as a complete system of thought. Detached passages 
of extraordinary force and beauty may be useful as exercises in elocution ; 
but, if dwelt upon exclusively as models of style, they are sure to vitiate the 
taste. It is like taking all one's nutriment from highly-seasoned food and 
stimulating drinks. 

As to the orators chosen, Chatham, Burke, Fox, and Pitt stand, by uni- 
versal consent, at the head of our eloquence, and to these Erskine may be 
added as the greatest of our forensic orators. Every thing, however imper- 
fect, from a man like Chatham is of interest to the student in oratory, and 
therefore all his speeches are here inserted, including eight never before pub- 
lished in this country. All of Burke's speeches which he prepared for the 
press have also found a place, except that on Economical Reform, which, 
relating to mere matters of English finance, has less interest for an American. 
In room of this, the reader will find the most striking passages in his works 
on the French Revolution, so that this volume contains nearly every thing 
which most persons can have any desire to study in the pages of Mr. Burke. 
Six of Fox's great speeches are next given, and three of Pitt's, with copious 
extracts from the early efforts of the latter ; together with nine of Erskine's 
ablest arguments, being those on which his reputation mainly rests. Among 
the orators of the second class, the reader will find in this volume four 
speeches of Lord Mansfield ; two of Mr. Grattan's, with his invectives 
against Flood and Corry ; Mr. Sheridan's celebrated speech against Hast- 



ir PREFACE. 

ings ; three of Mr. Curran's ; Sir James Mackintosh s famous speech, for 
Peltier ; four of Mr. Canning's ; and five of Lord Brougham's, including his 
instructive discourse on the study of eloquence in the Grreek orators. Some 
of the most finished letters of Junius are given in their proper place, with re- 
marks on his style as an admirable model of condensation, elegance, and 
force. In the first fifty pages will be found nearly all the celebrated speeches 
before the days of Lord Chatham, from Sir Robert Walpole, Lord Chester- 
field, Mr. Pulteney, Lord Belhaven, Sir John Digby, the Earl of Straf- 
ford, and Sir John Eliot. The selections in this volume extend throuo-h a 
period of two hundred years, and embrace a very large proportion of the most 
powerful eloquence of Great Britain. 

The following are the aids afforded for the study of these speeches : 

(1.) A memoir of each orator, designed to show his early training in elo- 
quence, the leading events of his public life, the peculiar cast of his genius, 
and the distinctive characteristics of his oratory. It ought to be said, in 
justice to the author, that these sketches were completed in every essential 
particular, long before the publication of Lord Brougham's work upon Brit- 
ish Statesmen. 

(2.) A historical introduction to each of the speeches, explaining minutely 
the circumstances of the case, the state of parties, and the exact point at issue, 
being intended to place the reader in the midst of the scene as an actual spec- 
tator of the contest. These introductions, with the memoirs just mentioned, 
form a slight but continuous thread of political history, embracing the most 
important topics discussed in the British Parliament for more than a centLiry. 

(3.) An analysis of the longer speeches in side-notes, giving the divisions 
and subdivisions of thought, and thus enabling the reader to perceive at once 
the connection and bearing of the several parts. 

(4.) A large body of explanatory notes, bringing out minuter facts or re- 
lations of the parties, without a knowledge of which many passages lose all 
their force and application. 

(5.) Critical notes, as specimens of the kind of analysis which the author 
has been accustomed to apply to the several parts of an oration, and which 
every student in oratory should be continually making out for himself. 

(6.) Translations of the passages quoted from the ancient and foreign lan- 
guages, with the poetry rendered into English verse. The passages are usu- 
ally traced to their sources, and the train of thought given as it appears in 
the original, without a knowledge of which most quotations have but little 
force or beauty. For the same reason, the classical and other allusions are 
traced out and explained. 

(7.) A concluding statement of the way in which the question was de- 
cided, with occasional remarks upon its merits, or the results produced by 
the decision. 

Great compression has been used in preparing this volume, that all who 
are interested in the study of eloquence may be able to possess it. Each 
page contains the matter of three ordinary octavo pages in Pica type ; and 
the whole work has in it one sixth more than Chapman's Select Speeches, 
or Willison's American Eloquence, in five octavo volumes each. 

In conclusion, the author may be permitted to say, that while he has 
aimed to produce a volume worthy of lying at all times on the table of ev- 
ery one engaged in speaking or writing for the public, he has hoped it might 
prove peculiarly useful to men of his own profession ; since nothing is more 
desirable, at the present day, than a larger infusion into our sacred eloquence 
of the freedom, boldness, and strength which distinguish our secular oratory. 

Sept. \st, 1852. 



^'JJ 



CONTENTS. 



"J 



SIR JOHN ELIOT Page 1 

His early life, 1 ; elected to the House at the opening of 
the contest with Charles I., ih.; imprisoned by the 
King, ih. ; again elected while in jail, ih. ; Petition of 
Right, 2; Charles tries to evade it, ih. ; Eliot's speech, 
ib°; characteristics of his eloquence, ih. ; imprisoned, 
dies the first martyr to liberty, 6. 
Speech on the Petition of Right 3 

EARL OF STRAFFORD 7 

His birth and education, 7 ; early traits, ib. ; ill-treated by 
Buckingham, ib. ; assumes the character of a patriot, 
ih. ; defends the Petition of Right, 8 ; bought off by the 
court, ib. ; becomes favorite of Charles I., ih. ; his ex- 
actions and cruelties, ih. ; impeached by the Commons, 
9 ; description of the trial, ib. 

Speech when Impeached of High Treason 11 

LORD DIGBY 15 

His early life, 15 ; enters the House as an opponent of the 
government, ib. ; employed against Buckingham, ib. ; 
appointed one of the managers for tlie impeachment of 
Strafford, ib. ; changes sides and comes out against the 
bill of attainder, ih. ; his eloquence characterized, ib. 

Speech against the Attainder of Strafford 16 

LORD BELHAVEN 19 

His extraction and character, 19 ; evils resulting from a 
union of the crowns of Scotland and England, and their 
separation in all other respects, ib. ; jealousy of the En- 
glish as to the trade of Scotland, ib. ; retaliatory meas- 
ures of the Scotch, ib. ; plan of a Legislative Union, 20 ; 
violent hostility against it in Scotland, ib. ; circumstan- 
ces of Lord Belhaven's speech against it, ih. 

Speech against the Legislative Union of England and 
Scotland 21 

SIR ROBERT WALPOLE 27 

His birth and eai'ly education, 27 ; enters Parliament as a 
Whig, ih. ; early traits of character, ih. ; made Prime 
Minister, ib. ; his extreme jealousy of all who might be- 
come his competitors, 28 ; character of the Opposition 
and of Bolingbroke as its leader, ih. ; Walpole's system 
of corruption, ib. ; falsely accused as to most of his 
leading measures, ib.; errors of his ministry, 29; char- 
acter of his eloquence and that of his contemporaries, 
29, 30. 

Speech on the Septennial Act 31 

Speech on Addressing the King for his Removal 35 

MR. PULTENEY 43 

His early life and study of oratory, 43 ; gradual develop- 
ment of his powers, ib. ; becomes one of the ablest of 
English debaters, ib. ; breaks down the power of Wal- 
pole, ib. ; fails to succeed him, ib. ; created Earl of Bath, 
ih. ; his general unpopularity, ih. ; his death, ib. 

Speech on Reducing the Army 43 

LORD CHESTERFIELD 45 

His birth, 45 ; early love of polite literature, ih. ; elegance 
of his manners, ih. ; his acuteness and wit as a public 
speaker, ib. ; his various public employments, ib. ; re- 
tires from office and devotes himself to literature, ib. ; 
his unhappiness in old age, ib. ; his death, ib. 

Speech against Licensing Gin-Shops 46 

LORD CHATHAM 52 

His birth and early sufferings from the gout, 52 ; his ed- 
? ucation at Eaton, ih. : his conversational powers, ib. ; 
removes to Oxford, ib. ; his studies in rhetoric, ih. ; 
goes twice through the English dictionary to gain a 
command of language, ib. ; obtains a commission in the 
army, 53 ; joins the Opposition, ib. ; enters Parliament, 
ib. ; his maiden speech, 54 ; its effect on the King and 



Walpole, ih. ; deprived of his commission, ib. ; becomes 
leader of the Opposition, 54-5 ; comparison between 
him and Lord Mansfield, 55 ; gains a complete ascend- 
ancy in the House, 56 ; unites with Mr. Pelham, and is 
made Paymaster of the Forces, ib. ; exhibition of dis- 
interestedness, 56-7 ; on the death of Pelham comes out 
against Newcastle, his successor, 58 ; attack on Mans- 
field, " Felix trembles," ib. ; attack on Fox, " conflux of 
the Rhone and Soane," 59 ; drives Mansfield out of the 
House, ih. ; is made Pi-ime Minister on Newcastle's res- 
ignation, 60 ; dismissed soon after, and all England in 
commotion, ib. ; restored, his influence over all con- 
nected with him in government, ih. ; power of his elo- 
quence, " Is there an A ustrian among you ?" " Ut videre 
virum," 61 ; Opposition extinguished, 62 ; triumphs of 
his policy and arms in all quarters of the globe, ib. ; 
France sues for peace, 63 ; Spain joins her, ib. ; he pro- 
poses war against her, but overruled by Lord Bute, ib. ; 
resigns, ib. ; makes his " Sitting Speech" against Lord 
Bute's peace, 64 ; attack on Mr. Grenville, " Gentle Shep- 
hei'd," 65 ; opposes the King respecting John Wilkes and 
American taxation, ih. ; contemptuous retort on Justice 
Moreton, 66 ; withholds his support from the Rocking- 
ham administration, ib. ; forms his third ministry, and 
is raised into the House of Lords, 67 ; his loss of health 
and inability to administer the government, 68 ; resigns 
and retires, ib. ; comes out at the end of three years 
against the Grafton ministry, 69 ; it falls before him, ib. ; 
support of America, 70 ; declines in health, ih. ; his 
death, 71 ; characteristics of his eloquence, 71-5. 

Speech on a Motion for an Address on the Marriage of 
the Prince of Wales Page 76 

Speech on the Spanish Convention 77 

Speech on the Impressment of Seamen 80 

Speech in reply to Horatio Walpole 81 

Speech in favor of Inquiring into the conduct of Sir 
Robert Walpole 82 

Second Speech in favor of Inquiring into the conduct 
of Sir Robert Walpole 89 

Speech on taking the Hanoverian Troops into the pay of 
Great Britain 93 

Speech on a Motion for an Address of Thanks after the 
Battle of Dettingen 95 

Speech on the Right of Taxing America 103 

Speech in Reply to Lord Mansfield in Relation to the 
Case of John Wilkes 108 

Speech on a Motion to Inquire into the State of the Na- 
tion 114 

Speech in Relation to the Seizure of the Falkland Islands 
by Spain 118 

Speech against the Quartering of British Soldiers on the 
Inhabitants of Boston 126 

Speech in favor of an immediate Removal of the British 
Troops from Boston 128 

Speech on a Motion for an Address to put a stop to Hos- 
tilities in America 132 

Speech on a Motion for an Address to the Throne at the 
Opening of Parliament, November 18th, 1777 134 

Speech against a Motion for adjourning Parliament, De- 
cember nth, 1777 139 

Last Speech upon America, with the circumstances of 
his Death 141 

LORD MANSFIELD 143 

His birth, 143 ; descendedfi'om the Stormont family, which 
adhered to the Stuarts, ih. ; sent early to the Westmin- 
ster school, ib.; his great proficiency, ib. ; removed to 
Oxford, ib. ; his studies in rhetoric, ib. ; commences the 
study of the law, ib. ; laborious training in extempora- 
neous speaking, ib. ; historical studies, 144 ; practice in 
elocution, ih. ; a favorite of Pope, ib. ; extent of his 
business as a lawyer, ih. ; made Solicitor General, ib. ; 
comparison between him and the elder Pitt, ib. ; made 
Attorney General, 145; appointed Chief Justice with 
title of Lord Mansfield, ib. ; speech at taking leave of 
his associates at Lincoln's Inn, 14.'5-6; his qualifications 
as Chief Justice, 146 ; testi2iiony of Ju>tice Story, ib. ; 
his poUtical course in the House of Lords, 147; resigns 



VI 



CONTEJNITS. 



as Chief Justice at the age of eighty-three, ib. ; his death, 
ib. ; personal appearance and characteristics of his elo- 
quence, ib. 

Speech on the right of Taxing America Page 148 

Remarks on the foregoing speech with the American ar- 
gument (by the editor) 152 

Speech when surrounded by a Mob in the Court of 

King's Bench 154 

Speech in the case of Allan Evans, Esq 155 

Speech on a Bill depriving Peers of certain Privi- 
leges 160 



JUNIUS 



163 



His Letters have taken a permanent place in our elo- 
quence, 163 ; the rhetorical skill which they manifest, 
ib. ; the result of severe and protracted effort, i6. ; labor 
bestowed on the selection and arrangement of his ideas, 
ib.; logical cast of his mind, 163-4 ; peculiar benefits to 
the young orator from the study of his style, 164 ; his 
extniordiuary powers of condensation, iZ*.,- of insinu- 
ating ideas without expressing them in form, 164-5 ; 
reasons why indirect attack by insinuation is so pecul- 
iarly painful to cultivated minds, 165 ; Junius' means of 
secret information, ib. ; characteristics of his style, 166- 
7 ; the perfection of his imagery, 167 ; who was Juni- 
us ? 168-9 ; his political relations, 170 ; had previously 
written under other signatures, ib. ; reasons for his 
now coming out with increased strength and boldness, 
ib.; impression made by his first letter, 171 ; attacked 
by Sir William Draper, and thus made an object of pub- 
he attention, ib. ; his triumph over Sir William, 171-2; 
the power he gained as a writer, ib. ; his efforts second- 
ed by Lord Chatham, ib. ; the King predicts that Junius 
will cease writing, ib. ; he discontinues his Letters at 
he end of thi-ee years, and Sir Philip Francis is sent to 
India, ib. 

Letter to the Printer of the Public Advertiser 173 

Letter to Sir William Draper 178 

Letter to Sir William Draper 180. 

Letter to the Duke of Grafton 181 

Letter to the Duke of Grafton 185*^ 

Letter to the Duke of Bedford 188 

RE3IARKS on the Character of the Duke of Bedford (by 

the Editor) 192 

Letter to the King 193 

Letter to the Duke of Grafton 200 

Remarks on the character of the Duke of Grafton (by the 

Editor) 204 

Estimate of Junius by Mr. Burke and Dr. Johnson. 204 

EDMUND BURKE 206 

His birth and delicate constitution, 206 ; educated at a 
Quaker school in Ballitore, ib. ; early training, ib. ; re- 
moved to Trinity College, Dublin, ib. ; account of his 
studies, 207 ; early philosophical spirit, ib. ; leaves col^. 
lege and studies law in London, ib. ; his sevei-e mentin 
labor, 208 ; applies unsuccessfully for a professorship in 
Glasgow, ib. ; publishes his Vindication of Natural So- 
ciety, ib. ; publishes his Essay on the Sublime and Beau- 
tiful, 209 ; his society courted by the most distinguished 
literary men, ib. ; his conversational powers, 210 ; com- 
mences the Annual Register, ib. ; goes to Ireland as sec- 
retary to Single Speech Hamilton, 211 ; comes into Par- 
liament as a supporter of Lord Rockingham, 212; his 
maiden speech, highly praised by Lord Chatham, ib. ; 
goes out with Lord Rockingham, and becomes leader 
of the Whigs in the House, 213; Speech on American 
Taxation, its powerful impression, 214 ; elected mem- 
ber for Bristol, 215 ; circumstances leading to his speech 
on conciliation with America, ib.; comparison betweenrf 
this and his speech on American Taxation, 215-16 / 
speech on Economical Reform, " King's turnspit f 
member of Parhament," 216; speech at Bristol previ- 
ous to the election, 216-17 ; declines the polls, and re- 
turned for Malton, 217 ; speech against the continuance 
of the American war, " shearing the wolf," 217-218 ; 
after the fall of Lord North, comes in with Lord Rock- 
ingham us Paymaster of the Forces, 218 ; carries his 
measures for economical reform, 219 ; originates the 
East India P.ill of Mr. Fox, ib.; his intimate acquaint- 
ance with India and its concerns, 220; his speech on 
Fox's East India Bill, 221 ; speech on the Nabob of Ar- 
cot's debts, ib. ; procures the impeachment of Warren 
Hastings, 221-22 ; draws up the articles of impeach- 
ment, 223 ; delivers the opening speech against Hast- 
ings, ib. ; delivers his closing speech at the end of nearly 
seven years, 224 ; reasons for the acquittal of Hastings, 
225; King becomes deranged, 226 ; his ground respect- 
ing a Regency, ib. ; his unpojjularity and abusive treat- 
ment in the house, ib. ; his early jealousy of the French 
Revolution, 227 ; reasons, 227-28 ; his first collision 
with Mr. Fox on the subject, 229 ; his breach with Mr. 



Sheridan, 230 ; writes his Reflections on the Revolu- 
tion in France, 231 ; characteristics of the work, ib. ; 
its errors, ib. ; its excellences, 231-32; his separation 
from Mr. Fox, 232-33 ; loss of his son, 234-35 ; pension 
granted him, 235 ; his Letter to a Noble Lord on the 
subject of his pension, ib. ; his Letters on a Regicide 
Peace, ib. ; errors of Mr. Burke respecting the war witl^ 
France. 235-36 ; decline of his health, 237 ; his death, * 
ib. ; characteristics of his genius and eloquence, 237-4C 

Speech on American Taxation Page 241 _ 

Speech on Conciliation with America ■96a>iii^ 

Speech previous to the Bristol Election 292 

Speech on dechning the Election at Bristol 310 

Speech on the East India Bill of Mr. Fox 311 

Speech on the Nabob of Arcot's Debts 329 

Peroration of Speech against Warren Hastings . . . 362 
Extracts from works on the French Revolution... 363 

Miscellaneous 376 

Mr. Burke on the Death of his son 378 

Character of Sir Joshua Reynolds 378 

Detached Sentiments and M^vxims 379 

HENRY GRATTAN 382 

His birth and education in Dublin, 382 ; study of the law 
in London, ib. ; study of Lord Chatham as an orator, 
ib. ; settlement in Dublin as an advocate, ib. ; election 
to the Irish Parliament, ib. ; moves a Declaration of 
Irish right, 383 ; unsuccessful, ib. ; moves it again at the 
end of two years, 384 ; prevails, ib. ; opposed by Mr. 
Flood, ib. ; invective against him, ib. ; opposed to the 
Union, ib. ; chosen to the Imperial Parliament, ib. ; de- 
voted to the cause of Emancipation, ib. ; his death, ib.; 
personal qualities and character as an orator, 335. 

Speech on moving a Declaration of Irish Right 386 

Speech on making a second motion for a Declaration of 

Irish Right 391 

Invective against Mr. Flood 394 

Invective against Mr. Corry 396 

Character of Lord Chatham 398 



RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN 



399 



His parentage and connection with the stage, 399 ; early 
' dramatic productions, ib. ; purchase of Drury Lane 
Theater, ib. ; election to Parliament, ib. ; made Under 
Secretary of State, 400 ; keen retort on Pitt, ib. /speech 
against Hastings in the House, ib. ; speech before the 
House of Lords under the impeachment, 401 ; Lord 
Byron's lines thereon, ib. ; indolence and effrontery as 
a speaker, 402 ; his wit and humoi", ib. ; habits of intem- 
perance, 403 ; unhappy death, ib. ; personal appearance 
and character as an orator, ib. 
Speech against Warren Hastings when impeached be- 
fore the House of Lords 405 

CHARLES JAMES FOX 437 

His birth and early genius, 437 ; indulgence of his iather, 
ib. ; produces habits of dissipation, 438 ; eminence in 
classical literature, ib. ; distinction at Eaton and Oxford, 
ib. ; early extravagance, 439 ; enters Parliament, ib. ; 
first a Tory and in ofiice under Lord North, 440 ; turn- 
ed out abruptly, ib. ; joins the Whigs as a pupil of 
'^ Burke, 441 ; his labors to form himself as a debater, 
443 ; becomes head of the Whig party, ib. ; is made Sec- 
retary of State under Lord ilockingham, 444 ; disap- 
pointed in not becoming Prime IMinister on the death 
of Rockingham, ib. ; forms his Coalition with Lord 
North, 445 ; drives out the ministry and becomes Sec- 
retary of State, ib. ; his East India Bill, 446 ; speech in 
support of it, 447 ; carried in the House, ib. ; defeated 
in the Lords, ib. ; his speech against secret influence, 
448 ; displaced and Mr. Pitt made Prime Minister, ib. ; 
unsuccessful cftbrts to drive Pitt from power, lb. ; West- 
minster election, 449 ; Mr. Fox's speech on the subject, 
450 ; decision of the House in his favor, ib. ; derange- 
ment of the King, ib. ; Mr. Fox asserts the right of the 
Prince of Wales to the Regency, 451 ; King recovers, 
452 ; Mr. Fox's speech against Mr. Pitt for arming against 
Russia, 453 ; his Libel bill, ib. ; his views of the French 
Revolution, 4.54 ; his speech on Mr. Pitt's rejection of 
Bonaparte's overtures for peace, 458 ; comes in under 
Lord Grenville as Secretary of Foreign Affairs, 459 ; his 
death, personal appearance, 460 ; characteristics of his 
oratory, ib. 

Speech on the East India Bill 462 

Speech on Secret Influence 474 

Speech on the Westminster Scrutiny 481 

Speech on the Russian Armament 500 -/ 

Speech on Parliamentary Reform 515 * 

Speech on the Rejection of Bonaparte's Overtures for 
Peace 528 



CONTENTS. 



l: 



WILLIAM PITT Page 551 

His early ill health and inability to attend a public school, 
551 ; his remarkable prortciency at home, ib. ; goes to 
Cambridge at fourteen, ib. ; his ambition from boyhood 
to be an orator, ib. ; his training with that view at col- 
lege, 552 ; his mode of studying the classics, ib. ; his em- 
inence in the mathematics, ib. ; his severe discipline in 
logic, 553 ; in mental science and political economy, ib. ; 
his early social habits, 554 ; comparison between him 
and Lord Chatham, 555 ; his call to the bar, ib. ; his 
election to Parliament, 556 ; remarkable success ot his 
maiden speech, ib. ; joins the Whigs, ib. ; his sarcasm 
on Lords North and Germaine, 557 ; comes in with Lord 
Shelburne as Chancellor of the Exchequer at the age 
of twenty-thi-ee, ib. ; his brilliant speech against Mr. 
Fox and the Coalitionists, 558 ; his felicitous quotation 
from Horace, 561 ; is driven out with Lord Shelburne 
by the Coalition, ib. ; attacks Mr. Fox's East India Bill, 
562; made Prime Minister at twenty-four, 563; Mr. 
Fox''s efforts to drive him out, ib. ; his energetic resist- 
ance, 564 ; extraordinary scene in the House, 565 ; his 
keen rebuke of General Conway, ib. ; his ultimate tri- 
umph, 568 ; his East India Bill, ib. ; motion for reform 
in Parliament, 569 ; plan of paying the public debt, 570 ; 
his admirable speech against the Slave Trade, ib. ; war 
with France, 571 ; eloquent speech when his proposals 
of peace were rejected by the French, 575 ; speech of 
great compass and power when he refused to treat 
with Bonaparte, 576 ; resigns at the end of seventeen 
years, ib. ; returns to powei*, 577 ; his death, ib. ; per- 
sonal appearance and characteristics of his eloquence, 
577-8. 

Speech on the Abolition of the Slave Trade 579 

Speech on the Rupture of Negotiations with France. 593 
Speech on Refusing to Negotiate with Bonaparte . . 604 



LORD ERSKINE 629 

His birth at Edinburgh, 629 ; early education at Edin- 
burgh and St. Andrews, ib. ; his remarkable versatility 
of mind and liveliness of feeling, ib. ; goes to sea at 
fourteen as a midshipman, ib. ; enters the army as an 
ensign at eighteen, 630 ; marries at twenty, ib. ; his 
studies in Enghsh literature, ib. ; determines to study 
law, 631 ; his call to the bar, ib. ; his first retainer and 
remarkable success, ib. ; his instantaneous overflow of 
business, 632 ; case of Lord George Gordon, ib. ; enters 
Parliament and supports Fox, ib. ; goes out with the 
Coalition ministry, 633 ; State Trials, ib. ; made Lord 
Chancellor under the Grenville ministry, 634 ; his re- 
tirement and death, ib. ; personal appearance and char- 
acter of his eloquence, 635-6. 

Speech in behalf of Lord George Gordon 637 

Speech on the Rights of Juries 655 

Speech in behalf of Stockdale 683 

Speech in behalf of Frost 698 

Speech in behalf of Bingham 708 

Speech in behalf of Hardy 713 

Speech against Williams for the publication of Paine's 

Age of Reason 761 

Speech in behalf of Hadfield 766 

Speech in behalf of Markham 778 

JOHN PHILPOT CURRAN 785 

His birth and parentage, 785 ; the family, though in low 
circumstances, remarkable for intellectual vigor, ib. ; his 
early love of sport and wild adventure, ib. ; is sent to- 
school and to the university by a clergyman of the 
neighborhood, ib. ; distinguished for his classical attain- 
ments and love of metaphysical inquiry, 786 ; studies 
law in London, ib. ; his unwearied efforts to remove his 
defects and gain fluency as a public speaker, ib. ; settles 
in Dublin and rises to early distinction, ib. ; forms the 
Society of the Monks of the Screw, ib. ; his celebra- 
ted address to Lord Avonmore respecting that Society, 
787 ; enters the Irish House of Commons, ib. ; his bold» 
ness and eloquence during the State Trials, 787-8; 
Robert Emmett and Sarah Curran, 788 ; is appointed 
Master of the Rofls, ib. ; his misfortunes and decline 
of health, 788-9 ; resigns his office, 789 ; his death, 
ib. ; his characteristic excellences and faults as an or- 
ator, ib. 

Speech in behalf of Rowan 790 

Speech in behalf of Finnerty 805 

Speech against the Marquess of Headfort 814 



SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH Page 821 

His birth near Inverness, Scotland, 821 ; precocity and 
early love of reading, ib. ; distinction at school, ib. ; per- 
suades his school-fellows to practice extemporaneous 
speaking, ib. ; goes to the university, ib. ; early attach- 
ment tometaphysical inquiries, ib. ; intimacy and union 
of studies with Robert Hall, 821-22 ; studies medicine at 
Edinburgh, 822 ; removes to London, and supports him- 
self by writing for the periodical press, ib. ; publislies 
his Vindicias Galliciai in answer to Burke on the French 
Revolution, ib. ; studies law, and is called to the bar, 
823 ; delivers his lectures on the Law of Nature and Na- 
tions, ib. ; beautiful character of Grotius in his Intro- 
ductory Lecture, 823-24 ; success as an advocate, 824 ; 
his speech in defense of Peltier when prosecuted for a 
hbel on Bonaparte, ib. ; encomiums of Lord Erskine and 
Robert Hall on this speech, 825 ; is appointed Recorder 
of Bombay, and raised to the honors of knighthood, ib. ; 
spends eight years in India, and returns with a broken 
constitution, ib. ; enters Parliament, ib. ; becomes Pro- 
fessor of Law and General Politics in Haileybury Col- 
lege, 826 ; his literary labors, ib. ; his character as a par- 
liamentary orator, ib. ; his death, ib. 

Speech in behalf of Peltier 827 

Chaeacteb of Charles J. Fox 850 

GEORGE CANNING 851 

His birth in London, 851 ; descended from an Irish fam- 
ily of distinction, ib. ; premature death of his father, ib. ; 
dependent condition of his mother, who goes on to the 
stage for her support, ib. ; his early proficiency at school, 
ib. ; his love of English literature, ib. ; is removed to 
Eton, ib. ; induces his companions to establish a paper 
called the Microcosm, ib. ; takes the lead in a debating 
society, 852 ; leaves Eton with its highest honors, and 
enters the University of Oxford, ib. ; when freshman, 
gains the Chancellor's prize for Latin composition, ib. ; 
high standing at Oxford, ib. ; influence of competition, 
ib. ; leaves the university and commences the study of 
the law, ib. ; is invited by Mr. Pitt to become his polit- 
ical adherent, ib. ; elected to Parliament, ib. ; his early 
character as a speaker, 853 ; unites in establishing the 
Anti-Jacobin Review, ib. ; author of the most striking 
poetical effusions in the work, ib. ; the Needy Knife- 
grinder, 853-4 ; made Under Secretary of State, and aft- 
erward Treasurer of the Navy by Mr. Pitt, 854 ; becomes 
Secretary of Foreign Affairs under the Duke of Port- 
land, ib. ; fights a duel with Lord Castlereagh, and goes 
out of office, ib. ; is chosen member of Parliament for 
Liverpool, 855 ; goes as embassador extraordinary to 
Lisbon, ib. ; appointed Governor General of India, ib. ; 
is appointed Secretary of Foreign Affairs, ib. ; his strong 
stand against the invasion of Spain by France, ib. ; his 
celebrated speech on giving aid to Portugal when in- 
vaded from Spain, 856 ; is made Prime Minister, ib. ; 
his health soon after fails him, ib. ; his death, ib. ; sketch 
of his character by Sir James Mackintosh, 856-8. 

Speech on the Fall of Bonaparte 859 

Speech on Radical Reform 865 

Speech delivered at Plymouth 873 

Speech on Affording Aid to Portugal 875 

Extracts 883 

LORD BROUGHAM 886 

Descended from one of the most ancient families of West- 
/ moreland, England, 886 ; born at Edinburgh, ib. ; edu- 
- cated at the High School under Dr. Adam, ib. ; rapidity 
of his mind from early life, ib. ; enters the University 
of Edinburgh, ib. ; distinguished for his mathematical 
attainments, ib. ; early election to the Royal Society of 
Edinburgh, ib. ; studies law, ib. ; his training in extem- 
poraneous debate, ib. ; publishes his work on Colonial 
Policy, ib. ; removes to London and commences the 
practice of the law, 887 ; is a regular contributor to the 
Edinburgh Review, ib.; becomes a member of Parlia- 
ment, ib. ; subjects of his published speeches, ib. ; char- 
acter of his oratory, 888 ; comparison between him and 
Mr. Canning, ib. ; his attack upon Canning in 1823, when 
the latter gave him the lie, 889, 890. 

Speech on the Army Estimates 891 

Speech in behalf of Wilhams 896 

Speech on the Invasion of Spain by France 904 

Speech on Parliamentary Reform 914 

Inaugural Discourse, when inducted aa Lord Rector 
of the University of Glasgow 937 



SELECT BRITISH ELOQUENCE. 



SIR JOHN ELIOT. 



J OHN Eliot was descended from a family of great respectability in Cornwall, and 
was born on the 20th of April, 1590. After enjoying the best advantages for educa- 
tion which England could afford, and spending some years in foreign travel, he was 
elected to Parliament at the age of thirty-three, and became one of the most prom- 
inent members in the House of Commons under Charles I. 

The House embraced at this time, some of the ablest and most learned men of the 
age, such as Sir Edward Coke, John Hampden, Selden, St. John, Pym, &c. Among 
these, Sir John Eliot stood pre-eminent for the force and fervor of his eloquence. 
The general style of speaking at that day was weighty, grave, and sententious, but 
tinctured with the pedantry of the preceding reign, and destitute of that warmth of 
feeling which is essential to the character of a great orator. Eliot, "Wentworth, and 
a few others were exceptions ; and Eliot especially spoke at times with all the en- 
thusiasm and vehemence of the early days of Greece and Rome. 

Hence he was appointed one of the managers of the House when the Duke of 
Buckingham was impeached in 1626, and had the part assigned him of making the 
closing argument against the Duke before the House of Lords. This he did with such 
energy and effect as to awaken the keenest resentment of the Court ; so that two days 
after he was called out of the House, as if to receive a message from the King, and 
was instantly seized and hurried off by water to the Tower. The Commons, on 
hearing of this breach of privilege, were thrown into violent commotion. The cry 
" Rise I" " Rise I" was heard from every part of the hall. They did immediately 
adjourn, and met again only to record their resolution, *' Not to do any more busi- 
ness until they were righted in their privileges." This decisive measure brought the 
government to a stand, and reduced them to the humiliating necessity of releasing 
Sir John Eliot, and also Sir Dudley Diggs, another of the managers who had been 
arrested on the same occasion. Eliot and his companion returned in triumph to the 
House, which voted that " they had not exceeded the commission intrusted to them." 

In consequence of this defeat, and the backwardness of the Commons to grant 
the supplies demanded, Charles soon after dissolved Parliament, and determined to 
raise money by "forced loans." Great numbers resisted this imposition, and among 
them Eliot and Hampden, who, with seventy-six others of the gentry, were thrown 
J^\mio prison for refusing to surrender their property to the Crown ; while hundreds of 
' ' 'inferior rank were impressed into the army or navy by way of punishment. The 
King found, however, that with all this violence he could not raise the necessary sup- 
plies, and was compelled to call another Parliament within eight months. Eliot, 
Hampden, and many others who had been lying under arrest, were elected members 
of the new House of Commons while thus confined in prison, and were released only 
a few days before the meeting of Parliament. 

A 



2 SIR JOHN ELIOT 

These violent invasions of the rights of property and person, naturally came up 
for consideration at an early period of the session. The Commons, as the result of 
their discussions, framed, on the 27th of May, 1628, that second Great Charter of 
the liberties of England, the Petition of Right ; so called because drawn up, in 
the humble spirit of the day, in the form of a petition to the King, but having, when 
ratified by his concurrence, all the authority of a fundamental law of the kingdom. 
This document was prepared by Sir Edward Coke at the age of eighty-three, and 
was one of the last public acts of that distinguished lawyer. It provided, that no 
loan or tax might be levied but by consent of Parliament ; that no man might be 
imprisoned but by legal process ; that soldiers might not be quartered on people con- 
trary to their wills ; and that no commissions be granted for executing martial law. 
On the 2d of June, Charles returned, an evasive answer, in which he endeavored to 
satisfy the Commons without giving a legal and binding assent to the petition. The 
next day. Sir John Eliot made the following speech. It breathes throughout, that 
spirit of affection and reverence for the King's person which was still felt by both 
houses of Parliament. It does not dwell, therefore, on those recent acts of arbitrary 
power in which the King might be supposed to have reluctantly concurred ; and the 
fact is a striking one, that Eliot does not even allude to his late cruel imprisonment, 
a decisive proof that he was not actuated by a spirit of personal resentment. The 
entire speech was directed against the royal Favorite, the Duke of Buckingham. Its 
object was, to expose his flagrant misconduct during the preceding ten years, under 
the reign of James as well as Charles ; and to show that through his duplicity, in- 
competency, and rash counsels, the honor of the kingdom had been betrayed, its allies 
sacrificed, its treasures wasted, and those necessities of the King created which gave 
rise to the arbitrary acts referred to in the Petition of Right. The facts which Eliot 
^Ldduces in proof, are very briefly mentioned, or barely alluded to, because they were 
fresh in the minds of all, and had created a burning sense of wrong and dishonor 
throughout the whole kingdom. They will be explained in brief notes appended to 
the speech ; but, to feel their full force, the reader must go back to the history of the 
times, .and place himself in the midst of the scene. 

There is in this speech, a union of dignity and fervor which is highly character- 
istic of the man. " His mind," says Lord Nugent, " was deeply imbued with a love 
of philosophy and a confidence in religion which gave a lofty tone to his eloquence." 
His fervor, acting on a clear and powerful understanding, gives him a simplicity, 
directness, and continuity of thought, a rapidity of progress, and a vehemence of ap- 
peal, which will remind the reader of the style of Demosthenes. His whole soul is 
occupied with the subject. He seizes upon the strong points of his case with such 
absorbing interest, that all those secondary and collateral trains of thought with 
which a speaker like Burke, amplifies and adorns the discussion, are rejected as un- 
worthy of the stern severity of the occasion. The eloquence lies wholly in the 
thought ; and the entire bareness of the expression, the absence of all ornament, 
adds to the effect, because there is nothing interposed to break the force of the 
blow. The antique air of the style heightens the interest of the speech ; and will 
recommend it particularly to those who have learned to relish the varied construc- 
tion and racy English of our early writers. 



SPEECH 



OF SIR JOHN ELIOT ON THE PETITION OF RIGHT, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 

JUNE 3, 1628. 



Mr. Speaker, — We sit here as the great 
Council of the King, and in that capacity, it is 
our duty to take into consideration the state and 
affairs of the kingdom, and when there is occa- 
sion, to give a true representation of them by 
way of counsel and advice, with what we con- 
ceive necessary or expedient to be done. 

In this consideration, I confess many a sad 
thought hath affrighted me, and that not only in 
respect of our dangers from abroad (which yet I 
know are great, as they have been often prest 
and dilated to us), but in respect of our disor- 
ders here at home, which do enforce those dan- 
gers, and by which they are occasioned. For I 
believe I shall make it clear to you, that both at 
first, the cause of these dangers were our disor- 
ders, and our disoi'ders now are yet our greatest 
dangers — that not so much the potency of our 
enemies as the weakness of ourselves, doth threat- 
en us : so that the saying of one of the Fathers 
may be assumed by us, "now tarn potentia sua 
quam oicgligentia nostra,''^ " not so much by their 
; power as by our neglect." Our want of true 
' devotion to heaven — our insincerity and doub- 
ling in religion — our want of councils — our pre- 
cipitate actions — the insufficiency or unfailhful- 
i ness of our genei-als abroad — the ignorance or 
f corruption of our ministers at home — the impov- 
erishing of the sovereign — the oppression and 
depression of the subject — the exhausting of our 
treasures — the waste of our provisions — con- 
sumption of our ships — destruction of our men 
— these make the advantage to our enemies, not 
the reputation of their arms ; and if in these 
there be not reformation, we need no foes abroad : 
Time itself will ruin us. 

To show this more fully, I believe you will 
all hold it necessary that what I say, should not 
seem an aspersion on the state or imputation on 
the government, as I have known such motions 
misinterpreted. But far is this from me to pro- 
pose, who have none but clear thoughts of the 
excellency of the King; nor can I have other 
ends but the advancement of his Majesty's glory. 
I shall desire a little of your patience extraordi- 
nary, as I lay open the particulars, which I shall 
do with what brevity I may, answerable to the 
importance of the cause and the necessity now 
upon us ; yet with such respect and observation 
to the time, as I hope it shall not be thought 
troublesome. 

I. For the first, then, our insincerity and doub- 
ling in religion, is the greatest and most danger- 
ous disorder of all others. This hath never been 
« unpunished ; and of this we have many strong 
examples of all states and in all times to awe us. 
What testimony doth it want? Will you have 



authority of books? Look on the collections of 
the Committee for Religion ; there is too clear an 
evidence. See there the commission procured 
for composition with the papists of the North ! 
Mark the proceedings thereupon, and you will 
find them to little less amounting than a tolera- 
tion in effect : the slight payments, and the easi- 
ness of them, will likewise show the favor that 
is intended. Will you have proofs of men ? Wit- 
ness the hopes, witness the presumptions, wit- 
ness the reports of all the papists generally. Ob- 
serve the dispositions of commanders, the trust 
of officers, the confidence in secretaries to em- 
ployments in this kingdom, in Ireland, and else- 
where. These will all show that it hath too 
great a certainty. And to this add but the 
incontrovertible evidence of that All-powerful 
Hand, which we have felt so sorely, that gave 
it full assurance 5 for as the heavens oppose 
themselves to our impiety, so it is we that first 
opposed the heavens.^ 

II. For the second, our want of councils, that 
great disorder in a state under which there can 
not be stability. If effects may show their causes 
(as they are often a perfect demonstration of 
them), our misfortunes, our disasters, serve to 
prove our deficiencies in council, and the coase- 
quences they draw with them. If reason be al- 
lowed in this dark age, the judgment of depend- 
encies and foresight of contingencies in affairs, 
do confirm my position. For, if we view our- 
selves at home, are we in strength, are we in 
reputation, equal to our ancestors ? If we view 
ourselves abroad, are our friends as many ? are 
our enemies no more ? Do our friends retain 
their safety and possessions ? Do not our ene- 
mies enlarge themselves, and gain from them 
and us ? To what council owe we the loss of 
the Palatinate, where we sacrificed both our hon- 
or and our men sent thither, stopping those great- 
er powers appointed for the service, by which it 
might have been defended ?^ What council gave 



1 The gun-powder plot for blowing up both hous- 
es of Parliament, and extirpating the Protestant re- 
ligion at a single stroke, was still fresh in the minds 
of all. It is not, therefore, surprising, at a period 
when correct views of religious liberty were as yet 
unknown in England, tliat any remissness in ex- 
ecuting the laws against Catholics, was regarded 
with great jealousy by Eliot and his friends, espe- 
cially as the mother of Buckingham was of that com- 
munion. 

2 Frederick V., the Elector Palatine, who married 
"the beautiful Elizabeth," sister of Charles I., had 
been attacked on religious grounds by a union of 
Catholic states in Germany, with Austria at their 
head, stripped of the Palatinate, and driven as an 
exile into Holland, with his wife and child. AF 



SIR JOHN ELIOT ON THE 



fli 



direction to the late action, whose wounds are yet 
bleeding, I mean the expedition to Rhe, of which 
there is yet so sad a memory in all men ? What 
design for us, or advantage to our state, could 
that impart ? 

You know the wisdom of your ancestors, and 
the practice of their times, how they preserved 
their safeties. We all know, and have as much 
cause to doubt [i. e., distrust or guard against] 
as they had, the greatness and ambition of that 
kingdom, which the Old World could not satisfy.^ 
Against this greatness and ambition, we like- 
wise know the proceedings of that princess, that 
never-to-be-forgotten, excellent Queen Eliza- 
beth, whose name, without admiration, falls not 
into mention even with her enemies. You know 
how she advanced herself, and how she advanced 
the nation in glory and in state ; how she de- 
pressed her enemies, and how she upheld her 
friends ; how she enjoyed a full security, and made 
those our scoi-n w^ho now are made our terror. 

Some of the principles she built on were these ; 
and if I mistake, let reason and our statesmen 
contradict me. 

First, to maintain, in what she might, a uni- 
ty in France, that the kingdom, being at peace 
within itself, might be a bulwark to keep back 
the power of Spain by land. 

Next, to preserve an amity and league be- 
tween that state and us, that so we might come in 
aid of the Low Countries [Holland], and by that 
means receive their ships, and help them by sea. 

This triple cord, so w^orking between France, 
the States [Holland], and England, might enable 
us, as occasion should require, to give assistance 
unto others. And by this means, as the experi- 
ence of that time doth tell us, w^e w^ere not only 
free from those feai-s that now possess and trouble 
us, but then our names were fearful to our ene- 
mies. See now what correspondency our action 
had with this. Try our conduct by these rules. 
It did induce, as a necessary consequence, a di- 
vision in France between the Protestants and 
their king, of which there is too woful and lam- 



Protestant Christendom was indignant at these 
wrongs; and the King of England was expected to 
sustain the injured Elector on the double ground of 
family alliance and a community of religion. These 
expectations had all been disappointed by the weak, 
indecisive, and fluctuating counsels of Buckingham. 
Twelve thousand English troops were indeed sent 
to assist Frederick, under Count Mansfeldt, but near- 
ly all of them perished on the way, from mere want 
of foresight and preparation on the part of the En- 
glish government. This wanton sacrifice of life is 
alluded to at the close of the speech in a single word 
— "Mansfeldt!" — a name which at that time smote 
on the heart of the whole English nation. The ex- 
pedition to the Isle of Rhe, mentioned in the next 
sentence, will be explained hereafter. 

^ To understand the force and beauty of this allu- 
sion to Spain, we must go back to the time when 
all Europe was filled with dismay at the power of 
the Spanish arms on both continents. Few things 
in English eloquence, as Forster remarks, are finer 
in expression or purpose, than this allusion and the 
subsequent train of thought, as addressed to English- 
men of that day. 



entable experience.* It hath made an ab.so, 
breach between that state and us, and so en.' 
tains us against France, and France in prep;^ 
tion against us, that we have nothing to pror 
to our neighbors, nay, hardly to ourselves. N 
observe the time in which it was attempted, 
you shall find it not only varying from those p 
ciples, but directly contrary and opposite to tl 
ends ; and such, as from the issue and succ 
rather might be thought a conception of S| 
than begotten here with us. 

[Here there was an interruption made by 
Humphrey May, Chancellor of the Duchy 
of the Privy Council, expressing a dislike ; but ■ 
House ordered Sir John Eliot to go on, wh< 
upon he proceeded thus :] 

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry for this interrupt 
but much more sorry if there hath been occa: 
on my part. And. as I shall submit myself w 
ly to your judgment, to receive what censure 
may give me, if I have offended, so, in the inl 
rity of my intentions and the clearness of 
thoughts, I must still retain this confidence, , 
no greatness shall deter me from the duties I 
to the service of my king and country ; but t 
with a true English hearty I shall discharge 
self as faithfully and as really, to the extent 
my poor power, as any man whose honors or w 
offices most strictly oblige Aim. 

You know the dangers of Denmark,^ and 1 
miich they concern us ; what in respect of 
alliance and the country; w^hat in the imp 
ance of the Sound ; what an advantage to 
enemies the gain thereof would be ! What ] 
what prejudice to us by this disunion; we bn 
ing in upon France, France enraged by us, . 
the Netherlands at amazement between bo 
Neither could we intend to aid that luckless 1 
[Christian IV., of Denmark], whose loss is 
disaster. 

Can those [the King's ministers] that exp 
their trouble at the hearing of these things, 
have so often told us in this place of their kn* 
edge in the conjunctures and disjunctures o; 
fairs — can they say they advised in this ? ' 
this an act of council, Mr. Speaker ? I have n 

* This refers to the expedition against the Is' 
Rhe, respecting which see note 8. 

5 Christian IV., King of Denmark, as a lea 
Protestant piince, and uncle to Elizabeth, wif 
Frederick, the Elector Palatine, had entered w; 
ly into their cause, and marched with a large a 
to reinstate them in the Palatinate. After s 
partial successes, however, he was repulsed bj 
Austrians, driven back into his own dominions, 
reduced to imminent danger of being stripped c 
his possessions. The English trade through 
Sound into the Baltic, which was of great value, 
thus on the point of being entirely cut off by the 
tablishment of a hostile power on the ruins of I 
mark. Yet England had done nothing to sustain 
ally, or to protect her rights and interests in 
quarter; and the English people were justly 
censed against Buckingham for this neglect. 

^ Here, as above, allusion is made to the disgr 
ful expedition against the Isle of Rhe, by wl 
France was enraged, and no diversion in favo 
Denmark either made or intended. 



1628.] 



PETITION OF RIGHT. 



'^. charity than to think it ; and unless they make 
-y confession of it themselves, I can not believe it. 
' III. For the next, the insufficiency and un- 
faithfulness of our generals (that great disorder 
abroad), what shall I say? I wish there were 
not cause to mention it ; and, but for the appre- 
hension of the danger that is to come, if the like 
choice hereafter be not prevented, I could will- 
ingly be silent. But my duty to my sovereign, 
ray service to this Hou.se, and the safety and hon- 
or of my country, are above all respects ; and 
what so nearly trenches to the prejudice of these, 
must not, shall not be forborne. 

At Cadiz,'' then, in that first expedition we 
made, when we arrived and found a conquest 
ready — the Spanish ships, I mean, fit for the sat- 
isfaction of a voyage, and of which some of the 
chiefest then there, themselves have since as- 
sured me, that the satisfaction would have been 
sufficient, either in point of honor or in point of 
profit — why was it neglected ? Why w^as it not 
achieved, it being granted on all hands how feas- 
ible it was ? 

Afterward, when, with the destruction of some 
of our men and the exposure of others, who 
(though their fortune since has not been such), 
by chance, came off" safe — when, I say, with the 
loss of our serviceable men, that unserviceable 
fort was gained, and the whole army landed, why 
was there nothing done ? Why was there noth- 
ing attempted ? If nothing was intended, where- 
fore did they land ? If there was a service, where- 
fore were they shipped again ? Mr. Speaker, it 
satisfies me too much [i. c, I am over-satisfied] 
in this case — when I think of their dry and hun- 
gry march into that drunken quarter (for so the 
soldiers termed it), which was the period [term- 
ination] of their journe}" — that divers of our men 
being left as a sacrifice to the enemy, that labor 
was at an end. 

For the next undertaking, at Rhe,^ I will not 



7 Buckingham, at the close of 1625, had fitted out 
a fleet of eighty sail, to intercept the Spanish treas- 
ure ships from America, to scour the coasts of Spain, 
and destroy the shipping in her ports. Owing to the 
utter incompetency of the commander, there was no 
concert or subordination in the fleet. The treasure- 
ships were not intercepted ; but seven other large 
and rich Spanish ships, which would have repaid all 
the expenses of tlie expedition, were suffered to es- 
cape, when they might easily have been taken. At 
length a landing was eff'ected in the neighborhood 
of Cadiz, and the paltry fort of Puntal was taken. 
The English soldiers broke open the wine-cellars 
of the country around, and became drunk and un- 
manageable ; so that the Spanish troops, if they had 
known their condition, might easily have cut the 
whole army to pieces. Their commander, as the 
only course left him, retreated to the ships, leaving 
some hundreds of his men to perish under the knives 
of the enraged peasantry. 

8 Buckingham, from motives of personal resent- 
ment against the French king, undertook, in June, 
1627, to aid the Huguenots at Rochelle, who were 
in a state of open rebellion. He therefore sailed 
with a fleet of one hundred ships and seven thou- 
sand land forces, taking the command of the expe- 
dition himself, and expecting to be received with 



trouble you much ; only this, in short. Was not 
that whole action carried against the judgment 
and opinion of those officers that were of the 
council ? Was not the first, was not the last, 
was not all in the landing — in the intrenching — 
in the continuance there — in the assault — in the 
retreat — without their assent ? Did any advice 
take place of such as were of the council ? If 
there should be made a particular inquisition 
thereof, these things will be manifest and more. 
I will not instance the manifesto that was made, 
giving the reason of these arms : nor by whom, 
nor in what manner, nor on what grounds it 
was published, nor what effects it hath wrought, 
drawing, as it were, almost the whole world 
into league against us. Nor will I mention the 
leaving of the wines, the leaving of the salt, 
which were in our possession, and of a value, as 
it is said, to answer much of our expense. Nor 
will I dwell on that great wonder (which no Al- 
exander or Caesar^ ever did), the enriching of the 
enemy by courtesies when our soldiers wanted 
help ; nor the private intercourse and parleys 
with the fort, which were continually held. What 
they intended may be read in the success ; and 
upon due examination thereof, they would not 
want their proofs. 

For the last voyage to Rochelle, there need 
no observations, it is so fresh in memory ; nor 
will I make an inference or corollary on all. 
Your own knowledge shall judge what truth or 
what sufficiency they express. 

IV. For the next, the ignorance and corrup- 
tion of our ministers, where can you miss of in- 
stances ? If you survey the court, if you survey 
the country ; if the church, if the city be exam- 
open arms. But the Rochellers, having no previ- 
ous arrangement with him on the subject, and prob- 
ably distrusting his intentions, refused to admit him 
into the town, and advised him to take possession 
of the Isle of Rhe, in the neighborhood. This he 
did, and immediately issued a manifesto, inciting the 
Protestants throughout France to rebel against their 
govennnent. Great indignation was awakened in 
Europe by this attempt to rekindle the flames of 
civil war in that country. His appeal was, unfor- 
tunately, successful. The Protestants in the south 
of France rose almost to a man. A bloody conflict 
ensued, in which they were completely crushed, and 
their condition rendered far more wretched than be- 
fore. Buckingham, in tlie mean time, conducted ev- 
ery thing wildly and at random. In October, a re- 
enforcement of fifteen hundred men was sent out, 
mentioned in the speech as " the last voyage to Ro- 
chelle ;" but the Duke was still repulsed, with loss 
at every point, till he was compelled to return in 
disgrace, with the loss of one third of his troops, in 
the month of November, 1627. This speech was de- 
livered in June of the next year, while the nation 
was still smarting under the sense of the disasters 
and disgraces of this mad expedition. 

9 This sneer at the generalship of Buckingham 
was keenly felt, and derived its peculiar force from 
the lofty pretensions and high-sounding titles he as- 
sumed. He had also made himself I'idiculous, and 
even suspected of treachery, by his alfectation of 
courtesy in the interchange of civilities with the 
French connnanders. To this Eliot alludes with 
stinging effect in the remaining part of the sentence. 



6 



SIR JOHN ELIOT, ETC. 



[1628. 



ined ; if you observe the bar, if the bench, if the 
ports, if the shipping, if the land, if the seas — all 
these will render you variety of proofs ; and that 
in such measure and proportion as shows the 
greatness of our disease to be such that, if there 
be not some speedy application for remedy, our 
case is almost desperate. 

V. Mr. Speaker, I fear I have been too long in 
these particulars that are past, and am unwilling 
to offend you : therefore in the rest I shall be 
shorter ; and as to that which concerns the im- 
poverishing of the King, no other arguments will 
I use than such as all men grant. 

r The exchequer, you know, is empty, and the 
reputation thereof gone ; the ancient lands are 
sold ; the jewels pawned ; the plate engaged ;^° 
the debts still great ; almost all charges, both or- 
dinary and extraordinary, borne up by projects ! 
What poverty can be greater ? What necessity 
so great ? What perfect English heart is not 
almost dissolved into sorrow for this truth ? 

VI. For the oppression of the subject, which, 
as I remember, is the next particular I proposed, 
it needs no demonstration. The whole kingdom 
is a proof; and for the exhausting of our treas- 
ures, that very oppression speaks it. What waste 
of our provisions, what consumption of our ships, 
what destruction of our men there hath been ; 
witness that expedition to Algiers^' — witness 
that with Mansfeldt — witness that to Cadiz — 
witness the next — witness that to Rhe — witness 
the last (I pray God we may never have more 
such witnesses) — witness, likewise, the Palati- 
nate — witness Denmark — witness the Turks — 
witness the Dunkirkers — witness all ! What 
losses we have sustained ! How we are im- 
paired in munitions, in ships, in men ! 

It is beyond contradiction that we were nev- 
er so much weakened, nor ever had less hope 
how to be restored. 

These, Mr. Speaker, are our dangers, these 
are they who do threaten us ; and these are, like 
the Trojan horse, brought in cunningly to sur- 
prise us. In these do lurk the strongest of our 
enemies, ready to issue on us ; and if we do not 
speedily expel them, these are the signs, these 
the invitations to others ! These will so prepare 
their entrance, that we shall have no means left 
of refuge or defense ; for if we have these ene- 
mies at home, how can we strive with those that 
are abroad ? If we be free from these, no oth- 
er can impeach us. Our ancient English virtue 
(like the old Spai-tan valor), cleared from these 
disorders — our being in sincerity of religion and 
once made friends with heaven ; having matu- 
rity of councils, sufficiency of generals, incor- 
ruption of officers, opulency in the King, liberty 



in the people, repletion in treasure, plenty of pro- 
visions, reparation of ships, preservation of men 
— our ancient English virtue, I say, thus rectified, 
will secure us ; and unless there be a speedy re- 
formation in these, I know not what hopes or ex- 
pectations we can have. 

These are the things, sir, I shall desire to 
have taken into consideration ; that as we are 
the great council of the kingdom, and have the 
apprehension of these dangers, we may truly 
represent them unto the King ; which I conceive 
we are bound to do by a triple obligation — of 
duty to God, of duty to his Majest}^, and of duty 
to our country. 

And therefore I wish it may so stand with the 
wisdom and judgment of the House, that these 
things may be drawn into the body of a Reimon- 
STRANCE, and in all humility expressed, with a 
prayer to his Majesty that, for the safety of him- 
self, for the safety of the kingdom, and for the 
safety of religion, he will be pleased to give us 
time to make perfect inquisition thereof, or to 
take them into his own wisdom, and there give 
them such timely reformation as' the necessity 
and justice of the case doth import. 

And thus, sir, with a large affection and loy- 
alty to his Majesty, and with a firm duty and 
service to my country, I have suddenly (and it 
may be with some disorder) expressed the weak 
apprehensions I have ; wherein if I have erred, I 
humbly crave your pardon, and so submit my- 
self to the censure of the House. 



10 Buckingham had taken the crown jewels and 
plate to Holland, and pawned them for X300,000. 

^^ Buckingham, some years before, had sent out 
an expedition for the capture of Algiers. It result- 
ed in a total failure, and so incensed the Algerines, 
that the commerce of England suffered ten-fold loss 
in consequence ; thirty-five ships, engaged in the 
Mediterranean trade, having been captured within 
a few months, and their crews sold for slaves. 



The King, finding, after the delivery of this 
speech, that he could no longer resist the de- 
mands of the Commons, gave his public assent 
to the Petition of Right, on the 7th of June, 1628. 
But he never forgave Sir John Eliot for his free- 
dom of speech. At the expiration of nine months 
he dissolved Parliament, determining to rule from 
that time without their aid or interference ; and, 
two days after, committed Sir John Eliot and 
other members to the Tower for words spoken 
during the sitting of Parliament. In this flagrant 
breach of privilege, and violation of the Petition 
of Right, he was sustained by servile courts ; and 
Eliot, as "the greatest offender and ringleader,'' 
was sentenced to pay a fine of cf£2000, and be 
imprisoned in the Tower of London. 

After two years his health gave way under the 
rigor of his confinement. He then petitioned the 
King for a temporary release, that he might re- 
cover strength ; but this was denied him, unless 
he made the most humbling concessions. He re- 
fused, and sunk, at last, iinder the weight of his 
sufferings, at the end of three years, in Novem- 
ber, 1632, "the most illustrious confessor in the 
cause of liberty," says Hallam, "whom the times 
produced." One of his sons petitioned for liber- 
ty to remove his body to Cornwall for burial in 
his native soil, and received for answer these in- 
sulting words, wTitten at the bottom of his peti- 
tion : " Let him be buried in the parish where 
he died ;" that is, in the Tower^ the place of his 
imprisonment. No wonder that such a spirit 
brouirht Charles to the block ! 



THE EARL OF STRAFFORD. 

Thomas Wentworth, first Earl of Strafford, was descended from an ancient fam- 
ily in Yorkshire, and was born at the house of his maternal grandfather, in London, 
on the 13th of April, 1593. At St. John's College, Cambridge, where he received 
his education, he was distinguished not only for the strength and versatility of his 
genius, but for his unwearied efforts to improve his mind by the severest discipline, 
and especially to prepare himself for the duties of public life, as an orator and a 
statesman. The leading features of his character were strongly marked. He had 
an ardor of temperament, a fixedness of will, a native impetuosity of feeling, and a 
correspondent energy of action, which united to make him one of the most daring 
and determined men of the age. To those who rendered him the deference he ex- 
pected, who were ready to co-operate in his plans or become subservient to his pur- 
poses, he was kind and liberal. But he was quick and resentful when his will was 
crossed ; and even Clarendon admits that " he manifested a nature excessively 
imperious." 

He was trained from childhood, to a belief in those extravagant doctrines respect- 
ing the royal prerogative, which were so generally prevalent at that day. It was 
therefore natural that Wentworth, in entering on public life, should seek employ- 
ment at Court. The King seems, from the first, to have regarded him with favor ; 
but Buckingham, who was then in power, was secretly jealous and hostile. Hence 
he was treated at times with great confidence, and raised to important offices, and 
again stripped suddenly of his employments, and subjected to the most mortifying 
rebuffs. Under these circumstances, he came out for a time as a " patriot," and 
joined the popular party. That he did so, however, only in opposition to Bucking- 
ham, as the most effectual means of putting down a rival — that there was no 
change in his principles, no real sympathy between him and the illustrious men 
who were resisting the tyranny of Charles, is obvious from his subsequent conduct, 
and from the whole tenor of his private correspondence, as afterward given to the 
world. ^ But such was the strength of his passions, and the force of imagination 
(so characteristic of the highest class of orators) with which he could lay hold of, and 
for the time being, appropriate to himself, all the principles and feelings which be- 
came his new character, that he appeared to the world, and perhaps even to him- 
self, to have become a genuine convert to the cause of popular liberty. In the Par- 
liament of 1627-8, during the great discussion on the public grievances, he came 
forth in all his strength, " amid the delighted cheers of the House, and with a start- 
ling effect on the Court." After entering upon the subject with a calm and solemn 
tone befitting the greatness of the occasion, he rose in power as he advanced, until, 
when he came to speak of forced loans, and the billeting of soldiers upon families, 
he broke forth suddenly, with that kind of dramatic effect which he always studied, 
in a rapid and keen invective, which may be quoted as a specimen of his early elo- 
quence. " They have rent from us the light of our eyes ! enforced companies of 
guests, worse than the ordinances of France ! vitiated our wives and children be- 
fore our eyes ! brought the Crown to greater want than ever it was in, by anticipa- 

1 This is shown at large by Mr. Forster in his Life of Strafford, which forms part of Larduer's 
Cabinet Cyclopedia. 



8 THE EARL OF STRAFFORD. 

ting the revenue I and can the shepherd be thus smitten, and the sheep not scat- 
tered ? They have introduced a Privy Council, ravishing at once the spheres of all 
ancient government I imprisoning without bail or bond ! They have taken from us 
— what shall I sayv? Indeed, what have they left us ? They have taken from us 
all means of supplying the King, and ingratiating ourselves with him, by tearing 
up the roots of all property ; which if they be not seasonably set again into the 
ground by his Majesty's hand, we shall have, instead of beauty, baldness I" 

He next, in the boldest language, proposes his remedy. " By one and the same 
thing hath the King and the people been hurt, and by the same must they be cured : 
to vindicate — What ? New things ? No ! Our ancient, lawful, and vital liber- 
ties, by re-enforcing the ancient laws, made by our ancestors ; by setting such a 
stamp upon them, that no licentious spirit shall dare hereafter to enter upon them. 
And shall we think this a way to break a Parliament ?^ No ! our desires are mod- 
est and just. I speak truly for the interests of the King and the people. If we en- 
joy not these, it will be impossible to relieve him." " Let no man," said he, in con- 
clusion, "judge this way 'a break-neck' of Parliaments ; but a way of honor to the 
King, nay, of profit ; for, besides the supply we shall readily give him, suitable to his 
occasions, we give him our hearts — our hearts, Mr. Speaker ; a gift that God calls 
for, and Jit for a King.'" 

In the same spirit, he united with Eliot in urging forward the Petition of Right ; 
and when the Lords proposed an additional clause, that it was designed " to leave 
entire that sovereigii poicer with which his Majesty is intrusted," he resisted its 
insertion, declaring, " If we admit of the addition, we leave the subject worse than 
we found him. These laws are not acquainted with ' Sovereign Power I' " 

The Court were now thoroughly alarmed. But they knew the man. There is 
evidence from his own papers, that within ten days from this time, he was in nego- 
tiation with the speaker. Finch ; and " almost before the burning words which have 
just been transcribed, had cooled from off the lips of the speaker, a transfer of his 
services to the Court was decided on." In a few days Parliament was prorogued ; 
and shortly after. Sir Thomas Wentworth was created Baron Wentworth, and ap- 
pointed a member of that same Privy Council which he had just before denounced, 
as " ravishing at once the spheres of all ancient government !" The death of Buck- 
ingham about a month after, placed him, in effect, at the head of affairs. He was 
made a Viscount, and Lord President of the North ; and at a subsequent period. Lord 
Deputy, and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Earl of Strafford. 

The twelve years that followed, during which Charles undertook to reign with- 
out the aid of Parliaments, were filled up with arbitrary exactions, destructive mo- 
nopolies, illegal imprisonments, and inhuman corporal punishments, which Strafford 
was known to have recommended or approved ; while his presidency in the North 
was marked by numerous acts of high-handed injustice, and his government of Ire- 
land carried on with such violence and oppression as " gave men warning," in the 
words of Clarendon, " how they trusted themselves in the territories where he com- 
manded." 

In 1640 Charles was compelled by his necessities to convene another Parliament. 
The day of retribution had at length arrived. The voice of three kingdoms called 
for vengeance on the author of their calamities ; and not a man was found, except 
Charles and Laud, to justify or excuse his conduct. Even Digby, who sought only 
to save his life, speaks of Strafford, as " a name of hatred in the present age by his 
practices, and fit to be made a name of terror to future ages by his punishment." 
At the moment when, governed by his accustomed policy, he was preparing to 

2 Alluding to the threats of the Parliament being dissolved for their freedom of speech. 



THE EARL OF STRAFFORD. ^ 9 

strike the first blow, and to impeach the leaders of the popular party, as the surest 
means to avert the coming storm, he was himself impeached by the House of Com- 
mons, stripped of all his dignities, and thrown into the Tower. The 22d of March, 
1641, was fixed upon for his trial. The great object of his accusers was to estab- 
lish against him the charge of " attempting to subvert the fundamental laws of the 
realm." In doing so, they brought forward many oHenses of inferior magnitude, as 
an index of his intentions ; and they never pretended that more than two or three 
of the articles contained charges which amounted strictly to high treason. 

In conducting the impeachment, they had great difficulties to encounter. They 
could find precedents in abundance to justify the doctrine of constructive treason. 
Still, it was a doctrine which came with an ill grace from the friends of civil liber- 
ty ; and it gave wide scope to the eloquence of Strafford, in some of the most pow- 
erful and touching appeals of his masterly defense. In addition to this, the time 
had not yet arrived when treason against the state, as distinguished from an assault 
upon the life or personal authority of the king, was distinctly recognized in England. 
Strafford had undoubtedly, as a sworn counselor of Charles, given him unconstitu- 
tional advice ; had told him that he was absolved from the established rules of gov- 
ernment ; that he might use his simple prerogative for the purpose of raising money, 
above or against the decisions of Parliament. Such an attempt to subvert the. fun- 
damental laws of the kingdom, if connected with any overt act, would now be trea- 
son. But the doctrine was a new one. The idea of considering the sovereign as 
only the representative of the state ; of treating an encroachment on the established 
rights of the people as a crime of equal magnitude with a violation of the King's 
person and authority, had not yet become familiar to the English mind. We owe 
it to the men who commenced this impeachment ; and it is not wonderful that 
Strafford, with his views, and those of most men at that day, could declare with 
perfect sincerity that he was utterly unconscious of the crime of treason. 

The trial lasted from the 22d of March to the 13th of April, 1641, during which 
time the Earl appeared daily before the court, clothed in black, and wearing no 
badge or ornament but his George. " The stern and simple character of his feat- 
ures accorded with the occasion ; his countenance ' manly black,' as Whitlocke de- 
scribes it, and his thick hair cut short from his ample forehead." He was tall in 
person, but through early disease had contracted a stoop of the shoulders, which 
would have detracted from his appearance on any other occasion ; but being now 
ascribed to intense sufTering from the stone and the gout, which he was known to 
have endured during the progress of the trial, it operated in his favor, and excited 
much sympathy in his behalf. During eighteen days he thus stood alone against 
his numerous accusers, answering in succession the twenty-eight articles of the im- 
peachment, which of themselves filled two hundred sheets of paper, examining the 
witnesses, commenting on their evidence, explaining, defending, palliating his con- 
duct on every point with an adroitness and force, a dignity and self-possession, 
which awakened the admiration even of his enemies. On the last day of the trial, 
he summed up his various defenses in a speech of which the report given below is 
only an imperfect outline. It enables us, however, to form some conception of the 
eloquence and pathos of this extraordinary man. There is in it a union of dignity, 
simplicity, and force — a felicity in the selection of topics — a dexterity of appeal to 
the interests and feelings of his judges — a justness and elevation in every sentiment 
he utters — a vividness of illustration, a freshness of imagery, an elasticity and airi- 
ness of diction — an appearance of perfect sincerity, and a pervading depth of passion 
breaking forth at times in passages of startling power or tenderness, which belongs 
only to the highest class of oratory. The pathos of the conclusion has been much 
admired ; and if we go back in imagination to the scene as presented in Westmin- 



lO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD. 

ster Hall — the once proud Earl standing amid the wreck of his fortunes, with that 
splendid court around him which so lately bowed submissive to his will ; with his 
humbled monarch looking on from behind the screen that concealed his pei:son, un- 
able to interpose or arrest the proceedings ; with that burst of tenderness at the 
thought of earlier days and of his wife, the Lady Arabella Hollis, " that saint in 
heaven," to whose memory he had always clung amid the power and splendor of 
later life ; with his body bowed down under the pressure of intense physical suffer- 
ing, and his strong spirit utterly subdued and poured out like water in that start- 
ling cry, " My Lords, my Lords, my Lords, something more I had intended to say, 
but my voice and my spirit fail me" — we can not but feel that there are few pas- 
sages of equal tenderness and power in the whole range of English eloquence. We 
are strongly reminded of Shakspeare's delineation of Wolsey under similar circum- 
stances, in some of the most pathetic scenes which poetry has ever depicted. We 
feel that Strafford, too, with his " heart new opened," might have added his testi- 
mony to the folly of ambition, and the bitter fruits of seeking the favor of a king, 
at the expense of the people's rights, and the claims of justice and truth. 

Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition ! 

By that sin fell the angels ; how can man, then, 

The image of his Maker hope to win by't ? 

Love thyself last ! Cherish those hearts that hate thee ! 

Corruption wins not more than honesty ! 

Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, 

To silence envious tongues ! Be just and fear not ! 

Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's. 

Thy God's, and Truth's ! Then if thou fallest, Cromwell, 

Thou fallest a blessed martyr." 



SPEECH 



OF THE EARL OF STRAFFORD WHEN IMPEACHED FOR HIGH TREASON BEFORE THE HOUSE 

OF LORDS, APRIL 13, 1641.1 



My Lords, — This day I stand before you 
charged with high treason. The burden of the 
charge is heavy, yet far the more so because it 
hath borrowed the authority of the House of 
Commons. If they were not interested, I might 
expect a no less easy, than I do a safe, issue. 
But let neither my weakness plead my inno- 
^ cence, nor their power my guilt. If your Lord- 
ships will conceive of my defenses, as they are 
in themselves, without reference to either party 
— and I shall endeavor so to present them — I 
hope to go hence as clearly jvTstified by j-ou, as 
I now am in the testimony of a good conscience 
by myself. 

My Lords, I have all along, during this charge, 
>C watched to see that poisoned arrow of Treason, 
which some men would fain have feathered in 
my heart ; but, in truth, it hath not been my 
quickness to discover any such evil yet within 
my breast, though now, perhaps, by sinister in- 
formation, sticking to my clothes. 

They tell me of a two-fold treason, one against 
the statute, another by the common law ; this 
direct, that consecutive ; this individual, that ac- 
cumulative ; this in itself, that by way of con- 
struction. 

As to this charge of treason, I must and do 
acknowledge, that if I had the least suspicion of 
my own guilt, I would save your Lordships the 
pains. I would cast the first .stone. I would 
pass the first sentence of condemnation against 
myself. And whether it be so or not, I now re- 
fer to your Lordships' judgment and deliberation. 
You, and you only, under the care and protec- 
tion of my gracious master, are my judges. Un- 
der favor, none of the Commons are my peers, 
nor can they be my judges. I shall ever cele- 
brate the providence and wisdom of your noble 
ancestors, who have put the keys of life and 
death, so far as concerns you and your posterity, 
into your own hands. None hut your own selves, 
my Lords, know the rate of your noble blood : 
none but yourselves must hold the balance in dis- 
posing of the same? 



1 There are in the Parliamentary History two re- 
ports of this speech, one by Whitlocke, and the 
other by some unknown friend of Strafford. As 
each has important passages which are not contain- 
ed in the other, they are here combined by a slight 
modification of language, in order to give more com- 
pleteness to this masterly defense. 

2 Strafford had no chance of acquittal except by 
inducing the Lords, from a regard to their dignity 
and safety, to rise above the influence of the Com- 
mons as his prosecutors, and of the populace who 
surrounded Westminster Hall by thousands, de- 
manding his condemnation. In this view, his exor- 



I shall now proceed in repeating my defenses 
as they are reducible to the two main points of 
treason. And, 

I. For treason against the statute, which is 
the only treason in effect, there is nothing al- 
leged for that but the fifteenth, twenty-second, 
and twenty-seventh articles. 

[Here the Earl brought forward the replies 
which he had previously made to these articles, 
which contp,ined all the charges of individual acts 
of treason; The fifteenth article affirmed that 
he had "inverted the ordinary course of justice 
in Ireland, 's^and given immediate sentence upon 
the lands aAd goods of the King's subjects, un- 
der pretense of disobedience; had used a mili- 
tary way for redressing the contempt, and laid 
soldiers upon the lands and goods of the King's 
subjects, to their utter ruin." There was a de- 
ficiency of proofs as to the facts alleged. The 
Earl declared that "the customs of England dif- 
fered exceedingly from those of Ireland ; and 
therefore, though cessing of men might seem 
strange here, it was not so there ;" and that 
" nothing was more common there than for the 
governors to appoint soldiers to put all manner 
of sentences into execution," as he proved by the 
testimony of Lord Dillon, Sir Adam Loftus, and 
Sir Arthur Teringham. 

The twenty-seventh article charged him with 
having, as lieutenant general, charged on the 
county of York eight pence a day for supporting 
the train-bands of said county during one month, 
when called out ; and having issued his warrants 
without legal authority for the collection of the 
same. The Earl replied that " this money was 
freely and voluntarily offered by them of York- 
shire, in a petition ; and that he had done nothing 
but on the petition of the county, the King's spe- 
cial command, and the connivance, at least, of 
the Great Council, and upon a present necessity 
for the defense and safety of the county, when 
about to be invaded from Scotland." 

The twenty-second and twenty-third articles 
were the most pressing. Under these he was 
charged with saying in the Privy Council that 
" the Pai-liament had forsaken the King ; that 
the King ought not to suffer himself to be over- 
mastered by the stubbornness of the people ; and 
that, if his Majesty pleased to employ forces, he 
had some in Ireland that miffht serve to reduce 



dium has admirable dexterity and force. He re- 
verts to the same topic in his peroration, assuring 
them, with the deepest earnestness and solemnity 
(and, as the event showed, with perfect truth), that 
if they gave him up, they must expect to perish 
with him in the general ruin of the peerage. 



12 



THE EARL OF STRAFFORD 



[1641. 



this kingdom," thus counseling to his Majesty to 
put down Parliament, and subvert the funda- 
mental laws of the kingdom by force and arms. 
To this the Earl replied, (1.) That there was 
only one witness adduced to prove these words, 
viz.. Sir Henry Vane, secretaxy of the Council, 
but that two or more witnesses are necessary by 
statute to prove a charge of treason. (2.) That 
the others w^ho were present, viz., the Duke of 
Northumberland, the Marquess of Hamilton, 
Lord Cottington, and Sir Thomas Lucas, did not, 
as they deposed under oath, remember these 
words. (3.) That Sir Henry Vane had given 
his testimony as if he was in doubt on the sub- 
ject, saying " as I do remember," and " such 
or such like \vords," which admitted the words 
might be '■'■that kingdom," meaning Scotland.] 

n. As to the other kind, viz., constructive 
treason, or treason by way of accumulation ; to 
make this out, many articles have been brought 
against me, as if in a heap of mere felonies or 
misdemeanors (for they reach no higher) there 
could lurk some prolific seed to produce what is 
treasonable ! But, my Lords, when a thousand 
misdemeanors will not make one felony, shall 
twenty-eight misdemeanors be heightened into 
treason ? 

I pass, how^ever, to consider these charges, 
which affirm that I have designed the overthrow 
both of religion and of the state. 

1. The first charge seemeth to be used rath- 
er to make me odious than guilty ; for there is 
not the least proof alleged — nor could there be 
an}^ — concerning my confederacy with the pop- 
ish faction. Never was a servant in authority 
under my lord and master more hated and ma- 
ligned by these men than myself, and that for an 
impartial and strict execution of the laws against 
them ; for observe, my Lords, that the greater 
number of the witnesses against me, whether 
from Ireland or from Yorkshire, were of that re- 
ligion. But for my ovi^n resolution, I thank God 
I am ready every hour of the day to seal my dis- 
satisfaction to the Church of Rome with my dear- 
est blood. 

Give me leave, my Lords, here to pour forth 
the grief of my soul before you. These pro- 
ceedings against me seem to be exceeding rig- 
orous, and to have more of prejudice than equity 
— that upon a supposed charge of hypocrisy or 
errors in religion, I should be made so odious to 
three kingdoms. A great many thousand eyes 
have seen my accusations, w^hose ears wnll never 
hear that when it came to the upshot, those very 
things were not alleged against me ! Is this fair 
dealing among Christians ? But I have lost 
nothing by that. Popular applause was ever 
nothing in my conceit. The uprightness and 
integrity of a good conscience ever was, and 
ever shall be, my continual feast ; and if I can 
be justified in your Lordships' judgments from 
this great imputation — as I hope I am, seeing 
these gentlemen have thrown down the bucklers 
— I shall account myself justified by the whole 
kingdom, because absolved by you, who are the 
better part, the very soul and life of the kingdom. 



2. As for my designs agamst the state, I dare 
plead as much innocency as in the matter of re- 
ligion. I have ever admired the wusdom of our 
ancestors, who have so fixed the pillars of this 
monarchy that each of them keeps a due propor- 
tion and measure with the others — have so ad- 
mirably bound together the nerves and sinews 
of the state, that the straining of any one may 
bring danger and sorrow to the whole economy. • 
The Prerogative of the Crown and the Propriety 
of the Subject have such natural relations, that 
this takes nourishment from that^ and that foun- 
dation and nourishment from this. And so, as in 
the lute, if any one string be wound up too high 
or too low, you have lost the whole harmony; 
so here the excess of prerogative is oppression, 
of pretended liberty in the subject is disorder 
and anarchy. The prerogative must be used as 
God doth his omnipotence, upon extraordinary 
occasions ; the laws must have place at all other 
times. As there must be prerogative because 
there must be extraordinary occasions, so the 
propriety of the subject is ever to be maintained, 
if it go in equal pace with the other. They are 
fellows and companions that ai-e, and ever must 
be, inseparable in a well-ordered kingdom ; and 
no way is so fitting, so natural to nourish and 
entertain both, as the frequent use of Parlia- 
ments, by w^iich a commerce and acquaintance 
is kept up between the King and his subjects.^ 

These thoughts have gone along with me these 
fourteen years of my public employments, and 
shall, God willing, go with me to the grave ! 
God, his Majesty, and my own conscience, yea, 
and all of those who have been most accessary 
to my inward thoughts, can bear me witness 
that I ever did inculcate this, that the happiness 
of a kingdom doth consist in a just poise of the 
King's prerogative and the subject's liberty, and 
that things could never go well till these went ^ 
hand in hand together. I thank God for it, by 
my master's favor, and the providence of my an- 
cestors, I have an estate which so interests me 
in the commonwealth, that I have no great mind 
to be a slave.^ but a subject. Nor could I wish 
the cards to be shuflied over again, in hopes to 
fall upon a better set ; nor did I ever nourish 
such base and mercenary thoughts as to become 
a pander to the tyranny and ambition of the 
greatest man living. No ! I have, and ever 
shall, aim at a fair but bounded liberty ; remem- 
bering always that I am a freeman, yet a sub- 
ject — that I have rights, but under a monarch. 
It hath been my misfortune, now when I am 
gray-headed, to be charged by the mistakers of 
the times, who are so highly bent that all ap- 
pears to them to be in the extreme for monarchy 
which is not for themselves. Hence it is that 
designs, words, yea, intentions, are brought out 
as demonstrations of my misdemeanors. Such 
a multiplying.glass is a prejudicate opinion ! 



3 Strafford was generally regarded as the secret 
author of the King's aversion to Parliaments, which 
had led him to dispense with their use for many 
years. Hence the above declaration, designed to 
relieve him from the effects of this prejudice. 



1641] 



WHEN IMPEACHED FOR HIGH TREASON. 



13 



The articles against me refer to expressions 
and actions — my expressions either in Ireland 
or in England, my actions either before or after 
these late stirs. 

(1.) Some of the expressions referred to were 
uttered in private, and I do protest against their 
being drawn to my injury in this place. If, my 
Lords, words spoken to friends in familiar dis- 
course, spoken at one's table, spoken in one's 
chamber, spoken in one's sick-bed, spoken, per- 
haps, to gain better reason, to gain one's self 
more clear light and judgment by reasoning — if 
these things shall be brought against a man as 
treason, this (under favor) takes away the com- 
fort of all human society. By this means we 
shall be debarred from speaking — the principal 
joy and comfort of life — with wise and good 
men, to become wiser and better ourselves. If 
; these things be strained to take away life, and 
\ honor, and all that is desirable, this will be a si- 
lent world/ A city will become a hermitage, 
I and sheep will be found among a crowd and 
I press of people ! No man will dare to impart 
I his solitary thoughts or opinions to his friend and 
neighbor ! 

Other expressions have been urged against 
me, which were used in giving counsel to the 
King. My Lords, these words were not wanton- 
ly or unnecessarily spoken, or whispered in a 
corner ; they were spoken in full council, when, 
by the duty of my oath, I was obliged to speak 
according to my heart and conscience in all 
things concerning the King's service. If I had 
forborne to speak what I conceived to be for the 
benefit of the King and the people, I had been 
perjured toward Almighty God. And for deliv- 
ering my mind openly and freely, shall I be in 
» danger of my life as a traitor ? * If that necessity 
be put upon me, I thank God, by his blessing, I 
have learned not to stand in fear of him who can 
only kill the body. If the question be whether 
I must be traitor to man or perjured to God, I 
will be faithful to my Creator. And whatsoever 
shall befall me from popular rage or my own 
weakness, I must leave it to that almighty Be- 
ing, and to the justice and honor of my judges. 

My Lords, I conjure you not to make your- 
selves so unhappy as to disable your Lordships 
and your children, from undertaking the great 
charge and trust of this Commonwealth. You 
inherit that trust from your fathers. You are 
born to great thoughts. You are nursed for the 
weighty employments of the kingdom. But if it 
be once admitted that a counselor, for delivering 
his opinion with others at the council board, can- 
dide et caste^ with candor and purity of motive, 
under an oath of secrecy and faithfulness, shall 
be brought into question, upon some misappre- 
hension or ignorance of law — if every word that 
he shall speak from sincere and noble intentions 
shall be drawn against him for the attainting of 
him, his children and posterity — I know not (un- 
der favor I speak it) any wise or noble person of 
fortune who will, upon such perilous and unsafe 
terms, adventure to be counselor to the King. 
Therefore I beseech your Lordships so to look 



on me, that my misfortune may not bring an 
inconvenience to yourselves. And though my 
words were not so advised and discreet, or so 
well weighed as they ought to have been, yet I 
trust your Lordships are too honorable and just 
to lay them to my charge as High Treason. 
Opinions may make a heretic^ hut that they make 
a traitor I have never heard till now. 

(2.) I am come next to speak of the actions 
which have been charged upon me. 

[Here the Earl went through with the vari- 
ous overt acts alleged, and repeated the sum and 
heads of what had been spoken by him before. 
In respect to the twenty-eighth article, which 
charged him with " a malicious design to en- 
gage the kingdoms of England and Scotland in 
a national and bloody war," but which the man- 
agers had not urged in the trial, he added more 
at large, as follows :] 

If that one article had been proved against 
me, it contained more weighty matter than all 
the charges besides. It would not only have 
been treason, but villainy, to have betrayed the 
trust of his Majesty's army. But as the mana- 
gers have been sparing, by reason of the times, 
as to insisting on that article, I have resolved to 
keep the same method, and not utter the least 
expression which might disturb the happy agree- 
ment intended between the two kingdoms. I 
only admire how I, being an incendiary against 
the Scots in the twenty-third article, am become 
a confederate with them in the twenty-eighth ar- 
ticle ! how I could be charged for betraying 
Newcastle, and also for fighting with the Scots 
at Newburne, since fighting against them was 
no possible means of beti-aying the town into 
their hands, but rather to hinder their passage 
thither ! I never advised war any further than, 
in my poor judgment, it concerned the very life 
of the King's authority, and the safety and hon- 
or of his kingdom. Nor did I ever see that any 
advantage could be made by a war in Scotland, 
where nothing could be gained but hard blows. 
For my part, I honor that nation, but I wish they 
may ever be under their own climate. I have no 
desire that they should be too well acquainted 
with the better soil of England. 

My Lords, you see what has been alleged for 
this constructive, or, rather, c?estructive treason. 
For my part, I have not the judgment to con- 
ceive, that such treason is agreeable to the fun- 
damental grounds either of reason or of law. 
Not of reason, for how can that be treason in 
the lump or mass, which is not so in any of its 
parts ? or how can that make a thing treasona- 
ble which is not so in itself? Not of law, since 
neither statute, common law, nor practice hath 
from the beginning of the government ever men- 
tioned such a thing. 

It is hard, my Lords, to be questioned upon a 
law which can not be shown ! Where hath this 
fire lain hid for so many hundred years, without 
smoke to discover it, till it thus bursts fox-th to 
consume me and my children ? My Lords, do 
we not live under laws ? and must we be pun- 
ished by laws before they are nuwle ? Far bet- 



u 



THE EARL OF STRAFFORD, ETC. 



[1G41 



ter were it to live by no laws at all ; but to be 
£Toverned by those characters of virtue and dis- 
cretion, which Nature hath stamped upon us, 
than to put this necessity of divination upon a 
man, and to accuse him of a breach of law be- 
fore it is a law at all ! If a waterman upon 
the Thames split his boat by grating upon an 
anchor, and the same have no buoy appended to 
it, the owner of the anchor is to pay the loss ; 
but if a buoy be set there, every man passeth 
upon his own peril. Now where is the mark, 
where is the token set upon the crime, to de- 
clare it to be high treason ? 

My Lords, be pleased to give that regard to 
the peerage of England as never to expose your- 
selves to such moot points, such constructive in- 
terpretations of law. If there must be a trial 
of wits, let the subject matter be something else 
than the lives and honor of peers ! It will be 
wisdom for yourselves and your posterity to cast 
into the fire these bloody and mysterious vol- 
umes of constructive and arbitrary treason, as 
the primitive Christians did their books of curi- 
ous arts ; and betake yourselves to the plain let- 
ter of the law and statute, which telleth what is 
and what is not treason, without being ambitious 
to be more learned in the art of killing than our 
forefathers. These gentlemen tell us that they 
speak in defense of the Commonw^ealth against 
my arbitrary laws. Give me leave to say it, I 
speak in defense of the Commonwealth against 
their arbitrary treason ! 

It is now full two hundred and forty years 
since any man was touched for this alleged crime 
to this height before myself. Let us not awa- 
ken those sleeping lions to our destruction, b}^ 
taking up a few musty records that have lain 
by the walls for so many ages, forgotten or neg- 
lected. 

My Lords, what is my present misfortune 
may be forever yours ! It is not the smallest 
part of my grief that not the crime of treason, 
but my other sins, which are exceeding many, 
have brought me to this bar ; and, except your 
Lordships' wisdom provide against it, the shed- 
ding of my blood may make way for the tracing 
out of yours. You, your estates, your pos- 
terity, LIE AT THE STAKE ! 

For my poor self, if it were not for your Lord- 
ships' interest, and the interest of a saint in 
heaven, who hath left me here two pledges on 
earth — [at this his breath stopped, and he shed 
tears abundantly in mentioning his wife] — I 
should never take the pains to keep up this ru- 
inous cottage of mine. It is loaded with such 
infirmities, that in truth I have no great pleas- 
ure to carry it about with me any longer. Nor 
could I ever leave it at a fitter time than this, 
when I hope that the better part of the world 
would perhaps think that by my misfortunes I 



had given a testimony of my integrity to my 
God, my King, and my country. I thank God^ 
I count not the afflictions of the present life to 
be compared to that glory which is to be reveal- 
ed in the time to come ! 

My Lords ! my Lords ! my Lords ! something 
more I had intended to say, but my voice and 
my spirit fail me. Only I do in all humility and 
submission cast myself down at your Lordships' 
feet, and desire that I may be a beacon to keep 
you from shipwreck. Do not put such rocks in 
your own way, which no prudence, no circum- 
spection can eschew or satisfy, but by your utter 
ruin ! 

And so, my Lords, even so, with all tranquil- 
lity of mind, I submit myself to your decision. 
And whether your judgment in my case — I wish 
it were not the case of you all — be for life or for 
death, it shall be righteous in my eyes, and shall 
be received with a Te Deum laudamus, we give 
God the praise. 



The House of Lords, after due deliberation, 
voted that the main facts alleged in the impeach- 
ment had been proved in evidence ; and referred 
the question whether they involved the crime of 
treason, to the decision of the judges of the Court 
of the King's Bench. Previous to this, howev- 
er, and even before the Earl had made his clos- 
ing argument, a new course of proceedings was 
adopted in the House of Commons. When the 
managers had finished their evidence and argu- 
ments as to the facts alleged, a bill of attainder 
against the Earl was brought into the House by 
Sir Arthur Haselrig. The reason for this pro- 
cedure can not now be ascertained w^ith any de- 
gree of certainty. The friends of Strafford have 
always maintained, that such an impression had 
been made on the minds of the judges and audi- 
ence during the progress of the trial, as to turn 
the tide in his favor ; and that his accusers, fear- 
ing he might be acquitted, resorted to this meas- 
ure for the purpose of securing his condemna- 
tion. Such may have been the fact ; but the 
Commons, in their conference with the Lords, 
April 1 5, declared that this was the course they 
had originally intended to pursue, " that the ev- 
idences of the fact being given, it was proposed 
from the beginning to go by way of bill, and 
that they had accordingly brought in a bill for 
his attainder." St. John, their legal manager, 
positively denied that they were seeking to avoid 
the judicial mode of proceeding ; and, " what is 
stronger," as Hallam remarks, " the Lords voted 
on the articles judicially^ and not as if they were 
enacting a legislative measure." Still the bill 
of attainder was strenuously opposed by a few 
individuals in the House, and especially by Lord 1 
Digby, in his celebrated speech on the subject, , 
which will next be given. 



I 



LORD DIGBY. 

George Digby, oldest son of the Earl of Bristol, was born at Madrid in 1G12, 
during the residence of his father in that city as English embassador to the Court 
of Spain. He was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford ; and entered into publico 
life at the age of twenty-eight, being returned member of Parliament for the county 
of Dorset, in April, 1640. In common with his father, who had incurred the dis- 
pleasure of the King by his impeachment of Buckingham in 1G2G, Lord Digby 
came forward at an early period of the session, as an open and determined enemy 
of the Court. Among the " Speeches relative to Grievances," his, as representative 
of Dorsetshire, was one of the most bold and impassioned. His argument shortly 
after in favor of triennial Parliaments, was characterized by a still higher order of 
eloquence ; and in the course of it he made a bitter attack upon Strafford, in show- 
ing the necessity of frequent Parliaments as a control upon ministers, declaring " he 
must not expect to be pardoned in this world till he is dispatched to the other." 

From the ardor with which he expressed these sentiments, and the leading part 
he took in every measure for the defense of the people's rights. Lord Digby was ap- 
pointed one of the managers for the impeachment of Strafford. Into this he en- 
tered, for a time, with the utmost zeal. He is described by Clarendon as a man of 
uncommon activity of mind and fertility of invention ; bold and impetuous in what- 
ever designs he undertook ; but deficient in judgment, inordinately vain and ambi- 
tious, of a volatile and unquiet spirit, disposed to separate councils, and governed 
more by impulse than by fixed principles. Whether the course he took in respect 
to the attainder of Strafford ought to be referred in any degree to the last-mentioned 
traits of character, or solely to a sense of justice, a conviction forced upon him in the 
progress of the trial that the testimony had failed to sustain the charge of treason, 
can not, perhaps, be decided at the present day. The internal evidence afforded by 
the speech, is strongly in favor of his honesty and rectitude of intention. He appears 
throughout like one who was conscious of having gone too far ; and who was de- 
termined to retrieve his error, at whatever expense of popular odium it might cost 
him. Had he stopped here, there would have been no ground for imputations on 
his character. But he almost instantly changed the whole tenor of his political 
life. He abandoned his former principles ; he joined the Court party ; and did 
more, as we learn from Clarendon, to ruin Charles by his rashness and pertinacity, 
than any other man. But, whatever may be thought of Digby, the speech is one 
of great manliness and force. It is plausible in its statements, just in its distinc- 
tions, and weighty in its reasonings. "Without exhibiting any great superiority of 
genius, and especially any richness of imagination, it presents us with a rapid suc- 
cession of striking and appropriate thoughts, clearly arranged and vividly expressed 
In one respect, the diction is worthy of being studied. It abounds in those direct 
and pointed forms of speech, which sink at once into the heart ; and by their very 
plainness give an air of perfect sincerity to the speaker, which of all things is the 
most important to one who is contending (as he was) against the force of popular 
prejudic3. Much of the celebrity attached to this speech is owing, no doubtHo the 
circumstances under which it was delivered.^ The House of Commons must have 
presented a scene of the most exciting nature when, at the moment of taking the 
final vote on the bill, one of the managers of the impeachment came forward to 
abandon his ground ; to disclose the proceedings of the committee in secret session; 
and to denounce the condemnation of Strafford by a bill of attainder, as an act of 
murder. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD DIGBY ON THE BILL OF ATTAINDER AGAINST THE EARL OF STRAFFORD, DELIVERED 
IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL 21, 1641. 



We are now upon the point of giving, as much 
as in us lies, the final sentence unto death or life, 
on a great minister of state and peer of this king- 
dom, Thomas, Earl of Strafford, a name of ha- 
tred in the present age for his practices, and fit 
to be made a teri'or to future ages by his punish- 
ment. 

I have had the honor to be employed by the 
House in this great business, from the first hour 
that it was taken into consideration. It was a 
matter of great trust ; and I will say with con- 
fidence that I have served the House in it, not 
only with industry, according to my ability, but 
with most exact faithfulness and justice. 

And as I have hitherto discharged ray duty 
to this House and to my country in the progress 
of this great cause, so I trust I shall do now, in 
the last period of it, to God and to a good con- 
science. I do wish the peace of that to myself, 
and the blessing of Almighty God to me and 
my posterity, according as my judgment on the 
life of this man shall be consonant with my heart, 
and the best of my understanding in all integrity. 

I know well that by some things I have said 
of late, while this bill was in agitation, I have 
raised some prejudices against me in the cause. 
Yea, some (I thank them for their plain dealing) 
have been so free as to tell me, that I have suf- 
fered much by the backw^ardness I have shown 
in the bill of attainder of the Earl of StrafTord, 
against whom I have formerly been so keen, so 
active. 

I beg of you, Mr. Speaker, and the rest, but 
a suspension of judgment concerning me, till I 
have opened my heart to you, clearly and freely, 
m this business. Truly, sir, I am still the same 
in my opinion and affections as to the Earl of 
Strafford. I confidently believe him to be the 
most dangerous minister, the most insupportable 
to free subjects, that can be charactered. I be- 
lieve his practices in themselves to have been as 
high and tyrannical as any subject ever ventured 
on ; and the malignity of them greatly aggrava- 
ted by those rare abilities of his, whereof God 
hath given him the use, but the devil the appli- 
cation. In a word, I believe him to be still that 
grand apostate to the Commonwealth, who must 
not expect to be pardoned in this world till he 
be dispatched to the other. 

And yet let me tell you, Mr. Speaker, my hand 
must not be to that dispatch. I protest, as my 
conscience stands informed, I had rather it were 
off. 

Let me unfold to you the mystery, Mr. Speak- 
er : I will not dwell much upon justifying to you 
my seeming variance at this time from what I 



was formerly, by putting you in mind of the dif- 
ference between prosecutors and judges — how 
misbecoming that fervor would be in a judge 
which, perhaps, was commendable in a prose- 
cutor. Judges we are now, and must, therefore, 
put on another personage. It is honest and no- 
ble to be earnest in order to the discovery of 
truth ; but when that hath been brought so far as 
it can be to light, our judgment thereupon ought 
to be calm and cautious. In prosecution upon 
probable grounds, we are accountable only for 
our industry or remissness ; but in judgment, we 
are deeply responsible to Almighty God for its 
rectitude or obliquity. In cases of life, the judge 
is God's steward of the party's blood, and must 
give a strict account for every drop. 

But, as I told you, Mr. Speaker, I will not in- 
sist long upon this ground of difference in me 
now from what I was formerly. The truth of 
it is, sir, the same ground whereupon I with the 
rest of the few to whom you first committed the 
consideration of my Lord Strafford, brought down 
our opinion that it was fit he should be accused 
of treason — upon the same ground, I was en- 
gaged with earnestness in his prosecution ; and 
had the same ground remained in that force of 
belief in me, which till very lately it did, I should 
not have been tender in his condemnation. But 
truly, sir, to deal plainly with you, that ground 
of our accusation — that which should be the ba- 
sis of our judgment of the Earl of Strafford as to 
treason — is, to my understanding, quite vanished 
away. 

This it was, Mr. Speaker — his advising the 
King to employ the army in Ireland to reduce 
England. This I was assured would be proved, 
before I gave my consent to his accusation. I 
was confirmed in the same belief during the pros- 
ecution, and fortified most of all in it, after Sir 
Henry Vane's preparatory examination, by as- 
surances which that worthy member Mr. Pym 
gave me, that his testimony would be made con- 
vincing by some notes of what passed at the 
Junto [Privy Council] concurrent with it. This 
I ever understood would be of some other coun- 
selor; but you see now, it proves only to be a 
copy of the same secretary's notes, discovered 
and produced in the manner you have heard : 
and those such disjointed fragments of the ven- 
omous part of discourses — no results, no conclu- 
sions of councils, which are the only things that 
secretaries should register, there being no use 
of the other but to accuse and bring men into 
danirer.^ 



1641 ] 



LORD DIGBY AGAINST THE ATTAINDER OF STRAFFORD. 



1/ 



Bat, sir, this is not that which overthrows the 
evidence with me concerninor the army in Irelftnd, 
nor yet that all the rest of the Junto remember 
nothing of it ; but this, sir, which I shall tell you, 
is that which works with me, under favor, to 
an utter overthrow of his evidence as touching 
the army of Ireland. Before, while I was pros- 
ecutor, and under tie of secrecy, I might not dis- 
cover [disclose] any weakness of the cause, which 
now, as judge, I must. 

Mr. Secretary Vane was examined thrice upon 
oath at the preparatory committee. The first 
time he was questioned as to all the interrogato- 
ries ; and to that part of the seventh which con- 
cerns the army in Ireland, he said positively these 
words : "I can not charge him with that;" but 
for the rest, he desired time to recollect himself, 
which was granted him. Some days after, he 
was examined a second time, and then deposed 
these words concerning the King's being absolv- 
ed from rules of government, and so forth, very 
clearly. But being pressed as to that part con- 
cerning the Irish army, again he said he could 
say "nothing to that." Here we thought we 
had done wnth him, till divers weeks after, my 
Lord of Northumberland, and all others of the 
Junto, denying to have heard any thing concern- 
ing those words of reducing England by the Irish 
arni}^, it was thought fit to examine the secretary 
once more ; and then he deposed these words to 
have been spoken by the Earl of Strafford to his 
Majesty : " You have an army in Ireland, which 
you ma}'' employ here to reduce (or some word 
to that sense) this kingdom." Mr. Speaker, 
these are the circumstances which I confess with 
my conscience, thrust quite out of doors that 
grand article of our charge concerning his des- 
perate advice to the King of employing the Irish 
army here. 

Let not this, I beseech you, be driven to an 
aspersion upon Mr. Secretary, as if he should 
have sworn otherwise than he knew or believed. 
He is too worthy to do that. Only let this much 
be inferred from it, that he, who twice upon oath, 
with time of recollection, could not remember any 
thing of such a business, might well, a third time, 
raisremember somewhat ; and in this business 
the difference of one word "here" for "there," 
or "that" for "this," quite alters the case; the 
latter also being the more probable, since it is 
confessed on all hands that the debate then was 
concerning a war with Scotland. And you may 
remember, that at the bar he once said " employ 
there:' And thus, Mr. Speaker, have I faithfully 
given you an account what it is that hath blunt- 
ed the edge of the hatchet, or bill, with me, to- 
ward my Lord Strafford. 

This was that whereupon I accused him with 
a free heart ; prosecuted him with earnestness ; 
and had it to my understanding been proved, 
should have condemned him with innocence ; 
whereas now I can not satisfy my conscience to 
do it. I profess I can have no notion of any body's 
intent to subvert the laws treasonably, but by 
force ; and this design of force not appearing, all 
his other wicked practices can not amount so 
B 



high with me. I can find a more easy and nat- 
ural spring from whence to derive all his other 
crimes, than from an intent to bring in tyranny, 
and make his own posterit}', as well as us, slaves ; 
viz., from revenge, from pride, from passion, and 
from insolence of nature. But had this of the 
Irish army been proved, it would have diflTused 
a complexion of treason over all. It would have 
been a withe indeed, to bind all those other scat- 
tered and lesser branches, as it were, into a fag- 
ot of treason. 

I do not say but the rest of the things charged 
may represent him a man as worthy to die, and 
perhaps worthier than many a traitor. I do not 
say but they may justly direct us to enact that 
they shall be treason for the future. But God 
keep me from giving judgment of death on any 
man, and of ruin to his innocent posterity, upon 
a law made a posteriori. Let the mark be set 
on the door where the plague is, and then let 
him that will enter, die.^ 

I know, Mr. Speaker, there is in Parliament 
a double power of life and death by bill ; a ju- 
dicial power, and a legislative. The measure 
of the one is, what is legally just; of the other, 
what is prudentially and politically fit for the 
good and preservation of the whole. But these 
two, under favor, are not to be confounded in 
judgment. We must not piece out want of le- 
gality with matter of convenience, nor the de- 
failance of prudential fitness with a pretense of 
legal justice. 

To condemn my Lord of Strafford judicially^ 
as for treason, my conscience is not assured that 
the matter will bear it ; and to do it by the leg- 
islative power, my reason consultively can not 
agree to that, since I am persuaded that neither 
the Lords nor the King will pass this bill ; and, 
consequently, that our passing it will be a cause 
of great divisions, and contentions in the state. 

Therefore my humble advice is, that, laying 
aside this bill of attainder, we may think of an- 
other, saving only life; such as may secure the 
state from my Lord of StrafTord, without endan- 
gering it as much by division concerning his 
punishment, as he hath endangered it by his 
practices. 

If this may not be hearkened unto, let me 
conclude in saying that to you all, which I have 
thoroughly inculcated upon mine own con- 
science, on this occasion. Let every man lay 
his hand upon his own heart, and seriously con- 
sider what we are going to do with a breath : 
either justice or murder — justice on the one side, 
or murder, heightened and aggravated to its su- 
premest extent, on the other ! For, as the cas- 
uists say, He who lies with his sister commits in- 
cest ; but he that marries his sister, sins higher, by 
applying God's ordinance to his crime ; so, doubt- 
less, he that commits murder with the sword of 
justice, heightens that crime to the utmost. 



^ This image was peculiarly appropriate and for- 
cible at that time, when the plague had recently 
prevailed in London, and a mark was placed by the 
magistrates on infected dwellings as a warni/ig not 
to enter. 



18 



LORD DIGBY AGAINST THE ATTAINDER OF STRAFFORD. 



[1641. 



The danger being so great, and the ease so 
doubtful, that I see the best lawyers in diamet- 
rical opposition concerning it ; let every man 
wipe his heart as he does his eyes, when he 
would judge of a nice and subtle object. The 
eye, if it be pre-tinctured with any color, is vi- 
tiated in its discerning. Let us take heed of a 
blood-shotten eye in judgment. Let every man 
purge his heart clear of all passions. I know 
this great and wise body politic can have none ; 
but I speak to individuals from the weakness 
which I find in myself. Away with personal 
animosities ! Away with all flatteries to the 
people, in being the sharper against him because 
he is odious to them ! Away with all fears, lest 
by sparing his blood they may be incensed ! 
Away with all such considerations, as that it is 
not fit for a Parliament that one accused by it of 
treason, should escape with life ! Let not for- 
mer vehemence of any against him, nor fear from 
thence that he can not be safe while that man 
lives, be an ingredient in the sentence of any 
one of us. 

Of all these corruptives of judgment, Mr. 
Speaker, I do, before God, discharge myself to 
the utmost of my power ; and do now, with a 
clear conscience, wash my hands of this man's 
blood by this solemn protestation, that my vote 
goes not to the taking of the Earl of Strafford'' s 
life. 



Notwithstanding this eloquent appeal, the bill 
of attainder was carried the same day in the 
House, by a vote of two hundred and four to fifty- 
nine. 

The Lords had already decided in their ju- 
dicial capacity that the msan facts alleged in the 
indictment were proved, and referred the points 
of law to the decision of the judges of the Court 
of the King's Bench. On the seventh of May, 
" the Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench de- 
livered in to the Lords the unanimous decision of 
all the judges present, ' That they are of opin- 
ion upon all which their Lordships had voted to 
be proved, that the Earl of Strafford doth deserve 
to undergo the pains and forfeitures of high 
treason by law.' " — Pari. Hist., vol. ii., p. 757. 
The Lords now yielded the point of form to the 
Commons ; and as the penal consequences were 
the same, instead of giving sentence under the 
impeachment, they passed the bill of attainder 
the next day. May 8th, by a vote of twenty-six 
to nineteen. • 

It was still in the power of Charles to save 
Strafford by refusing his assent to the bill ; and 
he had made a solemn and written promise to de- 
liver him from his enemies in the last extremity, 
by the exercise of the royal prerogative. But, 
wnth his constitutional fickleness, he yielded ; 
and then, to pacify his conscience, he sent a let- 
ter to the Lords asking the consent of Parlia- 
ment, that he might "moderate the severity of 
the law in so important a case." Still, with 



that weakness, amounting to fatuity, which so 
often marked his conduct, he nullified his own 
request by that celebrated postscript, " If he 
must die, it were charity to reprieve him till 
Saturday !" As might have been expected, the 
Earl was executed the next day, May 12th, 
1641. The House of Commons, however, with 
a generosity never manifested before or since in 
such a case, immediately passed a bill to relieve 
his descendants from the penalties of forfeiture 
and corruption of blood. 

It is now generally admitted that, in a moral 
point of view, Straffbrd richly merited the pun- 
ishment he received. On the question of legal 
right, it may be proper to say, that while the 
doctrine of constructive treason under an im- 
peachment can not be too strongly condemned, 
the proceedings under a bill of attainder were 
of a different nature. "Acts of Parliament," 
says Blackstone, " to attaint particular persons 
of treason, are to all intents and purposes new 
laws made pro re nata, and by no means an ex- 
ecution of such as are already in being." They 
are, from their very nature, ex post facto laws. 
They proceed on the principle that while judicial 
courts are to be governed by the strict letter of 
the law, as previously known and established, 
Parliament, in exercising the high sovereignty 
of the state, may, " on great and crying occa- 
sions," arrest some enormous offender in the 
midst of his crimes, and inflict upon him the 
punishment he so richly deserves, even in cases 
where, owing to a defect in the law, or to the 
arts of successful evasion, it is impossible to 
reach him by means of impeachment, or through 
the ordinary tribunals of justice. Such a power 
is obviously liable to great abuses ; and it is, 
therefore, expressly interdicted to Congress in 
the Constitution of the United States. But it 
has always belonged, and still belongs, to the 
Parliament of Great Britain, though for many 
years it has ceased to be exercised in this form. 
The principle of retrospective punishment (the 
only thing really objectionable in this case) has, 
indeed, come down in a milder form to a very 
late period of English history. We find it in 
those bills of "pains and penalties," which, as 
Hallam observes, "have, in times of compara- 
tive moderation and tranquillity, been sometimes 
thought necessary to visit some unforeseen and 
anomalous transgression, be3'ond the reach of 
our penal code." Mr. Macaulay maintains that 
the Earl's death, under existing circumstances, 
was absolutely necessary ; " that, during the civil 
wars, the Parliament had reason to rejoice that 
an irreversible law and an impassable barrier 
protected them from the valor and rapacity of 
Strafford." Those who think differently on this 
point must at least agree with Hallam, that "he 
died justly before God and man ; though we may 
deem the precedent dangerous, and the better 
course of a magnanimous lenity rejected ; and 
in condemning the bill of attainder, we can not 
look upon it as a crime." 



J 



LORD BELHAVEN. 

The author of this speech belonged to the Hamilton family. He was one oi the 
old Presbyterian lords, of high education, especially in classical literature ; lofty in 
his demeanor ; dauntless in spirit ; and wholly devoted to the peculiar interests of his 
country. The speech owes much of its celebritjrto the circumstances under which 
it was delivere(^ It embodies the feelings of a proud and jealous people, when 
called upon to surrender their national independence, and submit to the authority 
of the British Parliament. 

A century had now elapsed since the union of the English and Scottish crowns 
in the person of James I., and Scotland still remained a distinct kingdom, with its 
own Parliament, its own judicial system, its own immemorial usages which had all 
the force of law. This state of things, though gratifying to the pride of the Scot- 
tish people, was the source of endless jealousies and contentions between the two 
countries ; and, as commonly happens in such cases, the weaker party suffered most. 
Scotland was governed by alternate corruption and force. Her nobility and gentry 
were drawn to England in great numbers by the attractions of the Court, as the 
seat of fashion, honor, and power. The nation was thus drained of her wealth ; 
and the drain became greater, as her merchants and tradesmen were led to transfer 
their capital to the sister kingdom, in consequence of the superior facilities for trade 
which were there enjoyed. 

It was now apparent that Scotland could never flourish until she was permitted 
to share in those commercial advantages, from which she was debarred as a distinct 
country, by the Navigation Act of England. The Scotch were, therefore, clamor- 
ous in their demands for some arrangement to this effect. But the English had 
always looked with jealousy upon any intermeddling with trade, on the part of Scot- 
land. They had crushed her African and India Company by their selfish opposition, 
and had left her Darien settlement of twelve hundred souls to perish for want of 
support and protection ; so that few families in the Lowlands had escaped the loss 
of a relative or friend. Exasperated by these injuries, and by the evident determin- 
ation of the English to cut them off from all participation in the benefits of trade, 
the Scotch were hurried into a measure of alarming aspect for the safety of the em- 
pire. Noble and burgher, Jacobite and Presbyterian, were for once united. There 
was one point where England was vulnerable. It was the succession to the crown. 
This had been settled by the English Parliament on the Protestant line in the house 
of Hanover, and the fullest expectations were entertained that the Parliament of 
Scotland would readily unite in the same measure. Instead of this, the Scotch, in 
1704, passed their famous Act of Security, in which they threw down the gauntlet 
to England, and enacted, that " the same person should be incapable of succeeding 
in both kingdoms, unless a free communication of trade, the benefits of the Naviga- 
tion Act, and liberty of the Plantations [i. e., of trading with the British West In- 
dies and North America] was first obtained." They also provided conditionally for 
a separate successor, and passed laws for arming the whole kingdom in his defense. 

It was now obvious that concessions must be made on both sides, or the contest 
be decided by the sword. The ministry of Q.ueen Anne, therefore, proposed that 
commissioners from the two kingdoms should meet at London, to devise a plan of 



20 LORD BELHAVEN. 

Union, which should be mutually advantageous to the two countries. This was 
accordingly done, in the month of April, 1706 ; and, after long negotiations, it was 
agreed, that the two kingdoms should be united into one under the British Parlia- 
ment, with the addition of sixteen Scottish peers to the House of Lords, and of 
forty-five Scottish members to the House of Commons ; that the Scotch should be 
entitled to all the privileges of the English in respect to trade, and be subject to 
the same excise and duties ; that Scotland should receive £.398,000 as a compen- 
sation or " equivalent" for the share of liability she assumed in the English debt of 
£20,000,000 ; and that the churches of England and Scotland respectively should 
be confirmed in all their rights and privileges, as a fundamental condition of the 
Union. 

These arrangements were kept secret until October, 1706, when the Scottish 
Parliament met to consider and decide on the plan proposed. The moment the 
Articles were read in that body, and given to the public in print, they were met 
with a burst of indignant reprobation from every quarter. A federal union which 
should confer equal advantages for trade, was all that the Scotch in general had 
ever contemplated : an incorporating union, which should abolish their Parliament 
and extinguish their national existence, was what most Scotchmen had never 
dreamed of. Nor is it surprising, aside from all considerations of national honor, 
that such a union should have been regarded with jealousy and dread. " No past 
experience of history," says Hallam, " was favorable to the absorption of a lesser 
state (at least where the government partook so much of a republican form) in one 
of superior power and ancient rivalry. The representation of Scotland in the iniited 
Legislature, was too feeble to give any thing like security against the English prej- 
udices and animosities, if they should contirme or revive. The Church of Scotland 
was exposed to the most apparent perils, brought thus within the power of a Legis- 
lature so frequently influenced by one which held her, not as a sister, but rather as 
a bastard usurper of a sister's inheritance ; and though her permanence was guar- 
anteed by the treaty, yet it was hard to say how far the legal competence of Par- 
liament might hereafter be deemed to extend, or, at least, how far she might be 
abridged of her privileges and impaired in her dignity." 

It was with sentiments like these that, when the first article of the treaty was 
read. Lord Belhaven arose, and addressed the Parliament of Scotland in the follow- 
ing speech. It is obviously reported in a very imperfect manner, and was designed 
merely to open the discussion which was expected to follow, and not to enter at large 
into the argument. It was a simple burst of feeling, in which the great leader of 
the country party, who was equally distinguished for " the mighty sway of his tal- 
ents and the resoluteness of his temper," poured out his emotions in view of that 
act oi parricide, as he considered it, to which the Parliament was now called. He 
felt that no regard to consequences, no loss or advancement of trade, manufactures, 
or national wealth, ought to have the weight of a feather, when the honor and ex- 
istence of his country were at stake. He felt that Scotland, if only united, was 
abundantly able to work out her own salvation. These two thoughts, therefore — 
NATIONAL HONOR and NATIONAL UNION — Constitute the burden of his speech. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD BELHAVEN AGAINST THE LEGISLATIVE UNION OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND, DELIV- 
ERED IN THE PARLIAMENT OF SCOTLAND, NOV. 2, 1706. 



My Lord Chancellor, — When I consider 
The affair of a union betwixt the two nations, 
as expressed in the several articles thereof, and 
uow the subject of our deliberation at this time, 
1 find my mind crowded with a variety of mel- 
ancholy thoughts ; and I think it my duty to dis- 
burden myself of some of them by laying them 
before, and exposing them to the serious con- 
sideration of this honorable House. 

I think I see a free and independent kingdom 
delivering up that which all the world hath been 
fighting for since the days of Nimrod ; yea, that 
for which most of all the empires, kingdoms, 
states, principalities, and dukedoms of Europe, 
are at this time engaged in the most bloody and 
cruel wars ; to wit, a power to manage their own 
affairs by themselves, without the assistance and 
counsel of any other. 

I think I see a national church, founded upon 
a rock, secured by a claim of right, hedged and 
fenced about by the strictest and most pointed 
legal sanctions that sovereignty could contrive, 
voluntarily descending into a plain, upon an 
equal level with Jews, Papists, Socinians, Ar- 
minians, Anabaptists, and other sectaries. 

I think I see the noble and honorable peerage 
of Scotland, whose valiant predecessors led ar- 
mies against their enemies upon their own prop- 
er charges and expense, now devested of their 
followers and vassalages ; and put upon such an 
equal foot with their vassals, that I think I see 
a petty English exciseman receive more hom- 
age and respect than what was paid formerly to 
their quondam Mackalamores. 

I think 1 see the present peers of Scotland, 
whose noble ancestors conquered provinces, 
overran countries, reduced and subjected towns 
and fortified places, exacted tribute through the 
greatest part of England, now walking in the 
Court of Requests, like so many English attor- 
neys ; laying aside their walking swords v^'hen 
in company with the English peers, lest their 
self-defense should be found murder. 

I think I see the honorable estate of barons, 
the bold assertors of the nation's rights and lib- 
erties in the worst of times, now setting a watch 
upon their lips, and a guard upon their tongues, 
lest they may be found guilty of scandalum mag- 
natum, a speaking evil of dignities. 

I think I see the royal state of burghers walk- 
[nrr their desolate streets, hanging down their 
heads under disappointments, wormed out of all 
the branches of their old trade, uncertain what 
hand to turn to, necessitated to become pren- 
tices to their unkind neighbors ; and yet, after 
all, finding their trade so fortified by companies. 



and secured by prescriptions, that they despair 
of any success therein. 

I think I see our learned judges laying aside 
their pratiques and decisions, studying the com- 
mon law of England, graveled with certioraris, 
nisi priuses, writs of error, verdicts, injunctions, 
demurs, &c., and frightened with appeals and 
avocations, because of the new regulations and 
rectifications they may meet with. 

I think I see the valiant and gallant soldiery 
either sent to learn the plantation trade abroad, 
or at home petitioning for a small subsistence, 
as a reward of their honorable exploits ; while 
their old corps are broken, the common soldiers 
left to beg, and the youngest English corps kept 
standing. 

I think I see the honest industrious tradesman 
loaded with new taxes and impositions, disap- 
pointed of the equivalents,^ drinking water in 
place of ale, eating his saltless pottage, petition- 
ing for encouragement to his manufactures, and 
answered by counter petitions. 

In short, I think I see the laborious plow- 
man, with his corn spoiling upon his hands for 
want of sale, cursing the day of his birth, dread- 
ing the expense of his burial, and uncertain 
whether to marry or do worse. 

I think I see the incurable difficulties of the 
landed men, fettered under the golden chain of 
"equivalents," their pretty daughters petition- 
ing for want of husbands, and their sons for want 
of employment. 

I think I see our mariners delivering up their 
ships to their Dutch partners ; and what through 
presses and necessity, earning their bread as un- 
derlings in the royal English navy ! 

But above all, my Lord, I think I see our an- 
cient mother, Caledonia, like Cesar, sitting in 
the midst of our Senate, ruefully looking round 
about her, covering herself with her royal gar- 
ment, attending the fatal blow, and breathing 
out her last with an et tu quoque 7ni Jili .'^ 

^ The "equivalent," or compensation, of £398,000, 
spoken of above, was to be distributed, a great por- 
tion of it, to the shareholders of tlie African and In- 
dia Company, who had suffered so severely by the 
breaking- up of the Darien settlement. As the shares 
must, in many instances, have changed hands, great 
inequality and disappointment was to be expected 
in the distribution of this money ; which was like- 
ly, in most cases, to go into the hands of the friends 
of government, as a bribe or recompense for services 
on this occasion. 

2 Tlie actual exclamation of Cesar, as stated by 
Suetonius, was in Greek, Kal ov rtKVOV ; and llioic 
also, my child? The Latin version was undoubt- 
edly made at the time, by those who reported the 



22 



LORD BELHAVET^ AGAINST THE 



[1706. 



Are not these, my Lord, very afllicting 
thoughts ? And yet they are but the least part 
suggested to me by these dishonorable articles. 
Should not the consideration of these things viv- 
ify these dry bones of ours ? Should not the 
memory of our noble predecessors' valor and 
constancy rouse up our drooping spirits ? Are 
our noble predecessors' souls got so far into the 
English cabbage stalk and cauliflowers, that we 
should show the least inclination that way ? 
Are our eyes so blinded, are our ears so deafen- 
ed, are our hearts so hardened, are our tongues 
so faltered, are our hands so fettered, that in 
this our day — I say, my Lord, in this our day — 
we should not mind the things that concern the 
very being, and well-being of our ancient king- 
dom, before the day be hid from our eyes ? 

No. my Lord, God forbid ! Man's extremity 
is God's opportunity : he is a present help in 
time of need — a deliverer, and that right early ! 
Some unforeseen providence will fall out, that 
may cast the balance •, some Joseph or other 
will say, " Why do ye strive together, since ye 
are brethren ?" None can destroy Scotland save 
Scotland's self. Hold your hands from the pen, 
and you are secure ! There will be a Jehovah- 
Jireh ; and some ram will be caught in the 
thicket, when the bloody knife is at our mother's 
throat. Let us, then, my Lord, and let our no- 
ble patriots behave themselves like men, and we 
know not how soon a blessing may come. 

I design not at this time to enter into the 
merits of any one particular article. I intend 
this discourse as an introduction to what I may 
afterward say upon the whole debate, as it falls 
in before this honorable House ; and therefore, 
in the further prosecution of what I have to say, 
I shall insist upon a few particulars, very neces- 
sary to be understood before we enter into the 
detail of so important a matter. 

I shall therefore, in the first place, endeavor 
to encourage a free and full deliberation, with- 
out animosities and heats. In the next place, I 
shall endeavor to make an inquiry into the na- 
ture and source of the unnatural and dangerous 
divisions that are now on foot within this isle, 
with some motives showing that it is our inter- 
est to lay them aside at this time. And all this 
with all deference, and under the correction of 
this honorable House. 

My Lord Chancellor, the greatest honor that 
was done unto a Roman, was to allow him the 
glory of a triumph; the greatest and most dis- 
honorable punishment was that of parricide. He 
that was guilty of parricide was beaten with 
rods upon his naked body, till the blood gushed 
out of all the veins of his body ; then he was 
sewed up in a leathern sack called a culcus, 
with a cock, a viper, and an ape, and thrown 
headlong into the sea. 

My Lord, patricide is a greater crime than 
parricide, all the world over. 

In a triumph, my Lord, when the conqueror 

words. By many at the present day, " Et t.u- Bru- 
te," has been given as the expression; but for this, 
it is believed, there is no classical authority. 



was riding in his triumphal chariot, crownM 
with laurels, adorned with trophies, and ap-. 
plauded with huzzas, there was a monitor ap-k 
pointed to stand behind him, to warn him not to 
be high-minded, nor puffed up with overweenr 
ing thoughts of himself; and to his chariot wer<6 
tied a whip and a bell, to remind him that, notr 
withstanding all his glory and grandeur, he was 
accountable to the people for his administration, 
and would be punished as other men, if found 
guilty. 

The greatest honor among us, my Lord, is to 
represent the sovereign's sacred person [as High 
Commissioner] in Parliament ; and in one par- 
ticular it appears to be greater than that of a 
triumph, because the whole legislative power 
seems to be intrusted w^ith him. If he give the 
royal assent to an act of the estates, it becomes 
a law obligatory upon the subject, though con- 
trary to or without any instructions from the 
sovereign. If he refuse the royal assent to a 
vote in Parliament, it can not be a law, though 
he has the sovereign's particular and positive 
instructions for it. 

His Grace the Duke of Queensbury, who now 
represents her Majesty in this session of Parlia- 
ment, hath had the honor of that great trust as 
often, if not more, than any Scotchman ever had. 
He hath been the favorite of two successive 
sovereigns ; and I can not but commend his con- 
stancy and perseverance, that, notwithstanding 
his former difficulties and unsuccessful attempts, 
and maugre some other specialities not yet de- 
termined, his Grace has yet had the resolution 
to undertake the most unpopular measure last. 
If his Grace succeed in this affair of a union, and 
that it prove for the happiness and welfare of the 
nation, then he justly merits to have a statue of 
gold erected for himself; but if it shall tend to 
the entire destruction and abolition of our na- 
tion, and that we, the nation's trustees, shall go 
into it, then I must say, that a whip and a bell, 
a cock, a viper, and an ape, are but too small 
punishments for any such bold, unnatural under- 
taking and complaisance.^ 

L That I may pave the way, my Lord, to a 
full, calm, and free reasoning upon this affair, 
which is of the last consequence unto this na- 
tion, I shall mind this honorable House, that we 
are the successors of those noble ancestors w^ho 
founded our monarchy, framed our laws, amend- 
ed, altered, and corrected them from time to 



3 The High-Commissioner dueensbury, though by 
birth a Scotchman, had by long employment in the 
service of the Court, lost all regard for the distinctive 
interests and honor of bis native country. He was 
conciliating in his manners, cool, enterprising, and 
resolute, expert in all the arts and intrigues of poli- 
tics, and lavish of the public money for the accom- 
plishment of his purposes. He had been the agent 
of the Court for attempting many unpopular meas- 
ures in the Scottish Parliament ; and he had now 
" the resolution to undertake the most unpopular 
measure last." He was generally hated and sus- 
pected as a renegade ; and hence the bitterness 
with which he is here assailed, as seeking "the en- 
tire destruction and abolition of the nation." 



1706.] 



LEGISLATIVE UNION OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 



23 



time, as the affairs and circumstances of the na- 
tion did require, without the assistance or ad- 
vice of any foreign power or potentate ; and 
who, during the time of two thousand years, 
have handed them down to us, a free, independ- 
ent nation, with the hazard of their lives and 
fortunes. Shall not we, then, argue for that which 
our progenitors have purchased for us at so dear 
a rate, and with so much immortal honor and 
glory ? God forbid. Shall the hazard of a 
father unbind the ligaments of a dumb son's 
tongue, and shall we hold our peace when our 
patria^ our country, is in danger ?'^ I say this, 
my Lord, that I may encourage every individ- 
ual member of this House to speak his mind 
freely. There are many wise and prudent men 
among us, who think it not worth their while 
to open their mouths ; there are others, who can 
speak very well, and to good purpose, who shel- 
ter themselves under the shameful cloak of si- 
lence from a fear of the frowns of great men and 
parties. I have observed, my Lord, by my ex- 
perience, the greatest number of speakers in 
the most trivial affairs ; and it will always prove 
so, while we come not to the right understand- 
ing of the oath de fideli^ whereby we are bound 
not only to give our vote, but onr faithful ad- 
vice in Parliament, as we should answer to God. 
And in our ancient laws, the representatives of 
the honorable barons and the royal boroughs are 
termed " spokesmen.'''' It lies upon your Lord- 
ships, therefore, particularly to take notice of 
such, whose modesty makes them bashful to 
speak. Therefore I shall leave it upon you, and 
conclude this point with a very memorable say- 
ing of an honest private gentleman to a great 
Queen, upon occasion of a state project, con- 
trived by an able statesman, and the favorite to 
a great King, against a peaceful, obedient peo- 
ple, because of the diversity of their laws and 
constitutions : " If at this time thou hold thy 
peace, salvation shall come to the people from 
another place ; but thou and thy house shall per- 
ish." I leave the application to each particu- 
lar member of this House.-'' 



* Allusion is here made to the story of Croesus 
and his dumb child, as related by Herodotus. At 
the storming of Sardis, a Persian soldier, through 
ignorance of the King's person, was about to kill 
Croesus ; when his dumb son, under the impulse of 
astonishment and terror, broke silence, and exclaim- 
ed, " Oh man, do not kill my father Croesus !" There 
was evidently in the mind of the speaker, and per- 
haps in the language actually employed, a play on 
the words pater, father, and patria, country, which 
gave still greater force to the allusion. 

5 An appeal is here made, not merely to those 
members of Parliament who were at first awed into 
silence by the authority of the Court, but to the 
Squadrone Volante, or Flying Squadron, a party 
headed by the Marquess of Tweddale, who held the 
balance of power, and were accustomed to throw 
themselves, during the progress of a debate, on that 
side where they could gain most. This party had 
thus far maintained a cautious silence ; and the ob- 
ject of Lord Belhaven was to urge them, under the 
pressure of a general and indignant public senti- 
ment, to declare themselves at once on the popular 



II. My Lord, I come now to consider our di- 
visions. We are under the happy reign, blessed 
be God, of the best of queens, who has no evil 
design against the meanest of her subjects ; who 
loves all her people, and is equally beloved by 
them again ; and yet, that under the happy 
influence of our most excellent Queen, there 
should be such divisions and factions, more dan- 
gerous and threatening to her dominions than if 
we were under an arbitrary government, is most 
strange and unaccountable. Under an arbitrary 
prince all are willing to serve, because all are 
under a necessity to obey, whether they will or 
not. He chooses, therefore, whom he will, with- 
out respect to either parties or factions ; and if 
he think fit to take the advice of his councils or 
Parliaments, every man speaks his mind freely, 
and the prince receives the faithful advice of his 
people, without the mixture of self-designs. If 
he prove a good prince, the government is easy -, 
if bad, either death or a revolution brings a deliv- 
erance : whereas here, my Lord, there appears 
no end of our misery, if not prevented in time. 
Factions are now become independent, and have 
got footing in councils, in Parliaments, in treaties, 
in armies, in incorporations, in families, among 
kindred ; yea, man and wife are not free from 
their political jars. 

It remains, therefore, my Lord, that I inquire 
into the nature of these things ; and since the 
names give us not the right idea of the thing, I 
am afraid I shall have difficulty to make myself 
well understood. 

The names generally used to denote the fac- 
tions are Whig and Tory ; as obscure as that of 
Guelfs and Ghibellines ; yea, my Lord, they have 
different significations, as they are applied to fac- 
tions in each kingdom. A Whig in England is 
a heterogeneous creature : in Scotland he is all 
of a piece. A Tory in England is all of a piece, 
and a statesman : in Scotland he is quite other- 
wise ; an anti-courtier and anti-statesman. 

A Whig in England appears to be somewhat 
like Nebuchadnezzar's image, of different met- 
als, different classes, different principles, and dif- 
ferent designs ; yet, take them altogether, they 
are like a piece of some mixed drugget of dif- 
ferent threads; some finer, some coarser, which, 
after all, make a comely appearance and an 
agreeable suit. Tory is like a piece of loyal 
home-made English cloth, the true staple of the 
nation, all of a thread ; yet if we look narrowly 
into it, we shall perceive a diversity of colors, 
which, according to the various situations and 
positions, make various appearances. Some- 
times Tory is like the moon in its full ; as ap- 
peared in the affair of the Bill of Occasional Con- 
formity. Upon other occasions, it appears to be 
under a cloud, and as if it were eclipsed by a 
greater body ; as it did in the design of calling 
over the illustrious Princess Sophia. However, 
by this we may see their designs are to out- 
shoot Whiir in his own bow. 



side, before the influence of the Court had time to 
operate through patronage or bribery. 



24 



LORD BELHAVEN AGAINST THE 



[1706. 



Whig, in Scotland, is a true blue Presbyterian, 
who, without considering time or power, will 
venture his all for the Kirk, but soniething less 
for the State. The greatest difficulty is how to 
describe a Scots Tory. Of old, when I knew 
them first, Tory was an honest-hearted, com- 
radish fellow, who, provided he was maintained 
and protected in his benefices, titles, and dig- 
nities by the State, was the less anxious who 
had the government of the Church. But now, 
•what he is since jure divino came in fashion, and 
that Christianity, and by consequence salvation, 
comes to depend upon episcopal ordination, I 
profess 1 knovi^ not what to make of him; only 
this I must say for him, that he endeavors to do 
by opposition that which his brother in England 
endeavors by a more prudent and less scrupulous 
method.*^ 

Now, my Lord, from these divisions there 
has got up a kind of aristocracy, something like 
the famous triumvirate at Rome. They are a 
kind of undertakers and pragmatic statesmen, 
who, finding their powder and strength great, 
and answerable to their designs, will make bar- 
gains with our gracious sovereign ; they will 
serve her faithfully, but upon their own terms; 
they must have their own instruments, their own 
measures. This man must be turned out, and 

6 A few words of explanation will make this de- 
scription clearer. The English Whigs effected the 
Revolution of 1688 by combining various interests 
against James II., and in favor of King William. 
Hence the party was composed of discordant ma- 
terials; and Belhaven therefore describes it as a 
" mixed drugget of different threads," although, as 
a Scotch Presbyterian, he would naturally consider 
it as adapted to make "a comely appearance and 
an agreeable suit," from its Low-Church character, 
and its swpport of the Protestant succession. The 
English Tories were "the true staple of the nation," 
being chiefly the old and wealthy families of the Es- 
tablishment, holding to High-Church principles and 
the divine right of kings. They gained the ascend- 
ency on the accession of dueen Anne to the throne, 
and were thus " like the moon in its full." They 
showed their sense of this ascendency, and their de- 
termination to maintain it, by the Bill of Occasional 
Coufoi rait}', which excluded from ofKce all persons 
who had attended a dissenting place of worship. 
Afterward they changed their policy, and sought 
favor with the Hanover family, by a proposal for 
"calling over the Princess Sophia," who was the 
next successor to the crown. This gave great of- 
fense to Queen Anne, so that now they were under 
a cloud, and as it were eclipsed. This courting 
of the Hanover family (which had hitherto been sup- 
ported by the Whigs alone) showed the English 
Tory to be " a statesman," or statemonger, bent on 
having power from supporting the state. A Scotch 
Tory, on the contrary, was a Jacobite, an "anti- 
courtier and anti-statesman," opposed to the very 
existence of the new government; while a Scotch 
Whig was a true blue Presbyterian, resolving his 
entire politics into the advancement of his Kirk and 
his country. The object of this satire on parties 
was to create a national spirit among the Scotch, 
which should put an end to their factions, and unite 
them all in maintaining their country's independ- 
ence. 



that man put in, and then they will make her the 
most glorious queen in Europe. 

Where will this end, my Lord ? Is not her 
Majesty in danger by such a method ? Is not 
the monarchy in danger? Is not the nation's 
peace and tranquillity in danger ? Will a change 
of parties make the nation more happy ? No, 
my Lord. The seed is sown that is like to af- 
ford us a perpetual increase. It is not an annual 
herb, it takes deep root ; it seeds and breeds ; 
and if not timely prevented by her Majesty's 
royal endeavors, will split the whole island in 
two. -\ 

III. My Lord, I think, considering our pres- 
ent circumstances at this time, the Almighty 
God has reserved this great work for us. We 
may bruise this hydra of division, and crush this 
cockatrice's egg. Our neighbors in England 
are not yet fitted for an}' such thing; they are 
not under the afflicting hand of Providence, as 
we are. Their circumstances are great and 
glorious ; their treaties are prudently managed, 
both at home and abroad ; their generals brave 
and valorous, their armies successful and victo- 
rious ; their trophies and laurels memorable and 
surprising; their enemies subdued and routed, 
their strongholds besieged and taken. Sieges 
relieved, marshals killed and taken prisoners, 
provinces and kingdoms are the results of their 
victories. Their royal navy is the terror of 
Europe ; their trade and commerce extended 
through the universe, encircling the whole hab- 
itable world, and rendering their own capital 
city the emporium for the whole inhabitants of 
the earth.'' And which is yet more than all 
these things, the subjects freely bestowing their 
treasure upon their sovereign ; and above all, 
these vast riches, the sinews of war, and with- 
out which all the glorious success had proved 
abortive, these treasures are managed with such 
faithfulness and nicety, that the}' answer season- 
ably all their demands, though at never so great 
a distance. Upon these considerations, my Lord, 
how hard and difficult a thing will it prove to 
persuade our neighbors to a self-denying bill. 

'Tis quite otherwise with us, my Lord, as we 
are an obscure poor people, though formerly of 
better account, removed to a distant corner of 
the world, without name, and without alliances ; 
our posts mean and precarious ; so that I pro- 
fess I don't think any one post in the kingdom 
worth the briguing [seeking] after, save that of 
being commissioner to a long session of a fac- 
tious Scots Parliament, with an antedated com- 
mission, and that yet renders the rest of the min- 
isters more miserable.^ What hinders us then. 



T The battle of Blenheim and other victories of 
Marlborough bad recently taken place, and bad 
raised England to the height of her military re- 
nown, while her naval superiority had been recent- 
ly established by equally decisive victories at sea. 

8 By an act passed near the close of King Will- 
iam's reign, the duration of the existing Scottish 
Parliament was to be prolonged for the period of 
six months after his death. But it did not actually 
meet, on the accession of dueen Anne, until tiie end 



1706.] 



LEGISLATIVE UNION OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND. 



25 



my Lord, to lay aside our divisions, to unite cor- 
dially and heartily together in our present cir- 
cumstances, when our all is at stake. Hanni- 
bal, my Lord, is at our gates — Hannibal is come 
within our gates — Hannibal is come the length 
of this table — he is at the foot of the throne. 
He will demolish the throne, if we take not no- 
tice. He will seize upon these regalia. He 
will take them as our spolia opima^^ and whip 
us out of this house, never to return again. 

For the love of God, then, my Lord, for the 
safety and welfare of our ancient kingdom, whose 
sad circumstances I hope we shall yet convert 
into prosperity and happiness ! We want no 
means if we unite. God blessed the peace- 
makers. We want neither men, nor sufficiency 
of all manner of things necessai'y to make a na- 
tion happy. All depends upon management. 
Concordia res parvce crescunt — small means in- 
crease by concord. I fear not these Articles, 
though they were ten times worse than they are, 
if we once cordially forgive one another, and that 
according to our proverb, Bygones be bygones, 
and fair play for time to come. For my part, 
in the sight of God, and in the presence of this 
honorable House, I heartily forgive every man, 
and beg that they may do the same to me. And 
I do most humbly propose that his Grace my 
Lord Commissioner may appoint an Agape, may 
order a Love-feast for this honorable House, that 
we may lay aside all self-designs, and after our 
fasts and humiliations, may have a day of re- 
joicing and thankfulness ; may eat our meat with 
gladness, and our bread with a merry heart. 
Then shall we sit each man under his own fig- 
tree, and the voice of the turtle shall be heard 
in our land, a bird famous for constancy and 
fidelity. 

My Lord, I .shall pause here, and proceed no 
further in my discourse, till I see if his Grace my 
Lord Commissioner [Queensbury] will receive 
any humble pro[!Osals for removing misunder- 
standings among us, and putting an end to our 
fatal divisions. Upon my honor, I have no other 

of nine months. Hence the legality of its assem- 
bling was denied by the Duke of Hamilton tbe mo- 
ment it convened; and he, with eighty other mem- 
bers, withdrew before it was constituted. Queens- 
bury, however, proceeded, as Higb Commissioner, to 
open Parliament. This, undoubtedly, is the trans- 
action here alluded to. The commission under whicli 
be acted was dated back, probably, within the six 
months prescribed ; and lience the sneer about " an 
antedated commission." Violent animosities were 
created by this procedure. 

' The spolia opima, or " richest spoils" of war 
among the Romans, consisted, according to Livy, 
of the armor and trappings which a supreme com- 
mander had stripped, on the field of battle, from the 
leader of the foe. Plutarch says that, down to his 
time, only three examples of this hind had occurred 
in Roman history. The image is, therefore, a very 
striking one, representing Scotland as prostrate, and 
stripped of her regalia (objects of almost supersti- 
tious veneration to the people), which would be 
borne off by England as her spolia opima, to grace 
her triumph. 



design ; and I am content to beg the favor upon 
my bended knees. '° 

No answer. 

My Lord Chancellor, 1 am sorry that I must 
pursue the thread of my sad and melancholy 
story. What remains is more afflictive than 
what I have already said. Allow me, then, to 
make this meditation — that if our posterity, after 
we are all dead and gone, shajl find themselves 
under an ill-made bargain, and shall have re- 
course to our records for the names of the man- 
agers who made that treaty by which they have 
suffered so much, they will certainly exclaim, 
'■ Our nation must have been reduced to the last 
extremity at the time of this treaty ! All our 
great chieftains, all our noble peers, who once 
defended the rights and liberties of the nation, 
must have been killed, and lying dead on the bed 
of honor, before the nation could ever condescend 
to such mean and contemptible terms ! Where 
were the great men of the noble families — the 
Stewarts, Hamiltons, Grahams, Campbells, John- 
stons, Murrays, Homes, Kers ? Where were 
the two great officers of the Crown, the Consta- 
ble and the Marischal of Scotland ? Certainly 
all were extinguished, and now ice are slaves for- 
ever P' 

But the English records — how will they make 
their posterity reverence the names of those illus- 
trious men who made that treaty, and forever 
brought under those fierce, warlike, and trouble- 
some neighbors who had struggled so long for 
independency, shed the best blood of their nation, 
and reduced a considerable part of their coun- 
try to become waste and desolate ! 

I see the English Constitution remaining firm 
— the same two houses of Parliament ; the same 
faxes, customs, and excise ; the same trade in 
companies ; the same municipal laws ; while all 
ours are either subjected to new regulations, or 
annihilated forever ! And for what? Only that 
we may have the honor to pay their old debts ; 
and may have some few persons present [in Par- 
liament] as witnesses to the validity of the deed, 
when they are pleased to contract more ! 

Good God! What? Is this an entii-e sur- 
render? 

My Lord, I find my heart so full of grief and 
indignation, that I must beg pardon not to finish 
the last part of my discourse ; but pause that I 
may drop a tear as the prelude to so sad a story ! 



This fervent appeal had no effect. The 
Treaty of Union was ratified by a majority of 
thirty-three out of two hundred and one mem- 
bers. That it was carried by bribery is now 
matter of history. Documents have been brought 
to light, showing that the sum of o€20,000 was 
sent to Queensbury for this purpose by the En- 
glish ministers ; and the names of those to whom 
tlie money was paid, belonging chiefly to the 
Squadrone, are given in full. 

'" Lord Brougham, it seems from this passage, 
was not witliout precedent, when he sunk on his 
knees before the House of Lords, in urging the 
adoption of the Reform Bill. 



26 



LORD BELHAVEN AGAINST THE UNION, ETC. 



[1706. 



The fate of Belhaven was a melancholy one. 
He submitted quietly to what he considered the 
ruin and dishonor of his country. Two years 
after, a French fleet, with the Pretender on 
board, appeared off the coast of Scotland, and 
menaced an invasion of the country. The gov- 
ernment was thrown into the utmost disorder : 
and though the fleet withdrew without venturing 
on the proposed descent, numerous arrests were 
made of suspected persons. Among these were 
Belhaven and others who had opposed the Union. 
Without a particle of proof against him, he was 
dragged to London. At the end of some weeks, 
however, he was released ; but expired almost 
immediately after, of grief and indignation at this 
unworthy treatment. ^^ 

The evils anticipated b}' Lord Belhaven, and 
depicted in such glowing colors, never actually 
occurred. Nor were the benefits of the Union 
so immediate or great as were anticipated by its 
friends. The nation remained for a long time in 
an angry and mutinous state. Two rebellions 



Lains, iv., 375. 



took place in behalf of the Stuart familj'^, one in 
1715, and the other in 1745. It became at 
length apparent that the worst evils of Scotland 
arose from her system of clanship ; which divid- 
ed most of the country, especially the Highlands, 
into numerous small sovereignties, with the right 
of "pit and gallows," or imprisonment and 
death, under the name of " heritable jurisdic- 
tions." The course of justice was thus effectu- 
ally impeded ; and a large part of Scotland was 
kept in a state of perpetual disorder by the jeal- 
ousies and contentions of rival clans. Tmrne- 
diately after the rebellion of 1745, the right of 
" heritable jurisdiction" was abolished by an act 
of Parliament, and the whole kingdom brought 
under the control of the same courts. " From 
the time that this act came into full operation," 
says Lord Campbell, '' and not from the Union 
commences the prosperity of Scotland ; which 
having been the idlest, poorest, and most turbu- 
lent country in Europe, has become one of the 
most industrious, the most improving, and most, 
orderly." — ^ 



SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. 

The administration of Walpole was the longest wliich has occurred since the days 
of dueen Elizabeth. He was probably the most dexterous party leader which En- 
gland ever had ; " equally skilled to win popular favor, to govern the House of Com- 
mons, and to influence and be influenced by public opinion." 

Descended from an ancient and respectable family, he was born at Houghton, in 
Norfolkshire, on the 26th day of August, 1676. Part of his boyhood was spent at 
Eton, and he was for two years a member of the University of Cambridge ; but 
in neither of these places did he give any indications of superior talents. In early 
life he was remarkable for nothing but his high spirits and dislike of study. The 
only benefit he seems to have obtained from his early education, was a facility which 
he acquired at Eton of conversing in Latin. This became to him afterward an 
important instrument of power. George I. could speak no English, and Walpole 
no German : so they compromised the matter when he was made Prime Minister ; 
and all the communications between him and his master, involving the highest in- 
terests of the kingdom, were carried on in " very bad Latin." 

The first impulse given to the mind of Walpole arose from his being elected a 
member of Parliament at the age of twenty-four. A vein was now struck which 
laid open the master principle of his character. It was a spirit of intense ambition. 
From this moment he laid aside all his sluggishness and love of ease ; he threw 
himself at once into the arena of political strife ; and the whole cast of his mind and 
feelings, as well as the character of the times, went to secure his early ascendency. 
He had naturally great force and penetration of intellect ; a clear judgment ; a 
dauntless spirit ; a thorough knowledge of human nature, especially on its weak side ; 
infinite dexterity in carrying on or counteracting political intrigues ; a self-possession 
which never forsook him in the most trying circumstances ; and a perfectly unscrupu- 
lous freedom in the adoption of every means that seemed necessary to the accomplish- 
ment of his designs. The only acquired knowledge which he brought with him into 
public life, was a thorough acquaintance with finance. It was precisely the knowl- 
edge that was needed at that juncture ; and it laid the foundation, at no distant pe- 
riod, of the long and almost despotic sway which he exercised over English affairs. 

On taking his seat in Parhament, in 1710, he joined himself to the Whig party, 
and was almost immediately brought into office as Secretary at War. Thrown out 
soon after by a change of ministry, which arose from the silly prosecution of Sa- 
cheverell, he was restored to office in 1714, when the Whigs came into power under 
George I. From this time, for nearly thirty years, he was an active member of the 
government, during twenty of which he was Prime Minister. To this office he was 
called, by general consent, in 1721, on the explosion of the South Sea project, which 
filled the whole island with consternation and ruin.t He had opposed the scheme 
and predicted its failure from the outset, though he had the sagacity to profit largely 
by speculating in the stock ; and now that his predictions were fulfilled, every eye 
was turned to Walpole, as the only one fitted, by his financial skill, to repair the shat- 
tered credit of the country. He was made First Lord of the Treasury, and Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer, on the second of April, 1721. 

Walpole had now reached the summit of his ambition; and if he had only been 



.4-4^' 



.*v^.. -5 ^l^^<Utyt-iAi) 






28 SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. 

just and liberal to his political associates, he might, pernaps, even in that faithless 
and intriguing age, have gone on to enjoy an undisputed supremacy. But his am- 
bition was domineering and exclusive. He was jealous of every man in his own 
party, whose growing influence or force of character seemed likely to raise him above 
the station of a humble dependant. In about two years he quarreled with Car- 
teret, one of the most gifted men of the age, who came in with him as Secretary 
of State, simply because he would allow of no colleague, but was resolved to rule 
at the council board as sole master. Within two years more, he endeavored to put 
Pulteney out of the way by a specious offer of the peerage ; and thus made the most 
eloquent speaker in the House, before the time of Chatham, his enemy for life. 
Chesterfield was turned out from his station as Lord Steward of the Household, with 
circumstances of personal insult, because he voted against the Excise Bill, which 
"Walpole himself soon after abandoned. Others of the nobility, with a number of 
military officers, among whom was Lord Chatham, were treated with the same in- 
dignity. Thus he alienated from him, by degrees, nearly all the talent of the Whig 
party. 

The Opposition which he had to encounter was, therefore, composed of singularly 
discordant materials. To his natural opponents, the Jacobites and Tories, was added 
a large body of disaffected Whigs, who took the name of " Patriots." Bolingbroke, 
after the pardon of his treasons by George L, and his return to England in 1724, 
though not restored to his seat in the House of Lords, and therefore unable to share 
in public debate, was the acknowledged leader of the Tories and Jacobites ; and, by 
a coalition which he soon after made with Pulteney, became for nearly ten years the 
real head of the Opposition. He was qualified for this station by extraordinary abili- 
ties and makired experience. He was a veteran in the arts of popular delusion. 
Such was the ascendency of his genius over the strongest minds, that he could unite 
Wyndham and Pulteney in the same measures ; and from his station behind the 
scenes, could move the machinery of Opposition with the greater coolness because 
he had no share in public measures. Men were thus brought into one body, under 
the strictest party discipline, who could never have acted together for a moment on 
any other subject. They comprised a large part of the talent of the kingdom ; and 
were engaged for years in the struggle to put Walpole down, animated, in most in- 
stances, not only by an intense desire for office, but by personal resentment and ai 
( spirit of revenge. 

It was certainly a proof of consummate ability in Walpole, that he was able to 
stand for a single year against such an Opposition. That he sustained himself, to ai 
considerable extent, by the systematic bribery of the leading members of Parliament, , 
there can be no doubt. Nor is he to be tried by the standard of the present day on; 
that subject. Charles II. commenced the system: it was continued under his suc- 
cessor ; and when William III. was placed on the throne by the Revolution of 
1688, he found it impossible to carry on the government without resorting to the 
same means. " It was not, therefore," as remarked by Cooke in his History of Par- 
ty, "the minister who corrupted the age ; his crime was that he pandered to the 
prevailing depravity." But bribery alone could never have given Walpole so com- 
plete an ascendency. A ministerial majority, even when part of its members are 
bribed, demand of their leacJer at least plausible reasons for the vote they give. 
Against such an Opposition as he had to encounter, nothing but extraordinary tal- 
ents, and a thorough knowledge of affairs, could have maintained him for a single 
month at the head of the government. And it is a remarkable fact, as to the lead- 
ing measures for which he was so vehemently assailed, his Excise Bill, Wood's Pat- 
ent, a Standing Army, Septennial Parliaments, the Hanover Treaty, and the Span- 
ish Convention, that the verdict of posterity has been decidedly in his ftivor. Even 



SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. • 29 

Lord Chatham, who in early Ufe was drawn under the influence of the Opposition 
leaders by their extraordinary talents and specious pretensions to patriotism, pub- 
licly declared, at a later period, that he had changed his views of the principal 
measures of Walpole. 

But while posterity have thus decided for Walpole, on the main questions in de- 
bate between him and the Opposition, they have been far from awarding to him the 
honors of a great statesman. He undoubtedly rendered a most important service to 
his country, by the skill and firmness with which he defeated the machinations of 
the Jacobites, and held the house of Brunswick on the throne. It was not with- 
out reason that Q,ueen Caroline, on her dying bed, commended, not Walpole to the 
favor of the King, but the King to the protection and support of Walpole. Still, it 
is apparent, from the whole tenor of his conduct, that in this, as in every other case, 
he was governed by the absorbing passion of his life, the love of office. " He un- 
derstood," says Lord Campbell, " the material interests of the country, and, so far 
as was consislent with the retention of power, he was desirous of pursuing them." 
We have here the key to every measure of his administration — " the retention of 
poiver I"" It was this that dictated his favorite maxim, ne quieta moveas,, because 
he felt that change, however useful, might weaken his hold on office. Hence his 
scandalous treatment of the Dissenters, whom he deluded for years with solemn 
promises of deliverance from the galhng yoke of the Test Act, and thus held them 
as firm supporters of his ministry in the most tiying seasons ; but when driven at 
last to say, " 'When will the time come ?" he answered, as he always meant, " Nev- 
er I" He was afraid of the High Church party ; and he chose rather to break his 
word, than to venture on what he acknowledged to be a simple act of justice. It 
was so in every thing. He would run no personal risk to secure the most certain 
and valuable improvements. He would do nothing to provide against remote dan- 
gers, if it cost any great and immediate sacrifice. He therefore did nothing for the 
advancement of English institutions. He was the minister of the Present, not of 
the Future. His conduct in respect to the Spanish war furnishes a complete exhi- 
bition of his character, and has covered his memory with indelible disgrace. He 
knew it to be unnecessary and unjust — " the most unprovoked and unjustifiable 
war," as a great writer has observed, " in the English aimals." Any other minis- 
ter, rather than be forced into it by the popular clamor, would have instantly re- 
signed. But in the words of Lord Mahon, who was disposed, in general, to judge 
favorably of Walpole, " He still clung unworthily to his darling office ; thus proving 
that a love of power, and not a love of peace (as has been pretended), was his rul- 
ing principle. It was a sin against light. No man had a clearer view of the im- 
pending mischief and misery of the Spanish w'ar. On the very day of the Declara- 
tion, when joyful peals were heard from every steeple of the city, the minister mut- 
tered, ' They may ring the bells now ; before long they Avill be ivringing their 
hands.' Yet of this mischief and misery he could stoop to be the instrument !" 

The selfish and temporizing policy of Walpole, on this occasion, proved his ruin. 
The war, which he never intended should take place, and for which he had, there- 
fore, made no preparation, proved disastrous to the English ; and the Opposition had 
the art to turn the popular odium with double violence upon the minister, for the 
failure of a measure which they had themselves forced upon him. The circum- 
stances attending his fall from power will be detailed hereafter, in connection with 
his speech on a motion for his removal from office. He resigned all his employ- 
ments on the 11th of February, 1742, and died about three years after, just as he 
was entering his sixty-ninth year. 

The age of Walpole was an age rather of keen debate than impassioned elo- 
quence. If we except Lord Chatham, whose greatest efibrts belong to a later pe- 



c. 



30 • SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. 

riod, we shall find but little in the leading orators of the day that was lofty or im- 
^ posing. They were emphatically business speakers, eagerly intent upon their object, 
but destitute of any principles or feelings, which could raise them above the level of 
the most selfish minds, engaged in a desperate struggle for office and power. We 
find, therefore, in their speeches, no large views, no generous and elevated senti- 
ments, none of those appeals to the higher instincts of our nature, which are the 
crowning excellence of our English oratory. Any thing of this kind would have 
been laughed down by "Walpole, as sheer affectation. Even patriotism, which is too 
often a limited and selfish virtue, he regarded as mere pretense. " Patriots," says 
he, " spring up like mushrooms I I could raise fifty of them within the twenty-four 
hours. I have raised many of them in a single night. It is but refusing to gratify 
an unreasonable or an insolent demand, and up starts ^patriot I'' The reasonings 
of that day were brief and pointed ; with no attempts at philosophy ; with but httle 
breadth of illustration ; with scarcely any disposition to discuss a subject in its prin- 
ciples. Parliamentary speaking was literally " a keen encounter of the wits," in 
which the ball of debate was tossed to and fro between men of high talent, who 
perfectly understood each other's motives, and showed infinite dexterity in twisting 
facts and arguments to serve a purpose. It was the maxim of the day, that every 
thing was fair in politics. — The best speeches abounded in wit and sarcasm, in sly 
insinuations or cutting invective, all thrown ofi' with a light, bold, confident air, in 
racy English, and without any apparent effort. The language of debate approached 
as near to that of actual conversation, as the nature of the topics, and the ffow of 
continuous discourse, would permit. It was direct and idiomatic ; the language of 
men who had lived in the society of Addison and Swift ; and who endeavored to 
unite the ease and simplicity of the one with the pungency and force of the other. 
It is a style of speaking which has always been a favorite one in the British Senate ; 
and notwithstanding the examples of a loftier strain of eloquence in that body since 
the days of Chatham, it is still (though connected with more thorough discussion) 
the style which is cultivated by a majority of speakers down to the present day in 
both houses of Parliament. 



WYNMAM AND T\^ALPOLE ON THE SEPTENNIAL ACT. 

INTRODUCTION. 

The Septennial Act was passed in 1716, extendinji: the duration of Parliaments from three to seven 
years. By an extraordinary stretch of power, the Act was made applicable to the Parliament that passed 
it, whose members, by their own vote, thus added four years to their tenure of office. This they did on 
the ground that the nation had just emerged from a dangerous rebellion, and that the public mind was 
still in so agitated a state, as to render the exciting scenes of a general election hazardous to the public 
safety. Whatever may be thought of this plea (and perhaps most men at the present day would unite 
with Mr. Hallam in justifying the measure), no one can doubt that the provisions of the Septennial Act, 
in respect to subsequent Parliaments, were strictly legal. 

This Act has now been in operation eighteen years; and Bolingbroke, who planned the leading meas- 
ures of the Opposition, saw that a motion to repeal it would embarrass the ministry, and gratify at once 
the landholders and the mob. The landholders, who were almost to a man Jacobites or Tories, would be 
zealous for the repeal, since they were not only indignant at the Act, as originally directed against them- 
selves, but had found by experience, that it was greatly for their interest to have frequent elections. The 
influence they possessed over their tenantry, could be exerted at any moment, and cost them little or 
nothing. This influence the Whigs in power could overcome only at an enormous expense. Every gen- 
eral election was, therefore, a scene of general licentiousness and bribery, to which the common people 
looked forward as their harvest season ; and so vast was the pecuniary sacrifice to which the Whigs were 
thus subjected, that they could never endure it if the elections were of frequent occurrence. Thus, ac- 
cording to Bolingbroke's calculations, if the Act was repealed, the Whigs would be driven from power ; 
if it was not repealed, they would be loaded with the resentment of all classes, from the highest to the 
lowest. 

There was a part of the Opposition, however, who were delicately situated in respect to this Act. It 
was a measure of their own. They had argued and voted for it as essential to the public security. Such 
was the case with Pulteney and most of the disaffected Whigs ; and it was a long time before Bolingbroke 
succeeded in wheedling or driving them into his plan. At last, however, party discipline and the desire 
of office prevailed. The motion was made on the 13th of March, 1734, and gave rise to one of the most 
celebrated debates in EngUsh history. 

It was on this occasion that Sir William Wyndham, the leader of the Tories in the House, delivered 
what was undoubtedly his master-piece of eloquence. This speech, however, is remembered with inter- 
est at the present day, only on account of the altercation to which it gave rise between him and Walpole. 
He closed with a hitter personal attack on the minister, and thus drew forth a reply of equal bitterness, 
which concluded the debate. In this reply, however, Walpole, instead of retaliating upon Wyndham, 
turned adroitly upon Bolingbroke as the real author of all the maneuvers against him ; and while he thus 
threw contempt on Wyndham, by treating him as the mere mouth-piece of another, he inflicted a castiga- 
tion upon Bolingbroke which, for stinging eff'ect and perfect adherence to truth, has rarely been surpassed 
in the British Parliament. This, in connection with the attack of Wyndham, will now be given ; and 
the reader will observe how dexterously Walpole, in going on, as he does, briefly to defend the Septen- 
nial Act, argues with the Tories on their own ground ; showing that frequent Parliaments serve to extend 
and perpetuate the democratic principle in the English Constitution — a thing against which every true 
Tory must feel himself bound to contend. 



SIR AVILLIAM WYNDHAM'S^ ATTACK 

ON SIR ROBERT WALPOLE, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMxMONS ON A MOTION FOR THE 
REPEAL OF THE SEPTENNIAL ACT, MARCH 13, 1734. 



[Mr. Wyndham, after dwelling on a variety 
of arguments (chiefly in reply to others), which, 
from a change of circumstances, are of but lit- 

1 Wyndham was born in 1G87, of an ancient fam- 
ily, and was heir to one of the richest baronetcies 
in England. He entered Parliament at the age of 
twenty-one, and immediately attached himself to 
BolingbiX)ke, under whose instruction he soon be- 
came expert in all the arts of oratory and intrigue. 



tie interest at the present day, concluded in the 
following manner :] 

We have been told, sir, in this House, that no 
faith is to be given to prophecies, therefore I 
shall not pretend to prophesy ; but I may sup- 
pose a case, which, though it has not yet hap- 
pened, may possibly happen. Let us then sup- 
pose, sir, a man abandoned to all notions of vir- 
tue or honor, of no great family, and of but a 



32 



SIR ROBERT WALPOLE ON THE 



[1734. 



mean fortune, raised to be chief minister of state 
by the concurrence of many whimsical events ; 
afraid or unwiUing to trust any but creatures of 
his own making, and most of them equally aban- j 
doned to all notions of virtue or honor ; ignorant \ 
of the true interest of his country, and consult- 
ing nothing but that of enriching and aggrand- 
izing himself and his favorites ; in foreign allairs, 
trusting none but those whose education makes j 
it impossible for them to have such knowledge 
or such qualifications, as can either be of serv- 
ice to their country, or give any weight or credit , 
to their negotiations. Let us suppose the true 
interest of the nation, by such means, neglected : 
or misunderstood ; her honor and credit lost ; ! 
her trade insulted ; her merchants plundered ; ' 
and her sailors murdered ; and all these things 
overlooked, only for fear his administration should 
be endangered. Suppose him, next, possessed 
of great wealth, the plunder of the nation, with 
a Parliament of his own choosing, most of their 
seats purchased, and their votes bought at the 
expense of the public treasure. In such a Par- 
liament, let us suppose attempts made to inquire 
into his conduct, or to relieve the nation from the 
distress he has brought upon it; and when lights 
proper for attaining those ends are called for, 
not perhaps for the information of the particular 
gentlemen who call for them, but because noth- 
ing can be done in a .parliamentary way, till 
these things be in a proper way laid before Par- 
liament ; suppose these lights refused, these rea- 
sonable re(juests rejected by a corrupt majority 
of his creatures, whom he retains in daily pay, 
or engages in his particular interest, by granting 
them those posts and places which ought never 



to be given to any but for the good of the pub- 
lic. Upon this scandalous victory, let us sup- 
pose this chief minister pluming himself in defi- 
ances, because he finds he has got a Parliament, 
like a packed jurv, ready to acquit him at all 
adventures. Let us further suppose him arrived 
to that degree of insolence and arrogance, as to 
domineer over all the men of ancient families, 
all the men of sense, figure, or fortune in the 
nation, and as he has no virtue of his own, ridi- 
culing it in others, and endeavoring to destroy 
or corrupt it in all. 

I am still not prophesying, sir ; I am only 
supposing ; and the case I am going to suppose 
I hope never will happen. But with such a 
minister and such a Parliament, let us suppose a 
prince upon the throne, either for want of true 
information, or for some other reason, ignorant 
and unacquainted with the inclinations and the 
interest of his people ; weak, and hurried away 
by unbounded ambition and insatiable avarice. 
This case, sir, has never yet happened in this 
nation. I hope, I say, it will never exist. But 
as it is po.ssible it may, could there any greater 
curse happen to a nation, than such a prince on 
the throne, advised, and solely advised, by such 
a minister, and that minister supported by such 
a Parliament ? The nature of mankind can not 
be altered by human laws ; the existence of such 
a prince or such a minister we can not }»revent 
by act of Parliament ; but the existence of such 
a Parliament I think we may. And as such a 
Parliament is much more likely to exist, and may 
do more mischief while the septennial law re- 
mains in force, than if it were repealed, therefore 
I am most heartily for the repeal of it. 



SPEECH 



OF SIR ROBERT WALPOLE ON A MOTION TO REPEAL THE SEPTENNIAL BILL, DELIVERED IN 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 1734, IN REPLY TO SIR WILLIAM WYNDHAM. 



Sir, — I do assure you, I did not intend to have 
troubled you on this occasion. But such inci- 
dents now generally happen toward the end of 
our debates, nothing at all relating to the sub- 
ject ; and gentlemen make such suppositions 
(meaning some person, or perhaps, as they say, 
no person now in being), and talk so much of 
wicked ministers, domineering ministers, minis- 
ters pluming themselves in defiances — which 
terms, and such like, have been of late so much 
made use of in this House — that if they really 
mean nobody either in the House or out of it, 
yet it must be supposed they at least mean to call 
upon some gentleman in this House to make 
them a reply. I hope, therefore, I may be allow- 
ed to draw a picture in my turn ; and I may 
likewise say, that I do not mean to give a de- 
scription of any particular person now in being. 
When gentlemen talk of ministers abandoned to 
all sense of virtue or honor, other gentlemen 
may, I am sure, with equal justice, and, I think, 
more justly, speak of anti-ministers and mock- 
patriots, who never had either virtue or honor ; 
but in the whole course of their opposition are 



actuated only by motives of envy, and of resent- 
ment against those who have disappointed thera 
in their views, or may not perhaps hare com- 
plied with all their desires. 

But now, sir, let me too suppose, and the 
House being cleared, I am sure no one that hears 
me can come within the description of the per- 
son I am to suppose. Let us suppose in this, 
or in some other unfortunate country, an anti- 
minister, who thinks himself a jierson of so great 
and extensive parts, and of so many eminent 
qualifications, that he looks upon himself as the 
only person in the kingdom capable to conduct 
the public affairs of the nation ; and therefore 
christening every other gentleman who has the 
honor to be employed in the administration by 
the name of Blunderer. ' Suppose this fine gen- 
tleman lucky enough to have gained over to his 
party some persons really of fine parts, of an- 
cient families, and of great fortunes, and others 
of desperate views, arising from disappointed and 
malicious hearts ; all these gentlemen, with re- 
spect to their political behavior, moved by him, 
and by him solely ; all they say, either in private 



1734] 



MOI-ION TO REPEAL THE SEPTENNIAL BILL. 



33 



or public, being only a repetition of the words he 
has put into their mouths, and a spitting out of 
that venom which he has infused into them ; and 
yet we may suppose this leader not really liked 
by any, even of those who so blindly follow him, 
and hated by all the rest of mankind. We will 
suppose this anti-minister to be in a country 
where he really ought not to be, and w^here he 
could not have been but by an effect of too much 
goodness and mercy ; yet endeavoring, with all 
his might and with all his art, to destroy the 
fountain from whence that mercy flowed. In 
that country suppose him continually contract- 
ing friendships and familiarities with the em- 
bassadors of those princes who at the time hap- 
pen to be most at enmity with his own ; and 
if at any time it should happen to be for the in- 
terest of any of those foreign ministers to have a 
secret divulged to them, which might be highly 
prejudicial to his native country, as well as to all 
its friends ; suppose this foreign minister apply- 
ing to him, and he answering, "I will get it 
you ; tell me but w^hat you want, I will endeav- 
or to procure it for you." Upon this he puts a 
speech or two in the mouths of some of his creat- 
ures, or some of his new converts. What he 
wants is moved for in Parliament, and when so 
very reasonable a request as this is refused, sup- 
pose him and his creatures and tools, by his ad- 
vice, spreading the alarm over the whole nation, 
and crying out, " Gentlemen, our country is at 
present involved in many dangerous difficulties, 
all which we would have extricated you from, 
but a wicked minister and a corrupt majority 
refused us the proper materials !" And upon 
"this scandalous victory," this minister became 
so insolent as " to plume himself in defiances !" 
Let us further suppose this anti-minister to have 
traveled, and at every court where he was, think- 
ing himself the greatest minister, and making it 
his trade to betray the secrets of every court 
where he had before been ; void of all faith or 
honor, and betraying every master he ever serv- 
ed. I could carry my suppositions a great deal 
further, and I may say I mean no person now in 
being ; but if we can suppose such a one, can 
there be imagined a greater disgrace to human 
nature than such a wretch as this ?^ 



1 "How must Wyndham and Pulteney," says 
Lord Mahon, "have quailed before this terrible in- 
vective ! How must it have wrang the haughty 
soul of Bolingbroke !" Every word of it was true. 
While Secretary of State under Queen Anne, he 
maintained a treasonable correspondence with the 
Pretender, though he contrived, at the time, to con- 
ceal the evidence, which has since been made pub- 
lic. On the accession of George I. he fled to France, 
and was made the Pretender's Secretary of State. 
Having quarreled with his new master, after some 
years, such were his powers of insinuation, that he 
obtained a pardon from George I., and was thus re- 
stored to a country " where he could not have been, 
but by the effect of too much goodness and mercy.'' 
Here he did the very things described by Walpole ; 
his friends did not deny it, or attempt his defense. 
As he soon after gave up the contest, and announced 
his intention to quit England forever, it has been 
C 



Now, to be serious, and to talk really to the 
subject in hand. Though the question has been 
already so fully and so handsomely opposed 
by my worthy friend under the galler)', by the 
learned gentleman near me, and by several oth- 
ers, that there is no great occasion to say any 
thing further against it ; yet, as some new mat- 
ter has been stated by some of the gentlemen 
who have since that time spoke upon the other 
side of the question, I hope the House will in- 
dulge me the liberty of giving some of those rea- 
sons which induce me to be against the motion. 

In general, I must take notice, that the nature 
of our constitution seems to be very much mis- 
taken by the gentlemen who have spoken in fa- 
vor of this motion. It is certain that ours is a 
mixed government ; and the perfection of our 
constitution consists in this, that the monarchic- 
al, aristocratical, and democratical forms of gov- 
ernment are mixed and interwoven in ours, so 
as to give us all the advantages of each, without 
subjecting us to the dangers and inconveniences 
of either. The democratical form of government, 
which is the only one I have now occasion to 
take notice of, is liable to these inconveniences, 
that they are generally too tedious in their com- 
ing to any resolution, and seldom brisk and ex- 
peditious enough in carrying their resolutions 
into execution. That they are always wavering 
in their resolutions, and never steady in any of 
the measures they resolve to pursue ; and that 
they are often involved in factions, seditions, and 
insurrections, which expose them to be made 
the tools, if not the prey of their neighbors. 
Therefore, in all the regulations we make with 
respect to our constitution, we are to guard 
against running too much into that form of gov- 
ernment which is properly called democratical. 
This was, in my opinion, the effect of the trien- 
nial law, and will again be the effect, if it should 
ever be restored. 

That triennial elections would make our gov- 
ernment too tedious in all their resolves is evi- 
dent ; because, in such case, no prudent admin- 
istration would ever resolve upon any measure 
of consequence till they had felt, not only the 
pulse of the Parliament, but the pulse of the peo- 
ple. The ministers of state would always labor 
under this disadvantage, that as secrets of state 
must not be immediately divulged, their enemies 
(and enemies they will always have) would have 
a handle for exposing their measures, and render- 
ing them disagreeable to the people, and there- 
by carrying perhaps a new election against them, 
before they could have an opportunity of justify- 
ing their measures, by divulging those facts and 
circumstances from w^hence the justice and the 
wisdom of their measures would clearly appear. 

Then it is by experience well known, that what 
is called the populace of every country are apt to 

understood that this speech of Walpole drove him 
from the country. Lord Mahon has indeed shown 
that he had other reasons for going ; but this does 
not prove that Walpole's invective was not one im- 
portant cause, by destroying all his hopes of future 



34 



SIR ROBERT WALPOLE ON THE 



[1734. 



be too much elated with success, and too much 
dejected with every misfortune. This makes 
them wavering in their opinions about affairs of 
state, and never long of the same mind. And 
as this House is chosen by the free and unbiased 
voice of the people in general, if this choice were 
so often renewed, we might expect that this 
House would be as wavering and as unsteady 
as the people usually are. And it being impos- 
sible to carry on the public affairs of the nation 
without the concurrence of this House, the min- 
isters would always be obliged to comply, and 
consequently would be obliged to change their 
measures as often as the people changed their 
minds. 

With septennial Parliaments we are not ex- 
posed to either of these misfortunes, because, if 
the ministers, after having felt the pulse of the 
Parliament (which they can always soon do), re- 
solve upon any measures, they have generally 
time enough, before the new election comes on, 
to give the people proper information, in order 
to show them the justice and the wisdom of the 
measures they have pursued. And if the people 
should at any time be too much elated or too 
much dejected, or should, without a cause, change 
their minds, those at the helm of affairs have time 
to set them right before a new election comes on. 

As to faction and sedition, I will grant, that 
in monarchical and aristocratical governments, 
it generally arises from violence and oppression ; 
but in popular or mixed governments, it always 
arises from the people's having too great a share 
in the government. For in all countries, and in 
all governments, there always will be many fac- 
tious and unquiet spirits, who can never be at 
rest, either in power or out of power. When in 
power they are never easy, unless every man 
submits entix'ely to their directions ; and when 
out of power, they are always working and in- 
triguing against those that are in, w^ithout any 
regard to justice, or to the interest of their coun- 
try. In popular governments such men have 
too much game. They have too many oppor- 
tunities for working upon and corrupting the 
minds of the people, in order to give them a bad 
impression of, and to raise discontents against 
those that have the management of the public 
affairs for the time ; and these discontents often 
break out into seditions and insurrections. This 
would, in my opinion, be our misfortune, if our 
Parliaments W'cre either annual or triennial. By 
such frequent elections, there would be so much 
power thrown into the hands of the people, as 
would destroy that equal mixture, which is the 
beauty of our constitution. In short, our gov- 
ernment would really become a democratical 
government, and might from thence very prob- 
ably diverge into a tyrannical. Therefore, in 
order to preserve our constitution, in order to 
prevent our falling under tyranny and arbitrary 
power, we ought to preserve this law, which I 
really think has brought our constitution to a 
more equal mixture, and consequently to a great- 
er perfecticm, than it was ever in before that law 
took place 



As to bribery and corruption, if it were pos- 
sible to influence, by such base means, the ma- 
jority of the electors of Great Britain, to choose 
such men as would probably give up their lib- 
erties — if it were possible to influence, by such 
means, a majority of the members of this House 
to consent to the establishment of arbitrary pow- 
er — I should readily allow, that the calculations 
made by the gentlemen of the other side were 
just, and their inference true. But I am per- 
suaded that neither of these is possible. As the 
members of this House generally are, and must 
always be, gentlemen of fortune and figure in 
their country, is it possible to suppose that any 
of them could, by a pension or a post, be influ- 
enced to consent to the overthrow of our con.sti- 
tution, by which the enjoyment, not only of what 
he got, but of what he before had, would be ren- 
dered altogether precarious ? I will allow, that 
with respect to bribery, the price must be high- 
er or lower, generally in proportion to the virtue 
of the man who is to be bribed ; but it must like- 
wise be granted that the humor he happens to 
be in at the time, and the spirit he happens to 
be endowed with, adds a great deal to his virtue. 
When no encroachments are made upon the 
rights of the people, when the people do not 
think themselves in any danger, there may be 
many of the electors who, by a bribe of ten guin- 
eas, might be induced to vote for one candidate 
rather than another. But if the court were mak- 
ing any encroachments upon the rights of the 
people, a proper spirit would, without doubt, 
arise in the nation ; and in such a case I am per- 
suaded that none, or very few, even of such elect- 
ors, could be induced to vote for a court candi- 
date — no, not for ten times the sum. 

There may be some bribery and corruption 
in the nation ; I am afraid there will always be 
some. But it is no proof of it that strangers 
[i. e., non-residents] are sometimes chosen ; for 
a man may have so much natural influence over 
a borough in his neighborhood, as to be able to 
prevail with them to choose any person he pleas- 
es to recommend. And if upon such recom- 
mendation they choose one or two of his friends, 
who are perhaps strangers to them, it is not from 
thence to be inferred that the two strangers were 
chosen their representatives by the means of brib- 
ery and corruption. 

To insinuate that money may be issued from 
the public treasury for bribing elections, is really 
something very extraordinary, especially in those 
gentlemen who know how many checks arc upon 
every shilling that can be issued from thence ; 
and how regularly the money granted in one 
year for the sei'vice of the nation must always 
be accounted for the very next session in this 
House, and likewise in the other, if they have a 
mind to call for any such account.^ And as to 
gentlemen in office, if they have any advantage 
over country gentlemen, in having something 
else to depend on besides their own private for- 

2 Walpole's notorious system of bribery was cer- 
tainly not conducted in so bungling a manner. 



1734.] 



MOTION TO REPEAL THE SEPTENNIAL BILL. 



35 



tune.s, they have likewise many di.sadvantages. 
They are "obliged to live here at London with 
their families, by which they are put to a much 
greater expense, than gentlemen of equal fortune 
who live in the country. This lays them under 
a veiy great disadvantage in supporting their in- 
terest in the country. The country gentleman, 
by living among the electors, and purchasing the 
necessaries for his family from them, keeps up 
an acquaintance and con-espondenee with them, 
without putting himself to any extraordinary 
charge. Whereas a gentleman who lives in 
London has no other way of keeping up an ac- 
quaintance and correspondence among his friends 
in the country, but by going down once or twice 
a year, at a very extraordinary expense, and oft- 
en without any other business ; so that we may 
conclude, a gentleman in office can not, even in 
seven years, save much for distributing in ready 
money at the time of an election. And I really 
believe, if the fact were narrowly inquired into, 
it w^ould appear, that the gentlemen in office are 
as little guilty of bribing their electors with ready 
money, as any other set of gentlemen in the king- 
dom. — 

That there are ferments often raised among 
the people without any just cause, is what I am 
surprised to hear controverted, since very late 
experience may convince us of the contrary. 
Do not we know w^iat a ferment was raised 
in the nation toward the latter end of the late 
Queen's reign ? And it is well known what a 
fatal change in the affairs of this nation was in- 
troduced, or at least confirmed, by an election 
coming on while the nation w^as in that ferment.^ 
Do not we know what a ferment was raised in 
the nation soon after his late Majesty's acces- 
sion ? And if an election had then been allowed 
to come on while the nation was in that ferment, 
it might perhaps have had as fatal effects as the 
former. But, thank God, this was w^isely pro- 
vided against by the very law which is now 
sought to be repealed. 

It has, indeed, been said, that the chief mo- 
tive for enacting that law now no longer exists. 
I can not admit that the motive they mean, was 
the chief motive ; but even that motive is very 



far from having entirely ceased. Can gentlemen 
imagine, that in the spirit raised in the nation 
[against the Excise Billj not above a twelve- 
month since, Jacobitism and disaffection to the 
present government had no share ? Perhaps 
some w^ho might wish well to the present estab- 
lishment, did co-operate ; nay, I do not know but 
they were the first movers of that spirit ; but it 
can not be supposed that the spirit then raised 
should have growai up to such a ferment, merely 
from a proposition which was honestly and fair- 
ly laid before the Pai'liament, and left entirely to 
their determination ! No ; the spirit was per- 
haps begun by those who are truly friends to the 
illustrious family we have now upon the throne. 
But it was raised to a much greater height than, 
I believe, even they designed, by Jacobites, and 
such as are enemies to our present establishment ; 
w^io thought they never had a fairer opportunity 
of bringing about wiiat they had so long and so 
unsuccessfully wished for, than that which had 
been furnished them by those who first raised 
that spirit. I hope the people have now in a 
great measure come to themselves ; and therefore 
I doubt not but the next elections will show% that 
wiien they are left to judge coolly, they can dis- 
tinguish between the real and the pretended 
friends to the government. But I must say, if 
the ferment then raised in the nation had not al- 
ready greatly subsided, I should have thought 
a new election a very dangerous experiment. 
And as such ferments may hereafter often hap- 
pen, I must think that frequent elections will al- 
ways be dangerous ; for which reason, in so far 
as I can see at present, I shall, I believe, at all 
times think it a very dangerous experiment to 
repeal the Septennial Bill. 



The motion for repeal w^as rejected by a large 
majorit)', an^-therbtH hfas remained untouched 
down to the present time. Most reflecting men 
will agi-ee with Mr. Macaulay, that " the repeal 
of the Septennial Act, unaccompanied by a com- 
plete reform of the constitution of the elective 
body, would have been an unmixed curse to the 
country." 



SPEECH 



OF SIR ROBERT WALPOLE ON A MOTION FOR ADDRESSING THE KING FOR HIS REMOVAL, DE- 
LIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY, 1741. 



INTRODUCTION. 
The unpopularity of Walpole was greatly increased by the disasters of the Spanish war, all of which 
were ascribed to his bad management or want of preparation. The Opposition, therefore, decided, early 
in 1741, on the extreme measure of proposing an address to the King for his removal. Accordingl}', Mr. 
Sandys, who was designated to take the lead, gave notice of a motion to that effect on the 11th of Feb- 
ruary, 1741. Walpole rose immediately and thanked him for the information. He went on with gi*eat 
calmness and dignity, to assure the House that he was ready to meet every charge that could be brought 



3 Allusion is here made to the ferment created 
by the trial of Sacheverell, and the fall of the Whig 
administration of Godolphin, Somei'S, &c., conse- 
quent thereon. This change of ministry led to the 



Peace of Utrecht, by which the English gained far 
less, and their opponents more, than had been 
generally expected under the Whig administra- 
tion. 



SIR ROBERT WALPOLE ON 



[1741. 



against him ; that he desired no favor, bat sJimply a fair hearing ; and concluded by laying his hand on his 
breast, and declaring, in the words of his favorite Horace, that he was " conscious of no crime, and dreaded 
no accusation."^ At the end of two days the motion was made; and such was the eagerness of public 
expectation, that the galleries were filled before daybreak, and many of the members took their places 
in the House at six o'clock in the morning to secure themselves a seat. At one o'clock, when the debate 
opened, nearly five hundred members of Parliament were present. 

On bringing forward his motion, Sandys, in a speech of great length and considerable abihty, went over 
all the charges which from time to time had been urged against the minister. As to none of them did he 
attempt any new proofs ; and nearly all were of that general nature which would certainly justify inquiry, 
but hardly authorize any decisive action. His main argument, after all, was, that Walpole had been at 
the head of affairs for twenty years, and that the people were tired of him as a minister, and hated him 
as a man. He ended by saying, " I have not, at present, any occasion for showing that the Favorite I am 
now complaining of has been guilty of heinous crimes, yet I will say that there is a verj' general suspicion 
against him; that this suspicion is justified by the present situation of our affairs both at home and 
abroad ; and that it is ridiculous to expect that any proper discovery should be made as long as he is in 
possession of all the proofs, and has the distribution of all the penalties the crowm can inflict, as well as 
of all the favors the crown can bestow. Remove him from the King's councils and presence ; remove 
him from those high oflBces and power he is now possessed of. If he has been guilty of any crimes, the 
proofs may then be come at, and the witnesses against him will not be afraid to appear. Till jou do this, 
it is impossible to determine whether he is guilty or innocent ; and, considering the universal clamor 
against him, it is high time to reduce him to such a condition that he may be brought to a fair, an impar- 
tial, and a strict account. If he were conscious of his being entirely innocent, and had a due regard to 
the security and glory of his master and sovereign, he would have chosen to have put himself into this 
condition long before this time. Since he has not thought fit to do so, it is our duty to endeavor to do it 
for him; and, therefore, I shall conclude with moving, 'That an humble address be presented to his Maj- 
esty, that he would be graciously pleased to remove the right honorable Sir Robert Walpole, knight of 
the most noble order of the garter, first commissioner for executing the office of treasurer of the excheq- 
uer, chancellor and under-treasurer of the exchequer, and one of his Majesty's most honorable privy coun- 
cil, from his Majesty's presence and councils forever.' " 

A few days after, Walpole made a speech of four hours, in reply to Sandys and others, by whom he had 
been attacked. We have only an imperfect outline of his argument in the speech given below, but there 
is reason to believe that the introductory part and the conclusion are very nearly in his own words. 

SPEECH, &c. 



It has been observed by several gentlemen, in 
vindication of this motion, that if it should be 
carried, neither my life, liberty, nor estate will 
be affected. But do the honorable gentlemen 
consider my character and reputation as of no 
moment ? Is it no imputation to be arraigned 
before this House, in which I have sat forty 
years, and to have my name transmitted to pos- 



^ In quoting the words of Horace (Epistle I., 61), 
Walpole gave them thus : 

Nil conscire sibi, nulH pallescere culp«. 
Pulteney, who sat by, cried out, "Your Latin is as 
bad as your logic !" " Nulla pallescere culpa !" 
Walpole defended his quotation, and offered to bet 
a guinea on its correctness. The question was ac- 
cordingly referred to Sir Nicholas Hardiuge, clerk 
of the House, whose extraordinary erudition was ac- 
knowledged by all, and he at once decided in favor 
of Pulteney. Walpole tossed him the guinea, and 
Pulteney, as he caught it, held it up before the 
House, exclaiming, " It is the only money 1 have re- 
ceived from the treasury for many years, and it shall 
be the last." He kept the guinea to the end of his 
life, as a memento of this occurrence, and left it to 
his children, with a paper stating how it was won, 
and adding, "This guinea I desire may be kept as 
an heir-loom. It will prove to my posterity the use 
of knowing Latin, and will encourage them in their 
learning." It is now deposited in the medal-room 
of the British Museum. 



terity with disgrace and infamy? I will not 
conceal my sentiments, that to be named in Par- 
liament as a subject of inquiry, is to me a matter 
of great concern. But I have the satisfaction, 
at the same time, to reflect, that the impression 
to be made depends upon the consistency of the 
charge and the motives of the prosecutors. 

Had the charge been reduced to specific alle- 
gations, I should have felt myself called upon for 
a specific defense. Had I served a weak or 
wicked master, and implicitly obeyed his dic- 
tates, obedience to his commands must have been 
my only justification. But as it has been my 
good fortune to serve a master who wants no 
bad ministers, and would have hearkened to 
none, my defense must rest on my own conduct. 
The consciousness of innocence is also a suffi- 
cient support against my present prosecutors. 
A further justification is derived from a consid- 
eration of the views and abilities of the prosecu- 
tors. Had I been guilty of great enormities, 
they want neither zeal and inclination to bring 
them forward, nor ability to place them in the 
most prominent point of view. But as I am con- 
scious of no crime, my own experience convinces 
me that none can be justly imputed. 

I must therefore ask the gentlemen. From 
whence does this attack proceed? From the 
passions and prejudices of the parties combined 



1741.] 



ADDRESSING THE KING FOR HIS REMOVAL. 



37 



afrainst me, who maj'- be divided into three class- 
es, the Boys, the riper Patriots, and the Tories.^ 
The Tories I can easily forgive. They have un- 
willingly come into the measure ; and they do 
me honor in thinking it necessary to remove me, 
as their only obstacle. What, then, is the infer- 
ence to be drawn from these premises ? That 
demerit with my opponents ought to be consid- 
ered as merit with others. But my great and 
principal crime is my long continuance in oflice ; 
jor, in other words, the long exclusion of those 
Who now complain against me. This is the hei- 
nous offense which exceeds all others. I keep 
from them the possession of that power, those 
honors, and those emoluments, to which they so 
ardently and pertinaciously aspire. I will not 
attempt to deny the reasonableness and necessity 
of a party war ; but in carrying on that war, all 
principles and rules of justice should not be de- 
parted from. The Tories must confess that the 
most obnoxious persons have felt few instances 
of extra-judicial power. Wherever they have 
been arraigned, a plain charge has been exhib- 
ited against them. They have had an impartial 
trial, and have been permitted to make their de- 
fense. And will they, who have experienced 
this fair and equitable mode of proceeding, act 
in direct opposition to every principle of justice, 
and establish this fatal precedent of parliament- 
ary inquisition? Whom would they conciliate 
by a conduct so contrary to principle and pre- 
cedent ? 

Can it be fitting in them [the Tories], who 
have divided the public opinion of the nation, to 
share it with those who now appear as their 
competitors ? With the men of yesterday, the 
bo3^s in politics, who would be absolutely con- 
temptible did not their audacity render them de- 
testable ? With the mock patriots, whose prac- 
tice and professions prove their selfishness and 
malignity ; who threatened to pursue me to de- 
struction, and who have never for a moment lost 
sight of their object? These men, under the 
name of Separatists, presume to call themselves 
exclusively the nation and the people^ and under 
that character assume all power. In their es- 
timation, the King, Lords, and Commons are a 
faction, and they are the government. Upon 
these principles they threaten the destruction of 
all authority, and think they have a right to 
judge, direct, and resist all legal magistrates. 
They withdraw from Parliament because they 
succeed in nothing ; and then attribute their want 
of success, not to its true cause, their own want 
of integrity and importance, but to the efl"ect of 
places, pensions, and corruption.'^ May it not 



1 By the Boys he means Pitt, Lyttleton, &c., who 
were recently from collegerwith an ardent love of 
liberty, and much under the influence of Pulteney 
and others of more matui-e age, who were the "riper 
Patriots." 

2 This refers to a secession from the House head- 
ed by Wyndham, after the debate on the Spanish 
convention iu 1739. It placed those who withdrew 
in a very awkward and even ridiculous position, 
from which they were glad to escape with consist- 



be asked on this point. Are the people on the 
court side more united than on the other ? Are 
not the Tories, Jacobites, and Patriots equally 
determined ? What makes this strict union ? 
What cements this heterogeneous mass ? Party 
engagements and personal attachments. How- 
ever different their views and principles, they all 
agree in opposition. The Jacobites distress the 
government they would subvert ; the Tories con- 
tend for party prevalence and power. The Pa- 
triots, from discontent and disappointment, would 
change the ministry, that themselves may ex- 
clusively succeed. They have labored this point 
twenty years unsuccessfully. They are impa- 
tient of longer delay. They clamor for change 
of measures, but mean only change of ministers. 
In party contests, why should not both sides 
be equally steady ? Does not a Whig adminis- 
ti-ation as well deserve the support of the Whigs 
as the contrary ? Why is not principle the ce- 
ment in one as well as the other ; especially 
when my opponents confess that all is leveled 
against one man ? Why this one man ? Be- 
cause they think, vainly, nobody else could with- 
stand them. All others are treated as tools and 
vassals. The one is the corrupter ; the num- 
bers corrupted. But whence this cry of corrup- 
tion, and exclusive claim of honorable distinc- 
tion ? Compare the estates, characters, and for- 
tunes of the Commons on one side with those on 
the other. Let the matter be fairly investigated. 
Survey and examine the individuals who usually 
support the measures of government, and those 
who are in opposition. Let us see to whose side 
the balance preponderates. Look round both 
Houses, and see to which side the balance of vir- 
tue and talents preponderates ! Are all these 
on one side, and not on the other ? Or are all 
these to be counterbalanced by an affected claim 
to the exclusive title of patriotism ? Gentlemen 
have talked a great deal of patriotism. A ven- 
erable word, when duly practiced. But I am 
sorry to say that of late it has been so much 
hackneyed about, that it is in danger of falling 
into disgrace. The very idea of true patriotism 
is lost, and the term has been prostituted to the 
very worst of purposes. A patriot, sir ! Why, 
patriots spring up like mushrooms ! I could 
raise fifty of them within the four-and -twenty 
hours. I have raised many of them in one night. 
It is but refusing to gratify an unreasonable or 
an insolent demand, and up starts a patriot. I 
have never been afraid of making patriots ; but 
I disdain and despise all their efforts. This pre- 
tended virtue proceeds from personal malice and 
disappointed ambition. There is not a man 
among them whose particular aim I am not able 
to ascertain, and from what motive they have 
entered into the lists of opposition. 

I shall now consider the articles of accusation 
which they have brought against me, and which 
they have not thought fit to reduce to specific 
chtirges ; and I shall consider these in the same 



ency some months after, when war was declared 
I against Spain. 



38 



SIR ROBERT WALPOLE ON 



[1741. 



order as that in which they were placed by the 
honorable member who made the motion. First, 
in regard to foreign affairs ; secondly, to domestic 
affairs ; and, thirdly, to the conduct of the war. 

I. As to foreign affairs, I must take notice of 
the uncandid manner in which the gentlemen on 
the other side have managed the question, by 
blending numerous treaties and complicated ne- 
gotiations into one general mass. 

To form a fair and candid judgment of the 
subject, it becomes necessary not to consider the 
treaties merely insulated ; but to advert to the 
time in which they were made, to the circum- 
stances and situation of Europe when they were 
made, to the peculiar situation in which I stand, 
and to the power which I possessed. I am call- 
ed repeatedly and insidiously prime and sole min- 
ister. Admitting, however, for the sake of ar- 
gument, that I am prime and sole minister in 
this country, am I, therefore, prime and sole 
minister of all Europe ? Am I answerable for 
the conduct of other countries as well as for that 
of my own ? Many woi'ds are not wanting to 
show, that the particular view of each court oc- 
casioned the dangers which affected the public 
tranquillity ; yet the whole is charged to my ac- 
count. Nor is this sufficient. Whatever was 
the conduct of England, I am equally arraigned. 
If we maintained ourselves in peace, and took 
no share in foreign transactions, we are reproach- 
ed for tameness and pusillanimity. If, on the 
contrary, we interfered in these disputes, we are 
called Don Quixotes, and dupes to all the world. 
If we contracted guarantees, it was asked why 
is the nation wantonly burdened ? If guarantees 
were declined, we were reproached with having 
no allies. 

I have, however, sir, this advantage, that all 
the objections now alleged against the conduct 
of the administration to which I have the honor 
to belong, have already been answered to the 
satisfaction of a majority of both houses of Par- 
liament, and I believe to the satisfaction of a 
majority of the better sort of people in the na- 
tion. I need, therefore, only repeat a few of these 
answers that have been made already, which I 
shall do in the order of time in which the sev- 
eral transactions happened ; and consequently 
must begin with our refusing to accept of the 
sole mediation offered us by Spain, on the breach 
between that court and the court of France, oc- 
casioned by the dismission of the Infanta of 
Spain.^ 

3 The Infanta of Spain was betrothed to Louis 
XV., king of France, when four years old, and was 
sent to Paris to be educated there. At the end of 
two years, Louis broke off the engagement and sent 
her back to Madrid. This indignity awakened the 
keenest resentment at the Spanish court, which 
sought to involve England in the quairel by offering 
to make her sole mediator in respect to existing 
differences between Spain and the Emperor of Ger- 
many, thus throwing Spain entirely into the hands 
of England. The English government, for the i«ea- 
sons here assigned by Walpole, wisely rejected the 
mediation, and this was now imputed to him as a 
crime. 



I hope it will not be said we had any reason 
to quarrel with France upon that account ; and 
therefore, if our accepting of that mediation 
might have produced a rupture with France, it 
was not our duty to interfere unless we had 
something veiy beneficial to expect from the ac- 
ceptance. A reconciliation between the courts 
of Vienna and Madrid, it is true, was desirable 
to all Europe as well as to us, provided it had 
been brought about without any design to dis- 
turb our tranquillity or the tranquillity of Europe. 
But both parties were then so high in their de- 
mands that we could hope for no success ; and 
if the negotiation had ended without effect, we 
might have expected the common fate of arbi- 
trators, the disobliging of both. Therefore, as 
it was our interest to keep well with both, I 
must still think it was the most prudent part W6 
could act to refuse the offered mediation. 

The next step of our foreign conduct, exposed 
to reprehension, is the treaty of Hanover."* Sir 
if I were to give the true history of that treaty, 
which no gentleman can desire I should, I am 
sure I could fully justify my own conduct. But 
as I do not desire to justify my own without jus- 
tifying his late Majesty's conduct, I must ob- 
serve that his late Majesty had such information 
as convinced not only him, but those of his coun- 
cil, both at home and abroad, that some danger- 
ous designs had been formed between the Em- 
peror and Spain at the time of their concluding 
the treaty at Vienna, in May, 1725; designs, 
sir, which were dangerous not only to the liber- 
ties of this nation, but to the liberties of Europe. 
They were not only to wrest Gibraltar and Port 
Mahon from this nation, and force the Pretender 
upon us ; but they were to have Don Carlos mar- 
ried to the Emperor's eldest daughter, who 
would thereby have had a probability of uniting 
in his person, or in the person of some of his suc- 
cessors, the crowns of France and Spain, with 
the imperial dignity and the Austrian dominions. 
It was therefore highly reasonable, both in France 
and us, to take the alai'm at such designs, and 
to think betimes of preventing their being car- 
ried into execution. But with regard to us, it 
was more particularly our business to take the 
alarm, because we were to have been immedi- 
ately attacked. I shall grant, sir, it would have 
been ver}'- difficult, if not impossible, for Spain 



-f, iAA^'-^^ t4<> ^ i/W-^' 



* Spain now turned her resentment against En- 
gland, and settled her differences with the Emperor 
of Germany on terms so favorable to the latter, as 
to awaken suspicions (which were confirmed by se- 
cret intelligence) that some hidden compact had 
been made, for conjointly attacking the dominions of 
England. To counteract this, England, in 1725, 
united with France, Prussia, Denmark, and Holland, 
in an opposing league, by a compact called the 
treaty of Hanover, from the place where it was 
made. The evidence of these facts could not then 
be brought forward to defend the ministry ; and 
hence the treaty of Hanover, and the consequent 
expenditures on the Continent, were extremely un- 
popular in England. But subsequent disclosures 
have made it nearly or quite certain, that every 
thing here alleged by Walpole was strictly true. 



i 



1741.] 



ADDRESSING THE KING FOR HIS REMOVAL. 



39 



and the Emperor joined together, to have invaded 
or made themselves masters of any of the Brit- 
ish dominions. But will it be said they might 
not have invaded the King's dominions in Ger- 
many, in order to force him to a compliance with 
what they desired of him as King of Great Brit- 
ain ■? And if those dominions had been invaded 
, on account of a quarrel with this nation, should 
i we not have been obliged, both in honor and in- 
■ terest, to defend them ? When we were thus 
threatened, it was therefore absolutely necessary 
for us to make an alliance with France ; and 
that we might not trust too much to their assist- 
ance, it was likewise necessary to form allian- 
ces with the northern powers, and with some of 
the princes in Germany, which we never did, 
nor ever could do, without granting them imme- 
diate subsidies. These measures were, there- 
fore, I still think, not only prudent, but necessa- 
ry ; and by these measures we made it much 
more dangerous for the Emperor and Spain to 
attack us, than it would otherwise have been. 

But still, sir, though by these alliances we put 
ourselves upon an equal footing with our ene- 
mies in case of an attack, yet, in order to pre- 
serve the tranquillity of Europe as well as our 
own, there was something else to be done. We 
knew that war could not be begun and carried 
on without money ; we knew that the Emperor 
had no money for that purpose vi'ithout receiving 
large remittances from Spain ; and we knew that 
Spain could make no such remittances without 
receiving large returns of ti'casure from the West 
Indies. The only way, therefore, to render these 
two powers incapable of disturbing the tranquil- 
lity of Europe, was by sending a squadron to the 
W^est Indies to stop the return of the Spanish 
galleons ; and this made it necessar}'^, at the 
same time, to send a squadron to the Mediter- 
ranean for the security of our valuable posses- 
sions in that part of the world. By these meas- 
ures the Emperor saw the impossibility of at- 
tacking us in any part of the world, because 
Spain could give him no assistance either in 
money or ti-oops ; and the attack made by the 
Spaniards upon Gibraltar was so feeble, that we 
had no occasion to call upon our allies for assist- 
ance. A small squadron of our own prevented 
their attacking it by sea, and from their attack 
by land we had nothing to fear. They might 
have knocked their brains out against inaccessi- 
ble rocks to this very day, without bringing that 
'.fortress into any danger. 

I do not pretend, sir, to be a great master of 
foreign affairs. In that post in which I have the 
honor to serve his Majesty, it is not ray business 
to interfere ; and as one of his Majesty's council, 
I have but one voice. But if I had been the 
sole adviser of the treaty of Hanover, and of all 
the measures which were taken in pursuance of 
it, from what I have said I hope it will appear 
that 1 do not deserve to be censured either as a 
weak or a wicked minister on that account. 

The next measures which incurred censure 
were the guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction 
by the second treaty of Vienna, and the refusal 



of the cabinet to assist the house of Austria, in 
conformity with the articles of that guarantee.^ 

As to the guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanc- 
tion, I am really surprised to find that measure 
objected to. It was so universally approved of, 
both within doors and without, that till this very 
day I think no fault was ever found with it, un- 
less it was that of being too long delayed. If 
it was so necessary for supporting the balance 
of power in Europe, as has been insisted on in 
this debate, to preserve entire the dominions of 
the house of Austria, surely it was not our busi- 
ness to insist upon a partition of them in favor 
of any of the princes of the empire. But if we 
had, could we have expected that the house of 
Austria would have agreed to any such partition, 
even for the acquisition of our guarantee ? The 
King of Prussia had, it is true, a claim upon 
some lordships in Silesia; but that claim was 
absolutely denied by the coui't of Vienna, and 
was not at that time so much insisted on by the 
late King of Prussia. Nay, if he had lived till 
this time, I believe it would not now have been 
insisted on ; for he acceded to that guarantee 
without any reservation of that claim ; therefore 
I must look upon this as an objection which has 
since arisen from an accident that could not then 
be foreseen or provided against. 

I must therefore think, sii-, that our guarantee 
of the Pragmatic Sanction, or our manner of do- 
ing it, can not now be objected to, nor any per- 
son censured by Parliament for advising that 
measure. In regard to the refusal of the cab- 
inet to assist the house of Austria, though it was 
prudent and right in us to enter into that guar- 
antee, we were not therefoi-e obliged to enter 
into every broil the house of Austria might after- 
ward lead themselves into. And therefore, we 
were not in honor obliged to take any share in 
the war which the Emperor brought upon him- 
self in the year 1733 ; nor were we in interest 
obliged to take a share in that war as long as 
neither side attempted to push their conquests 
farther than was consistent with the balance of 
power in Europe, which was a case that did not 
happen. For the power of the house of Aus- 
tria was not diminished by the event of that war, 
because they got Tuscany, Parma, and Placen- 
tia in lieu of Naples and Sicily ; nor was the 
power of France much increased, because Lor- 

5 Charles VI., emperor of Germany, having no 
male issue, made an instrument called a Pragmatic 
Sanction, by v^'hich all his hereditary estates were 
to devolve on his female descendants. To give this 
instrument greater force, he induced nearly all the 
powers of Europe (and England among the rest, for 
reasons assigned by Walpole) to unite in a guar- 
antee for carrying it into effect. But this, although 
designed to secure Austria against a partition be- 
tween various claimants, in case of his death, was 
certainly not intended to pledge England or any 
other power to interfere in all the quarrels in which 
the Emperor might engage. When he became in- 
volved in war with France, therefore, in 1733, by 
supporting Augustus for the vacant throne of Po- 
land, against the remonsti-ances of Walpole, the lat- 
ter was under no obligation to afford him aid. 



/ 



40 



SIR ROBERT WALPOLE ON 



[1741. 



raine was a province she had taken and kept 
possession of during every war in which she had 
been engaged. 

As to the disputes with Spain, they had not 
then reached such a height as to make it neces- 
sary for us to come to an open rupture. We had 
then reason to hope, that all differences would 
be accommodated in an amicable manner ; and 
while we have any such hopes, it can never be 
prudent for us to engage ourselves in war, espe- 
cially with Spain, where we have always had a 
very beneficial commerce. These hopes, it is 
true, sir, at last proved abortive ; but I never 
heard it was a crime to hope for the best. This 
sort of hope was the cause of the late Conven- 
tion. If Spain had performed her part of that 
preliminary treat}', I am sure it would not have 
been wrong in us to have hoped for a friendly 
accommodation ; and for that end to have waited 
nine or ten months longer, in which time the 
plenipotentiaries were, by the treaty, to have 
adjusted all the differences subsisting between 
the two nations. But the failure of Spain in 
performing what had been agreed to by this 
preliminary, put an end to all our hopes, and 
then, and not till then, it became pi'udent to en- 
ter into hostilities, which were commenced as 
soon as possible after the expiration of the term 
limited for the payment of the c£95,000.^ 

Strong and virulent censures have been cast 
on me for having commenced the war without a 
single ally ; and this deficiency has been ascrib- 
ed to the multifarious treaties in which I have 
bewildered myself. But although the authors 
of this imputation are well apprised, that all 
these treaties have been submitted to and ap- 
proved by Parliament, yet they are now brought 
forward as crimes, without appealing to the judg- 
ment of Parliament, and without proving or de- 
claring that all or any of Jiem were advised by 
me. A supposed sole minister is to be condemn- 
ed and punished as the author of all ; and what 
adds to the enormity is, that an attempt was 
made to convict him uncharged and unheard, 
without taking into consideration the most ar- 
duous -crisis which ever occurred in the annals 
of Europe. Sweden corrupted by France-^; Den- 
mark tempted and wavering^^ the Landgrave of 
Hesse Cassel almost gained ; the King of Prus- 
sia, the Emperor, and the Czarina, with whom 
alliances had been negotiating, dead ; the Aus- 
trian dominions claimed by Spain and Bavaria ; 
the Elector of Saxony hesitating whether he 
should accede to the general confederacy plan- 
ned by France ; the court of Vienna irresolute 
and indecisive. In this critical juncture, if France 
enters into engagements with Prussia, and if the 
Queen of Hungary hesitates and listens to France, 
are all or any of those events to be imputed to 

^ This is the only point on which Walpole is tame 
and weak. It is exactly the point where, if he had 
acted a manly part eighteen months before, his de- 
fense would have been most triumphant. He knew 
there was no ground for a war with Spain ; and he 
ought to have held to the truth on that point, even 
at the sacrifice of his officeNi^ 



English counsels ?^ And if to English counsels^ 
why are they to be attributed to one man ? 

n. I now come, sir, to the second head, the 
conduct of domestic affairs. And here a most 
heinous charge is made, that the nation has been 
burdened with unnecessary expenses, for the sole 
purpose of preventing the discharge of our debts 
and the abolition of taxes. But this attack is 
more to the dishonor of the whole cabinet coun- 
cil than to me. If there is any ground for this 
imputation, it is a charge upon King, Lords, 
and Commons, as corrupted, or imposed upon. 
And they have no proof of these allegations, but 
affect to substantiate them by common fame and 
public notoriety ! 

No expense has been incurred but \vhat_has 
been approved of, and provided for, by Parlia- 
ment. The public treasure has been duly ap- 
plied to the uses to which it was appropriated 
by Parliament, and regular accounts have been 
annually laid before Parliament, of every article 
of expense. If by foreign accidents, by the dis- 
putes of foreign states among themselves, or by 
their designs against ns, the nation has often 
been put to an extraordinary expense, that ex- 
pense can not be said to have been unnecessary ; 
because, if by saving it we had exposed the bal- 
ance of power to danger, or ourselves to an at- 
tack, it would have cost, perhaps, a hundred 
times that sum before we could recover from 
that danger, or repel that attack. 

In all such cases there will be a variety of 
opinions. I happened to be one of those who 
thought all these expenses necessary, and I had[ 
the good fortune to have the majority of both 
houses of Parliament on my side. But this, it 
seems, proceeded from bribery and corruption. 
Sir, if any one instance had been mentioned, if 
it had been shown that I ever offered a reward 
to any member of either House, or ever threat- 
ened to deprive any member of his office or em- 
ployment, in order to influence his vote in Par- 
liament, there might have been some ground for 
this charge. But when it is so generally laid, 
I do not know what I can say to it, unless it be 
to deny it as generally and as positively as it has 



■^ This "critical juncture" was occasioned by the 
recent death of the Emperor Charles VI. Under the 
Pragmatic Sanction, his Austrian possessions fell to 
his daughter Maria Theresa, queen of Hungary; 
but were claimed in part by Spain, though chiefly 
by the Elector of Bavaria, supported by France. 
Frederick of Prussia, afterward called the Great, 
who had just succeeded his father, was fluctuating 
between France and the Q,ueen ; but off'ered to sup- 
port the latter if she vi'ould cede to him Silesia. 
Walpole, who wished to defeat the plans of France, 
advised her to yield to this demand, though unjust, 
and thus prevent a general war. Her ministers were 
weak and irresolute, and the aff*airs of Europe were 
in utter confusion. The proud spirit of the Queen 
soon decided the question. She refused the surren- 
der of Silesia, was attacked by Frederick and the 
French, and was on the brink of ruin; when she 
made, seven months after this speech was deliver- 
ed, her celebrated appeal for support to the Diet of 
Hungary', by which, in the words of Johnson, "The 
dueen, the Beauty, set the world in arms." 



ADDRESSING THE KING FOR HIS REMOVAL. 



1741.] 

been asserted. And, thank God ! till some proof 
be offered, I have the laws of the land, as well 
as the laws of charity, in my favor. 

Some members of both Houses have, it is true, 
been removed from their employments under the 
Crown ; but were they ever told, either by me, 
or by any other of his Majesty's sei-vants, that it 
was for opposing the measures of the adminis- 
tration in Parliament ? They were removed 
because his Majesty did not think fit to continue 
them longer in his service. His Majesty had a 
right so to do ; and I know no one that has a 
right to ask him, " What doest thou ?" If his 
Majesty had a mind that the favors of the Crown 
should circulate, would not this of itself be a 
good reason for removing any of his servants ? 
Would not this reason be approved of by the 
whole nation, except those who happen to be 
the present possessors ? I can not, therefore, 
see how this can be imputed as a crime, or how 
any of the King's ministers can be blamed for 
his doing what the public has no concern in ; for 
if the public be well and faithfully served, it has 
no business to ask by whom. 

As to the particular charge urged against me, 
I mean that of the army debentures, I am sur- 
prised, sir, to hear any thing relating to this affair 
charged upon me. Whatever blame may at- 
tach to this affair, it must be placed to the ac- 
count of those that were in power when I was, 
as they call it, the country gentleman.^ It was 
by them this affair was introduced and conduct- 
ed, and I came in only to pay off those public 
securities, which their management had reduced 
to a great discount ; and consequently to redeem 
our public credit from that reproach which they 
had brought upon it. The discount at which 
these army debentures were negotiated, was a 
strong and prevalent reason wnth Parliament 
to apply the sinking fund first to the payment 
of those debentures ; but the sinking fund could 
not be applied to that purpose till it began to 
produce something considerable, which was not 
till the year 1727. That the sinking fund was 
then to receive a great addition, was a fact pub- 
licly known in 1726 ; and if some people were 
sufficiently quick-sighted to foresee that the Par- 
liament would probably make this use of it, and 
cunning enough to make the most of their own 
foresight, could I help it, or could they be blamed 
for doing so? But I defy my most inveterate 
enemy to pi-ove that I had any hand in bringing 
these debentures to a discount, or that I had any 
share in the profits by buying them up. 

Li reply to those who confidently assert that 
the national debt is not decreased since 1727, 
and that the sinking fund has not been applied 
to the discharge of the public burdens, I can 
with truth declare, that a part of the debt has 
been paid off; and the landed interest has been 
very much eased with respect to that most un- 
equal and grievous burden, the land tax. I say 
so, sir, because upon examination it will appear, 
that within these sixteen or seventeen years, no 



41 



8 One who held himself bound to neither party. 



less than ^£8, 000, 000 of our debt has been act- 
ually discharged, by the due application of the 
sinking fund ; and at least 667,000,000 has been 
taken from that fund, and applied to the ease of 
the land tax. For if it had not been applied to 
the current service, we must have supplied that 
service by increasing the land tax ; and as the 
sinking fund was originally designed for paying 
off our debts, and easing us of our taxes, the ap- 
plication of it in ease of the land tax, was cer- 
tainly as proper and necessary a use as could be 
made. And I little thought that giving, relief 
to landed gentlemen, would have been brought 
against me as a crime.^ 

III. I shall now advert to the third topic of 
accusation : the conduct of the war. I have al- 
ready stated in what manner, and under what 
circumstances, hostilities commenced ; and as I 
am neither general nor admiral — as I have noth- 
ing to do either with our navy or army — I am 
sure I am not answerable for the prosecution of 
it. But were I to answer for every thing, no 
fault could, I think, be found with my conduct in 
the prosecution of the war. It has from the be- 
ginning been carried on with as much vigor, and 
as great care of our trade, as was consistent 
with our safety at home, and with the circum- 
stances we were in at the beginning of the war. 
If our attacks upon the enemy were too long de- 
layed, or if they have not been so vigorous or so 
frequent as they ought to have been, those only 
are to blame who have for many years been ha- 
ranguing against standing armies ; for, without 
a sufficient number of regular troops in propor- 
tion to the numbers kept up by our neighbors, I 
am sure we can neither defend ourselves nor 
offend our enemies. On the supposed miscar- 
riages of the war, so unfairly stated, and so un- 
justly imputed to me, I could, with great ease, 
frame an incontrovertible defense. But as I 
have trespassed so long on the time of the House, 
I shall not weaken the effect of that forcible ex- 
culpation, so generously and disinterestedly ad- 
vanced by the right honorable gentleman who 
so meritoriously presides at the Admiralty. 

If my whole administration is to be scrutinized 
and arraigned, why are the most favorable parts 
to be omitted ? If facts are to be accumulated 
on one side, why not on the other ? And why 

9 HereWalpole dexterously avoids the main point 
of the difficulty. In 1717, it was provided by law 
that all the surplus income of the government should 
be converted into what was called the Sinking 
Fund, which was to be used for paying off the pub- 
lic debt. This principle was strictly adhered to 
down to 1729, when more than a million of this fund 
was used for current expenses, instead of laying 
taxes to meet them. The same thing was done in 
six other instances, under Walpole's administra- 
tion. Now it is true, as Walpole says, that by thus 
applying the fund, he lessened the land tax. Still, 
it was a perversion of the fund from its original de- 
sign ; and if the taxes had been uniformly laid for 
all current expenses, and the fund been faithfully 
applied to its original purpose, the debt (small as it 
then was) might perhaps have wholly been extin- 
guished. 



42 



SIR ROBERT WALPOLE ON ADDRESSING THE KING, ETC. 



may not I be permitted to speak in my own fa- 
vor ? Was I not called by the voice of the King 
and the nation to remedy the fatal effects of the 
South Sea project, and to support declining cred- 
it ■? Was I not placed at the head of the treas- 
ury when the revenues were in the greatest con- 
fusion ? Is credit revived, and docs it now flour- 
ish ? Is it not at an incredible height, and if so, 
to whom must that circumstance be attributed '? 
Has not tranquillity been preserved both at 
home and abroad, notwithstanding a most un- 
reasonable and violent opposition ? Has the true 
interest of the nation been pursued, or has trade 
flourished ? Have gentlemen produced one in- 
stance of this exorbitant power ; of the influence 
which I extend to all parts of the nation ; of the 
tyranny with which I oppress those who oppose, 
and the liberality with which I reward those 
who support me ? But having first invested me 
with a kind of mock dignity, and styled me a 
prime minister, they impute to me an unpardon- 
able abuse of that chimerical authority which 
they only have created and conferred. If they 
are really persuaded that the army is annually 
establi.>>hed by me, that I have the sole disposal 
of posts and honors, that I employ this power in 
the destruction of liberty and the diminution of 
commerce, let me awaken them from their de- 
lusion. Let me expose to their view" the real 
condition of the public weal. Let me show them 
that the Crown has made no enci'oachments, that 
all supplies have been granted by Parliament, 
that all questions have been debated with the 
same freedom as before the fatal period in which 
my counsels are said to have gained the ascend- 
ency ; an ascendency from which they deduce 
the loss of trade, the approach of slavery, the 
preponderance of prerogative, and the extension 
of influence. But I am far from believing that 
they feel those appi-ehensions which they so earn- 
estly labor to communicate to others ; and I 
have too high an opinion of their sagacity not to 
conclude that, even in their own judgment, they 
are complaining of grievances that they do not 
suffer, and promoting rather their private inter- 
est than that of the public. 

What is this unbounded sole power which is 
imputed to me ? How has it discovered itself, 
or how has it been proved ? 

What have been the effects of the corruption, 
ambition, and avarice wnth which I am so abund- 
antly charged ? 

Have I ever been suspected of being corrupt- 
ed ? A strange phenomenon, a corrupter him- 
self not corrupt ! Is ambition imputed to me ? 
Why then do I still continue a commoner ? I, 
who refused a white statf and a peerage. I had, 
indeed, like to have forgotten the little ornament 
about my shoulders [the garter], which gentle- 
men have so repeatedly mentioned in terms of 
sarcastic obloquy. But surely, though this may 
be regarded with envy or indignation in another 
place, it can not be supposed to raise any resent- 
ment in this House, where many may be pleased 



to see those honors which their ancestors have 
worn, restored again to the Commons. ! 

Have I given any symptoms of an avaricious 
disposition ? Have I obtained any grants fron^ 
the Crown, since I have been placed at the head 
of the treasury ? Has my conduct been differ-) 
ent from that which others in the same station^ 
would have followed ? Have I acted wi'ong in\ 
giving the place of auditor to my son, and iji 
providing for my own family ? I trust that their/ 
advancement will not be imputed to me as 4 
crime, unless it shall be proved that I placed^ 
them in offices of trust and responsibility for^ 
which they were unfit. 

But while I unequivocally deny that I am sole 
and prime minister, and that to my influence and 
direction all the measures of the government 
must be attributed, yet I will not shrink from 
the responsibility which attaches to the post I 
have the honor to hold ; and should, during the 
long period in which I have sat upon this bench, 
any one step taken by jjovernment be proved to 
be either disgraceful or disadvantageous to the 
nation, I am ready to hold myself accountable. 

To conclude, sir, though I shall always be 
proud of the honor of any trust or confidence 
from his Majesty, yet I shall always be ready to 
remove from his councils and presence when he 
thinks fit ; and therefore I should think myself 
very little concerned in the event of the present 
question, if it were not for the encroachment that 
will thereby be made upon the prerogatives of 
the Crown. But I must think that an address to 
his Majesty to remove one of his servants, with- 
out so much as alleging any particular crime 
against him, is one of the greatest encroachments 
that was ever made upon the prerogatives of the 
Crown. And therefore, for the sake of my mas- 
ter, without any regard for my own, I hope all 
those that have a due regard for our constitution, 
and for the rights and prerogatives of the Crown, 
without which our constitution can not be pre* 
served, will be against this motion. 



This speech had a great effect. The motiofi^^ 
for an address was negatived by a large majority. \ 

But the advantage thus gained was only tem- ; 
porary. A spirit of disaffection had spread 
throughout the kingdom ; and the next eled* 
tions, which took place a few months after, 
showed that the power and influence of Walpole 
were on the decline. Still he clung to office; 
with a more desperate grasp than ever. He- 
used some of the most extraordinary expedients 
ever adopted by a minister, to divide the Oppo- 
sition and retain his power. He even opened a 
negotiation with the Pretender at Rome, to ob- 
tain the support of the Jacobites. But his ef*. 
forts were in vain. He lost his majority in the\ 
House ; he was compelled to inform the King 
that he could no longer administer the govern- - 
mcnt ; he was created Earl of Orford with a 
pension of c£4000 a year, and resigned all his 
offices on the 11th of February, 1742. y 



MR. PULTENEY. 

William Pulteney, first Earl of Bath, was born in 1682. He was elected a 
member of Parliament in early life, and applied himself to the diligent study of 
the temper of the House, and the best mode of speaking in so mixed and discordant 
an assembly. He made no attempts to dazzle by any elaborate display of elo- 
quence ; for it was his maxim, that " there are few real orators who commence 
with set speeches." His powers were slowly developed. He took part in almost 
every important debate, more (at first) for his own improvement than with any 
expectation of materially changing the vote. He thus gradually rose into one of 
the most dexterous and effective speakers of the British Senate. 

His speeches, unfortunately, have been worse reported, in respect to the peculiar 
characteristics of his eloquence, than those of any of his contemporaries. The fol- 
lowing one, however, though shorter than might be wished, is undoubtedly a fair 
specimen of the bold, direct, and confident, though not overbearing manner, in which 
he ordinarily addressed himself to the judgment and feelings of the House. The 
language is uncommonly easy, pointed, and vigorous. The sentences flow lightly 
off in a clear and varied sequence, without the slightest appearance of stateliness 
or mannerism. It is the exact style for that conversational mode of discussion 
which is best adapted to the purposes of debate. 

Walpole, when displaced by the exertions of Pulteney in 1742, had the satisfaction 
of dragging down his adversary along with him. He saAV that the Opposition must 
go to pieces the moment they were left to themselves ; that a new administration 
could never be framed out of such discordant materials ; and that whoever should 
undertake it would be ruined in the attempt. He therefore induced the King to lay 
that duty upon Pulteney. The result was just what he expected. The King insisted 
on retaining a large proportion of Walpole's friends. Comparatively few offices re- 
mained for others, and both Whigs and Tories were disappointed and enraged. Pulte- 
ney shrunk from taking office himself, under these circumstances. He professed great 
disinterestedness ; he had no desire for power ; he would merely accept a peerage, 
which all parties regarded as the reward of his perfidy. He was created Earl of Bath ; 
and the name of Patriot, as Horace Walpole tells us, became a term of derision and 
contempt throughout aU the kingdom. When the newly-created earls met for the 
first time in the House of Lords, Walpole walked up to Pulteney, and said to him, 
with a mixture of pleasantry and bitterness, for which he was always distinguished, 
" Here we are, my Lord, the two most insignificant fellows in England." Pulteney 
died on the 8th of June, 1764. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. PULTENEY ON A MOTION FOR REDUCING THE ARMY, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF 

COMMONS. 



Sir, — We have heard a great deal about Par- 
liamentary armies, and about an army continued 
from year to year. I have always been, sir, and 
___^always shall be, against a standing army of any 
• kind. To me it is a terrible thing, whether un- 
der that of Parliamentary or any other desio-na- 



tion. A standing army is still a standing army, 
whatever name it be called by. They are a body 
of men distinct from the body of the people ; they 
ai-e governed by different laws ; and blind obe- 
dience, and an entire submission to the orders of 
their commanding officer, is their only principle. 



44 



MR. PULTENEY ON REDUCING THE ARMY. 



[1731. 



The nations around us, sir, are ah-eady enslaved, 
and have been enslaved by these very means : 
by means of their standing armies they have ev- 
ery one lost their liberties. It is indeed impos- 
sible that the liberties of the people can be pre- 
served in any country where a numerous stand- 
ing army is kept up. Shall we, then, take any 
of our measures from the examples of our neigh- 
bors ? No, sir, on the conti-ary, from their mis- 
fortunes we ought to learn to avoid those rocks 
upon which they have split. 

It signifies nothing to tell me, that our army 
is commanded by such gentlemen as can not be 
supposed to join in any measures for enslaving 
their country. It may be so. I hope it is so ! 
I have a very good opinion of many gentlemen 
now in the army. I believe they would not join 
in any such measures. But their lives are un- 
certain, nor can we be sure how long they may 
be continued in command ; they may be all dis- 
missed in a moment, and proper tools of power 
put in their room. Besides, sir, we know the 
passions of men ; we know how dangerous it is 
to trust the best of men with too much power. 
Where was there a braver army than that under 
Julius Cesar ? Where was there ever an army 
that had served their country more faithfully ? 
That army was commanded generally by the 
best citizens of Rome — by men of great fortune 
and figure in their country ; yet that army en- 
slaved their country. The affections of the sol- 
diers toward their country, the honor and integ- 
rity of the under officers, are not to be depended 
on. By the militarj^ law, the administi'ation of 
just^ice is so quick, and the punishments so se- 
vere, that neither officer nor soldier dares offer 
to dispute the orders of his supreme commander; 
he must not consult his own inclinations. If an 
officer were commanded to pull his own father 
out of this House, he must do it ; he dares not 
disobey ; immediate death would be the sure 
consequence of the least grumbling. And if an 
officer were sent into the Court of Requests, ac- 
companied by a body of musketeers with screw- 
ed bayonets, and with orders to tell us what we 
ought to do, and how we were to vote, I know 
what would be the duty of this House ; I know 
it would be our duty to order the officer to be 
taken and hanged up at the door of the lobby. 
But, sir, I doubt much if such a spirit could be 
found in the House, or in any House of Com- 
mons that will ever be in England. 

Sir, I talk not of imaginary things. I talk of 
what has happened to an English House of Com- 
mons, and from an English army ; and not only 
from an English army, but an army that was 
raised by that very House of Commons, an army 
that was paid by them, and an army that was 
commanded by generals appointed by them. 
Therefore do not let us vainly imagine that an 
army raised and maintained by authority of Par- 
liament will always be submissive to them. If 
an army be so numerous as to have it in their 
power to overawe the Parliament, they will be 
submissive as long as the Parliament does noth- 
ing to disoblige their favorite general 5 but when 



that case happens, I am afraid that, in place of 
Parliament's dismissing the army, the army will 
dismiss the Parliament, as they have done here- 
tofore. Nor does the legality or illegality of that 
Parliament, or of that army, alter the case. For 
with respect to that ai-my, and according to their 
way of thinking, the Parliament dismissed by 
them was a legal Parliament ; they were an 
army raised and maintained according to law ; 
and at first they were raised, as they imagined, 
for the preservation of those liberties which they 
afterward destroyed. 

It has been urged, sir, that whoever is for the 
Protestant succession must be for continuing the 
army : for that very reason, sir, I am against 
continuing the army. I know that neither the 
Protestant succession in his Majesty's most illus- 
trious house, nor any succession, can ever be safe 
so long as there is a standing army in the coun- 
try. Armies, sir, have no regard to hereditary 
successions. The first two Cesars at Rome did 
pretty well, and found means to keep their armies 
in tolerable subjection, because the generals and 
officers were all their own creatures. But how 
did it fare with their successors ? Was not ev- 
ery one of them named by the army, without 
any regard to hereditary right, or to any right ? 
A cobbler, a gardener, or any man who hap- 
pened to raise himself in the army, and could 
gain their affections, was made Emperor of the 
world. Was not every succeeding Emperor 
raised to the throne, or tumbled headlong into 
the dust, according to the mere whim or mad 
phrensy of the soldiers ? 

We are told this army is desired to be contin- 
ued but for one year longer, or for a limited term 
of years. How absurd is this distinction ! Is 
there any army in the world continued for any 
term of years ? Does the most absolute mon- 
arch tell his army, that he is to continue them 
any number of years, or any number of months? 
How long have we already continued our army 
from year to year? And if it thus continues, 
wherein will it differ from the standing armies 
of those countries which have already submitted 
their necks to the )'oke ? We are now co^ne to 
the Rubicon. Our army is now to be reduced, 
or never will. From his Majesty's own mouth 
we are assured of a profound tranquillity abroad, 
and we know there is one at home. If this is 
not a proper time, if these circumstances do not 
afford us a safe opportunity for reducing at least 
a part of our I'egular forces, we never can ex- 
pect to see any reduction. This nation, already 
overburdened with debts and taxes, must be load- 
ed with the heavy charge of perpetually support- 
ing a numerous standing army ; and remain for- 
ever exposed to the danger of having its liberties 
and privileges trampled upon by any future king 
or ministry, who shall take in their head to do 
so, and shall take a proper care to model the 
army for that purpose. .-^ 



The bill for continuing the army on the same 
footing was passed by a large majority. 



LORD CHESTERFIELD. 

Philip Dormer Stanhope, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, was born in 1694. He 
was equally distinguished for his love of polite literature, the grace of his manners, 
the pungency of his wit, and the elegance of his literary productions. In later 
times he has been most known by his Letters to his Son. These, though admirable 
models of the epistolary style, are disfigured by a profligacy of sentiment which has 
cast a just odium on his character ; while the stress they lay upon mere accomplish- 
ments has created a very natural suspicion, among those who have seen him only in 
that correspondence, as to the strength and soundness of his judgment. He was un- 
questionably, however, a man of great acuteness and force of intellect. As an ora- 
tor, Horace Walpole gave him the preference over all the speakers of his day. This 
may have arisen, in part, from the peculiar dexterity with which he could play with 
a subject that he did not choose to discuss — a kind of talent which Walpole would 
be very apt to appreciate. It often happens that weak and foolish measures can he 
exposed more effectually by wit than by reasoning. In this kind of attack Lord 
Chesterfield had uncommon power. His fancy supplied him with a wide range of 
materials, which he brought forward with great ingenuity, presenting a succession 
of unexpected combinations, that flashed upon the mind with all the hveliness and 
force of the keenest wit or the most poignant satire. The speech which follows is a 
specimen of his talent for this kind of speaking. " It will be read with avidity by 
those who relish the sprightly sallies of genius, or who are emulous of a style of el- 
ojjuence which, though it may not always convince, will never fail to delight." 
^ The speech relates to a bill for granting licenses to gin-shops, by which the min- 
istry hoped to realize a very large annual income. This income they proposed to 
employ in carrj^ing on the German war of George II., which arose out of his exclu- 
sive care for his Electorate of Hanover, and was generally odious throughout Great 
Britain. Lord Chesterfield made two speeches on this subject, which are here 
given together, with the omission of a few unimportant paragraphs. It has been 
hastily inferred, from a conversation reported by Boswell, that these speeches, as 
here given, were written by Johnson. Subsequent inquiry, however, seems to prove 
that this was not the fact ; but, on the contrary, that Lord Chesterfield prepared ^ 
them for publication himself. ^' 

Lord Chesterfield filled many offices of the highest importance under the reign of 
George II. In 1728 he was appointed embassador to Holland ; and, by his adroit- 
ness and diplomatic skill, succeeded in delivering HandveFfrom the calamities of 
war which hung over it. \ As a reward for his services, he was made Knight of the 
Garter and Lord Steward of the Royal Household. At a later period he was ap- 
pointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. This difficult office he discharged with great 
dexterity and self-command, holding in check the various factions of that country 
with consummate skill. On his return to England in 1746, he was called to the 
office of Secretary of State ; but, having become wearied of public employments, he 
soon resigned, and devoted the remainder of his life to the pursuits of literature and 
the society of his friends. He now carried on the publication of a series of papers in 
imitation of the Spectator, entitled the World, in which some of the best specimens 
may be found of his fight, animated, and easy style of writing. Toward the close 
of his life he became deaf, and suffered from numerous bodily infirmities, which filled 
his latter days with gloom and despondency. He bore the most emphatic testimony 
to the folly and disappointment of the course he had led, and died in 1773, at the 
age of seventy-nine. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD CHESTERFIELD ON THE GIN ACT, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, FEBRUARY 

21, 1743. 



The bill now under our consideration appeai-s 
to me to deserve a much closer regard than 
seems to have been paid to it in the other House, 
through which it was hurried with the utmost 
precipitation, and where it passed almost with- 
out the formality of a debate. Nor can I think 
that earnestness with which some lords seem in- 
clined to press it forward here, consistent with 
the importance of the consequences which may 
with great reason be expected from it. 

To desire, my Lords, that this bill may be con- 
sidered in a committee, is only to desire that it 
may gain one step without opposition ; that it 
may proceed through the forms of the House by 
stealth, and that the consideration of it may be 
delayed, till the exigences of the government 
shall be so great as not to allow time for raising 
the supplies by any other method. 

By this artifice, gross as it is, the patrons of 
this wonderful bill hope to obstruct a plain and 
open detection of its tendency. They hope, my 
Lords, that the bill shall operate in the same 
manner with the liquor which it is intended to 
bring into more general use ; and that, as those 
who drink spirits are drunk before they are well 
aware that they are drinking, the effects of this 
law shall be perceived before we know that we 
have made it. (Their intent is, to give us a 
dram of policy, which is to be swallowed before 
it is tasted, and which, when once it is swallow- 
ed, will turn our heads. 

But, my Lords, I hope we shall be so cautious 
as to examine the draught which these state em- 
pirics have thought proper to offer us ; and I am 
confident that a very little examination will con- 
vince us of the pernicious qualities of their new 
preparation, and show that it can have no other 
effect than that of poisoning the public. 

The law before us, my Lords, seems to be 
the effect of that practice of which it is intended 
likewise to be the cause, and to be dictated by 
the liquor of which it so effectually promotes 
the use ; for surely it never before was conceiv- 
ed, by any man intrusted with the administra- 
tion of public affairs, to raise taxes by the de- 
struction of the people.. 

Nothing, my Lords, but the destruction of all 
the most laborious and useful part of the nation 
can be expected from the license which is now 
proposed to be given, not only to drunkenness, 
but to drunkenness of the most detestable and 
dangerous kind ; to the abuse not only of intox- 
icating, but of poisonous liquors. 

Nothing, my Lords, is more absurd than to 
assert that the use of spirits will be hindered 
by the bill now before us, or indeed that it will 



not be in a very great degree promoted by it. 
For what produces all kind of wickedness but 
the prospect of impunity on one pai't, or the so- 
licitation of opportunity on the other? Either 
of these have too frequently been sufficient to 
overpower the sense of morality, and even of 
religion ; and what is not to be feared from them, 
when they shall unite their force, and operate 
together, when temptations shall be increased, 
and terror taken away ? 

It is allowed, by those who have hitherto dis- 
puted on either side of this question, that the 
people appear obstinately enamored of this new 
liquor. It is allowed on both parts that this 
liquor corrupts the mind and enervates the body, 
and destroys vigor and virtue, at the same time 
that it makes those who drink it too idle and fee- 
ble for work ; and, while it impoverishes them 
by the present expense, disables them from re- 
trieving its ill consequences by subsequent Indus- 

It might be imagined, my Lords, that those 
who had thus far agreed would not easily find 
any occasions of dispute. Nor would any man, 
unacquainted with the motives by which parlia- 
mentary debates are too often influenced, sus- 
pect that after the pernicious qualities of this 
liquor, and the general inclination among the 
people to the immoderate use of it, had been 
thus fully admitted, it could be afterward in- 
quired whether it ought to be made more com- 
mon ; whether this universal thirst for poison 
ought to be encouraged by the Legislature, and 
whether a new statut-. ought to be made, to se- 
cure drunkards in the gratification of their appe- 
'tps. 

■;*To pretend, my Lords, that the design of this 
bill is to prevent or diminish the use of spirits, is 
to trample upon common sense, and to violate 
the rules of decency as well as of reason. (JFor 
when did any man hear that a commodity was 
prohibited by licensing its sale, or that to offer 
and refuse is the same action? 

It is indeed pleaded that it will be made \^ 
dearer by the tax which is proposed, and that 
the increase of the price will diminish the num- 
ber of the purchasers ; but it is at the same time 
expected that this tax shall supply the expense 
of a war on the Continent. It is asserted, there- 
fore, that the consumption of spirits will be hin- 
dered ; and yet that it will be such as may be ex- 
pected to furnish, from a very small tax, a rev- 
enue sufficient for the support of armies, for the 
re-establishment of the Austrian family, and the 
repressing of the attempts of Finance. 

Surely, my Lords, these expectations are not 

y 



^ 



1743] 



LORD CHESTERFIELD AGAINST LICENSING GIN-SHOPS. 



47 



very consistent ; nor can it be imagined tiiat they 
are both formed in the same head, though they 
may be expressed by the same mouth. It is, 
however, some recommendation of a statesman, 
when, of his assertions, one can be found reason- 
able or true ; and in this, praise can not be de- 
nied to our present ministers. For though it is 
undoubtedly false that this tax will lessen the 
consumption of spirits, it is certainly true that 
it will produce a very large revenue — a revenue 
that will not fail but with the people from whose 
debaucheries it arises. 

( Our ninisters will therefore have the same 
hoiior with their predecessors, of having given 
rise to a new fund ; not indeed for the payment 
of our debts, but for much moi-e valuable pur- 
poses ; for the cheering of our hearts under op- 
pression, and for the ready support of those debts 
which we have lost all hopes of paying. They 
are resolved, my Lords, that the nation which no 
endeavors can make wise, shall, while they are at 
its head, at least be very merry ; and, since pub- 
lic happiness is the end of government, they seem 
to imagine that the}'^ shall deserve applause by 
an expedient which will enable every man to lay 
his cares asleep, to drown sorrow, and lose in 
the delights of drunkenness both the public mis- 
eries and his own. 

Luxury, my Lords, is to be taxed, but vice 
prohibited, let the difficulties in executing the 
law be what they will. Would you lay a tax on 
the breach of the ten commandments ? Would 
not such a tax be wicked and scandalous ; be- 
cause it would imply an indulgence to all those 
who could pay the tax ? Is not this a repi'oach 
most justly thrown by Protestants upon the Church 
of Rome ? Was it not the chief cause of the Ref- 
ormation? And will you follow a precedent 
which brought reproach and ruin upon those that 
introduced it ? This is the very case now before 
us. You are going to lay a tax, and consequent- 
ly to indulge a sort of drunkenness, which almost 
necessarily produces a breach of every one of the 
ten commandments ? Can you expect the rev- 
erend bench will approve of this ? I am con- 
vinced they will not ; and therefore I wish I had 
seen it full upon this occasion. I am sure I have 
seen it much fuller upon other occasions, in which 
religion had no such deep concern. 

We have already, my Lords, several sorts of 
funds in this nation, so many that a man must 
have a good deal of leai'ning to be master of them. 
Thanks to his Majesty, we have now among us 
the most learned man of the nation in this way. 
I wish he would rise up and tell us what name 
we are to give this new fund. We have already 
the Civil List Fund, the Sinking Fund, the Aggre- 
gate Fund, the South Sea Fund, and God knows 
how many others. What name we are to give 
, this new fund I know not, unless we are to call 
Ut the Drinking Fund. It may perhaps enable 
the people of a certain foreign territory [Hano- 
ver] to drink claret, but it will disable the peo- 
ple of this kingdom from drinking any thing else 
but gin ; for when a man has, by gin drinking-, 
rendered himself unfit for labor or business, he 



can purchase nothing else; and then the best 
thing he can do is to drink on till he dies. _..J^ 
'' ^Surely, my Lords, men of such unbounded be-/^ 
nevolence as our present ministers deserve such \ 
honors as were never paid before : they deserve * 
to bestride a butt upon every sign-post in the 
city, or to have their figures exhibited as token.s 
where this liquor is to be sold by the license 
which they have procured. They must be at 
least remembered to future ages as the "happy 
politicians" who, after all expedients for raising 
taxes had been employed, discovered a new meth- 
od of draining the last \-elics of the public wealth, 
and added a new revenue to the government. 
Nor will those who shall hereafter enumerate 
the sevei-al funds now established among us. for- 
get, among the benefactors to their country, the 
illustrious authors of the Drinking Fund. 

May I be allowed, my Lords, to congratulate 
my countrymen and fellow-subjects upon the 
happy times which are now approaching, in 
which no man will be disqualified from the priv- 
ilege of being drunk ; when all discontent and 
disloyalty shall be forgotten, and the people, 
though now considered by the ministry as ene- 
mies, shall acknowledge the leniency of that 
government under which all restraints are taken 
aw^ay ? 

But, to a bill for such desirable purposes, it 
would be proper, my Lords, to prefix a pream- 
ble, in w^ich the kindness of our intentions 
should be more fully explained, that the nation 
may not mistake our indulgence for cruelty, nor 
consider their benefactors as their persecutors. 
If, therefore, this bill be considered and amend- 
ed (for why else should it be considered ?) in a 
committee, I shall humbly propose that it shall 
be introduced in this manner : " Whereas, the , 
designs of the present ministiy, whatever th^y ' 
are, can not be executed without a great nunL' 
ber of mercenaries, which mercenaries can noft 
be hired without money ; and whei'eas the pres-'^ 
ent disposition of this nation to drunkenness in- ; 
clines us to believe that they will pay more \ 
cheerfully for the undisturbed enjoyment of dis- | 
tilled liquors than for any other concession thatj 
can be made by the government ; be it enacted, [ 
by the King's most excellent Majesty, that noj 
man shall hereafter be denied the right of being:' 
drunk on the following conditions." ' 

This, my Lords, to trifle no longer, is the 
proper preamble to this bill, which contains only 
the conditions on which the people of this king- 
dom ai'e to be allowed henceforward to riot in 
debauchery, in debauchery licensed by law and 
countenanced by the magistrates. For there is 
no doubt but those on whom the inventors of 
this tax shall confer authority, will be directed 
to assist their masters in their design to encour- 
age the consumption of that liquor from which 
such large revenues are expected, and to multi- 
ply without end those licenses w^hich are to pay 
a yearly tribute to the Crown. 

B}^ this unbounded license, my Loi-ds, that 
price will be lessened, from the incrca.se of 
which the exDcctations of the efficacy of this 



48 



LORD CHESTERFIELD AGAINST 



[1743. 



law are pretended ; for the number of retailers 
will lessen the value, as in all other cases, and 
lessen it more than this tax will increase it. 
Besides, it is to be considered, that at present 
the retailer expects to be paid for the danger 
which he incurs by an unlawful trade, and will 
not trust his reputation or his purse to the mer- 
cy of his customer without a profit proportioned 
to the hazard ; but, when once the restraint shall 
be taken away, he will sell for common gain, 
and it can hardly be imagined that, at present, 
he subjects himself to informations and penalties 

(for less than sixpence a gallon. 

The specious pretense on which this bill is 
founded, and, indeed, the only pretense that de- 
serves to be termed specious, is the propriety of 

(taxing vice ; but this maxim of government has, 
on this occasion, been either mistaken or pei'- 
verted. Vice, my Lords, is not properly to be 
taxed, but suppressed ; and heavy taxes are 
sometimes the only means by which that sup- 
pression can be attained. Luxury, my Lords, 
or the excess of that which is pernicious only by 
its excess, may very properly be taxed, that such 
excess, though not strictly unlawful, may be 
made more difficult. But the use of those things 
which are simply hurtful, hurtful in their own 
nature, and in every degree, is to be prohibited. 
None, my Lords, ever heard, in any nation, of a 
tax upon theft or adultery, because a tax im- 
plies a license granted for the use of that which 
is taxed to all who shall be willing to pay it. 
^ ^ # # # 

During the course of this long debate, I have 
endeavored to recapitulate and digest the argu- 
ments which have been advanced, and have con- 
sidered them both separately and conjointly ; 
but find myself at the same distance from con- 
viction as when I first entered the House. 

In vindication of this bill, my Lords, we have 
been told that the present law is ineffectual ; 
that our manufacture is not to be destroyed, or 
not this year; that the security offered by the 
present bill has induced great numbers to sub- 
scribe to the new fund ; that it has been ap- 
proved by the Commons ; and that, if it be 
found ineffectual, it may be amended another 



J^ All these arguments, my Lords, I shall en- 

^ deavor to examine, because I am always desir- 

\ t^ ous of gratifying those great men to whom the 

administration of affairs is intrusted, and have 

always very cautiously avoided the odium of dis- 

A aflTection, which they will undoubtedly throw, in 

imitation of their predecessors, upon all those 

whose wayward consciences shall oblige them 

to hinder the execution of their schemes. 

AVith a very strong desire, therefore, though 
with no great hopes, of finding them in the right, 
I venture to begin my inquiry, and engage in 
the examination of their first assertion, that the 
present law against the abuse of strong liquors 
is without effect. 

I hope, my Lords, it portends well to my in- 
quiry that the fii'st position which I have to ex- 
amine is true ; nor can I forbear to congratulate 



your Lordships upon having heard from the new 
ministry one assertion not to be contradicted. 

It is evident, my Lords, from daily observa- 
tion, and demonstrable from the papers upon the 
table, that every year, since the enacting of the 
last law, that vice has increased which it was 
intended to repress, and that no time has been 
so favorable to the retailers of spirits as that 
which has passed since they were prohibited. 

It may therefore be expected, my Lords, that 
having agreed with the ministers in their funda- 
mental proposition, I shall concur with them in 
the consequence which they draw from it ; and 
having allowed that the present law is ineffect- 
ual, should admit that another is necessary. 

"Bull my Lords, in order to discover whether 
this consequence be necessary, it must first be 
inquired why the present law is of no force. 
For, my Lords, it will be found, upon reflection, 
that there are certain degrees of corruption that 



may 



hinder the effect of the best laws. The^, 



magistrates may be vicious, and forbear to en- 
force that law by which themselves are con- 
demned; they may be indolent, and inclined rath- 
er to connive at wickedness, by which they are 
not injured themselves, than to repress it by a 
laborious exertion of their authority ; or they 
may be timorous, and, instead of awing the vi- 
cjouSj^may be awed by them. 

In any of these cases, my Lords, the law is nou 
to be condemned for its inefficacy, since it only 
fails by the defect of those who are to direct its 
operations. vThe best and most important laws 
will contribute very little to the security or hap- 
piness of a people, if no judges of integrity and 
spirit can be found among them. Even the most 
beneficial and useful bill that ministers can pos- 
sibly imagine, a bill for laying on our estates a 
tax of the fifth part of their yearly value, would 
be wholly without effect if collectors could not 
be^flbtained. 

f«(^am therefore, my Lords, yet doubtful wheth- 
• er the inefficacy of the law now subsisting nec- 
essarily obliges us to provide another ; for those 
that declared it to be useless, owned, at the 
same time, that no man endeavored to enforce 
it, so that perhaps its only defect may be that 
it will not execute itself. 

Nor, though I should allow that the law is at 
present impeded by difficulties which can not be 
broken through, but by men of more spirit and 
dignity than the ministers may be inclined to 
trust with commissions of the peace, yet it can 
only be collected that another law is necessar}'-, 
not that the law now proposed will be of any 
advantage. 

Great use has been made of the inefficacy of 
the present law to decry the proposal made by 
the noble Lord [a member of the Opposition] for 
laying a high duty upon these pernicious liquors. 
High duties have already, as we are informed, 
been tried without advantage. High duties are 
at this hour imposed upon those spirits which 
are retailed, yet we see them every day sold in 
the streets without the payment of the tax re- 
quired, and therefore it will be folly to make a 



I 



1743] 



LICENSING GIN-SHOPS. 



49 



second essay of means, which have been found, 
hvihe essay of many years, unsuccessful. 

It has been granted on all sides in this debate, 
nor was it ever denied on any other occasion, 
that the consumption of any commodity is most 
easily hindered by raising its price, and its price 
is to be raised by the imposition of a duty. This, 
my Lords, which is, I suppose, the opinion of 
every man, of whatever degree of experience or 
understanding, appears likewise to have been 
thought of by the authors of the present law ; 
and therefore they imagined that they had effect- 
ually provided against the increase of drunken- 
ness, by laying upon that liquor which should be 
retailed in small quantities, a duty which none 
of the inferior classes of drunkards would be able 
to pay. 

Thus, my Lords, they conceived that they had 
reformed the common people without infringing 
the pleasures of others ; and applauded the hap- 
py contrivance by which spirits were to be made 
dear only to the poor, while every man who 
could afford to purchase two gallons was at lib- 
erty to riot at his ease, and, over a full flowing 
bum pel', look down with contempt upon his for- 
mer companions, now ruthlessly condemned to 
disconsolate sobriety. 

But, my Lords, this intention was frustrated, 
and the project, ingenious as it was, fell to the 
ground ; for, though they had laid a tax, they 
unhappily forgot this tax would make no addi- 
tion to the price unless it was paid, and that it 
would not be paid unless some were empowered 
to collect it. 

Here, my Lords, was the difficulty : those who 
made the law were inclined to lay a tax from 
which themselves should be exempt, and there- 
fore would not charge the liquor as it issued 
from the still ; and when once it was dispersed 
in the hands of petty dealers, it was no longer 
to be found without the assistance of informers, 
and informers could not carry on the business of 
prosecution without the consent of the people. 

It is not necessary to dwell any longer upon 
the law, the repeal of which is proposed, since 
it appears already that it failed only from a par- 
tiality not easily defended, and from the omis- 
sion of what we now propose — the collecting 
the duty from the still-head. 

If this method be followed, there will be no 
longer any need of informations or of any rig- 
orous or new measures; the same officers that 
collect a smaller duty may levy a greater ; nor 
can they be easily deceived with regard to the 
quantities that are made ; the deceits, at least, 
that can be used, are in use already ; they are 
frequently detected and suppressed ; nor will a 
larger duty enable the distillers to elude the vig- 
ilance of the officers with more success. 

Against this proposal, therefore, the inefficacy 
of the present law can be no objection. But it 
is urged that such duties would destroy the trade 
of distilling ; and a noble Lord has been pleased 
to express great tenderness for a manufacture 
so beneficial and extensive. 

That a large duty, levied at the still, would 
D 



destroy, or very much impair, the trade of dis- 
tilling, is certainly supposed by those who de- 
fend it, for they proposed it only for that end : 
and what better method can they propose, when 
they are called to deliberate upon a bill for the 
prevention of the excessive use of distilled liq-J^JL* 
uors? _ ^ 

The noble Lord has been pleased kindly to in- 
form us that the trade of distilling is very exten- 
sive ; that it employs great numbers ; and that 
they have arrived at an exquisite skill, and thei'e- 
fore — note well the consequence — the trade of 
distilling is not to be discouraged. 

Once more, my Lords, allow me to wonder at 
the different conceptions of different understand- 
ings. It appears to me that since the spirits '' 
which the distillers produce are allowed to en- 
feeble the limbs and vitiate the blood, to pervert 
the heart and obscure the intellects, that the 
number of distillers should be no argument in 
their favor ; for I never heard that a law against 
theft was repealed or delayed because thieves 
were numerous. It appears to me, my Lords, 
that if so formidable a body are confederated 
against the virtue or the lives of their fellow-cit- 
izens, it is time to put an end to the havoc, and 
to interpose, while it is yet in our power to stop 
the destruction. 

So little, my lords, am I affected with the 
merit of the wonderful skill which the distillers 
are said to have attained, that it is, in my opin- 
ion, no faculty of great use to mankind to pre- 
pare palatable poison ; nor shall I ever contrib- 
ute my interest for the reprieve of a murderer, 
because he has, by long practice, obtained great 
dexterity in his trade. 

If their liquors are so delicious that the peo- 
ple are tempted to their own destruction, let us 
at length, my Lords, secure them from these 
fatal draughts, by bursting the vials that con- 
tain them. Let us crush at once these artists 
in slaughter, who have reconciled their country- 
men to sickness and to ruin, and spread over the 
pitfalls of debauchery such baits as can not be 
resisted. 

The noble Lord has, indeed, admitted that this 
bill may not be found sufficiently coercive, but 
gives us hopes that it may be improved and en- 
forced another year, and persuades us to endeav- 
or a reformation of drunkenness by degrees, and, 
above all, to beware at present of hm-ting the 
mamifacture. 

I am very far, my Lords, from thinking that 
there are, this year, any peculiar reasons for tol- 
erating murder ; nor can I conceive why the 
manufacture should be held sacred now, if it be 
to be destroyed hereafter. We are, indeed, de- 
sired to try how far this law will operate, that 
we may be more able to proceed with due re- 
gard to this valuable manufacture. 

With regard to the operation of the law, it ap- 
pears to me that it will only enrich the govern- 
ment without reforming the people ; and I be- 
lieve there are not many of a different opinion. 
If any diminution of the sale of spirits be expect- 
ed from it, it is to be considered that this dimi- 



50 



T.ORD CHESTERFIELD AGAINST 



[1743. 



omiiiea pan 

V . heajlth and vi 

•^jL^*n can not, 

•• ^"prieve is des 



nution will, or will not, be such as is desired for 
the reformation of the people. If it be sufficient, 
the manufacture is at an end, and all the reasons 
against a higher duty are of equal force against 
this ; but if it is not sufficient, we have, at least, 
omitted part of our duty, and have neglected the 
irtue of the people, 
my Lords, yet discover why a re- 
desired for this manufacture — why the 
^^^ present year is not equally propitious to the ref- 
ormation of mankind as any will be that may suc- 
ceed it. It is true we are at war with two na- 
tions, and perhaps with more ; but war may be 
better prosecuted without money than without 
men. And we but little consult the military 
glory of our country if we raise supplies for 
paying our armies by the destruction of those 
armies that we are contriving to pay. 

We have heard the necessity of reforming the 
nation by degrees urged as an argument for im- 
posing first a lighter dut}', and afterward a heav- 
ier. This complaisance for wickedness, my Lords, 
is not so defensible as that it should be battered 
by arguments in form, and therefore I shall only 
relate a reply made by Webb, the noted walker, 
upon a parallel occasion. 

tThis man, who must be remembered by many 
of your Lordships, was remarkable for vigor, 
both of mind and body, and lived wholly upon 
water for his drink, and chiefly upon vegetables 
for his other sustenance. He was one day rec- 
ommending his regimen to one of his friends who 
loved wine, and who perhaps might somewhat 
contribute to the prosperity of this spirituous 
manufacture, and urged him. with great earn- 
estness, to quit a course of luxury by which 
his health and his intellects would equally be de- 
stroyed. The gentleman appeared convinced, 
^ and told him " that he would conform to his 
counsel, and thought he could not change his 
course of life at once, but would leave off strong 
liquors by degrees." " By degrees !" says the 
other, with indignation. " If you should unhap- 
; pily fall into the fire, would you caution your 
5^ servants not to pull you out but by degrees ?" 

This answer, my Lords, is applicable to the 
present case. The nation is sunk into the low- 
est state of corruption ; the people are not only 
vicious, but insolent beyond example. They not 
only break the laws, but defy them ; and yet some 
of your Lordships are for reforming them by de- 
grees ! 

I am not so easily persuaded, my Lords, that 
our ministers really intend to supply the defects 
that may hereafter be discovered in this bill. It 
will doubtless produce money, perhaps much 
more than they appear to expect from it. I 
doubt not but the licensed retailers will be more 
than fifty thousand, and the quantity retailed 
must increase with the number of retailers. As 
the bill will, therefore, answer all the ends in- 
tended by it, I do not expect to see it altered ; 
for I have never observed ministers desirous of 
amending their own errors, unless the}' are such 
as have caused a deficiency in the revenue. 

Besides ray Lords, it is not certain that, when 



this fund is mortgaged to the public creditors, 
they can prevail upon the Commons to change 
the security. They may continue the bill in force 
for the reasons, whatever they are, for which 
they have passed it ; and the good intentions of 
our ministers, however sincere, may be defeat- 
ed, and drunkenness, legal drunkenness, estab- 
lished in the nation. 

This, my Lords, is very reasonable, and there- 
fore we ought to exert ourselves for the safety of 
the nation while the power is yet in our own 
hands, and, without regard to the opinion or pro- 
ceedings of the other House, show that we are 
yet the chief guardians of the people. 

The ready compliance of the Commons with 
the measures proposed in this bill has been men- 
tioned here, with a view, I suppose, of influenc- 
ing us, but surely by those who had forgotten 
our independence, or resigned their own. It is 
not only the right, but the duty of either House, 
to deliberate, without regard to the determina- 
tions of the other ; for how should the nation re- 
ceive any benefit from the distinct powers that 
compose the Legislature, unless the determina- 
tions are without influence upon each other ? If 
either the example or authority of the Commons 
can divert us from following our own convic- 
tions, we are no longer part of the Legislature ; 
we have given up our honors and our privileges, 
and what then is our concurrence but slavery, 
or our suffrage but an echo ? 

The only argument, therefore, that now re- 
mains, is the expediency of gratifying those, by 
whose ready subscription the exigencies our new 
statesmen have brought upon us have been sup- 
ported, and of continuing the security by which 
they have been encouraged to such liberal con- 
tributions. 

Public credit, my Lords, is indeed of very 
great importance ; but public credit can never 
be long supported without public virtue ; nor in- 
deed, if the government could mortgage the 
morals and health of the people, would it be just 
and rational to confirm the bargain. If the min- 
istry can raise money only by the destruction 
of their fellow-subjects, they ought to abandon 
those schemes for which the money is necessary ; 
for what calamity can be equal to unbounded 
wickedness ? ' 

But, my Lords, there is no necessity for a 
choice which may cost our ministers so much re- 
gret ; for the same subscriptions may be pro- 
cured by an offer of the same advantages to a 
fund of any other kind, and the sinking fund will 
easily supply any deficiency that might be sus- 
pected in another scheme. 

To confess the truth, I should feel very little 
pain from an account that the nation was for 
some time determined to be less liberal of their 
contributions ; and that money was withheld till 
it was known in what expeditions it was to be 
employed, to what princes subsidies were to be 
paid, and what advantages were to be purchased 
by it for our country. I should rejoice, my Lords, ^ 
to hear that the lottery by which the deficiencies 
of this duty are to be supplied was not filled, , ' 



1743.] 



LICENSING GIN-SHOPS. 



51 



and that the people were grown at last wise 
enough to discern the fraud and to prefer hon- 
est commerce, by which all may be gainers, to 
a game by which the greatest number must cer- 
tainly be losers. 

The lotteries, my Lords, which former minis- 
ters have proposed, have always been censured 
by those who saw their nature and their tend- 
ency. They have been considered as legal 
cheats, by which the ignorant and the rash are 
defrauded, and the subtle and avaricious often 
enriched ; they have been allowed to divert the 
people from trade, and to alienate them from 
useful industry. A man who is uneasy in his 
circumstances and idle in his disposition, collects 
the remains of his fortune and buys tickets in a 
lottery, retires from business, indulges himself in 
laziness, and waits, in some obscure place, the 
event of his adventure. Another, instead of em- 
ploying his stock in trade, rents a garret, and 
makes it his business, by false intelligence and 
chimerical alarms, to raise and sink the price of 
tickets alternately, and takes advantage of the 
lies which he has himself invented. 

Such, my Lords, is the traffic that is produced 
by this scheme of getting money ; nor were 
these inconveniences unknown to the present 
ministers in the time of their predecessors, whom 
they never ceased to pursue with the loudest 
clamors whenever the exigencies of the govern- 
ment reduced them to a lottery. 

vlf I, my Lords, might presume to recommend 
to our ministers the most probable method of 
raising a large sum for the payment of the troops 
of the Electorate, I should, instead of the tax and 
lottery now proposed, advise them to establish 
a certain number of licensed wheel-barrows, on 
which the laudable trade of thimble and button 
might be carried on for the support of the war, 
and shoe-boys might contribute to the defense of 
the house of Austria by raffling for apples. 

Having now, my Lords, examined, with the 
utmost candor, all the reasons which have been 
offered in defense of the bill, I can not conceal 
the result of my inquiry. The arguments have 
had so little eflect upon my understanding, that, 
as every man judges of others by himself, I can 
not believe that they have any influence even 
upon those that offer them, and therefore I am 
convinced that this bill must be the result of 
considerations which have been hitherto conceal- 
ed, and is intended to promote designs which are 
never to be discovered by the authors before 
their execution. 

With regard to these motives and designs, 
however artfully concealed, every Lord in this 
House is at liberty to offer his conjectures. 

When I consider, my lords, the tendency of 
this bill, I find it calculated only for the propa- 
gation of diseases, the suppression of industry, 
land the destruction of mankind. I find it the 
[most fatal engine that ever was pointed at a peo- 
Iple ; an engine by which those who are not kill- 
led will be disabled, and those who preserve their 
limbs will be deprived of their senses. 
\ This bill therefore, appears to be designed 



only to thin the ranks of mankind, and to disbur- 
den the world of the multitudes that inhabit it ; 
and is perhaps the strongest proof of political 
sagacity that our new ministers have yet exhib- 
ited. They well know, my lords, that they are 
universally detested, and that, whenever a Briton 
is destroyed, they are freed from an enemy ; they 
have therefore opened the flood-gates of gin upon- 
the nation, that, when it is less numerous, it may 
be more easily governed. 

Other ministers, my Lords, who had not at- 
tained to so great a knowledge in the art of mak- 
ing war upon their country, when they found 
their enemies clamorous and bold, used to awe 
them with prosecutions and penalties, or destroy 
them like burglars, with prisons and with gibbets. 
But every age, my Lords, produces some im- 
provement ; and every nation, however degen- 
erate, gives birth, at some happy period of time, 
to men of great and enterprising genius. It is 
our fortune to be witnesses of a new discovery 
in politics. We may congratulate ourselves 
upon being contemporaries with those men, who 
have shown that hangmen and halters are unnec- 
essary in a state ; and that ministers may escape 
the reproach of destroying their enemies by in- 
citing them to destroy themselves. 

This new method may, indeed, have upon dif- 
ferent constitutions a different operation ; it may 
destroy the lives of some and the senses of oth- 
ers ; but either of these effects will answer the 
purposes of the ministry, to whom it is indiffer- 
ent, provided the nation becomes insensible, 
whether pestilence or lunacy prevails among 
them. Either mad or dead the greatest part of 
the people must quickly be, or there is no hope 
of the continuance of the present ministry. 

For this purpose, my Lords, what could have 
been invented more efficacious than an establish- 
ment of a certain number of shops at which poi- 
son may be vended — poison so prepared as to 
please the palate, while it wastes the strength, 
and only kills by intoxication ? From the first 
instant that any of the enemies of the ministry 
shall grow clamorous and turbulent, a crafty 
hireling may lead him to the ministerial slaugh- 
ter-house, and ply him with their wonder-work- 
ing liquor till he is no longer able to speak or 
think ; and, my Lords, no man can be more 
agreeable to our ministers than he that can nei- 
ther speak nor think, except those who speak 
without thinking. 

But, my Lords, the ministers ought to reflect, 
that though all the people of the present age are 
their enemies, yet they have made no trial of the 
temper and inclinations of posterity. Our suc- 
cessors may be of opinions very different from 
ours. They may perhaps approve of wars on 
the Continent, while our plantations are insulted 
and our trade obstructed ; they may think the 
support of the house of Austria of more import- 
ance to us than our own defense ; and may per- 
haps so far differ from their fathers, as to imag- 
ine the treasures of Britain very properly era- 
ployed in supporting the troops, and increasing 
the splendor, of a foreign Electorate. 



LORD CHATHAM. 



UMi^^ ^'^'^^ 



The name of Chatham is the representative, in our language, of whatever is bold 
and commanding in eloquence. Yet his speeches are so imperfectly reported, that it 
is not so much from them as from the testimony of his contemporaries, that we have 
gained our conceptions of his transcendent powers as an orator. We measure his 
greatness, as we do the height of some inaccessible cliff, by the shadow it casts be- 
hind. Hence it will be proper to dwell more at large on the events of his political 
life ; and especially to collect the evidence which has come down to us by tradition, 
of his astonishing sway over the British Senate. 

William Pitt, first Earl of Chatham, was descended from a family of high re- 
spectability in Cornwall, and was born at London, on the 15th of November, 1708. 
At Eton, where he was placed from boyhood, he was distinguished for the quick- 
ness of his parts and for his habits of unwearied application, though liable, much of 
his time, to severe suffering from a hereditary gout. Here he acquired that love of 
the classics which he carried with him throughout life, and which operated so pow- 
erfully in forming his character as an orator. He also formed at Eton those habits 
of easy and animated conversation for which he was celebrated in after life. Cut 
off by disease from the active sports of the school, he and Lord Lyttleton, who was 
a greater invalid than himself, found their chief enjoyment during the intervals of 
study, in the lively interchange of thought. By the keenness of their wit and the 
brilliancy of their imaginations, they drew off their companions, Fox, Hanbury Will- 
iams, Fielding, and others, from the exercises of the play-ground, to gather around 
them as eager hsteners ; and gained that quickness of thought, that dexterity of reply, 
that ready self-possession under a sudden turn of argument or the sharpness of retort, 
which are indispensable to success in public debate, f Almost every great orator has 
been distinguished for his conversational powers.^ 

At the age of eighteen, Mr. Pitt was removed W the University of Oxford. Here, 
in connection with his other studies, he entered on that^evere course of rhetorical 
training^which he often referred to in after life, as forming so large a part of his early 
disciplinei He took up the practice of writing out translations from the ancient or- 
ators ana historians, on the broadest scale.) Demosthenes was his model ; and we 
are told that he rendered a large part of his orations again and again into English, 
as the best means of acquiring a forcible and expressive style. The practice was 
highly recommended by Cicero, from his own experience. It aids the young orator 
far more effectually in catching the spirit of his model, than any course of mere read- 
ing, however fervent or repeated. It is, likewise, the severest test of his command 
of language. To clothe the thoughts of another in a dress which is at once " close 
and easy" (an excellent, though quaint description of a good translation) is a task 
of extreme difficulty. As a means of acquiring copiousness of diction and an exact 
choice of words, Mr. Pitt also read and re-read the sermons of Dr. Barrow, i till he 
knew many of them by heart. With the same view, he performed a task to which, 
perhaps, no other student in oratory has ever submitted. He went Haice through 
the folio Dictionary of Bailey (the best before that of Johnson), examining each word 
attentively, dwelling on its peculiar import and modes of construction, and thus en- 
deavoring to bring the whole range of our language completely under his control. 



LORD CHATHAM. 53 

At this time, also, he began those exercises in elocution by which he is known to 
have obtained his extraordinary powers of delivery. Though gifted by nature with 
a commanding voice and person, he spared no effort to add every thing that art 
could confer for his improvement as an orator. His success was commensurate with 
his zeal. Garrick himself was not a greater actor, in that higher sense of the term 
in which Demosthenes declared action to be the first, and second, and third thing 
in oratory. The labor which he bestowed on these exercises was surprisingly great. 
Probably no man of genius since the days of Cicero, has ever submitted to an equal 
amount of drudgery. - '^i^^'U^A^ 'ir' '^ ^'^' ^^ . 

Leaving the University a little before the regular time of graduation, Mr. Pitt 
traveled on the Continent, particularly in France and Italy. During this tour, he 
enriched his mind with a great variety of historical and literary information, mak- 
ing every thing subservient, however, to the one great object of preparing for public 
life. " He thus acquired," says Lord Chesterfield, " a vast amount of premature 
and useful knowledge." On his return to England, he applied a large part of his 
slender patrimony to the purchase of a commission in the army, and became a Comet 
of the Blues. This made him dependent on Sir Robert Walpole, who was then 
Prime Minister ; but, with his characteristic boldness and disregard of consequences, 
he took his stand, about this time, in the ranks of Opposition. Walpole, by his jeal- 
ousy, had made almost every man of talents in the Whig party his personal enemy. 
His long continuance in office, against the wishes of the people, was considered a 
kind of tyranny ; and young men hke Pitt, Lyttleton, &c., who came fresh from 
college, with an ardent love of liberty inspired by the study of the classics, were 
naturally drawn to the standard of Pulteney, Carteret, and the other leading " Pat- 
riots," who declaimed so vehemently against a corrupt and oppressive government. 
The Prince of Wales, in consequence of a quarrel with his father, had now come out 
as head of the Opposition. A rival court was established at Leicester House, within 
the very precincts of St. James's Palace, which drew together such an assemblage 
of wits, scholars, and orators, as had never before met in the British empire. Jac- 
obites, Tories, and Patriots were here united. The insidious, intriguing, but highly- 
gifted Carteret ; the courtly Chesterfield ; the impetuous Argyle ; Pulteney, with a 
keenness of wit, and a familiarity with the classics which made him as brilliant in 
conversation as he was powerful in debate ; Sir John Barnard, with his strong sense 
and penetrating judgment ; Sir William Wyndham, with his dignified sentiments 
and lofty bearing ; and " the all-accomplished Bolingbroke, who conversed in lan- 
guage as elegant as that he wrote, and whose lightest table-talk, if transferred to 
paper, would, in its style and matter, have borne the test of the severest criticism" 
— these, together with the most distinguished literary men of the age, formed the 
court of Frederick, and became the intimate associates of Mr. Pitt. On a mind so 
ardent and aspiring, so well prepared to profit by mingling in such society, so gifted 
with the talent of transferring to itself the kindred excellence of other minds, the 
company of such men must have acted with extraordinary power ; and it is proba,ble 
that all his rhetorical studies had less efiect in making him the orator that he was, 
than his intimacy with the great leaders of the Opposition at the court of the Prince 
of Wales. 

Mr. Pitt became a member of Parliament in 1735. at t he age of twenty-six. For 
nearly a year he remained silent, studying the temper of the House, and waiting for 
a favorable opportunity to come forward. Such an opportunity was presented by 
the marriage of the Prince of Wales, in April, 1736. It was an event of the highest 
interest and joy to the nation ; but such was the King's animosity against his son, 
that he would not suflbr the address of congratulation to be moved, as usual, by the 
ministers of the Crown. The motion was brought forward by Mr. Pulteney ; and it 



54 LORD CHATHAM. 

shows the high estimate put upon Mr. Pitt, that, when he had not as yet opened 
his lips in ParUament, he should be selected to second the motion, in preference to 
some of the most able and experienced members of the House. His speech was 
received with the highest applause, and shows that Mr. Pitt's imposing manner 
and fine command of language gave him from the first that sort of fascination for 
his audience, which he seemed always to exert over a popular assembly. The 
speech, which will be found below, if understood literally, is only a series of elegant 
and high-sounding compliments. If, however, as seems plainly the case, there runs 
throughout it a deeper meaning ; if the glowing panegyric on " the filial virtue' of 
the Prince, and " the tender paternal delight" of the King, was intended to reflect on 
George II. for his harsh treatment of his son — and it can hardly be otherwise — we 
can not enough admire the dexterity of Mr. Pitt in so managing his subject, as to 
give his compliments all the effect of the keenest irony, while yet he left no pretense 
for taking notice of their application as improper or disrespectful. Certain it is that 
the whole speech was wormwood and gall to the King. It awakened in his mind 
a personal hatred of Mr. Pitt, which, aggravated as it was by subsequent attacks 
of a more direct nature, excluded him for years from the service of the Crown, until 
he was forced upon a reluctant monarch by the demands of the people. 

Sir Robert Walpole, as might be supposed, listened to the eloquence of his youthful 
opponent with anxiety and alarm ; and is said to have exclaimed, after hearing the 
speech, " We must, at all events, muzzle that terrible Cornet of Horse." Whether 
he attempted to bribe him by offers of promotion in the army (as was reported at 
the time), it is impossible now to say ; but finding him unalterably attached to the 
Prince and the Opposition, he struck the blow without giving him time to make an- 
other speech, and deprived him of his commission within less than eighteen days. 
Such a mode of punishing a political opponent has rarely been resorted to, under free 
governments, in the case of military and naval officers. It only rendered the Court 
more odious, while it created a general sympathy in favor of Mr. Pitt, and turned 
the attention of the public with new zest and interest to his speeches in Parliament. 
Lord Lyttleton, at the same time, addressed him in the following lines, which were 
eagerly circulated throughout the country, and set him forth as already leader of 
the Opposition. 

Long had thy virtues marked thee out for fame, 

Far, far superior to a Cornet's name ; 

This generous Walpole saw, and grieved to find 

So mean a post disgrace the human mind, • 

Tlie servile standard from the free-born hand 

He took, and bade thee lead the Patriot Band. 

As a compensation to Mr. Pitt for the loss of his commission, the Prince appoint- 
ed him Groom of the Bed-chamber at Leicester House. 

Thus, at the age of twenty-seven, Mr. Pitt was made, by the force of his genius 
and the influence of concurrent circumstances, one of the most prominent members 
of Parliament, and an object of the liveliest interest to the great body, especially the 
middling classes, of the English nation. These classes were now rising into an im- 
portance never before known. They regarded Sir Robert Walpole, sustained as he 
was in power by the will of the sovereign and the bribery of Parliament, as their 
natural enemy. Mr. Pitt shared in all their feelings. He was the exponent of their 
principles. He was, in truth, '* the Great Commoner." As to many of the meas- 
ures for which Walpole was hated by the people and opposed by Mr. Pitt, time has 
shown that he was in the right and they in the wrong. ; It has also shown, that 
nearly all the great leaders of the Opposition, the Pulteneys and the Carterets, were 
unprincipled men, who played on the generous sympathies of Pitt and Lyttleton, and 
lashed the prejudices of the nation into rage against the minister, simply to obtain 



LORD CHATHAM. 55 

his placeu* Still the struggle of the people, though in many respects a blind one, 
M^as prompted by a genuine instinct of their nature, and was prophetic of an onward 
movement in English society. It was the Commons of England demanding their 
place in the Constitution ; and happy it was that they had a leader like Mr. Pitt, 
to represent their principles and animate their exertions. To face at once the Crown 
and the Peerage demanded not only undaunted resolution, but something of that 
imperious spirit, that haughty self-assertion, which was so often complained of in the 
greatest of Enghsh orators. In him, however, it was not merely a sense of personal 
superiority, but a consciousness of the cause in which he was engaged. He ivas set 
for the defense of the 'poindar 2^cirt of the Constitution. 

In proceeding to trace briefly the course of Mr. Pitt as a statesman, we shall di- 
vide his public life into distinct periods, and consider them separately with refer- 
ence to his measures in Parliament. 

The^rs^ period consists of nearly ten years, down to the close of 1744. During 
the whole of this time, he was an active member of the Opposition, being engaged 
for nearly seven years in unwearied eflbrts to put down Sir Robert Walpole, and 
Avhen this was accomplished, in equally strenuous exertions for three years longer, 
to resist the headlong measures of his successor, Lord Carteret. This minister had 
rendered himself odious to the nation by encouraging the narrow views and sordid 
policy of the King, in respect to his Continental possessions. George II. was born 
in Hanover, and he always consulted its interests at the expense of Great Britain ; 
seeking to throw upon the national treasury the support of the Hanoverian troops 
during his wars on the Continent, and giving the Electorate, in various other ways, 
a marked preference over the rest of the empire. To these measures, and the min- 
ister who abetted them, Mr. Pitt opposed himself with all the energy of his fervid 
argumentation, and the force of his terrible invective. It was on this subject that 
he first came into collision, December 10th, 1742, with his great antagonist Murray, 
afterward Lord Mansfield. Mr. Oswald, a distinguished literary man who was pres- 
ent, thus describes the two combatants : " Murray spoke like a pleader, who could not 
divest himself of the appearance of having been employed by others. Pitt spoke like 
a gentleman — like a statesman who felt what he said, and possessed the strongest 
desire of conveying that feeling to others, for their own interest and that of their 
country. Murray gains your attention by the perspicuity of his statement and the 
elegance of his diction ; Pitt commands your attention and respect by the nobleness 
and greatness of his sentiments, the strength and energy of his expressions, and the 
certainty of his always rising to a greater elevation both of thought and sentiment. 
For, this talent he possesses, beyond any speaker I ever heard, of ncYQX falling from 
the beginning to the end of his speech, either in thought or expression. And as in 
this session he has begun to speak like a man of business as well as an orator, he 
will in all probability be, or rather is, allowed to make as great an appearance as 
ever man did in that House." 

Mr. Pitt incessantly carried on the attack upon Carteret, who, strong in the King's 
favor, was acting against the wishes of his associates in office. He exclaimed 
against him as " a sole minister, who had renounced the British nation, and seemed 
to have drunk of that potion described in poetic fictions, which made men forget 
their country." He described the King as "hemmed in by German officers, and 
one English minister without an English heart." It was probably about this time 
that he made his celebrated retort on Sir William Yonge, a man of great abilities 
but flagitious Hfe, who had interrupted him while speaking by crying out " Question ! 
Gluestion 1" Turning to the insolent intruder with a look of inexpressible disgust, 
he exclaimed, " Pardon me, Mr. Speaker, my agitation I When that gentleman calls 
for the question, I think I hear the knell of my country's ruin." Mr. Pitt soon 



56 LORD CHATHAM. 

gained a complete ascendency over the House, No man could cope with him ; 
few ventured even to oppose him ; and Carteret was given up by all as an object 
of merited reprobation. Under these circumstances, Mr. Pelham and the other col- 
leagues of the minister, opened a negotiation for a union with Mr. Pitt and the dis- 
missal of Carteret. The terms were easily arranged, and a memorial was at once 
presented to the King by Lord Hardwicke, supported by the rest of the ministry, de- 
manding the removal of the obnoxious favorite. The King refused, wavered, tem- 
porized, and at last yielded. Mr. Pelham became Prime Minister in November, 
1744, with the understanding that Mr. Pitt should be brought into office at the earli- 
est moment that the King's prejudices would permit. During the same year, the 
Duchess of Marlborough died, leaving Mr. Pitt a legacy of £10,000, "on account 
of his merit in the noble defense of the laws of England, and to prevent the ruin of 
the country," This was a seasonable relief to one who never made any account 
of money, and whose circumstances, down to this time, were extremely limited. It 
may as well here be mentioned, that about twenty years after, he received a still 
more ample testimony of the same kind from Sir "William Pynsent, who bequeathed 
him an estate of £2500 a year, together with £30,000 in ready money, 

"We now come to the second period of Mr. Pitt's political life, embracing the ten 
years of Mr. Pelham's ministry down to the year 1754. So strong was the hostility 
of the King to his old opponent, that no persuasions could induce him to receive Mr. 
Pitt into his service. On the contrary, when pressed upon the subject, he took decid- 
ed measures for getting rid of his new ministers. This led Mr. Pelham and his asso- 
ciates, Avho knew their strength, instantly to resign. The King was now powerless. 
The Earl of Bath (Pulteney), to whom he had committed the formation of a ministry, 
could get nobody to serve under him ; the retired ministers looked with derision on 
his fruitless efforts ; and some one remarked sarcastically, " that it was unsafe to 
walk the streets at night, for fear of being pressed for a cabinet counselor. ' The 
Long Administration came to an end in just forty-eight hours I The King was com- 
pelled to go back to Mr. Pelham, and to take Mr. Pitt along with him ; he stipu- 
lated, however, that the man who was thus forced upon him should not, at least 
for a time, be brought into immediate contact with his person. He could not en- 
dure the mortification of meeting with him in private. Mr, Pitt, therefore, received 
provisionally the situation of Joint Treasurer of Ireland. He noAV resigned the of- 
fice of Groom of the Chamber to the Prince of Wales, and entered heartily into the 
interests of the Pelham ministry. A contemporary represents him as "swaying 
the House of Commons, and uniting in himself the dignity of Wyndham, the wit 
of Pulteney, and the knowledge and judgment of Walpole." He was " right [con- 
ciliatory] toward the King, kind and respectful to the old corps, and resolute and 
contemptuous to the Tory Opposition." About a year after (May, 1746), on the 
death of Mr. Winnington, he was made Paymaster of the Forces, as originally 
agreed on. 

In entering upon his new office, Mr. Pitt gave a striking exhibition of disinterest- 
edness, which raised him in the public estimation to a still higher level as a man, 
than he had ever attained by his loftiest efforts as an orator. It was then the cus- 
tom, that £100,000 should constantly he as an advance in the hands of the Pay- 
master, who invested the money in public securities, and thus realized about £4000 
a year for his private benefit. This was obviously a very dangerous practice ; for if 
the funds were suddenly depressed, through a general panic or any great public ca- 
lamity, the Paymaster might be unable to realize his investments, and would thus 
become a public defaulter. This actually happened during the rebellion of 1745, 
when the army, on whose fidelity depended the very existence of the government, 
was for a time left without pay. Mr. Pitt, therefore, on assuming the duties of Pay- 



LORD CHATHAM. 57 

master, placed all the funds at his control in the Bank of England, satisfied with 
the moderate compensation attached to his office. 

He also gave another proof of his elevation ahove pecuniary motives, by refusing 
a certain per centage, which had always been attached to his office, on the enormous 
subsidies then paid to the dueen of Austria and the King of Sardinia. The latter, 
when he heard of this refusal, requested Mr. Pitt to accept, as a token of royal favor, 
what he had rejected as a perquisite of office. Mr. Pitt still refused. It was this 
total disregard of the ordinary means of becoming rich, that made Mr. Grattan say, 
" his character astonished a corrupt age." Politicians were indeed puzzled to un- 
derstand his motives ; for bribery in Parliament and corruption in office had become 
so universal, and the spirit of public men so sordid, that the cry of the horse-leech 
was heard in every quarter, Give I give I Ambition itself had degenerated into a 
thirst for gold. Power and preferment were sought chiefly as the means of amass- 
ing wealth. Well might George II. say, when he heard of Mr. Pitt's noble disin- 
terestedness, " His conduct does honor to human nature I" 

In joining the Pelham ministry, Mr. Pitt yielded more than might have been ex- 
pected, to the King's wishes in regard to German subsidies and Continental alliances. 
For this he has been charged with inconsistency. He thought, however, that the 
case was materially changed. The war had advanced so far, that nothing remained 
but to fight it through, and this could be done only by German troops. In addition 
to this, the Electorate was now in danger ; and though he had resisted Carteret's 
measures for aggrandizing Hanover at the expense of Great Britain, he could, with- 
out any change of principles, unite with Pelham to prevent her being wrested from 
the empire by the ambition of France. He saw, too, that the King grew more ob- 
stina.te as he grew older ; and that if the government was to be administered at all, 
it must be by those who were willing to make some concessions to the prejudices, 
and even to the weakness, of an aged monarch. That he was iiffiuenced in all this 
by no ambitious motives, that his desire to stand well with the King had no con- 
nection with a desire to stand highest in the state, it would certainly be unsafe to 
affirm. But his love of power had nothing in it that was mercenary or selfish. He 
did not seek it, like Newcastle, for patronage, or, like Pulteney and Fox, for money. 
He had lofty conceptions of the dignity to which England might be raised as the 
head of European politics ; he felt himself equal to the achievement ; and he panted 
for an opportunity to enter on a career of service which should realize his brightest 
visions of his country's glory. With these views, he supported Pelham and endeav- 
ored to conciliate the King, waiting with a prophetic spirit for the occasion which 
was soon to arrive. 

Mr. Pelham died suddenly in March, 1754 ; and this leads us to the thwd period 
of Mr. Pitt's public life, embracing about three years, down to 1757. The death 
of Pelham threw every thing into confusion.* " Now I shall have no more peace," 
said the old King, when he heard the news. The event verified his predictions. 
The Duke of Newcastle, brother of Mr. Pelham, demanded the office of Prime Min- 
ister, and was enabled, by his borough interest and family connections, to enforce 
hi.s claim. The " lead" of the House of Commons was now to be disposed of; and 
there were only three men who had the slightest pretensions to the prize, viz., Pitt, 
Fox, and Murray, afterward Lord Mansfield. And yet Newcastle, out of a mean 
jealousy of their superior abilities, gave it to Sir Thomas Robinson, who was so poor 
a speaker, that " when he played the orator," says Lord Waldegrave, " which he 
frequently attempted, it was so exceedingly ridiculous, that even those who loved 
him could not always preserve a friendly composure of countenance." " Sir Thomas 
Kobinson lead us ?" said Pitt to Fox ; " the Duke might as well send his jack-boot to 
vlead us I" He was accordingly baited on every side, falling perpetually into blun- 



58 LORD CHATHAM. 

ders which provoked the stern animadversions of Pitt, or the more painful irony of 
Fox. Eobinson was soon silenced, and Murray was next brought forward. Mr. Pitt 
did not resign ; but after this second rejection he felt absolved from all obligations to 
Newcastle, and determined to make both him and Murray feel his power. An op- 
portunity was soon presented, and he carried out his design Avith a dexterity and 
effect which awakened universal admiration. At the trial of a contested election 
[that of the Dalavals], when the debate had degenerated into mere buffoonery, which 
kept the members in a continual roar, Mr. Pitt came down from the gallery where 
he was sitting, says Fox, who was present, and took the House to task for their con- 
duct " in his highest tone." He inquired whether the dignity of the House stood 
on such sure foundations, that they might venture to shake it thus. He intimated, 
that the tendency of things was to degrade the House into a mere French Parlia- 
ment ; and exhorted the Whigs of all conditions to defend their attacked and ex- 
piring liberties, " unless," said he, " you are to degenerate into a little assembly, 
serving no other purpose than to register the arbitrary edicts of 07ie too powerful 
subject" (laying, says Fox, a most remarkable emphasis on the words one and sub- 
ject). The application to Newcastle was seen and felt by all. " It was the finest 
speech," adds Fox, " that was ever made ; and it was observed that by his first two 
sentences, he brought the House to a silence and attention that you might have 
heard a pin drop. I just now learn that the Duke of Newcastle was in the utmost 
fidget, and that it spoiled his stomach yesterday."^ According to another who was 
present, "this thunderbolt, thrown in a sky so long clear, confounded the audience. 
Murray crouched silent and terrified." Nor without reason, for his turn came next. 
On the following day, November 27, 1754, Mr. Pitt made two other speeches, ostensi- 
bly against Jacobitism, but intended for Murray, who had just been raised from the of- 
fice of Sohcitor to that of Attorney General. " In both speeches," says Fox, " every 
word was Murray, yet so managed that neither he nor any body else could take 
public notice of it, or in any way reprehend him. I sat near Murray, who suffered 
for an hour." It was, perhaps, on this occasion, says Charles Butler, in his Remin- 
iscences, that Pitt used an expression which was once in every mouth. After Mur- 
ray had " suffered" for a time, Pitt stopped, threw his eyes around, then fixing their 
whole power on Murray, exclaimed, " I must now address a few words to Mr. At- 
torney ; they shall be few, but shall be daggers." Murray was agitated ; the look 
was continued ; the agitation increased. " Felix trembles I" exclaimed Pitt, in a 
tone of thunder; ''he shall hear me some other day I'' He sat down. Murray 
made no reply ; and a languid debate showed the paralysis of the House. ^ 

^ It is surprising that Charles Butler should insist, in his Reminiscences, that " it was the manner, 
and not the loords, that did the wonder" in this allusion to Newcastle's overbearing influence with 
the King. Had he forgotten the jealousy of the English people as to their monarch's being ruled 
by a favorite ? What changed the attachment of the nation for George IH., a few years after, into 
anger and distrust, but the apprehension that he was governed by Lord Bute ? And what was 
better calculated to startle the House of Commons than the idea of sinking, like the once free Par- 
liaments of France, " into a little assembly, serving no other purpose than to register the arbitrary 
edicts of one too powerful subject ? 

2 It is not difficult to conjecture what were the " daggers" referred to by Mr. Pitt. The Stor- 
mont family, to which Murray belonged, was devotedly attached to the cause of James II. His 
brother was confidential secretary to the Pretender during the rebellion of 1745; and when the 
rebel lords were brought to London for trial in 1746, Lord Lovat, who was one of them, addressed 
Murray, to his great dismay, in the midst of the trial, ^'Yonr mother was very kind to my clan as we 
marched through Perth to join the Pretender .'" Murray had been intimate, while a student in the 
Temple, with Mr. Vernon, a rich .lacobite citizen ; and it was affirmed that when Vernon and his ' 
friends drank the Pretender's health on their knees (as they often did), Murray was present and 
joined in the act. When he entered life, however, he saw that the cause of James was hopeless, 
and espoused the interests of the reigning family. There was no reason to doubt his sincerity ; but 



I 



LORD CHATHAM. 59 

Newcastle found it impossible to go on without adding to his strength in debate. 
He therefore bought off Fox in April, 1755, by bringing him into the Cabinet, while 
Pitt was again rejected with insult. To this incongruous union Mr. Pitt alluded, a 
short time after, in terms wdiich were much admired for the felicity of the image un- 
der which the allusion was conveyed. New^castle, it is well known, was feeble and 
tame, while Fox was headlong and impetuous. An address, prepared by the min- 
istry, was complained of as obscure and incongruous. Mr. Pitt took it up, saying, 
" There are parts of this address which do not seem to come from the same quarter 
with the rest. I can not unravel the mystery." Then, as if suddenly recollecting 
the two men thus brought together at the head of affairs, he exclaimed, clapping his 
hand to his forehead, " Now it strikes me I I remember at Lyons to have been carried 
to see the conflux of the Rhone and the Saone — the one a feeble, languid stream, 
and, though languid, of no great depth ; the other a boisterous and impetuous torrent. 
But, different as they are, they meet at last ; and long," he added, w^ith the bitterest 
irony, " long may they continue united, to the comfort of each other, and to the glory, 
honor, and security of this nation I" In less than a week Mr. Pitt was dismissed 
from his office as Paymaster. 

This was the signal for open war — Pitt against the entire ministry. Ample occa- 
sion ibr attack was furnished by the disasters which were continually occurring in the 
public service, and the dangers resulting therefrom — the loss of Minorca, the defeat of 
General Braddock, the capture of Calcutta by Sujah Dowlah, and the threatened in- 
vasion by the French. % These topics aflbrded just ground for the terrible onset of Mr. 
Pitt. " During the whole session of 1755-6," says an eye-witness, " Mr. Pitt found 
occasion, in every debate, to confound the ministerial orators. His vehement invec- 
tives were awful to Murray, terrible to Hugh Campbell ; and no malefactor under 
the stripes of the executioner, was ever more helpless and forlorn than Fox, shrewd 
and able in Parliament as he confessedly is. Doddington sheltered himself in si- 
lence." With all this vehemence, however, he was never betrayed into any thing 
coarse or unbecoming the dignity of his character. Horace Walpole, writing to Ge- 
rard Hamilton, says of his appearance on one of these occasions, " There was more 
humor, wit, vivacity, fine language, more boldness, in short more astonishing perfec- 
tion than even you, who are used to him, can conceive." And again, *' He surpassed 
himself, as I need not tell you he surpassed Cicero and Demosthenes. What a figure 
would they make, with their formal, labored, cabinet orations, by the side of his manly 
vivacity and dashing eloquence at one o'clock in the morning, after a sitting of eleven 
hours I" The effect on the ministerial ranks was soon apparent. Murray was the 
first to shrink. The ablest by far among the supporters of the ministry — much abler, 
indeed, as a reasoner, than his great opponent, and incomparably more learned in ev- 
ery thing pertaining to the science of government, he could stand up no longer before 
the devouring eloquence of Pitt. On the death of Chief-justice Ryder, which k>ok 
place in November, 1756, he instantly demanded the place. New^castle resisted, en- 
treated, offered, in addition to the profits of the Attorney Generalship, a pension of 
£2000, and, at last, of £6000 a year. It w^as all in vain. Nothing could induce 
Murray to remain longer in the House. He was accordingly made Chief Justice, 

these early events of liis life gave Mr. Pitt immense advantage over him in such attacks. Junius 
cast them into his teeth sixteen years after. "Your zeal in the cause of an unhappy prince was 
expressed with the sincerity of wine and some of the solemnities of religion.''^ 

In quoting fiom Butler, I have modified his statement in two or three instances. By a slip of the 
pen he wrote Festvs for Felix, and Solicitor for Attorney. He also makes Pitt say " Judge Festus," 
when Murray was not made judge until a year later. It is easy to see how the title judge might 
have slipped into the story after Murray was raised to the bench ; but Mr. Pitt could never have 
addressed the same person as judge, and yet as prosecuting officer of the Crown. 



60 LORD CHATHAM. 

and a Peer with the title of Lord Mansfield ; and on the day he took his seat upon 
the bench, Newcastle resig?ied as minister. 

Nothing now remained for the King but to transfer the government to Mr. Pitt. 
It was a humiliating necessity, but the condition of public affairs was dark and threat- 
ening, and no one else could be found of sufficient courage or capacity to undertake 
the task. Pitt had said to the Duke of Devonshire, " My Lord, I am sure that I can 
save this country, and that nobody else can." The people believed him.' " The eyes 
of an afflicted and despairing nation," says GMover, who was far from partaking in 
their enthusiasm, " were now lifted up to a private gentleman of slender fortune, 
wanting the parade of birth or title, with no influence except marriage with Lord 
Temple's sister, and even confined to a narrow circle of friends and acquaintances. 
Yet, under these circumstances, Mr, Pitt was considered the savior of England." His 
triumph was the triumph of the popular part of the Constitution. It was the first in- 
stance in which the middling classes, the true Commons of Great Britain, were able 
to break down in Parliament that power which the great families of the aristocracy 
had so long possessed, of setting aside or sustaining the decisions of the Throne. 

Mr. Pitt's entrance on the duties of Prime Minister in December, 1756, brings us 
to the fourth period of his political life, which embraces nearly five years, down to 
October, 1761. For about foiir months, however, during his first ministry, his hands 
were in a great measure tied. Though supported by the unanimous voice of the 
people, the King regarded him with personal dislike ; Newcastle and his other oppo- 
nents were able to defeat him in Parliament ; and in April, 1757, he received the 
royal mandate to retire. This raised a storm throughout the whole of England. 
The stocks fell. The Common Council of London met and passed resolutions of the 
strongest kind. The principal towns of the kingdom, Bath, Chester, Norwich, Salis- 
bury, Worcester, Yarmouth, Newcastle, and many others, sent Mr. Pitt the freedom 
of their respective cities, as a token of their confidence and as a warning to the King. 
" For some weeks," says Horace Walpole, " it rained gold boxes I" The King, in the 
mean time, spent nearly three months in the vain attempt to form another adminis- 
tration. It was now perfectly apparent, that nothing could be done without conces- 
sions on both sides. Mr. Pitt therefore consented, June 30th, 1757, to resume his 
office as Principal Secretary of State and Prime Minister, in conjunction with New- 
castle as head of the Treasury, satisfied that he could more easily overrule and direct 
the Duke as a member of the Cabinet than as leader of the Opposition. The result 
verified his expectations. His second ministry now commenced, that splendid era 
which raised England at once, as if by m.agic, from the brink of ruin and degrada- 
tion. The genius of one man completely penetrated and informed the mind of a whole 
people. " From the instant he took the reins, the panic, which had paralyzed every 
effort, disappeared. Instead of mourning over former disgrace and dreading future 
defeats, the nation assumed in a moment the air of confidence, and awaited with im- 
patience the tidings of victory." In every thing he undertook, 
" He put so much of his soul into his act 
That his example had a magnet's force, 
And all were prompt to follow whom all loved." 

To this wonderful power of throwing his spirit into other minds. Colonel Barre 
referred at a later period, in one of his speeches in Parliament : "He was possessed 
of the happy talent of transfusing his own zeal into the souls of all those who were 
to have a share in carrying his projects into execution ; and it is a matter well 
known to many officers now in the House, that no man ever entered his closet who 
did not feel himself, if possible, braver at his return than when he went in." He 
knew, also, how to use fear, as well as affection, for the accomplishment of his de- 
signs. " It will be impossible to have so many ships prepared so soon," said Lord 



LORD CHATHAM. 61 

Anson, when a certain expedition was ordered. " If the ships are not ready," said 
Mr. Pitt, " I will impeach your Lordship in presence of the House." They were 
ready as directed. Newcastle, in the mean time, yielded with quiet submission to 
the supremacy of his genius. All the Duke wanted was the patronage, and this Mr. 
Pitt cheerfully gave up for the salvation of the country. Horace Walpole says, in his 
lively manner, " Mr. Pitt does every thing, and the Duke of Newcastle gives every 
thing. As long as they can agree in this partition, they may do what they will."'' 
One of the first steps taken by Mr. Pitt was to grant a large subsidy to Frederick 
the Great, of Prussia, for carrying on the war against the Empress of Austria. 
This was connected with a total change which had already taken place in the Con- 
tinental policy of George II., and was intended to rescue Hanover from the hands 
of the French. Still, there were many who had a traditional regard for the Em- 
press of Austria, in whose defense England had expended more than ten millions 
of pounds sterling. The grant was, therefore, strenuously opposed in the House, 
and Mr. Pitt was taunted with a desertion of his principles. In reply, he defended 
himself, and maintained the necessity of the grant with infinite dexterity. " It 
was," says Horace Walpole, " the most artful speech he ever made. He provoked, 
called for, defied objections — promised enormous expense — demanded never to be 
tried by events." By degrees he completely subdued the House, until a murmur 
of applause broke forth from every quarter. Seizing the favorable moment, he 
drew back with the utmost dignity, and placing himself in an attitude of defiance, 
exclaimed, in his loudest tone, " Is there an Austrian among you ? Let him come 
forward and reveal himself I" The effect was irresistible. "Universal silence," 
says Walpole, " left him arbiter of his own terms." Another striking instance of 
Mr. Pitt's mastery over the House is said also to have occurred about this time. 
Having finished a speech, he walked out with a slow step, being severely afflicted 
with the gout. A silence ensued until the door was opened to let him pass into 
the lobby, when a member started up, saying, " Mr. Speaker, I rise to reply to the 
right honorable gentleman." Pitt, who had caught the words, turned back and 
fixed his eye on the orator, who instantly sat down. He then returned toward his 
seat, repeating, as he hobbled along, the lines of Virgil, in which the poet, conduct- 
ing iEneas through the shades below, describes the terror which his presence in- 
spired among the ghosts of the Greeks who had fought at Troy : 

Ast Danaum proceres, Agamenmoniacque phalanges, 
Ut videre virum, fulgentiaque anna per umbras, 
Ingenti trepidare metu ; pars vertere terga, 
Ceu quondam petiere rates ; pars tollere vocem 
Exiguam: inceptus clamor fruslratur Mantes^ 

Virgil, ^n., vi., 489. 

3 A curious anecdote illustrates the ascendency of Pitt over Newcastle. The latter was a great 
valetudinarian, and was so fearful of taking cold, especially, that he often ordered the windows 
of the House of Lords to be shut in the hottest weather, while the rest of the Peers were suffering 
for want of breath. On one occasion he called upon Pitt, who was confined to his bed by the 
gout. Newcastle, on being led into the bed-chamber, found the room, to his dismay, xoithout jire 
in a cold, wintery afternoon. He begged to have one kindled, but Pitt refused : it might be inju- 
rious to his gout. Newcastle drew his cloak around him, and submitted with the worst possible 
grace. The conference was a long one. Pitt was determined on a naval expedition, under Ad- 
miral Hawke, for the annihilation of the French fleet. Newcastle opposed it on account of the 
lateness of the season. The debate continued until the Duke was absolutely shivering with cold ; 
when, at last, seeing another bed in the opposite corner, he slipped in, and covered himself with 
the bed-clothes ! A secretary, coming in soon after, found the two ministers in this curious predic- 
ament, with their faces only visible, bandying the argument with great eagerness from one bed- 
side to the other. 

^ The Grecian chiefs, and Agamemnon's host, 
When they beheld the man with shining anns 



62 LORD CHATHAM. 

Reaching his seat, he exclaimed, " Now let me hear what the honorable gentle- 
man has to say to me I" One who was present, being asked whether the House 
was not convulsed with laughter at the ludicrous situation of the poor orator and 
the aptness of the lines, replied, " No, sir ; we were all too much awed to laugh." 

There was, however, very httle debate after his administration had fairly com- 
menced. All parties united in supporting his measures. It is, indeed, a remarka- 
ble fact, that the Parliamentary History, which professes to give a detailed report 
of all the debates in Parliament, contains not a single speech of Mr. Pitt, and only 
two or three by any other person, during the whole period of his ministry. The 
supplies which he demanded were, for that day, enormous — twelve millions and a 
half in one year, an.d nearly twenty millions the next — " a most incredible sum," 
says Walpole, respecting the former, " and yet already all subscribed for, and even 
more offered I Our unanimity is prodigious. You would as soon hear ' No' from 
an old maid as from the House of Commons." " Though Parliament has met," 
says Walpole again, in 1759, "no politics are come to town. One may describe 
the House of Commons like the stocks : Debates, nothing done ; Votes, under par ; 
Patriots, no price ; Oratory, books shut I" 

England now entered into the war with all the energy of a new existence. 
Spread out in her colonies to the remotest parts of the globe, she resembled a strong 
man who had long been lying with palsied limbs, and the blood collected at the 
heart ; when the stream of life, suddenly set free, rushes to the extremities, and he 
springs to his feet with an elastic bound to repel injury or punish aggression. In 
the year 1758, the contest was carried on at once in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Amer- 
ica — wherever France had possessions to be attacked, or England to be defended." 
Notwithstanding some disasters at first, victory followed upon victory in rapid suc- 
cession. Within little more than two years, all was changed. In Africa, France 
was stripped of every settlement she had on that continent. In India, defeated in 
two engagements at sea, and driven from every post on land, she gave up her long 
contest for the mastery of the East, and left the British to establish their govern- 
ment over a hundred and fifty millions of people. In America, all her rich posses- 
sions in the West Indies passed into the hands of Great Britain. Louisburg, Quebec, 
Ticonderoga, Crown Point, Oswego, Niagara, Fort Duquesne [now Pittsburgh], 
were taken ; and the entire chain of posts with which France had hemmed in and 
threatened our early settlements, fell before the united arms of the colonists and the 
English, and not an inch of territory was left her in the Western World. In Eu- 
rope, Hanover was rescued ; the French were defeated at Creveldt, and again at 
Minden with still greater injury and disgrace ; the coasts of France were four times 
invaded with severe loss to the English, but still with a desperate determination to 
strike terror into the hearts of the enemy ; Havre was bombarded ; the port and 
fortifications of Cherbourg were demolished ; Brest and the other principal sea-ports 
were blockaded ; the Toulon fleet was captured or destroyed ; and the brilliant vic- 
tory of Admiral Hawke ofi' duiberon, annihilated the French navy for the remainder 
of the war.^ At home, the only part of the empire which continued hostile to the 

Amid those shades, trembled with sadden fear. 

Part turned theu' backs in flight, as when they sought 

Their ships. * * * * Part raised 

A feeble outcry ; but the sound commenced, 

Died on their gasping lips. 
' One of those brilliant sallies for which Mr. Pitt was distinguished, occurred at this time, and 
related to Sir Edward Hawke. In proposing a monument for General Wolfe, Mr. Pitt paid a high 
compliment to Admiral Saunders: " a man," said he, " equaling those who have beaten Armadas — 
may I anticipate ? those who will beat Armadas !" The words were prophetic. It was the very 
day of Hawke's victory, November 20th, 17.59. 



LORD CHATHAM. 63 

g-ovemment, the Highlanders of Scotland, who had been disarmed for their rebell- 
ions, and insulted by a law forbidding them to wear their national costume, were 
forever detached from the Stuarts, and drawn in grateful affection around the 
Throne, by Mr. Pitt's happy act of confidence in putting arms into their hands, and 
sending them to fight the battles of their country in every quarter of the globe. 
Finally, the commercial interests of the kingdom, always the most important to a 
great manufacturing people, prospered as never before ; and " Commerce," in the 
words inscribed by the city of London on the statue which they erected to Mr. Pitt, 
" Commerce, for the, first time, was united with, and made to flourish by, war I" 

France was now effectually humbled. In 1761 she sought for peace; and Mr. 
Pitt declared to his friends, when entering on the negotiation, that " no Peace of 
Utrecht should again stain the annals of England." He therefore resisted every 
attempt of France to obtain a restoration of conquests, and was on the point of con- 
cluding a treaty upon terms commensurate with the triumphs of the English arms, 
when the French succeeded in drawing Spain into the contest. After a season of 
long alienation, an understanding once more took place between the two branches 
of the house of Bourbon. The French minister instantly changed his tone. He 
came forward Avith a proposal that Spain should be invited to take part in the 
treaty, specifying certain claims of that country upon England which required ad- 
justment. Mr. Pitt was indignant at this attempt of a prostrate enemy to draw a 
third party into the negotiation. He spurned the proposal. He declared, that "he 
would not relax one syllable from his terms, until the Tower of London was taken 
by storm." He demanded of Spain a disavowal of the French minister's claims. 
This offended the Spanish court, and France accomplished her object. The cele- 
brated Family Compact was entered into, which once more identified the two na- 
tions in all their interests ; and Spain, by a subsequent stipulation, engaged to unite 
in the war with France, unless England should make peace on satisfactory terms 
before May, 1762. Mr. Pitt, whose means of secret intelligence were hardly inferior 
to those of Oliver Cromwell, was apprised of these arrangements (though studiously 
concealed) almost as soon as they were made. He saw that a war was inevitable, 
that he had just ground of war ; and he resolved to strike the first blow — to seize 
the Spanish treasure-ships which were then on their way from America ; to surprise 
Havana, which was wholly unprepared for defense ; to wrest the Isthmus of Pana- 
ma from Spain, and thus put the keys of her commerce between the two oceans 
forever into the hands of the English. But when he proposed these measures to 
the Cabinet, he was met, to his surprise, with an open and determined resistance. 
George II. was dead. Lord Bute, the favorite of George III., was jealous of Mr. 
Pitt's ascendency. The King probably shared in the same feelings ; and in the lan- 
guage of Grattan, " conspired to remove him, in order to be relieved from his supe- 
riority." An obsequious cabinet voted down Mr. Pitt's proposal. He instantly re- 
signed ; and Spain, as if to prove his sagacity, and justify the measure he had urged, 
declared war herself within three months I 

The King, however, in thus ending the most glorious ministry which England had 
ever seen, manifested a strong desire to conciliate Mr. Pitt. The very next day he 
sent a message to him through Lord Bute, declaring that he was "impatient" to 
bestow upon him some mark of the royal favor. Mr. Pitt was melted by these un- 
expected tokens of kindness. He replied in terms which have often been censured 
as unbecoming a man of spirit under a sense of injury — terms which would certainly 
be thought obsequious at the present day, but which were probably dictated by the 
sudden revulsion of his feelings, and the courtly style which he always maintained 
in his intercourse with the sovereign.^ On the day after his resignation, he accepted 

« III bis long and frequent interviews wKh Georse II., Mr. Pitt, though often commanded to sit 



64 LORD CPATHAM. 

a pension of £3000 (being much less than was offered him), together with a peer- 
age for his wife. Some, indeed, complained that, acting as he did for the people, he 
should have allowed the King to place him under any pecuniary obligations. " If 
he had gone into the city," said Walpole, " and told them he had a poor wife and 
children unprovided for, and opened a subscription, he would have got £500,000 
instead of £3000 a year." He could never have done so, until he had ceased to be 
William Pitt. Mr. Burke has truly said, " With regard to the pension and the title, 
it is a shame that any defense should be necessary. What eye can not distinguish, 
at the first glance, between this and the exceptionable case of titles and pensions ? 
What Briton, with the smallest sense of honor or gratitude, but must blush for his 
countiy, if such a man had retired unrewarded from the public service, let the mo- 
tives of that retirement be what they would ? It was not 'possible that his sov- 
ereign should let his eminent services pass unrequited ; and the quantum was rather 
regulated by the moderation of the great mind that received, than by the liberality 
of that which bestowed it."'^ It is hardly necessary to add, that the tide of public 
favor, which had ebbed for a moment, soon returned to its ordinary channels. The 
city of London sent him an address in the warmest terms of commendation. On 
Lord Mayor's day, when he joined the young King and Q,ueen in their procession to 
dine at Guildhall, the eyes of the multitude were turned from the royal equipage to 
the modest vehicle which contained Mr. Pitt and his brother-in-law. Lord Temple. 
The loudest acclamations were reserved for the Great Commoner. The crowd, says 
an eye-witness, clustered around his carriage at every step, " hung upon the wheels, 
hugged his footmen, and even kissed his horses." Such were the circumstances under 
which he retired from office, having resigned on the 5th of October, 1761. 

We now come to the ffth and last period of Mr. Pitt's life, embracing about six- 
teen years, down to his decease in 1778. During the whole of this period, except for 
a brief season when he was called to form a new ministry, he acted with the Opposi- 
tion. When a treaty of peace was concluded by Lord Bute, in 1762, he was confined 
to his bed by the gout ; but his feelings were so excited by the concessions made to 
France, that he caused himself to be conveyed to the House in the midst of his acutest 
sufferings, and poured out his indignation for three hours and a half, exposing in the 
keenest terms the loss and dishonor brought upon the country by the conditions of 
peace. This was called his " Sitting Speech ;" because, after having stood for a 
time supported by two friends, " he was so excessively ill," says the Parliamentary 
History, " and his pain became so exceedingly acute, that the House unanimously 
desired he might be permitted to deliver his sentiments sitting — a circumstance 
that was unprecedented."^ But whether the peace was disgraceful or not, the 
ministry had no alternative. Lord Bute could not raise money to carry on the war. 
The merchants, who had urged upon Mr. Pitt double the amount he needed when- 
ever he asked a loan, refused their assistance to a minister whom they could not trust. 

Under these circumstances. Lord Bute was soon driven to extremities ; and as a 
means of increasing the revenues, introduced a bill subjecting cider to an excise. 
An Excise Bill has always been odious to the English. It brings with it the right 
of search. It lays open the private dwelling, which every Englishman has been 
taught to regard as his " castle." " You give to the dipping-rod," said one, arguing 
against such a law, " what you deny to the scepter I" Mr. Pitt laid hold of this 
feeUng, and opposed the bill with his utmost strength. There is no report of his 

while sufifering severe pain from the gout, never obeyed. When unable any longer to stand, he 
always kneeled on a cushion before the King. 

"• Annual Register for 17G1. 

8 Parliamentary History, xv., 1262. The report of this speech is too meager and unsatisfactory 
to merit insertion in this work. 



LORD CHATHAM. 65 

speech, but a single passage has come down to us. containing one of the finest bursts 
of his eloquence. " The poorest man in his cottage may bid defiance to all the forces 
of the Crown. It may be frail ; its roof may shake ; the wind may blow through 
it ; the storm may enter it ; but the King of England can not enter it ! All his 
power dares not cross the threshold of that ruined tenement I" It was on this 
occasion, as stated in the Parliamentary History, that Mr. Pitt uttered a bon mot 
which was long remembered for the mirth it occasioned. Mr. George Grenville 
replied to Mr. Pitt, and, though he admitted that an excise was odious, contended 
that the tax was unavoidable. " The right honorable gentleman," said he, " com- 
plains of the hardship of the tax — why does he not tell us luhere we can lay another 
in its stead ?" " Tell me," said he, repeating it with strong emphasis, " tell me where 
you can lay another tax ! Tell me where I" Mr. Pitt, from his seat, broke out in 
a musical tone, quoting from a popular song of the day, " Gentle shej^herd, tell me 
tvhere .'" The House burst into a fit of laughter, which continued for some minutes, 
and Mr. Grenville barely escaped the sobriquet of Gentle Shepherd for the rest of 
his life. After six divisions, the bill was passed, but it drove Lord Bute from power. 
He resigned a few weeks after, and in May, 1763, was succeeded by Mr. Grenville, 
whose mistakes as minister, in connection with the peculiar temperament of the 
King, opened a new era in the history of Great Britain. 

It was the misfortune of George III., in the early part of his life, to be governed 
first by favorites and then by his own passions. He was naturally of a quick and 
obstinate temper. During the first twenty years of his reign (for he afterward cor- 
rected this error), he allowed his feelings as a man to mingle far too much with his 
duties as a sovereign. This led him into two steps, one of which agitated, and the 
other dismembered his empire — the persecution of John "Vftlkes, and the attempt to 
force taxation on the American colonies. It is now known, that he sent a personal 
order to have Wilkes arrested under a general warrant, against the advice of Lord 
Mansfield, and insisted on all the subsequent violations of law which gave such no- 
toriety and influence to that restless demagogue. And although he did not originate 
the plan of taxing America, the moment the right was questioned, he resolved to 
maintain the principle to the utmost extremity. This it was that forced the " De- 
claratory Act" on Lord Rockingham, and held Lord North so long to the war, as it 
now appears, against his own judgment and feelings. In respect to both these 
subjects, Mr. Pitt took, from the first, an open and decided stand against the wishes 
of the King. He did it on the principle which governed his whole political life ; 
which led him, nearly thirty years before, to oppose so violently the issue of search- 
warrants for seamen^ — the principle of resisting arbitrary power in every form ; 
of defending, at all hazards, the rights and liberties of the subject, " however mean, 
however remote." During the remainder of his life, all his speeches of any import- 
ance, with a single exception, related to one or the other of these topics. It was 
his constant aim, in his own emphatic language, " to restore, to save, to conjirm 
the Constitution." 

This attachment of Mr. Pitt to the popular part of the government gave rise to 
an attack (it is not known on what occasion), which called forth one of those keen 
and contemptuous retorts with which he so often put down his opponents. Mr. 
Moreton, Chief Justice of Chester, having occasion to mention " the King, Lords, 
and Commons," paused, and, turning toward Mr. Pitt, added, " or, as the right hon- 
orable member would call them. Commons, Lords, and King." Mr. Pitt, says 
Charles Butler, in relating the story, rose (as he always did) with great deliber- 
ation, and called to order. " I have," he said, " heard frequently in this House 
doctrines which surprised me ; but now my blood runs cold I I desire the words 

9 See page 80. 
E 



66 LORD CHATHAM. 

of the honorable member may be taken down." The clerk wrote down the 
words. " Bring them to me I" said Mr. Pitt, in his loudest voice. By this time 
Mr. Moreton was frightened out of his senses. " Sir," said he, addressing the 
Speaker, " I meant nothing I King, Lords, and Commons; Lords, King, and Com- 
mons ; Commons, Lords, and King — tria juncta in uno. I meant nothing I In- 
deed, I meant nothing !" " I don't wish to push the matter further," said Mr. 
Pitt, in a tone but little above a whisper. Then, in a higher note, " The moment 
a man acknowledges his error, he ceases to be guilty. I have a great regard for the 
honorable gentleman, and, as an instance of that regard, I give him this advice — 
a pause of some moments ; then, assuming a look of unspeakable derision, he added, 
in a colloquial tone, " Whenever that gentleman mean?, nothing, I recommend to 
him to say nothing I" 

It has already been intimated that, during the period now under review, Mr. Pitt 
was called, for a brief season, into the service of the Crown. George Grenville, 
who succeeded Lord Bute, after acting as minister about two years, and inflicting 
on his country the evils of the American Stamp Act, became personally obnoxious 
to the King, and was dismissed from office about the middle of 1765. The eyes 
of the whole country were now turned toward Mr. Pitt, and the King asked the 
temis upon which he would accept office. Mr. Pitt replied that he was ready to 
go to St. James's, if he could "carry the Constitution along with him." But upon 
entering into details, it was found impossible to reconcile his views with that court 
influence which still overruled the King. Lord Rockingham was then called upon 
to form a ministry ; and Mr. Pitt has been censured by many, and especially by his 
biographer, Mr. Thackeray, for not joining heartily in the design, and lending the 
whole weight of his influence to establish, under his Lordship, another great Whig 
administration. This miight, perhaps, have been an act of magnanimity. But, con- 
sidering his recent splendid services, the known wishes of the people, and his ac- 
knowledged superiority over every other man in the empire, it could hardly be ex- 
pected of Mr. Pitt that he should make himself a stepping-stone for the ambition 
of another. Lord Rockingham, though a man of high integrity and generous sen- 
timents, had not that force of character, that eloquence in debate, that controlling 
influence over the minds of others which could alone reanimate the Whig party, and 
restore their principles and their policy under a Tory King. Mr, Pitt did not op- 
pose the new ministers ; but he declared, at the opening of Parliament, that he 
could not give them his confidence. " Pardon me, gentlemen," said he, bowing to 
the ministry, " confidence is a ^;/(27^^^ of slow growth in an aged bosorn .'"^° The 
event justified his delay and hesitation. " The Cabinet," says Cooke, in his History 
of Party, ** was formed from the rear-guard of the Whigs — men who were timorous 
and suspicious of their own principles ; who were bound in the chains of aristocratic 
expediency and personal interest, and who dared not to loose them, because they 
knew not the power of their principles or their ultimate tendency." The Rocking- 
ham administration performed one important service — they repealed the Stamp Act. 
But they held together only a year, and were dissolved on the 5th of August, 1766. 

Mr. Pitt was now called upon to frame a ministry. It was plainly impossible for 
him to succeed ; and no one but a man of his sanguine temperament would have 
thought of making the attempt. The Rockingham Whigs, forming the wealthy 
and aristocratic section of the party, might of course be expected to oppose. Lord 
Temple, who had hitherto adhered to Mr. Pitt in every emergency, now deserted 
him, and joined his brother, George Grenville, in justifying American taxation. 

10 See page 103 for the speech containing this passage, and a description of Mr. Pitt's impressive 
manner in thus declaring off from Lord Rockingham. This single sentence decided the fate of 
that ministry. 



LORD CHATHAM. 67 

Lord Camden and a few others, the pioneers of Whiggism as it now exists, sup- 
ported Mr. Pitt, and carried with them the suffrages of the people. But the Tories 
were favorites at Court. They filled all the important stations of the household ; 
they had the readiest access to the royal presence ; and, though Mr. Pitt might, at 
first, undoubtedly rely on the King for support, he could hardly expect to enjoy it 
long without gratifying his wishes in the selection of the great officers of state. 
Under these circumstances, the moment Mr. Pitt discovered his real situation, he 
ought to have relinquished the attempt to form a ministry. But he was led on 
step by step. His proud spirit had never been accustomed to draw back. He at 
last formed one on coalition principles. He drew around him as many of his own 
friends as possible, and filled up the remaining places with Tories, hoping to keep 
the peace at the council-board by his personal influence and authority. He had 
put down Newcastle by uniting with him, and he was confident of doing the same 
with his new competitors. But he made one mistake at the outset, which, in con- 
nection with his subsequent illness, proved the ruin of his ministry. It related to 
the " lead" of the House of Commons. His voice was the only one that could rule 
the stormy discussions of that body, and compose the elements of strife which were 
thickening around him. And yet he withdrew from the House, and gave the lead 
to Charles Townsend. Never was a choice more unfortunate. Townsend was, in- 
deed, brilliant, but he was rash and unstable ; eaten up with the desire to please 
every body ; utterly devoid of firmness and self-command ; and, therefore, the last 
man in the world for giving a lead and direction to the measures of the House. 
But Mr. Pitt's health was gone. He felt wholly inadequate, under his frequent at- 
tacks of the gout, to take the burden of debate ; he therefore named himself Lord 
Privy Seal, and passed into the Upper House with the title of Lord Chatham. As 
might be expected, his motives in thus accepting the peerage were, for a time, mis- 
understood. He was supposed to have renounced his principles, and become a creat- 
ure of the Court. The city of London, where he had ruled with absolute sway as 
the Great Commoner, refused him their support or congratulations as Lord Chat- 
ham. The press teemed with invectives ; and the people, who considered him as 
having betrayed their cause, loaded him Avith maledictions. Such treatment, in 
connection with his sufferings from disease, naturally tended to agitate his feelings 
and sour his temper. He was sometimes betrayed into rash conduct and passionate 
language. His biographer has, indeed, truly said, that, " highly as Lord Chatham 
was loved and respected by his own family, and great as were his talents and vir- 
tues, he possessed not the art of cementing political friendships. A consciousness 
of his superior abilities, strengthened by the brilliant successes of his former admin- 
istration, and the unbounded popularity he enjoyed, imparted an austerity to his 
manners which distressed and ofiended his colleagues." 

Such were the circumstances under which Lord Chatham formed his third min- 
istry. It would long since have passed into oblivion, had not Mr. Burke handed it 
down to posterity in one of the most striking pictures (though abounding in gro- 
tesque imagery) which we have in our literature. " He made an administration," 
says Mr. Burke, in his speech on American Taxation, " so checkered and speckled; 
he put together a piece of joiner}'- so crossly indented and whimsically dovetailed ; 
a cabinet so variously inlaid ; such a piece of diversified mosaic ; such a tesselated 
pavement without cement, here a bit of black stone, and there a bit of white ; pa- 
triots and courtiers, King's friends and Republicans, that it was indeed a very cu- 
rious show, but utterly unsafe to touch and unsure to stand on. The colleagues 
whom he assorted at the same boards stared at each other, and were obliged to 
ask, * Sir, your name ?' ' Sir, you have the advantage of me.' ' Mr. Such-a-one, I 
beg a thousand pardons.' I venture to say it did so happen, that persons had a 



6S LORD CHATHAM. 

single office divided between them who had never spoke to each other in their lives 
until they found themselves (they knew not how) pigging together, heads and points, 
in the same truckle-bed."'^ # # ^ « If ever he fell into a fit of the gout, or if any other 

; cause withdrew him from public cares, principles directly the contrary were sure to 
predominate. When he had executed his plan, he had not an inch of ground to 

; stand on. When he had accomplished his scheme of administration, he teas no 

[ longer a minister'' 

Such was literally the fact. Only a few weeks after his final arrangements were 
made, he was seized with a paroxysm of the gout at Bath, which threatened his 
immediate dissolution. Having partially recovered, he set out on his return for Lon- 
don, in February, 1767. But he was violently attacked on the road, and was com- 
pelled to retire to his country seat at Hayes, where he lay in extreme suffering, with 
a mind so agitated and diseased that all access to him was denied for many months. 
It was during this period that Charles Townsend, in one of his rash and boastful 
moods, committed himself to Mr. Grenville in favor of taxing the colonies ; and was 
induced to lay those duties on tea, glass, &c., which revived the contest, and led to 
the American Revolution. It is, indeed, a singular circumstance, that such a bill 
should have passed under an administration bearing the name of Chatham. But he 
had ceased to be minister except in name. Some months before, he had sent a ver- 
bal message to the King (for he was unable to write), that " such was the ill state 
of his health, that his majesty must not expect from him any further advice or as- 
sistance in any arrangement whatever." When Grafton became minister, he sent 
in his formal resignation by the hands of Lord Camden. It is striking to observe 
how soon great men are forgotten when they fall from power, and withdraw, in the 
decay of their faculties, from the notice of the pubhc. Lord Chatham's former resig- 
nation was an era in Europe. The news of it awakened the liveliest emotions 
throughout the civilized world. The time of his second resignation was hardly known 
in London. His sun appeared to have sunk at mid-day amid clouds and gloom 
Little did any one imagine, that it was again to break forth with a purer splendor, 
and to fill the whole horizon around with the radiance of its setting beams. ^- 

11 Supposed to refer to Lord North and Mr. George Cooke, who were made joint paymasters. 

12 There was a mysteiy comiected with Lord Chatham's long confinement which has created 
many surmises. A writer in the London Quarterly Review for 1840 has endeavored to show that 
it was, to a great extent, a thing of pretense and affectation ; that he was shocked at the sudden 
loss of his popularity after accepting the peerage ; disconcerted by the opposition which sprung 
up; mortified at the failure of liis attempts to strengthen his government; and that, under these 
circumstances, " he felt some i-eluctance to come forward in liis new chai-acter, and perhaps clung 
to office only that he might £nd some striking and popular occasion for resignation." To an enemy 
of Lord Chatham's fame and principles this may seem probable ; but it is a mere hypothesis, with- 
out the least evidence to support it. It is probably true that Lord Chatham's withdrawal from 
pubhc business was not owing to direct sufferings from the gout during the whole space of two 
years. Lord Chesterfield, who was no friend of Chatham, and not the least inclined to shelter 
him, attributed "his hiactivity to the effects of the injudicious ti-eatment of his physician, who had 
prevented a threatened attack of the gout by dispersing the humor throughout the whole system. 
The experiment caused a severe fit of illness, which chiefly affected his nerves." Whether this 
was the cause or not, it is certain that his nervous system was in a very alarming state, and that 
his mind became greatly diseased. He was gloomy in the extreme, and perhaps yielded to un- 
reasonable jealousies and suspicions. Such seems to have been at one time the opinion of Lord 
Camden, who says, in a confidential letter, " Lord Chatham is at Hayes, brooding over his own 
suspicions and discontents — his return to business almost desperate — inaccessible to every body; 
but under a persuasion that he is given up and abandoned." But Lord Camden soon after re- 
ceived information which probably changed his views. "On his return to Loudon," says his 
biographer, " he heard such an account of Lord Chatham as to convince him that the country was 
forever deprived of the services of that illustrious man." This refers, undoubtedly, to a report of 
his being deranged, which was then prevalent. It now appears that this was not literally the fact, 
though his miud was certainly in such a state that Lady Chatham did not allow him to be master 



LORD CHATHAM. 69 

After an entire seclusion from the world for nearly three years, Lord Chatham, tc 
the surprise of all, made his appearance in Parliament with his health greatly im- 
proved, and in full possession of his gigantic powers. He was still so infirm, how- 
ever, that he went on crutches, and was swathed in flannels, when he entered the 
House of Lords at the opening of the session, January 9, 1770. In commenting 
on the address, he came out at once in a loftier strain of eloquence than ever in 
reply to Lord Mansfield on the case of John Wilkes.^^ This speech gave a decisive 
turn to political aflairs. A leader had now appeared to array the Whigs against 
the Duke of Grafton. Lord Camden, who as Chancellor had continued in the Cab- 
inet, though hostile to the measures which prevailed, came down from the wool-sack 
at the close of Lord Chatham's speech, and declared against the minister. " I have," 
said ho, " hung down my head in council, and disapproved by my looks those steps 
which I knew my avowed opposition could not prevent, I will do so no longer. I 
now proclaim to the world that I entirely coincide in the opinion expressed by my 
noble friend — whose presence again reanimates us — respecting this unconstitution- 
al vote of the House of Commons." He was of course dismissed ; and united Mdth 
Lord Chatham, Lord Rockingham, and the rest of the Whigs, to oppose the Grafton 
ministry. They succeeded in nineteen days : the Duke resigned on the twenty-eighth 
of the same month. But the Whigs did not profit by their victory. The hostility 
of the King excluded them from power, and Lord North was placed at the head 
of affairs. An attempt was now made to put down Lord Chatham by personal in- 
sult. He was taunted before the House, March 14, 1770, with having received a 
pension from the Crown, and having unjustifiably recommended pensions for others. 
He rose upon his antagonist, as he always did on such occasions, and turned his de- 
fense into an attack. He at once took up the case of Lord Camden, whom he had 
brought in as Chancellor three years before, with a pension of fifteen hundred pounds. 
" I could not," said he, " expect such a man to quit the Chief-justiceship of the Com- 
mon Pleas, which he held for life, and put himself in the power of those who were 
not to be trusted, to be dismissed from the Chancery at any moment, without mak- 
ing some slight provision for such an event. The public has not been deceived by 
his conduct. My suspicions have been justified. His integrity has made him once 
more a poor and a private man ; he tons dismissed for the vote he gave in favor of 
the right of election in the jjeople." Here an attempt was made to overwhelm him 
with clamor. Some Lords called out, " To the bar I to the bar I" and Lord March- 
mont moved that his words be taken down. Lord Chatham seconded the motion ; 
and went on to say, " I neither deny, retract, nor explain these words. I do re- 
ajjinn the fact, and I desire to meet the sense of the House. I appeal to the honor 
of every Lord in this House whether he has not the same conviction." Lord Rock- 
ingham, Lord Temple, and many others, rose, and, upon their honor, affirmed the 
same. The ministry were now desirous to drop the subject ; but Lord Marchmont, 
encouraged by Lord Mansfield, persisted, and moved that nothing had appeared to 
justify the assertion. Lord Chatham again declared, "My words remain unretract- 

of his owii actions. It is, therefore, uncandid in the extreme to represent Lord Chatham as feign- 
ing ilhiess in order to escape from the responsibihties of his station. 

13 Though Lord Chatham had a high sense of Mansfield's learning and abilities, he continued to 
regtu-d him with aversion and distrust on account of his extreme Tory sentiments. In reply to 
Mansfield, when the case of Wilkes again came up at a late evening session, he quoted Lord Somers 
and Chief-justice Holt on the points of law, and drew their characters in his own masterly style. 
He pronounced them " honest men who knew and loved the Constitution." Then turning to Mans- 
field, he said, "I vow to God, I think the noble Lord equals them both— m abilities V' He com- 
plained bitterly, in conclusion, of the motion being pressed by Lord Marchmont and Lord Mana 
field at so unreasonable an horn-, and called for an adjournment. " If the Constitution must be 
wouuded," said he, " let it not receive its mortal stab at this dark and midnight hour, when honest 
men are asleep in their beds, and when only felons and assasshis are seeking for prey !" 



70 LORD CHATHAM. 

ed, unexplained, and reaffirmed. I desire to know whether I am condemned or 
acquitted ; and whether I may still presume to hold my head as high as the noble 
Lord who moved to have my words taken down." To this no answer was given. 
It was easy for the ministry to pass what vote they pleased ; but they found that 
every attempt to disgrace such a man only recoiled on themselves. His glowing 
defense of the people's rights regained him the popularity he had lost by his acces- 
sion to the peerage. The city of London addressed him in terms of grateful ac- 
knowledgment, thanking him for " the zeal he had shown in support of those most 
valuable privileges, the right of election and the right of petition." The people 
looked up to him again as their best and truest friend ; and though promoted to an 
earldom, they felt, in the language of his grandson. Lord Mahon, " that his eleva- 
tion over them was like that of Rochester Castle over his own shores of Chatham 
— that he was raised above them only for their protection and defense." 

After this session. Lord Chatham was unable to attend upon Parliament except 
occasionally and at distant intervals. He spent his time chiefly on his estate at 
Burton Pynsent, superintending the education of his children, and mingling in their 
amusements with the liveliest pleasure, notwithstanding his many infirmities. He 
sought to interest them not only in their books, but in rural employments and rural 
scenery. He delighted in landscape gardening ; and, in speaking of its fine arrange- 
ments for future efiect, called it, with his usual felicity of expression, " the prophetic 
eye of Taste." "When his health would permit," says the tutor of his son, "he 
never suffered a day to pass without giving instruction of some sort to his children, 
and seldom without reading the Bible with them." He seems, indeed, to have 
studied the Scriptures with great care and attention from early life. He read them 
not only for the guidance of his faith, but for improvement in orator}^ " Not con- 
tent," says Lord Lyttleton, " to correct and instruct his imagination by the works 
of men, he borrowed his noblest images from the language of inspiration." His 
practice, in this respect, w^as imitated by Burke, Junius, and other distinguished 
writers of the day. At no period in later times, has secular eloquence gathered so 
many of her images and allusions from the pages of the Bible. 

Thus withdrawn from the cares and labors of public life, there was only one sub- 
ject that could ever induce him to appear in Parliament. It M^as the contest with 
America. He knew more of this country than any man in England except Burke. 
During the war in which he wrested Canada from the French, he was brought into 
the most intimate communication with the leading men of the colonies. He knew 
their spirit and the resources of the country. Two of the smallest states (Massa- 
chusetts and Connecticut) had, in answer to his call, raised tivelve tliousancl men 
for that war in a single year. Feelings of personal attachment united, therefore, 
with a sense of justice, to make him the champion of America. Feeble and de- 
crepit as he was, he forgot his age and sufferings. He stood forth, in presence of 
the whole empire, to arraign, as a breach of the Constitution, every attempt to tax a 
people who had no representatives in Parliament. It was the era of his sublimest 
efforts in oratory. With no private ends or party purposes to accomplish, with a 
consciousness of the exalted services he had rendered to his country, he spoke " as 
one having authority," and denounced the war with a prophetic sense of the shame 
and disaster attending such a conflict. His voice of warning was lost, indeed, upon 
the ministry and on the great body of the nation, who welcomed a relief from their 
burdens at the expense of America. But it rang throughout every town and hamlet 
of the colonies ; and when he proclaimed in the ears of Parliament, " I rejoice that 
America has resisted," millions of hearts on the other side of the Atlantic swelled 
with a prouder determination to resist even to the end.^"* 

^* Lord Chatham received numerous tokens of respect and gratitude from the colonies. At 



LORD CHATHAM. 71 

But while he thus acted as the champion of America, he never for a moment 
yielded to the thought of her separation from the mother country. When the Duke 
of Richmond, therefore, brought forward his motion, in April, 1778, advising the 
King to withdraw his fleets and armies, and to effect a conciliation with America 
involving her independence, Lord Chatham heard of his design " with unspeakable 
concern," and resolved to go once more to the House of Lords for the purpose of re- 
sisting the motion. The effort cost him his life. A detailed account of the scene 
presented on that occasion will be given hereafter, in connection wdth his speech. 
At the close, he sunk into the arms of his attendants, apparently in a dying state. 
He revived a little when conveyed to his dwelling ; and, after lingering for a few 
days, died on the 11th of May, 1778, in the seventieth year of his age. 

Lord Chatham has been generally regarded as the most powerful orator of mod- 
ern times. He certainly ruled the British Senate as no other man has ever ruled 
over a great deliberative assembly. There have been stronger minds in that body, 
abler reasoners, profounder statesmen, but no man has ever controlled it with such 
absolute sway by the force of his eloquence. He did things which no human being 
but himself would ever have attempted. He carried through triumphantly, what 
would have covered any other man with ridicule and disgrace. 

His success, no doubt, was owing, in part, to his extraordinary personal advanta- 
ges. Few men have ever received from the hand of Nature so many of the outward 
qualifications of an orator. In his best days, before he was crippled by the gout, his 
figure was tall and erect ; his attitude imposing ; his gestures energetic even to ve- 
hemence, yet tempered with dignity and grace. ^^ Such was the power of his eye, 
that he very often cowed down an antagonist in the midst of his speech, and threw 
him into utter confusion, by a single glance of scorn or contempt. AYhenever he rose 
to speak, his countenance glowed with animation, and was lighted up with all the 
varied emotions of his soul, so that Cowper describes him, in one of his bursts of pa- 
triotic feeling, 

" With all his country beaming in his face." 

" His voice," says a contemporary, " was both full and clear. His lowest whis- 
per was distinctly heard ; his middle notes were sweet and beautifully varied ; and, 
Avhen he elevated his voice to its highest pitch, the House was completely filled with 
the volume of sound. The effect was awful, except when he wished to cheer or 
animate ; then he had spirit-stirring notes which were perfectly irresistible." The 
prevailing character of his delivery was majesty and force. " The crutch in his hand 
became a weapon of oratory. "^^ 

Much, howeyer, as he owed to these personal advantages, it was his character as 

Charleston, S. C, a colossal statue of him, in white marble, was erected by order of the Commons,, 
who say, in their inscription upon the pedestal, 

TIME 

SHALL SOONER DESTROY 

THIS MARK OF THEIR ESTEEM, 

THAN 

ERASE FROM THEIR MINDS 

THE JUST SENSE 
OF HIS PATRIOTIC VIRTUE. 

^5 Lord Brougham speaks of him as having " a peculiarly defective and even awkward action." 
This is directly opposed to the testimony of all his contemporaries. Hugh Boyd speaks of " the 
persuasive gracefulness of his action ;" and Lord Orford says, that his action, on many occasions, 
was worthy of Garrick. The younger Pitt had an awkwardness of the kind referred to ; and Lord 
Brougham, who was often hasty and incorrect, probably confounded the father and the son. 

^^ Telum Oratoris. — Cicero. " You talk, my Lords, of conquering America ; of your numerous 
fi-iends there to annihilate the Congress; of your powerful forces to disperse her armies; I might 
as well talk of driving them before me with this crutch.^' 



72 LORD CHATHAM. 

a man which gave him his surprising ascendency over the minds of his countrymen. 
There was a fascination for all hearts in his lofty bearing ; his generous sentiments ; 
his comprehensive policy ; his grand conceptions of the height to which England 
might be raised as arbiter of Europe ; his preference of her honor over all inferior 
material interests. There was a fascination, too, for the hearts of all who loved free- 
dom, in that intense spirit of liberty which was the animating principle of his life. 
From the day when he opposed Sir Charles Wager's bill for breaking open private 
houses to press seamen, declaring that he would shoot any man, even an officer of 
justice, who should thus enter his dwelling, he stood forth, to the end of his days, 
the Defender of the People's Rights. It was no vain ostentation of liberal principles, 
no idle pretense to gain influence or office. The nation saw it ; and while Pulteney's 
defection brought disgrace on the name of " Patriot," the character of Pitt stood higher 
than ever in the public estimation. His political integrity, no less than his eloquence, 
formed " an era in the Senate ;" and that comparative elevation of principle which 
we now find among English politicians, dates back for its commencement to his noble 
example. It was his glory as a statesman, not that he was always in the right, or 
even consistent with himself upon minor points ; but that, in an age of shameless prof- 
ligacy, when political principle was universally laughed at, and every one, in the 
words of Walpole, " had his price," he stood forth to " stem the torrent of a down- 
ward age." He could truly say to an opponent, as the great Athenian orator did to 
^schines, 'Eyw di] oot Aeyw, otl tuv 7ToXiTevofj,ivG)v napd rolg "F.XXrjat dtacpdapev- 
Twv a-ndvrcDV^ dp^afievo)v and os, nporepov jxev virb ^iXiTrTre, vvv d' vtt^ ^AXe^dvdps, 
e[X£ 8T£ Kaipog, nre (piXavOpixi-nla X6yo)v, 8re enayyeALcJv nejEdog, «t' e/Lm^, «t£ 
(t)66og, tiTExdpig, «t' aAAo nSev enfjpev, hSs TrpOTjydyero^ (Lv eKpiva diKaiojv mat ovfi- 
(f)ep6vT0)v rxi Trarptdt, sdev npodSvai : " When all our statesmen, beginning with your- 
self, were corrupted by bribes or office, no convenience of opportunity, or insinuation 
of address, or magnificence of promises — or hope, or fear, or favor — could induce me 
to give up for a moment what I considered the rights and interests of the people." 
Even his enemies were forced to pay homage to his noble assertion of his principles 
— his courage, his frankness, his perfect sincerity. Eloquent as he was, he impressed 
every hearer with the conviction, that there was in him something higher than all 
eloquence. " Every one felt," says a contemporary, " that the man was infinitely 
greater than the orator." Even Franklin lost his coolness when speaking of Lord 
Chatham. " I have sometimes," said he, " seen eloquence without wisdom, and 
often wisdom without eloquence ; but in him I have seen them united in the high- 
est possible degree." 

The range of his powers as a speaker was uncommonly wide. He was equally 
qualified to conciliate and subdue. When he saw fit, no man could be more plausi- 
ble and ingratiating ; no one had ever a more winning address, or was more adroit 
in obviating objections and allaying prejudice. When he changed his tone, and chose 
rather to subdue, he had the sharpest and most massy weapons at command — wit, 
humor, irony, overwhelming ridicule and contempt. His forte was the terrible ; and 
he employed with equal ease the indirect mode of attack with which he so often tor- 
tured Lord Mansfield, and the open, withering invective with which he trampled 
doM^n Lord Suffolk. His burst of astonishment and horror at the proposal of the 
latter to let loose the Indians on the settlers of America, is without a parallel in our 
language for severity and force. In all such conflicts, the energy of his will and his 
boundless self-confidence secured him the victory. Never did that "erect counte- 
nance" sink before the eye of an antagonist. Never was he known to hesitate or 
falter. He had a feeling of superiority over every one around him, which acted on 
his mind with the force of an inspiration. He k7tew he was right I He kneiv he 
could save England, and that no one else could do it I Such a spirit, in great crises, 



LORD CHATHAM. 73 

is the unfailing instrument of command both to the general and the orator. We may- 
call it arrogance ; but even arrogance here operates upon most minds with the po- 
tency of a charm ; and when united to a vigor of genius and a firmness of purpose 
like his, men of the strongest intellect fall down before it, and admire — perhaps hate 
— what they can not resist. 

{The leading characteristic of eloquence is force ; and force in the orator depends 
mainly on the action of strongly-excited feeling on a powerful intellect^ The intel- 
lect of Chatham was of the highest order, and was peculiarly fitted for the broad 
and rapid combinations of oratory. It was at once comprehensive, acute, and vig- 
orous ; enabling him to embrace the largest range of thought ; to see at a glance 
what most men labor out by slow degrees ; and to grasp his subject with a vigor, 
and hold on to it with a firmness, which have rarely, if ever, been equaled. But his 
intellect never acted alone. It was impossible for him to speak on any subject in a 
dry or abstract manner ; all the operations of his mind were pervaded and governed 
by intense feeling. This gave rise to certain characteristics of his eloquence which 
may here be mentioned. 

First, he did not, like many in modern times, divide a speech into distinct copart- 
ments, one designed to convince the understanding, and another to move the pas- 
sions and the will. They were too closely united in his own mind to allow of such 
a separation. All went together, conviction and persuasion, intellect and feeling, 
hke chain-shot. 

Secondly, the rapidity and abruptness with which he often flashed his thoughts 
upon the mind arose from the same source. Deep .emotion strikes directly at its 
object. It struggles to get free from all secondary ideas — all mere accessories. 
Hence the simplicity, and even bareness of thought, which we usually find in the 
great passages of Chatham and Demosthenes. The whole turns often on a single 
phrase, a word, an allusion. They put forward a few great objects, sharply defined, 
and standing boldly out in the glowing atmosphere of emotion. They pour their 
burning thoughts instantaneously upon the mind, as a person might catch the rays 
of the sun in a concave mirror, and turn them on their object with a sudden and 
consuming power. 

Thirdly, his mode of reasoning, or, rather, of dispensing with the forms of argu- 
ment, resulted from the same cause. It is not the fact, though sometimes said, that 
Lord Chatham never reasoned. In most of his early speeches, and in some of his 
later ones, especially those on the right of taxing America, Ave find many examples 
of argument ; brief, indeed, but remarkably clear and stringent. It is true, however, 
that he endeavored, as far as possible, to escape from the trammels of formal reason- 
ing. When the mind is all a-glow with a subject, and sees its conclusions with the 
vividness and certainty of intuitive truths, it is impatient of the slow process of logical 
deduction. It seeks rather to reach the point by a bold and rapid progress, throwing 
away the intermediate steps, and putting the subject at once under such aspects and 
relations, as to carry its own evidence along with it. Demosthenes was remarkable 
for thus crushing together proof and statement in a single mass. When, for example, 
he calls on his judges, ht) tov avridLHov avfidovAov TTotrjoaadaL nepl rov 7xC)(; duov- 
ELV vfidg ijiov del, ' not to make his enemy their counselor as to the manner in which 
they should hear his reply,' there is an argument involved in the very ideas brought 
together — in the juxtaposition of the words avridiKov and ovfidovXov — an argument 
the more forcible because not drawn out in a regular form. It was so with Lord 
Chatham. The strength of his feelings bore him directly forward to the results of 
argument. He affirmed them earnestly, positively ; not as mere assertions, but on the 
ground of their intrinsic evidence and certainty. John Foster has finely remarked, 
that " Lord Chatham struck on the results of reasoning as a cannon-shot strikes the 



74 LORD CHATHAM. 

mark, without your seeing its course through the air." Perhaps a bomb-shell would 
have furnished even a better illustration. It explodes when it strikes, and thus be- 
comes the most powerful of arguments. 

Fourthly, this ardor of feeling, in connection \vith his keen penetration of mind, 
made him often indulge in political prophecy. His predictions were, in many in- 
stances, surprisingly verified. We have already seen it in the case of Admiral 
Hawke's victory, and in his quick foresight of a war with Spain in 1762. Eight 
years after, in the midst of a profound peace, he declared to the House of Lords that 
the inveterate enemies of England were, at the moment he spoke, striking " a blow 
of hostility" at her possessions in some quarter of the globe. News arrived at the 
end of four months that the Spanish governor of Buenos Ayres was, at that very 
time, in the act of seizing the Falkland Islands, and expelling the English. When 
this prediction was afterward referred to in Parliament, he remarked, " I will tell 
these young ministers the true secret of intelligence. It is sagacity — sagacity to 
compare causes and effects ; to judge of the present state of things, and discern the 
future by a careful review of the past. Oliver Cromwell, who astonished mankind 
by his inteUigence, did not derive it from spies in the cabinet of every prince in Eu- 
rope ; he drew it from the cabinet of his own sagacious mind." As he advanced in 
years, his tone of admonition, especially on American affairs, became more and more 
lofty and oracular. He spoke as no other man ever spoke in a great deliberative 
assembly — as one who felt that the time of his departure was at hand ; who, with- 
drawn from the ordinary concerns of life, in the words of his great eulogist, " came 
occasionally into our system to counsel and decide, " 

Fifthly, his great preponderaace of feeling made him, in the strictest sense of the 
term, an extemporaneous speaker. His mind was, indeed, richly furnished with 
thought upon every subject which came up for debate, and the matter he brought 
forward was always thoroughly matured and strikingly appropriate ; but he seems 
never to have studied its arrangement, much less to have bestowed any care on the 
language, imagery, or illustrations. Every thing fell into its place at the moment 
He poured out his thoughts and feelings just as they arose in his mind ; and hence, 
on one occasion, when dispatches had been received which could not safely be made 
public, he said to one of his colleagues, " I must not speak to day ; I shall let out 
the secret." It is also worthy of remark, that nearly all these great passages, which 
came with such starthng power upon the House, arose out of some unexpected turn 
of the debate, some incident or expression which called forth, at the moment, these 
sudden bursts of eloquence. In his attack on Lord Suffolk, he caught a single glance 
at "the tapestry which adorned the walls" around him, and one flash of his genius 
gave us the most magnificent passage in our eloquence. His highest power lay in 
these sudden bursts of passion. To call them hits, with Lord Brougham, is beneath 
their dignity and force. " They form," as his Lordship justly observes, " the grand 
charm of Lord Chatham's oratory ; they were the distinguishing excellence of his 
great predecessor, and gave him at will to wield the fierce democratic of Athens and 
to fulmine over Greece." 

To this intense emotion, thus actuating all his powers. Lord Chatham united a 
vigorous and lofty imagination, which formed his crowning excellence as an orator. 
It is this faculty which exalts /orce into the truest and most sublime eloquence. In 
this respect he approached more nearly than any speaker of modern times, to the 
great master of Athenian art. It was here, chiefly, that he surpassed Mr. Fox, who 
was not at all his inferior in ardor of feeling or robust vigor of intellect. Mr. Burke 
had even more imagination, but it was wild and irregular. It was too often on the 
wing, circling around the subject, as if to display the grace of its movements or the 
beauty of its plumage. The imagination of Lord Chatham struck directly at its 



LORD CHATPIAM. 75 

object. It " flew an eagle flight, forth and right on." It never became his master. 
Nor do we ever find it degenerating into fancy, in the limited sense of that term : 
it was never fanciful. It was, in fact, so perfectly blended with the other powers 
of his mind — so simple, so true to nature even in its loftiest flights — that we rarely 
think of it as imagination at all. 

The style and language of Lord Chatham are not to be judged of by the early 
speeches in this volume, down to 1743. Reporters at that day made little or no 
attempt to give the exact words of a speaker. They sought only to convey his sen- 
timents, though they might occasionally be led, in writing out his speeches, to catch 
some of his marked peculiarities of thought or expression. In 1766, his speech 
against the American Stamp Act was reported, with a considerable degree of verbal 
accuracy, by Sir Robert Dean, aided by Lord Charlemont. Much, however, was 
obviously omitted : and passages having an admirable felicity of expression were 
strangely intermingled Avith tame and broken sentences, showing how imperfectly 
they had succeeded in giving the precise language of the speaker. Five speeches 
(to be mentioned hereafter) were written out, from notes taken on the spot by Sir 
Philip Francis and Mr. Hugh Boyd. One of them is said to have been revised by 
Lord Chatham himself. These are the best specimens we possess of his style and 
diction ; and it would be difficult, in the whole range of our literature, to find more 
perfect models for the study and imitation of the young orator. The words are ad- 
mirably chosen. The sentences are not rounded or balanced periods, but are made 
up of short clauses, which flash themselves upon the mind with all the vividness of 
distinct ideas, and yet are closely connected together as tending to the same point, and 
uniting to form larger masses of thought. JSTothing can be more easy, varied, and 
natural than the style of these speeches. There is no mannerism about them. They 
contain some of the most vehement passages in English oratory ; and yet there is 
no appearance of eflbrt, no straining after efix^ct. They have this infalhble mark 
of genius — they make every one feel, that if placed in like circumstances, he would 
have said exactly the same things in the same manner. " Upon the whole," in the 
words of Mr. Grattan, " there was in this man something that could create, subvert, 
or reform ; an understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence to summon mankind to" so- 
ciety, or to break the bonds of slavery asunder, and rule the wildness of free minds 
with unbounded authority ; something that could establish or overwhelm empire, 
and strike a blow in the world that should resound through its history." 



SPEECH 



OF LORD CHATHAM ON A MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS ON THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF 
WALES, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. APRIL, 29, 1736. 

INTRODUCTION. 
This was Mr. Pitt's maiden speech ; and, literally understood, it is a mere string- of courtly compli- 
ments, expressed in elegant diction. But it seems plainly to have had a deeper meaning. The King, 
who was extremely irritable, had quaireled with the Prince of Wales, and treated him with great sever- 
ity. There was an open breach between them. They could not even speak to each other; and although 
the King desired the marriage, he would not allow the usual Address of Congratulation to be brought in 
by his ministers. In view of this extraordinary departure from established usage, and the feelings which 
it indicated on the King's part, Mr. Pitt's emphatic commendations of the yoang prince have a peculiar 
significance ; while the manner in which he speaks of " the tender, paternal delight" which the King 
mzist feel in yielding to " the most dutiful application" of his son, has an air of the keenest irony. Viewed 
in this light, the speech shows great tact and talent in asserting the cause of the Prince, and goading the 
feelings of the King, in language of the highest respect — the very language which could alone be ap- 
propriate to such an occasion. 



SPEECH, &c. 



I am unable, sir, to offer any thing suitable to 
the dignity and importance of the subject, which 
has not already been said by my honorable friend 
who made the motion. But I am so affected 
with the prospect of the blessings to be derived 
by my country from this most desirable, this long- 
desired measure — the marriage of his Royal 
Highness the Prince of Wales — that I can not 
forbear troubling the House with a few words 
expi-essive of my joy. I can not help mingling 
my offering, inconsiderable as it is, with this ob- 
lation of thanks and congratulation to His Maj- 
esty. 

However great, sir, the joy of the public may 
be — and great undoubtedly it is — in receiving 
this benefit from his Majesty, it must yet be in- 
ferior to that high satisfaction w^hich he himself 
enjoys in bestowing it. If I may be allowed to 
suppose that any thing in a royal mind can trans- 
cend the pleasure of gratifying the earnest wishes 
of a loyal people, it can only be the tender, pa- 
ternal delight of indulging the most dutiful ap- 
plication, the most humble request, of a submis- 
sive and obedient son. I mention, sir, his Royal 
Highness's having asked a marriage, because 
something is in justice due to him for having 
asked what we are so strongly bound, by all the 
ties of duty and gratitude, to return his Majesty 
our humble acknowledgments for having grant- 
ed. 

The marriage of a Prince of Wales, sir, has 
at all times been a matter of the highest import- 
ance to the public welfare, to present and to fu- 
ture generations. But at no time (if a charac- 
ter at once amiable and respectable can embel- 
lish, and even dignify, the elevated rank of a 
Prince of Wales) has it been a more important, 

dearer consideration than at this day. Were 
jt not a sort of presumption to follow so great a 



personage through his hours of retirement, to 
view him in the milder light of domestic life, we 
should find him engaged in the noblest exercise 
of humanity, benevolence, and every social vir- 
tue. But. sir, however pleasing, however capti- 
vating such a scene may be, yet, as it is a pri- 
vate one, I fear I should offend the delicacy of 
that virtue to which I so ardently desire to do 
justice, wei-e I to offer it to the consideration of 
this House. But, sir, filial duty to his royal pa- 
rents, a generous love of liberty, and a just rev- 
erence for the British Constitution — these are 
public virtues, and can not escape the applause 
and benedictions of the public. These are vir- 
tues, sir, which render his Royal Highness not 
only a noble ornament, but a firm support, if any 
could possibly be wanting, of that throne so great- 
ly filled by his royal father. 

I have been led to say thus much of his Royal 
Highness's character, because it is the consider- 
ation of that character which, above all things, 
enforces the justice and goodness of his Majes- 
ty in the measure now before us — a measure 
which the nation thought could never be taken 
too soon, because it brings with it the promise 
of an additional strength to the Protestant suc- 
cession in his Majesty's illustrious and royal 
house. The spirit of liberty dictated that suc- 
cession ; the same spirit now rejoices in the 
prospect of its being perpetuated to the latest 
posterity. It rejoices in the wise and happy 
choice which his Majesty ha^ been pleased to 
make of a princess so amiably distinguished in 
herself, so illustrious in the merit of her Aimily, 
the glory of whose great ancestor it is to have 
sacrificed himself in the noblest cause for which 
a prince can draw a sword — the cause of liberty 
and the Protestant religion. 

Such, sir, is the marriage for which our most 



1739.] LORD CHATHAM ON THE SPANISH CONVENTION. 77 



humble acknowledgments are due to his Maj- 
esty. May it afford the comfort of seeing the 
royal family, numerous as, I thank God, it is, 
still growing and rising up into a thii'd genera- 
tion ! A family, sir, which I mo.st earnestly 



hope may be as immortal as those liberties and 
that constitution which they came to maintain. 
Sir, I am heartily for the motion. 



The motion was unanimously agreed to. 



SPEECH V 



OF LORD CHATHAM ON THE SPANISH CONVENTION, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 

MARCH 8, 1739. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Difficulties had arisen between England and Spain, from the measures adopted by the latter to sup- 
press an illicit trade carried on by English adventurers with the coast of South America. The Spanish 
cruisers searched British merchantmen found in that quarter, and in so doing, either through mistake or 
design, committed outrages to a considerable extent upon lawful traders. Exaggerated accounts of 
these outrages were circulated throughout England. The public mind became greatly inflamed on the 
subject, and many went so far as to contend that the British flag covered her merchant ships and pro- 
tected them from search under all circumstances. 

Walpole opened a negotiation with the Court of Madrid for the redress and removal of these griev- 
ances. After due examination, the just claims of the English merchants upon Spain were set down at 
£200,000. On the other hand, the sum of £60,000 was now adjudged, under the stipulations of a former 
treaty, to be due from England to Spain, for captures made in 1718 by Admiral Byng. The balance due 
to England was thus settled at £140,000; and Walpole, to avoid the usual delay of the Spaniards in 
money matters, offered to make an abatement of £45,000 for prompt payment, thus reducing the entire 
amount to £95,000. To this the Spanish government gave their assent, but on the express condition 
that this arrangement should be considered as in no way affecting certain claims of Spain on the English 
South Sea Company. 

As the result of this negotiation, a Convention was drawn up on the 14th of January, 1739, stipulating 
for the payment of £95,000 within four months from the exchange of ratifications. It also provided for the 
removal of all remaining difficulties, by agreeing that commissioners from England and Spain should meet 
within six weeks, to adjust all questions respecting trade between Europe and the colonies in. America; 
and also to establish the boundary lines between Florida and the English settlements in Carolina, then 
embracing Georgia. It further stipulated that, during the sitting of this commission, the erection of for- 
tifications should be suspended, both in Carolina and Florida. At the moment when this Convention was 
to be signed, the Spanish government gave notice, that as the South Sea Company was not embraced in 
this arrangement, the King of Spain held them to be bis debtors to the amount of £68,000, for his share 
of the profits they had realized under previous engagements ; and that, unless payment was made within 
a specified time, he would deprive them of the Assicnio, or contract, which he had granted them for 
supplying Sovath Amei'ica with slaves. Such were the provisions of the famous Spanish Convention, and 
the circumstances under which it was signed. 

The House of Commons appointed March 6th, 1739, for considering this Convention. The public mind 
was gi'eatly agitated on the subject. There was a general outcry against it, as betraying at once the 
interests of the merchants and the honor of the country. Such was the excitement and expectation when 
the day arrived, that four hundred members took their seats in the House at 8 o'clock A.M., five hours 
before the time appointed for entering upon business. Two days were spent in examining witnesses 
and hearing numerous written documents relating to the subject. On the 8th of March, Mr. Horace ^Val- 
pole, brother to the minister, after a long and able speech, moved in substance that " the House return 
thanks to his Majesty for communicating the Convention ; for having taken measures to obtain speedy 
payment for the losses sustained by the merchants; and also for removing similar abuses in future, and 
preserving a lasting peace." After a number of members had expressed their views, Mr. Pitt rose and 
delivered the following speech, which gave him at once, and at the age of thirty, that ascendency as a 
speaker in the House of Commons which he afterward maintained. 

S P E E C H, &0. 



Sir, — There certainly has never been in Par- 
liament a matter of more high national concern 
than the Convention referred to the considera- 
tion of this committee ; and, give me leave to 
say, there can not be a more indirect manner of 
taking the sense of the committee upon it than 



by the complicated question that is now before 
you. 

We have here the soft name of an humble ad- 
dress to the Throne proposed, and for no other 
end than to lead gentlemen into an approbation 
of the Convention. Is this that full, deliberate 



78 



LORD CHATHAM ON THE SPANISH CONVENTION. 



[1739. 



examination, which we were with defiance called 
upon to give to this Convention ? Is this cursory, 
blended disquisition of matters of such variety 
and extent, all that we owe to ourselves and to 
our country ? When trade is at stake, it is your 
last intrenchment ; you must defend it or perish ; 
and whatever is to decide that^ deserves the most 
distinct consideration, and the most direct, undis- 
guised sense of Parliament. But how are we 
now proceeding ? Upon an artificial, ministerial 
question. Here is all the confidence, here is the 
conscious sense of the greatest service that ever 
was done to this country !^ to be complicating 
questions, to be lumping sanction and approba- 
tion, like a commissary's account ! to be cover- 
ing and taking sanctuary in the royal name, in- 
stead of meeting openly, and standing fairly, the 
direct judgment and sentence of Parliament upon 
-the several articles of this Convention. ■==- 

You have been moved to vote an humble ad- 
dress of thanks to his Majesty for a measure 
which (I will appeal to gentlemen's conversation 
in the world) is odious throughout the kingdom. 
Such thanks are only due to the fatal influence 
that framed it, as are due for that low, unallied 
condition abroad which is now made a plea for 
this Convention. 

To what are gentlemen reduced in support of 
it ? They first try a little to defend it upon its 
own merits ; if that is not tenable, they throw out 
general terrors — the House of Bourbon is united, 
who knows the consequence of a war ? Sir, 
Spain knows the consequence of a war in Amer- 
ica. Whoever gains, it must prove fatal to her. 
She knows it, and must therefore avoid it ; but 
she knows that England does not dare to make 
it. And what is a delay, which is all this mag- 
nified Convention is sometimes called, to pro- 
duce ? Can it produce such conjunctures as 
those which you lost while you were giving 
kingdoms to Spain, and all to bring her back 
again to that great branch of the house of Bourbon 
which is now held out to you as an object of so 
much terror? If this union be formidable, are 
we to delay only till it becomes more formidable, 
by being carried farther into execution, and by 
being more strongly cemented ? But be it what 
it will, is this any longer a nation ? Is this any 
longer an English Parliament, if, with more ships 
in your harbors than in all the navies of Europe ; 
with above two millions of people in your Amer- 
ican colonies, you will bear to hear of the expe- 
diency of receiving from Spain an insecure, un- 
satisfactory, dishonorable Convention ? Sir, I 
call it no more than it has been proved in this 
debate ; it carries fallacy or downright subjec- 
tion in almost every line. It has been laid open 
and exposed in so many strong and glaring lights, 
that I can not pretend to add any thing to the 
conviction and indignation which it has raised. 

Sir, as to the great national objection, the 
searching of your ships, that favorite word, as it 

1 Alluding to the extravagant terms of praise in 
which Mr. H. Walpole had spoken of the Conven- 
tion, and of those Who framed it. 



was called, is not, indeed, omitted in the pream- 
ble to the Convention, but it stands there as the 
reproach of the whole, as the strongest evidence 
of the fatal submission that follows. On the part of 
Spain, a usurpation, an inhuman tyranny, claim- 
ed and exercised over the American seas ; on the 
part of England, an undoubted right by treaties, 
and from God and nature declared and asserted 
in the resolutions of Parliament, are referred to 
the discussion of plenipotentiaries upon one and 
the same equal footing ! Sir, I say this undoubt- 
ed right is to be discussed and to be regulated ! 
And if to regulate be to prescribe rules (as in 
all construction it is), this right is, by the ex- 
press words of this Convention, to be given up and 
sacrificed ; for it must cease to be any thing from 
the moment it is submitted to limits. 

The court of Spain has plainly told you (as 
appears by papers upon the table), that you shall 
steer a due course, that you shall navigate by a 
line to and from your plantations in America — 
if you draw near to her coast (though, from the 
circumstances of the navigation, you are under 
an unavoidable necessity of doing so), you shall 
be seized and confiscated. If, then, upon these 
terms only she has consented to refer, what be- 
comes at once of all the security we are flattered 
with in consequence of this reference ? Pleni- 
potentiaries are to regulate finally the respective 
pretensions of the two crowns with regard to 
trade and navigation in America : but does a 
man in Spain reason that these pretensions must 
be regulated to the satisfaction and honor of En- 
gland ? No, sir, they conclude, and with reason, 
from the high spirit of their administration, from 
the superiority with which they have so long 
treated you, that this reference must end, as it 
has begun, to their honor and advantage. 

But, gentlemen say, the treaties subsisting are 
to be the measure of this regulation. Sir, as to 
treaties, I will take part of the words of Sir Will- 
iam Temple, quoted by the honorable gentle- 
man near me ; it is vain to negotiate and to make 
treaties, if there is not dignity and vigor sufficient 
to enforce their observance. Under the miscon- 
struction and misrepresentation of these very 
treaties subsisting, this intolerable grievance has 
arisen. It has been growing upon you, treaty 
after treaty, through twenty years of negotiation, 
and even under the discussion of commissaries, 
to whom it was referred. You have heard from 
Captain Yaughan, at your bar, at what time 
these injuries and indignities were continued. 
As a kind of explanatory comment upon this 
Convention which Spain has thought fit to grant 
you, as another insolent protest, under the valid- 
ity and force of which she has suffered this Con- 
vention to be proceeded upon, .she seems to say, 
" We will treat with you, but we will search and 
take your ships ; we will sign a Convention, but 
we will keep your subjects prisoners in Old 
Spain ; the West Indies are remote ; Europe 
shall witness in what manner we use you." 

Sir, as to the inference of an admission of 
our right not to be searched, drawn from a rep- 
aration made for ships unduly seized and confis- 



1741.] 



LORD CHATHAM AGAINST SEARCH-WARRANTS. 



79 



cated, I think that arfrument very inconclusive. 
The right claimed by Spain to search our ships 
is one thing, and the excesses admitted to have 
been committed in consequence of this pretend- 
ed right is another. But surely, sir, to reason 
from inference and implication only, is below the 
dignity of your proceedings upon a right of this 
vast importance. * What this reparation is, what 
sort of composition for your losses forced upon 
you by Spain, in an instance that has come to 
light, where your own commissaries could not in 
conscience decide against your claim, has fully 
appeared upon examination ; and as for the pay- 
ment of the sum stipulated (all but seven-and- 
twenty thousand pounds, and that, too, subject to 
a drawback), it is evidently a fallacious nominal 
payment only. I will not attempt to enter into 
the detail of a dark, confused, and scarcely in- 
telligible account ; I will only beg leave to con- 
clude with one word upon it, in the light of a 
submission as well as of an adequate reparation. 
Spain stipulates to pay to the Crown of England 
ninety-five thousand pounds ; by a preliminary 
protest of the King of Spain, the South Sea Com- 
pany is at once to pay sixty-eight thousand of 
it : if they refuse, Spain, I admit, is still to pay 
the ninety-five thousand pounds ; but how does 
it stand then? The Assiento Contract is to be 
suspended. You are to purchase this sum at 
the price of an exclusive trade, pursuant to a 
national treaty, and of an immense debt of God 
knows how many hundred thousand pounds, due 
from Spain to the South Sea Company. Here, 
sir, is the submission of Spain by the payment of 
a stipulated sum ; a tax laid upon subjects of 
England, under the severest penalties, with the 
reciprocal accord of an English minister as a 
preliminary that the Convention may be signed ; 
a condition imposed by Spain in the most abso- 



lute, imperious manner, and most ramely and 
abjectly received by the ministers of England, 
Can any verbal distinctions, any evasions what- 
ever, possibly explain away this public infamy ? 
To whom would we disguise it ? To ourselves 
and to the nation ! I wish we could hide it from 
the eyes of ev«ry court in Europe. They see 
that Spain has talked to you like your master. 
They see this arbitrary fundamental condition 
standing forth with a pre-eminence of shame, as 
a part of this very Convention. 

This Convention, sir, I think from my soul, is 
nothing but a stipulation for national ignominy ; 
an illusory expedient to baffle the resentment of 
the nation ; a truce, without a suspension of hos- 
tilities, on the part of Spain ; on the part of En- 
gland, a suspension, as to Georgia, of the first 
law of nature, self-preservation and self-defense ; 
a surrender of the rights and trade of England 
to the mercy of plenipotentiaries, and, in this in- 
finitely highest and most sacred point — future 
security — not only inadequate, but directly re- 
pugnant to the resolutions of Parliament and the 
gracious promise from the Throne. The com- 
plaints of your despairing merchants, and the 
voice of England, have condemned it. Be the 
guilt of it upon the head of the adviser : God 
forbid that this conmiittee should share the guilt 
by approving it ! 



The motion was carried by a very small ma- 
jority, the vote being 260 to 232. Mr. Burke's 
statement respecting the merits of this question, 
as it afterward appeared, even to those who took 
the most active part against the Convention, may 
be found in his Regicide Peace. Whether Lord 
Chatham was one of the persons referred to by 
Mr. Burke as having changed their views, does 
not appear, but it is rather presumed not. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD CHATHAM AGAINST SEARCH-WARRANTS FOR SEAMEN, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF 

COMMONS, MARCH 6, 1741. 



INTRODUCTION. 
War was declared against Spain in October, 1739, and it soon became extremely difficult to man the 
British fleets. Hence a bill was brought forward by Sir Charles Wager, in January, 1741, conferring au- 
thority on Justices of the Peace to issue search-warrants, under which constables might enter private 
dwellings either by day or by night — and, if need be, might force the doors — for the purpose of discovering 
seamen, and impressing them into the public service. So gross an act of injustice awakened the indig- 
nation of Mr. Pitt, who poured out the following invective against the measure, and those who were en- 
deavoring to force it on the House. 

S P E E C H, &c. 



Sir, — The two honorable and learned gentle- 
men^ who spoke in favor of this clause, were 
pleased to show that our seamen are half slaves 
already, and now they modestly desire you should 

1 The Attorney and Solicitor General, Sir Dudley 
Ryder and Sir John Sti'ange. The former was sub- 
sequently Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, 
and the latter Master of the Rolls. 



make them wholly so. Will this increase your 
number of seamen ? or will it make those you 
have more willing to serve you ? Can you expect 
that any man will make himself a slave if he can 
avoid it ? Can you expect that any man will 
breed his child up to be a slave ? Can you ex- 
pect that seamen will venture their lives or their 
limbs for a country that has made them slaves ? 



80 



LORD CHATHAM AGAINST SEARCH-WARRANTS. 



[1741. 



or can you expect that any seaman will stay in 
the country, if he can by any means make his 
escape ? Sir, if you pass this law, you must, in 
my opinion, do with your seamen as they do 
with their galley-slaves in France — you must 
chain them to their ships, or chain them in 
couples when they are ashore. But suppose 
this should both increase the number of your 
seamen, and render them more willing to serve 
you, it will render them incapable. ^ It is a 
common observation, that when a man becomes 
a slave, he loses half his virtue?* What will it 
signify to have your ships all manned to their 
full complement ? Your men will have neither 
the courage nor the temptation to fight ; they 
will strike to the first enemy that attacks them, 
because their condition can not be made worse 
by a surrender. Our seamen have always been 
famous for a matchless alacrity and intrepidity 
in time of danger ; this has saved many a Brit- 
ish ship, when other seamen would have run be- 
low deck, and left the ship to the mercy of the 
waves, or, perhaps, of a more cruel enemy, a pi- 
rate. For God's sake, sir, let us not, by our 
new projects, put our seamen into such a condi- 
tion as must soon make them worse than the 
cowardly slaves of France or Spain. 

The learned gentlemen were next pleased to 
show us that the government were already pos- 
sessed of such a power as is now desired. And 
how did they show it? Why, sir, by showing 
that this was the practice in the case of felony, 
and in the case of those who are as bad as lelons, 
I mean those who rob the public, or dissipate 
the public money. Shall we, sir, put our brave 
sailors upon the same footing with felons and 
public robbers ? Shall a brave, honest sailor be 
treated as a felon, for no other reason but be- 
cause, after a long voyage, he has a mind to sol- 
ace himself among his friends in the country, and 
'for that purpose absconds for a few weeks, in 
order to prevent his being pressed upon a Spit- 
head, or some such pacific expedition? For I 
dare answer for it, there is not a sailor in Brit- 
ain but would immediately offer his services, if 
he thought his country in any real danger, or 
expected to be sent upon an expedition where 
he might have a chance of gaining riches to 
himself and glory to his country. I am really 
ashamed, sir, to hear such arguments made use 
of in any case where our seamen are concerned. 
Can we expect that brave men will not resent 
such treatment ? Could we expect they would 
stay with us, if we should make a law for treat- 
ing them in such a contemptible manner? 

But suppose, sir, we had no regard for our 
seamen, I hope we shall have some regard for 
the rest of the people, and for ourselves in par- 
ticular ; for 1 think I do not in the least exag- 
gerate when I say, we are laying a trap for the 
lives of all the men of spirit in the nation. 
Whether the law, when made, is to be carried 
into execution, I do not know ; but if it is, we 
are laying a snare for our own lives. Every 
gentleman of this House must be supposed, I 
hope justly, to be a man of spirit. Would any 



of you, gentlemen, allow this law to be executed 
in its full extent? If, at midnight, a petty con- 
stable, with a press-gang, should come thunder- 
ing at the gates of your house in the country, 
and should tell you he had a search-warrant, 
and must search your house for seamen, would 
you at that time of night allow your gates to be 
opened ? I protest I would not. What, then, 
would be the consequence ? He has by this law 
a power to break them open. Would any of 
you patiently submit to such an indignity ? 
Would not you fire upon him, if he attempted to 
break open your gates ? I declare I would, let 
the consequence be never so fatal; and if you 
happened to be in the bad graces of a minister, 
the consequence would be your being either kill- 
ed in the fray, or hanged for killing the consta- 
ble or some of his gang. This, sir, may be the 
case of even some of us here ; and, upon my 
honor, I do not think it an exaggeration to sup- 
pose it may. 

The honorable gentlemen say no other remedy 
has been proposed. Sir, there have been several 
other remedies proposed. Let us go into a com- 
mittee to consider of what has been, or may be 
proposed. Suppose no other remedy should be 
offered : to tell us we must take this, because no 
other remedy can be thought of, is the same 
with a physician's telling his patient, " Sir, there 
is no known remedy for your distemper, there- 
fore you shall take poison — I'll cram it down 
your throat." I do not know how the nation 
may treat its physicians ; but, I am sure, if my 
ph3'sician told me so, I should order my servants 
to turn him out of doors. 

Such desperate remedies, sir, are never to be 
applied but in cases of the utmost extremity, 
and how we come at present to be in such ex- 
tremity I can not comprehend. In the time of 
Queen Elizabeth we were not thought to be in 
any such extremity, though we were then threat- 
ened with the most formidable invasion that was 
ever prepared against this nation. In our wars 
with the Dutch, a more formidable maritime 
power than France and Spain now would be, if 
they were united against us, we were not sup- 
posed to be in any such extremity, either in the 
time of the Commonwealth or of King Charles 
the Second. In King William's war against 
Fi-ance, when her naval power was vastly supe- 
rior to what it is at present, and when we had 
more reason to be afraid of an invasion than we 
can have at present, we were thought to be in 
no such extremity. In Queen Anne's time, when 
we were engaged in a war both against France 
and Spain, and were obliged to make great lev- 
ies yearly for the land service, no such remedy 
was ever thought of, except for one year only, 
and then it was found to be far from being ef- 
fectual. 

This, sir, I am convinced, would be the case 
now, as well as it was then. It was at that 
time computed that, by means of such a law as 
this, there were not above fourteen hundred sea- 
men brought into the service of the government; 
and, considering the methods that have been al- 



1741] 



LORD CHATHAM'S REPLY TO HORATIO WALPOLE. 



81 



ready taken, and the reward proposed by this 
bill to be offered to volunteers, I am convinced 
that the most strict and general search would 
not bring in half the number. Shall we, then, 
for the sake of adding six or seven hundred, or 
even fourteen hundred seamen to his Majesty's 
navy, expose our Constitution to so much dan- 
ger, and every housekeeper in the kingdom to 
the danger of being disturbed at all hours in the 
night ? 

But suppose this law were to have a great 
effect, it can be called nothing but a temporary 
expedient, because it can in no way contribute 
toward increasing the number of our seamen, or 
toward rendering them more willing to enter 
into his Majesty's service. It is an observation 
made by Bacon upon the laws passed in Henry 
the Seventh's reign, that all of them were cal- 
culated for futurity as well as the present time.^ 
This showed the wisdom of his councils ; I wish 
I could say so of our present. We have for 
some years thought of nothing but expedients 
for getting rid of some present inconvenience by 
running ourselves into a greater. The ease or 
convenience of posterity was never less thought 
of, I believe, than it has been of late years. I 
wish I could see an end of these temporaiy ex- 
pedients ; for we have been pursuing them so 
long, that we have almost undone our country 
and overturned our Constitution. Therefore, sir, 



I shall be for leaving this clause out of the bill, 
and every other clause relating to it. The bill 
will be of some service without them ; and when 
w^e have passed it, we may then go into a com- 
mittee to consider of some lasting methods for 
increasing our stock of seamen, and for encour- 
aging them upon all occasions to enter into his 
Majesty's service. 



In consequence of these remarks, all the claus- 
es relating to search-warrants were ultimatelj 
struck out of the bill. 

It was during this debate that the famous al 
tercation took place between Mr. Pitt and Ho- 
ratio Walpole, in which the latter endeavored to 
put down the young orator by representing him 
as having too little experience to justify his dis- 
cussing such subjects, and charging him with 
"petulancy of invective," "pompous diction," 
and " theatrical emotion." The substance of 
Mr. Pitt's reply was reported to Johnson, who 
wrote it out in his own language, formino- one 
of the most bitter retorts in English oratory. 
It has been so long connected with the name of 
Mr. Pitt, that the reader would regret its omis- 
sion in this w^ork. It is therefore given below, 
not as a specimen of his style, which was exact- 
ly the reverse of the sententious manner and bal- 
anced periods of Johnson, but as a general ex- 
hibition of the sentiments which he expressed. 



REPLY 

OF LORD CHATHAM WHEN ATTACKED BY HORATIO WALPOLE, DELIVERED MARCH 6, 174L 



Sir, — The atrocious crime of being a young 
man, which the honorable gentleman has, with 
such spirit and decency, charged upon me, I 
shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny, but 
content myself with wishing that I may be one 
of those whose follies may cease with their youth, 
and not of that number who are ignorant in spite 
of experience. Whether youth can be imputed 
to any man as a reproach, I will not, sir, assume 
the province of determining ; but surely age may 
become justly contemptible, if the opportunities 
which it brings have passed away without im- 
provement, and vice appears to prevail when the 
passions have subsided. The wretch who, after 
having seen the consequences of a thousand er- 
rors, continues still to blunder, and whose age 
has only added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely 
the object of either abhorrence or contempt, and 

• -* 

2 " Certainly his (Henry the Seventh's) times for 
good commonwealth's laws did excel, so as he may 
justly be celebrated for the best lawgiver to this 
nation after King Edward the First; for his laws, 
whoso marks them well, are deep, and not vulgar; 
not made upon the spur of a particular occasion for 
the present, but out of providence for the future, to 
make the estate of his people still more and more 
happy, after the manner of the legislators in ancient 
and heroical times.'" — Bacon's Works, vol. iii., p. 
233, edition 1834. 



deserves not that his gray hairs should secure 
him from insult. Much more, sir, is he to be 
abhorred, who, as he has advanced in age, has 
receded from virtue, and becomes more wicked 
with less temptation ; who prostitutes himself 
for money which he can not enjoy, and spends 
the remains of his life in the ruin of his country. 
But youth, sir, is not my only crime ; I have 
been accused of acting a theatrical part. A 
theatrical part may either imply some peculiar- 
ities of gesture, or a dissimulation of my real 
sentiments, and an adoption of the opinions and 
language of another man. 

In the first sense, sir, the charge is too trifling 
to be confuted, and deserves only to be mention- 
ed to be despised. I am at liberty, like every 
other man, to use my own language ; and 
though, perhaps, I may have some ambition to 
please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself un- 
der any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his 
diction or his mien, however matured by age, or 
modeled by experience. If any man shall, by 
charging me with theatrical behavior, imply that 
I utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat 
him as a calumniator and a villain ; nor shall 
any protection shelter him from the treatment 
he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, with- 
out scruple, trample upon all those forms with 
which wealth and dignity intrench themselves. 



LORD CHATHAM AGAINST 



[1742. 



nor shall any thing but age restrain my resent- 
ment — age, which always brings one privilege, 
that of being insolent and supercilious without 
punishment. But with regard, sir, to those 
whom I have offended, I am of opinion, that if I 
had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoid- 
ed their censure. The heat that offended them 
is the ardor of conviction, and that zeal for the 
service of my country which neither hope nor 
fear shall influence me to suppress. I will not 
sit unconcerned while my liberty is invaded, nor 
look in silence upon public robbery. I will ex- 
ert my endeavors, at whatever hazard, to repel 
the aggressor, and drag the thief to justice, who- 
ever may protect them in their villainy, and 
whoever may partake of their plunder. And if 
the honorable gentleman — 

[At this point Mr. Pitt was called to order by 
Mr. Wynnington, who went on to say, " No di- 
versity of opinion can justify the violation of de- 
cency, and the use of rude and virulent expres- 
sions, dictated only by resentment, and uttered 
without regard to — " 

Here Mr. Pitt called to order, and proceeded 



thus :] Sir, if this be to preserve order, there is 
no danger of indecency from the most licentious 
tongues. For what calumny can be more atro- 
cious, what reproach more severe, than that of 
speaking with regard to any thing but truth. 
Order may sometimes be broken by passion or 
inadvertency, but will hardly be re-established 
by a monitor like this, who can not govern his 
own passions while he is restraining the impetu- 
osity of others. 

Happy would it be for mankind if every one 
knew his own province. We should not then 
see the .same man at once a criminal and a judge ; 
nor would this gentleman assume the right of 
dictating to others what he has not learned him- 
self. 

That I may return in some degree the favor 
he intends me, I will advise him never hereafter 
to exert himself on the subject of order ; but 
whenever he feels inclined to speak on such oc- 
casions, to remember how he has now succeed- 
ed, and condemn in silence what his censures 
will never amend. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD CHATHAM ON A MOTION FOR INQUIRING INTO THE CONDUCT OF SIR ROBERT WAL- 
POLE, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 9, 1742. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Sir Robert Walpole was driven from power on the 11th of February, 1742. So greatly were the 
public excited against him, that the cry of "blood" was heard from every quarter; and a motion was 
made by Lord Limerick, on the 9th of Mai'ch, 1742, for a committee " to inquire into the conduct of affairs 
at home and abroad during the last twenty years." This, of course, gave the widest scope for arraign- 
ing the conduct of the ex-minister; while, at the same time, no specific charges were requisite, because 
the question was simply on an inquiry, which was expected to develop the evidence of his guilt. 

This motion was strongly opposed by Walpole's friends, and especially by Mr. Henry Pelhara, who re- 
marked, in allusion to one of the preceding speakers, that "it would very much shorten the debate if gen- 
tlemen would keep close to the argument, and not run into long harangues or flowers of rhetoric, which 
might be introduced upon any other subject as well as the present." Mr. Pitt followed, and took his ex- 
ordium from this sarcasm of Mr. Pelham. He then went fully, and with great severity of remark, into a 
review of the most important measures of Walpole's administration. This led him over the same ground 
which had been previously traversed by Walpole, in his defense against the attack of Mr. Sandys and 
others about a year before. The reader will therefore find it interesting to compare this speech on the 
several points, 3S they come up, with that of Walpole, which is given on a preceding page. He will there 
see some points explained in the notes, by means of evidence which was not accessible to the public at 
the time of this discussion. 



SPEECH, &c. 



What the gentlemen on the other side mean 
by long harangues or flowers of rhetoric, I shall 
not pretend to determine. But if they make use 
of nothing of the kind, it is no very good argu- 
ment of their sincerity, because a man who 
speaks from his heart, and is sincerely alTected 
with the subject upon which he speaks (as every 
honest man must be when he .speaks in the cause 
of his country), such a man, I say, falls natu- 
rally into expressions which may be called flow- 
ers of rhetoric ; and, therefore, deserves as little 
to be charged with afTectation, as the most stu- 



pid sergeant-at-law that ever spoke for a half- 
guinea fee. For my part, I have heard nothing 
in favor of the qilestion but what I think very 
proper, and very much to the purpose. What 
has been said, indeed, on the other side of the 
question, especially the long justification that 
has been made of our late measures, I can not 
think so proper ; because this motion is founded 
upon the present melancholy situation of affairs, 
and upon the general clamor without doors, 
against the conduct of our late public servants. 
Either of these, with me, shall always be a suffi- 



1742] 



SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. 



83 



cient reason for agreeing to a parliamentary in- 
quiry ; because, without such inquiry, I can not, 
even in my own mind, enter into the disquisition 
whether our public measures have been right or 
not ; without such inquiry, I can not be furnished 
with the necessary information. 

But the honorable gentlemen who oppose this 
motion seem to mistake, I do not say willfully, 
the difference between a motion for an impeach- 
ment and a motion for an inquiry. If any mem- 
ber of this House were to stand up in his place, 
and move to impeach a minister, he would be 
obliged to charge him with some particular 
crimes or misdemeanors, and produce some 
proof, or declare that he was ready to prove the 
facts. But any gentleman may move for an in- 
quiry^ without any particular allegation, and 
without offering any proof, or declaring what he 
is ready to prove ; because the very design of 
an inquiry is to find out particular facts and par- 
ticular proofs. The general circumstances of 
things, or general rumors without doors, are a 
sufficient foundation for such a motion, and for 
the House agreeing to it when it is made. This, 
sir, has always been the practice, and has been 
the foundation of almost all the inquiries that 
have ever been set on foot in this House, espe- 
cially those that have been carried on by secret 
and select committees. What other foundation 
was there for the secret committee appointed in 
the year 1694 (to go no further back), to inquire 
into, and inspect the books and accounts of the 
East India Company, and of the Chamberlain of 
London ?^ Nothing but a general rumor that 
some corrupt practices had been made use of. 
What was the foundation of the inquiry in the 
year 1715 ?'-^ Did the honorable gentleman who 
moved the appointment of the secret committee 
upon the latter occasion, charge the previous 
administration with any particular crimes ? Did 
he offer any proofs, or declare that he was ready 
to prove any thing ? It is said, the measures 
pursued by that administration were condemned 
by a great majority of the House of Commons. 
What, sir ! were those ministers condemned be- 
fore they were heard? Could any gentleman 
be so unjust as to pass sentence, even in his own 
mind, upon a measure before he had inquired 
into it ? He might, perhaps, dislike the Treaty 
of Utrecht, but, upon inquiry, it might appear 
to be the best that could be obtained ; and it 
has since been so far justified, that it appears 
at least as good, if not better, than any treaty 
we have subsequently made. 

Sir, it was not the Treaty of Utrecht, nor any 
measure openly pursued by the administration 
which negotiated it, that was the foundation or 
the cause of an inquiry into their conduct. It 
was the loud complaints of a great party against 
them ; and the general suspicion of their having 
carried on treasonable negotiations in favor of 
the Pretender, and for defeating the Protestant 
succession. The inquiry was set on foot in or- 



1 See Pari. Hist, vol. v., p. 896 and 900. 

2 Ibid., vol. vii., p. 53. 



der to detect those practices, if any .such exist- 
ed, and to find proper evidence for convicting 
the offenders. The same argument holds with 
regard to the inquiry into the management of 
the South Sea Company in the year 1721.^ 
When that affair was first moved in the House 
by Mr. Neville, he did not, he could not, charge 
the directors of that company, or any of them, 
with any particular delinquencies ; nor did he 
attempt to offer, or say that he was ready to offer, 
any particular proofs. His motion was, '" That 
the directors of the South Sea Company should 
forthwith lay before the House an account of 
their proceedings," and it was founded upon the 
general circumstances of things, the distress 
brought upon the public credit of the nation, and 
the general and loud complaints without doors. 
This motion, indeed, reasonable as it was, we 
know was opposed by the Court party at the 
time, and, in particular, by two doughty broth- 
ers,^ who have been attached to the Court ever 
since ; but their opposition raised such a warmth 
in the House, that they were glad to give it up, 
and never after durst directly oppose that in- 
quiry. I wish I could now see the same zeal 
for public justice. The circumstances of affairs 
I am sure deserve it. Our public credit was 
then, indeed, brought into distress ; but now the 
nation itself, nay, not only this nation, but all 
our friends upon the Continent, are brought into 
the most imminent danger. ^ 

This, sir, is admitted even by those who op- 
pose this motion ; and if they have ever lately 
conversed with those that dare speak their minds, 
they must admit, that the murmurs of the peo- 
ple against the conduct of the administration are 
now as general and as loud as ever they were 
upon any occasion. But the misfortune is, that 
gentlemen who are in office seldom converse with 
any but such as either are, or want to be, in office ; 
and such men, let them think as they will, will al- 
ways applaud their superiors ; consequentl}"^, gen- 
tlemen who are in the admini.stration, or in any 
office under it, can rarely know the voice ol' the 
people. The voice of this House was formerly, 
I grant, and always ought to be, the voice of the 
people. If new Parliaments were more fre- 
quent, and few placemen, and no pensioners, ad- 
mitted, it would be so still ; but if long Parlia- 
ments be continued, and a corrupt influence 
should prevail, not only at elections, but in this 
House, the voice of this House will generally be 
very different from, nay, often directly contrary 
to, the voice of the people. However, as this 
is not, 1 believe, the case at present, I hope 
there is a majority of us who know what is the 
voice of the people. And if it be admitted by 
all that the nation is at present in the utmost 
distress and danger, if it be admitted by a ma- 
jority that the voice of the people is loud against 
the conduct of our late administration, this mo- 
tion must be agreed to, because I have shown 
that these two circumstances, without any par- 



3 Ibid., p. 685. 

* Sir Robert and Mr. Horatio Walpole. 



84 



LORD CHATHAM AGAINST 



[1742. 



ticular charge, have been the foundation of al- 
most every parliamentary inquiry. 

I readily admit, sir, that we have very little 
to do with the character or reputation of a min- 
ister, but as it always does, and must affect our 
sovereign. But the people may become disaf- 
fected as well as discontented, w'hen they find 
the King continues obstinately to employ a min- 
ister who, they think, oppresses them at home 
and betrays them abroad. We are, therefore, 
in duty to our sovereign, obliged to inquire into 
the conduct of a minister when it becomes gen- 
erally suspected by the people, in order that we 
may vindicate his character if he be innocent of 
the charges brought against him, or, if he be 
guilty, that w^e may obtain his removal from the 
councils of our sovereign, and also condign pun- 
ishment on his crimes. 

After having said thus much, sir, I need scarce- 
ly answer what has been asserted, that no par- 
liamentary inquiry ought ever to be instituted, 
unless we are convinced that something has 
been done amiss. Sii*, the very name given to 
this House of Parliament proves the contrary. 
We are called The Grand Inquest of the Nation ; 
and, as such, it is our duty to inquire into every 
step of public management, both abroad and at 
home, in order to see that nothing has been done 
amiss. It is not necessary, upon every occasion, 
to establish a secret committee. This is never 
necessary but when the affairs to be brought be- 
fore it, or some of those affairs, are supposed to 
be of such a nature as to require secrecy. But, 
as experience has shown that nothing but a su- 
perficial inquiry is ever made by a general com- 
mittee, or a committee of the w^hole House, I 
wish that all estimates and accounts, and many 
other affairs, were respectively referred to select 
committees. Their inquiries would be more ex- 
act, and the receiving of their reports would not 
occupy so much of our time as is represented. 
But, if it did, our duty being to make strict in- 
quiries into every thing relative to the public, 
our assembling hei-e being for that purpose, we 
must perform our duty before we break up ; and 
his present Majesty, I am sure, wnll never put 
an end to any session till that duty has been fully 
performed. 

It is said by some gentlemen, that by this in- 
quiry we shall be in danger of discovering the 
secrets of our government to our enemies. This 
argument, sir, by proving too much, proves noth- 
ing. If it were admitted, it would always have 
been, and its admission forever will be, an argu- 
ment against our inquiring into any affair in 
which our government can be supposed to be 
concerned. Our inquiries would then be-con- 
fiined to the conduct of our little companies,, or 
of inferior custom-house officers and excisemen ; 
for, if we should presume to inquire into the con- 
duct of commissioners or of great companies, it 
would be said the government had a concern in 
their conduct, and the secrets of government 
must not be divulged. Every gentleman must 
see that this would be the consequence of ad- 
mitting such an argument. But, besides, it is 



false in fact, and contrary to experience. We 
have had many parliamentary inquiries into the 
conduct of ministers of state ; and yet I defy any 
one to show that any state affair which ought to 
have been concealed was thereby discovered, or 
that our affairs, either abroad or at home, ever 
suffered by any such discovery. There are 
methods, sir, of preventing papers of a very se- 
cret nature from coming into the hands of the 
servants attending, or even of all the members 
of a secret committee. If his Majesty should, 
by message, inform us, that some of the papers 
sealed up and laid before us required the utmost 
secrecy, we might refer them to our committee, 
instructing them to order only two or three of 
their number to inspect such papers, and to re- 
port from them nothing but what they thought 
might safely be communicated to the whole. 
By this method, I presume, the danger of dis- 
covery would be effectually removed ; this dan- 
ger, therefore, is no good argument against a 
parliamentary inquiry. 

The other objection, sir, is really surprising, 
because it is founded upon a circumstance which, 
in all former times, has been admitted as a 
strong argument in favor of an immediate in- 
quiry. The honorable gentlemen are so ingen- 
uous as to confess that our affairs, both abroad 
and at home, are at present in the utmost em- 
barrassment ; but, say they, you ought to free 
yourselves from this embarrassment before you 
inquire into the cause of it. Sir, according to 
this way of arguing, a minister who has plun- 
dered and betrayed his country, and fears being 
called to an account in Parliament, has nothing 
to do but to involve his country in a dangerous 
war, or some other great distress, in order to 
prevent an inquiry into his conduct ; because he 
may be dead before that war is at an end, or 
that distress is surmounted. Thus, like the most 
detestable of all thieves, after plundering the 
house, he has only to set it on fire, that he may 
escape in the confusion. It is really astonishing 
to hear such an argument seriously urged in this 
House. But, say these gentlemen, if you found 
yourself upon a precipice, would you stand to 
inquire how you were led there, before you con- 
sidered how to get off? No, sir ; but if a guide 
had led me there, I should very probably be pro- 
voked to throw him over, before I thought of any 
thing else. At least I am sure I should not 
trust to the same guide for bringing me off; and 
this, sir, is the strongest argument that can be 
used for an inquiry. 

We have been, for these twenty years, under 
the guidance, I may truly say, of one man — of 
one single minister. We now, at last, find our- 
selves upon a dangerous precipice. Ought we 
not, then, immediately to inquire, whether we 
have been led upon this precipice by his igno- 
rance or wickedness ; and if by either, to take 
care not to trust to his guidance for our safety ? 
This is an additional and a stronger argument 
for this inquiry than ever was urged for any for- 
mer one, for, if we do not inquire, we shall prob- 
ably remain under his guidance ; because, though 



1742.] 



SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. 



85 



he bo removed from the Treasury Board, he is 
not removed from the King's Court, nor will he 
be, probably, unless it be by our advice, or un- 
less we lodge him in a place at the other end of 
the town [i. e., the Tower], where he can not so 
well injure his country. Sir, our distress at 
home evidently proceeds from want of economy, 
and fi-om our having incurred many unnecessaiy 
expenses. Our distress and danger abroad are 
evidently owing to the misconduct of the w^ar 
with Spain, and to the little confidence which our 
natural and ancient allies have reposed in our 
councils. This is so evident, that I should not 
think it necessary to enter into any particular 
explanation, if an honorable gentleman on the 
other side had not attempted to justify most of 
our late measures both abroad and at home. 
But as he has done so, though not, in my opin- 
ion, quite to the purpose of the present debate, 
I hope I shall be allowed to make some remarks 
upon what he has said on the subject ; begin- 
ning, as he did, with the measures taken for pun- 
ishing the South Sea directors, and restoring 
public credit after the terrible shock it received 
in the year 1720. 

As those measures, sir, were aan^ong the first 
exploits of our late (I fear I must^?all him our 
present) prime minister, and as the committee 
proposed, if agreed to, will probably consist of 
one-and-twenty members, I wish the motion 
had extended one 3^ear further back, that the 
number of years might have corresponded vrith 
the number of inquirers, and that it might have 
comprehended the first of those measures to 
which I have before alluded. As it now stands, 
it will not comprehend the methods taken for 
punishing the directors [of the South Sea Com- 
pany], nor the first regulation made for restor- 
ing public credit ; and with regard to both, some 
practices might be discovered that would de- 
serve a much severer punishment than any of 
those directors experienced. Considering the 
many frauds made use of by the directors and 
their agents for luring people to their ruin, I am 
not a little surprised to hear it now said that 
their punishment was considered too severe. 
Justice by the lump w^as an epithet given to it, 
not because it was thought too severe, but be- 
cause it was an artifice to screen the most hei- 
nous offenders, who, if they did not deserve 
death, deserved, at least, to partake of that total 
ruin which they had brought upon many un- 
thinking men. They very ill deserved, sir, those 
allowances which were made them by Parlia- 
ment. 

Then, sir, as to public credit, its speedy res- 
toration was founded upon the conduct of the 
nation, and not upon the wisdom or justice of the 
measures adopted. Was it a wise method to i-e- 
mit to the South Sea Company the whole seven 
millions, or thereabouts, which they had solemn- 
ly engaged to pay to the public ? It might as 
well be said, that a private man's giving away 
a great part of his estate to those who no way 
deserved it, would be a wise method of reviving 
or establishinji his credit. If those seven mill- 



ions had been distributed among the poor sort of 
annuitants, it would have been both generous 
and charitable ; but to give it among the propri- 
etors in general w^as neither generous nor just, 
because most of them deserved no favor from 
the public. As the proceedings of the directors 
were authorized by general courts, those who 
were then the proprietors were in some measure 
accessary to the frauds of the directors, and 
therefore deserved to be punished rather than 
x-e warded, as they really were ; because every 
one of them who continued to hold stock in that 
company received nearly fifty per cent., added 
to his capital, most part of which arose from the 
high price annuitants were, by act of Parliament, 
obliged to take stock at, and w^as therefore a 
most flagrant piece of injustice done to the an- 
nuitants. But we need not be at a loss for the 
true cause of this act of injustice, when we con- 
sider that a certain gentleman had a great many 
friends among the old stockholders, and few or 
none among the annuitants. 

Another act of injustice, which I believe we 
may ascribe to the same cause, relates to those 
who were engaged in heavy contracts for stock 
or subscription, many of whom groan under the 
load to this very day. For after w'e had, by act 
of Parliament, quite altered the nature, though 
not the name, of the stock they had bought, and 
made it much less valuable than it was when 
they engaged to pay a high price for it, it was 
an act of public injustice to leave them liable to 
be prosecuted at law for the w^hole money which 
they had engaged to pay. I am sure this was 
not the method to restore that private credit upon 
which our trade and navigation so much depend. 
Had the same regulation been here adopted 
which was observed toward those who had bor- 
rowed money of the company, or had a sort of 
uti possidetis been enacted, by declaring all such 
.contracts void so far as related to any future 
payments, this would not have been unjust ; on 
the contrary, such a i-egulation, sir, was ex- 
tremely necessary for quieting the minds of the 
peo[)le, for preventing their ruining one another 
at law, and for restoring credit between man 
and man. But there is leason to suppose that 
a certain gentleman [Walpole] had many friends 
among the sellers in those contracts, and very 
few among the buyers, w^hich was the reason 
that the latter could obtain little or no relief or 
mercy by any public law or regulation. 

Then, sir, with regard to the extraordinary 
grants made to the civil list, the very reason 
given by the honorable gentleman for justifying 
those grants is a strong reason for an immediate 
inquiry. If considerable charges have arisen 
upon that revenue, let us see what they are ; let 
us examine whether they were necessary. We 
have the more reason to do this, because the 
revenue settled upon his late Majesty's civil list 
was at least as great as that which was settled 
upon King William or Queen Anne. Besides, 
there is a general rumor without doors, that the 
civil list is now greatly in arrear, which, if true, 
renders an inquiry absolutely necessary. For it 



86 



LORD CHATHAM AGAINST 



[1742. 



is inconsistent with the honor and dignity of the 
Crown of these kingdoms to be in arrcar to its 
tradesmen and servants ; and it is the duty of 
this House to take care that the revenue which 
we have settled for supporting the honor and 
dignity of the Crown, shall not be squandered or 
misapplied. If former Parliaments have failed 
in this respect, they must be censured, though 
they can not be punished ; but we ought now to 
atone for their neglect. 

I come now, in course, to the Excise Scheme, 
which the honorable gentleman says ought to 
be forgiven, because it was easily given up.*^ 
Sir, it was not easily given up. The promoter 
of that scheme did not easily give it up ; he 
gave it up with sorrow, with tears in his e^'cs, 
when he saw, and not until he saw, it was im- 
possible to carry it through the House. Did not 
his majority decease upon every division ? It 
was almost certain that if he had pushed it far- 
ther, his majority would have turned against 
him. His sorrow showed his disappointment ; 
and his disappointment showed that his design 
was deeper than simply to prevent frauds in the 
customs. He was, at that time, sensible of the 
influence of the excise laws and excise men with 
regard to elections, and of the great occasion 
he should have for that sort of influence at the 
approaching general election. His attempt, sir, 
was most flagrant against the Constitution ; and 
he deserved the treatment he met with from the 
people. It has been said that there were none 
but what gentlemen are pleased to call the mob 
concerned in burning him in effigy f but, as the 
mob consists chiefly of children, journeymen, and 
servants, who speak the sentiments of their par- 
ents and masters, we may thence judge of the 
sentiments of the higher classes of the people. 

The honorable gentleman has said, these were 
all the measures of a domestic nature that could 
be found fault with, because none other have 
been mentioned in this debate. Sir, he has al- 



* The Excise Scheme of Sir Robert "Walpole was 
simply a warehousing system, under which the du- 
ties on tobacco and wine were payable, not when 
the articles were imported, but when they were 
taken out to be consumed. It was computed, that, 
in consequence of the check which this change in 
the mode of collecting the duties on these articles 
would give to smuggling, the revenue would derive 
an increase which, with the continuance of the salt 
tax (revived the preceding year), would be amply 
sufficient to compensate for the total abolition of 
the land tax. The political opponents of Sir Rob- 
ert Walpole, by representing his proposition as a 
scheme for a general excise, succeeded in raising so 
violent a clamor against it, and in rendering it so 
unpopular, that, much against his own inclination, he 
was obliged to abandon it. It was subsequently 
approved of by Adam Smith; and Lord Chatham, at 
a later period of his life, candidly acknowledged, that 
his opposition to it was founded in misconception. 
For an interesting account of the proceedings rela- 
tive to the Excise Scheme, see Lord Hervey's Mem- 
oirs of the Court of George II., chaps, viii. and ix. 

® See Lord Hervey's Memoirs of the Court of 
George II., vol. i., p. 203. 



ready heard one reason assigned why no other 
measures have been particularly mentioned and 
condemned in this debate. If it were necessary, 
many others might be mentioned and condemn- 
ed. Is not the maintaining so numerous an army 
in time of peace to be condemned ? Is not the 
fitting out so many expensive and useless squad- 
rons to be condemned ? Are not the encroach- 
ments made upon the Sinking Fund j^ the reviv- 
ing the salt duty ; the rejecting many useful bills 
and motions in Parliament, and many other do- 
mestic measures, to be condemned ? The weak- 
ness or the wickedness of these measures has 
often been demonstrated. Their ill consequences 
were at the respective times foretold, and those 
consequences are now become visible by our 
distress. 

Now, sir, with regard to the foreign meas- 
ures which the honorable gentleman has attempt- 
ed to justify. The Treaty of Hanover deserves 
to be first mentioned, because from thence 
springs the danger to which Europe is now ex- 
posed ; and it is impossible to assign a reason 
for our entering into that treaty, without sup- 
posing that we then resolved to be revenged on 
the Emperoi^or refusing to grant us some favor 
in Germany." It is in vain now to insist upon 
the secret engagements entered into by the 
courts of Vienna and ^Madrid as the cause of 
that treaty. Time has fully shown that there 
never were any such engagements,* and his late 



"' In the year 1717, the surplus of the public in- 
come over the public expenditure, was converted 
into what was called Thot Sinking Fund, for the 
purpose of liquidating the national debt. Daring 
the whole reign of George I., this fund was invari- 
ably appropriated to the object for which it had 
been created ; and, rather than encroach upon it, 
money was borrowed upon new taxes, when the 
supplies in general might have been raised by dedi- 
cating the surplus of the old taxes to the current 
services of the year. The first direct encroachment 
upon the Sinking Fund took place in the year 1729, 
when the interest of a sum of £1,250,000, required 
for the current service of the year, was charged on 
that fund, instead of any new taxes being imposed 
upon the people to meet it. The second encroach- 
ment took place in the year 1731, when the income 
arising from certain duties which had been imposed 
in the reign of William III., for paying the interest 
due to the East India Company, and which were 
now no longer required for that purpose, in conse 
quence of their interest being reduced, was made 
use of in order to raise a sum of Xl, 200,000, instead 
of throwing such income into the Sinking Fund, as 
ought properly to have been done. A third perver- 
sion of this fund took place in the year 1733, before 
the introduction of the Excise Scheme. In the pre- 
vious year the land tax had been reduced to one 
shilling in the pound; and, in order to maintain it 
at the same rate, the sum of £500,000 was taken 
from the Sinking Fund and applied to the services of 
the year. In 1734 the sum of £1,200,000. the whole 
produce of the Sinking Fund, was taken from it ; and 
in 1735 and 1736, it was anticipated and alienated. — 
Sinclair's Hist, of the Revenue, vol. i., p. 484, ei seq. 
Coxe's Walpole, chap. xl. 

'' Here Lord Chatham was mistaken. It is now 
certainly known that secret engagements did exist, 



1742.] 



SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. 



87 



Majesty's speech from the throne can not here 
be admitted as an}' evidence of the fact. Every 
one knows that in Parliament the King's speech 
is considered as the speech of the minister ; and 
surely a minister is not to be allowed to bring 
his own speech as an evidence of a fact in his 
own justification. If it be pretended that his 
late Majesty had some sort of information, that 
such engagements had been entered into, that 
very pretense furnishes an unanswerable argu- 
ment for an inquiry. For, as the information 
now appears to have been groundless, w^e ought 
to inquire into it ; because, if it appears to be 
such information as ought not to have been be- 
lieved, that minister ought to be punished who 
advised his late Majesty to give credit to it, and 
who, in consequence, has precipitated the nation 
into the most pernicious measures. 

At the time this treaty was entered into, we 
wanted nothing from the Emperor upon our own 
account. The abolition of the Ostend Company 
was a demand we had no right to make, nor was 
it essentially our interest to insist upon it, be- 
cause that Company would have been more hos- 
tile to the interests both of the French and Dutch 
East India trades than to our own ; and if it had 
been a point that concerned us much, we might 
probably have gained it by acceding to the Vien- 
na treaty between the Emperor and Spain, or by 
guaranteeing the Pragmatic Sanction,^ which we 



and there is no reason to doubt that the most im- 
portant of them were correctly stated by Walpole. 
They were said to have been to the effect, that the 
Emperor should give in marriage his daughters, the 
two arch-duchesses, to Don Carlos and Don Philip, 
the two Infants of Spain ; that he should assist the 
King of Spain in obtaining by force the restitution 
of Gibraltar, if good offices would not avail ; and 
that the two courts should adopt measures to place 
the Pretender on the throne of Great Britain. The 
fact of there having been a secret treaty, was placed 
beyond doubt by the Austrian embassador at the 
court of London having shown the article relating 
to Gibraltar in that treaty, in order to clear the Em- 
peror of having promised any more than his good 
offices and mediation upon that head. (Coxe's His- 
tory of the House of Austria, chap, xxxvii.) With 
reference to the stipulation for placing the Pretend- 
er on the throne of Great Britain, Mr. J. W. Croker, 
in a note to Lord Hervey's Memoirs of the Court of 
George II., vol. i., p. 78, says that its existence " is 
very probable ;" but that it is observable that Lord 
Hervey, who revised his Memoirs some years after 
the 29th of March, 1734, when Sir Robert Walpole as- 
serted in the House of Commons that there was such 
a document, and who was so long in the full confi- 
dence of Walpole, speaks very doubtfully of it. 

9 On the 2d of August, 1718, the Emperor Charles 
VI. promulgated a new law of succession for the in- 
heritance of the house of Austria, under the name 
of the Pragmatic Sanction. In this he ordained that, 
in the event of his having no male issue, his own 
daughters should succeed to the Austrian throne, in 
preference to the daughters of his elder brother, as 
previously provided ; and that such succession should 
be regulated according to the order of primogeni- 
ture, so that the elder should be preferred to the 
younger, and that she should inherit his entire do- 
minions. 



afterward did in the most absolute manner, and 
without an}'^ conditions. ^° We wanted nothing 
from Spain but a relinquishment of the pretense 
she had just begun, or, I believe, hardly begun, 
to set up, in an express manner, with regard to 
searching and seizing our ships in the American 
seas ; and this we did not obtain, perhaps did 
not desire to obtain, by the Treaty of Seville.^^ 
By that treaty we obtained nothing ; but we ad- 
vanced another step toward that danger in which 
Europe is now involved, by uniting the courts of 
France and Spain, and by laying a foundation 
for a new breach between the courts of Spain 
and Vienna. 

I grant, sir, that our ministei's appear to have 
been forward and diligent enough in negotiating, 
and writing letters and memorials to the court 
of Spain ; but, from all my inquiries, it appears 
that they never rightly understood (perhaps they 
would not understand) the point respecting which 
they were negotiating. They suffered them- 
selves to be amused with fair promises for ten 
long years ; and our merchants plundered, our 
trade interrupted, now call aloud for inquiry. 
If it should appear that ministers allowed them- 
selves to be amused with answers which no man 
of honor, no man of common sense, in such cir- 
cumstances, would take, surely, sir, they must 
have had some secret motive for being thus 
grossly imposed on. This secret motive we may 
perhaps discover by an inquiry ; and as it must 
be a wicked one, if it can be discovered, the 
parties ought to be severely punished. 

But, in excuse for their conduct, it is said that 
our ministers had a laudable repugnance to in- 
volving their country in a war. Sir, this repug- 
nance could not proceed from any regard to 
their country. It was involved in a war. Spain 
was carrying on a war against our trade, and 
that in the most insulting manner, during the 
whole time of their negotiations. It was this 
very repugnance, at least it was the knowledge 
of it which Spain possessed, that at length made 



^^ By the second Treaty of Vienna, concluded on 
the 16th of March, 17.31, England guaranteed the 
Pragmatic Sanction on the condition of the sup- 
pression of the Ostend Company, and that the arch- 
duchess who succeeded to the Austrian dominions 
should not be married to a prince of the house of 
Bourbon, or to a prince so powerful as to endanger 
the balance of Europe. — Coxe's House of Austria, 
chap. Ixxxviii. 

11 By the Treaty of Seville, concluded between 
Great Britain, France, and Spain, on the 9th of Sep- 
tember, 1729, and shortly after acceded to by Hol- 
land, all former treaties were confirmed, and the 
several contracting parties agreed to assist each 
other in case of attack. The King of Spain revoked 
the privileges of trade which he had granted to the 
subjects of Austria by the Treaty of Vienna, and 
commissioners were to be appointed for the final 
adjustment of all commercial difficulties between 
Spain and Great Britain. In order to secure the 
succession of Parma and Tuscany to the Infant Don 
Carlos, it was agreed that 6000 Spanish troops 
should be allowed to garrison Leghorn, Porto Fer- 
rajo, Parma, and Placentia. This treaty passed over 
in total silence the claim of Spain to Gibraltar. 



88 



LORD CHATHAM AGAINST 



[1742. 



it absolutely necessary for us to commence the 
war. If ministers had at first insisted properly 
and peremptorily upon an explicit answer, Spain 
would have expressly abandoned her new and 
insolent claims and pretensions. But by the 
long experience we allowed her, she found the 
fruits of those pretensions so plentiful and so 
gratifying, that she thought them worth the haz- 
ard of a war. Sir, the damage we had sustained 
became so considerable, that it really was worth 
that hazard. Besides, the court of Spain was 
convinced, while we were under such an admin- 
istration, that either nothing could provoke us to 
commence the war, or, that if we did, it would 
be conducted in a weak and miserable manner. 
Have we not, sir, since found that their opinion 
was correct ? Nothing, sir, ever moi'e demand- 
ed a parliamentary inquiry than our conduct in 
the war. The only branch into which we have 
inquired we have already censured and con- 
demned. Is not this a good reason for inquiring 
into every other branch ? Disappointment and 
ill success have always, till now, occasioned a 
parliamentary inquiry. Inactivity, of itself, is a 
sufficient cause for inquiry. We have now all 
these reasons combined. Our admirals abroad 
desire nothing more ; because they are conscious 
that our inactivity and ill success will appear to 
proceed, not from their own misconduct, but 
from the misconduct of those by whom they were 
employed. 

I can not conclude, sir, without taking notice 
of the two other foreign measures mentioned by 
the honorable gentleman. Our conduct in the 
year 1734, with regard to the war between the 
Emperor and France, may be easily accounted 
for, though not easily excused. Ever since the 
last accession of our late minister to power, we 
seem to have had an enmity to the house of Aus- 
tria. Our guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanction 
was an effect of that enmity, because we enter- 
ed into it when, as hath since appeared, we had 
no intention to pei-form our engagement ; and by 
that false guarantee we induced the Emperor to 
admit the introduction of the Spanish troops into 
Italy, which he would not otherwise have done.^"^ 
The preparations we made in that year, the ar- 
mies we raised, and the fleet we fitted out, were 
not to guard against the event of the war abroad, 
but against the event of the ensuing elections at 
home. The new commissions, the promotions, 
and the money laid out in these preparations, 
were of admirable use at the time of a general 
election, and in some measure atoned for the 
loss of the excise scheme. But France and her 
allies were well convinced, that we would in no 



'2 See Walpole's explanation of his reason for re- 
maining neutral, in his speech, page 39. Although 
England remained neutral during the progress of 
these hostilities, she augmented her naval and mil- 
itary forces, " in order," said Mr. Pelham, in the 
course of the debate, " to be ready to put a stop to 
the arms of the victorious side, in case their ambi- 
tion should lead them to push their conquests further 
than was consonant with the balance of power in 
Europe." — Pari. Hist., vol. xii., p. 479. 



event declare against them, otherwise they would 
not then have dared to attack the Emperor; for 
Muscovy, Poland, Germany, and Britain would 
have been by much an over-match for them. It 
was not our preparations that set bounds to the 
ambition of France, but her getting all she want- 
ed at that time for herself, and all she desired for 
her allies. Her own prudence suggested that 
it was not then a proper time to push her views 
further; because she did not know but that the 
spirit of this nation might overcome (as it since 
has with regard to Spain) the spirit of our ad- 
ministration ; and should this have happened, the 
house of Austria was then in such a condition, 
that our assistance, even though late, would have 
been of effectual service. 

I am surprised, sir, to hear the honorable gen- 
tleman now say, that we gave up nothing, or 
that we acquired any thing, by the infamous Con- 
vention with Spain. Did we not give up the 
freedom of our trade and navigation, by submit- 
ting it to be regulated by plenipotentiaries ? 
Can freedom be regulated without being con- 
fined, and consequently in some part destroyed ? 
Did we not give up Georgia, or some part of it, 
by submitting to have new limits settled by plen- 
ipotentiaries ? Did we not give up all the rep- 
aration of the damage we had suffered, amount- 
ing to five or six hundred thousand pounds, for 
the paltry sum of twenty-seven thousand pounds? 
This was all that Spain promised to pay, after 
deducting the sixty-eight thousand pounds which 
we, by the declaration annexed to that treaty, 
allowed her to insist on having from our South 
Sea Company, under the penalty of stripping 
them of the Assiento Contract, and all the privi- 
leges to which they were thereby entitled. Even 
this sum of twenty-seven thousand pounds, or 
more, they had before acknowledged to be due 
on account of ships they allowed to have been 
unjustly taken, and for the restitution of which 
they had actually sent orders : so that by this 
infamous treaty we acquired nothing, while we 
gave up every thing. Therefore, in my opinion, 
the honor of this nation can never be retrieved, 
unless the advisers and authors of it be censured 
and punished. This, sir, can not regularly be 
done without a parliamentary inquiry. 

By these, and similar weak, pusillanimous, 
and wicked measures, we are become the ridi- 
cule of every court in Europe, and have lost the 
confidence of all our ancient allies. By these 
measures we have encouraged France to extend 
her ambitious views, and now at last to attempt 
carrying them into execution. By bad econo- 
my, by extravagance in our domestic measures, 
we have involved ourselves in such distress at 
home, that we are almost wholly incapable of en- 
tering into a war ; while by weakness or wick- 
edness in our foreign measures, we have brought 
the affairs of Europe into such distress that it is 
almost impossible for us to avoid it. Sir, we 
have been brought upon a dangerous precipice. 
Here we now find ourselves ; and shall we trust 
to be led safely off by the same guide who has 
led us on ? Sir, it is impossible for him to lead 



1742.] 



SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. 



89 



us off. Sir, it is impossible for us to get off, 
without first recovering that confidence with our 
ancient allies which formerly we possessed. This 
we can not do, so long as they suppose that our 
councils are influenced by our late minister ; 
and this they will suppose so long as he has ac- 
cess to the King's closet — so long as his conduct 
remains uninquired into and uncensured. It is 
not, therefore, in revenge for our past disasters, 
but from a desire to prevent them in future, that 
I am now so zealous for this inquiry. The pun- 
ishment of the minister, be it ever so severe, will 
be but a small atonement for the past. But his 
impunity will be the source of many future mis- , 



erics to Europe, as well as to his country. Let 
us be as merciful as we will, as merciful as any 
man can reasonably desire, when we come to 
pronounce sentence ; but sentence we must pro- 
nounce. For this purpose, unless we are re- 
solved to sacrifice our own liberties, and the lib- 
erties of Europe, to the preservation of one guilty 
man, we must make the inquiry. 



The motion was rejected by a majority of two. 
A second motion was made a fortnight afier, for 
an inquiry into the last ten years of Walpole's 
administration, which gave rise to another speech 
of Mr. Pitt. This will next be given. 



SECOND SPEECH 

OF LORD CHATHAM ON A MOTION TO INQUIRE INTO THE CONDUCT OF SIR ROBERT WAL- 
POLE, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 23, 1742. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Lord Limerick's first motion for an inquiry into the conduct of Walpole was lost chiefly through the 
absence of Mr. Pulteney from the House during the illness of a favorite daughter. On the return of Pulte- 
ney at the end of a fortnight, the motion was renewed, with a variation in one respect, viz., that the in- 
quiry be extended only to the last fea years of Walpole's continuance in office. 

On that occasion, Mr. Pitt made the following speech in answer to Mr. Cook Harefield, who had re- 
cently taken his seat in the House. In it he shows his remarkable power of reply; and argues with 
great force the propriety of inquiiy, as leading to a decision whether an impeachment should be com- 
menced. 

SPEECH, &c. 



As the honorable gentleman who spoke last 
against the motion has not been long in the 
House, it is but charitable to believe him sin- 
cere in professing that he is ready to agree to a 
parliamentary inquiry when he thinks the occa- 
sion requires it. But if he knew how often such 
professions are made by those who upon all oc- 
casions oppose inquiry, he would now avoid 
them, because they are generally believed to be 
insincere. , He may, it is true, have nothing to 
dread, on his own account, from inquiry. But 
when a gentleman has contracted, or any of his 
near relations have contracted, a friendship with 
one who may be brought into danger, it is very 
natural to suppose that such a gentleman's op- 
position to an inquiry does not entirely proceed 
from public motives ; and if that gentleman fol- 
lows the advice of some of his friends, I very 
much question whether he will ever think the 
occasion requires an inquiry into the conduct of 
our public affairs. 

As a parliamentary inquiry must always be 
founded upon suspicions, as well as upon facts 
or manifest crimes, reasons may always be found 
for alleging those suspicions to be without foun- 
dation ; and upon the principle that a parlia- 
mentary inquiry must necessarily lay open the 
secrets of government, no time can ever be 
proper or convenient for such inquiry, because 
it is impossible to suppose a time when the gov- 
ernment has no secrets to disclose. 



This, sir, would be a most convenient doctrine 
for ministers, because it would put an end to all 
parliamentary inquiries into the conduct of our 
public affairs ; and, therefore, when I hear it 
urged, and so much insisted on, by a certain set 
of gentlemen in this House, I must suppose their 
hopes to be very extensive. I must suppose 
them to expect that they and their posterity will 
forever continue in office. Sir, this doctrine 
has been so often contradicted by experience, 
that I am surprised to hear it advanced by gen- 
tlemen now. This very session has afforded us 
a convincing proof that very little foundation ex- 
ists for asserting, that a parliamentary inquiry 
must necessarily reveal the secrets of the gov- 
ernment. Surely, in a war with Spain, which 
must be carried on principally by sea, if the 
government have secrets, the Lords of the Ad- 
miralty must be intrusted with the most import- 
ant of them. Yet, sir, in this very session, we 
have, without any secret committees, made in- 
quiry into the conduct of the Loi'ds Commis- 
sioners of the Admiralty. We have not only 
inquired into their conduct, but we have cen- 
sured it in such a manner as to put an end to 
the trust which was before reposed in them. 
Has that inquiry discovered any of the secrets 
of our government ? On the contrary, the com- 
mittee found that there was no occasion to probe 
into such secrets. They found cause enough for 
censure without it ; and none of the Commission- 



90 



LORD CHATHAM AGAINST 



[1742. 



ers pretended to justify their conduct by the as- 
sertion that the papers contained secrets which 
ouorht not to be disclosed. 

This, sir, is so recent, so strong a proof that 
there is no necessary connection between a par- 
liamentary inquiry and a discovery of secrets 
which it behooves the nation to conceal, that I 
trust gentlemen will no longer insist upon this 
danger as an argument against the inquiry. 
Sir, the First Commissioner of the Treasury has 
nothing to do with the application of secret serv- 
ice money. He is only to take care that it be 
regularly issued from his office, and that no more 
be issued than the conjuncture of affairs appears 
to demand. As to the particular application, it 
pi'operly belongs to the Secretary of State, or 
'.o such other persons as his Majest}' employs. 
Hence we can not suppose the proposed inquiry 
will discover any secrets relative to the applica- 
tion of that money, unless the noble lord has 
acted as Secretary of State, as well as First 
Commissioner of the Treasury ; or unless a great 
part of the money drawn out for secret service 
has been delivered to himself or persons em- 
ployed by him, and applied toward gaining a 
corrupt influence in Parliament or at elections. 
Of both these practices he is most grievously 
suspected, and both are secrets which it very 
much behooves him to conceal. But, sir, it 
equall}^ behooves the nation to discover them. 
His country and he are, in this cause, equall}', 
although oppositely concerned. The safety or 
ruin of one or the other depends upon the fate 
of the question ; and the violent opposition which 
this question has experienced adds great strength 
to the suspicion. 

I admit, sir, that the noble lord [Walpole], 
whose conduct is now proposed to be inquired 
into, was one of his Majesty's most honorable 
Privy Council, and consequently that he must 
have had a share at least in advising all the 
measures which have been pursued both abroad 
and at home. But I can not from this admit, 
that an inquir}' into his conduct must necessa- 
rily occasion a discovery of any secrets of vital 
importance to the nation, because we are not to 
inquire into the measures themselves. 

But, sir, suspicions have gone abroad relative 
to his conduct as a Privy Counselor, which, if 
true, are of the utmost consequence to be in- 
quired into. It has been strongly asserted that 
he was not only a Privy Counselor, but that he 
usurped the whole and sole direction of his Maj- 
esty's Privy Council. It has been asserted that 
he gave the Spanish court the first hint of the 
unjust claim they afterward advanced against 
our South Sea Company, w^hich was one chief 
cause of the war between the two nations. And 
it has been asserted that this very minister has 
advised the French in what manner to proceed 
in order to bring our Court into their measures ; 
particularly, that he advised them as to the nu- 
merous army they have this last summer sent 
into Westphalia. What truth there is in these 
assertions, I pretend not to decide. The facts 
are of such a nature, and they must have been 



perpetrated with so much caution and secrecy, 
that it will be difficult to bring them to light 
even by a parliamentary inquiry ; but the very 
suspicion is ground enough for establishing such 
inquiry, and for carrying it on with the utmost 
strictness and vigor. 

Whatever my opinion of past measures may 
be, I shall never be so vain, or bigoted to that 
opinion, as to determine, without any inquiry, 
against the majority of my countrymen. If I 
found the public measures generally condemned, 
let my private opinions of them be ever so fa- 
vorable, I should be for inquiry in order to con- 
vince the people of their error, or at least to fur- 
nish myself with the most authentic arguments 
in favor of the opinion I had embraced. The 
desire of bringing others into the same senti- 
ments with ourselves is so natural, that I shall 
always suspect the candor of those who, in poli- 
tics or religion, are opposed to free inquiry. Be- 
sides, sir, when the complaints of the people are 
general against an administration, or against 
any particular minister, an inquiry is a duty 
which we owe both to our sovereign and the 
people. We meet here to communicate to our 
sovereign the sentiments of his people. We 
meet here to redress the grievances of the peo- 
ple. By performing our duty in both respects, 
we shall always be enabled to establish the 
throne of our sovereign in the hearts of his peo- 
ple, and to hinder the people from being led 
into insurrection and rebellion by misrepresenta- 
tions or false surmises. When the people com- 
plain, they must either be right or in error. If 
they be right, we are in duty bound to inquire 
into the conduct of the ministers, and to punish 
those who appear to have been most guilty. If 
they be in error, we ought still to inquire into 
the conduct of our ministers, in order to convince 
the people that they have been misled. We 
ought not, therefore, in any question relating to 
inquiry, to be governed by our own sentiments. 
We must be governed by the sentiments of our 
constituents, if we are resolved to perform our 
duty, both as true representatives of the people, 
and as faithful subjects of our King. 

I perfectly agree with the honorable gentle- 
man, that if we are convinced that the public 
measures are wrong, or that if we suspect them 
to be so, we ought to make inquiry, although 
there is not much complaint among the people. 
But I wholly differ from him in thinking that 
notwithstanding the administration and the min- 
ister arc the subjects of complaint among the 
people, we ought not to make inquiry into his 
conduct unless we are ourselves convinced that 
his measures have been wrong. Sir, we can 
no more determine this question without in- 
quiry, than a judge without a trial can declare 
any man innocent of a crime laid to his charge. 
Common fame is a sufficient ground for an in- 
quisition at common law ; and for the same rea- 
son, the general voice of the people of England 
ought always to be regarded as a sufficient 
ground for a parliamentary inquiry. 

But, say gentlemen, of what is this minister 



1742.] 



SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. 



91 



accused ? What crime is laid to his charge ? 
For, unless some misfortune is said to have hap- 
pened, or some crime to have been committed, 
no inquiry ought to be set on foot. Sir, the ill 
posture of our affairs both abroad and at home ; 
the melancholy situation we are in ; the distress- 
es to which we are now reduced, are sufficient 
causes for an inquiry, even supposing the minis- 
ter accused of no particular crime or misconduct. 
The nation lies bleeding, perhaps expiring. The 
balance of power has been fatally disturbed. 
Shall we acknowledge this to be the case, and 
shall we not inquire whether it has happened by 
mischance, or by the misconduct, perhaps by the 
malice prepense, of the minister? Before the 
Treaty of Utrecht, it was the general opinion that 
in a few years of peace we should be able to pay 
off most of our debts. We have now been very 
nearly thirty years in profound peace, at least 
we have never been engaged in any war but 
what we unnecessarily brought upon ourselves, 
and yet our debts are almost as great as they 
were when that treaty was concluded.^ Is not 
this a misfortune, and shall we not make inquiry 
into its cause ? 

I am surprised to hear it said that no inquiry 
ought to be set on foot unless it is known that 
some public crime has been committed. Sir, 
the suspicion that a crime has been committed 
has always been deemed a .sufficient reason for 
instituting an inquiry. And is there not now a 
suspicion that the public money has been applied 
toward gaining a corrupt influence at elections ? 
Is it not become a common expression, " The 
flood-gates of the Treasury are opened against a 
general election?" I desire no more than that 
every gentleman who is conscious that such 
practices have been resorted to, either for or 
against him, should give his vote in favor of the 
motion. Will any gentleman say that this is no 
crime, when even private coiTuption has such 
high penalties inflicted by express statute against 
it? Sir, a minister who commits this crime — 
who thus abuses the public money, adds breach 
of trust to the crime of corruption ; and as the 
crime, when committed by him, is of much more 
dangerous consequence than when committed by 
a private man, it becomes more properly the ob- 
ject of a parliamentary inquiry, and merits the 
severest punishment. The honorable gentleman 
may with much more reason tell us that Porte- 
ous was never murdered by the mob at Edin- 
burgh, because, notwith-standing the high reward 
as well as pardon proffered, his murderers were 
never discovered,^ than tell us that we can not 

^ Debt on the accession of George 

the First, in 1714 £54,145,303 

Debt at the commencement of the 

Spanish war, in 1739 £46,954,623 



Decrease during the peace £7,190,740 

^ The case of Porteous, here referred to, was the 
one on which Sir Walter Scott founded his "Heart 
of Midlothian." Porteous bad been condemned to 
death for firing on the people of Edinburgh, but was 
reprieved at the moment when the execution was 
to have taken place. Exasperated at this, the mob, 



suppose our minister, either personally or by oth- 
ers, has ever corrupted an election, because no 
information has been brought against him. Sir, 
nothing but a pardon, upon the conviction of the 
offender, has ever yet been offered in this case ; 
and how could any informer expect a pardon, 
and much less a reward, when he knew that the 
very man against whom he was to inform had 
not only the distribution of all public rewards, 
but the packing of a jury or a Parliament against 
him ? While such a minister preserves the fa- 
vor of the Crown, and thereby the exercise of its 
power, this information can never be expected. 

This shows, sir, the impotence of the act, 
mentioned by the honorable gentleman, respect- 
ing that sort of corruption which is called brib- 
ery. With regard to the other sort of corrup- 
tion, which consists in giving or taking away 
those posts, pensions, or preferments which de- 
pend upon the arbitrary will of the Crown, the 
act is still more inefficient. Although it would 
be considered most indecent in a minister to tell 
any man that he gave or withheld a post, pen- 
sion, or pi-eferment, on account of his voting for 
or against any ministerial measure in Parliament, 
or any ministerial candidate at an election ; yet, 
if he makes it his constant rule never to give a 
post, pension, or preferment, but to those who 
vote for his measures and his candidates ; if he 
makes a few examples of dismissing those who 
vote otherwise, it will have the same effect as 
when he openly declares it.'' Will any gentle- 
man say that this has not been the practice of 
the minister ? Has he not declared, in the face 
of this House, that he will continue the prac- 
tice ? And will not this have the same effect 
as if he went separately to every particular man, 
and told him in express terms, " Sir, if you vote 
for such a measure or such a candidate, you 
shall have the first preferment in the gift of the 
Crown ; if you vote otherwise, you must not ex- 
pect to keep what you have ?" Gentlemen may 
deny that the sun .shines at noon-day : but if they 
have eyes, and do not willfully shut them, or 
turn their backs, no man will believe them to be 
ingenuous in what they say. I think, therefore, 
that the honorable gentleman was in the right 
who endeavored to justify the practice. It was 
more candid than to deny it. But as his argu- 
ments have already been fully answered, I shall 
not farther discuss them. 

Gentlemen exclaim, " What ! will you take 
from the Crown the power of preferring or cash- 
iering the officers of the army?" No, sir, this 
is neither the design, nor will it be the eftect of 
our agreeing to the motion. The King at pres- 



a few nights after, broke open his prison, and hang- 
ed him on the spot where he bad fired. A reward 
of £200 was off"ered, but the perpetrators could not 
be discovered. 

^ It will be recollected that, in consequence of bis 
parliamentary opposition to Sir Robert Walpole, Mr. 
Pitt had been himself dismissed from the army- The 
Duke of Bolton and Lord Cobham had also, for a 
similar reason, been deprived of the command of 
their resriments. 



92 



LORD CHATHAM AGAINST SIR ROBERT WALPOLE. 



[1742. 



ent possesses the absolute power to prefer or 
cashier the officers of our army. It is a prerog- 
ative which he may employ for the benefit or 
safety of the public ; but, like other prerogatives, 
it may be abused, and when it is so abused, the 
minister is responsible to Parliament. When an 
officer is preferred or cashiered for voting in fa- 
vor of or against any court measure or candidate, 
it is an abuse of this prerogative, for which the 
minister is answerable. We may judge from 
circumstances or outward appearances — from 
these we may condemn, and I hope we have 
still a power to punish a minister who dares to 
advise the King to prefer or cashier from such 
motives ! Sir, whether this prerogative ought 
to remain as it is, without any limitation, is a 
question foreign to this debate. But I must ob- 
serve, that the argument employed for it might, 
with equal justice, be employed for giving our 
King an absolute power over every man's prop- 
erty ; because a large property will always give 
the possessor a command over a great body of 
men, whom he may arm and discipline if he 
pleases. I know of no law to I'estrain him — I 
hope none will ever exist — I wish our gentlemen 
of estates would make more use of this power 
than they do, because it would tend to keep our 
domestic as well as our foreign enemies in awe. 
For my part, I think that a gentleman who has 
earned his commission by his services (in his 
military capacity, I mean), or bought it with his 
money, has as much a property in it as any man 
has in his estate, and ought to have it as well 
secured by the laws of his country. While it 
remains at the absolute will of the Crown, he 
must, unless ho has some other estate to depend 
on, be a slave to the minister ; and if the officers 
of our army long continue in that state of slavery 
in which they are at present, I am afraid it will 
make slaves of us all. 

The only method to prevent this fatal conse- 
quence, as the law now stands, is to make the 
best and most constant use of the power we pos- 
sess as members of this House, to prevent any 
minister from daring to advise the King to make 
a bad use of his prerogative. As there is such 
a strong suspicion that this minister has done so, 
we ought certainly to inquire into it, not only for 
the sake of punishing him if guilty, but as a ter- 
ror to all future ministers. 

This, sir, may therefore be justly reckoned 
among the many other sulFicient causes for the 
inquiry proposed. The suspicion that the civil 
list is greatly in debt is another ; for if it is, it 
must either have been misapplied, or profusely 
thrown away, which abuse it is our duty both to 
prevent and to punish. It is inconsistent with 
the honor of this nation that the King should 
stand indebted to his servants or tradesmen, 
who may be ruined by delay of payment. The 
Parliament has provided sufficiently to prevent 
this dishonor from being brought upon the na- 
tion, and, if the provision we have made should 
be lavished or misapplied, we must •'^upply the 
deficiency. We ought to do it, whether the King- 
makes any application for that purpose or not ; 



and the reason is plain, because we ought first 
to inquire into the management of that revenue, 
and punish those who have occasioned the defi- 
ciency. They will certainly choose to leave the 
creditors of the Crown and the honor of the na- 
tion in a state of suffering, rather than advise 
the King to make an application which may 
bring censure upon their conduct, and condign 
punishment upon themselves. Besides this, sir, 
another and a stronger reason exists for promot- 
ing an inquiry. There is a strong suspicion 
that the public money has been applied toward 
corrupting voters at elections, and members 
when elected ; and if the civil list be in debt, it 
aflx)rds reason to presume that some part of this 
revenue has, under the pretense of secret service 
money, been applied to this infamous purpose. 

I shall conclude, sir, by making a few remarks 
upon the last argument advanced against the 
proposed inquiry. It has been said that the min- 
ister delivered in his accounts annually ; that 
these accounts were annually passed and ap- 
proved by Parliament ; and that therefore it 
would be unjust to call him now to a general 
account, because the vouchers may be lost, or 
many expensive transactions have escaped his 
memory. It is true, sir, estimates and accounts 
were annually delivered in. The forms of pro- 
ceeding made that necessary. But were any of 
these estimates and accounts properly inquired 
into ? Were not all questions of that descrip- 
tion rejected by the minister's friends in Parlia- 
ment? Did not Parliament always take them 
upon trust, and pass them without examination ? 
Can such a superficial passing, to call it no 
worse, be deemed a reason for not calling him 
to a new and general account? If the steward 
to an infant's estate should annually, for twenty 
years together, deliver in his accounts to the 
guardians ; and the guardians, through negli- 
gence, or for a share of the plunder, should an- 
nually pass his accounts without examination, or 
at least without objection ; would that be a rea- 
son for saying that it would be unjust in the in- 
fant, when he came of age, to call his steward 
to account ? Especially if that steward had 
built and furnished sumptuous palaces, living, 
during the whole time, at a much greater ex- 
pense than his visible income warranted, and yet 
amassing great riches? The public, sir, is al- 
ways in a state of infancy ; therefore no pre- 
scription can be pleaded against it — not even a 
general release, if there is the least cause for 
supposing that it was surreptitiously obtained. 
Public vouchers ought always to remain on rec- 
ord ; nor ought any public expense to be incur- 
red without a voucher — therefore the case of the 
public is still stronger than that of an infant. 
Thus, sir, the honorable gentleman who made 
use of this objection, must see how little it avails 
in the case before us ; and therefore I trust we 
shall have his concurrence in the question. 



The motion prevailed by a majority of seven. 
A committee of twenty-one was appointed, com- 
posed of Walpole's political and personal oppo- 



1742.] 



LORD CHATHAM ON THE HANOVERIAN TROOPS. 



93 



nents. They entered on the inquiry with great 
zeal and expectation. But no documentary 
proofs of importance could be found. Witnes.ses 
were called up for examination as to their trans- 
actions with the treasury ; but they refu.sed to 
testify, unless previously indemnified against the 
consequences of the evidence they might be re- 
quired to give. The House passed a bill of in- 
demnity, but the Lords rejected it, as dangerous 
in its tendency, and calculated to invite accusa- 



tion from peculators and others, who might wish 
to cover their crimes by making the minister a 
partaker in their guilt. " The result of all their 
inquiries," says Cooke, " was charges so few and 
so ridiculous, when compared with those put for- 
ward at the commencement of the investigation, 
that the promoters of the prosecution were them- 
selves ashamed of their work. Success was 
found impracticable, and Lord Orford enjoyed hie 
honors unmolested." — Hist, of Party, ii., 316. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD CHATHAM ON TAKING THE HANOVERIAN TROOPS INTO THE PAY OF GREAT BRITAIN, 
DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, DEC. 10, 1742. 

INTRODUCTION. 
George II., when freed from the trammels of Walpole's pacific policy, had a silly ambition of appear- 
ing on the Continent, Uke William III., at the head of a confederate army against France, while he sought, 
at the same time, to defend and aggrandize his Electorate of Hanover at the expense of Great Britain. 
In this he was encouraged by Lord Carteret, who succeeded Walpole as prime minister. The King 
therefore took sixteen thousand Hanoverian troops into British pay, and sent them with a large English 
force into Flanders. His object was to create a diversion in favor of Maria Theresa, queen of Hungaiy, 
to whom the English were now affording aid, in accordance with their guarantee of the Pragmatic Sanc- 
tion.^ Two subsidies, one of X300,000 and another of X500,000, had already been transmitted for her re- 
lief; and so popular was her cause in England, that almost any sum would have been freely given. But 
there was a general and strong opposition to the King's plan of shifting the burdens of Hanover on to the 
British treasury. Mr. Pitt, who concurred in these views, availed himself of this opportunity to come 
out as the opponent of Carteret. He had been neglected and set aside in the arrangements which were 
made after the fall of Walpole ; and he was not of a spirit tamely to bear the arrogance of the new min- 
ister. Accordingly, when a motion was made to provide for the payment of the Hanoverian troops, he 
delivered the following speech, in reply to Henry Fox, who had said that he should "continue to vote 
for these measures till better could be proposed." 



SPEECH, &c. 



Sir, if the honorable gentleman determines to 
abandon his present sentiments as soon as any 
better measures are proposed, the ministry will 
quickly be deprived of one of their ablest defend- 
ers ; for I consider the measures hitherto pur- 
sued so weak and so pernicious, that scarcely 
any alteration can be proposed that will not be 
for the advantage of the nation. 

The honorable gentleman has already been in- 
formed that no necessity existed for hiring auxil- 
iary troops. It does not appear that either justice 
or policy required us to engage in the quarrels of 
the Continent ; that there was any need of foi-ming 
an army in the Low Countries ; or that, in order 
to form an army, auxiliaries were necessary. 

But, not to dwell upon disputable points, I 
think it may justly be concluded that the meas- 
ures of our ministry have been ill concerted, be- 
cause it is undoubtedly wrong to squander the 
public money without effect, and to pay armies, 
only to be a show to our friends and a scorn to 
our enemies. 

The troops of Hanover, whom we are now ex- 
pected to pay, marched into the Low Countries, 
sir, where they still remain. They marched to 



See note to Walpole's speech, p. 40. 



the place most distant from the enemy, least in 
danger of an attack, and most strongly fortified, 
had an attack been designed. They have, there- 
fore, no other claim to be paid, than that they 
left their own country for a place of greater se- 
curity. It is always reasonable to judge of the 
future by the past ; and therefore it is probable 
that next year the services of these troops will 
not be of equal importance with those for which 
they are now to be paid. I shall not, therefore, 
be surprised, if, after such another glorious cam- 
paign, the opponents of the ministry be chal- 
lenged to propose better measures, and be told 
that the money of this nation can not be more 
properly employed than in hiring Hanoverians to 
eat and sleep. 

But to prove yet more particularly that better 
measures may be taken — that more useful troops 
may be retained — and that, therefore, the hon- 
orable gentleman may be expected to quit those 
to whom he now adheres, I shall show that, in 
hiring the forces of Hanovei', we have obstruct- 
ed our own designs ; that, instead of assisting 
the Queen of Hungary, we have withdrawn from 
her a part of the allies, and have burdened the 
nation wuth troops from which no service can 
reasonably be expected. 



94 



LORD CHATHAM ON THE HANOVERIAN TROOPS. 



[1742. 



The advocates of the ministry have, on this 
occasion, affected to speak of the balance of pow- 
er, the Pragmatic Sanction, and the preservation 
of the Queen of Hungary, not only as if they 
were to be the chief care of Great Britain, which 
(although easily controvertible) might, in com- 
pliance with long prejudices, be possibly admit- 
ted ; but as if they were to be the care of Great 
Britain alone. These advocates, sir, have spok- 
en as if the power of France were formidable to 
no other people than ourselves ; as if no other 
part of the world would be injui-ed by becoming 
a prey to a universal monarchy, and subject to 
the arbitrary government of a French deputy ; 
by being drained of its inhabitants only to extend 
the conquests of its masters, and to make other 
nations equally wretched ; and by being oppressed 
with exorbitant taxes, levied by military execu- 
tions, and employed only in supporting the state 
of its oppressors. They dwell upon the import- 
ance of public fiiith and the necessity of an exact 
observation of treaties, as if the Pragmatic Sanc- 
tion had been signed by no other potentate than 
the King of Great Britain ; as if the public faith 
were to be obligatory upon ourselves alone. 

That we should inviolably observe our treat- 
ies — observe them although every other nation 
should disregard them ; that we should show an 
example of fidelity to mankind, and stand firm 
in the practice of virtue, though we should stand 
alone, I readily allow. I am, therefore, far from 
advising that we should recede from our stipu- 
lations, whatever we may suffer in their fulfill- 
ment ; or that we should neglect the support of 
the Pragmatic Sanction, however we may be at 
present embarrassed, or however disadvanta- 
geous may be its assertion. 

But surely, sir, for the same reason that we 
observe our stipulations, we ought to excite other 
powers also to observe their own ; at the least, 
sir, we ought not to assist in preventing them 
from doing so. But how is our present conduct 
agreeable to these principles ? The Pragmatic 
Sanction was guaranteed, not only by the King 
of Great Britain, but by the Elector of Hanover 
also, who (if treaties constitute obligation) is 
thereby equally obliged to defend the house of 
Austria against the attacks of any foreign pow- 
er, and to send his proportion of troops for the 
Queen of Hungary's support. 

Whether these troops have been sent, those 
whose province obliges them to possess some 
knowledge of foreign affairs, are better able to 
inform the House than myself. But, since we 
have not heard them mentioned in this debate, 
and since we know by experience that none of 
the merits of that Electorate are passed over in 
silence, it may, I think, be concluded that the 
distresses of the Queen of Hungary have yet re- 
ceived no alleviation from her alliance with 
Hanover ; that her complaints have excited no 
compassion at that court, and that the justice of 
her cause has obtained no attention. 

To what can be attributed this negligence of 
treaties, this disregard of justice, this defect of 
compassion, but to the pernicious counsels of 



those who have advised his Majesty to hire and 
to send elsewhere those troops which should 
have been employed for the Queen of Hungary's 
assistance. It is not to be imagined, sir, that 
his ^Majesty has more or less regard to justice 
as King of Great Britain, than as Elector of 
Hanover ; or that he would not have sent his 
proportion of troops to the Austrian army, had 
not the temptation of greater profit been laid in- 
dustriously before him. But this is not all that 
may be urged against such conduct. For, can 
we imagine that the power, that the designs of 
France, are less formidable to Hanover than 
Great Britain ? Is it less necessary for the se- 
curity of Hanover than of ourselves, that the 
house of Austria should be re-established it its 
former splendor and influence, and enabled to 
support the liberties of Europe against the enor- 
mous attempts at universal monarchy by France ? 

If, therefore, our assistance to the Queen of 
Hungary be an act of honesty, and granted in 
consequence of treaties, why may it not be 
equally required of Hanover? If it be an act 
of generosity, why should this country alone be 
obliged to sacrifice her intei'ests for those of oth- 
ers ? or why should the Elector of Hanover exert 
his liberality at the expense of Great Britain ? 

It is now too apparent, sir, that this great, 
this powerful, this mighty nation, is considered 
only as a province to a despicable Electorate ; 
and that in consequence of a scheme formed 
long ago, and invariably pursued, these troops 
are hired only to drain this unhappy country of 
its money. That they have hitherto been of no 
use to Great Britain or to Austria, is evident 
beyond a doubt; and therefore it is plain that 
they are retained only for the purposes of Hano- 
ver. 

How much reason the transactions of almost 
every year have given for suspecting this ab- 
sui'd, ungrateful, and perfidious partiality, it is 
not necessax-y to declare. I doubt not that most 
of those who sit in this House can recollect a 
great number of instances in point, from the 
purchase of part of the Swedish dominions, to 
the contract which we are now called upon to 
ratify. Few, I think, can have forgotten the 
memorable stipulation for the Hessian troops : 
for the forces of the Duke of Wolfenbuttle, which 
we were scarcely to march beyond the verge 
of their own country : or the ever memorable 
treaty, the tendency of which is discovered in 
the name. A treaty by which we disunited our- 
selves from Austria; destroyed that building 
which we now endeavor, perhaps in vain, to raise 
again ; and weakened the only power to which 
it was our interest to give strength. 

To dwell on all the instances of partiality 
which have been shown, and the yearly visits 
which have been paid to that delightful country ; 
to reckon up all the sums that have been spent to- 
aggrandi/e and enrich it, would be an irksome 
and invidious task — invidious to those who are 
afraid to be told the truth, and irksome to those 
who arc unwilling to hear of the dishonor and 
injuries of their country. I shall not dwell lUr- 



i 



1743] LORD CHATHAM ON A MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS. 95 



ther on this unpleasing subject than to express 
my hope, that we shall no longer suffer ourselves 
to be deceived and oppi-essed : that we shall at 
length perform our duty as representatives of 
the people : and, by refusing to ratify this con- 
tract, show, that however the interests of Han- 



Parliament pays no regard but to the interests 
of Great Britain. 



The motion was carried by a considerable 
majority ; but Mr. Pitt's popularity was greatly 
increased throughout the country by his resist- 
er have been pi-eferred by the ministers, the , ance of this obnoxious measure. 



SPEECH 

OF LORD CHATHAM ON A MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS OF THANKS AFTER THE BATTLE OF DET- 
TINGEN, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, DECEMBER 1, 1743. 

INTRODUCTION. 

The battle of Dettingen was the last in which any English monarch has appeared personally in the 
field. It was fought near a village of this name in Germany, on the banks of the Mayn, between Mayence 
and Frankfort, on the 19th of June, 1743. The allied army, consisting of about thirty-seven thousand En- 
glish and Hanoverian troops, was commanded, at the time of this engagement, by George II. Previous 
to his taking the command, it had been brought by mismanagement into a perilous condition, being hem- 
med in between the River Maj'n on the one side and a range of precipitous hills on the other, and there 
reduced to great extremities for want of provisions. The French, who occupied the opposite side of the 
Mayn in superior force, seized the opportunity, and threw a force of twenty-three thousand men across the 
river to cut off the advance of the allies through the defile of Dettingen, and shortly after sent twelve 
thousand more into their rear, to preclude the possibility of I'etreat. The position of the French in front 
was impregnable, and, if they had only retained it, the capture of the entire allied anriy would have been 
inevitable. But the eagerness of Grammont, who commanded the French in that quarter, drew him off 
from his vantage ground, and induced him to give battle to the allies on more equal terms. When the 
engagement commenced, George II., dismounting from his horse, put himself at the head of his infantry, 
and led his troops on foot to the charge. "The conduct of the King in this conflict," says Lord Mahon, 
"deserves the highest praise; and it was undoubtedly through him and through his son [the Duke of 
Cumberland], far more than through any of his generals, that the day was won." The British and Hano- 
verian infantry vied with each other under such guidance, and swept the French forces before them with 
an impetuosity which soon decided the battle, and produced a complete rout of the French anny. The 
exhausted condition of the allies, however, and especially their want of provisions, rendered it impossible 
for them to pursue the French, who left the field with the loss of six thousand men. 

The King, on his return to England, opened the session of Parliament in person; and in reply to his 
speech, an Address of Thanks was moved, "acknowledging the goodness of Divine Providence to this na- 
tion in protecting your Majesty's sacred person amid imminent dangers, in defense of the common cause 
and liberties of Europe." In opposition to this address, Mr. Pitt made the following speech. In the for- 
mer part of it, either from erroneous information or prejudice, he seems unwilling to do justice to the King's 
intrepidity on that occasion. But the main part of the speech is occupied with an examination, 

I. Of Sir Robei-t Walpole's policy (which was that of the King) in respect to the dueen of Hungary 
and the balance of power. 

II. Of the conduct of the existing ministry (that of Lord Carteret) in relation to these subjects. 

III. Of the manner in which the war in Germany had been carried on ; and, 

IV. Of the consequences to be anticipated from the character and conduct of the ministry. 

The speech will be interesting to those who have sufficient acquaintance with the history of the times 
to enter fully into the questions discussed. It is characterized by comprehensive views and profound re- 
flection on the leading question of that day, the balance of power, and by a high sense of national honor. 
It has a continuous line of argument running throughout it; and shows the error of those who imagine 
that " Lord Chatham never reasoned.' 

SPEECH, &o. 

From the proposition before the House, sir, 1 ister [Walpole] betrayed the interests of his 
we may perceive, that whatever alteration has 1 country by his pusillanimity ; our present min- 
been, or may be produced with respect to for- j ister [Carteret] would sacrifice them by his 
eign measures, by the late change in administra- Quixotism. Our former minister was for nego- 
tion, we can expect none with regard to our do- tiating with all the world ; our present minister 
mestic affairs. In foreign measures, indeed, a is for fighting against all the world. Our for- 
most extraordinary change has taken place, mer minister was for agreeing to every treaty, 
From one extreme, our admiristration have run ] though never so dishonorable; our present min- 
to the very verge of another. Our fo-mer min- ! ister will give ear to none, though never so rea 



LORD CHATHAM ON A 



[1743. 



sonable. Thus, while both appear to be extrav- 
agant, this diflerence results from their opposite 
conduct : that the wild system of the one must 
subject the nation to a much heavier expendi- 
ture than was ever incurred by the pusillanimity 
of the other. 

The honorable gentleman who spoke last ['^h\ 
Yorke] was correct in saying, that in the begin- 
ning of the session we could know nothing, in a 
parliamentary way, of the measures that had 
been pursued. I believe, sir, we shall know as 
little, in that way, at the end of the session ; for 
our new minister, in this, as in every other step 
of his domestic conduct, will follow the example 
of his predecessor, and put a negative upon ev- 
ery motion which may tend toward our acquir- 
ing any parliamentary knowledge of our late 
proceedings. But if we possess no knowledge 
of these proceedings, it is, surely, as strong an 
argument for our not approving, as it can be for 
our not condemning them. Sir, were nothing 
relating to our late measures proposed to be in- 
serted in our address upon this occasion, those 
measures would not have been noticed by me. 
But when an approbation is proposed, I am com- 
pelled to employ the knowledge I possess, wheth- 
er parliamentary or otherwise, in order that I 
may join or not in the vote of approbation. 
What though my knowledge of our late meas- 
ures were derived from foreign and domestic 
newspapers alone, even of that knowledge I 
must avail myself, when obliged to express my 
opinion ; and when from that knowledge I ap- 
prehend them to be wrong, it is my duty, surely, 
to withhold my approbation. I am bound to per- 
sist in thus withholding it, till the minister be 
pleased to furnish me with such parliamentary 
knowledge as may convince me that I have been 
misinformed. This would be my proper line of 
conduct when, from the knowledge I possess, 
instead of approving any late measures, I think 
it more reasonable to condemn them. But sup- 
posing, sir, from the knowledge within my reach, 
that I consider those measures to be sound, even 
then I ought not to approve, unless such knowl- 
edge can warrant approval. Now, as no sort 
of knowledge but a parliamentary knowledge 
can authorize a parliamentary approbation, for 
this reason alone I ought to refuse it. If, there- 
fore, that which is now proposed contain any 
sort of approbation, my refusing to agree to it 
contains no censure, but is a simple declaration 
that w^e possess not such knowledge of past 
measures as affords sufficient grounds for a par- 
liamentary approbation. A parliamentary ap- 
probation, sir, extends not only to all that our 
ministers have advised, but to the acknowledg- 
ment of the truth of several facts which inquiry 
may .show to be false ; of facts which, at least, 
have been asserted without authority and proof. 
Suppose, sir, it should appear that his Majesty 
was exposed to few or no dangers abroad, but 
those to which he is daily liable at home, such 
as the overturning of his coach, or the stumbling 
of his horse, would not the address proposed, in- 
stead of being a compliment, be an affront and 



an insult to the sovereign ? Suppose it should 
appear that our ministei's have shown no regard 
to the advice of Parliament ; that they have ex- 
erted their endeavors, not for the preservation of 
the house of Austria, but to involve that house 
in dangers which otherwise it might have avoid- 
ed, and w^hich it is scarcely possible for us now 
to avert. Suppose it should appear that a body 
of Dutch troops, although they marched to the 
Rhine, have never joined our army. Suppose it 
should appear that the treaty with Sardinia is 
not 3-et ratified by all the parties concerned, or 
that it is one with whose terms it is impossible 
they should comply. If these things should ap- 
pear on inquiry, would not the address proposed 
be most ridiculously absurd ? Now, what as- 
surance have we that all these facts will not turn 
out as I have imagined ? 

I. Upon the death of the late Emperor of Ger- 
many, it was the interest of this nation, I waipoie'a 
grant, that the Queen of Hungary should ^"'"^^• 
be established in her father's dominions, and that 
her husband, the Duke of Lorraine, should be 
chosen Emperor. This was our interest, be- 
cause it would have been the best security for 
the preservation of the balance of power ; but 
we had no other interest, and it was one which 
we had in common with all the powers of Eu- 
rope, excepting France. We were not, there- 
fore, to take upon us the sole support of this in- 
terest. And, therefore, when the King of Prus- 
sia attacked Silesia — when the King of Spain, 
the King of Poland, and the Duke of Bavaria 
laid claim to the late Emperor's succession, we 
might have seen that the establishment of the 
Queen of Hungary in all her father's dominions 
was impracticable, especially as the Dutch re- 
fused to interfere, excepting by good offices. 
What, then, ought we to have done ? Since we 
could not preserve the whole, is it not evident 
that, in order to bring over some of the claim- 
ants to our side, we ought to have advised her 
to yield up part ? Upon this we ought to have 
insisted, and the claimant whom first we should 
have considered was the King of Prussia, both 
because he was one of the most neutral, and one 
of the most powerful allies with whom we could 
treat. For this reason it was certainly incum- 
bent upon us to advise the Queen of Hungary to 
accept the terms offered by the King of Prussia 
when he first invaded Silesia.^ Nay, not only 
should we have advised, we should have insisted 
upon this as the condition upon which we would 
assist her against the claims of others. To this 
the court of Vienna must have assented ; and, in 
this case, whatever protestations the other claim- 
ants might have made, I am persuaded that the 
Queen of Hungary w'ould to this day have re- 



1 This, it is now known, was the course urged by 
Walpole on the dueen of Hungary. He strongly 
advised her to give up Silesia rather than involve 
Europe in a general war. She replied that she 
"would sooner give up her under petticoat;" and, 
as this put an end to the argument, he could do noth- 
ing but give the aid which England had promised 
— See Coxe's Walpole iii., 148. 



1 743. J 



MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS. 



97 



mained the undisturbed possessor of the rest of 
her father's dominions, and that her husband, the 
Duke of Lorraine, would have been now seated 
on the imperial throne. 

This salutary measure was not pursued. This 
appears, sir, not only from the Gazettes, but from 
our parliamentary knowledge. For, from the 
papers which have been either accidentally or 
necessarily laid before Parliament, it appears, 
that instead of insisting that the court of Vienna 
should agree to the terms offered by Prussia, we 
rather encouraged the obstinacy of that court in 
rejecting them. We did this, sir, not by our 
memorials alone, but by his Majesty's speech to 
his Parliament, by the consequent addresses of 
both houses, and by speeches directed by our 
courtiers against the King of Prussia. I allude, 
sir, to his Majesty's speech on the 8th of April, 
1741, to the celebrated addresses on that occa- 
sion for guaranteeing the dominions of Hanover, 
and for granting c£300,000 to enable his Maj- 
esty to su])port the Queen of Hungary. The 
speeches made on that occasion by several of our 
favorites at court, and their reflections on the 
King of Prussia, must be fresh in the memory of 
all. All must remember, too, that the Queen of 
Hungary was not then, nor for some months aft- 
er, attacked by any one prince in Europe ex- 
cepting the King of Prussia. She must, there- 
fore, have supposed that both the court and na- 
tion of Great Britain were resolved to support 
her, not only against the King of Prussia, but 
against all the world. We can not, therefore, 
be surprised that the court of Vienna evinced an 
unwillingness to part with so plenteous a coun- 
try as that claimed by the King of Prussia — the 
lordship of Silesia. 

But, sir, this was not all. Not only had we 
promised our assistance to the Queen of Hun- 
gary, but we had actually commenced a negoti- 
ation for a powerful alliance against the King of 
Prussia, and for dividing his dominions among 
the allies. We had solicited, not only the Queen 
of Hungary, but also the Muscovites and the 
Dutch, to form parts of this alliance. We had 
taken both Danes and Hessians into our pay, in 
support of this alliance. Nay, even Hanover 
had subjected herself to heavy expenses on this 
occasion, by adding a force of nearly one third 
to the army she had already on foot. This, sir, 
was, 1 believe, the first extraordinary expense 
wiiich Hanover had incurred since her fortunate 
conjunction with England ; the first, I say, not- 
withstanding the great acquisitions she has made, 
and the many heavy expenses in which England 
has been involved upon her sole account. 

If, therefore, the Queen of Hungary was ob- 
stinate in regard to the claims of Prussia, her 
obstinacy must be ascribed to ourselves. To us 
must be imputed those misfortunes which she 
subsequently experienced. It was easy to prom- 
ise her our assistance while the French seemed 
determined not to interfere w'lth Germany. It 
was safe to engage in schemes for her support, 
and for the enlargement of the Hanoverian do- 
minions, because Prussia could certainly not op- 
G 



pose an equal resistance to the Queen of Hun- 
gary alone, mnch less so to that Queen when 
supported by Hanover and the whole power of 
Great Britain. During this posture of affairs, it 
was safe for us, I say, it was safe for Hanover, 
to promise assistance and to concert schemes in 
support of the Queen of Hungary. But no soon- 
er did France come forward than our schemes 
were at an end, our promises forgotten. The 
safety of Hanover was then involved ; and En- 
gland, it seems, is not to be bound by promises, 
nor engaged in schemes, w'hich, by possibility, 
may endanger or distress the Electorate ! From 
this time, sir, we thought no more of assisting 
the Queen of Hungary, excepting by grants 
which were made by Parliament. These, in- 
deed, our ministers did not oppose, because they 
contrive to make a job of every parliamentary 
grant. But from the miserable inactivity in 
which we allowed the Danish and Hessian troops 
to remain, notw^ithstanding that they received 
our pay ; and from the insult tamely submitted 
to by our squadron in the Mediterranean, we 
must conclude that our ministers, from the time 
the French interfered, resolved not to assist the 
Queen of Hungary by land or sea. Thus, hav- 
ing drawm that princess forward on the ice by 
our promises, we left her to retreat as she could. 
Thus it was, sir, that the Duke of Bavaria be- 
came Emperor.^ Thus it was that the house 
of Austria was stripped of great part of its do- 
minions, and was in the utmost danger of being 
stripped of all, had France been bent on its de- 
struction. Sir, the house of Austria was saved 
by the policy of France, who wished to reduce, 
but not absolutely to destroy it. Had Austria 
been ruined, the power of the Duke of Bavaria, 
who had been elected Emperor, would have ris- 
en higher than was consistent with the interests 
of France. It was the object of France to fo- 
ment divisions among the princes of Germany, 
to reduce them by mutual strife, and then to I'en- 
der the houses of Bavaria, Austria, and Saxony 
nearly equal by partitions. 

It was this policy which restrained the French 
from sending so powerful an army into Germany 
as they might otherwise have sent. And then, 
through the bad conduct of their generals, and 
through the skill and bravery of the officers and 
troops of the Queen of Hungary, a great improve- 
ment in her affairs was effected. This occurred 
about the time of the late changes in our admin- 
istration ; and this leads me to consider the ori- 
gin of those measures which are now proceed- 
ing, and the situation of Europe at that particu- 
lar time, February, 1742. But, before I enter 
upon that consideration, I must lay this down as 
a maxim to be ever observed by this nation, that, 
although it be our own interest to preserve a 
balance of powder in Europe, yet, as we are the 
most remote from danger, w^e have the least rea- 
son to be jealous as to the adjustment of that bal- 
ance, and should be the last to take alarm on its 

2 The Duke of Bavaria was elected Emperor on 
the 12th of February, 1742. 



98 



LORD CHATHAM ON A 



[1743. 



account. Now the balance of power may be 
supported, either by the existence of one single 
potentate capable of opposing and defeating the 
ambitious designs of France, or by a well-con- 
nected confederacy adequate to the same intent. 
Of these two methods, the first, when practica- 
ble, is the most eligible, because on that method 
we may most safely rely ; but when it can not 
be resorted to, the whole address of our ministers 
and plenipotentiaries should tend to establish the 
second. 

The wisdom of the maxim, sir, to which I 
have adverted, must be acknowledged by all who 
consider, that when the powers upon the Conti- 
nent apply to us to join them in a war against 
France, we may take what share in the war we 
think fit. When we, on the contrary, apply to 
them, they will prescribe to us. However some 
gentlemen may affect to alarm themselves or 
others by alleging the dependency of all the Eu- 
ropean powers upon France, of this we maj- rest 
assured, that when those powers are really threat- 
ened with such dependency, they will unite among 
themselves, and call upon us also to prevent it. 
Nay, sir, should even that dependence imper- 
ceptibly ensue ; so soon as they perceived it, 
they would unite among themselves, and call us 
to join the confederacy by which it might be 
shaken off. Thus we can never be x-educed to 
stand single in support of the balance of power ; 
nor can we be compelled to call upon our con- 
tinental neighbors for such [)urpose, unless when 
our ministers have an interest in pretending and 
asserting imaginary dangers. 

The posture of Europe since the time of the 
Romans is wonderfully changed. In those times 
each country was divided into many sovereign- 
ties. It was then impossible for the people of 
any one country to unite among themselves, and 
much more impossible for two or three large 
countries to combine in a genei-al confederacy 
against the enormous power of Rome. But such 
confederacy is very practicable now, and may 
always be effected whenever France, or any one 
of the powers of Europe, shall endeavor to en- 
slave the rest. I have said, sir, that the balance 
of power in Europe may be maintained as se- 
curely by a confederacy as it can be by opposing 
any one rival power to the power of France. 
Now, let us examine to which of these two 
methods we ought to have resorted in February, 
1742. The imperial diadem was then fallen 
from the house of Austria ; and although the 
troops of the Queen of Hungary had met with 
some success during the winter, that sovereign 
was still stripped of great part of the Austrian 
dominions. The power of that house was there- 
fore greatly inferior to what it was at the time 
of the late emperor's death; and still more in- 
ferior to what it had been in 1716, when we 
considered it necessary to add Naples and Sar- 
dinia to its former acquisitions, in order to ren- 
der it a match for France. Besides this, there 
existed in 1742 a veiy powerful confederacy 
against the house of Austria, while no jealousy 
was harbored by the powers of Europe against 



the ambition of France. For France, although 
she had assisted in depressing the house of Aus- 
tria, had shown no design of increasing her own 
dominions. On the other hand, the haughty de- 
meanor of the court of Vienna, and the height to 
which that house had been raised, excited a spirit 
of disgust and jealousy in the princes of Ger- 
many. That spirit first manifested itself in the 
house of Hanover, and at this very time prevailed 
not only there, but in most of the German sov- 
ereignties. Under such circumstances, however 
weak and erroneous our ministers might be, they 
could not possibly think of restoring the house of 
Austria to its former splendor and power. They 
could not possibly oppose that single house as a 
i-ival to France. No power in Europe would 
have cordially assisted them in that scheme 
They would have had to cope, not only with 
France and Spain, but with all the princes of 
Germany and Italy, to whom Austria had be- 
come obnoxious. 

In these cii'cumstances, what was this nation 
to do ? It was impossible to establish the balance 
of power in Europe upon the single power of the 
house of Austria. Surely, then, sir, it was our 
business to think of restoring the peace of Ger- 
many as soon as possible by our good offices, in 
order to establish a confederacy sufficient to op- 
pose France, should she afterward discover any 
ambitious intentions. It was now not so much 
our business to prevent the lessening the power 
of the house of Austria, as it was to bring about 
a speedy reconciliation between the princes of 
Germany; to take care that France should get 
as little by the treaty of peace as she said she 
expected by the war. This, I say, should have 
been our chief concern ; because the preserva- 
tion of the balance of power was now no longer 
to depend upon the house of Austria, but upon 
the joint power of a confederacy then to be 
formed ; and till the princes of Germany were 
reconciled among themselves, tliere was scarce- 
ly a possibility of forming such a confederacy. 
If we had made this our scheme, the Dutch 
would have joined heartily in it. The German- 
ic body would have joined in it ; and the peace 
of Germany might have been restored without 
putting this nation to any expense, or diverting 
us from the prosecution of our just and neces- 
sary war against Spain, in case our differences 
with that nation could not have been adjusted 
by the treaty for restoring the peace of Ger- 
many. 

II. But our new minister, as I have said, ran 
into an extreme quite opposite to that of carterefs 
the old. Our former minister thought i"^''*^^' 
of nothing but negotiating when he ought to 
have thought of nothing but war ; the present 
minister has thought of nothing but war, or at 
least its resemblance, when he ought to have 
thought of nothing but negotiation. 

A resolution was taken, and preparations were 
made, for sending a body of troops to Flanders, 
even before we had any hopes of the King of 
Prussia's deserting his alliance with France, 
and without our being called on to do so by any 



1743.] 



MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS. 



Q9 



one power in Europe. I say, sir, by any one 
power in Europe ; for I dety our ministers to 
show that even the Queen of Hungary desired 
any such thing before it was resolved on. I 
believe some of her ministers were free enough 
to declare that the money those troops cost 
would have done her much more service ; and I 
am sure we were so far from being called on 
by the Dutch to do so, that it was resolved on 
without their participation, and the measures 
carried into execution, I believe, expressly con- 
trary to their advice. 

This resolution, sir, was so far from having 
any influence on the King of Prussia, that he 
continued firm to bis alliance with France, and 
fought the battle of Czaslau after he knew such 
a resolution was taken. If he had continued 
firm in the same sentiments, I am very sure our 
troops neither would nor could have been of the 
least service to the Queen of Hungary. But the 
battle of Czaslau fully convinced him that the 
French designed chiefly to play one German 
prince against another, in order to weaken both ; 
and perhaps he had before this discovered, that, 
according to the French scheme, his share of 
Silesia was not to be so considerable as he ex- 
pected. These considerations, and not the elo- 
quence or address of any of our ministers, in- 
clined him to come to an agreement with the 
Queen of Hungary. As she was now convinced 
that she could not depend upon our promises, 
she readily agreed to his terms, though his de- 
mands were now much more extravagant than 
they were at first ; and, what is worse, they 
wei'e now unaccompanied with any one promise 
or consideration, except that of a neutrality ; 
A\'^hereas his first demands were made palatable 
by the tender of a large sum of money, and by 
the promise of his utmost assistance, not only in 
supporting the Pragmatic Sanction, but in rais- 
ino her husband, the Duke of Lorraine, to the 
imperial throne. Nay, originally, he even in- 
sinuated that he would embrace the first oppor- 
tunity to assist in procuring her house an equiv- 
alent for whatever part of Silesia she should re- 
sign to him. 

This accommodation between the Queen of 
Hungary and the King of Prussia, and that which 
soon after followed between her and the Duke of 
Saxony, produced a very great alteration in the 
affairs of Europe. But, as these last powers 
promised nothing but a neutrality, and as the 
Dutch absolutely refused to join, either with the 
Queen of Hungary or with ourselves, in any of- 
fensive measures against France, it was still im- 
possible for us to think of restoring the house of 
Austria to such power as to render it a match 
for the power of France. We ought, therefore, 
still to have thought only of negotiation, in order 
to restore the peace of Germany by an accom- 
modation between her and the Emperor. The 
distresses to which the Bavarian and French ar- 
mies in Germany were driven furnished us with 
such an opportunity : this we ought by all means 
to have embraced, and to have insisted on the 
Queen of Hungary's doing the same, under the 



pain of being entirely deserted by us. A peace 
was offered both by the Emperor and the French, 
upon the terms of uti possidetis, with respect to 
Germany ; but, for what reason I can not com- 
prehend, we were so far from advising the Queen 
of Hungary to accept, that I believe we advised 
her to reject it. 

This, sir, was a conduct in our ministers so 
very extraordinary, so directly opposite to the 
interest of this nation, and the security of the 
balance of power, that I can suggest to myself 
no one reason for it, but that they w^ere resolved 
to put this nation to the expense of maintaining 
sixteen thousand Hanoverians. This I am afraid 
was the true motive with our new ministers for 
all the warlike measures they resolved on. Noth- 
ing would now satisfy us but a conquest of Alsace 
and Lorraine in order to give them to the Queen 
of Hungary, as an equivalent for what she had 
lost. And this we resolved on, or at least pre- 
tended to resolve on, at a time when France and 
Prussia were in close conjunction ; at a time 
when no one of the powers of Europe could as- 
sist us ; at a time when none of them entertained 
a jealousy of the ambitious designs of France ; 
and at a time when most of the princes of Ger- 
many were so jealous of the power of the house 
of Austria, that we had great reason to appre- 
hend that the most considerable of these would 
join against us, in case we should meet with any 
success. 

Sir, if our ministers were really serious in this 
scheme, it was one of the most romantic that 
ever entered the head of an English Quixote. 
But if they made it only a pretext for putting 
this nation to the expense of maintaining six- 
teen thousand Hanoverians, or of acquiring some 
new territory for the Electorate of Hanover, I 
am sure no British House of Commons can ap- 
prove their conduct. It is absurd, sir, to say 
that we could not advise the Queen of Hungary 
to accept of the terms offered by the Emperor 
and France, at a time when their troops were 
cooped up in the city of Prague, and when the 
terms were offered with a view only to get their 
troops at liberty, and to take the first opportu- 
nity to attack her with more vigor. This, I say, 
is absurd, because, had she accepted the terms 
proposed, she might have had them guaranteed 
by the Dutch, by the German body, and by all 
the pow^erful princes of Germany ; which would 
have brought all these powers into a confederacy 
with us against the Emperor and France, if they 
had afterward attacked her in Germany ; and all 
of them, but especially the Dutch, and the King 
of Prussia, would have been ready to join us, had 
the French attacked her in Flanders. It is 
equally absurd to say that she could not accept 
of these terms, because they contained nothing 
for the security of her dominions in Italy. For 
suppose the war had continued in Italy, if the 
Queen of Hungary had been safe upon the side 
of Germany, she could have poured sueL a num- 
ber of troops into Italy as would have been suffi- 
cient to oppose and defeat all the armies that 
both the French and Spaniards could send to and 



100 



LORD CHATHAM ON A 



[1743 



maintain in that country ; since we could, by our 
superior fleets, have made it impossible for the 
French and Spaniards to maintain great armies 
in that countiy. 

No other reason can therefore be assigned for 
the Queen of Hungary's refusal of the terms 
proposed to her for restoring the tranquillity of 
Germany than this alone, that we had promised 
to assist her so effectually as to enable her to 
conquer a part of France, by way of equivalent 
for what she had lost in Germany and Italy. 
Such assistance it was neither our interest nor 
in our power to give, considering the circum- 
stances of Europe. I am really surprised that 
the Queen of Hungary came to trust a second 
time to our promises ; for I may venture to 
prophesy that she will find herself again deceiv- 
ed. We shall put ourselves to a vast unneces- 
sary expense, as we did when she was first at- 
tacked by Prussia ; and without being able to 
raise a jealousy in the other powers of Europe, 
we shall give France a pretense for conquering 
Flandex'S, which, otherwise, she would not have 
done. We may bring the Queen of Hungary a 
second time to the verge of destruction, and 
leave her there ; for that we certainly shall do, 
as soon as Hanover comes to be a second time 
in danger. From all which I must conclude, 
that our present scheme of politics is fundament- 
ally wrong, and that the longer we continue to 
build upon such a foundation, the more danger- 
ous it will be for us. The whole fabric will in- 
volve this unfortunate nation in its ruins. 

HI. But now, sir, let us see how we have 
Conduct of prosecuted this scheme, bad as it is, dur- 
ihe war. ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ Campaign. As this nation 
must bear the chief part of the expense, it was 
certainly our business to prosecute the war with 
all possible vigor ; to come to action as soon as 
possible, and to push every advantage to the ut- 
most. Since we soon found that we could not 
attack the French upon the side of Flanders, 
why were our troops so long marching into 
Germany ? Or, indeed, I should ask, why our 
armies were not first assembled in that country? 
Why did they continue so long inactive upon the 
Mayn ? If our army was not numerous enough 
to attack the French, why were the Hessians 
left behind for some time in Flanders ? Why 
did we not send over twenty thousand of those 
regular troops that were lying idle here at 
home ? How to answer all those questions I 
can not tell ; but it is certain we never thought 
of attacking the French army in our neighbor- 
hood, and, I believe, expected very little to be 
attacked ourselves. Nay, I doubt much if any 
action would have happened during the whole 
campaign, if the French had not, by the miscon- 
duct of some one or other of our generals, caught 
our army in a hose-net, from which it could not 
have escaped, had all the French generals ob- 
served the direction of their commander-in-chief ; 
had they thought only of guarding and fortifying 
themselves in the defile [DettingenJ, and not of 
marching up to attack our troops. Thank God, 
sir, the courage of some of the French generals 



got the better of their discretion, as well as of 
their military discipline. This made them at- 
tack, instead of waiting to be attacked; and then, 
by the bravery of the English foot, and the cow- 
ardice of their own, they met with a severe re- 
pulse, which put their whole army into confu- 
sion, and obliged them to retire with precipita- 
tion across the Mayn. Our army thus escaped 
the snare into which they had been led, and was 
enabled to pursue its retreat to Hanau. 

This, sir, was a signal advantage ; but was it 
followed up ? Did we press upon the enemy in 
their precipitate retreat across a great river, 
where many of them must have been lost had 
they been closely pursued? Did we endeavor 
to take the least advantage of the confusion into 
which their unexpected repulse had thrown 
them ? No, sir ; the ardor of the British troops 
was restrained by the cowardice of the Hano- 
verians ; and, instead of pursuing the enemy, we 
ourselves ran away in the night with such haste 
that we left all our wounded to the mercy and 
care of the enemy, who had the honor of bury- 
ing our dead as well as their own. This action 
may, therefore, on our side, be called a fortunate 
escape ; I shall never give my consent to honor 
it with the name of victory. 

After this escape, sir, our army was joined by 
a ver}' large re-enforcement. Did this revive 
our courage, or urge us on to give battle ? Not 
in the least, sir ; though the French continued 
for some time upon the German side of the Rhine, 
we never offered to attack them, or to give them 
the least disturbance. At last, upon Prince 
Charles's approach with the Austrian army, the 
French not only repassed the Rhine, but retired 
quite out of Germany. And as the Austrian 
army and the allied army might then have join- 
ed, and might both have passed the Rhine w^ith- 
out opposition at Mentz, or almost any where 
in the Palatinate, it was expected that both ar- 
mies would have marched together into Lor- 
raine, or in search of the French army, in order 
to force them to a battle. Instead of this, sir. 
Prince Charles marched up the German side of 
the Rhine — to do what? To pass that great 
river, in the sight of a French army equal in 
number to his own, which, without some extra- 
ordinary neglect in the French, was impractica- 
ble ; and so it w^as found by experience. Thus 
the whole campaign upon that side was con- 
sumed in often attempting what so often appear- 
ed to be impracticable. 

On the other side — I mean that of the allied 
army^was there any thing of consequence per- 
formed ? I know of nothing, sir, but that of 
sending a party of hussars into Lorraine with a 
manifesto. The army, indeed, passed the Rhine 
at Mentz, and marched up to the French lines 
upon the frontier of Alsace, but never offered to 
pass those lines until the French had abandoned 
them, I believe with a design to draw our army 
into some snare ; for, upon the return of the 
French toward those lines, we retired with much 
greater haste than we had advanced, though the 
Dutch auxiliaries were then come up and pre- 



1743.] 



MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS. 



101 



tended, at least, to be ready to join our army. 
I have hcai-d, however, that they found a pre- 
text for never cominjr into the line ; and I doubt 
much if they would have marched with us to at- 
tack the French army in their own territories, 
or to invest any of the fortified places ; for I must 
ob.serve that the French lines upon the Qucich 
were not all of them within the territories of 
France. But suppose this Dutch detachment 
had been ready to march with us to attack the 
French in their own territories, or to invest some 
of their fortified places, I can not join in any 
congratulation upon that event ; for a small de- 
tachment of Dutch troops can never enable us 
to execute the vast scheme we have undertaken. 
The whole force of that republic would not be 
sufficient for the purpose, because we should 
have the majority of the empire a^^ainst us ; and, 
therefore, if the Dutch had joined totis viribus^ 
in our scheme, instead of congratulating, I should 
have bemoaned their running mad by our exam- 
ple and at our instigation. 

IV. Having now briefly examined our past 
Prospects for conduct, from the few remarks I have 
the future. j^ade, I belicve, sir, it will appear that, 
supposing our scheme to be in itself possible and 
practicable, we have no reason to hope for suc- 
cess if it be not prosecuted with more vigor and 
with better conduct than it was during the last 
campaign. While we continue in the prosecu- 
tion of this scheme, whoever may lose, the Han- 
overians will be considerable gainers. They 
will draw four or five hundred thousand pounds 
yearly from this nation over and above what 
they have annually drawn, ever since they had 
the good fortune to be united under the same 
sovereign with ourselves. But we ought to con- 
sider — even the Hanoverians ought to consider 
— that this nation is not now in a condition to 
carry on an expensive war for ten or twelve 
years, as it did in the reign of Queen Anne. 
We may fund it out for one, two, or three years ; 
but the public debt is now so large that, if we 
go on adding millions to it every year, our credit 
will at last (sooner, I fear, than some among us 
may imagine) certainly be undone ; and if this 
misfortune should occur, neither Hanover nor 
any other foreign state would be able to draw 
another shilling from the country. A stop to 
our public credit would put an end to our paper 
currency. A universal bankruptcy would en- 
sue, and all the little ready money left among 
us would be locked up in iron chests, or hid in 
by-corners by the happy possessors. It would 
then be impossible to raise our taxes, and conse- 
quently impossible to maintain either fleets or 
armies. Our troops abroad would be obliged to 
enter into the service of any prince that could 
maintain them, and our troops at home would be 
obliired to live upon free quarter. But this they 
could not do long ; for the farmer would neither 
sow nor reap if he found his produce taken from 
him by the starving soldier. In these circum- 
stances, I must desire the real friends of our 



3 With all their forces. 



present happy establishment to consider what 
might be the consequence of the Pretender's 
landing among us at the head of a French army. 
Would he not be looked upon by most men as a 
savior ? Would not the majority of the people 
join with him, in order to rescue the nation from 
those that had brought it into such confusion? 
This danger, sir, is, I hope, imaginary, but I am 
sure it is far from being so imaginary as that 
which has been held out in this debate, the dan- 
ger of all the powers of the continent of Europe 
being brought under such a slavish dependence 
upon France as to join with her in conquering 
this island, or in bringing it under the same 
slavish dependence with themselves. 

I had almost forgotten, sir (I wish future na- 
tions may forget), to mention the Treaty of 
Worms.* I wish that treaty could be erased 
from our annals and our records, so as never to 
be mentioned hereafter : for that treaty, with its 
appendix, the convention that followed, is one of 
the most destructive, unjust, and absurd that was 
ever concluded. By that treaty we have taken 
upon ourselves a burden which I think it impos- 
sible for us to support ; w^e have engaged in 
such an act of injustice toward Genoa as must 
alarm all Europe, and give to the French a most 
signal advantage. From this, sir, all the princes 
of Europe will see what regard we have to jus- 
tice when we think that the power is on our side 5 
most of them, therefore, will probably join with 
France in curtailing our power, or, at least, in 
preventing its increase. 



* The Treaty of Worms was an offensive and de- 
fensive alliance, concluded on the 2d of September, 
1743, between England, Austria, and Sardinia. By 
it the dueen of Hungary agreed to transfer to the 
King of Sardinia the city and part of the duchy of 
Placentia, the Vigevanesco, part of the duchy of Pa- 
via, and the county of Anghiera, as well as her 
claims to the marquisate of Finale, which had been 
ceded to the Genoese by the late Emperor Charles 
VT. for the sum of 400,000 golden crowns, for which 
it had been previously mortgaged. The Q,ueen of 
Hungary also engaged to maintain .30,000 men in 
Italy, to be commanded by the King of Sardinia. 
Great Britain agreed to pay the sum of £300,000 for 
the cession of Finale, and to furnish an annual sub- 
sidy of £200,000, on the condition that the King of 
Sardinia should employ 45,000 men. In addition to 
supplying these sums. Great Britain agreed to send 
a strong squadron into the Mediterranean, to act in 
concert with the allied forces. By a separate and 
secret convention, agreed to at the same time and 
place as the treaty, but which was never ratified 
nor publicly avowed, it was stipulated that Great 
Britain should pay to the Q,ueen of Hungary an an- 
nual subsidy of £300,000, not merely during the war, 
but so long " as the necessity of her affairs should 
require." The terms of the Treaty of Worms rela- 
tive to the cession of the marquisate of Finale to 
Sardinia were particularly unjust to the Genoese, 
since that territory had been guaranteed to them by 
the fourth article of the Quadruple AUiance, con- 
cluded on the 2d of August, ]718, between Great 
Britain, France, Austria, and Holland. — Coxe's Aus- 
tria, chap. civ. Lord Mahon's Hist, of England, vol. 
iii., p. 231. Belsham's Hist, of England., vol. iv., p. 
82, ct seq. 



102 



LORD CHATHAM ON THE 



[1766 



The alliance of Sardinia and its assistance 
may, 1 admit, be of great use to us in defeating 
the designs of the Spaniards in Italy. But gold 
itself may be bought too dear; and I fear we 
shall find the purchase we have made to be but 
precarious, especially if Sardinia should be at- 
tacked by France as well as by Spain, the almost 
certain consequence of our present scheme of 
politics. For these reasons, sir, I hope there is 
not any gentleman, nor even any minister, who 
expects that I should declare my satisfaction that 
this treaty has been concluded. 

It is very surprising, sir, to hear gentlemen 
talk of the great advantages of unanimity in our 
proceedings, when, at the time, they are doing 
all they can to prevent unanimity. If the hon- 
orable gentleman had intended that what he pro- 
posed should be unanimously agreed to, he w^ould 
have returned to the ancient custom of Parlia- 
ment which some of his new friends have, on 
former occasions, so often recommended. It is 
a new doctrine to pretend that we ought in our 
address to return some sort of answer to every 
thing mentioned in his Majesty's speech. It is 
a doctrine that has prevailed only since our Par- 
liaments began to look more like French than 
English Parliaments; and now we pretend to be 
such enemies of France, I supposed we should 
have laid aside a doctrine which the very meth- 
od of proceeding in Parliament must show to be 
false. His Majesty's speech is not now so much 
as under our consideration, but upon a previous 
order for that purpose ; therefore we can not now 
properly take notice of its contents, any farther 
than to determine whether we ought to return 
thanks for it or not. Even this we may refuse, 
without being guilty of any breach of duty to our 
sovereign ; but of this, I believe, no gentleman 
would have thought, had the honorable gentle- 
man who made this motion not attached to it a 
long and fulsome panegyric upon the conduct of 
our ministers. I am convinced no gentleman 
would have objected to our expressing our duty 
to our sovereign, and our zeal for his service, in 
the strongest and most affectionate terms : nor 



would any gentleman have refused to congratu- 
late his Majesty upon anj^ fortunate event hap- 
pening to the royal family. The honoiable gen- 
tleman would have desired no more tlian this, 
had he intended that his motion should be unan- 
imously agreed to. But ministers are generally 
the authors and draw^ers up of the motion, and 
they always have a greater regard for them- 
selves than for the service of their sovereign ; 
that is the true reason why such motions seldom 
meet with unanimous approbation. 

As to the danger, sir, of our returning or not 
returning to our national custom upon this oc- 
casion, I think it lies wholly upon the side of our 
not returning. I have shown that the measures 
we are now pursuing are fundamentally wrong, 
and that the longer we pursue them, the heavier 
our misfortunes will prove. Unless some signal 
providence inter])ose, expei'ience, I am convinced, 
will confirm what I say. By the immediate in- 
tervention of Providence, we may, it is true, suc- 
ceed in the most improbable schemes ; but Prov- 
idence seems to be against us. The sooner, 
therefore, we repent and amend, the better it 
will be for us ; and unless repentance begins in 
this House, I shall no where expect it until dire 
experience has convinced us of our errors. 

For these reasons, sir, I wish, I hope, that we 
may now begin to put a stop to the farther pros- 
ecution of these disastrous measures, by refusing 
them our approbation. If we put a negative 
upon this question, it may awaken our ministers 
from their deceitful dreams. If we agree to it, 
they will dream on till they have dreamed Eu- 
rope their country, and themselves into utter 
perdition. If they stop now, the nation may re- 
cover ; but if by such a flattering address w-e 
encourage them to go on, it may soon become 
impossible for them to retreat. For the sake of 
Europe, therefore, for the sake of my country, 
I most heartily join in putting a negative upon 
the question. 



After a protracted debate, the address was 
carried by a vote of 279 to 149. 



SPEECH 



OF 



LORD CHATHAM ON AN ADDRESS TO THE THRONE, IN WHICH THE RIGHT OF TAXING / 
AMERICA IS DISCUSSED, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, JANUARY 14, 1766. 



INTRODUCTION. 
Mr. George Guenville, during his brief admuiistration from 1763 to 1765, adopted a plan for replen- 
ishing the exhausted treasury of Great Britain, which had been often proposed before, but rejected by 
every preceding minister. It was that of levying direct taxes on the American colonies. His famous 
Stamp Act was brought forward February 7th, 1765. It was strongly opposed by Colonel Bane, who 
thus indignantly replied to the charge of ingratitude, brought by Charles Townsend against the Ameri- 
cans, as " children planted by our care, nourished by our indulgence, and protected by our arms," &c. 
" They planted by your care?" said Colonel Barro: "No! Your oppressions planted them in America. 
They fled from your tyranny to a then uncultivated and inhospitable country, where they exposed them- 
selves to almost all the hardships to which human nature is liable ; and, among others, to the cruelties of 
a savage foe, the most subtle, and, I will take it upon me to say, the most formidable of any people on. 
earth ; and yet, actuated by principles of true English liberty, they met all hardships with pleasure, com- 



I 



RIGHT OF TAXING AMERICA. 



103 



1766.] 

pared with those they suffered in their native land from the hands of those who should have been their 
friends. They nourished by your indulgence 7 They grew by your neglect of them ! As soon as you 
began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule them, who were, per- 
haps, the deputies of deputies to some members of this House— sent to spy out their liberties, to mis- 
represent their actions, and to prey upon them — men promoted to the highest seats of justice ; some 
of whom, to my knowledge, were glad, by going to a foreign country, to escape being brought to the 
bar of a court of justice in their own. They protected by your arms 1 They have nobly taken up 
arms in your defense; have exerted a valor, amid their constant and laborious industry, for the de- 
fense of a country whose frontier was drenched in blood, while its interior yielded all its little savings to 
your emolument. And— believe me— remember I this day told you so— that same spirit of freedom which 
actuated that people at first, will accompany them still. But prudence forbids me to say more. God 
knows I do not, at this time, speak from motives of party heat. What I deliver are the genuine senti- 
ments of my heart. However superior to me in general knowledge and experience the respectable body 
of this House may be, I claim to know more of America than most of you, having seen and been conver- 
sant with that country. The people are, I believe, as truly loyal as any subjects the King has ; but a 
people jealous of their liberties, and who will vindicate them, if they should ever be violated." 

This prophetic warning was in vain. The bill was passed on the 22d of March, 1765. 

A few months after, the ministry of Mr. Grenville came abruptly to an end, and was followed by the 
administration of Lord Rockingham. That able statesman was fully convinced that nothing but the re- 
peal of the Stamp Act could restore tranquillity to the colonies, which, according to Colonel Barre's pre- 
dictions, were in a state of almost open resistance. The news of this resistance reached England at the 
close of 1765, and Parliament was sumnioned on the 17th of December. The plan of the ministry was to 
repeal the Stamp Act ; but, in accordance with the King's wishes, to re-assert (in doing so) the right of Par- 
liament to tax the colonies. Against this course Mr. Pitt detei'mined to take his stand ; and when the 
ordinary address was made in answer to the King's speech, he entered at once on the subject of Ameri- 
can taxation, in a strain of the boldest eloquence. His speech was reported by Sir Robert Dean, assisted 
by Lord Charlemont, and, though obviously broken and imperfect, gives us far more of the language actu- 
ally used by Mr. Pitt than any of the preceding speeches. 



SPEECH, &c. 



Mr. Speaker, — I came to town but to-day. 
I was a stranprer to the tenor of his Majesty's 
speech, and the proposed address, till I heard 
them read in this House. Unconnected and un- 
consulted, I have not the means of information. 
I am fearful of ofrending through mistake, and 
therefore beg to be indulged with a second read- 
ing of the proposed address. [The address being 
read, Mr. Pitt went on :] I commend the King's 
speech, and approve of the address in answer, 
as it decides nothing, every gentleman being 
left at perfect liberty to take such a part con- 
cerning America as he may afterward see fit. 
One word only I can not approve of : an " early," 
is a word that does not belong to the notice the 
ministry have given to Parliament of the troubles 
in America. In a matter of such importance, 
the communication ought to have been imme- 
diate ! 

I speak not now with respect to parties. I 
stand up in this place single and independent. 
As to the late ministry [turning himself to Mr. 
Grenville, who sat within one of him], every cap- 
ital measure they have taken has been entirely 
wrong ! As to the present gentlemen, to those 
at least whom I have in my eye [looking at the 
bench where General Conway sat with the lords 
of the treasury], I have no objection. I have 
never been made a sacrifice l3y any of them. 
Their characters are fair ; and I am aUvays 
glad W'hen men of fair character engage in his 
Majesty's service. Some of them did me the 
honor to ask my opinion before they would en- 
gage. These wall now do me the justice to 



own, I advised them to do it — but, notwithstand- 
ing (for I love to be explicit), / can not give the?n 
my confidence. Pardon me, gentlemen [bowing 
to the ministry], confidence is a plant of slow 
growth in an aged bosom. Youth is the season 
of credulity. By comparing events with each 
other, reasoning from effects to causes, methinks 
I plainly discover the traces of an overruling in- 
fluence.^ 

There is a clause in the Act of Settlement 
obliging every minister to'sign his name to the 
advice which he gives to his sovereign. Would 
it were observed ! I have had the honor to serve 
the Crown, and if I could have submitted to in- 
fluence, I might have still continued to serve : 
but I would not be responsible for others. I 
have no local attachments. It is indifferent to 
me whether a man was rocked in his cradle on 
this side or that side of the Tweed. I sought 
for merit wherever it was to be found. It is my 
boast, that I was the first minister who looked 
for it, and found it, in the mountains of the North. 
I called it forth, and drew into your service a 
hardy and intrepid race of men — men, who, 
when left by your jealousy, became a prey to 
the artifices of your enemies, and had gone nigh 



^ Chas. Butler says in his Reminiscences, " Those 
who remember the air of condescending protection 
with which the bow was made and the look given, 
will recollect how much they themselves, at the mo- 
ment, were both delighted and awed ; and what thej- 
themselves conceived of the immeasurable superi- 
ority of the speaker over every other human being 
that surrounded him." 



104 



LORD CHATHAM ON THE 



[1766. 



to have overturned the state in the v'ar before 
the last. These men, in the last war, were 
brought to combat on your side. They served 
with fidelity, as they fought with valor, and con- 
quered for you in every pai't of the world. De- 
tested be the national reflections against them ! 
They are unjust, groundless, illiberal, unmanly ! 
When I ceased to serve his Majesty as a min- 
ister, it was not the country of the man by which 
I was moved — but the man of that country 
wanted wisdom, and held principles incompati- 
ble with freedom.^ 

It is a long time, Mr. Speaker, since I have 
attended in Parliament. When the resolution 
was taken in this House to tax America, I was 
ill in bed. If I could have endured to be car- 
ried in my bed — so great was the agitation of 
my mind for the consequences — I would have 
solicited some kind hand to have laid me down 
on this floor, to have borne my testimony against 
it ! It is now an act that has passed. I would 
speak with decency of every act of this House ; 
but I must beg the indulgence of the House to 
speak of it with freedom. 

I hope a day may soon be appointed to con- 
sider the state of the nation with respect to 
America. I hope gentlemen will come to this 
debate with all the temper and impartiality that 
his Majesty recommends, and the importance of 
the subject requires ; a subject of greater im- 
portance than ever engaged the attention of this 
House, that subject only excepted, when, near a 
century ago,^ it was the question, whether you 
yourselves were to be bond or free. In the 
mean time, as I can not depend upon my health 
for any future day (such is the nature of my in- 



2 It need hardly be said that Lord Bate is aimed 
at tliroughout the whole of these two paragraphs. 
The passage illustrates a mode of attack which 
Lord Chatham often used, that o{ pointing at an in- 
dividual in a manner at once so significant as to ar- 
rest attention, and yet so remote as to involve no 
breach of decorum — saying the severest things by 
implication, and leaving the hearer to apply them; 
thus avoiding the coarseness of personal invective, 
and giving a wide scope for ingenuity in the most 
stinging allusions. In the present case, the allusion 
to Bute as having " made a sacrifice" of Chatham, by 
driving him from power through a secret ascendency 
over the King; to "the traces of an overruling in- 
fluence" from the same quarter as a reason for with- 
holding confidence from the new ministry ; and to 
Bute's shrinking from that responsibility which the 
Act of Settlement imposed upon all advisers of 
the King — these and other allusions to the favorite 
of George III. would be instantly understood and 
keenly felt among a people who have always re- 
garded the character oi & favorite with dread and 
abhorrence. Lord Chatham, to avoid the imputa- 
tion of being influenced in what he said by the pre- 
vailing prejudices against Bute as a Scotchman, re- 
fers to himself, in glowing language, as the first 
minister who employed Highlanders in the army; 
calling " from the mountains of the North" " a hardy 
and intrepid race of men," who had been alienated 
by previous severity, but who, by that one act of 
confidence, were indissolubly attached to the house 
of Hanover. 

3 At the Revolution of 1688. 



firmities), I will beg to say a few words at pies- 
ent, leaving the justice, the equity, the policy, 
the expediency of the act to another time. 

I will only speak to one point, a point which 
seems not to have been generally understood. I 
mean to the right. Some gentlemen [alluding 
to Mr. Nugent] seem to have considered it as 
a point of honor. If gentlemen consider it in 
that light, they leave all measures of right and 
wrong, to follow a delusion that may lead to de- 
struction. It is my opinion, that this kingdom 
has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies. At 
the same time, I assert the authority of this 
kingdom over the colonies to be sovereign and 
supreme, in every circumstance of government 
and legislation whatsoever. They are the sub- 
jects of this kingdom : equally entitled with your- 
selves to all the natural rights of mankind and 
the peculiar privileges of Englishmen ; equally 
bound by its laws, and equally participating in 
the constitution of this free country. The Amer- 
icans are the sons, not the bastards of England ! 
Taxation is no part of the governing or legisla- 
tive power. The taxes are a voluntary gift 
and grant of the Commons alone. In legislation 
the three estates of the realm are alike concern- 
ed ; but the concurrence of the peers and the 
Ci'own to a tax is only necessary to clothe it 
with the form of a law. The gift and grant is 
of the Commons alone. In ancient days, the 
Crown, the bai'ons, and the clergy possessed the 
lands. In those days, the barons and the clergy 
gave and granted to the Crown. Thev jjave 



and granted what was their 



At present, 



since the discovery of America, and other cir- 
cumstances permitting, the Commons are be- 
come the proprietors of the land. The Church 
(God bless it !) has but a pittance. The prop- 
erty of the lords, compared with that of the com- 
mons, is as a drop of water in the ocean ; and 
this House represents those commons, the pro- 
prietors of the lands ; and those proprietors vir- 
tually represent the rest of the inhabitants. 
When, therefore, in this House, we give and 
grant, we give and grant what is our own. But 
in an American tax, what do we do? "We, 
your Majesty's Commons for Great Britain, give 
and grant to your Majesty" — what ? Our own 
property ? No ! " We give and grant to your 
Majesty" the property of your Majesty's com- 
mons of America ! It is an absurdity in terms. 

The distinction between legislation and tax- 
ation is essentially necessary to liberty. The 
Crown and the peers are equally legislative pow- 
ers with the Commons. If taxation be a part 
of simple legislation, the Crown and the peers 
have rights in taxation as well as yourselves ; 
rights which they will claim, which they will 
exercise, whenever the principle can be support- 
ed by power. 

There is an idea in some that the colonies are 
virtually represented in the House. I would 
fain know by whom an American is represented 
here. Is he represented by any knight of the 
shire, in any county in this kingdom ? Woiild 
to God that respectable representation was aug- 



1766.] 



RIGHT OF TAXING AMERICA. 



105 



merited to a greater number ! Or will you tell 
him that he is represented by any representative 
of a borough ? a borough which, perhaps, its 
own representatives never saw ! This is what 
is called the rotten part of the Constitution. It 
can not continue a century. If it does not drop, 
it must be amputated.* The idea of a virtual 
representation of America in this House is the 
most contemptible idea that ever entered into 
the head of a man. It does not deserve a se- 
rious refutation. 

The Commons of America, represented in 
their several assemblies, have ever been in pos- 
session of the exercise of this, their constitutional 
right, of giving and granting their own money. 
They would have been slaves if they had not 
enjoyed it ! At the same time, this kingdom, 
as the supreme governing and legislative power, 
has always bound the colonies by her laws, by 
her regulations, and restrictions in trade, in nav- 
igation, in manufactures, in every thing, except 
that of taking their money out of their pockets 
without their consent. 

Here I would draw the line, 

duam ultra citraque neque consistere rectum. 5 

[As soon as Lord Chatham concluded. Gen- 
eral Conway arose, and succinctly avowed his 
entire approbation of that part of his Lordship's 
speech which related to American affairs, but 
disclaimed altogether that " secret overruling 
influence which had been hinted at." Mr. 
George Grenville, who followed in the debate, 
expatiated at large on the tumults and riots 
which had taken place in the colonies, and de- 
clared that they bordered on rebellion. He con- 
demned the language and sentiments which he 
had heai'd as encouraging a revolution. A por- 
tion of his speech is here inserted, as explanatory 
of the replication of Lord Chatham.''] 

I can not, said Mr. Grenville, understand the 
difference between external and internal taxes. 
They are the same in effect, and differ only in 
name. That this kingdom has the sovereign, 
the supreme legislative power over America, is 
granted ; it can not be denied ; and taxation is a 
part of that sovereign power. It is one branch 
of the legislation. It is, it has been, exercised 
over those w^ho are not, who were never repre- 
sented. It is exercised over the India Company, 
the merchants of London, the proprietors of the 
stocks, and over many great manufacturing 
towns. It was exercised over the county pala- 
tine of Chester, and the bishopric of Durham, 
before they sent any representatives to Parlia- 
ment. I appeal for proof to the preambles of 
the acts which gave them representatives ; one 



* We have here the first mention made by any 
English statesman of a reform in the borough sys- 
tem. A great truth once uttered never dies. The 
Reform Bill of Earl Grey had its origin in the mind 
of Chatham. 

5 On neither side of vi^hich w^e can rightly stand 

® Mr. Grenville, it will be remembered, had now 

no connection with the ministry, but was attempting 

to defend his Stamp Act against the attack of Mr. 

Pitt. 



in the reign of Henry VIII., the other in that of 
Charles II. [Mr. Grenville then quoted the acts, 
and desired that they might be read ; which hQ- 
ing done, he said.] When I proposed to tax 
America, I asked the House if any gentleman 
would object to the right ; I repeatedly asked it, 
and no man would attempt to deny it. Protec- 
tion and obedience are reciprocal. Great Brit- 
ain protects America; America is bound to yield 
obedience. If not, tell me when the Americans 
were emancipated ? When they want the pro- 
tection of this kingdom, they are always very 
ready to ask it. That protection has always 
been afforded them in the most full and ample 
manner. The nation has run herself into an im- 
mense debt to give them their protection ; and 
now, when they are called upon to contribute a 
small share toward the public expense — an ex- 
pense arising from themselves — they renounce 
your authority, insult your officers, and break 
out, I might almost say, into open rebellion. 
The seditious spirit of the colonies ow^es its 
birth to the factions in this House. Gentlemen 
are careless of the consequences of what they 
say, provided it answers the purposes of opposi- 
tion. We were told we trod on tender ground. 
We were bid to expect disobedience. What is 
this but telling the Americans to stand out 
against the law, to encourage their obstinacy 
with the expectation of support from hence ? 
"Let us only hold out a little," they would say, 
"our friends will soon be in power." Ungrate- 
ful people of America ! Bounties have been ex- 
tended to them. When I had the honor of serv- 
ing the Crown, while you yourselves were load- 
ed with an enormous debt, you gave bounties on 
their lumber, on their iron, their hemp, and many 
other articles. You have relaxed in their favor 
the Act of Navigation, that palladium of the 
British commerce ; and yet I have been abused 
in all the public papers as an enemy to the trade 
of America. I have been particularly charged 
with giving orders and instructions to prevent 
the Spanish trade, and thereby stopping the chan- 
nel by which alone North America used to be 
supplied with cash for remittances to this coun- 
try. I defy any man to produce any such or- 
ders or instructions. I discouraged no trade but 
what was illicit, what was prohibited by an act 
of Parliament. I desire a West India merchant 
(Mr. Long), well known in the city, a gentle- 
man of character, may be examined. He will 
tell you that I offered to do every thing in my 
power to advance the trade of America. I was 
above giving an answer to anonymous calum- 
nies ; but in this place it becomes one to wipe 
off the aspersion. 

[Here Mr. Grenville ceased. Several mem- 
bers got up to speak, but Mr. Pitt seeming to 
rise, the House was so clamorous for Mr. Pitt ! 
Mr. Pitt ! that the speaker was obliged to call 
to order.] 

Mr. Pitt said, I do not apprehend I am speak- 
ing twice. I did expressly reserve a part of my 
subject, in order to save the time of this House ; 
but I am compelled to proceed in it. I do not 



106 



LORD CHATHAM ON THE 



[1766. 



twice ; I only finish what I designedly left 
imperfect. But if the House is of a different 
opinion, far be it from me to indulge a wish of 
transgression against order. I am content, if it 
be your pleasure, to be silent. [Here he paused. 
The House resounding with Go on ! go on ! he 
proceeded :] 

Gentlemen, sir, have been charged with giv- 
ing birth to sedition in America. They have 
spoken their sentiments with freedom against 
this unhappy act, and that freedom has become 
their crime. Sorry I am to hear the liberty of 
speech in this House imputed as a crime. But 
the imputation shall not discourage me. It is 
a liberty I mean to exercise. No gentleman 
ought to be afraid to exercise it. It is a liberty 
by which the gentleman who calumniates it 
might have pi'ofited. He ought to have desist- 
ed from his project. The gentleman tells us, 
America is obstinate ; America is almost in open 
rebellion. I rejoice that America has resisted. 
Three millions of people, so dead to all the feel- 
ings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be 
slaves, would have been fit instruments to make 
slaves of the rest. I come not here armed at 
all points, with law cases and acts of Parlia- 
ment, with the statute book doubled down in 
dog's ears, to defend the cause of liberty. If I 
had, I myself would have cited the two cases of 
Chester and Durham. I would have cited them 
to show that, even under former arbitrary reigns, 
Parliaments were ashamed of taxing a people 
without their consent, and allowed them repi'e- 
sentatives. Why did the gentleman confine him- 
self to Chester and Durham ? He might have 
taken a higher example in Wales — Wales, that 
never was taxed by Parliament till it was incor- 
porated. I would not debate a particular point 
of law with the gentleman. I know his abili- 
ties. I have been obliged to his diligent re- 
searches. But, for the defense of liberty, upon 
a general principle, upon a constitutional prin- 
ciple, it is a ground on which I stand firm — on 
which I dare meet any man. The gentleman 
tells us of many who are taxed, and are not rep- 
resented. — the India Company, merchants, stock- 
holders, manufacturers. Surely many of these 
are represented in other capacities, as owners of 
land, or as freemen of boroughs. It is a mis- 
fortune that more are not equally represented. 
But they are all inhabitants, and, as such, are 
they not virtually represented ? Many have it 
in their option to be actually represented. They 
have connections with those that elect, and they 
have influence over them. The gentleman men- 
tioned the stockholders. I hope he does not 
reckon the debts of the nation as a part of the 
national estate. 

Since the accession of King William, many 
ministers, some of great, others of more moder- 
ate abilities, have taken the lead of government. 
[Here Mr. Pitt went through the list of them, 
bringing it down till he came to himself, giving 
a short sketch of the characters of each, and 
then proceeded :] None of these thought, or even 
dreatned, of robbing the colonies of their consti- 



tutional rights. That was reserved to mark the 
era of the late administration. Not that there 
were wanting some, when I had the honor to 
serve his Majesty, to propose to me to burn my 
fingers with an American stamp act. With the 
enemy at their back, with our bayonets at their 
breasts, in the day of their distress, perhaps the 
Americans would have submitted to the imposi- 
tion ; but it would have been taking an ungen- 
erous, an unjust advantage. The gentleman 
boasts of his bounties to America ! Are not 
these bounties intended finally for the benefit of 
this kingdom ? If they are not, he has misap- 
plied the national treasures ! 

I am no courtier of America. I stand up for 
this kingdom. I maintain that the Parliament 
has a right to bind, to restrain America. Our 
legislative power over the colonies is sovereign 
and supreme. When it ceases to be sovereign 
and supreme, I would advise every gentleman 
to sell his lands, if he can, and embark for that 
country. When two countries are connected to- 
gether like England and her colonies, without 
being incorporated, the one must necessarily 
govern. The greater must rule the less. But 
she must so rule it as not to contradict the fun- 
dameyital principles that are common to both. 

If the gentleman does not understand the dif- 
ference between external and internal taxes, I 
can not help it. There is a plain distinction be- 
tween taxes levied for the purposes of raising a 
revenue, and duties imposed for the regulation 
of trade, for the accommodation of the subject ; 
although, in the consequences, some revenue 
may incidentally arise from the latter. 

The gentleman asks, When were the colonies 
emancipated ? I desire to know, when were 
they made slaves ? But I dwell not upon words. 
When I had the honor of serving his Majesty, I 
availed myself of the means of information which 
I derived from my office. I speak, therefore, 
from knowledge. My materials were good. I 
was at pains to collect, to digest, to consider 
them ; and I will be bold to affirm, that the prof- 
its to Great Britain from the trade of the colo- 
nies, through all its branches, is two millions a 
year. This is the fund that carried you triumph- 
antly through the last war. The estates that 
were rented at two thousand pounds a year, 
threescore years ago, are at three thousand at 
present. Those estates sold then from fifteen to 
eighteen years purchase ; the same may now be 
sold for thirty. You owe this to America. This 
is the price America pays you for her protec- 
tion. And shall a miserable financier come with 
a boast, that he can bring " a pepper-corn" into 
the exchequer by the loss of millions to the na- 
tion V I dare not say how much higher these 
profits may be augmented. Omitting [i. c, not 
taking into account] the immense increase of 
people, by natural population, in the northern 
colonies, and the emigration from every p art of 

■' Alluding to Mr. Nugent, who bad said that " a 
pepper-corn in acknowledgment of the right to tax 
America, was of more value than millions without 
it." 



1766] 



RIGHT OF TAXING AMERICA. 



107 



Europe, I am convinced [on other grounds] that 
the commercial system of America may be al- 
tered to advantage. You have prohibited where 
j^ou ought to have encouraged. You have en- 
couraged where you ought to have prohibited. 
Improper restraints have been laid on the conti- 
nent in favor of the islands. You have but two 
nations to trade with in America. Would you 
had twenty ! Let acts of Parliament in conse- 
quence of treaties remain ; but let not an En- 
glish minister become a custom-house officer 
for Spain, or for any foreign power. Much is 
wrong ! Much may be amended for the gen- 
eral good of the whole ! 

Does the gentleman complain he has been 
misrepresented in the public prints ? It is a 
common misfortune. In the Spanish affair of 
the last war, I was abused in all the newspapers 
for having advised his Majesty to violate the laws 
of nations with regard to Spain. The abuse was 
industriously circulated even in handbills. If 
administration did not propagate the abuse, ad- 
ministration never contradicted it. I will not 
say what advice I did give the King. My ad- 
vice is in writing, signed by myself, in the pos- 
session of the Crown. But I will say what ad- 
vice I did not give to the King. I did not ad- 
vise him to violate any of the laws of nations. 

As to the report of the gentleman's prevent- 
ing in some way the trade for bullion with the 
Spaniards, it was spoken of so confidently that I 
own I am one of those who did believe it to be 
true. 

The gentleman must not wonder he was not 
contradicted when, as minister, he asserted the 
right of Parliament to tax America. I know 
not how it is, but there is a modesty in this 
House which does not choose to contradict a 
minister. Even your chair, sir, looks too often 
toward St. James's. I wish gentlemen would 
get the better of this modesty. If they do not, 
perhaps the collective body may begin to abate 
of its respect for the representative. Lord Ba- 
con has told me, that a great question would not 
fail of being agitated at one time or another. I 
was willing to agitate such a question at the 
proper season, viz., that of the German war — 
7ny German war, they called it ! Every session 
I called out. Has any body any objection to the 
German war ?^ Nobody would object to it, one 



8 This speech is so much condensed by the report- 
er as sometimes to make the connection obscure. 
Mr. Pitt is answering Mr. Grenviile's complaints by 
a reference to his own experience when minister. 
Had Mr. Grenville been misrepresented in the pub- 
lic prints ? So was Mr. Pitt in respect to " the Span- 
ish atTair of the last war." Had the Stamp Act been 
drawn into discussion, though originally passed with- 
out contradiction? Mr. Grenville might easily un- 
derstand that there was a reluctance to contradict 
the minister; and he might learn from Lord Bacon 
that a great question like this could not be avoided; 
it would be " agitated at one time or another." Mr. 
Pitt, when minister, had a great question of this 
kind, viz., the "German war," and he did not shrink 
from meeting it, or complain of the misrepresenta- 
tion to which he was subjected. He had originally 



gentleman only excepted, since lemoved to the 
Upper House by succession to an ancient bar- 
ony [Lord La Despencer, formerly Sir Francis 
Dashwood]. He told me he did not like a Ger- 
man war. I honored the man for it, and was 
sorry when he was turned out of his post. 

A great deal has been said without doors of 
the power, of the strength of America. It is a 
topic that ought to be cautiously meddled with. 
In a good cause, on a sound bottom, the force 
of this country can crush America to atoms. I 
know the valor of your troops. I krxow the skill 
of your officers. There is not a company of foot 
that has seiwed in America, out of which you 
may not pick a man of sufficient knowledge and 
experience to make a governor of a colony there. 
But on this ground, on the Stamp Act, which so 
many here will think a crying injustice, I am 
one who will lift up my hands against it. 

In such a cause, your success would be haz- 
ardous. America, if she fell, would fall like the 
strong man ; she would embrace the pillars of 
the state, and pull down the Constitution along 
with her. Is this your boasted peace — not to 
sheathe the sword in its scabbard, but to sheathe 
it in the bowels of your countrymen ? Will you 
quarrel with yourselves, now the whole house of 
Bourbon is united against you ; while France 
disturbs your fisheries in Newfoundland, embar- 
rasses your slave trade to Africa, and withholds 
from your subjects in Canada their pi'operty 
stipulated by treaty ; while the ransom for the 
]\Ianillas is denied by Spain, and its gallant con- 
queror basely traduced into a mean plunderer ! 
a gentleman (Colonel Draper) whose noble and 
generous spirit would do honor to the proudest 
grandee of the country ? The Americans have 
not acted in all things with prudence and tem- 
per : they have been wronged ; they have been 
driven to madness by injustice. Will you pun- 
ish them for the madness you have occasioned ? 
Rather let prudence and temper come first from 
this side. I will undertake for America that 
she will follow the example. There are two 
lines in a ballad of Prior's, of a man's behavior 
to his wife, so applicable to you and your colo- 
nies, that I can not help repeating them : 
"Be to her faults a little blind ; 
Be to her virtues very kind." 

Upon the whole, I will beg leave to tell the 
House what is my opinion. It is, that the Stamp 
Act be repealed absolutely, totally, and immedi- 



resisted the disposition of George II. to engage in 
wars on the Continent. But when things had whol- 
ly changed, when England had united with Prussia 
to repress the ambition of Austria sustained by 
France and Russia, he did carry on " a German 
war," though not one of his own commencing. And 
he was always ready to meet the question. He 
challenged discussion. He called out, "Has any 
body objections to the German war?" Probably 
Mr. Pitt here alludes to an incident already refer- 
red to, page 62, when, putting himself in an attitude 
of defiance, he exclaimed, " Is there an Austrian 
among j-ou ? Let him come forward and reveal 
himself!" 



108 LORD CHATHAM ON THE [1770. 



ately. That the reason for the repeal be assign- 
ed, viz., because it was founded on an erroneous 
principle. At the same time, let the sovereign 
authority of this country over the colonies be as- 
serted in as strong terms as can be devised, and 
be made to extend to every point of legislation 
whatsoever ; that we may bind their trade, con- 
fine their manufactures, and exercise every power 
whatsoever, except that of taking their money 
out of their pockets without their consent. 



whatsoever !'^ Lord Camden, when the Declar- 
atory Act came into the House of Lords, took 
the same ground with Mr. Pitt in the House of 
Commons. "My position," said he, "is this — 
I repeat it — I will maintain it to the last hour : 
Taxation and representation are inseparable. 
This position is founded on the laws of nature. 
It is more ; it is in itself an eternal law of na- 
ture. For whatever is a man's own is abso- 
lutely his own. No man has a right to take it 
from him without his consent, either expressed 
by himself or his representative. Whoever at- 
The motion for the address received the ap- tempts to do this, attempts an injury. Whoever 
probation of all. About a month after, February does it, commits a robbery. He throws down 
26th, 1766, a bill was introduced repealing the and destroys the distinction between liberty and 
Stamp Act ; but, instead of following Mr. Pitt's slavery.'' Other counsels, however, prevailed, 
advice, and abandoning all claim to the right of The Stamp Act was repealed, but the Declara- 
taxing the colonies, a Declaratory Act was in- tory Act was passed ; its principles were carried 
troduced, asserting the authority of the King and j out by Charles Townsend the very next year, by 
Parliament to make laws which should " bind imposing new taxes ; and the consequences are 
the colonies and people of America in all cases \ before the world. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD CHATHAM IN REPLY TO LORD MANSFIELD, IN RELATION TO THE CASE OF JOHN 
WILKES, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, JANUARY 9, 1770. 

INTRODUCTION. 

This was the first appearance of Lord Chatham in the House of Lords after his illness in 1767. The 
Duke of G-rafton, his former friend and ally, was now minister, and had come out a virtual Tory. The 
case of John Wilkes agitated the whole kingdom. He had been expelled from the House of Commons 
for a " seditious hbel," in February, 1769, and a new writ was issued for the election of a member from 
Middlesex. Wilkes was almost unanimously re-elected, and the House of Commons resolved, on the day 
after his election, that he was incapable of being chosen to that Parliament. Another election was there- 
fore held; he was again chosen, and his election again declared void. A third was ordered, and the min- 
istry now determined to contest it to the utmost. They prevailed upon Colonel Luttrell, son of Lord Irn- 
ham, to vacate his seat in the House, and become their candidate ; but, with all their influence and bribery, 
they could obtain only 296 votes, while Wilkes numbered 1143. The latter, of course, was again returned 
as a member; but the House passed a resolution directing the clerk of the Crown to amend the return, 
by erasing the name of Mr. Wilkes and inserting that of Colonel Luttrell, who accordingly took his seat, 
m April, 1769. 

There is, at the present day, no difference of opinion as to these pi'oceedings. "All mankind are agreed," 
says Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Chancellors, "that the House of Commons acted illegally and un- 
constitutionally in expelling ^|r. Wilkes for a supposed offense, committed before his re-election, and in 
seating Mr. Luttrell as representative for Middlesex." With Mr. Wilkes as an individual. Lord Chatham 
had no connection, either personal or political. He had, on the contrary, expressed his detestation of liis 
character and principles, some years before, in the presence of Parliament. But he felt that one of the 
greatest questions had now arisen which M'as ever agitated in England, and that the House of Lords 
ought to enter their protest against this flagrant breach of the Constitution. He, perhaps, considered him- 
self the more bound to come forward, because in his late ministiy he had given the Duke of Grafton the 
place which he now held of First Lord of the Treasury, and had thus opened the way for the advance- 
ment of his grace to the station of Prime Minister. At all events, he determined, on the first day of his 
appearance in Parliament after his late ministry, to express his disapprobation of two measures whirh had 
been adopted by his former colleagues, viz., the taxation of America, and the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes. 
When, therefore, an address to the Throne was moved, January 9th, 1770, he came forward on both these 
subjects in one of his most celebrated speeches, but which, unfortunately, is very imperfectly preserved. 

He commenced with great impressiveness of manner : " At my advanced period of life, my Lords, bow- 
ing under the weight of my infirmities, I might, perhaps, have stood excused if I had continued in my re- 
tirement, and never taken part again in public affairs. But the alarming state of the country calls upon 
me to execute the duty which I owe to my God, my sovereign, and my country." He then took a rapid 
view of the external and internal state of the country. He lamented the measures which had alienated 
the colonies, and driven them to such excesses. But he still insisted that they should be treated with ten- 



1770.] 



CASE OF JOHN WILKES. 



109 



derness. "These excesses," he said, " are the mere eruptions of liberty, which break out upon the skin, 
and are a sign, if not of perfect health, at least of a vigorous constitution, and must not be repelled too 
suddenly, lest they should strike to the heart." 

He then passed to the case of Mr. Wilkes, and the prevailing discontent thi-oughout the kingdom, in 
consequence of his expulsion from the House of Commons. The privileges of the House of Peers, he said, 
however transcendent, stood on the same broad bottom as the rights of the people. It was, therefore, their 
highest interest, as well as their dutj', to watch over and protect the people ; for when the people had 
lost their rights, the peerage would soon become insignificant. He referred, as an illustration, to the case 
of Spain, where the grandees, from neglecting and slighting the rights of the people, had been enslaved 
themselves. He concluded with the following remarkable passage : " My Lords, let this example be a 
lesson to us all. Let us be cautious how we admit an idea, that our rights stand on a footing different from 
those of the people. Let us be cautious how we invade the liberties of our fellow-subjects, however mean, 
however remote. For be assured, my Lords, in whatever part of the empire you suffer slaveiy to be es- 
tablished, whether it be in America, or in Ireland, or here at home, you will find it a disease which spreads 
by contact, and soon reaches from tlie extremities to the heart. The man who has lost his own freedom, 
becomes, from that moment, an instrument in the hands of an ambitious prince to destroy the freedom of 
others. These reflections, my Loi-ds, are but too applicable to our present situation. The liberty of the 
subject is invaded, not only in the provinces, but here at home ! The English people are loud in their com- 
plaints ; they demand redress ; and, depend upon it, my Lords, that, one way or another, they will have 
redress. They will never return to a state of tranquillity till they are redressed. Nor ought they. For 
in my judgment, my Lords, and I speak it boldly, it were better for them to perish in a glorious contention 
for their rights, than to purchase a slavish tranquillity at the expense of a single iota of the Constitution. 
Let me entreat your Lordships, then, by all the duties which you owe to your sovereign, to the country, 
and to yourselves, to perform the office to which you are called by the Constitution, by informing his Maj- 
esty truly of the condition of his subjects, and the real cause of their dissatisfaction." 

With this view, Lord Chatham concluded his speech by moving an amendment to the address, "That 
we will, with all convenient speed, take into our most serious consideration the causes of the discontents 
which prevail in so many parts of your Majesty's dominions, and particularly the late proceedings of the 
House of Commons touching the incapacity of John Wilkes, Esq., expelled by that House, to be re-elected 
a member to serve in the present Parliament, thereby refusing, by a resolution of one branch of the Leg- 
islature only, to the subject his common right, and depriving the electors of Middlesex of their free choice 
of a representative." 

This amendment was powerfully resisted by Lord Mansfield. Nothing remains, however, of his speech, 
except a meager account of the general course of his argument. He contended " that the amendment vio- 
lated eveiy form and usage of Parliament, and was a gross attack on the privileges of the House of Com- 
mons. That there never was an instance of the Lords inquiring into the proceedings of that House with 
respect to their own nfembers, much less of their taking upon themselves to censure such proceedings, or 
of their advising the Crown to take notice of them. ' If, indeed, it be the purpose of the amendment to 
provoke a quarrel with the House of Commons, I confess,' said his Lordship, ' it will have that effect cer- 
tainly and immediately. The Lower House will undoubtedly assert their privileges, and give you vote 
for vote. I leave it, therefore, to your Lordships, to consider the fatal effects which, in such a conjuncture 
as the present, may arise from an open breach between the two houses of Parliament." 

Lord Chatham immediately arose and delivered the following speech in reply. 

SPEECH, &c.^ 



INTy Lords, — There is one plain maxim, to 
which I have invariably adhered through life : 
that in every question in which my liberty or my 
property were concerned, I should consult and 
he. determined by the dictates of common sense. 
I confess, my Lords, that I am apt to distrust 
the refinements of learninir, becau.se I have seen 
the ablest and the most learned men equally lia- 
ble to deceive themselves and to mislead others. 
The condition of human nature would be lam- 
entable indeed, if nothing less than the greatest 
learning and talents, which fall to the share of 

^ This is the best reported and most eloquent 
speech of Lord Chatham, except that of November 
18th, 1777. It was published at the time from man- 
uscript notes taken by an unknown individual, who 
is uovv ascertained with almost absolute certainty 
to have been the celebrated Sir Philip Francis, con- 
sidered by so many as the author of Juuias's Letters. 



so small a number of men, were sufficient to di- 
rect our judgment and our conduct. But Prov- 
idence has taken better care of our happiness, 
and given us, in the simplicity of common sense, 
a rule for our direction, by which we can never 
be misled. I confess, my Lords, I had no other 
guide in drawing up the amendment which I 
submitted to your consideration ; and, before I 
heard the opinion of the noble Lord who spoke 
last, I did not conceive that it was even within 
the limits of possibility for the greatest human 
genius, the most subtle understanding, or the 
acutest wit, so strangely to misrepresent my 
meaning, and to give it an interpretation so en- 
tirely foreign from what I intended to express, 
and from that sense which the very terms of the 
amendment ))lainly and distinctly carry with 
them. If there be the smallest foundation for 
the censure thrown upon me by that noble Lord ; 



110 



LORD CHATHAM ON THE 



[1770. 



if, either expressl}^ or by the most distant im- 
plication, I have said or insinuated any part of 
what the noble Lord has charged me with, dis- 
card my opinions forever, discard the motion 
with contempt. 

My Lords, I must beg the indulgence of the 
House. Neither will my health permit me, nor 
do I pretend to be qualified to follow that learn- 
ed Lord minutely through the whole of his argu- 
ment. No man is better acquainted with his 
abilities and learning, nor has a greater respect 
for them than I have. I have had the pleasure 
of sitting with him in the other House, and al- 
ways listened to him with attention. I have not 
now lost a word of what he said, nor did I ever. 
Lf^pon the present question I meet him without 
fear. The evidence which truth carries with it 
is supei'ior to all argument : it neither wants the 
support, nor dreads the opposition of the great- 
est abilities. If there be a single word in the 
amendment to justify the interpretation wiiich 
the noble Lord has been pleased to give it, I am 
ready to renounce the whole. Let it be read, 
my Lords ; let it speak for itself. [It was read.] 
In what instance does it interfere with the priv- 
ileges of the House of Commons ? In what re- 
spect does it question their jurisdiction, or sup- 
pose an authority in this House to arraign the 
justice of their sentence ? I am sure that every 
Loi'd who hears me will bear me witness, that 
I said not one word touching the merits of the 
IMiddlesex election. So far from conveying any 
opinion upon that matter in the amendment, I 
did not even in discourse deliver my own senti- 
ments upon it. I did not say that the House of 
Commons had done either right or wrong ; but, 
when his INIajesty was pleased to recommend it 
to us to cultivate unanimity among ourselves, I 
thought it the duty of this House, as the great 
hereditary council of the Crown, to state to his 
JMajesty the distracted condition of his dominions, 
together with the events which had destroyed 
unanimity among his subjects. But. my Lords, 
I stated events merely as facts, without the 
smallest addition either of censure or of opinion. 
They are facts, my Lords, which I am not only 
convinced are true, but which I know are indis- 
putably true. For example, my Lords : will any 
man deny that discontents pi-evail in many parts 
of his Majesty's dominions ? or that those dis- 
contents arise from the proceedings of the House 
of Commons touching the declared incapacity of 
Mr. Wilkes ? It is impossible. No man can 
deny a truth so notorious. Or will any man 
deny that those proceedings refused, by a reso- 
lution of one branch of the Legislature onh% to 
the subject his common right ? Is it not indis- 
putably true, my Lords, that Mr. Wilkes had a 
common right, and that he lost it no other way 
but by a resolution of the House of Commons? 
My Lords, I have been tender of misrepresent- 
ing the House of Commons. I have consulted 
their journals, and have taken the very words of 
their own resolution. Do they not tell us in so 
m;iny words, that Mr. Wilkes having been ex- 
pelled, was thereby rendered incapable of serv- 



ing in that Parliament ? And is it not their res- 
olution alone which refuses to the subject his 
common right? The amendment sa\-s farther, 
that the electors of Middlesex are deprived of 
their free choice of a representative. Is this a 
false fact, my Lords ? Or have I given an un- 
fair representation of it? Will any man pre- 
sume to affirm that Colonel Luttrell is the free 
choice of the electors of Middlesex ? We all 
know the contrary. We all know that Mr. 
Wilkes (whom I mention without either praise 
or censure) was the favorite of the county, and 
chosen by a very great and acknowledged ma- 
jority to represent them in Parliament. If the 
noble Lord dislikes the manner in which these 
facts are stated, T shall think myself happy in 
being advised by him how to alter it. I am very 
little anxious about terms, provided the sub- 
stance be preserved ; and these are facts, my 
Lords, which I am sure will always retain their 
weight and importance, in whatever form of lan- 
guage they are described. 

Now, my Lords, since I have been forced to 
enter into the explanation of an amendment, in 
which nothing less than the genius of penetra- 
tion could have discovered an obscurity, and hav- 
ing, as I hope, redeemed myself in the opinion 
of the House, having redeemed my motion from 
the severe representation given of it by the noble 
Lord. I must a little longer entreat your Lord- 
ships' indulgence. The Constitution of this coun- 
try has been openly invaded in fact ; and I have 
heard, with horror and astonishment, that very 
invasion defended upon principle. What is this 
mysterious power, undefined by law, unknown 
to the subject, which we must not approach 
without awe, nor speak of without reverence — 
which no man may question, and to which all 
men must submit? JNIy Lords, I thought the 
slavish doctrine of passive obedience had long 
since been exploded : and, when our Kings were 
obliged to confess that their title to the Crown, 
and the rule of their government, had no other 
foundation than the known laws of the land. I 
never expected to hear a divine right, or a di- 
vine infallibility, attributed to any other branch 
of the Legislature. My Lords, I beg to be un- 
derstood. No man respects the House of Com- 
mons more than I do, or would contend more 
strenuously than I would to preserve to them 
their just and legal authority. Within the bounds 
prescribed by the Constitution, that authority is 
necessar}' to the well-being of the people. Be- 
yond that line, every exertion of power is arbi- 
trary, is illegal ; it threatens tyranny to the peo- 
ple, and destruction to the state. Power with- 
out right is the most odious and detestable object 
that can be offered to the human imagination. 
It is not only pernicious to those who are sub- 
ject to it, but tends to its own destruction. It 
is what my noble friend [Lord Lyttleton] has 
truly described it, " Res detestabilis et caduca."'^ 
JNIy Lords, I acknowledge the just power, and 
reverence the constitution of the House of Com- 



2 A thioLT hateful, and destined to destruction. 



1770.] 



CASE OF JOHN WILKES. 



Ill 



mons. It is for their own sakes that I would 
prevent their assuming a power which the Con- 
stitution has denied them, lest, by grasping at 
an authority they have no right to, they should 
forfeit that which they legally possess. My 
Lords, I aflirm that they have betrayed their 
constituents, and violated the Constitution. Un- 
der pretense of declaring the law, they have 
made a law, and united in the same persons the 
office of legislator and of judge! 

I shall endeavor to adhere strictly to the no- 
ble Lord's doctrine, which is, indeed, impossible 
to mistake, so far as my memory will permit me 
to preserve his expressions. He seems fond of 
the word jurisdiction ; and I confess, with the 
force and eflect which he has given it, it is a 
word of copious meaning and wonderful extent. 
If his Lordship's doctrine be well founded, we 
must renounce all those political maxims by 
which our undei'standings have hitherto been 
directed, and even the first elements of learning 
taught in our schools when we were schoolboys. 
My Lords, we knew that jurisdiction was noth- 
ing more than "jus dicere." We knew that " le- 
gem faccre^^ and ^^ legem dicere''^ [to make law 
and to declare it] were powers clearly distin- 
guished from each other in the nature of things, 
and wisely separated by the wisdom of the En- 
glish Constitution. But now, it seems, we must 
adopt a new system of thinking ! The House 
of Commons, we are told, have a supreme juris- 
diction, and there is no appeal from their sen- 
tence ; and that wherever they are competent 
judges, their decision must be received and sub- 
mitted to, as ipso facto, the law of the land. My 
Lords, I am a plain man, and have been brought 
up in a religious reverence for the original sim- 
plicity of the laws of England. By what soph- 
istry they have been perverted, by what artifices 
they have been involved in obscurity, is not for 
me to explain. The principles, however, of the 
English laws are still sufficiently clear ; they 
are founded in reason, and are the masterpiece 
of the human understanding ; but it is in the text 
that I would look for a direction to my judgment, 
not in the commentaries of modern professors. 
The noble Lord assures us that he knows not in 
what code the law of Parliament is to be found ; 
that the House of Commons, when they act as 
judges, have no law to direct them but their own 
wisdom ; that their decision is law ; and if they 
determine wrong, the subject has no appeal but 
to Heaven, What then, my Lords ? Are all 
the generous efforts of our ancestoi's, are all 
those glorious contentions, by which they meant 
to secure to themselves, and to transmit to their 
posterit}^, a known law, a certain rule of living, 
reduced to this conclusion, that instead of the 
arbitrary power of a King, we must submit to 
the arbitrary power of a House of Commons ? 
If this be true, what benefit do we derive from 
the exchange ? Tyranny, my Lords, is detest- 
able in every shape, but in none so formidable as 
when it is assumed and exercised by a number 
of tyrants. But, my Lords, this is not the fact ; 
this is not the Constitution. We have a law of 



Parliament. We have a code in which every hon- 
est man may find it. We have JNIagna ChartaT 
We have the Statute Book, and the Bill of Riorhts. 
If a case should arise unknown to these great 
authorities, we have still that plain English rea- 
son left, which is the foundation of all our En- 
glish jurisprudence. That reason tells us, that 
every judicial court, and every political society, 
must be vested with those powers and privileges 
which are necessary for performing the office to 
which they are appointed. It tells us, also, that 
no court of justice can have a power inconsistent 
with, or paramount to the known laws of the 
land ; that the people, when they choose their 
representatives, never mean to convey to them 
a power of invading the rights, or trampling on 
the liberties of those whom they represent. 
What security would they have for their rights, 
if once they admitted that a court of judicature 
might determine every question that came be- 
fore it, not by any known positive law, but by 
the vague, indeterminate, arbitrary rule of what 
the noble Lord is pleased to call the wisdom of 
the court ? With respect to the decision of the 
courts of justice, I am far from denying them 
their due weight and authority ; yet, placing them 
in the most respectable view, I still consider 
them, not as law, but as an evidence of the law. 
And before they can arrive even at that degree 
of authority, it must appear that they are found- 
ed in and confirmed by reason ; that they are 
supported by precedents taken from good and 
moderate times ; that they do not contradict any 
positive law; that they are submitted to with- 
out reluctance by the people ; that they are un- 
questioned by the Legislature (which is equiva- 
lent to a tacit confirmation) ; and what, in my 
judgment, is by far the most important, that they 
do not violate the spirit of the Constitution. ]\Iy 
Lords, this is not a vague or loose expression. 
We all know what the Constitution is. We all 
know that the first principle of it is, that tlie 
subject shall not be governed by the arbitrium 
of any one man or body of men (less than the 
whole Legislatui-e), but by certain laws, to which 
he has virtually given his consent, which are 
open to him to examine, and not beyond his abil- 
ity to understand. Now, my Lords, I affirm, and 
am ready to maintain, that the late decision of 
the House of Commons upon the Middlesex elec- 
tion is destitute of every one of those pro|ierties 
and conditions which I hold to be essential to 
the legality of such a decision. (1.) It is not 
founded in reason ; for it carries with it a con- 
tradiction, that the I'epresentative should per- 
form the office of the constituent body. (2.) It 
is not supported by a single precedent ; for the 
case of Sir Robert Walpole is but a half prece- 
dent, and even that half is imperfect. Incapac- 
ity was indeed declared, but his crimes are stated 
as the ground of the resolution, and his opponent 
was declared to be not duly elected, even after 
his incapacity was established. (3.) It contra- 
dicts Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights, by 
which it is provided, that no subject shall be de- 
prived of his freehold, unless by the judgment of 



112 



LORD CHATHAM ON THE 



[1770. 



his peers, or the law of the land ; and that elec- 
tions of members to serve in Parliament shall be 
free. (4.) So far is this decision from being 
submitted to by the people, that they have taken 
the strongest measures, and adopted the most 
positive language, to express their discontent. 
Whether it will be questioned by the Legisla- 
ture, will depend upon your Lordships' resolu- 
tion ; but that it violates the spirit of the Con- 
stitution, will, I think, be disputed by no man 
who has heard this day's debate, and who wishes 
well to the freedom of his country. Yet, if we 
are to believe the noble Lord, this great griev- 
ance, this manifest violation of the first princi- 
ples of the Constitution, will not admit of a rem- 
edy. It is not even capable of redress, unless 
we appeal at once to Heaven ! My Lords, I 
have better hopes of the Constitution, and a 
firmer confidence in the wisdom and constitu- 
tional authority of this House. It is to your an- 
cestors, my Lords, it is to the English barons, 
that we are indebted for the laws and Constitu- 
tion we possess. Their virtues were rude and 
uncultivated, but they were great and sincere. 
Their undei-standings were as little polished as 
their manners, but they had hearts to distinguish 
right from wrong ; they had heads to distinguish 
truth from falsehood ; they understood the rights 
of humanity, and they had spirit to maintain them. 

My Lords, I think that history has not done 
justice to their conduct, when they obtained from 
their sovereign that great acknowledgment of na- 
tional rights contained in Magna Charta : they 
did not confine it to themselves alone, but deliv- 
ered it as a common blessing to the whole people. 
They did not say, these are the rights of the 
great barons, or these are the rights of the great 
prelates. No, my Lords, they said, in the simple 
Latin of the times, " nullus liber homo" [no free 
man], and provided as carefully for the meanest 
subject as for the greatest. These are uncouth 
words, and sound but poorly in the ears of schol- 
ars; neither are they addressed to the criticism 
of scholars, but to the hearts of free men. These 
three words, " nullus liber homo," have a mean- 
ing which interests us all. They deserve to be 
remembered — they deserve to be inculcated in 
our minds — they are worth all the classics. Let 
us not, then, degenerate from the glorious exam- 
ple of our ancestors. Those iron barons (for so 
I may call them when compared with the silken 
barons of modern days) were the guardians of 
the people ; yet their virtues, my Lords, were 
never engaged in a question of such importance 
as the present. A breach has been made in the 
Constitution — the battlements are dismantled — 
the citadel is open to the first invader — the walls 
totter — the Constitution is not tenable. What 
remains, then, but for us to stand foremost in the 
breach, and repair it, or perish in it ? 

Great pains have been taken to alarm us with 
the consequences of a diflerence between the 
two houses of Parliament ; that the House of 
Commons will resent our presuming to take no- 
tice of their proceedings ; that they will resent 
our daring to advise the Crown, and never for- 



give us for attempting to save the state. My 
Lords, I am sensible of the importance and difll- 
culty of this great crisis : at a mompnt such as 
this, we are called upon to do our duty, without 
dreading the resentment of any man. But if ap- 
prehensions of this kind are to affect us, let us 
consider which we ought to respect most, the 
representative or the collective body of the peo- 
ple. My Lords, five hundred gentlemen are not 
ten millions ; and if we must have a contention, 
let us take care to have the English nation on 
our side. If this question be given up, the free- 
holders of England are reduced to a condition 
baser than the peasantry of Poland. If they de- 
sert their own cause, they deserve to be slaves ! 
My Lords, this is not merely the cold opinion of 
my understanding, but the glowing expression 
of what I feel. It is my heart that speaks. I 
know I speak warmly, my Lords ; but this 
warmth shall neither betray my argument nor 
my temper. The kingdom is in a flame. As 
mediators between the King and people, it is our 
duty to represent to him the true condition and 
temper of his subjects. It is a duty which no 
particular respects should hinder us from per- 
forming ; and whenever his Majesty shall de- 
mand our advice, it will then be our duty to in- 
quire more minutely into the causes of the pres- 
ent discontents. Whenever that inquiry shall 
come on, I pledge myself to the House to prove 
that, since the first institution of the House of 
Commons, not a single precedent can be pro- 
duced to justify their late proceedings. My no- 
ble and learned friend (the Lord Chancellor 
Camden) has pledged himself to the House that 
he will support that assertion. 

My Lords, the character and circumstances 
of Mr. Wilkes have been very improperly intro- 
duced into this question, not only here, but in 
that court of judicature where his cause was 
tried — I mean the House of Commons. With 
one party he was a patriot of the first magni- 
tude ; with the other, the vilest incendiary. For 
my own part, I consider him merely and indif- 
ferently as an English subject, possessed of cer- 
tain rights which the laws have given him, and 
which the laws alone can take from him. I am 
neither moved by his private vices nor by his 
public merits. In his person, though he Vk'ere 
the worst of men, I contend for the safety and se- 
curity of the best. God forbid, my Lords, that 
there should be a power in this country of meas- 
uring the civil rights of the subject by his moral 
character, or by any other rule but the fixed 
laws of the land ! I believe, my Lords, / shall 
not be suspected of any personal partiality to 
this unhappy man. I am not very conversant 
in pamphlets or newspapers ; but, from what I 
have heard, and from the little I have read, I 
may venture to affirm, that I have had my share 
in the compliments which have come from that 
quarter.^ As for motives of ambition (for I must 



3 Lord Chatham here refers, among others, to Ju- 
nius, who had attacked him about a year before in 
his first letter. At a later period Junius changed 



1770] 



CASE OF JOHN WILKES. 



113 



take to myself a part of the noble Duke's insin- 
uation), I believe, my Lords, there have been 
times in which I have had the honor of standing 
in such favor in the closet, that there must have 
been something extravagantly mireasonable in 
my wishes if they might not all have been grat- 
ified. After neglecting those opportunities, I am 
now suspected of coming forward, in the decline 
of life, in the anxious pursuit of wealth and pow- 
er which it is impossible for me to enjoy. Be it 
so ! There is one ambition, at least, which I ever 
will acknowledge, which I will not renounce but 
with my life. It is the ambition of delivering to 
my posterity those rights of freedom which I 
have received from my ancestors. I am not now 
pleading the cause of an individual, but of every 
freeholder in England. In what manner this 
House may constitutionally interpose in their de- 
fense, and what kind of redress this case will re- 
quire and admit of, is not at present the subject 
of our consideration. The amendment, if agreed 
to, will naturally lead us to such an inquiry. 
That inquiry may, perhaps, point out the neces- 
sity of an act of the Legislature, or it may lead 
us, perhap.s, to desire a conference with the other 
House ; which one noble Lord affirms is the only 
parliamentary way of proceeding, and which an- 
other noble Lord assures us the House of Com- 
mons would either not come to, or would break 
off with indignation. Leaving their Lordships 
to reconcile that matter between themselves, I 
shall only say, that before we have inquired, we 
can not be provided with materials ; consequent- 
ly, we are not at present prepared for a confer- 
ence. 

It is not impossible, my Lords, that the in- 
quiry I speak of may lead us to advise his Maj- 
esty to dissolve the present Parliament ; nor have 
I any doubt of our right to give that advice, if 
we should think it necessary. His Majesty will 
then determine whether he will yield to the unit- 
ed petitions of the people of England, or main- 
tain the House of Commons in the exercise of a 
legislative power, which heretofore abolished the 
House of Lords, and overturned the monarchy. 
I willingly acquit the pi-esent House of Com- 
mons of having actually formed so detestable a 
design ; but they can not themselves foresee to 
what excesses they may be carried hereafter ; 
and, for my own part, I should be sorry to trust 
to their future moderation. Unlimited power is 
apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it; 
and this I know, my Lords, that where law cnds^ 
tyranny begins ! 



Lord Chatham's motion was rejected ; but he 
was sustained in his views by Lord Camden, 
who was still Lord Chancellor, and of course a 
leading member of the Grafton ministry. He 
came down from the woolsack, and broke forth 
in the following indignant terms : " I accepted 
the great seal without conditions ; I meant not, 
therefore, to be trammeled by his Majesty'* — I 
his ground, and published his celebrated eulogiura 
on Lord Chatham. 

* This hasty expre.ssion shows, what has since 
H 



beg pardon, by his n.inisters — but I have suf- 
fered myself to be so too long. For some time 
I have beheld with silent indignation the arbi- 
trary measures of the minister. I have often 
drooped and hung down my head in council, and 
disapproved by my looks those steps which I 
knew my avowed opposition could not prevent. 
I will do so no longer, but openly and boldly 
speak my sentiments. I now proclaim to the 
world that I entirely coincide in the opinion ex- 
pressed by my noble friend — whose presence 
again reanimates us — respecting this unconsti- 
tutional vote of the House of Commons. If, in 
giving my opinion as a judge, I were to pay any 
respect to that vote, I should look upon myself 
as a traitor to my trust, and an enemy to my 
country. By their violent and tyrannical con- 
duct, ministers have alienated the minds of the 
people from his Majesty's government — I had 
almost said from his Majesty's person — inso- 
much, that if some measures are not devised to 
appease the clamors so universally prevalent, I 
know not, my Lords, whether the people, in de- 
spair, may not become their own avengers, and 
take the redress of grievances into their own 
hands." After such a speech. Lord Camden 
could not, of course, expect to hold office. He 
was instantly dismissed. It was a moment of 
extreme excitement. Lord Shelburne went so 
far as to say in the House, " After the dismis- 
sion of the present worthy Lord Chancellor, the 
seals will go begging ; but I hope there will not 
be found in this kingdom a wretch so base and 
mean-spirited as to accept them on the condi- 
tions on which they must be offered." This 
speech of Lord Chatham decided the fate of the 
Duke of Grafton. The moment a leader was 
found to unite the different sections of the Oppo- 
sition, the attack was too severe for him to re- 
sist. The next speech will show the manner in 
which he was driven from power. 

Lord Mansfield had a difficult part to act on 
this occasion. He could not but have known 
that the expulsion of Wilkes was illegal ; and 
this is obvious from the fact that he did not at- 
tempt to defend it. He declared that, on this 
point, " he had never given his opinion, he would 
not now give it, and he did not know but he 
might carry it to the grave with him." All he 
contended was, that " if the Commons had pass- 
ed an unjustifiable vote, it was a matter between 
God and their own consciences, and that nobody 
else had any thing to do with it." Lord Chat- 
ham rose a second time, and replied, " It plain- 
ly appears, from what the noble Lord has said, 
that he concurs in sentiment with the Opposi- 
tion ; for, if he had concurred with the ministry, 
he would no doubt have avowed his opinion — 
that it now equally behooves him to avow it in 
behalf of the people. He ought to do so as an 
honest man, an independent man, as a man of 

been more fully known, that the King dictated the 
measures against W^ likes. He entered with all the 
feelings of a personal enemy into the plan of expel- 
ling him from the House, and was at last beaten by 
the determination of his own subjects. 



14 



LORD CHATHAM ON THE 



[1770. 



courage and resolution. To say, that if the 
House of Commons has passed an unjustifiable 
vote, it is a matter between God and their own 
consciences, and that nobody else has any thing 
to do with it, is such a strange assertion as I 
have never before heard, and involves a doc- 
trine subversive of the Constitution. What ! 
If the House of Commons should pass a vote 
abolishing this House, and surrendering to the 
Crown all the rights and interests of the people, 
would it be only a matter between them and 
their conscience, and would nobody have any 
thinjr to do with it ? You would have to do with 



it ! / should have to do with it ! Every man 
in the kingdom would have to do with it ! Every 
man wou'd have a right to insist on the repeal 
' of such a treasonable vote, and to bring the au- 
thors of it to condign punishment. I would, 
therefore, call on the noble Lord to declare his 
I opinion, unless he would lie under the imputation 
I 0^ being conscious oj" the illegality of the vote, and 
^ yet of being restrained by some unworthy mo- 
tive from avowing it to the world." Lord Mans- 
field replied not^ — Gentleman's Magazine for 
j January, 1770. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD CHATHAM ON A MOTION OF LORD ROCKINGHAM TO INQUIRE INTO THE STATE OF THE 
NATION, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, JANUARY 22, 1770. 



INTRODUCTION. 
The preceding speech of Lord Chatham, in connection with the decisive step taken by Lord Cainden, 
threw the Duke of Grafton and his ministry into the utmost confusion ; and an adjournment of a week was 
resorted to, for the purpose of making new arrangements. During this time, the Marquess of Granby de- 
serted the administration, apologizing for the vote he bad given for seating Colonel Luttrell in the House, 
and deploring it as the greatest misfortune of his life. He resigned all his places, except his commission 
as Colonel. Mr. Gi-enville, Mr. Dunning, the Dukes of Beaufort and Manchester, the Earls of Coventry 
and Huntington, and a number of others, followed his example. A reconciliation took place between Lord 
Chatham and Lord Rockingham, and the Opposition was completely organized under their guidance. It 
was decided to follow up the blow at once, by a motion from Lord Rockingham for an " inquiry into the 
state of the nation," which allows the utmost latitude for examining into the conduct of a minister. Ac- 
cordingly, Lord Rockingham moved such an inquiry, almost immediately after the Lords again met. In 
supporting this motion, he maintained, that the existing discontents did not spring from any immediate 
temporary cause, but from a maxim which had grown up by degi-ees from the accession of George III., 
viz., " that the royal prerogative was sufficient to support the government, whatever might be the hands 
to which the administration was committed."^ He exposed this Tory principle as fatal to the liberties of 
the people. The Duke of Grafton followed in a few explanatory remarks; and Lord Chatham then de- 
livered the following speech, which contains some passages of remarkable boldness and even vehemence. 

SPEECH, &c.' 



My Lords, — I meant to have arisen imme- 
diately to second the motion made by the noble 
Lord [Rockingham]. The charge which the 
noble Duke [Grafton] seemed to think afTected 
himself particularly, did undoubtedly demand an 
early answer. It was proper he should speak 
before me, and I am as ready as any man to ap- 
plaud the decency and propriety with which he 
has expressed himself. 

I entirely agree with the noble Lord, both in 
the necessity of your Lordships' concurring with 
the motion, and in the principles and arguments 
by which he has very judiciously supported it. 
1 see clearly that the complexion of our govern- 
ment has been materially altered ; and I can 
trace the origin of the alteration up to a period 

1 This is the topic so powerfully discussed in Mr. 
Burke's pamphlet, entitled, "Thoughts on the Cause 
of the Present Discontents," one of the most inge- 
nious and able productions of that great writer. 

2 This speech, like the last, was reported at the 
time by a gentleman, who is now ascertained to have 
been Sir Philip Francis. 



which ought to have been an era of happiness 
and prosperity to this country.^ 

My Lords, I shall give you my reasons for 
concurring with the motion, not methodically, 
but as they occur to my mind. I may wander, 
perhaps, from the exact parliamentary debate, 
but I hope I shall say nothing but what may de- 
serve your attention, and what, if not strictly 
proper at present, would be fit to be said when 
the state of the nation shall come to be consid- 
ered. My uncertain state of health must plead 
my excuse. I am now in some pain, and very 
probably may not be able to attend to my duty 
when I desire it most, in this House. I thank 

3 When George III. came to the throne, England 
was in the midst of that splendid career of victories 
by which Lord Chatham humbled the enemies of 
his country, and established her power in every 
quarter of the globe. The peace which was made 
two years after, under the influence of Lord Bute, 
was generally considered a disgrace to the nation, 
and from that time dissatisfaction began to prevail 
in all classes of society. 



1770.] 



STATE OF THE NATION. 



115 



God, my Lords, for having thus long preserved 
*^o inconsiderable a being as I am, to take a part 
upon this great occasion, and to contribute my 
endeavors, such as they are, to restore, to save, 
to confirm the Constitution. 

My Lords, I need not look abroad for griev- 
ances. The grand capital mischief is fixed at 
home. It corrupts the very foundation of our 
political existence, and preys upon the vitals of 
the state. The Constitution has been grossly 
violated. The Constitution at this moment stands 
violated. Until that wound be healed, until the 
grievance be redressed, it is in vain to recom- 
mend union to Parliament, in vain to promote 
concord among the people. If we mean seri- 
ously to unite the nation within itself, we must 
convince them that their complaints are regard- 
ed, that their injuries shall be redressed. On 
that foundation I would take the lead in recom- 
mending peace and harmony to the people. On 
any other, I would never wish to see them united 
again. If the breach in the Constitution be effect- 
ually repaired, the people will of themselves re- 
turn to a state of tranquillity ; if not, may dis- 
cord prevail forever. I know to what point this 
doctrine and this language will appear directed. 
But I feel the principles of an Englishman, and 
I utter them without apprehension or reserve. 
The crisis is indeed alarming. So much the 
more does it require a prudent relaxation on the 
part of government. If the King's servants will 
not permit a constitutional question to be decided 
on according to the forms and on the principles 
of the Constitution, it must then be decided in 
some other manner ; and, rather than it should 
be given up, rather than the nation should sur- 
render their birthright to a despotic minister, I 
hope, my Lords, old as I am, I shall see the 
question brought to issue, and fairly tried be- 
tween the people and the government. My 
Lord, this is not the language of faction. Let 
it be tried by that criterion by which alone we 
can distinguish what is factious from what is 
not — by the principles of the English Constitu- 
tion. I have been bred up in these principles, 
and know, that when the liberty of the subject is 
invaded, and all redx-ess denied him, resistance 
is justified. If I had a doubt upon the matter, I 
should follow the example set us by the most 
reverend bench, with whom I believe it is a 
maxim, when any doubt in point of faith arises, 
or any question of controversy is started, to ap- 
peal at once to the greatest source and evidence 
of our religion — I mean the Holy Bible. The 
Constitution has its Political Bible, by which, if 
it be fairly consulted, every political question 
may, and ought to be determined. Magna 
Charta, the Petition of Rights, and the Bill of 
Rights, form that code which I call the Bible of 
the English Constitution. Had some of his Maj- 
esty's unhappy predecessors trusted less to the 
comments of their ministers ; had they been bet- 
ter read in the text itself, the glorious revolution 
would have remained only possible in theory, and 
would not now have existed upon record a for- 
midable example to their successors. 



My Lords, I can not agree with the noble 
Duke, that nothing less than an immediate attack 
upon the honor or interest of this nation can au- 
thorize us to interpose in defense of weaker states, 
and in stopping the enterprises of an ambitious 
neighbor.^ Whenever that narrow, .selfish pol- 
icy has prevailed in our councils, we have con- 
stantly experienced the fatal effects of it. By 
suffering our natural enemies to oppress the 
powers less able than we are to make resist- 
ance, we have pei'mitted them to increase their 
strength, we have lost the most favorable oppor- 
tunities of opposing them with success, and found 
ourselves at last obliged to run every hazard in 
making that cause our own, in which we were 
not wise enough to take part while the expense 
and danger might have been supported by oth- 
ers. With respect to Corsica, I shall only say, 
that France has obtained a more useful and im- 
portant acquisition in one pacific campaign than 
in any of her belligerent campaigns — at least 
u^hile I had the honor of administering war 
against her. The word may, perhaps, be thought 
singular. I mean only while I was the minis- 
ter chiefly intrusted with the conduct of the war. 
I remember, my Lords, the time when Lorraine 
was united to the crown of France. That, too, 
was in some measure a pacific conquest : and 
there were people who talked of it as the noble 
Duke now speaks of Corsica. France was per- 
mitted to take and keep possession of a noble 
province ; and, according to his grace's ideas, 
we did right in not opposing it. The effect of 
these acquisitions -s, I confess, not immediate ; 
but they unite with the main body by degrees, 
and, in time, make a part of the national strength. 
I fear, my Lords, it is too much the temper of 
this country to be insensible of the approach of 
danger, until it comes with accumulated terror 
upon us. 

My Lords, the condition of his Majesty's af- 
fairs in Ireland, and the state of that kingdom 
within itself, will undoubtedly make a very ma- 
terial part of your Lordship's inquiry. I am not 
sufficiently informed to enter into the subject so 
fully as I could wish ; but by what appears to 
the public, and from my own observation, I con- 
fess I can not give the ministry much credit for 
the spirit or prudence of their conduct. I see 
that even where their mea.sures are well chosen, 
they are incapable of carrying them through 
without some unhappy mixture of weakness or 
imprudence. They are incapable of doing en- 
tirely right. My Lords, I do, from my con- 
science, and from the best weighed principles 
of my understanding, applaud the augmentation 
of the army. As a military plan, I believe it 
has been judiciously arranged. In a political 

* In the year 1768, France, under pretense of a 
transfer from the Genoese (who claimed the island), 
had seized upon Corsica. General Paoli made a 
brave resistance, but was overpowered, and fled to 
England, where his presence excited a lively inter- 
est in the oppressed Corsicans. Lord Chatham 
maintained that France ought to have been resist- 
ed in this shameful act of aggression. 



116 



LORD CHATHAM ON THE 



[1770. 



view, I am convinced it was for the welfai'e, for 
the safety of the whole empire. But, my Lords, 
with all these advantages, with all these recom- 
mendations, if I had the honor of advising his 
Majesty, I never would have consented to his 
accepting the augmentation, with that absurd, 
dishonorable condition which the ministry have 
submitted to annex to it.^ My Lords, I revere 
the just prerogative of the Crown, and would 
contend for it as warmly as for the rights of the 
people. They are linked together, and natu- 
rally support each other. I w^ould not touch a 
feather of the prerogative. The expression, per- 
haps, is too light ; but, since I have made use of 
it, let me add, that the entire command and 
power of directing the local disposition of the 
army is to the royal prerogative, as the master 
feather in the eaglets wing ; and, if I were per- 
mitted to carry the allusion a little farther, I 
would say, they have disarmed the imperial 
bird, the " Ministrum Fulminis Alitem."^ The 
army is the thunder of the Crown. The minis- 
try have tied up the hand which should direct 
the bolt. 

My Lords, I remember that Minorca was lost 
for want of four battalions.^ They could not be 
spared from hence, and there was a delicacy 
about taking them from L'eland. I w^as one of 
those who promoted an inquiry into that matter 
in the other House ; and I was convinced we had 
not regular troops sufficient for the necessary 
service of the nation. Since the moment the 
plan of augmentation was first talked of, I have 
constantly and warmly supported it among my 
friends. I have recommended it to several mem- 
bers of the L-ish House of Commons, and exhort- 
ed them to support it wnth their utmost interest 
in Parliament. I did not foresee, nor could I 
conceive it possible, the ministry would accept 
of it, with a condition that makes the plan itself 
inefTectual, and, as far as it operates, defeats 
every useful purpose of maintaining a standing 
military force. His Majesty is now so confined 
by his promise, that he must leave twelve thou- 



5 This refers to an engagement on the part of the 
King, that a number of effective troops, not less than 
12,000 men, should at all times, except in cases of 
invasion or rebellion in Great Britain, be kept iu 
Ireland for its better defense. 

^ " The winged minister of thmider." This is one 
of the most beautiful instances in our literature of 
rising at once from a casual and familiar expression, 
which seemed below the dignity of the occasion, 
into a magnificent image, sustained and enforced by 
a quotation from Horace, which has always been 
admired for its sublimity and strength. 

The image of a feather here applied to the King 
may have suggested to Junius (who was obviously 
an attentive hearer of Lord Chatham) a similar ap- 
plication of it to the same personage a few months 
after, in what has generally been considered the 
finest of his images. "The King's honor is that of 
his people. Their real honor and interest are the 
same. * * * * ffig feather that adorns the royal 
bird siipporis its flight. Strip him of his plnviage, 
and yon fix him to the earth." 

"• In January, 1756. 



sand men locked up m L-eland, let the situation 
of his affairs abroad, or the approach of danger 
to this country, be ever so alarming, unless there 
be an actual rebellion or invasion in Great Brit- 
ain. Even in the two cases excepted by the 
King's promise, the mischief must have already 
begun to operate, must have already taken effect, 
before his Majesty can be authorized to send for 
the assistance of his Irish army. He has not 
left himself the power of taking any preventive 
measures, let his intelligence be ever so certain, 
his apprehensions of invasion or rebellion be 
ever so well founded. Unless the traitor be 
actually in arms, unless the enemy be in the 
heart of your country, he can not move a single 
man from Ireland. 

I feel myself compelled, my Lords, to return 
to that subject which occupies and interests me 
most. I mean the internal disorder of the Con- 
stitution, and the remedy it demands. But first 
I would observe, there is one point upon which 
I think the noble Duke has not explained him- 
self. I do not mean to catch at words, but, if 
possible, to possess the sense of what I hear. I 
would treat every man with candor, and should 
expect the same candor in return. For the no- 
ble Duke, in particular, I have every personal 
respect and regard. I never desire to under- 
stand him but as he wishes to be understood. 
His Grace, I think, has laid much stress upon 
the diligence of the several public offices, and 
the assistance given them by the administration 
in preparing a state of the expenses of his Maj- 
esty's civil government, for the information of 
Parliament and for the satisfaction of the public. 
He has given us a number of plausible reasons 
for their not having yet been able to finish the 
account ; but, as far as I am able to recollect, 
he has not yet given us the smallest reason to 
hope that it ever will be finished, or that it ever 
will be laid before Parliament. 

My Lords, I am not unpracticed in business ; 
and if, with all that apparent diligence, and all 
that assistance which the noble Duke speaks of, 
the accounts in question have not yet been made 
up, I am convinced there must be a defect in 
some of the public oflSces, which ought to be 
strictly inquired into, and severely punished. 
But, my Lords, the waste of the public money 
is not, of itself, so important as the pernicious 
purpose to which we have reason to suspect that 
money has been applied. For some years past, 
there has been an influx of wealth into this coun- 
try, which has been attended with many fatal 
consequences, because it has not been the regu- 
lar, natural produce of labor and industry.^ The 
riches of Asia have been poured in upon us, and 
have brought with them not only Asiatic luxury, 
but, I fear, Asiatic principles of government. 
Without connections, without any natural inter- 
est in the soil, the importers of foreign gold have 
forced their way into Parliament by such a tor- 



" Much of the wealth which was brought from In- 
dia about this time, was used for the purchase of 
scats in Parliament by men who went out mere ad- 
venturers. 



1770.] 



STATE OF THE NATION. 



m 



rent of private corruption, as no private heredit- 
ary fortune could resist. My Lords, not saying 
but what is within the knowledge of us all, the 
corruption of the people is the great original 
cause of the discontents of the people themselves, 
of the enterprise of the Crown, and the notorious 
decay of the internal vigor of the Constitution. 
For this great evil some immediate remedy must 
be provided ; and I confess, my Lords, I did hope 
that his Majesty's servants would not have suf- 
fered so many years of peace to relapse without 
paying some attention to an object which ought 
to engage and interest us all. I flattered my- 
self I should see some barriers thrown up in 
defense of the Constitution ; some impediment 
formed to stop the rapid progress of corruption. 
I doubt not we all agree that something must be 
done. I shall offer my thoughts, such as they 
are, to the consideration of the House ; and I 
wish that every noble Lord that hears me would 
be as ready as I am to contribute his opinion to 
this important service. I will not call my own 
sentiments crude and undigested. It would be 
unfit for me to offer any thing to your Lordships 
which I had not well considered ; and this sub- 
ject, I own, has not long occupied my thoughts. 
I will now give them to your Lordships without 
reserve. 

Whoever understands the theory of the En- 
glish Constitution, and will compare it with the 
fact, must see at once how widely they diflTer. 
We must reconcile them to each other, if we 
wish to save the liberties of this country ; we 
must reduce our political practice, as nearly as 
possible, to our principles. The Constitution in- 
tended that there should be a permanent relation 
between the constituent and representative body 
of the people. Will any man affirm that, as the 
House of Commons is now formed, that relation 
is in any degree preserved ? My Lords, it is 
not preserved ; it is destroyed. Let us be cau- 
tious, however, how we have recourse to violent 
expedients. 

The boroughs of this country have properly 
enough been called "the rotten parts" of the 
Constitution. I have lived in Cornwall, and, 
without entering into any invidious particularity, 
have seen enough to justify the appellation. But 
in my judgment, my Lords, these boroughs, cor- 
rupt as they are, must be considered as the nat- 
ural infirmity of the Constitution. Like the in- 
firmities of the body, we must bear them with 
patience, and submit to carry them about with 
us. The limb is mortified, but the amputation 
might be death. 

Let us try, my Lords, whether some gentler 
remedies may not be discovered. Since we can 
not cure the disorder, let us endeavor to infuse 
such a portion of new health into the Constitu- 
tion as may enable it to support its most invet- 
erate diseases. 

The representation of the counties is, I think, 
still preserved pure and uncorrupted. That of 
the greatest cities is upon a footing equally re- 
spectable ; and there are many of the larger 
trading towns which still preserve their inde- 



pendence. The infusion of health which I now 
allude to would be to permit every county to 
elect one member more, in addition to their pres- 
ent representation. The knights of the shires 
approach nearest to the constitutional represen- 
tation of the county, because they represent the 
soil. It is not in the little dependent boroughs, 
it is in the great cities and counties that the 
strength and vigor of the Constitution resides ; 
and by them alone, if an unhappy question should 
ever arise, will the Constitution be honestly and 
firmly defended. It would increase that strength, 
because I think it is the only security we have 
against the profligacy of the times, the corrup- 
tion of the people, and the ambition of the 
Crown. 9 

I think I have weighed every possible objec- 
tion that can be raised against a plan of this na- 
tui'e ; and I confess I see but one which, to me, 
carries any appearance of solidity. It may be 
said, perhaps, that when the act passed for unit- 
ing the two kingdoms, the number of persons 
who were to represent the whole nation in Par- 
liament was proportioned and fixed on forever. 
That this limitation is a fundamental article, and 
can not be altered without hazarding a dissolu- 
tion of the Union. 

My Loi'ds, no man who hears me can have a 
greater reverence for that wise and important 
act than I have. I revere the memory of that 
great prince [King William III.] who first form- 
ed the plan, and of those illustrious patriots v>'ho 
carried it into execution. As a contract, every 
article of it should be inviolable ; as the common 
basis of the strength and happiness of two na- 
tions, every article of it should be sacred. I 
hope I can not be suspected of conceiving a 
thought so detestable as to propose an advant- 
age to one of the contracting parties at the ex- 
pense of the other. No, my Lords, I mean that 
the benefit should be universal, and the consent 
to receive it unanimous. Nothing less than a 
most urgent and important occasion should per- 
i suade me to vary even from the letter of the act ; 
but there is no occasion, however urgent, how- 
ever important, that should ever induce me to 
depart from the spirit of it. Let that spirit be 
religiously preserved. Let us follow the prin- 
ciple upon which the representation of the two 
countries was proportioned at the Union ; and 
when w^e increase the number of representatives 
for the English counties, let the shires of Scot- 
land be allowed an equal privilege. On these 
terms, and while the proportion limited by the 
Union is preserved by the two nations, I appre- 
hend that no man who is a friend to either will 



^ This is the first distinct proposal that was ever 
made for a reform of Parliament. It left the bor- 
ough system as it was, in all its rottenness, and 
aimed to " infuse a portion of new health into the 
Constitution," sufficient to counteract the evil, by in- 
creasing the representation from the counties. The 
plan was never taken up by iater reformers The 
rotten part was amputated in 1832, as Lord Chat- 
ham himself predicted it would be before the expi 
ration of a century. 



118 



LORD CHATHAM ON THE 



[1770. 



object to an alteration so necessary for the secu- 
rity of both. I do not speak of the authority of 
the Legislature to carry such a measure into ef- 
fect, because I imagine no man will dispute it. 
But I would not wish the Legislature to inter- 
pose by an exertion of its power alone, without 
the cheerful concurrence of all parties. My ob- 
ject is the happiness and security of the two na- 
tions, and I would not wish to obtain it without 
their mutual consent. 

My Lords, besides my warm approbation of 
the motion made by the noble Lord, I have a 
natural and personal pleasure in rising up to 
second it. I consider my seconding his Lord- 
ship's motion (and I would wish it to be consid- 
ered by others) as a public demonstration of that 
cordial union which I am happy to affirm sub- 
sists between us, of my attachment to those prin- 
ciples W'hich he has so well defended, and of my 
respect for his person. There has been a time, 
my Lords, when those who wished well to nei- 
ther of us, who wished to see us separated for- 
ever, found a sufficient gratification for their 
malignity against us both. But that time is 
happily at an end. The friends of this country 
will, I doubt not, hear w^ith pleasure that the 
noble Lord and his friends are now united with 
me and mine upon a principle which, I trust, 
will make our union indissoluble. It is not to 
possess, or divide the emoluments of govern- 
ment, but, if possible, to save the state. Upon 



this ground we met ; upon this ground we stand, 
firm and inseparable. No ministerial artifices, 
no private ofl^ers, no secret seduction, can divide 
us. United as we are. we can set the profound- 
est policy of the present ministry, their grand, 
their only arcanum of government, their " divide 
et impera,'"'" at defiance. 

I hope an early day will be agreed to for 
considering the state of the nation. My infirm- 
ities must fall heavily upon me, indeed, if 1 do 
not attend to my duty that day. When I con- 
sider my age and unhappy state of health, I feel 
how little I am personally interested in the event 
of any political question. But I look forward to 
others, and am determined, as far as my poor 
ability extends, to convey to them who come 
after me the blessings which I can not hope to 
enjoy myself. 



It was impossible to resist the motion, and 
therefore the Duke of Grafton yielded to it with 
the best grace possible, naming two days from 
that time, January 24th, as the day for the en- 
quiry. He afterward deferred it until February 
2d : but, finding it impossible to resist the press- 
ure, he resigned on the 28th of January, 1770. 
Lord North took his place. The administra- 
tion now became more decidedly Tory than be- 
fore. Lord North continued at the head of the 
government for about twelve years. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD CHATHAM ON A MOTION CALLING FOR PAPERS IN RELATION TO THE SEIZURE OF THE 
FALKLAND ISLANDS BY SPAIN, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, NOVEMBER 2, 1770. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The Falkland Islands, lying about three hundred miles east of the Straits of Magellan, were discovered 
by the English in the days of Queen Elizabeth, but so dreary and detemng was their appearance, that 
no steps were taken for their settlement during the next two hundred years. At length, in 1765, they 
were occupied in form by the British government, who soon after erected a small blockhouse, named Fort 
Egmont, on one of the islands, and there stationed a few troops. This gave much offense to the court of 
Spain, which claimed all the Magellanic regions; and, after sundry protests, Buccarelli, the governor of 
Buenos Ayres, sent an expedition which drove the English from the islands in the early part of 1770. It 
is a remarkable fact, as already mentioned, that Lord Chatham predicted this event at the close of the 
preceding Parliament, during the very month in which the Spanish fleet arrived at the Falkland Islands. 
" I do now pledge myself," said he, "to this honorable House for the truth of what I am going to assert, 
tliat, at this very hour that we are sitting together, a blow of hostility has been struck against us by our 
old inveterate enemies in some quarter of the world." 

When the intelligence of this seizure reached England, the whole nation was fired at the indignity of- 
fered to the British flag, and in every quarter the utmost eagerness was manifested to vindicate the na- 
tional honor. Lord Chatham, who had always cherished a strong antipathy and contempt for the Span- 
iards, shared largely in these feelings. Accordingly, when the Duke of Richmond moved for papers on 
this subject, he made the following speech, in which he first considers the outrage committed by Spain, 
and then expatiates on the want of spirit exhibited by the ministry, their neglect of naval and military 
preparations, the depressed condition of the country, and some of the causes which had led to this result. 

SPEECH, &o.' 



My Lords, — I rise to give my hearty assent 
'" Divide and rule. 

* This speech is understood to have been report- 
ed by Sir Philip Francis. 



to the motion made by the noble Duke. By his 
Grace's favor I have been permitted to see it, 
before it was offered to the House. I have fully 
considered the necessity of obtaining from the 



1770.] 



RELATIONS TO SPAIN. 



119 



King's servants a communication of the papers 
described in the motion, and I am persuaded 
that the alarming state of facts, as well as the 
strength of reasoning with which the noble Duke 
has urged and enforced that necessity, must have 
been powerfully felt by your Lordships. What 
I mean to say upon this occasion may seem, per- 
haps, to extend beyond the limits of the motion 
before us. But I flatter myself, my Lords, that 
if I am honored with your attention, it will ap- 
pear that the meaning and object of this question 
are naturally connected with considerations of 
the most extensive national importance. For 
entering into such considerations, no season is 
improper, no occasion should be neglected. 
Something must be done, my Lords, and imme- 
diately, to save an injured, insulted, undone 
country ; if not to save the state, my Lords, at 
least to mark out and drag to public justice those 
servants of the Crown, by whose ignorance, neg- 
lect, or treachery this once great, flourishing 
people are reduced to a condition as deplorable 
at home as it is despicable abroad. Examples 
are wanted, my Lords, and should be given to 
the world, for the instruction of future times, 
even though they be useless to ourselves. I do 
not mean, my Lords, nor is it intended by the 
motion, to impede or embarrass a negotiation 
which we have been told is now in a prosperous 
train, and promises a happy conclusion. 

[Lord Weymouth. — I beg pardon for inter- 
rupting the noble Lord ; but I think it necessary 
to remark to your Lordships that I have not said 
a single word tending to convey to your Lord- 
ships any information or opinion with regard to 
the state or progress of the negotiation. I did, 
with the utmost caution, avoid giving to your 
Lordships the least intimation upon that matter.] 

I perfectly agree with the noble Lord. I did 
not mean to refer to any thing said by his Lord- 
ship. He expressed himself, as he always does, 
with moderation and reserve, and with the great- 
est propriety. It was another noble Lord, very 
high in office, who told us he understood that 
the negotiation was in a favorable train. 

[Earl of Hillsborough. — I did not make use 
of the word train. I know the meaning of the 
woi'd too w^ell. In the language from which it 
was derived, it signifies protraction and delay, 
which I could never mean to apply to the pres- 
ent negotiation.] 

This is the second time that I have been in- 
terrupted. I submit to your Lordships whether 
this be fair and candid treatment. I am sure it 
is contrary to the orders of the House, and a 
gross violation of decency and politeness. I 
listen to every noble Lord in this House w^th 
attention and respect. The noble Lord's design 
in interrupting me is as mean and unworthy as 
the manner in which he has done it is irregular 
and disorderly. He flatters himself that by break- 
ing the thread of my discourse, he shall confuse 
me in my argument. But, my Lords, I will not 
submit to this treatment. I will not be inter- 
rupted. When I have concluded, let him an- 
swer me, if he can. As to the word which he 



has denied, I still affirm that it was the word he 
made use of ; but if he had used any other, I am 
sure every noble Lord will agree with me, that 
his meaning was exactly what I have expressed 
it. Whether he said course or train is indiffijr- 
cnt. He told your Lordships that the negotia- 
tion was in a way that promised a happy and 
honorable conclusion. His distinctions are mean, 
frivolous, and puerile. My Lords. I do not un- 
derstand the exalted tone assumed by that noble 
Lord. In the distress and weakness of this coun- 
try, my Lords, and conscious as the ministry 
ought to be how much they have contributed to 
that distress and weakness. I think a tone of 
modesty, of submission, of humility, would be- 
come them better ; " qua3dam causoe modestiam 
desiderant."^ Before this country they stand as 
the greatest criminals. Such I shall prove them 
to be ; for I do not doubt of proving, to your 
Lordships' satisfaction, that since they have been 
intrusted with the King's affairs, they have done 
every thing that they ought not to have done, and 
hardly any thing that they ought to have done. 
The noble Lord talks of Spanish punctilios in 
the lofty style and idiom of a Spaniard. We are 
to be wonderfully tender of the Spanish point of 
honor, as if they had been the complainants, as 
if they had received the injury. I think he 
would have done better to have told us what 
care had been taken of the English honor. My 
Lords, I am well acquainted with the character 
of that nation — at least as far as it is represent- 
ed by their court and ministry, and should think 
this country dishonored by a comparison of the 
English good faith with the punctilios of a Span- 
iard. My Lords, the English are a candid, an 
ingenuous people. The Spaniards are as mean 
and crafty as they are proud and insolent. The 
integrity of the English merchant, the generous 
spirit of our naval and military officers, would 
be degraded by a comparison with their mer- 
chants or officers. With their ministers I have 
often been obliged to negotiate, and never met 
with an instance of candor or dignity in their 
proceedings ; nothing but low cunning, trick, 
and artifice. After a long experience of their 
want of candor and good faith, I found myself 
compelled to talk to them in a peremptory, de- 
cisive language. On this principle I submitted 
my advice to a trembling council for an imme- 
diate declaration of a war with Spain.'' Your 
Lordships well know what were the consequen- 
ces of not following that advice. Since, how- 
ever, for reasons unknown to me, it has been 
thought advisable to negotiate with the court of 
Spain, I should have conceived that the great 
and single object of such a negotiation would 
have been, to obtain complete satisfaction for 
the injury done to the crown and people of En- 
gland. But, if I understand the noble Lord, the 
only object of the present negotiation is to find 
a salvo for the punctilious honor of the Span- 
iards. The absurdity of such an idea is of it- 



2 Some causes call for modesty. 

3 In 1761. See p. 63. 



120 



LORD CHATHAM ON THE 



[1770. 



self insupportable. But, my Lords, I object to 
our negotiating at all, in our present circum- 
stances. We are not in that situation in which 
a great and powerful nation is permitted to ne- 
gotiate. A foreign power has forcibly robbed 
his Majesty of a part of his dominions. Is the 
island restored ? Are you replaced in statu quo ? 
If that had been done, it might then, perhaps, 
have been justifiable to treat with the aggressor 
upon the satisfaction he ought to make for the 
insult offered to the Crown of England. But 
will 3'ou descend so low ? Will you so shame- 
fully betray the King's honor, as to make it mat- 
ter of negotiation whether his Majesty's posses- 
sions shall be restored to him or not ? 

I doubt not, my Lords, that there are some 
important mysteries in the conduct of this affair, 
which, whenever they are explained, will ac- 
count for the profound silence now observed by 
the Kinff's servants. The time will come, my 
Lords, when they shall be dragged from their 
concealments. There are some questions which, 
sooner or later, must be answered. The minis- 
try, I find, without declaring themselves explic- 
itly, have taken pains to possess the public with 
an opinion, that the Spanish court have con- 
stantly disavowed the proceedings of their gov- 
ernor ; and some persons, I see, have been shame- 
less and daring enough to advise his Majesty to 
support and countenance this opinion in his speech 
from the throne. Certainly, my Lords, there 
never was a more odious, a more infamous false- 
hood imposed on a great nation. It degrades 
the King's honor. It is an insult to Parliament. 
His Majesty has been advised to confirm and 
give currency to an absolute falsehood. I beg 
your Lordship's attention, and 1 hope I shall be 
understood, when I repeat, that the court of 
Spain's having disavowed the act of their gov- 
ernor is an absolute, a palpable falsehood.'* Let 
me ask, my Lords, when the first communica- 
tion was made by the court of Madrid of their 
being apprised of the taking of Falkland's Isl- 
and, was it accompanied with an offer of instant 
restitution, of immediate satisfaction, and the 
punishment of the Spanish governor ? If it was 
not, they have adopted the act as their own, and 
the very mention of a disavowal is an impudent 
insult offered to the King's dignity. The King 
of Spain disowns the thief, while he leaves him 
unpunished, and profits by the theft. In vulgar 
English, he is the receiver of stolen goods, and 
ought to be treated accordingly. 

If your Lordships will look back to a period 
of the English history in which the circumstan- 
ces are reversed, in which the Spaniards were 
the complainants, you will see how differently 
they succeeded. You will see one of the ablest 
men, one of the bravest oflUcers this or any other 

* History confirms this statement. Adolphus says 
that when Lord Weymouth inquired "whether Gri- 
maldi had instructions to disavow the conduct of 
BuccarelH, he received an answer in the negative." 
—Vol. i., p. 431. It was not until January 22d, 1771, 
nearly three months after, that the disavowal was 
made. See Adolphus, i.. 435. 



country ever produced (it is hardly necessary to 
mention the name of Sir Walter Raleigh), sacri- 
ficed by the meanest prince that ever sat upon the 
throne, to the vindictive jealousy of that haughtj 
court. James the First was base enough, at 
the instance of Gondomar, to suffer a sentence 
against Sir Walter Raleigh, for another supposed 
oflTense. to be carried into execution almost twelve 
years after it had been passed. This was the 
pretense. His real crime was, that he had mor- 
tally offended the Spaniards, while he acted by 
the King's express orders, and under his com- 
mission. 

My Lords, the pretended disavowal by the 
court of Spain is as ridiculous as it is false. If 
your Lordships want any other proof, call for 
your own officers who were stationed at Falk- 
land Island. Ask the officer who commanded 
the garrison, whether, when he was summoned 
to surrender, the demand was made in the name 
of the Governor of Buenos A3'res or of his Cath- 
olic Majesty? Was the island said to belong 
to Don Francisco Buccarelli or to the King of 
Spain ? If I am not mistaken, we have been in 
possession of these islands since the year 1764 
or 1765. Will the ministry assert, that, in all 
that time, the Spanish court have never once 
claimed them ? That their right to them has 
never been urged, or mentioned to our ministry ? 
If it has, the act of the Governor of Buenos 
Ayres is plainly the consequence of our refusal 
to acknowledge and submit to the Spanish claims. 
For five years they negotiate ; when that fails, 
they take the island by force. If that measure 
had arisen out of the general instructions con- 
stantly given to the Governor of Buenos Ayres, 
why should the execution of it have been defer- 
red so long? 

My Lords, if the falsehood of this pretended 
disavowal had been confined to the court of 
Spain, I should have admitted it without con- 
cern. I should have been content that they 
themselves had left a door open for excuse and 
accommodation. The King of England's honor 
is not touched till he adopts the falsehood, deliv- 
ers it to his Parliament, and adopts it as his own. 

I can not quit this subject without comparing 
the conduct of the present ministry with that of 
a gentleman [Mr. George Grenville] who is now 
no more. The occasions were similar. The 
French had taken a little island from us [in 1764] 
called Turk's Island. The minister then at the 
head of the treasury [Mr. Grenville] took the 
business upon himself. But he did not nego- 
tiate. He sent for the French embassador and 
made a peremptory demand. A courier was 
dispatched to Paris, and returned in a few days, 
with orders for instant restitution, not only of 
the island, but of every thing that the English 
subjects had lost.-'' 

Such, then, my Lords, are the circumstances 



5 A similar measure of spirit was adopted by the 
same minister with the Spaniards, who had driven 
our settlers from Honduras, to whom fourteen days 
had been allowed ; upon which, all was instantly 
and amicably adjusted. 



1 



1770.] 



RELATIONS TO SPAIN. 



121 



of our difference with Spain ; and in this situa- 
tion, we are told iliat a negotiation has been 
entered into ; that this negotiation, which must 
have commenced near three months ago, is still 
depending, and that any insight into the actual 
state of it will impede the conclusion. My Lords, 
I am not, for my own part, very anxious to draw 
from the ministry the information which they 
take so much care to conceal from us. I very 
well know where this honorable negotiation ivill 
end — where it must end. We may, perhaps, be 
able to patch up an accommodation for the pres- 
ent, but we shall have a Spanish war in six 
months. Some of your Lordships may, perhaps, 
remember the Convention. For several success- 
ive years our mei'chants had been plundei-ed ; no 
protection given them ; no redress obtained for 
them. During all that time we were contented 
to complain and to negotiate. The court of 
Madrid were then as ready to disown their offi- 
cers, and as unwilling to punish them, as they 
are at present. Whatever violence happened 
was always laid to the charge of one or other 
of their West India governors. To-day it was 
the Governor of Cuba, to-morrow^ of Porto Rico, 
Carlhagena, or Porto Bello. If in a particular 
instance redress was promised, how was that 
promise kept? The merchant who had been 
robbed of his property was sent to the West In- 
dies, to get it, if he could, out of an empty chest. 
At last, the Convention was made ; but, though 
approved by a majority of both houses, it w^as 
received by the nation w^th universal discontent. 
I myself heard that wise man [Sir Robert Wal- 
pole] say in the House of Commons, " 'Tis true 
we have got a Convention and a vote of Parlia- 
ment ; but what signifies it ? We shall have a 
Spanish war upon the back of our Convention." 
Here, my Lords, I can not help mentioning a 
very striking observation made to me by a noble 
Lord [Granville], since dead. His abilities did 
honor to this House and to this nation. In the 
upper departments of government he had not his 
equal ; and I feel a pride in declaring, that to his 
patronage, his friendship, and instruction, I owe 
w^hatever I am. This great man has often observ- 
ed to me, that, in all the negotiations which pre- 
ceded the Convention, our ministers never found 
out that there w^as no ground or subject for any 
negotiation. That the Spaniards had not a right 
to search our ships, and when they attempted to 
regulate that right by treaty, they were regu- 
lating a thing which did not exist. This I take 
to be something like the case of the ministry. 
The Spaniards have seized an island they have 
no right to ; and his Majesty's servants make it 
a matter of negotiation, w^hether his dominions 
shall be restored to him or not. 

From what I have said, my Lords, I do not 
doubt but it will be understood by many Lords, 
and given out to the public, that I am for hurry- 
ing the nation, at all events,. into a war with 



6 The Convention here referred to was the one 
made by Sir Robert Walpole in 1739, which Lord 
Chatham at the time so strenuously resisted. 



Spain, My Lords, I disclaim such counsels, and 
I beg that this declaration may be remembered. 
Let us have peace, my Lords, but let it be hon- 
orable, let it be secure, A patched-up peace 
will not do. It will not satisfy the nation, 
though it may be approved of by Parliament. 
I distinguish widely between a solid peace, and 
the disgraceful expedients by which a war may 
be deferred, but can not be avoided. I am as 
tender of the effusion of human blood as the no- 
ble Lord who dwelt so long upon the miseries of 
war. If the bloody politics of some noble Lords 
had been followed, England, and every quarter 
of his JNIajesty's dominions would have been glut- 
ted whh blood — the blood of our own country- 
men. 

]My Lords, I have better reasons, perhaps, than 
many of your Lordships for desiring peace upon 
the terms I have described. I know the strength 
and preparation of the house of Bourbon ; I know 
the defenseless, unprepared condition of this 
country. I know not by what mismanagement 
we are reduced to this situation ; but when 1 
consider who are the men by whom a war, in 
the outset at least, must be conducted, can I but 
wish for peace? Let them not screen them- 
selves behind the want of intelligence. They 
had intelligence : I know^ they had. If they had 
not, they are criminal, and tlieir excuse is their 
crime. But I will tell these young ministers the 
true source of intelligence. It is sagacity. Sa- 
gacity to compare causes and effects ; to judge 
of the present state of things, and discern the 
future by a careful reviev^' of the past. Oliver 
Cromwell, who astonished mankind by his intel- 
ligence, did not derive it from spies in the cabi- 
net of every prince in Europe : he drew it from 
the cabinet of his own sagacious mind. He ob- 
served facts, and traced them forward to their 
consequences. From what was, he concluded 
what must be, and he never was deceived. In 
the present situation of affairs, I think it would 
be treachery to the nation to conceal from them 
their real circumstances, and, with respect to a 
foreign enemy, I know that all concealments are 
vain and useless. They are as well acquainted 
with the actual force and weakness of this coun- 
try as any of the King's servants. This is no 
time for silence or reserve. I charge the min- 
isters with the highest crimes that men in their 
stations can be guilty of. I charge them with 
having destroyed all content and unanimity at 
home by a series of oppressive, unconstitutional 
measures ; and with having betrayed and deliv- 
ered up the nation defenseless to a foreign en- 
emy. 

Their utmost vigor has reached no farther 
than to a fruitless, protracted negotiation. When 
they should have acted, they have contented 
themselves with talking '"about it, goddess, and 
about ity If WG do not stand forth, and do our 
duty in the present crisis, the nation is irretriev- 
ably undone. I despise the little policy of con- 
cealments. You ought to know the whole of 
your situation. If the information be new to the 
ministry, let them take care to profit by it. I 



123 



LORD CHATHAM ON THE 



[1770. 



mean to rouse, to alarm the whole nation ; to 
rouse the ministry, if possible, who seem to 
awake to nothing but the preservation of their 
places — to awaken the King. 

Early in the last spring, a motion was made 
m Parliament for inquiring into the state of the 
navy, and an augmentation of six thousand sea- 
men was offered to the ministry. They refused 
to give us any insight into the condition of the 
navy, and rejected the augmentation. Early in 
June they received advice of a commencement 
of hostilities by a Spanish armament, which had 
warned the King's garrison to quit an island be- 
longing to his Majesty. From that to the 12th 
of September, as if nothing had happened, they 
lay dormant. Not a man was raised, not a sin- 
gle ship was put into commission. From the 
12th of September, when they heard of the first 
blow being actually struck, w'e are to date the 
beginning of their preparations for defense. Let 
us now inquire, my Lords, what expedition they 
have used, what vigor they have exerted. We 
have heard wonders of the diligence employed 
in impressing, of the large bounties offered, and 
the number of ships put into commission. These 
have been, for some time past, the constant top- 
ics of ministerial boast and triumph. Without 
regarding the description, let us look to the sub- 
stance. I tell your Lordships that, with all this 
vigor and expedition, they have not, in a period 
of considerably more than tw^o months, raised 
ten thousand seamen. I mention that number, 
meaning to speak largely, though in my own 
breast I am convinced that the number does not 
exceed eight thousand. But it is said they have 
ordered forty ships of the line into commission. 
My Lords, upon this subject I can speak with 
knowledge. I have been conversant in these 
matters, and draw my information from the great- 
est and most respectable naval authority that 
ever existed in this country — I mean the late 
Lord Anson. The merits of that great man are 
not so universally known, nor his memory so 
warmly respected as he deserved. To his wis- 
dom, to his experience and care (and I speak it 
with pleasure), the nation owes the glorious na- 
val successes of the last war. The state of facts 
laid before Parliament in the year 1756, so en- 
tirely convinced me of the injustice done to his 
character, that in spite of the popular clamors 
raised against him, in direct opposition to the 
complaints of the merchants, and of the whole 
city (whose favor I am supposed to court upon 
all occasions), I replaced him at the head of the 
Admiralty, and I thank God that I had resolution 
enough to do so. Instructed by this great sea- 
man, I do affirm, that forty ships of the line, with 
their necessary attendant frigates, to be properly 
manned, require forty thousand seamen. If your 
Lordships are surprised at this assertion, you 
will be more so when I assure you, that in the 
last war, this country maintained eighty-five 
thousand seamen, and employed them all. 

Now, my Lords, the peace establishment of 
your navy, supposing it complete and effective 
(which, by-the-by, ought to be known), is six- 



teen thousand men. Add to these the number 
newly raised, and you have about twenty-five 
thousand men to man your fleet. I shall come 
presently to the application of this force, such 
as it is, and compare it with the services which 
I know are indispensable. But first, my Lords, 
let us have done with the boasted vigor of the 
ministry. Let us hear no more of their activity. 
If your Lordships will recall to your minds the 
state of this country when Mahon was taken, 
and compare what was done by government at 
that time with the efforts now made in very 
similar circumstances, you will be able to de- 
termine what praise is due to the vigorous oper- 
ations of the present ministry. Upon the first 
intelligence of the invasion of Minorca, a great 
fleet was equipped and sent out, and near double 
the number of seamen collected in half the time 
taken to fit out the present force, which, pitiful 
as it is, is not yet, if the occasion was ever so 
pressing, in a condition to go to sea. Consult 
the returns which were laid before Parliament 
in the year 1756. I was one of those who urged 
a parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of the 
ministry. That ministry, my Lords, in the midst 
of universal censure and reproach, had honor and 
virtue enough to promote the inquiry themselves. 
They scorned to evade it by the mean expedient 
of putting a previous question. Upon the strict- 
est inquiry, it appeared that the diligence they 
had used in sending a squadron to the Mediter- 
ranean, and in their other naval preparations, 
was beyond all example. 

My Lords, the subject on which I am speak- 
ing seems to call upon me, and I willingly take 
this occasion, to declare my opinion upon a ques- 
tion on which much wicked pains have been 
employed to disturb the minds of the people and 
to distress government. My opinion may not be 
very popular ; neither am I running the race of 
popularity. I am myself clearly convinced, and 
I believe every man who knows any thing of the 
English navy will acknowledge, that without 
impressing, it is impossible to equip a respect- 
able fleet within the time in which such arma- 
ments are usually wanted. If this fact be ad- 
mitted, and if the necessity of arming upon a 
sudden emergency should appear incontroverti- 
ble, what shall we think of those men who, in 
the moment of danger, would stop the great de- 
fense of their country ? Upon whatever princi- 
ple they may act, the act itself is more than fac- 
tion — it is laboring to cut off" the right hand of 
the community. I wholly condemn their con- 
duct, and am ready to support any motion that 
may be made for bringing those aldermen, who 
have endeavored to stop the execution of the Ad- 
miralty warrants, to the bar of this House. My 
Lords, I do not rest my opinion merely upon ne- 
cessity. I am satisfied that the power of im- 
pressing is founded upon uninterrupted usage. 
It is the "consueludo resni"' [the custom of the 
realm], and part of the common law prerogative 
of the Crown. When I condemn the proceed- 
ings of some persons upon this occasion, let me 
do justice to a man whose character and conduct 



1770.] 



RELATIONS TO SPAIN. 



123 



have been most infamously traduced ; I mean 
the ]ate Lord Mayor, Mr. Treacothick. In the 
midst of reproach and clamor, he had firmness 
enough to persevere in doing his duty. I do not 
know in office a more upright magistrate, nor, 
in private life, a worthier man. 

Permit me now, my Lords, to state to your 
Lordships the extent and variety of the service 
which must be provided for, and to compare 
them with our apparent resources. A due at- 
tention to, and provision for these services, is 
prudence in time of peace ; in war it is necessity. 
Preventive policy, my Lords, which obviates or 
avoids the injury, is far preferable to that vin- 
dictive policy which aims at reparation, or has 
no object but revenge. The precaution that 
meets the disoi-der is cheap and easy ; the rem- 
edy which follows it, bloody and expensive. The 
first great and acknowledged object of national 
defense in this country is to maintain such a su- 
perior naval force at home, that even the united 
fleets of France and Spain may never be masters 
of the Channel. If that should ever happen, 
what is there to hinder their landing in Ireland, 
or even upon our own coast ? They have often 
made the attempt. In King William's time it 
succeeded. King James embarked on board a 
French fleet, and landed with a French army in 
Ireland. In the mean time the French were 
masters of the Channel, and continued so until 
their fleet was destroyed by Admiral Russel. 
As to the probable consequences of a foreign 
army landing in Great Britain or Ireland, I shall 
ofTer your Lordships my opinion when I speak 
of the actual condition of our standing army. 

The second naval object with an English min- 
ister should be to maintain at all times a power- 
ful Western squadron. In the profoundest peace 
it should be respectable ; in war it should be 
formidable. Without it, the colonies, the com- 
merce, the navigation of Great Britain, lie at 
the mei'cy of the house of Bourbon. While I 
had the honor of acting with Lord Anson, that 
able officer never ceased to inculcate upon the 
minds of his Majesty's servants, the necessity of 
constantly maintaining a strong Western squad- 
ron ; and I must vouch for him, that while he 
was at the head of the marine, it was never neg- 
lected. 

The third object indispensable, as I conceive, 
in the distribution of our navy, is to maintain 
such a force in the Bay of Gibraltar as may be 
sufficient to cover that garrison, to watch the 
motions of the Spaniards, and to keep open the 
communication with Minorca. The ministry 
will not betray such a want of information as to 
dispute the truth of any of these propositions. 
But how will your Lordships be astonished when 
I inform you in what manner they have provided 
for these great, these essential objects ? As to 
the first — I mean the defense of the Channel — 
I take upon myself to affirm to your Lordships, 
that, at this hour (and I beg that the date may 
be taken down and observed), we can not send 
out eleven ships of the line so manned and equip- 
ped, that any officer of rank and credit in the serv- 



ice shall accept of the command and stake his 
reputation upon it. We have one ship of the 
line at Jamaica, one at the Leeward Islands, and 
one at Gibraltar ! Yet at this very moment, for 
aught that the ministry knov^^, both Jamaica and 
Gibraltar may be attacked ; and if they are at- 
tacked (which God forbid), they must fall. Noth- 
ing can prevent it but the appearance of a supe- 
rior squadron. It is true that, some two months 
ago, four ships of the line were ordered from 
Portsmouth and one from Plymouth, to carry a 
relief from Ireland to Gibraltar. These ships, 
my Lords, a week ago were still in port. If, 
upon their arrival at Gibraltar, they should find 
the bay possessed by a superior squadron, the 
relief can not be landed ; and if it could be land- 
ed, of what force do your Lordships think it con- 
sists? Two regiments, of four hundred men 
each, at a time like this, are sent to secure a 
place of such importance as Gibraltar ! a place 
which it is universally agreed can not hold out 
against a vigorous attack from the sea, if once 
the enemy should be so far masters of the bay 
as to make a good landing even with a moderate 
force. The indispensable service of the lines 
requires at least four thousand men. The pres- 
ent garrison consists of about two thousand three 
hundred ; so that if the relief should be fortu- 
nate enough to get on shore, they will want eight 
hundred men of their necessary complement. 

Let us now, my Lords, turn our eyes home- 
ward. When the defense of Great Britain or 
Ireland is in question, it is no longer a point of 
honor; it is not the security of foreign com- 
merce or foreign possessions ; we are to con- 
tend for the being of the state. I have good 
authority to assure your Lordships that the 
Spaniards have now a fleet at Ferrol, complete- 
ly manned and ready to sail, which we are in 
no condition to meet. We could not this day 
send out eleven ships of the line properly equip- 
ped, and to-morrow the enemy may be masters 
of the Channel. It is unnecessary to press the 
consequences of these facts upon your Lord- 
ships' minds. If the enemy were to land in full 
force, either upon this coast or in Ireland, where 
is your army ? Where is your defense ? My 
Lords, if the house of Bourbon make a wise and 
vigorous use of the actual advantages they have 
over us, it is more than probable that on this day 
month we may not be a natirn. What military 
force can the ministry show to answer any sud- 
den demand ? I do not speak of foreign expe- 
ditions or offensive operations ; I speak of the 
interior defense of Ireland and of this country. 
You have a nominal army of seventy battalions, 
besides guards and cavalry. But what is the 
establishment of these battalions ? Supposing 
they were complete in the numbers allowed, 
which I know they are not, each regiment 
would consist of something less than four hun- 
dred men, rank and file. Are these battalions 
complete ? .Have any orders been given for an 
augmentation, or do the ministry mean to con- 
tinue them upon their present low establishment? 
When America, the West Indies, Gibraltar, and 



124 



LORD CHATHAM ON THE 



[1770. 



Minorca, are taken care of, consider, my Lords, 
what part of this army will remain to defend 
Ireland and Great Britain? This subject, my 
Lords, leads me to considerations of foreign 
policy and foreign alliance. It is more connect- 
ed with them than your Lordships may at first 
imagine. When I compare the numbers of our 
people, estimated highly at seven millions, with 
the population of France and Spain, usually com- 
puted at twenty-five millions, I see a clear, self- 
evident impossibility for this country to contend 
with the united power of the house of Bourbon 
merely upon the strength of its own resources. 
They who talk of confining a great war to naval 
operations only, speak without knowledge or ex- 
perience. We can no more conmiand the dis- 
position than the events of a war. Wherever 
we are attacked, there we must defend. 

I have been much abused, my Lords, for sup- 
poi'ting a war which it has been the fashion to 
call my German war. But I can affirm with a 
clear conscience, that that abuse has been thrown 
on me by men who were either unacquainted with 
facts, or had an interest in misrepresenting them. 
I shall speak plainly and frankly to your Lord- 
ships upon this, as I do upon every occasion. 
That I did in Parliament oppose, to the utmost 
of my power, our engaging in a German war, is 
most true ; and if the same circumstance were 
to recur, I would act the same part, and oppose 
it again. But when I was called upon to take a 
share in the administration, that measure was 
already decided. Before I was appointed Sec- 
retary of State, the first treaty with the King of 
Prussia was signed, and not only ratified by the 
Crown, but a{)proved of and confirmed by a reso- 
lution of both houses of Parliament. It was a 
weight fastened upon my neck. By that treaty 
the honor of the Crown and the honor of the na- 
tion were equally engaged. How I could re- 
cede from such an engagement — how 1 could 
advise the Crown to desert a great prince in 
the midst of those difficulties in which a reliance 
upon the good faith of this country had contrib- 
uted to involve him, are questions I willingly 
submit to your Lordships' candor. That won- 
dei-ful man might, perhaps, have extricated him- 
self from his difficulties without our assistance. 
He has talents which, in every thing that touches 
the human capacity, do honor to the human mind. 
But how would England have supported that rep- 
utation of credit and good faith by which we have 
been distinguished in Europe ? What other for- 
eign power would have sought our friendship? 
What other foreign power would have accepted 
of an alliance with us ? 

But, my Lords, though I wholly condemn our 
entering into any engagements which tend to in- 
volve us in a continental war, I do not admit that 
alliances with some of the German princes arc 
either detrimental or useless. They may be, my 
Lords, not only useful, but necessary. I hope, 
indeed, I never shall see an army of foreign aux- 
iliaries in Great Britain ; we do not want it. If 
our people are united — if they are attached to 
the King, and place confidence in his govern- 



ment, we have an internal strength sufficient to 
repel any foreign invasion. With respect to Ire- 
land, my Lords, I am not of the same opinion. 
If a powerful foreign army were landed in that 
kingdom, with arms ready to be put into the 
hands of the Roman Catholics, I declare freely 
to your Lordships that I should heartily wish it 
were possible to collect twenty thousand German 
Protestants, whether from Hesse, or Brunswick, 
or Wolfenbuttle, or even the unpopular Hano- 
verians, and land them in Ireland. I wish it, my 
Lords, because I am convinced that, whenever 
the case happens, we shall have no English army 
to spare. 

I have taken a wide circuit, my Lords, and 
trespassed, I fear, too long upon your Lordships' 
patience. Yet I can not conclude without en- 
deavoring to bring home your thoughts to an 
object more immediately interesting to us than 
any I have yet considered ; I mean the internal 
condition of this country. We may look abroad 
for wealth, or triumphs, or luxury ; but England, 
my Lords, is the main stay, the last resort of the 
whole empire To this point every scheme of 
policy, w^hether foreign or domestic, should ulti- 
mately refer. Have any measures been taken 
to satisfy or to unite the people ? Are the griev- 
ances they have so long complained of removed ? 
or do they stand not only unredressed, but ag- 
gravated ? Is the right of free election restored 
to the elective body ? My Lords, I myself am 
one of the people. I esteem that security and 
independence, which is the original birthright of 
an Englishman, far beyond the privileges, how^- 
ever splendid, which are annexed to the peer- 
age. I myself am by birth an English elector, 
and join with the freeholders of England as in a 
common cause. Believe me, my Lords, we mis- 
take our real interest as much as our duty when 
we separate ourselves from the mass of the peo- 
ple. Can it be expected that Englishmen will 
unite heartily in the defense of a government by 
which they feel themselves insulted and oppress- 
ed ? Restore them to their rights ; that is the 
true way to make them unanimous. It is not a 
ceremonious recommendation from the Throne 
that can bring back peace and harmony to a 
discontented people. That insipid annual opiate 
has been administered so long that it has lost its 
effect. Something substantial, something effect- 
ual must be done. 

The public credit of the nation stands next in 
degree to the rights of the Constitution ; it calls 
loudly for the interposition of Parliament. There 
is a set of men, my Lords, in the city of London, 
who are known to live in riot and luxury upon 
the plunder of the ignorant, the innocent, the 
helples.s — upon that part of the community which 
stands most in need of, and best deserves the care 
and protection of the Legislature. To me, my 
Lords, whether they be miserable jobbers of 
'Change Alley, or the lofty Asiatic plunderers of 
Leadcnhall Street, they are all equally detesta- 
ble. I care but little whether a man walks on 
foot, or is drawn by eight horses or six horses ; 
if his luxury is supported by the plunder of his 



1770] 



RELATIONS TO SPAIN. 



121 



countr}', I despise and detest him. My Lords, 
while I had the honor of serving his Majest3% I 
never ventured to look at the treasury but at a 
distance ; it is a business I am unfit for, and to 
which I never could have submitted. The little 
I know of it has not served to raise my opinion 
of what is vulgarly called the moneyed interest ; 
I mean that blood-sucker, that muck-worm, which 
calls itself the friend of government — that pre- 
tends to serve this or that administration, and 
may be purchased, on the same terms, by any 
administration — that advances money to govern- 
ment, and takes special care of its own emolu- 
ments. Under this description I include the whole 
race of commissaries, jobbers, contractors, cloth- 
iers, and remitters. Yet I do not deny that, 
even wiih these creatures, some management 
may be necessary. I hope, my Lords, that noth- 
ing that I have said will be understood to extend 
to the honest and industrious tradesman, who 
holds the middle rank, and has given repeated 
proofs that he prefers law and liberty to gold. I 
love that class of men. Much less w^ould I be 
thought to reflect upon the fair merchant, whose 
liberal commerce is the prime source of national 
wealth. I esteem his occupation and respect 
his character. 

My Lords, if the general I'epresentation, which 
I have had the honor to lay before you, of the 
situation of public affairs, has in any measure 
engaged your attention, your Lordships, I am 
sure, will agree with me, that the season calls 
for more than common prudence and vigor in the 
direction of our councils. The difficulty of the 
crisis demands a wise, a firm, and a popular ad- 
ministration. The dishonorable traffic of places 
has engaged us too long. Upon this subject, my 
Lords, I speak without interest or enmity. I 
have no personal objection to any of the King's 
servants. I shall never be minister ; certainly 
not without full powder to cut away all the rotten 
branches of government. Yet, unconcerned as I 
truly am for myself, I can not avoid seeing some 
capital erroi's in the distribution of the royal fa- 
vor. There are men, my Lords, who, if their 
own services were forgotten, ought to have an 
hereditary merit with the house of Hanover : 
whose ancestors stood forth in the day of trouble, 
opposed their persons and fortunes to treachery 
and rebellion, and secured to his Majesty's fam- 
ily this splendid power of rewarding. There 
are other men, my Lords [looking sternly at Lord 
Mansfield], who, to speak tenderly of them, were 
not quite so forward in the demonstrations of 
their zeal to the reigning family. There was an- 
other cause, my Lords, and a partiality to it, 
which some persons had not at all times discre- 
tion enough to conceal. I know I shall be ac- 
cused of attempting to revive distinctions. My 
Lords, if it were possible, I would abolish all dis- 
tinctions. I w^ould not wi.sh the favors of the 
Crown to flow invariably in one channel. But 
there are some distinctions which are inherent 
in the nature of things. There is a distinction 
between right and wrong — between Whig and 
Tory. 



When I speak of an administration, such as 
the necessity of the season calls for, my views 
are large and comprehensive. It must be popu- 
lar, that it may begin with reputation. It must 
be strong within itself, that it may proceed with 
vigor and decision. An administration, formed 
upon an exclusive system of family connections 
or private friendships, can not, I am convinced, 
be long supported in this country. Yet, my 
Lords, no man respects or values more than I do 
that honorable connection, which arises from a 
disinterested concurrence in opinion upon public 
measures, or from the sacred bond of private 
friendship and esteem. What I mean is, that no 
single man's private friendships or connections, 
however extensive, are sufficient of themselves 
either to form or overturn an administration. 
With respect to the ministry, I believe they have 
fewer rivals than they imagine. No pruden*- 
man will covet a situation so beset with diffi- 
culty and danger. 

I shall trouble your Lordships with but a few 
words more. His Majesty tells us in his speech 
that he will call upon us for our advice, if it 
should be necessary in the farther progress of 
this affair. It is not easy to say whether or no 
the ministry are serious in this declaration, nor 
what is meant by the progress of an afl^air which 
rests upon one fixed point. Hitherto we have 
not been called upon. But, though we are not 
consulted, it is our right and duty, as the King's 
great hereditary council, to offer him our advice. 
The papers mentioned in the noble Duke's mo- 
tion wall enable us to form a just and accurate 
opinion of the conduct of his Majesty's servant.s, 
though not of the actual state of their honorable 
negotiations. The ministry, too, seem to want 
advice upon some points in which their own safe- 
ty is immediately concerned. They are now 
balancing between a war which they ought to 
have foreseen, but for which they have made no 
provision, and an ignominious compromise. Let 
me warn them of their danger. If they are 
forced into a war, they stand it at the hazard of 
their heads. If by an ignominious compromise 
they should stain the honor of the Crown, or sac- 
rifice the rights of the people, let them look to 
the consequences, and consider whether they will 
be able to walk the streets in safety. 



The Duke of Richmond's motion was nega- 
tived by a vote of 65 to 21. The ministry, how- 
ever, took from this time more decided ground, 
and demanded a restoration of the islands, and a 
disavowal of their seizure, as the only course on 
the part of Spain which could prevent immediate 
war. It is now known that the Spanish court, 
in adopting these measures, had acted in concert 
with the court of France, and had reason to ex- 
pect her support, whatever might be the conse- 
quences. Had this support been afforded, the 
war predicted by Lord Chatham would inevita- 
bly have taken place. But the King of France 
found himself involved in great pecuniary diffi- 
culties, and could not be induced to enter into 
the war. The Spaniards were therefore com- 



126 



LORD CHATHAM ON THE 



[1774. 



pelled to yield. They disavowed the seizure I were abandoned by the English 5 and it is now 
and restored the islands, on condition that this understood that Lord North secretly agreed to 
restoration should not affect any claim of right j do this, when the arrangement was made for the 
on the part of Spain. Three years after, they I restoration of the islands by the Spanish. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD CHATHAM ON THE BILL AUTHORIZING THE QUARTERING OF BRITISH SOLDIERS ON 
THE INHABITANTS OF BOSTON, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS. MAY 27, 1774. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The health of Lord Chatham had for some time prevented him from taking any active part in public 
affairs. During two years he had rarely made his appearance in the House of Lords, and nothing but the 
rash and headlong measures of Lord North in regard to America, could have drawn him again from his 
retirement. 

In speaking of those measures, it may be proper briefly to remind the reader of some of the pi'ecediug 
events. When Charles Townsend was left at the head of affairs, by Lord Chatham's unfortunate illness 
during the winter of 1766-7, he was continually goaded by Mr. Grenville on the subject of American tax- 
ation.i " You are cowards ! You are afraid of the Americans. You dare not tax America!" The rash 
spirit of Townsend was roused by these attacks. "Fear?" said he. " Cowards ? Dare not tax Amer- 
ica ? / dare tax America .'" Grenville stood silent for a moment, and then said, "Dare you tax Amer- 
ica ? I wish to God you would do it." Townsend replied, " I will, I will." This hasty declaration could 
not be evaded or withdrawn, and in June, 1767, Townsend brought in a bill imposing duties on glass, pa- 
per, pasteboard, white and red lead, painters' colors, and tea, imported into the colonies. The preamble 
declared that it was " expedient to raise a revenue in America." A spirit of decided resistance to these 
taxes was at once manifested throughout all the colonies, and Lord North, on coming into power about 
two years after, introduced a bill repealing all the duties imposed by the act of 1767, except that on tea. 
But this was unsatisfactory, for it put the repeal on "commercial grounds" alone, and expressly reserved 
the right of taxation. At the close of 1773, the East India Company, encouraged by the ministry, sent 
large quantities of tea to Boston and some other American ports. The people resolved that the tea should 
not be landed, but should be sent back to England in the ships that brought it. As this was forbidden by 
the Custom-house, all the tea on board the ships lying in Boston harbor was thrown into the water by men 
disguised as Indians, on the evening of December 18th, 1773. This daring act awakened the keenest re- 
sentment of the British ministry. In March, 177-1, laws were passed depriving Massachusetts of her char- 
ter, closing the port of Boston, and allowing persons charged with capital offenses to be carried to En- 
gland for trial. As a means of farther enforcement, a bill was introduced in the month of May, 1774, for 
quartering troops on the inhabitants of the town of Boston, and other parts of the American colonies. 
This state of things gave rise to a number of Lord Chatham's most celebrated speeches, of which the fol- 
lowing was the first in order. 

SPEECH, &c. 



My Lords, — The unfavorable state of health 
under which I have long labored, could not pre- 
vent me from laying before your Lordships my 
thoughts on the bill now upon the table, and on 
the American affairs in general. 

If we take a transient view of those motives 
which induced the ancestors of our fellow-sub- 
jects in America to leave their native country, 
to encounter the innumerable didiculties of the 
unexplored regions of the Western World, our 
astonishment at the present conduct of their de- 
scendants will naturally subside. There was no 
corner of the world into which men of their free 
and enterprising spirit would not fly with alac- 
rity, rather than submit to the slavish and tyran- 
nical principles which prevailed at that period 
in their native country. And shall we wonder, 

I See Burke's admirable sketches of Grenville, 
Townsend, and Lord Chatham's third ministry, in 
nis Speech on American Taxation. 



ray Lords, if the descendants of such illustrious 
characters spurn with contempt the hand of un- 
constitutional power, that would snatch from 
them such dear-bought privileges as they now 
contend for ? Had the British colonies been 
planted by any other kingdom than our own, the 
inhabitants would have carried with them the 
chains of slavery and spirit of despotism ; but 
as they are, they ought to be remembered as 
great instances to instruct the world what great 
exertions mankind will naturally make, when 
they are left to the free exercise of their own 
powers. And, my Lords, notwithstanding my 
intention to give my hearty negative to the ques- 
tion now before you, I can not help condemning 
in the severest manner the late turbulent and un- 
warrantable conduct of the Americans in some 
instances, particularly in the late riots of Boston. 
But, my Lords, the mode which has been pur- 
sued to bring them back to a sense of their duty 
to their parent state, has been so diametrically 



[774] 



QUARTERING SOLDIERS IN BOSTON. 



127 



opposite to the fundamental principles of sound 
]wlicy, that individuals possessed of common un- 
derstanding must be astonished at such proceed- 
ings. By blocking up the harbor of Boston, you 
have involved the innocent trader in the same 
punishment with the guilty profligates who de- 
stroyed your merchandise ; and instead of mak- 
ing a well-concerted effort to secure the real 
ofl'enders, you clap a naval and military extin- 
guisher over their harbor, and visit the crime of 
a few lawless depredators and their abettors upon 
the whole body of the inhabitants. 

My Lords, this country is little obliged to the 
framers and promoters of this tea tax. The 
Americans had almost forgot, in their excess of 
gratitude for the repeal of the Stamp Act, any 
interest but that of the mother country ; there 
seemed an emulation among the different prov- 
inces who should be most dutiful and forward in 
their expressions of loyalty to their real bene- 
factor, as you will readily perceive by the fol- 
lowing letter from Governor Bernard to a noble 
Lord then in office. 

" The House of Representatives," says he, 
" from the time of opening the session to this 
day, has show'n a disposition to avoid all dispute 
with me, every thing having passed with as 
much good humor as I could desire. They have 
acted in all things with temper and moderation ; 
they have avoided some subjects of dispute, and 
have laid a foundation for removing some causes 
of former altercation." 

This, my Lords, was the temper of the Amer- 
icans, and would have continued so, had it not 
been interrupted by your fruitless endeavors to 
tax them without their consent. But the mo- 
ment they perceived your intention was renewed 
to tax them, under a pretense of serving the 
East India Company, their resentment got the 
ascendant of their moderation, and hurried them 
into actions contrary to law, w^hich, in their cool- 
er hours, they would have thought on with hor- 
ror ; for I sincerely believe the destroying of the 
tea was the effect of despair. 

But, my Lords, from the complexion of the 
whole of the proceedings, I think that adminis- 
tration has purposely irritated them into those 
late violent acts, for which they now so severely 
smart, purposely to be revenged on them for the 
victory they gained by the repeal of the Stamp 
Act ; a measure in which they seemingly acqui- 
esced, but at the bottom they were its real ene- 
mies. For what other motive could induce them 
to dress taxation, that father of American sedi- 
tion, in the robes of an East India director, but 
to break in upon that mutual peace and harmony 
which then so happily subsisted between them 
and the mother country ? 

My Lords, I am an old man, and would advise 
the noble Lords in office to adopt a more gentle 
mode of governing America ; for the day is not 
far distant when America may vie with these 
kingdoms, not only in arms, but in arts also. It 
is an established fact that the principal towns in 
America are learned and polite, and understand 
the Constitution of the empire as well as the no- 



ble Lords who are now in office ; and, conse- 
quently, they will have a watchful eye over their 
liberties, to prevent the least encroachment on 
their hereditary rights. 

This observation is so recently exemplified in 
an excellent pamphlet, w^hieh comes from the 
pen of an American gentleman, that I shall take 
the liberty of reading to your Lordships his 
thoughts on the competency of the British Par- 
liament to tax America, which, in my opinion, 
puts this interesting matter in the clearest view. 

" The high court of Parliament," says he, " is 
the supreme legislative power over the whole 
empire ; in all free states the Constitution is 
fixed ; and as the supreme Legislature derives 
its power and authority from the Constitution, it 
can not overleap the bounds of it without de- 
stroying its own foundation. The Constitution 
ascertains and limits both sovereignty and alle- 
giance ; and therefore his Majesty's American 
subjects, who acknowledged themselves bound 
by the ties of allegiance, have an equitable claim 
to the full enjoyment of the fundamental rules of 
the English Constitution ; and that it is an es- 
sential, unalterable right in nature, ingrafted into 
the British Constitution as a fundamental law, 
and ever held sacred and irrevocable by the sub- 
jects within this realm, that what a man has 
honestly acquired is absolutely his own ; which 
he may freely give, but which can not be taken 
from him without his consent." 

This, my Lords, though no new doctrine, has 
always been my received and unalterable opin- 
ion, and I will carry it to my grave, that this 
country had no right under heaven to tax Amer- 
ica. It is contrary to all the principles of jus- 
tice and civil polity, w^hich neither the exigen- 
cies of the state, nor even an acquiescence in the 
taxes, could justify upon any occasion whatever. 
Such proceedings will never meet their wished- 
for success. Instead of adding to their miseries, 
as the bill now before you most undoubtedly 
does, adopt some lenient measures, which may 
lure them to their duty. Proceed like a kind and 
affectionate parent over a child whom he ten- 
derly loves, and, instead of those harsh and se- 
vere proceedings, pass an amnesty on all their 
youthful errors, clasp them once more in your 
fond and affectionate arms, and I will venture to 
affirm you will find them children worthy of 
their sire. But, should their turbulence exist 
after your proffered terms of forgiveness, which 
I hope and expect this House will immediately 
adopt, I will be among the foremost of your 
Lordships to move for such measures as will ef- 
fectually prevent a future relapse, and make 
them feel what it is to provoke a fond and for- 
giving parent ! a parent, my Lords, whose wel- 
fare has ever been my greatest and most pleas- 
ing consolation. This declaration may seem un- 
necessary ; but I will venture to declare, the pe- 
riod is not far distant when she will want the 
assistance of her most distant friends ; but should 
the all-disposing hand of Providence prevent me 
from affording her my poor assistance, my pray- 
ers shall be ever for her welfare — Length of 



128 



LORD CHATHAM ON 



[1775. 



days be in her right hand^ and in her left riches 
and honor ; may her ways be the ways of pleas- 
antness., and all her paths he peace ! 



Notwithstanding these warnings and remon- 
strances, the bill was passed by a majority of 
57 to 16. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD CHATHAM ON A MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS TO HIS MAJESTY, TO GIVE IMMEDIATE 
ORDERS FOR REMOVING HIS TROOPS FROM BOSTON, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, 
JANUARY 20, 1773, 

INTRODUCTION. 

On the 20th of January, 1775, Lord Dartmouth, Secretary of State, laid before the House of Lords va- 
rious papers relathig to American affairs. Upon this occasion Lord Chatham moved an "address to his 
Majesty for the immediate removal of his troops from Boston," and supported it by the following speech. 

When he arose to speak, says one who witnessed the scene, "all was silence and profound attention. 
Animated, and almost inspired by his subject, he seemed to feel his own unrivaled superiority. His ven- 
erable figure, dignified and graceful in decay, his language, his voice, his gesture, were such as might, at 
this momentous crisis, big with the fate of Britain seem to characterize him as the guardian genius of his 
country." 



SPEECH, &o.' 



My Lords, — After more than six weeks' pos- 
session of the papers now before you, on a sub- 
ject so momentous, at a time when the fate of 
this nation hangs on every hour, the ministry 
have at length condescended to submit to the 
consideration of this House, intelligence from 
America with which your Lordships and the 
public have been long and fully acquainted. 

The measures of last year, my Lords, which 
have produced the present alarming state of 
America, were founded upon misrepresentation. 
They were violent, precipitate, and vindictive. 
The nation was told that it was only a faction in 
Boston which opposed all lawful government ; 
that an unw^arrantable injury had been done to 
private property, for which the justice of Parlia- 
ment was called upon to order reparation ; that 
the least appearance of firmness would awe the 
Americans into submission, and upon only pass- 
ing the Rubicon we should be " sine clade vic- 
tor."2 

That the people might choose their repre- 
sentatives under the influence of those misrep- 
resentations, the Parliament was pi'ecipitately 
dissolved. Thus the nation was to be rendered 
instrumental in executing the vengeance of ad- 
ministration on that injured, unhappy, traduced 
people. 

But now, my Lords, we find that, instead of 
suppressing the opposition of the faction at Bos- 
ton, these measures have spread it over the 
whole continent. They have united that whole 
people by the most indissoluble of all bands — in- 
tolerable wrongs. The just retribution is an in- 
discriminate, unmerciful proscription of the inno- 
cent with the guilty, unheard and untried. The 
bloodless victory is an impotent general with his 

1 This speech was reported by Mr. Hugh Boyd, 
a man of high literary attainments, and bears very 
strong marks of accuracy. 

* Victorious without slaughter. 



dishonored army, trusting solely to the pickax 
and the spade for security against the just indig- 
nation of an injured and insulted people. 

My Lords, I am happy that a relaxation of my 
infirmities permits me to seize this earliest op- 
portunity of offering my poor advice to save this 
unhappy country, at this moment tottering to its 
ruin. But, as I have not the honor of access to 
his Majesty, I will endeavor to transmit to him, 
through the constitutional channel of this House, 
my ideas on American business, to rescue him 
from the misadvice of his present ministers. I 
congratulate your Lordships that the business is 
at last entered upon by the noble Lord's [Lord 
Dartmouth] laying the papers before you. As 
I suppose your Lordships are too well apprised 
of their contents, I hope I am not premature in 
submitting to you my present motion. [The 
motion M^as read.] 

I wish, my Lords, not to lose a day in this ur- 
gent, pressing crisis. An hour now lost in allay- 
ing ferments in America may produce years of 
calamity. For my own part, I will not desert, 
for a moment, the conduct of this weighty busi- 
ness, from the first to the last. L^nlcss nailed to 
my bed by the extremity of sickness, I will give 
it unremitted attention. I will knock at the door 
of this sleeping and confounded ministry, and will 
rouse them to a sense of their danger. 

When I state the importance of the colonies to 
this countr}', and the magnitude of danger hang- 
ing over this country from the present plan of 
misadministration practiced against them, I de- 
sire not to be understood to argue for a reciproc- 
ity of indulgence between England and America. 
I contend not for indulgence, but justice to Amer- 
ica; and I shall ever contend that the Americans 
! justly owe obedience to us in a limited degree — 
they owe obedience to our ordinances of trade 
i and navigation ; but let the line be skillfully 
drawn between the objects of those ordinances 



1775] 



REMOVING TROOPS FROM BOSTON. 



129 



and theii" private internal property. Let the sa- 
credness of their property remain inviolate. Let 
it be taxable only by their own consent, given 
in their provincial assemblies, else it will cease 
to be property. As to the metaphysical refine- 
ments, attempting to show that the Americans 
are equally free from obedience and commercial 
restraints, as from taxation for revenue, as being 
unrepresented here, I pronounce them futile, friv- 
olous, and groundless. 

When I urge this measure of recalling the 
troops from Boston, I urge it on this pressing 
principle, that it is necessarily preparatory to 
the restoration of your peace and the establish- 
ment of your prosperity. It will then appear 
that you are disposed to treat amicably and eq- 
uitably ; and to consider, revise, and repeal, if it 
should be found necessary (as I affirm it will), 
those violent acts and declarations which have 
disseminated confusion throughout your empire. 

Resistance to your acts was necessary as it 
was just ; and your vain declarations of the om- 
nipotence of Parliament, and your imperious doc- 
trines of the necessity of submission, will be found 
equally impotent to convince or to enslave your 
fellow-subjects in America, who feel that tyranny, 
whether ambitioncd by an individual part of the 
Legislature, or the bodies who compose it, is 
equally intolerable to British subjects. 

The means of enforcing this thraldom are 
found to be as ridiculous and weak in practice 
as they are unjust in principle. Indeed, I can 
not but feel the most anxious sensibility for the 
situation of General Gage, and the troops under 
his command ; thinking him, as I do, a man of 
humanity and understanding ; and entertaining, 
as I ever will, the highest respect, the w^armest 
love for the British ti-oops. Their situation is 
truly unworthy ; penned up — pining in inglorious 
inactivity. They are an army of impotence. 
You may call them an army of safety and of 
guard ; but they are, in truth, an army of impo- 
tence and contempt ; and, to make the folly equal 
to the disgrace, they are an army of irritation and 
vexation. 

But I find a report creeping abroad that min- 
isters censure General Gage's inactivity. Let 
them censure him — it becomes them — it be- 
comes their justice and their honor. I mean not 
to censure his inactivity. It is a prudent and 
necessary inaction ; but it is a miserable condi- 
tion, where disgrace is prudence, and where it is 
necessary to be contemptible. This tameness, 
however contemptible, can not be censured ; for 
the first drop of blood shed in civil and unnatu- 
ral war might be " immedicabile vulnus."^ 

I therefore urge and conjure your Lordships 
immediately to adopt this conciliating measure. 
I will pledge myself for its immediately produc- 
ing conciliatory effects, by its being thus well 
timed ; but if yon delay till your vain hope shall 
be accomplished of triumphantly dictating rec- 



^ Nil prosunt artes 
All arts are vain; 

Ovid's Metamorphoses, book 
I 



erat immedicabile vulnus. 
incurable the wound. 



onciliation, you delay forever. But, admitting 
that this hope (which in truth is desperate) 
should be accomplished, w^hat do you gain by the 
imposition of your victorious amity ? You will 
be untrusted and unthanked. Adopt, then, the 
grace, while you have the opportunity, of recon- 
cilement — or at least prepare the way. Allay 
the ferment prevailing in America, by removing 
the obnoxious hostile cause — obnoxious and un- 
serviceable ; for their merit can be only inaction : 
" Non dimicare est vincere,"* their victory can 
never be by exertions. Their force would be 
most disproportionately exerted against a brave, 
generous, and united people, with arms in their 
hands, and courage in their hearts : three mill- 
ions of people, the genuine descendants of a 
valiant and pious ancestry, driven to those deserts 
by the narrow maxims of a superstitious tyranny. 
And is the spirit of persecution never to be ap- 
peased ? Are the brave sons of those brave 
forefathers to inherit their sufferings, as they 
have inherited their virtues ? Are they to sus- 
tain the infliction of the most oppressive and un- 
exampled severity, beyond the accounts of his- 
tory or description of poetry : " Rhadamanthus 
habet durissima regna, castigatque audit que. ''''^ 
So says the wisest poet, and perhaps the wisest 
statesman and politician. But our ministers say 
the Americans must not be heard. They have 
been condemned unheard. The indiscriminate 
hand of vengeance has lumped together innocent 
and guilty ; with all the formalities of hostility, 
has blocked up the town [Boston], and reduced 
to beggary and famine thirty thousand inhabit- 
ants. 

But his Majesty is advised that the union in 
America can not last. Ministers have more 
eyes than I, and should have more ears ; but, 
with all the information I have been able to pro- 
cure, I can pronounce it a union solid, perma- 
nent, and effectual. Ministers may satisfy them- 
selves, and delude the public, with the report of 
what they call commercial bodies in America. 
They are not commercial. They are your pack- 
ers and factors. They live upon nothing, for I 
call commission nothing. I speak of the minis- 
terial authority for this American intelligence — 
the runners for government, who are paid for 
their intelligence. But these are not the men, 
nor this the influence, to be considered in Amer- 
ica, when we estimate the firmness of their union. 
Even to extend the question, and to take in the 



* Not to fight is to conquei'. 

^ The passage is from the iEneid of Virgil, book 
vi., 366-7. 

Gnosius hoec Rhadamanthus habet durissima regna, 
Castigatque auditque dolos. 

O'er these dire realms 
The Cretan Rhadamanthus holds his sway, 
And lashes guilty souls, whose wiles and crimes 
He hears. 

Lord Chatham, from the order of the words, gives 
them an ingenious turn, as if the punishment came 
before the hearing ; which was certainly true of jus- 
tice as then administered in America, though not iu 
the infernal regions of Virgil. 



130 



LORD CHATHAM ON 



[1775. 



really mercantile circle, will be totally inade- 
quate to the consideration. Trade, indeed, in- 
creases the wealth and glory of a country ; but 
its real strength and stamina are to be looked for 
among the culiivators of the land. In their sim- 
plicity of life is found the simpleness of virtue — 
the integrity and courage of freedom. These 
true, genuine sons of the eaith are invincible ; 
and they surround and hem in the mercantile 
bodies, even if these bodies (which supposition 
I totally disclaim) could be supposed disaffected 
to the cause of liberty. Of this general spirit 
existing in the British nation (for so I wish to 
distinguish the real and genuine Americans from 
the pseudo-traders I have described) — of this 
spirit of independence, animating the nation of 
America, I have the most authentic information. 
It is not new among them. It is, and has ever 
been, their established principle, their confirmed 
persuasion. It is their nature and their doctrine. 

I remember, some years ago, when the repeal 
of the Stamp Act was in agitation, conversing in 
a friendly confidence with a person of undoubted 
respect and authenticity, on that subject, and he 
assured me with a certainty which his judgment 
and opportunity gave him, that these were the 
prevalent and steady principles of America — that 
you might destroy their towns, and cut them off 
from the superfluities, perhaps the conveniences 
of life, but that they were prepared to despise 
your power, and would not lament their loss, 
while they have — what, my Lords ? — their woods 
and their liberty. The name of my authority, 
if I am called upon, will authenticate the opinion 
irrefragably.^ 

If illegal violences have been, as it is said, 
committed in America, prepare the way, open 
the door of possibility for acknowledgment and 
satisfaction ; but proceed not to such coercion, 
such proscription ; cease your indiscriminate in- 
flictions ; amerce not thirty thousand — oppress 
not three millions for the fault of forty or fifty 
individuals. Such severity of injustice must for- 
ever render incurable the wounds you have al- 
ready given your colonies ; you irritate them to 
unappeasable rancor. What though you march 
from town to town, and from province to prov- 
ince ; though you should be able to enforce a 
temporary and local submission (which I only 
suppose, not admit), how shall you be able to se- 
cure the obedience of the country you leave be- 
hind you in your progress, to grasp the dominion 
of eighteen hundred miles of continent, populous 
in numbers, possessing valor, liberty, and resist- 
ance ? 

This resistance to your arbitrary system of 
taxation might have been foreseen. It was ob- 
vious from the nature of things, and of mankind ; 
and, above all, from the Whiggish spirit flourish- 
ing in that country'. The spirit which now re- 
sists your taxation in America is the same which 
formerly opposed loans, benevolences, and ship- 
money in England ; the same spirit which called 
all England "on its legs," and by the Bill of 



It was Dr. Franklin. 



Rights vindicated the English Constitution ; the 
same spirit which established the great funda- 
mental, essential maxim of your liberties, that 
no subject of England shall be taxed but by his 
own consent. 

This glorious spii'it of Whiggism animates 
three millions in America, who prefer poverty 
with liberty, to gilded chains and sordid afllu- 
ence ; and who will die in defense of their rights 
as men, as freemen. What shall oppose this 
spirit, aided by the congenial flame glowing in 
the breast of every Whig in England, to the 
amount, I hope, of double the American num- 
bers ? Ireland they have to a man. In that 
country, joined as it is with the cause of the colo- 
nies, and placed at their head, the distinction I 
contend for is and must be observed. This coun- 
try superintends and controls their trade and nav- 
igation ; but they tax themselves. And this dis- 
tinction between extei'nal and internal control is 
sacred and insurmountable ; it is involved in the 
abstract nature of things. Property is private, 
individual, absolute. Trade is an extended and 
complicated consideration : it reaches as far as 
ships can sail or winds can blow : it is a great 
and various machine. To regulate the number- 
less movements of its several parts, and combine 
them into effect for the good of the whole, re- 
quires the superintending wisdom and energy of 
the supreme power in the empire. But this su- 
preme power has no effect toward internal taxa- 
tion ; for it does not exist in that relation ; there 
is no such thing, no such idea in this Constitu- 
tion, as a supreme power operating upon proper- 
ty. Let this distinction then remain forever as- 
certained ; taxation is theirs, commercial regu- 
lation is ours. As an American, I would recog- 
nize to England her supreme right of regulating 
commerce and navigation ; as an Englishman by 
birth and principle, I recognize to the Americans 
their supreme, unalienable right in their proper- 
ty : a right vv'hich they are justified in the de- 
fense of to the last extremity. To maintain this 
principle is the common cause of the Whigs on 
the other side of the Atlantic and on this. 
" 'Tis liberty to liberty engaged," that they will 
defend themselves, their families, and their coun- 
try. In this great cause they are immovably 
allied : it is the alliance of God and nature — 
immutable, eternal — fixed as the firmament of 
heaven. 

To such united force, what force shall be op- 
posed ? What, my Lords ? A few regiments 
in America, and seventeen or eighteen thousand 
men at home ! The idea is too ridiculous to 
take up a moment of your Lordships' time. Nor 
can such a national and principled union be re- 
sisted by the tricks of olfice, or ministerial ma- 
neuver. Laying of papers on your table, or 
counting numbers on a division, will not avert 
or postpone the hour of danger. It must arrive, 
my Lords, unless these fatal acts are done away; 
it must arrive in all its horrors, and then these 
boastful ministers, spite of all their confidence 
and all their maneuvers, shall be forced to hide 
their heads. They shall be forced to a disgrace- 



1775] 



REMOVING TROOPS FROM BOSTON. 



131 



fal iibanclonment of their present measures and 
principles, which they avow, but can not defend ; 
measures which they presume to attempt, but 
can not hope to effectuate. They can not, my 
Lords, they can not stir a step -, they have not a 
move left ; they are check-mated ! 

But it is not repealing this act of Parliament, 
it is not repealing a piece of parchment, that 
can restore America to our bosom. You must 
repeal her fears and her resentments, and you 
may then hope for her love and gratitude. But 
now, insulted with an armed force posted at 
Boston, irritated with a hostile array before her 
eyes, her concessions, if you could force them, 
would be suspicious and insecure ; they will be 
" irato animo"' [with an angry spirit] ; they will 
not be the sound, honorable passions of freemen ; 
they will be the dictates of fear and extortions 
of force. But it is more than evident that you 
can not force them, united as they are, to your 
unworthy terms of submission. It is impossible. 
And when I hear General Gage censured for in- 
activity, I must retort with indignation on those 
whose intemperate measures and improvident 
counsels have betrayed him into his present situ- 
ation. His situation reminds me, my Lords, of 
the answer of a French general in the civil wars 
of France — Monsieur Conde opposed to Mon- 
sieur Turenne. He was asked how it happened 
that he did not take his adversary prisoner, as 
he was often very near him. " J'ai peur," re- 
plied Conde, very honestly, "j'ai peur qu'il ne 
me prenne;" Fm afraid he'll take me. 

When your Lordships look at the papers 
transmitted us from America — when you con- 
sider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you 
can not but respect their cause, and wish to make 
it your own. For myself, I must declare and 
avow, that in all my reading and observation — 
and it has been my favorite study — I have read 
Thucydides, and have studied and admired the 
master-states of the world — that for solidity of 
reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of con- 
clusion, under such a complication of difficult 
circumstances, no nation or body of men can 
stand in preference to the general Congress at 
Philadelphia. I trust it is obvious to your Lord- 
ships that all attempts to impose servitude upon 
such men, to establish despotism over such a 
mighty continental nation, must be vain, must be 
ffvtal. We shall be forced ultimately to retract ; 
let us retract while we can, not when we must. 
I say we must necessarily undo these violent, 
oppressive acts.' They must be repealed. You 
will repeal them. I pledge myself for it, that 
you will, in the end, repeal them. I stake my 
reputation on it. I will consent to be taken for 
an idiot if they are not finally repealed.^ Avoid, 
then, this humiliating, disgraceful necessity. 
With a dignity becoming your exalted situation, 
make the first advances to concord, to peace, and 



happiness ; for that is your true dignity, to act 
with prudence and justice. That you sliould 
first concede is obvious, from sound and rational 
policy. Concession comes with better grace and 
more salutary effect from superior power. It 
reconciles superiority of power with the feelings 
of men, and establishes solid confidence on the 
foundations of affection and gratitude. 

So thought a wise poet and a wise man in 
political sagacity — the friend of Mecffinas, and 
the eulogist of Augustus. To him, the adopted 
son and successor of the first Cesar — to him, the 
master of the world, he wisely urged this con- 
duct of prudence and dignity : "Tuque prior, tii 
parce ; projice tela manu."^ 

Every motive, therefore, of justice and of pol> 
icy, of dignity and of prudence, urges you to al- 
lay the ferment in America by a removal of 
your troops from Boston, by a repeal of your 
acts of Parliament, and by demonstration of am- 
icable dispositions toward your colonies. On 
the other hand, every danger and every hazard 
impend to deter you from perseverance in your 



7 The Boston Povt Bill, and the act taking away 
the charter of Massachusetts. 

* This prediction was verified. After a war of 
three years, a repeal of these acts was sent out to 
propitiate the Americans, but it was too late. 



9 If Lord Chatham's memory had not failed him 
in respect to these words, his taste and genius 
would have suggested a still finer turn. They were 
addressed, not by Virgil to Augustus Cesar, but to 
a parent advancing in arms against a child ; and 
would, therefore, have been applied with double 
force and beauty to the contest of England against 
America. The words are taken from that splendid 
passage at the close of the sixth book of Virgil's 
^neid, where Anchises is showing to jEneas, in 
the world of spirits, the souls of those who were 
destined to pass within " the gates of life," and to 
swell, as his descendants, the long line of Roman 
greatness. After pointing out the Decii and Drusii, 
Torquatus with his bloody ax, and Camillus with 
his standards of glory, he comes at last to Julius Ce- 
sar, and Pompey, his son-in-law, preparing for the 
battle of Pharsalia. As if the conflict might yet be 
averted, he addresses his future children, and e\y 
treats them not to turn their arms against their 
country's vitals. He appeals especially to Cesar 
as "descended from Olympian Jove," and exhorts 
him "Tuque prior, tu parce ; projice tela manu." 
Illge autem, paribus quas fulgere cernis in armis, 
Concordes animce nunc et dum nocte prementur, 
Heu ! quantum inter se bellum, si limina vitffi 
Attingerint, quantas acies stragemque ciebunt, 
Aggeribus socer Alpinis atque arce Monoeci 
Descendens, gener adversis instructus Eois ! 
Ne, pueri, ue tanta animis assuecite bella; 
Neu patriae validas in viscera vertite vires ! 
Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo ; 
Projice tela inanu, sanguis mens ! — 826-835. 
Those forms which now thou seest in equal arms 
Shining afar — united souls while here 
Beneath the realm of night — what fields of blood 
And mutual slaughter shall mark out their course, 
If once they pass within the Gates of Life ! 
See, from the Alpine heights the father comes 
Down by Monaco's tower, to meet the son 
Equipped with hostile legions from the East. 
Nay ! nay, my children ! Train not thus your minds 
To scenes of blood ! Tura not those arms of strength 
Against your country's vitals ! 
Thou ! thou, descended from Olympian Jove ! 
Be first to spare ! Son of my blood ! cast down 
Those weapons from thy hand ! 



133 



LORD CHATHAM ON 



[1777. 



present ruinous measures. Foreign war hang- 
ing over your heads by a slight and brittle 
thread ; France and Spain watching your con- 
duct, and waiting for the maturity of your er- 
rors, with a vigilant eye to America and the 
temper of your colonies, more than to their own 
concerns, be they what they may. 

To conclude, my Lords, if the ministers thus 
persevere in misadvising and misleading the 



King, I will not say that they can alienate the 
affections of his subjects from his crown, but I 
will affirm that they will make the crown not 
worth his wearing. I will not say that the King 
is betrayed, but I will pronounce that the king- 
dom is undone. 



The motion, after 
a vote of 68 to 18. 



long debate, was lost by 



SPEECH 



OF LORD CHATHAM ON A MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS TO THE CROWN, TO PUT A STOP TO HOS- 
TILITIES IN AMERICA, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, MAY 30, 177r. 



INTRODUCTION. 
Lord Chatham had now been prevented by his infirmities from taking his place in the House of Lords 
for more than two years. Anxious to make one effort more for ending the contest with America, he made 
his appearance in the House on the 30th of May, 1777, wrapped in flannels, and supported on crutches, 
and moved an address to the King, recommending that speedy and effectual measures be taken to put an 
end to the war between the colonies and the mother country. He spoke as follows : 

SPEECH, &c. 



My Lords, this is a flying moment ; perhaps 
but six weeks left to arrest the dangers that sur- 
round us. The gathering storm may break ; it 
has already opened, and in part burst. It is 
difficult for government, after all that has pass- 
ed, to shake hands with detiers of the King, de- 
fiers of the Parliament, defiers of the people. I 
am a defier of nobody ; but if an end is not put 
to this war, there is an end to this country. I 
do not trust my judgment in my present state of 
health ; this is the judgment of my better days 
— the result of forty years' attention to America. 
They are rebels ; but for what ? Surely not for 
defending their unquestionable rights ! What 
have these rebels done heretofore ? I remem- 
ber when they raised lour regiments on their 
own bottom, and took Louisbourg from the vet- 
eran troops of France. But their excesses have 
been great : I do not mean their panegyric ; but 
must observe, in extenuation, the erroneous and 
infatuated counsels which have pi'evailed ; the 
door to mercy and justice has been shut against 
them ; but they may still be taken up upon the 
grounds of their former submission. [Referring 
to their petition.] 

I state to you the importance of Amei'ica : it 
is a double market — the market of consumption, 
and the market of supply. This double market 
for millions, with naval stores, you are giving to 
your hereditary rival. America has carried you 
through four wars, and will now carry you to 
your death, if you don't take things in time. In 
the sportsman's phrase, when you have found 
yourselves at fault, you must try back. You 
have ransacked every corner of Lower Saxony ; 
but forty thousand German boors never can con- 
quer ten times the number of British freemen. 
You may ravage — you can not conquer ; it is 
impossible ; you can not conquer the Americans. 
You talk, my Lords, of your numerous friends 



among them to annihilate the Congress, and of 
your powerful forces to disperse their army. I 
inight as ivell talk of driving them before me with 
this crutch! But what would you conquer — > 
the map of America ? I am ready to meet any 
general officer on the subject [looking at Lord 
Amherst.] What will you do out of the pro- 
tection of your fleet ? In the winter, if togeth- 
er, they are starved ; and if dispersed, they are 
taken off in detail. I am experienced in spring 
hopes and vernal promises ; I know what minis- 
ters throw out ; but at last will come your equi- 
noctial disappointment. You have got nothing 
in America but stations. You have been three 
years teaching them the art of war ; they are 
apt scholai's ; and I will venture to tell your 
Lordships that the American gentry will make 
officers enough, fit to command the troops of all 
the European powers. What you have sent 
there are too many to make peace — too few to 
make war. If you conquer them, what then ? 
You can not make them respect you ; you can 
not make them wear your cloth ; you will plant 
an invincible hatred in their breasts against you. 
Coming from the stock they do, they can never 
respect you. If ministers are founded in saying 
there is no sort of treaty with France, there is 
still a moment left ; the point of honor is still 
safe. France must be as self-destroying as En- 
gland, to make a treaty while you are giving her 
America, at the expense of twelve millions a 
year. The intercourse has produced every thing 
to France ; and England, Old England, must 
pay for all. I have, at difTcrent times, made dif- 
ferent propositions, adapted to the circumstances 
in which they were offered. The plan contain- 
ed in the former bill is now impracticable ; the 
present motion will tell you where you are, and 
what you have now to depend upon. It may 
produce a respectable division in America, and 



1777] 



HOSTILITIES WITH AMERICA. 



133 



unanimity at home ; it will give America an op- 
tion ; she has yet had no option. You have 
said, Lay down your arms; and she has given 
you the Spartan answer, "Come, take." [Here 
he read his motion.] " That an humble address 
be presented to his Majesty, most dutifully rep- 
resenting to his royal wisdom that this House is 
deeply penetrated with the view of impending 
ruin to the kingdom, from the continuation of an 
unnatural war against the British colonies in 
America ; and most humbly to advise his Maj- 
esty to take the most speedy and effectual meas- 
ures for putting a stop to such fatal hostilities, 
upon the only just and solid foundation, namely, 
the removal of accumulated grievances ; and to 
assure his Majesty that this House will enter 
upon this great and necessary work with cheer- 
fulness and dispatch, in order to open to his Maj- 
esty the only means of regaining the affections 
of the British colonies, and of securing to Great 
Britain the commercial advantages of these val- 
uable possessions ; fully persuaded that to heal 
and to redress will be more congenial to the 
goodness and magnanimity of his Majesty, and 
more prevalent over the hearts of generous and 
free-born subjects, than the rigoi's of chastisement 
and the horrors of a civil war, which hitherto 
have served only to sharpen resentments and 
consolidate union, and, if continued, must end in 
finally dissolving all ties between Great Britain 
and the colonies." 

[His Lordship rose again.] The proposal, he 
said, is specific. I thought this so clear, that I 
did not enlarge upon it. I mean the redress of 
all their grievances, and the right of disposing 
of their own money. This is to be done instan- 
taneously. I will get out of my bed to move it 
on Monday. This will be the herald of peace ; 
this will open the way for treaty ; this will show 
Parliament sincerely disposed. Yet still much 
must be left to treaty. Should you conquer this 
people, you conquer under the cannon of France 
— under a masked battery then ready to open. 
The moment a treaty with France appears, you 
must declare war, though you had only five ships 
of the line in England ; but France will defer a 
treaty as long as possible. You are now at the 
mercy of every little German chancery ; and the 
pretensions of France will increase daily, so as 
to become an avowed party in either peace or 
war. We have tried for unconditional submis- 
sion ; try what can be gained by unconditional 
redress. Less dignity will be lost in the repeal, 
than in submitting to the demands of German 
chanceries. We are the aggressors. We have 
invaded them. We have invaded them as much 
as the Spanish Armada invaded England. Mer- 
cy can not do harm ; it will seat the King where 
he ought to be, throned on the hearts of his peo- 
ple ; and millions at home and abroad, now em- 
ployed in obloquy or revolt, would pray for him. 

[In making his motion for addressing the King, 
Lord Chatham insisted frequently and strongly 
on the absolute necessity of immediately making 
peace with America. Now, he said, was the 
crisis, before France was a party to the treaty. 



This was the only moment left before the fate 
of this country was decided. The French court, 
he observed, was too wise to lose the opportunity 
of effectually separating America from the do- 
minions of this kingdom. War between France 
and Great Britain, he said, was not less probable 
because it had not yet been declared. It would 
be folly in France to declare it now, while Amer- 
ica gave full employment to our arms, and was 
pouring into her lap her wealth and produce, 
the benefit of which she was enjoying in peace. 
He enlarged much on the importance of Amer- 
ica to this country, which, in peace and in war, 
he observed, he ever considered as the great 
source of all our wealth and power. He then 
added (x-aising his voice), Your trade languishes, 
your taxes increase, your revenues diminish. 
France at this moment is securing and drawing 
to herself that commerce which created your 
seamen, fed your islands, &c. He reprobated 
the measures which produced, and which had 
been pursued in the conduct of the civil war, in 
the severest language ; infatuated measures giv- 
ing rise to, and still continuing a cruel, unnatural, 
self-destroying war. Success, it is said, is hoped 
for in this campaign. Why ? Because our army 
will be as strong this year as it was last, when 
it was not strong enough. The notion of con- 
quering America he treated with the greatest 
contempt. 

After an animated debate, in which the mo- 
tion was opposed by Lords Gower, Lyttelton, 
Mansfield, and Weymouth, and the Archbishop 
of York, and supported by the Dukes of Grafton 
and INIanchester, Lord Camden and Shelburne, 
and the Bishop of Peterborough, 

The Earl of Chatham again rose, and in reply 
to what had fallen from Lord Weymouth, said :J 
My Lords, I perceive the noble Lord neither ap- 
prehends my meaning, nor the explanation given 
by me to the noble Earl [Earl Gower] in the blue 
ribbon, who spoke earl}-^ in the debate 1 will, 
therefore, with your Lordships' permission, state 
shortly what I meant. My Lords, my motion 
was stated generally, that I might leave the ques- 
tion at large to be amended by your Lordships. 
I did not dare to point out the specific means. 
I drew the motion up to the best of my poor 
abilities ; but I intended it only as the herald of 
conciliation, as the harbinger of peace to our af- 
flicted colonies. But as the noble Lord seems 
to wish for something more specific on the sub- 
ject, and through that medium seeks my partic- 
ular sentiments, I will tell your Lordships very 
fairly what I wish for. I wish for a repeal of 
every oppressive act which your Lordships have 
passed since 1763. I would put our brethren 
in America precisely on the same footing they 
stood at that period. I would expect, that, being 
left at liberty to tax themselves, and dispose of 
their own property, they would, in return, contrib- 
ute to the common burdens according to their 
means and abilities. I will move your Lordships 
for a bill of repeal, as the only means left to arm- 
rest that approaching destruction which threat- 
ens to overw^helm us. My Lords, I shall no 



134 



LORD CHATHAM ON AN 



[1777. 



doubt hear it objected, " Why should we submit 
or concede ? Has America done any thing on 
her part to induce us to agree to so large a 
ground of concession ?" I will tell you, my 
Lords, why I think you should. You have been 
the aggressors from the beginning. I shall not 
trouble your Lordships with the particulars ; 
they have been stated and enforced by the noble 
and learned Lord who spoke last but one (Lord 
Camden), in a much more able and distinct man- 
ner than I could pretend to state them. If, then, 
we are the aggressors, it is your Lordships' bu- 
siness to make the first overture. I say again, 
this country has been the aggressor. You have 
made descents upon their coasts ; you have burn- 
ed their towns, plundered then* country, made 
war upon the inhabitants, confiscated their prop- 
erty, proscribed and imprisoned their persons. 
I do therefore affirm, my Lords, that instead of 
exacting unconditional submission from the col- 
onies, we should grant them unconditional re- 



dress. We have injui-ed them ; we have en- 
deavored to enslave and oppress them. Upon 
this ground, my Lords, instead of chastisement, 
they are entitled to redress. A repeal of those 
laws, of which they complain, will be the first 
step to that redress. The people of America 
look upon Parliament as the authors of their mis- 
eries ; their affections are estranged from their 
sovereign. Let, then, reparation come from the 
hands that inflicted the injuries ; let conciliation 
succeed chastisement ; and I do maintain, that 
Pai'liament will again recover its authority ; that 
his Majesty will be once more enthroned in the 
hearts of his American subjects ; and that your 
Lordships, as contributing to so great, glorious, 
salutary, and benignant a work, will receive the 
prayers and benedictions of every part of the 
British empire. 



The motion was lost by a vote of 99 to 28. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD CHATHAM ON A MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS TO THE THRONE, AT THE OPENING OF 
PARLIAMENT, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, NOVEMBER 18, 1777. 



INTRODUCTION. 
This was Lord Chatham's greatest effort. Though sinking under the weight of years and disease, he 
seems animated by all the fire of youth. It would, indeed, be diflBcult to find in the whole range of par- 
liamentary history a more splendid blaze of genius, at once rapid, vigorous, and sublime. 

SPEECH, &c/ 



I RISE, my Lords, to declare my sentiments on 
this most solemn and serious subject. It has 
imposed a load upon my mind, which, I fear, 
nothing can remove, but which impels me to en- 
deavor its alleviation, by a free and unreserved 
communication of my sentiments. 

In the first part of the address, I have the 
honor of heartily concurring with the noble Earl 
who moved it. No man feels sincerer joy than 
I do ; none can oflTer more genuine congratula- 
tions on every accession of strength to the Prot- 
estant succession. I therefore join in every con- 
gratulation on the birth of another princess, and 
the happy recovery of her Majesty. 

But I must stop here. My courtly complai- 
sance will carry me no farther. I will not join 
in congratulation on misfortune and disgrace. 
I can not concur in a blind and servile address, 
which approves, and endeavors to sanctify the 
monstrous measures which have heaped disgrace 
and misfortune upon us. This, my Lords, is a 
perilous and tremendous moment! It is not a 
time for adulation. The smoothness of flattery 
can not now avail — can not save us in this rug- 
ged and awful crisis. It is now necessary to in- 
struct the Throne in the language of truth. We 
must dispel the illusion and the darkness which 

1 This was reported by Hugh Boyd, and is said 
to have been corrected by Lord Chatham himself. 



envelop it, and display, in its full danger and true 
colors, the ruin that is brought to our doors. 

This, my Lords, is our duty. It is the proper 
function of this noble assembly, sitting, as we do, 
upon our honors in this House, the hereditary 
council of the Crown. Who is the minister — 
where is the minister, that has dared to suggest 
to the Throne the contrary, unconstitutional lan- 
guage this day delivered from it ? The accus- 
tomed language from the Throne has been ap- 
plication to Parliament for advice, and a reliance 
on its constitutional advice and assistance. As 
it is the right of Parliament to give, so it is the 
duty of the Crown to ask it. But on this day, 
and in this extreme momentous exigency, no re- 
liance is reposed on our constitutional counsels ! 
no advice is asked from the sober and enlighten- 
ed care of Parliament ! but the Crown, from it- 
I self and by itself, declares an unalterable de- 
termination to pursue measures — and what 
measures, my Lords ? The measures that have 
produced the imminent perils that threaten us ; 
j the measures that have brought ruin to our doors. 
j Can the minister of the day now presume to 
j expect a continuance of support in this ruinous 
I infatuation ? Can Parliament be so dead to its 
' dignity and its duty as to be thus deluded into 
I the loss of the one and the violation of the other? 
! To give an unlimited credit and support for the 
I steady perseverance in measures not proposed 



1777.] 



ADDRESS TO THE THRONE. 



135 



for our parliamentary advice, but dictated and 
forced upon us — in measures, I say, my Lords, 
which have reduced this late flourishing empire 
to ruin and contempt ! " But yesterday, and 
England might have stood against the world : 
now none so poor to do her reverence."^ I use 
the words of a poet ; but, though it be poetry, it 
is no fiction. It is a shameful truth, that not 
only the power and strength of this country are 
wasting away and expiring, but her well-earned 
glories, her true honor, and substantial dignity 
are sacrificed. 

France, my Lords, has insulted you ; she has 
encouraged and sustained America ; and, wheth- 
er America be wrong or right, the dignity of this 
country ought to spurn at the officious insult of 
French interference. The ministers and embas- 
sadors of those who are called rebels and enemies 
are in Paris ; in Paris they transact the recip- 
rocal interests of America and France. Can 
there be a more mortifying insult ? Can even 
our ministers sustain a more humiliating dis- 
grace ? Do they dare to resent it ? Do they 
presume even to hint a vindication of their hon- 
or, and the dignity of the state, by requiring the 
dismission of the plenipotentiaries of America? 
Such is the degradation to which they have re- 
duced the glories of England ! The people 
whom they affect to call contemptible rebels, 
but whose growing power has at last obtained 
the name of enemies ; the people with whom 
they have engaged this country in war, and 
against whom they now command our implicit 
support in every measure of desperate hostility — 
this people, despised as rebels, or acknow^ledged 
as enemies, are abetted against you, supplied 
with every military store, their interests consult- 
ed, and their embassadors entertained, by your 
inveterate enemy ! and our ministers dare not 
interpose with dignity or effect. Is this the 
honor of a great kingdom ? Is this the indig- 
nant spirit of England, who "but yesterday" 
gave law to the house of Bourbon ? My Lords, 
the dignity of nations demands a decisive con- 
duct in a situation like this. Even when the 
greatest prince that perhaps this country ever 
saw, filled our throne, the requisition of a Span- 
ish general, on a similar subject, was attended to, 
and complied with ; for, on the spirited remon- 
strance of the Duke of Alva, Elizabeth found 
herself obliged to deny the Flemish exiles all 
countenance, support, or even entrance into her 
dominions ; and the Count Le Marque, with his 
few desperate followers, were expelled the king- 
dom. Happening to arrive at the Brille, and 
finding it weak in defense, they made themselves 
masters of the place ; and this was the founda- 
tion of the United Provinces. 

My Lords, this ruinous and ignominious situ- 
ation, where we can not act with success, nor 
suffer with honor, calls upon us to remonstrate 
in the strongest and loudest language of truth. 



2 " But yesterday the word of Cesar might 

Have stood against the world ; now lies he there, 
And none so poor to do him reverence." 

Julius Cesar, Act III., Sc. 6. 



to rescue the ear of majesty from the delusions 
which surround it. The desperate state of our 
arms abroad is in part known. No man thinks 
more highly of them than I do. I love and honor 
the English troops. I know their virtues and 
their valor. I know they can achieve any thing 
except impossibilities ; and I know that the con- 
quest of English America is an impossibility . 
You can not, I venture to say it, you can not con- 
quer America. Your armies last war effected 
every thing that could be effected ; and what 
was it ? It cost a numerous army, under the 
command of a most able general [Lord Amherst], 
now a noble Lord in this House, a long and la- 
borious campaign, to expel five thousand French- 
men from French America. My Lords, you can 
not conquer America. What is your present 
situation there ? We do not know the worst ; 
but we know that in three campaigns we have 
done nothing and suffered much. Besides the 
sufferings, perhaps total loss of the Northern 
force,^ the best appointed army that ever took 
the field, commanded by Sir William Howe, has 
retired from the American lines. He was obliged 
to relinquish his attempt, and with great delay 
and danger to adopt a new and distant plan of 
operations. We shall soon know, and in any 
event have reason to lament, what may have 
happened since. As to conquest, therefore, my 
Lords, I repeat, it is impossible. You may swell 
every expense and every efl"ort still more ex- 
travagantly; pile and accumulate every assist- 
ance you can buy or borrow ; traffic and barter 
with every little pitiful German prince that sells 
and sends his subjects to the shambles of a for- 
eign prince ; your efforts are forever vain and 
impotent — doubly so from this mercenary aid on 
which you rely ; for it irritates, to an incura- 
ble resentment, the minds of your enemies, to 
overrun them with the mercenary sons of rapine 
and plunder, devoting them and their possessions 
to the rapacity of hireling cruelty ! If I were 
an American, as I am an Englishman, while a 
foreign troop was landed in my country, I never 
would lay down my arms — never — never — never. 

Your own army is infected with the contagion 
of these illiberal allies. The spirit of plunder 
and of rapine is gone forth among them. I 
know it ; and, notwithstanding w^hat the noble 
Earl [Lord Percy] who moved the address has 
given as his opinion of the American army, I 
know from authentic information, and the most 
experienced officers, that our discipline is deeply 
wounded. While this is notoriously our sinking 
situation, America grows and flourishes ; while 
our strength and discipline are lowered, hers are 
rising and improving. 

But, my Lords, who is the man that, in addi- 
tion to these disgraces and mischiefs of our army, 
has dared to authorize and associate to our arms 
the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savage ? 
to call into civilized alliance the wild and inha- 
man savage of the woods ; to delegate to the 
merciless Indian the defense of disputed rights, 
and to wage the horrors of his barbarous war 
3 General Burgoyne's army. 



136 



LORD CHATHAM ON AN 



[1777. 



against our brethren ? My Lords, these enor- 
mities cry aloud for redress and punishment. 
Unless thoroughly done away, it will be a stain 
on the national character. It is a violation of 
the Constitution. I believe it is against law. 
It is not the least of our national misfortunes 
that the strength and character of our army are 
thus impaired. Infected with the mercenary 
spirit of robbery and rapine ; familiarized to the 
horrid scenes of savage cruelty, it can no longer 
boast of the noble and generous principles w^hich 
dignify a soldier ; no longer sympathize with the 
dignity of the royal banner, nor feel the pride, 
pomp, and circumstance of glorious war, " that 
make ambition virtue !" What makes ambition 
virtue ? — the sense of honor. But is the sense 
of honor consistent with a spirit of plunder, or 
the practice of murder ? Can it flow from mer- 
cenary motives, or can it prompt to cruel deeds ? 
Besides these murderers and plunderers, let me 
ask our ministers, What other allies have they 
acquired ? What other powers have they asso- 
ciated to their cause ? Have they entered into 
alliance with the king of the gipsies ? Nothing, 
my Lords, is too low or too ludicrous to be con- 
sistent with their counsels. 

The independent views of America have been 
stated and asserted as the foundation of this ad- 
dress. My Lords, no man wishes for the due 
dependence of America on this country more 
than I do. To preserve it, and not confirm that 
state of independence into which your measures 
hitherto have driven them^ is the object which 
we ought to unite in attaining. The Americans, 
contending for their rights against arbitrary ex- 
actions, I love and admire. It is the struggle of 
free and virtuous patriots. But, contending for 
independency and total disconnection from En- 
gland, as an Englishman, I can not wish them 
success ; for in a due constitutional depend- 
ency, including the ancient supremacy of this 
country in regulating their commerce and navi- 
gation, consists the mutual happiness and pros- 
perity both of England and America. She de- 
rived assistance and protection from us ; and we 
reaped from her the most important advantages. 
She was, indeed, the fountain of our wealth, the 
nerve of our strength, the nursery and basis of 
our naval power. It is our duty, therefore, my 
Lords, if we wish to save our country, most se- 
riously to endeavor the recovery of these most 
beneficial subjects ; and in this perilous crisis, 
perhaps the present moment may be the only 
one in which we can hope for success. For in 
their negotiations with France, they have, or 
think they have, reason to complain; though it 
be notorious that they have received from that 
power important supplies and assistance of va- 
rious kinds, yet it is certain they expected it in 
a more decisive and immediate degree. Amer- 
ica is in ill humor with France ; on some points 
they have not entirely answered her expecta- 
tions. Let us wisely take advantage of every 
possible moment of reconciliation. Besides, the 
natural disposition of America herself still leans 
toward England ; to the old habits of connection 



and mutual interest that united both countries. 
This ivas the established sentiment of all the 
Continent ; and still, my Lords, in the great and 
piincipal part, the sound part of America, this 
wise and affectionate disposition prevails. And 
there is a very considerable part of America yet 
sound — the middle aud the southern provinces. 
Some parts may be factious and blind to their 
true interests ; but if we express a wise and 
benevolent disposition to commuuicate with them 
those immutable rights of nature and those con- 
stitutional liberties to which they are equally 
entitled with ourselves, by a conduct so just and 
humane we shall confirm the favorable and con- 
ciliate the adverse. I say, my Lords, the rights 
and liberties to which they are equally entitled 
with ourselves, but no more. I would partici- 
pate to them every enjoyment and freedom which 
the colonizing subjects of a free state can pos- 
sess, or wish to possess ; and I do not see why 
they should not enjoy every fundamental right 
in their property, and every original substantial 
liberty, which Devonshire, or Surrey, or the coun- 
ty I live in, or any other county in England, can 
claim ; reserving always, as the sacred right of 
the mother country', the due constitutional de- 
pendency of the colonies. The inherent suprem- 
acy of the state in regulating and protecting the 
navigation and commerce of all her subjects, is 
necessary for the mutual benefit and preserva- 
tion of every part, to constitute and preserve the 
prosperous arrangement of the whole empire. 

The sound parts of America, of w'hich I have 
spoken, must be sensible of these great truths 
and of their real interests. America is not in 
that state of desperate and contemptible rebell- 
ion which this country has been deluded to be- 
lieve. It is not a wild and lawless banditti, who, 
having nothing to lose, might hope to snatch 
something from public convulsions. Many of 
their leaders and great men have a great stake 
in this great contest. The gentleman who con- 
ducts their armies, I am told, has an estate of 
four or five thousand pounds a year ; and when 
I consider these things, I can not but lament the 
inconsiderate violence of our penal acts, our dec- 
larations of treason and rebellion, with all the 
fatal effects of attainder and confiscation. 

As to the disposition of foreign powers which 
is asserted [in the King's speech] to be pacific 
and friendly, let us judge, my Lords, rather by 
their actions and the nature of things than by 
interested assertions. The uniform assistance 
supplied to America by France, suggests a dif- 
ferent conclusion. The most important interests 
of France in aggrandizing and enriching herself 
with what she most wants, supplies of every 
naval store from America, must inspire her with 
different sentiments. The extraordinary prep- 
arations of the house of Boui-bon, by land and by 
sea, from Dunkirk to the Straits, equally ready 
and willing to overwhelm these defenseless isl- 
ands, should rouse us to a sense of their real dis- 
position and our own danger. Not five thou- 
sand troops in England ! hardly three thousand 
in Ireland ! What can we oppose to the com- 



^ ^„....^k 



1777.] 



ADDRESS TO THE THRONE. 



137 



bined force of our enemies ? Scarcely twenty 
ships of the line so fully or sufficiently manned, 
that any admiral's reputation would permit him 
to take the command of. The river of Lisbon in 
the possession of our enemies ! The seas swept 
by American privateers ! Our Channel trade torn 
to pieces by them ! In this complicated crisis 
of danger, weakness at home, and calamity 
abroad, terrified and insulted by the neijrhboring 
powers, unable to act in America, or acting only 
to be destroyed, where is the man with the fore- 
head to promise or hope for success in such a 
situation, or from perseverance in the measures 
that have driven us to it ? Who has the fore- 
head to do so ? Where is that man ? I should 
be glad to see his face. 

You can not conciliate America by your pres- 
ent measures. You can not subdue her by your 
present or by any measures. What, then, can 
you do ? You can not conquer ; you can not 
gain ; but you can address ; you can lull the 
fears and anxieties of the moment into an igno- 
rance of the danger that should produce them. 
But, my Lords, the time demands the language 
of truth. We must not now apply the flattering 
unction of servile compliance or blind complais- 
ance. In a just and necessary war, to maintain 
the rights or honor of my country, I would strip 
the shirt from my back to support it. But in 
such a war as this, unjust in its principle, im- 
practicable in its means, and ruinous in its con- 
sequences, I would not contribute a single effort 
nor a single shilling. I do not call for venge- 
ance on the heads of those who have been guilty ; 
I only recommend to them to make their retreat. 
Let them walk off; and let them make haste, or 
they may be assured that speedy and condign 
punishment w^ill overtake them. 

My Lords, I have submitted to you, with the 
freedom and truth which 1 think my duty, my 
sentiments on your present awful situation. I 
have laid before you the ruin of }-our power, the 
disgrace of your reputation, the pollution of your 
discipline, the contamination of your morals, the 
complication of calamities, foreign and domestic, 
that overwhelm your sinking country. Your 
dearest interests, your own liberties, the Consti- 
tution itself, totters to the foundation. All this 
disgraceful danger, this multitude of misery, is 
the monstrous offspring of this unnatural war. 
We have been deceived and deluded too long. 
Let us now stop short. This is the crisis — the 
only crisis* of time and situation, to give us a 
possibility of escape from the fatal effects of our 
delusions. But if, in an obstinate and infatuated 
perseverance in folly, w-e slavishly echo the per- 
emptory words this day presented to us, nothing 
can save this devoted country from complete and 



* It can not have escaped observation, says Chap- 
man, with what urgent anxiety the noble speaker 
has pressed this point throughout his speech ; the 
critical necessity of instantly treating with America. 
But the warning voice was heard in vain ; the ad- 
dress triumphed ; Parliament adjourned ; ministers 
enjoyed the festive recess of a long Christmas ; and 
America ratified her alliance with France. 



final ruin. We madly rush into multiplied mis- 
eries, and "confusion worse confounded." 

Is it possible, can it be believed, that minis- 
ters are yet blind to this impending destruction ? 
I did hope, that instead of this false and empty 
vanity, this overweening pride, engendering hio-h 
conceits and presumptuous imaginations, minis- 
ters w^ould have humbled themselves in their 
errors, would have confessed and retracted them, 
and by an active, though a late repentance, have 
endeavored to redeem them. But, my Lords, 
since they had neither sagacity to foresee, nor 
justice nor humanity to shun these oppressive 
calamities — since not even severe experience 
can make them feel, nor the imminent ruin of 
their country awaken them from their stupefac- 
tion, the guardian care of Parliament must inter- 
pose. I shall therefore, my Lords, propose to 
you an amendment of the address to his Majesty, 
to be inserted immediately afier the two first 
paragraphs of congratulation on the birth of a 
princess, to recommend an immediate cessation 
of hostilities, and the commencement of a treaty 
to restore peace and liberty to America, strength 
and happiness to England, security and perma- 
nent prosperity to both countries. This, ray 
Lords, is yet in our power ; and let not the wis- 
dom and justice of your Lordships neglect the 
happy, and, perhaps the only opportunity. By 
the establishment of irrevocable law, founded on 
mutual rights, and ascertained by treaty, these 
glorious enjoyments may be firmly perpetuated. 
And let me repeat to your Lordships, that the 
strong bias of America, at least of the wise and 
sounder parts of it, naturally inclines to this hap- 
py and constitutional reconnection with you. 
Notwithstanding the temporary intrigues with 
France, we may still be assured of their ancient 
and confirmed partiality to us. America and 
France can not be congenial. There is some- 
thing decisive and confirmed in the honest Amer- 
ican, that will not assimilate to the futility and 
levity of Frenchmen. 

My Lords, to encourage and confirm that in- 
nate inclination to this country, founded on every 
principle of aflfection, as well as consideration of 
interest ; to restore that favorable disposition 
into a permanent and pow^erful reunion with this 
country ; to revive the mutual strength of the 
empire ; again to awe the house of Bourbon, in- 
stead of meanly truckling, as our present calam- 
ities compel us, to every insult of French caprice 
and Spanish punctilio ; to re-establish our com- 
merce ; to reassert our rights and our honor ; to 
confirm our interests, and renew our glories for- 
ever — a consummation most devoutly to be en- 
deavored ! and which, I trust, may yet arise from 
reconciliation with America — I have the honor 
of submitting to you the following amendment, 
which I move to be inserted after the two first 
paragraphs of the address : 

"And that this House does most humbly ad- 
vise and supplicate his Majesty to be pleased to 
cause the most speedy and effectual measures to 
be taken for restoring peace in America ; and 
that no time may be lost in proposing an imme- 



138 



LORD CHATHAM ON AN ADDRESS TO THE THRONE. 



[1777. 



diate cessation of hostilities there, in order to the 
opening of a treaty for the final settlement of 
the tranquillity of these invaluable provinces, by 
a removal of the unhappy causes of this ruinous 
civil war, and by a just and adequate security 
against the return of the like calamities in times 
to come. And this House desire to offer the 
most dutiful assurances to his Majesty, that they 
will, in due time, cheerfully co-operate with the 
magnanimity and tender goodness of his Majes- 
ty for the preservation of his people, by such 
explicit and most solemn declai-ations, and pro- 
visions of fundamental and irrevocable laws, as 
may be judged necessary for the ascertaining 
and fixing forever the respective rights of Great 
Britain and her colonies." 

[In the course of this debate. Lord Suffolk, 
secretary for the northern department, undei'- 
took to defend the employment of the Indians in 
the war. His Lordship contended that, besides 
its policy and necessity, the measure was also al- 
lowable on principle ; for that " it was perfectly 
justifiable to use all the means that God and na- 
ture put into our hands /"] 

I am astonished ! (exclaimed Lord Chatham, 
as he rose), shocked ! to hear such principles 
confessed — to hear them avowed in this House, 
or in this country ; principles equally unconsti- 
tutional, inhuman, and unchristian ! 

My Lords, I did not intend to have encroach- 
ed again upon your attention, but I can not re- 
press my indignation. I feel myself impelled by 
every duty. jNIy Lords, we are called upon as 
members of this House, as men, as Christian 
men, to protest against such notions standing 
near the Throne, polluting the ear of Majesty. 
" That God and nature put into our hands !" I 
know not what ideas that Lord may entertain of 
God and nature, but I know that such abom- 
inable principles are equally abhorrent to relig- 
ion and humanity. What ! to attribute the sa- 
cred sanction of God and nature to the massa- 
cres of the Indian scalping-knife — to the canni- 
bal savage torturing, murdering, roasting, and 
eating — literally, my Lords, eating the mangled 
victims of his barbarous battles ! Such horrible 
notions shock every precept of religion, divine or 
natural, and every generous feeling of humanity. 
And, my Lords, they shock every sentiment of 
honor ; they shock me as a lover of honorable 
war, and a detester of murderous barbarity. 

These abominable principles, and this more 
abominable avowal of them, demand the most 
decisive indignation. I call upon that right rev- 
erend bench, those holy ministers of the Gospel, 
and pious pastors of our Church — I conjure them 
to join in the holy work, and vindicate the relig- 
ion of their God. I appeal to the wisdom and 
the law of this learned bench, to defend and sup- 
port the justice of their country. I call upon 
the Bishops, to interpose the unsullied sanctity 



of their lawn ; upon the learned Judges, to in- 
terpose the purity of their ermine, to save us 
fi-om this pollution. I call upon the honor of 
your Lordships, to reverence the dignity of your 
ancestoi's, and to maintain your own. I call 
upon the spirit and humanity of my country, to 
vindicate the national character. I invoke the 
genius of the Constitution. From the tapestry 
that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor 
of this noble Lord frowns wath indignation at the 
disgrace of his country.^ In vain he led your 
victorious fleets against the boasted Armada of 
Spain ; in vain he defended and established the 
honoi-, the liberties, the religion — the Protestant 
religion — of this country, against the arbitrary 
cruelties of popery and the Inquisition, if these 
more than popish cruelties and inquisitorial prac- 
tices are let loose among us — to turn forth into 
our settlements, among our ancient connections, 
friends, and relations, the merciless cannibal, 
thirsting for the blood of man, woman, and child ! 
to send forth the infidel savage — against whom ? 
against your Protestant brethren ; to lay w'aste 
their country, to desolate their dwellings, and 
extirpate their race and name with these horri- 
ble hell-hounds of savage war — hell-hounds^ I 
say, of savage war! Spain armed herself with 
blood-hounds to extirpate the wretched natives 
of America, and we improve on the inhuman ex- 
ample even of Spanish cruelty ; we tm-n loose 
these savage hell-hounds against our brethren 
and countrymen in America, of the same lan- 
guage, laws, liberties, and religion, endeared to 
us by every tie that should sanctify humanity. 

My Lords, this awful subject, so important to 
our honor, our Constitution, and our religion, 
demands the most solemn and effectual inquiry. 
And I again call upon your Lordships, and the 
united powers of the state, to examine it thor- 
oughly and decisively, and to stamp upon it an 
indelible stigma of the public abhorrence. And 
I again implore those holy prelates of our relig- 
ion to do away these iniquities from among us. 
Let them perform a lustration ; let them purify 
this House, and this country, from this sin. 

My Lords, I am old and weak, and at present 
unable to say more ; but my feelings and indig- 
nation were too strong- to have said less. I 
could not have slept this night in my bed, nor 
reposed my head on my pillow, without giving 
this vent to my eternal abhorrence of such pre- 
posterous and enormous principles. 



This speech had no effect. The amendment 
was rejected by a vote of 97 to 24. 



5 The tapestry of the House of Lords represented 
the English fleet led by the ship of the lord admi- 
ral, Effingham Howard (ancestor of Suffolk), to en- 
gage the Spanish Armada. 



1777.] 



LORD CHATHAM AGAINST ADJOURNING PARLIAMENT. 



139 



SPEECH 



OF LORD CHATHAM AGAINST A MOTION FOR ADJOURNING PARLIAMENT, DELIVERED IN THE 
HOUSE OF LORDS, DECEMBER 11, 1777. 

INTRODUCTION. 

One of the ministiy having moved that the ParUament do adjoam for the space of six weeks, Lord 
Chatham opposed the motion in the following speech, in which he dwelt on the dangerous condition of the 
couutiy, as demanding the immediate attention of Parliament. 

SPEECH, &c. 



It is not with less grief than astonishment I 
hear the motion now made by the noble Earl, at 
a time when the affairs of this country present 
on every side prospects full of awe, terror, and 
impending danger ; when, I will be bold to say, 
events of a most alarming tendency, little ex- 
pected or foreseen, will shortly happen ; when 
a cloud that may crush this nation, and bury it 
in destruction forever, is ready to burst and over- 
whelm us in ruin. At so tremendous a season, 
it does not become your Lordships, the great 
hereditary council of the nation, to neglect your 
duty, to retire to your country seats for six 
weeks, in quest of joy and merriment, while the 
real state of public affairs calls for grief, mourn- 
ing, and lamentation — at least, for the fullest ex- 
ertions of your wisdom. It is your duty, my 
Lords, as the grand hereditary council of the na- 
tion, to advise your sovereign, to be the protect- 
ors of your country, to feel your own weight and 
authority. As hei'editary counselors, as mem- 
bers of this House, you stand between the Crown 
and the people. You are nearer the Throne 
than the other branch of the Legislature ; it is 
your duty to surround and protect, to counsel 
and supplicate it. You hold the balance. Your 
duty is to see that the weights are properly 
poised, that the balance remains even, that nei- 
ther may encroach on the other, and that the 
executive power may be prevented, by an un- 
constitutional exertion of even constitutional au- 
thority, from bringing the nation to destruction. 

My Lords, I fear we are arrived at the very 
brink of that state, and I am persuaded that 
nothing short of a spirited interposition on your 
part, in giving speedy and wholesome advice to 
your sovereign, can prevent the people from feel- 
ing beyond remedy the full effects of that ruin 
which ministers have brought upon us. These 
calamitous circumstances ministers have been 
the cause of; and shall we, in such a state of 
things, when every moment teems wuth events 
productive of the most fatal narratives, shall we 
trust, during an adjournment of six weeks, to 
those men who have brought those calamities 
upon us, when, perhaps, our utter overthrow is 
plotting, nay, ripe for execution, without almost 
a possibility of prevention ? Ten thousand brave 
men have fallen victims to ignorance and rash- 
ness.^ The only army you have in America 



1 This refers to the surrender of Burgoyne's army, 
which took place October 17th, 1777. 



may, by this time, be no more. This very nation 
remains no longer safe than its enemies think 
proper to permit. I do not augur ill. Events 
of a most critical nature may take place before 
our next meeting. Will your Lordships, then, 
in such a state of things, trust to the guidance 
of men who in every step of this cruel, wicked 
war, from the very beginning, have proved them- 
selves weak, ignorant, and mistaken ? I will not 
say, my Lords, nor do I mean any thing person- 
al, or that they have brought premeditated ruin 
on this country. I will not suppose that they 
foresaw wiiat has since happened, but I do con- 
tend, my Lords, that their want of wisdom, their 
incapacity, their temerity in depending on their 
own judgment, or their base compliances with 
the orders and dictates of others, perhaps caused 
by the influence of one or two individuals, have 
rendered them totally unworthy of your Lord- 
ships' confidence, of the confidence of Parlia- 
ment, and those whose rights they are the con- 
stitutional guardians of, the people at large. A 
remonstrance, my Lords, should be carried to the 
Throne. The King has been deluded by his min- 
isters. They have been imposed on by false in- 
formation, or have, from motives best known to 
themselves, given apparent credit to what they 
have been convinced in their hearts was untrue. 
The nation has been betrayed into the ruinous 
measure of an American war by the arts of im- 
position, by their own credulity, through the 
means of false hopes, false pride, and promised 
advantages, of the most romantic and improba- 
ble nature. 

My Lords, I do not wish to call your attention 
entirely to that point. I would fairly appeal to 
your own sentiments whether I can be justly 
charged with arrogance or presumption if I say, 
great and able as ministers think themselves, that 
all the wisdom of the nation is not confined to the 
narrow circle of their petty cabinet. I might, I 
think, without presumption, say, that your Lord- 
ships, as one of the branches of the Legislature, 
may be supposed as capable of advising your sov- 
ereign, in the moment of difficulty and danger, 
as any lesser council, composed of a fewer num- 
ber, and who, being already so fatally tmsted, 
have betrayed a want of honesty or a want of 
talents. Is it, my Lords, within the utmost 
stretch of the most sanguine expectation, that the 
same men who have plunged you into your pres- 
ent perilous and calamitous situation are the prop- 



140 



LORD CHATHAM AGAINST ADJOURNING PARLIAMENT. 



[1777. 



er persons to rescue you from it ? No, my Lords, 
such an expectation would be preposterous and 
absurd. I say, my Lords, you are now specially 
called upon to interpose. It is your duty to fore- 
go every call of business and pleasure, to give up 
your whole time to inquire into past misconduct ; 
to provide remedies for the present ; to prevent 
future evils ; to rest on your arms, if I may use 
the expression, to watch for the public safety ; 
to defend and support the Throne, and, if Fate 
should so ordain it, to fall with becoming forti- 
tude, with the rest of your fellow-subjects, in the 
general ruin. I fear this last must be the event 
of this mad, unjust, and cruel war. It is your 
Lordships' duty to do every thing in your power 
that it shall not ; but, if it must be so, I trust your 
Lordships and the nation will fall gloriously. 

My Lords, as the first and most immediate 
object of your inquiry, I would recommend to you 
to consider the true state of our home defense. 
We have heard much from a noble Lord in this 
House of the state of our navy. I can not give 
an implicit belief to all I have heard on that im- 
portant subject. I still retain my former opinion 
relative to the number of line of battle ships ; but 
as an inquiry into the real state of the navy is 
destined to be the subject of future considera- 
tion, I do not wish to hear any more about it till 
that period arrives. I allow, in argument, that 
we have thirty-five ships of the line fit for actual 
service. I doubt much whether such a force 
would give us full command of the Channel. I 
am certain, if it did, every other part of our pos- 
sessions must lie naked and defenseless, in every 
quarter of the globe. 

1 fear our utter destruction is at hand.^ What, 
my Lords, is the state of our military defense ? 
I would not wish to expose our present weak- 
ness ; but, weak as we are, if this war should be 
continued, as the public declaration of persons 
in high confidence with their sovereign would 
induce us to suppose, is this nation to be entirely 
stripped ? And if it should, would every soldier 
now in Britain be sufficient to give us an equal- 
ity to the force of America? I will maintain 
they would not. Where, then, will men be pro- 
cured ? Recruits are not to be had in this 
country. Germany will give no more. I have 
read in the newspapers of this day, and I have 
reason to believe it true, that the head of the 
Germanic body has remonstrated against it, and 
has taken measures accordingly to prevent it. 
Ministers have, I hear, applied to the Swiss Can- 
tons. The idea is preposterous. The Swiss 
never permit their troops to go beyond sea. 
But, my Lords, even if men were to be procured 
in Germany, how will you march them to the 
water side ? Have not our ministers applied 
for the port of Embden, and has it not been re- 
fused ? I say, you will not be able to procure 
men even for your home defense, if some imme- 
diate steps be not taken. I remember, during 

2 Here, and in many other parts of his speech, his 
Lordship broadly hinted that the house of Bourbon 
was meditating some important and decisive blow 
near home. 



the last war, it was thought advisable to levy in- 
dependent companies. They were, when com- 
pleted, formed into two battalions, and proved 
of great service. I love the army. I know its 
use. But I must nevertheless own that I was a 
great friend to the measure of establishing a na- 
tional militia. I remember, the last war, that 
there were three camps formed of that corps at 
once in this kingdom. I saw them myself — one 
at Winchester, another in the west, at Plymouth, 
and a third, if I recollect right, at Chatham. 
Whether the militia is at present in such a state 
as to answer the valuable purposes it did then, 
or is capable of being rendered so, I will not 
pretend to say ; but I see no reason why, in such 
a critical state of affairs, the experiment should 
not be made, and why it may not be put again 
on the former respectable footing.^ I remem- 
ber, all circumstances considered, when appear- 
ances were not near so melancholy and alarm- 
ing as they are, that there were more troops in 
the county of Kent alone, for the defense of the 
kingdom, than there are now in the whole island. 
My Lords, I contend that we have not, nor 
can procure any force sufficient to subdue Amer- 
ica. It is monstrous to think of it. There are 
several noble Lords present, well acquainted 
with military affairs. I call upon any one of 
them to rise and pledge himself that the milita- 
ry force now within the kingdom is adequate to 
its defense, or that any possible force to be pro- 
cured from Germany, Switzerland, or elsewhere, 
will be equal to the conquest of America. I am 
too perfectly persuaded of their abilities and in- 
tegrity to expect any such assistance from them. 
Oh ! but if America is not to be conquered, she 
may be treated with. Conciliation is at length 
thought of. Terms are to be offered. Who are 
the persons that are to treat on the part of this 
afflicted and deluded country ? The very men 
who have been the authors of our misfortunes. 
The very men who have endeavored, by the most 
pernicious policy, the highest injustice and op- 
pression, the most cruel and devastating war, to 
enslave those people they would conciliate, to 
gain the confidence and affection of those who 
have survived the Indian tomahawk and German 
bayonet. Can your Lordships entertain the 
most distant prospect of success from such a 
treaty and such negotiations ? No, my Lords, 
the Americans have virtue, and they must detest 
the principles of such men. They have under- 
standing, and too much wisdom to trust to the 
cunning and narrow politics which must cause 
such overtures on the part of their merciless per- 
secutors. My Lords, I maintain that they would 
shun, with a mixture of prudence and detesta- 
tion, any proposition coming from that quarter. 
They would receive terms from such men as 
snares to allure and betray. They would dread 
them as ropes meant to be put about their legs, 
in order to entangle and overthrow them in cer- 
tain ruin. My Lords, supposing that our do- 
mestic danger, if at all, is far distant ; that our 
enemies will leave us at liberty to prosecute this 
3 This was afterward done. 



1778.] 



LORD CHATHAM'S LAST SPEECH ON AMERICA. 



141 



war to the utmost of our ability ; suppose your 
Lordships should grant a fleet one day, an army 
another ; all these, I do affirm, will avail nothing, 
unless you accompany it with advice. Minis- 
ters have been in error ; experience has proved 
it ; and, what is worse, they continue it. They 
told you, in the beginning, that 1 5,000 men would 
traverse all America, without scarcely an ap- 
pearance of interruption. Two campaigns have 
passed since they gave us this assurance. Tre- 
ble tnat number have been employed ; and one 
of your armies, which composed two thirds of 
the force by which America was to be subdued, 
has been totally destroyed, and is now led cap- 
tive through those provinces you call rebellious. 
Those men whom you called cowards, poltroons, 
runaways, and knaves, are become victorious 
over your veteran troops ; and, in the midst of 
victory, and the flush of conquest, have set min- 
isters an example of moderation and magnanim- 
ity well worthy of imitation. 

My Lords, no time should be lost which may 
promise to improve this disposition in America, 
unless, by an obstinacy founded in madness, we 
wish to stifle those embers of affection which, 
after all our savage treatment, do not seem, as 
yet, to have been entirely extinguished. While 
on one side we must lament the unhappy fate of 
that spirited oflScer, Mr. Burgoyne, and the gal- 
lant troops under his command, who were sacri- 
ficed to the wanton temerity and ignorance of 
ministers, we are as strongly compelled, on the 
other, to admire and applaud the generous, mag- 
nanimous conduct, the noble friendship, brotherly 
affection, and humanity of the victors, who, con- 
descending to impute the horrid orders of mas- 



sacre and devastation to their true authors, sup- 
posed that, as soldiers and Englishmen, those 
cruel excesses could not have originated with 
the general, nor were consonant to the brave 
and humane spirit of a British soldier, if not com- 
pelled to it as an act of duty. They traced the 
first cause of those diabolic orders to their true 
source ; and, by that wise and generous interpret- 
ation, granted their professed destroyers terms 
of capitulation which they could be only entitled 
to as the makers of fair and honorable war. 

My Lords, I should not have presumed to 
trouble you, if the tremendous state of this nation 
did not, in my opinion, make it necessary. Such 
as I have this day described it to be, I do main- 
tain it is. The same measures are still persist- 
ed in ; and ministers, because your Lordships 
have been deluded, deceived, and misled, pre- 
sume that, whenever the worst comes, they will 
be enabled to shelter themselves behind Parlia- 
ment. This, my Lords, can not be the case. 
They have committed themselves and their 
measures to the fate of war, and they must abide 
the issue. I tremble for this country. I am al- 
most led to despair that we shall ever be able to 
extricate ourselves. At any rate, the day of ret- 
ribution is at hand, when the vengeance of a 
much-injured and afflicted people will, I trust, 
fall heavily on the authors of their ruin ; and I 
am strongly inclined to believe, that before the 
day to which the proposed adjournment shall ar- 
rive, the noble earl who moved it will have just 
cause to repent of his motion. 



This appeal was unavailing. The motion to 
adjourn was carried by a vote of 47 to 18. 



LAST SPEECH 



OF LORD CHATHAM, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, APRIL 7, 1778. 



INTRODUCTION. 

After the delivery of the preceding speech, Lord Chatham continued to decline in health, and would 
probably never have appeared again in the House of Lords, had not a measure been proposed, against 
which he felt bound to enter a public remonstrance, even at the hazard of his life. Ignorant of tlic real 
state of feeling in America, he thought the colonies might be still brought back to their former allegiance 
and affection, if their wrongs were redressed. He learned, therefore, "with unspeakable concern," that 
his friend the Duke of Richmond was about to move an address to the King, advising his Majestj^ to 
make a peace involvmg American independence, which Lord Chatham thought would be the ruin of his 
country. On the 7th of April, 1778, therefore, the day appointed for the Duke of Richmond's motion, ho 
came to Westminster, and refreshed himself for a time in the room of the Lord Chancellor, until he learn- 
ed that business was about to commence. " He was then led into the House of Peers," says his biogra- 
pher, " by his son, the Honorable WilUam Pitt, and his son-in-law. Lord Mahon. He was dressed in a rich 
suit of black velvet, and covered up to the knees in flannel. Within his large wig, little more of his coun- 
tenance was seen than his aquiline nose, and his penetrating eye, which retained all its native fire. Ho 
looked like a dying man, yet never was seen a figure of more dignity. He appeared like a being of a 
superior species. The Lords stood up and made a lane for him to pass to his seat, while, with a grace- 
fulness of deportment for which he was so eminently distinguished, he bowed to them as he proceeded. 
Having taken his seat, he listened with profound attention to the Duke of Richmond's speech." 

After Lord Weymouth had replied in behalf of the ministry, Lord Chatham rose with slowness and dif- 
ficulty from his seat, and delivered the following speech. It is very imperfectly reported, and is interest- 
ing chiefly as showing " the master spirit strong in death ;" for he sunk under the effort, and survived only 
a few days. Supported by his two relations, he Hfted his hand from the crutch on which he leaned, raised 
it up, and, casting his eyes toward heaven, commenced as follows : 



143 



LORD CHATHAM'S LAST SPEECH ON AMERICA. 



[1778. 



SPEECH, &c. 

I THANK God that, I have been enabled to 
come here to-day — to perform my duty, and 
speak on a subject which is so deeply impressed 
on my mind. I am old and infirm. I have one 
foot — mo7-e than one foot — in the grave. I have 
risen from my bed to stand up in the cause of 
my country — perhaps never again to speak in 
this House. 

[" The reverence, the attention, the stillness 
of the House," said an eye-witness, "were here 
most affecting : had any one dropped a handker- 
chief, the noise would have been heard." 

As he proceeded, Lord Chatham spoke at first 
in a low tone, with all the weakness of one who 
is laboring under severe indisposition. Gradu- 
ally, however, as he warmed with the subject, 
his voice became louder and more distinct, his 
intonations grew more commanding, and his 
whole manner was solemn and impressive in 
the highest degree. He went over the events 
of the American war with that luminous and 
comprehensive survey for which he was so much 
distinguished in his best days. He pointed out 
the measures he had condemned, and the re- 
sults he had predicted, adding at each stage, 
as he advanced, " And so it proved ! And so it 
proved .'" Adverting, in one part of his speech, 
to the fears entertained of a foreign invasion, he 
recurred to the history of the past : " A Spanish 
invasion, a French invasion, a Dutch invasion, 
many noble Lords must have read of in history ; 
and some Lords" (looking keenly at one who sat 
near him, with a last reviving flash of his sar- 
castic spirit), "some Lords may remember a 
Scotch invasion !" He could not forofet Lord 
Mansfield's defense of American taxation, and 
the measures of Lord Bute, which had brought 
down the country to its present degraded state, 
from the exalted position to which he had raised 
it during his brief but splendid administration. 
He then proceeded in the following terms :] My 
Lords, I rejoice that the grave has not closed 
upon me ; that I am still alive, to lift up my 
voice against the dismemberment of this ancient 
and most noble monarchy ! Pressed down as I 
am by the hand of infirmity, I am little able to 
assist my country in this most perilous conjunc- 
ture ; but, my Lords, while I have sense and 
memor}', I will never consent to deprive the off- 
spring of the royal house of Brunswick, the heirs 
of the Princess Sophia, of their fairest inherit- 
ance. I will first see the Prince of Wales, the 
Bishop of Osnaburgh, and the other rising hopes 
of the I'oyal family, brought down to this com- 
mittee, and assent to such an alienation. Where 
is the man who will dare to advise it ? My Lords, 
his Majesty succeeded to an empire as great in 
extent as its reputation was unsullied. Shall 
we tarnish the luster of this nation by an igno- 
minious surrender of its rights and fairest pos- 
sessions ? Shall this great nation, that has sur- 
vived, whole and entire, the Danish depredations, 
the Scottish inroads, the Norman concpicst — that 
has stood the threatened invasion of the Span- 



ish Armada, now fall prostrate before the house 
of Bourbon ? Surely, my Lords, this nation is 
no longer what it was ! Shall a people that 
seventeen years ago was the terror of the world, 
now stoop so low as to tell its ancient inveterate 
enem}'^. Take all we have^ only give us peace ? 
It is impossible ! 

I wage war with no man or set of men. I 
wish for none of their employments ; nor would 
I co-operate wiih men who still persist in unre- 
tracted error, or who, instead of acting on a firm, 
decisive line of conduct, halt between two opin- 
ions, where there is no middle path. In God's 
name, if it is absolutely necessary to declare ei- 
ther for peace or war, and the former can not be 
preserved with honor, why is not the latter com- 
menced without delay ? I am not, I confess,* wfeU 
informed as to the resources of this kingdom, but 
I trust it has still sufficient to maintain its just 
rights, though I know them not. But, my Lords, 
any state is better than despair. Let us at least 
make one effort, and, if we must fall, let us fall 
like men ! 



When Lord Chatham had taken his seat. Lord 
Temple remarked to him, " You have forgotten 
to mention what we have been talking about. 
Shall I get up?" "No," replied Lord Chatham, 
"/ wilfdo it by-and-by." 

Lord Richmond replied to Lord Chatham, 
telling him that the country was in no condition 
to continue the war : and that, even if he him- 
self were now (as formerly) at the head of af- 
fairs, his name, great as it was, could not repair 
the shattered fortunes of the country. Lord Chat- 
ham listened with attention, but gave indications, 
at times, both by his countenance and his ges- 
tures, that he felt agitated or displeased. 

When the Duke of Richmond had ended his 
speech, Lord Chatham made a sudden and stren- 
uous attempt to rise, as if laboring under the 
pressure of painful emotions. He seemed eager 
to speak ; but, after repeated efforts, he suddenly 
pressed his hand on his heart, and sunk down in 
convulsions. Those who sat near him caught 
him in their arms. His son William Pitt, then 
a youth of seventeen, who was standing without 
the bar, sprang forward to support him. It is 
this moment which Copley has chosen for his 
picture of the death of Lord Chatham. "His- 
tory," says an able writer, "has no nobler scene 
to show than that which now occupied the House 
of Lords. The unswerving patriot, whose long 
life had been devoted to his country, had striven 
to the last. The aristocracy of the land stood 
around, and even the brother of the sovereign 
thought himself honored in being one of his sup- 
porters ; party enmities were remembered no 
more; every other feeling was lost in admira- 
tion of the great spirit vxhich seemed to be pass- 
ing away from among them." He was removed 
in a state of insensibility from the House, and car- 
ried to Hayes, where he lingered a few days, and 
died on the 11th of May, 1778. aged seventy. 



LORD MANSFIELD. 

William Murray, first Earl of Mansfield, was bom at Scone Castle, near Perth, in 
Scotland, on the 2d of March, 1705. He was the fourth son of Lord Stormont, head 
of an ancient but decayed family, which had been reduced to comparative poverty by a 
long course of extravagance. The title having been conferred by James I., Lord Stor- 
mont, like his predecessors, remained true to the cause of the Stuarts. His second son, 
Lord Dunbar, was private secretary to the Pretender. 

WilHam was sent to London for his education at a very early age ; and hence John- 
son used sportively to maintain, that his success in after life ought not to be put to the 
credit of his coimtry, since it was well known that " much might be made of a Scotch- 
man if he was caught youngs Not a little, however, had been done for William be- 
fore he left the grammar-school of Perth. Though but fourteen years old, he could read 
quite freely in the Latin classics ; he knew a large part of Sallust and Horace by heart ; 
and was able not only to write Latin correctly, but to speak it wdth accuracy and ease. 
It is not surprising, therefore, considering his native quickness of mind, that within a 
year after he joined Westminster school, he gained its highest distinction, that of being 
chosen one of the King's scholars. He soon stood as " dux," or leader of the school ; 
and, at the end of four years, after a rigorous examination, was put first on the list of 
those who were to be sent to Oxford, on the foundation at Christ Church. His choice 
had for some time been firmly fixed upon the law as a profession ; and nothing could so 
gratify his feelings or advance his interests as to enter the University. But the strait- 
ened circumstances of his father seemed to forbid the thought ; and he was on the point 
of giving up his most ardent wishes in despair, when a casual conversation with a young 
friend opened the way for his being sent to Oxford, with an honorable provision for his 
support. Lord Foley, father of the friend referred to, having heard of his superior abil- 
ities, and his strong attachment to the law, generously offered to assist him with the 
requisite means, to be repaid only in the event of his succeeding in after life. 

During his residence at Oxford, he gave himself to study with that fervor and dih- 
gence for which he was always distinguished, quickened by a sense of the responsibihties 
he had incurred, and by a fixed resolve to place liimself at the head of his profession. 
He made every thing subser\dent to a preparation for the bar ; and while, in the spirit of 
that university, he studied Aristotle vidth delight as the great master of reasoning and 
thought, he devoted his most earnest efforts to improvement m oratory. He read every 
thing that had been written on the principles of the art ; he made himself famihar with 
all the great masters of eloquence in Greece and Rome, and spent much of his time in 
translatuig their finest productions as the best means of improvmg his style. Cicero 
was his favorite author ; and he declared, in after life, that there was not one of his 
orations which he had not, while at Oxford, translated into Enghsh, and, after an in- 
terval, according to the best of his ability, re-translated into Latin. 

Having taken liis degree at the age of twenty-two, he entered on the study of the 
law at Lincohi's Inn in 1737. His labors were now conducted on the broadest scale. 
While law had the precedence, he carried on the practice of oratory with the utmost 
zeal. To aid him in extemporaneous speaking, he joined a debating society, where the 
most abstruse legal pomts were fully discussed. For these exercises, he prepared him- 
self beforehand with such copiousness and accuracy, that the notes he used proved 
highly valuable ur after fife, both at the bar and on the bench. He found time, also, 
to pursue his historical studies to such an extent, that Lord Campbell speaks of his fa- 



144 LORD MANSFIELD. 

miliarity with modern history as " astounding and even appalling, for it produces a 
painful consciousness of inferiority, and creates remorse for time misspent." When 
called to the bar in 1730, "he had made himself acquainted not only \^dth interna- 
tional law, but with the codes of all the most civilized nations, ancient and modem ; 
he was an elegant classical scholar ; he was thoroughly imbued \\dth the Uterature of 
his own coimtry ; he had profoundly studied our mixed constitution ; he had a sincere 
desire to be of service to his countiy ; and he was animated by a noble aspiration after 
honorable fame." 

When he first came to London as a boy m Westminster school, he was introduced 
by his countryman, Lord Marchmont, to Mr. Pope, then at the height of his mirivaled 
popularity. The poet took a lively interest in the young Scotchman, attracted not only 
by the quickness of his parts and the fineness of his maimers and person, but by " the 
silvery tones of his voice," for which he continued to be distinguished to the end of 
life. Mr. Pope entered with the warmest concern into all his employments, and as 
sisted especially in his rhetorical studies during his preparation for the bar. One day. 
Bays his biographer, he was surprised by a friend, who suddenly entered the room, in 
" the act of practicing before a glass, while Pope sat by to aid him in the character of an 
instructor!" Their friendship continued throughout life ; and in a new edition of the 
Dunciad Mr. Pope introduced his name, with that of other distinguished men, complain- 
ing that law and politics should have drawn them off from the more congenial pursuits 
of Uterature. 

" Whate'er the talents and howe'er designed, 
We bang one jingling padlock on the mind. 
A poet the first day he dips his quill ; 
And what the last? a very poet still. 
Pity the charm works only in our wall, 
Lost — too soon lost — in yonder House or Hall : 
There truant Wyndham ev'ry muse gave o'er ; 
There Talbot sank, and was a wit no more ; 
How siveet an Ovid, Murray, icas our boast! 
How many Martials w^ere in Pulteney lost !" 

Some years elapsed after Mr. Murray's call to the bar before he had any business of 
importance ; and then, after a few successful cases, it poured in upon him to absolute 
repletion. " From a few hundred pounds a year," said he, "I found myself in the re- 
ceipt of thousands." Retainers came in from every quarter : and one of a thousand 
guineas was sent by Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, with that ostentatious munificence 
which she sometimes affected. Nine hundred and ninety-five guineas were retm*ned 
by Mr. Murray, Avith the significant remark that "a retaining fee was never more nor 
less than five guineas." He found her a very troublesome client. Not unfrequently 
she made her appearance at his chambers after midnight, crowding the street with her 
splendid equipage and her attendants with torches ; and on one occasion when he was 
absent, his clerk, giving an accotmt of her visit the next morning, said, " I could not 
make out, sir, who she was, for she would not tell me her name ; but she swore so 
dreadfully that she must have been a lady of quaUty I" 

Soon after the fall of Sir Robert Walpole in 1742, Mr. Murray was appointed Solic- 
itor General, and elected a member of Parliament through the influence of the Duke of 
Newcastle. His powerful talents were needed for the support of the new administra- 
tion, which was suffering under the vehement attacks of Mr. Pitt. Here comimenced 
that long series of conflicts which divided for life the two most accomplished orators of 
the age. It could not be otherv\dse, for never were two men more completely the an- 
tipodes of each other. Pitt was a Whig ; Mun\ay was a High Tory. Pitt was ar- 
dent, open, and impetuous ; Murray was cool, reserved, and circumspect. The intel- 
lect of Pitt was bold and commanding ; that of MuiTay was subtle, penetrating, and 



LORD MANSFIELD. 145 

refined. Pitt sought power ; Murray, office and emolument. Two such men could 
not but differ ; and diflering as they did for life, it was natural that the one should dis- 
trust or despise, and the other fear, perhaps hate. In native talent, it would be diffi- 
cult to say which had the advantage ; but the mind of Murray was more perfectly 
tramed, and his memory enriched with larger stores of knowledge. " In closeness of 
argument," says an able writer, " m happiness of illustration, in copiousness and grace 
of diction, the oratory of Murray was unsurpassed : and, indeed, in all the qualities 
which conspire to form an able debater, he is allowed to have been Pitt's superior. 
When measures were attacked, no one was better capable of defending them ; when 
reasoning was the weapon employed, none handled it with such effect ; but against 
declamatory invective, his very temperament incapacitated him for contending with so 
much advantage. He was like an accomplished fencer, invulnerable to the thrusts of 
a small sword, but not equally able to ward off' the downright stroke of a bludgeon." 

In 1754 Mr. Murray was appointed Attorney General, and soon after made leader 
of the House of Conamons under the Duke of Newcastle. "At the beginning of the 
session," says Horace Walpole, " Murray was awed by Pitt ; but, finding himself sup- 
ported by Fox, he surmounted his fears, and convinced the House, and Pitt too, of his 
superior abilities. Pitt could only attack, Murray only defend. Fox, the boldest 
and ablest champion, was still more forward to worry ; but the keenness of his saber 
was blunted by the difficulty with which he drew it from the scabbard — I mean, the 
hesitation and ungracefulness of his delivery took off from the force of his arguments. 
Murray, the brightest genius of the three, had too much and too little of the lawyer ; 
he refined too much and could wrangle too little for a popular assembly." We have 
seen already, in the life of Lord Chatham, what difficulties Murray had to encounter 
that session in sustaining the ministry of Newcastle, and the crushing force with 
which he was overwhelmed by his opponent. In 1756 he resolved to endure it no 
longer, and on the death of Sir Dudley Ryder he demanded the office of Chief Jus- 
tice of the King's Bench. Newcastle refused, remonstrated, supphcated. " The writ 
for creating Murray," he declared, "would be the death-warrant of his own adminis- 
tration." He resisted for several months, offering the most tempting bribes, mcluding 
a pension of XCOOO a year, if he would only remain in the House until the new ses- 
sion was opened, and the address voted in reply to the King's speech. Murray de- 
clared, in the most peremptory terms, that he would not remain " a month or a day 
even to support the address;" that "he never again would enter that assembly." 
Turning with indignation to Newcastle, he exclaimed, "What merit have I, that you 
should lay on this country, for which so httle is done with spirit, the additional bur- 
den of £6000 a year ;" and concluded with declaring his unalterable determination, 
if he was not made Chief Justice, to serve no longer as Attorney General. This 
brought Newcastle to a decision. On the 8th of November, 1756, Mun-ay was swoni 
in as Chief Justice, and created a peer with the title of Baron Mansfield. At a later 
period he was raised to the earldom. 

In entering on his new career, he was called upon to take public leave of his as- 
sociates of Lincohi's Inn. On that occasion he was addressed in an elegant speech by 
fthe Honorable Charles Yorke. The reader will be interested in Mr. Murray's reply, 
as showing with what admirable dignity and grace he could receive the compliments 
bestowed upon him, and turn them aside in favor of another. 

'* I am too sensible, sir, of my being undeserving of the praises which you have so eiegantly 
bestowed upon me, to suffer commendations so delicate as yours to insinuate themselves into my 
mind ; but I have pleasure in that kind of partiality which is the occasion of them. To deserve 
such praises is a worthy object of ambition, and from such a tongue flattery itself is pleasing. 

" If I have had, in any measure, success in my profession, it is owing to the great man who 
has presided in our highest courts of judicature the whole time I attended the bar.^ It was im- 
1 Lord Hardwicke, father of Mr. Yorke. 

K 



146 LORD MANSFIELD. 

possible to attend to him, to sit under him every day, without catching some beams from his h'o-ht. 
The disciples of Socrates, whom I will take the liberty to call the great lawyer of antiquity, since 
the first principles of all law are derived from his philosophy, owe their reputation to their having 
been the reporters of the sayings of their master. If we can arrogate nothing to ourselves, we 
can boast the school we were brought up in ; the scholar may glory in his master, and we may 
challenge past ages to show us his equal. My Lord Bacon had the same extent of thought, and 
the same strength of language and expression, but his life had a stain. My Lord Clai-endon had 
the same ability, and the same zeal for the Constitution of his country, but the civil war prevented 
his laying deep the foundations of law, and the avocations of politics interrupted the business of the 
chancellor. My Lord Somers came the nearest to his character, but his time was short, and 
envy and faction sullied the luster of his glory. It is the peculiar felicity of the great man I am 
speaking of to have presided very near twenty years, and to have shone with a splendor that has 
risen superior to faction and that has subdued envy. 

" I did not intend to have said, I should not have said so much on this occasion, but that in this 
situation, with all that hear me, what I say must carry the weight of testimony rather than ap- 
pear the voice of panegyric. 

" For you, sir, you have given great pledges to 3'our country ; and large as the expectations 
of the public are concerning you, I dare say you will answer them. 

" For the society, I shall always think myself honored by every mark of their esteem, affection, 
and friendship; and shall desire the continuance of it no longer than while I remain zealous for 
the Constitution of this country and a friend to the interests of virtue." 

Lord Mansfield now entered on that high career of usefulness which has made his 
name known and honored throughout the civihzed world. Few men have ever been 
so well qualified for that exalted station. He had pre-eminently a legal intellect, 
great clearness of thought, accuracy of discrimination, soundness of judgment, and 
strength of reasoning, united to a scientific knowledge of jurisprudence, a large expe- 
rience in all the intricacies of practice, unusual courtesy and ease in the dispatch of 
busiiiess, and extraordinary powers of application. He came to the bench, not like 
most lawyers, trusting to his previous knowledge and the aid afibrded by counsel in 
forming his decisions, but as one v/ho had just entered on the real employment of his 
life. " On the day of his inauguration as Cliief Justice, instead of thinking that he 
had won the prize, he considered himself as only starting in the race." 

How he discharged the duties of his high station, it belongs especially to men of his 
own profession to determine. One fact, however, may stand in the place of many 
authorities. Out of the thousands of cases which he decided in the Court of King's 
Bench, there were only two in which his associates of that court did not unanimously 
agree with him in opinion. Yet they were, as all the world knows, men of the high- 
est abihty and the most perfect independence of mind. Junius, indeed, assailed him 
v/ith malignant bitterness, but it is the universal decision of the bar that his charges 
were false as they were malignant. Against this attack we may set off the opinion 
of Chief Justice Story. " England and America, and the civilized world, lie under the 
deepest obligations to him. Wherever commerce shall extend its social influences ; 
wherever justice shall be administered by enlightened and liberal rules ; wherever 
contracts shall be expounded upon the eternal principles of right and wrong ; wher- 
ever moral delicacy and judicial refinement shall be infused into the municipal code, 
at once to persuade men to be honest and to keep them so ; wherever the intercourse 
of mankind shall aim at something more elevated than that groveling spirit of barter, 
in which maanness, and avarice, and fraud strive for the mastery over ignorance, 
credulity, and folly, the name of Lord Mansfield will be held in reverence by the 
good and the wise, by the honest merchant, the enlightened lawyer, the just statesman, 
and the conscientious judge. The proudest monument of his fame is in the volumes 
of Burrow, and Cowper, and Douglas, which we may fondly hope will endure as long 
as the language in which they are written shall continue to instruct mankind. His 
judgments should not be merely referred to and read on the spur of particular occa- 
sions, but should be studied as models of juridical reasoning and eloquence." 

As a speaker in the House of Lords, the success of Lord Mansfield was greater than 



LORD MANSFIELD. 147 

in the House of Commons. The cahnness and dignity of the assembly were better' 
suited to his habits of thought. Here, after a few years, he had again to encounter 
his great antagonist, who was raised to the same dignity in 1766. As Chatham 
was the advocate of the people's rights, Mansfield was the champion of the King's 
prerogative. He defended the Stamp Act, and maintained the right of Parliament 
to tax the Americans as being virtually represented in the House of Commons. A 
speech on that subject, corrected by himself, is given below. Lord Campbell, not- 
withstanding his strong predilections as a Whig, does not hesitate to pronounce it 
unanswerable. His speech in favor of taking away the protection extended to the 
servants of peers is the most finished of his productions, and will also be found in 
this volume. To these will be added his argument in the case of the Chamber- 
lain of London vs. Allan Evans, which has often been spoken of as the most perfect 
specimen of juridical reasoning in our language. His address from the bench, when 
surrounded by a mob, during the trial of the outlawry of Wilkes, will also form part 
of the extracts. 

After discharging his duties as Chief Justice nearly thirty-two years, he resigned 
his office on the 4th of June, 1788. His faculties were still unimpaired, though his 
strength was gone ; and he continued in their unclouded exercise nearly five years 
longer, when he died, after an illness of ten days, on the 20th of March, 1793, in 
the eighty-ninth year of his age. 

" The countenance of Lord Mansfield," says a friend and contemporary, " was un- 
commonly beautiful, and none could ever behold it, even in advanced years, without 
reverence. Nature had given him an eye of fire ; and his voice, till it was afi'ected 
by the years which passed over him, was perhaps unrivaled in the sweetness and 
variety of its tones. There w^as a similitude between his action and that of Mr. 
Garrick. In speaking from the bench, there was sometimes a confusion in his pe- 
riods, and a tendency to involve his sentences in parentheses ; yet, such was the 
charm of his voice and action, and such the general beauty, propriety, and force of 
his expressions, that, while he spoke, all these defects passed unnoticed." 

The eloquence of Lord Mansfield, especially in his best speeches in the House of 
Lords, was that of a judge rather than an advocate or a party leader. He had the 
air of addressing the House of Lords, according to the theory of that body, as one 
who spoke '^^^:>o?^ honor. He sought not to drive, but to lead ; not to overwhelm the 
mind by appeals to the passions, but to aid and direct its inquiries ; so that his 
hearers had the satisfaction of seeming, at least, to form their own conclusions. He 
was peculiarly happy in his statement of a case. " It was worth more," said Mr. 
Burke, " than any other man's argument." Omitting all that was unnecessary, he 
seized, with surprising tact, on the strong points of a subject ; he held them stead- 
ily before the mind ; and, as new views opened, he led forward his hearers, step by 
step, toward the desired result, with almost the certainty of intuitive evidence. "It 
was extremely difficult," said Lord Ashburton, "to answer him when he was wrong, 
and impossible when he was in the right." His manner was persuasive, with enough 
of force and animation to secure the closest attention. His illustrations were always 
apposite, and sometimes striking and beautiful. His language, in his best speeches, 
was select and graceful ; and his whole style of speaking approached as near as pos- 
sible to that dignified conversation which has always been considered appropriate to 
the House of Lords. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD MANSFIELD ON THE RIGHT OF TAXING AMERICA, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, 

FEBRUARY 3, 1766. 



INTRODUCTION. 

In January, 1776, a bill was brought into the House of Commons, under Lord Rockingham's ministry, 
for the repeal of the American Stamp Act ; and in order to mollify the King, who was opposed to that 
measure, it was accompanied by a Declaratory Act, affirming that '"Parliament had full power and right 
to make laws of sufficient force to bind the colonies." Lord Chatham, then Mr. Pitt, remarked with sever- 
itj^ on this Declaratory Act when befoi'e the Commons. Lord Camden did the same when it came before 
the House of Lords, February 3d, 1766. He said, "In my opinion, my Lords, the Legislature have no 
right to make this law. The sovereign authority, the omnipotence of the Legislature, is a favorite doc- 
trine ; but there are some things which you can not do. You can not take away a man's property without 
making him a compensation. You have no right to condemn any man by bill of attainder without hear- 
ing him. But, though Parliament can not take any man's private property, yet every subject must make 
contribution ; and this he consents to do by his representative. Notwithstanding the King, Lords, and 
Commons could in ancient times tax other persons, they could not tax the clergy." He then went on to 
consider the case of the counties palatine of Wales and of Berwick, showing that they were never taxed 
till they sent representatives to the House of Commons, observing that the Irish tax themselves, and that 
the English Parliament could not tax them. " But," said he, "even supposing the Americans have no 
exclusive right to tax themselves, it would be good policy to give it to them, instead of offensively exert- 
ing a power which you ought never to have exercised. America feels that she can do better without us 
than we can do without her." 

Lord Northingtou, the Chancellor, made some coarse and bitter remarks in reply ; and Lord Mansfield 
then rose to defend his favorite doctrine of the i-ight of Great Britain to tax the colonies. His speech is 
by far the most plausible and argumentative one ever delivered on that side of the question; and Lord 
Campbell, in referring to the subject, says, "Lord Mansfield goes on with great calmness, and with argu- 
ments to which I have never been able to find an answer, to deny, as far as the poioer is concerned, the 
distinction between a law to tax and a law for any other purpose. "> The speech was corrected for the 
press by Lord Mansfield, and may therefore be relied on as authentic. 

SPEECH, &c. 



My Lords, — I shall speak to the question 
The question Strictly as a matter of right ; for it is 
not expecu-"' ^ proposition in its nature so perfectly 
ency. distinct from the expediency of the 

tax, that it must necessarily be taken separate, 
if there is any true logic in the world ; but of 
the expediency or inexpediency I will say noth- 
ing. It will be time enough to speak upon that 
subject when it comes to be a question. 

I shall also speak to the distinctions which 
have been taken, without any real difference, as 
to the nature of the tax ; and I shall point out, 
lastly, the necessity there will be of exerting the 
force of the superior authority of government, if 
opposed by the subordinate part of it. 

I am extremely sorry that the question has 
ever become necessary to be agitated, and that 
there should be a decision upon it. No one in 
this House will live long enough to see an end 
put to the mischief which will be the result of 
the doctrine which has been inculcated ; but the 
arrow is shot, and the wound already given. I 
shall certainly avoid personal reflections. No 
one has had more cast upon him than myself; 



^ Lives of the Chancellors, v., 206. 



but I never was biased by any consideration of 
applause from without, in the discharge of my 
public duty ; and, in giving my sentiments ac- 
cording to what I thought law, I have relied 
upon my own consciousness. It is with great 
pleasure I have heard the noble Lord who moved 
the resolution express himself in so manly and 
sensible a way, when he recommended a dis- 
passionate debate, while, at the same time, he 
urged the necessity of the House coming to such 
a resolution, with great dignity and propriety of 
argument. 

I shall endeavor to clear away from the ques- 
tion, all that mass of dissertation and Refutation of 
learning displayed in arguments which nr^'iments 
have been fetched from speculative records and 
men who have written upon the sub- ^"^""^ "^**' 
ject of government, or from ancient records, as 
being little to the purpose. I shall insist that 
these records are no proofs of our present Con- 
stitution. A noble Lord has taken up his ar- 
gument from the settlement of the Constitution 
at the Revolution ; I shall take up my argument 
from the Constitution as it now is. The Consti- 
tution of this country has been always in a mov- 
ing state, either gaining or losing something , 



1766.] 



LORD MANSFIELD ON TAXING AMERICA. 



149 



and with respect to the modes of taxation, when 
we get beyond the reign of Edward the First, 
or of King John, we are all in doubt and obscu- 
rity. The history of those times is full of uncer- 
tainties. In regard to the writs upon record, 
they were issued some of them according to law, 
and some not according to law ; and such [i. c, 
of the latter kind] were those concerning ship- 
money, to call assemblies to tax themselves, or 
to compel benevolences. Other taxes were rais- 
ed from escuage, fees for knights' service, and 
by other means arising out of the feudal system. 
Benevolences are contrary to law ; and it is well 
known how people resisted the demands of the 
Crown in the case of ship-money, and were per- 
secuted by the Court ; and if any set of men 
were to meet now to lend the King money, it 
would be contrary to law, and a breach of the 
rights of Parliament. 

I shall now answer the noble Lord particular- 
ly upon the cases he has quoted. With respect 
to the Marches of Wales, who were the border- 
ers, privileged for assisting the King in his war 
against the Welsh in the mountains, their enjoy- 
ing this privilege of taxing themselves was but 
of a short duration, and during the life of Ed- 
wai-d the First, till the Prince of Wales came to 
be the King ; and then they were annexed to 
the Crown, and became subject to taxes like the 
rest of the dominions of England ; and from 
thence came the custom, though unnecessary, 
of naming Wales and the town of Monmouth in 
all proclamations and in acts of Parliament. 
Henry the Eighth w^as the first who issued writs 
for it to return two members to Parliament. 
The Crown exercised this right ad libitum, from 
whence arises the inequality of representation in 
our Constitution at this day. Henry VIII. issued 
a writ to Calais to send one burgess to Parlia- 
ment. One of the counties palatine (I think he 
said Durham) was taxed fifty years to subsidies, 
before it sent members to Parliament. The cler- 
gy were at no time unrepresented in Parliament. 
When they taxed themselves, it was done with 
the concurrence and consent of Parliament, who 
permitted them to tax themselves upon their pe- 
tition, the Convocation sitting at the same time 
with the Parliament. They had, too, their rep- 
resentatives always sitting in this House, bish- 
ops and abbots ; and, in the other House, they 
were at no time without a right of voting singly 
for the election of members ; so that the argu- 
ment fetched from the case of the clergy is not 
an argument of any foi-ce, because they were at 
no time unrepresented here. 

The reasoning about the colonies of Great 
The colonies Britain, drawn from the colonies of 
nofa'cTse'In antiquity, is a mere useless display 
point. of learning ; for the colonies of the 

Tyrians in Africa, and of the Greeks in Asia, 
were totally different from our system. No na- 
tion before ourselves formed any regular system 
of colonization, but the Romans ; and their sys- 
tem was a military one, and of garrisons placed 
in the principal towns of the conquered provin- 
ces. The states of Holland were not colonies 



of Spain ; they were states dependent upon the 
house of Austria in a feudal dependence. Noth- 
ing could be more different from our colonies 
than that flock of men, as they have been called, 
who came from the North, and poured into Eu- 
rope. Those emigrants renounced all laws, all 
protection, all connection with their mother coun- 
tries. They chose their leaders, and marched 
under their banners to seek their fortunes and 
establish new kingdoms upon the ruins of the 
Roman empire. 

But our colonies, on the contrary, emigrated 
under the sanction of the Crown and jp.y^^j ^„„. 
Pai'liament. They were modeled "";""• i- ^iie 

. •{ colonies crea- 

gradually into their present forms, ted by charter, 
respectively, by charters, grants, and depend^Jnt^o^n 
statutes ; but they were never sep- ^''^^^ ^"'^'"• 
arated from the mother country, or so emanci- 
pated as to become sid juris. There are sev- 
eral sorts of colonies in British America. The 
charter colonies, the proprietary governments, 
and the King's colonies. The first colonies were 
the charter colonies, such as the Virginia Com- 
pany ; and these companies had among their di- 
rectors members of the privy council and of both 
houses of Parliament ; they were under the au- 
thority of the privy council, and had agents resi- 
dent here, responsible for their proceedings. So 
much were they considered as belonging to the 
Crown, and not to the King personally (for there 
is a great difference, though few people attend 
to it), that when the two Houses, in the time of 
Charles the First, were going to pass a bill con- 
cerning the colonies, a message was sent to them 
by the King that they were the King's colonies, 
and that the bill was unnecessary, for that the 
privy council would take order about them ; and 
the bill never had the royal assent. The Com- 
monwealth Parliament, as soon as it was settled, 
were very early jealous of the colonies separating 
themselves from them ; and passed a resolution 
or act (and it is a question whether it is not in 
force now) to declare and establish the authority 
of England over its colonies. 

But if there was no express law, or reason 
founded upon any necessary infer- 2 ^hey have 
ence from an express law. vet the ^V'"v'',"^i' ^° 

* • .'. tnjjhsh law, 

usage alone would be sulhcient to and thus ac- 
support that authority ; for, have not u"e"ird^e|end- 
the colonies submitted ever since ^""^^^^ 
their first establishment to the jurisdiction of the 
mother country ? In all questions of property, 
the appeals from the colonies have been to the 
privy council here ; and such causes have been 
determined, not by the law of the colonies, but by 
the law of England. A very little while ago, 
there was an appeal on a question of limitation 
in a devise of land with remainders ; and, not- 
withstanding the intention of the testator appear- 
ed very clear, yet the case was determined con- 
trary to it, and that the land should pass accord- 
ing to the law of England. The colonies have 
been obliged to recur very frequently to the ju- 
risdiction here, to settle the disputes among their 
own governments. I well remember several 
references on this head, when the late Lord 



150 



LORD MANSFIELD ON 



[17G6. 



Hardwicke was attorney general, and Sir Clem- 
ent Wearg solicitor general. New Hampshire 
and Connecticut were in blood about their differ- 
ences 5 Virginia and Maryland were in arms 
against each other. This shows the necessity 
of one superior decisive jurisdiction, to which all 
subordinate jurisdictions may recur. Nothing, 
my Lords, could be more fatal to the peace of 
the colonies at any time, than the Parliament 
giving up its authority over them ; for in such a 
case, there must be an entire dissolution of gov- 
ernment. Considering how the colonies are 
composed, it is easy to foresee there would be 
no end of feuds and factions among the several 
separate governments, when once there shall be 
no one government here or there of sufficient 
force or authority to decide their mutual differ- 
ences ; and, government being dissolved, nothing 
remains but that the colonies must either change 
their Constitution, and take some new form of 
government, or fall under some foreign power. 
At present the several forms of their Constitution 
are very various, having been produced, as all 
governments have been originally, by accident 
and circumstances. The forms of government 
in every colony vrere adopted, from time to time, 
according to the size of the colony ; and so have 
been extended again, from time to time, as the 
numbei's of their inhabitants and their commer- 
cial connections outgrew the first model. In 
some colonies, at first there was only a governor 
assisted by two or three counsel ; then more 
were added ; afterward courts of justice w^ere 
erected ; then assemblies were created. Some 
things were done by instructions from the secre- 
taries of state ; other things were done by order 
of the King and council ; and other things by 
commissions under the great seal. It is observ- 
able, that in consequence of these establishments 
from time to time, and of the dependency of 
these governments upon the supreme Legislature 
at home, the lenity of each government in the 
colonies has been extreme toward the subject ; 
and a great inducement has been created for 
people to come and settle in them. But, if all 
those governments which are now independent 
of each other, should become independent of the 
mother country, I am afraid that the inhabitants 
of the colonies are very little aware of the con- 
sequences. They would feel in that case very 
soon the hand of power more heavy upon them 
in their own governments, than they have yet 
done, or have ever imagined. 

The Constitutions of the different colonies arc 
3. The laws to thus made up of different principles. 
n>'i'ueci^'affected "^^^^J ^'^"■'^t remain dependent, from 

ll.eir pecuniiiry thc nCCCSsitV of things, and their re- 
interests vitally. , . , "^ . . ,. . ^ , , 

lations to the jurisdiction ot thc moth- 
er country ; or they must bo totally dismembered 
from it, and form a league of union among them- 
selves against it, which could not be effected 
without great violences. No one ever thought 
the contrary till the trumpet of sedition was 
blown. Acts of Parliament have been made, not 
only without a doubt of their legality, but with 
universal applause, the great object of which 



has been ultimately to fix the trade of the colo- 
nies, so as to center in the bosom of that country 
from whence they took their original. The Nav- 
igation Act shut up their intercourse with for- 
eign countries. Their ports have been made 
subject to customs and regulations which have 
cramped and diminished their trade. And du- 
ties have been laid, affecting the very inmost 
parts of their commerce, and, among others, that 
of the post ; yet all these have been submitted 
to peaceably, and no one ever thought till now 
of this doctrine, that the colonies are not to be 
taxed, regulated, or bound by Parliament. A 
few particular merchants were then, as now, dis- 
pleased at restrictions which did not permit them 
to make the greatest possible advantages of their 
commerce in their own private and peculiar 
branches. But, though these few merchants 
might think themselves losers in articles which 
they had no right to gain, as being prejudicial to 
the general and national system, yet I must ob- 
serve, that the colonies, upon the whole, were 
benefited by these laws. For these restrictive 
laws, founded upon principles of the most solid 
policy, flung a great weight of naval force into 
the hands of the mother country, w^hich was 
to protect its colonies. Without a union with 
her, the colonies must have been entirely weak 
and defenseless, but they thus became relatively 
great, subordinately, and in proportion as the 
mother country advanced in superiority over the 
rest of the maritime powers in Europe ; to which 
both mutually contributed, and of which both 
have reaped a benefit, equal to the natural and 
just relation in which they both stand recipro- 
cally, of dependency on one side, and protection 
on the other. 

There can be no doubt, my Lord.s, but that 
the inhabitants of the colonies are as 4. The colonies 
much represented in Parliament, as represJnted'ln 
the greatest part of the people of En- P''r''a'"ent. 
gland are represented ; among nine millions of 
whom there are eight which have no votes in 
electing members of Parliament. Every objec- 
tion, therefore, to the dependency of the colonies 
upon Parliament, which arises to it upon the 
ground of representation, goes to the whole pres- 
ent Constitution of Great Britain ; and I suppose 
it is not meant to new model that too. People 
may form speculative ideas of perfection, and in- 
dulge their own fancies or those of other men. 
Every man in this country has his particular no- 
tion of liberty ; but perfection never did, and 
never can exist in any human institution. To 
what purpose, then, are arguments drawn from a 
distinction, in which there is no real difference — 
of a virtual and actual representation ? A mem- 
ber of Parliament, chosen for any borough, rep- 
resents not only the constituents and inhabitants 
of that particular place, but he represents the 
inhabitants of every other borough in Great 
Britain. He represents the city of London, and 
all other the commons of this land, and the in- 
habitants of all the colonies and dominions of 
Great Britain ; and is, in duty and conscience, 
bound to take care of their inter.ests. 



1766,] 



TAXING AMERICA. 



151 



I have mentioned the customs and the post tax. 
5 The (listinc- "^^^^ leads me to answer another dis- 
tion of external tinctioH, as falsc as the above; the 

and internal ,. . . „ . , , ' , 

taxation is a distinction 01 internal and external 
taxes. The noble Lord who quoted 
so much law, and denied upon those f^rounds the 
right of the Parliament of Great Britain to lay 
internal taxes upon the colonies, allowed at the 
same time that restrictions upon trade, and du- 
ties upon the ports, were legal. But I can not 
see a real difference in this distinction; for I 
hold it to be true, that a tax laid in any place is 
like a pebble falling into and making a circle in 
a lake, till one circle produces and gives motion 
to another, and the whole circumference is agi- 
tated from the center. For nothing can be more 
clear than that a tax of ten or twenty per cent, 
laid upon tobacco, either in the ports of Virginia 
or London, is a duty laid upon the inland plant- 
ations of Virginia, a hundred miles from the sea, 
wheresoever the tobacco grows. 

I do not deny but that a tax may be laid in- 
judiciously and injuriously, and that people in 
such a case may have a right to complain. But 
the nature of the tax is not now the question ; 
whenever it comes to be one, I am for lenity. 
I would have no blood drawn. There is, I am 
satisfied, no occasion for any to be drawn. A 
little time and experience of the inconveniences 
and miseries of anarchy, may bring people to 
their senses. 

With respect to what has been said or written 
,r ^ • , u , upon this subject, I differ from the 

Mr. Otis'sbook. ' •' ' ,>Tv/r r\ ■ 

noble Lord, who spoke of Mr. Otis 
and his book with contempt, though he maintain- 
ed the same doctrine in some points, while in 
others he carried it farther than Otis himself, 
who allows every where the supremacy of the 
Crown over the colonies."^ No man, on such a 
subject, is contemptible. Otis is a man of con- 
.sequence among the people there. They have 
chosen him for one of their deputies at the Con- 
gress and general meeting from the respective 
governments. It was said, the man is mad. 
What then ? One madman often makes many. 



2 The celebrated James Otis is here referred to, 
who in 1764 published a pamphlet, which was re- 
printed in England, entitled The Rights of the Brit- 
ish Colonies. In this pamphlet, while he admitted 
the supremacy of the Crown over the colonies, he 
strenuously maintained, with Lord Chatham, that 
as long as America remained unrepresented in the 
House of Commons, Parliament had no right to tax 
the colonies. 

Mr. Otis, who was a man of fervid eloquence, ex- 
pressed himself so strongly respecting the rights of 
America, that some persons (as Lord Mansfield men- 
tions) treated him as a madman. There is a speech 
(to be found in most of our collections of eloquence) 
which bears his name, and begins, " England may 
as well dam up the waters of the Nile with bulrush- 
es, as fetter the step of freedom," &c. It first ap- 
peared in a work entitled The Rebels, written by 
Mrs. Child, and was designed as a fancy sketch, like 
the speeches put by Mr. Webster into the mouth of 
Adams and Hancock, in his oration on the death of 
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. 



Masaniello was mad. Nobody doubts it; yet, 
for all that, he overturned the government of 
Naples. Madness is catching in all popular 
assemblies and upon all popular matters. The 
book is full of wildness. I never read it till a 
few days ago, for I seldom look into such things. 
I never was actually acquainted with the con- 
tents of the Stamp Act, till I sent for it on pur- 
pose to read it before the debate was expected. 
With respect to authorities in another House, I 
know nothing of them. I believe that I have 
not been in that House more than once since I 
had the honor to be called up to this ; and, if I 
did know any thing that passed in the other 
House, I could not, and would not, mention it as 
an authority here. I ought not to mention any 
such authority. I should think it beneath my 
own and your Lordships' dignity to speak of it. 

I am far from bearing any ill will to the Amer- 
icans ; they are a very good people, and I have 
long known them. I began life with them, and 
owe much to them, having been much concerned 
in the plantation causes before the privy coun- 
cil ; and so I became a good deal acquainted 
with American affairs and people. I dare say, 
their heat will soon be over, when they come to 
feel a little the consequences of their opposition 
to the Legislature. Anarchy always cures it- 
self; but the ferment will continue so much the 
longer, while hot-headed men there find that 
there arc persons of weight and character to 
support and justify them here. 

Indeed, if the disturbances should continue for 
a great length of time, force must be Force must be 
the consequence, an application ad- "urbancef ctn" 
equate to the mischief, and arising ti"ue. 
out of the necessity of the case ; for force is only 
the difference between a superior and subordin- 
ate jurisdiction. In the former, the whole force 
of the Legislature resides collectively, and when 
it ceases to reside, the whole connection is dis- 
solved. It will, indeed, be to very little purpose 
that we sit here enacting laws, and making res- 
olutions, if the inferior will not obey them, or if 
we neither can nor dare enforce them ; for then, 
and then, I say, of necessity, the matter comes 
to the sword. If the offspring are grown too 
big and too resolute to obey the parent, you must 
try which is the strongest, and exert all the pow- 
ers of the mother country to decide the contest. 

I am satisfied, notwithstanding, that time and 
a wise and steady conduct may pre- Examples <,f 
vent those extremities which would like" on ou, 
be fatal to both. I remember well ^r subjects. 
when it was the violent humor of the times to 
decry standing armies and garrisons as danger- 
ous, and incompatible with the liberty of the sub- 
ject. Nothing would do but a regular militia 
The militia are embodied; they march : and n(; 
sooner was the militia law thus put into execu- 
tion, but it was then said to be an intolerable 
burden upon the subject, and that it would fall, 
sooner or later, into the hands of the Crown. 
That was the language, and many counties pe- 
titioned against it. This may be the case with 
the colonies. In many places they begin already 



152 



LORD MANSFIELD ON 



[1766. 



to feel the efTects of their resistance to govern- 
ment. Interest very soon divides mercantile 
people ; and, although there may be some mad, 
enthusiastic, or ill-designing people in the colo- 
nies, yet I am convinced that the greatest bulk, 
who have understanding and property, are still 
well affected to the mother country. You have, 
my Lords, many friends still in the colonies ; 
and take care that you do not, by abdicating 
your own authority, desert them and yourselves, 
and lose them forever. 

In all popular tumults, the worst men bear the 
sway at first. Moderate and good men are often 
silent for fear or modesty, who, in good time, 
may declare themselves. Those who have any 
property to lose are sufficiently alarmed already 
at the progress of these public violences and viola- 
tions, to which every man's dwelling, person, and 
property are hourly exposed. Numbers of such 
valuable men and good subjects are ready and 
willing to declare themselves for the support of 
government in due time, if government does not 
fling away its own authority. 

My Lords, the Parliament of Great Britain 
has its rights over the colonies ; but it may ab- 
dicate its rights. 

There was a thing which I forgot to mention. 
Notice of a I mean, the manuscript quoted by 
Lord'Hare'^'s!'^ the noblc Lord. He tells you that 
Soted'by Lord ^^ ^^ thcrc Said, that, if the act con- 
camden. ccming Ireland had passed, the Par- 

liament might have abidicated its rights as to 
Ireland. In the first place, I heartily wish, my 
Lords, that Ireland had not been named, at a time 
when that country is of a temper and in a situ- 
ation so difficult to be governed ; and when we 
have already here so much weight upon our 
hands, encumbered with the extensiveness, va- 
riety, and importance of so many objects in a 
vast and too busy empire, and the national sys- 
tem shattered and exhausted by a long, bloody, 
and expensive war, but more so by our divisions 
at home, and a fluctuation of counsels. I wush 
Ireland, therefore, had never been named. 

I pay as much respect as any man to the 
memory of Lord Chief Justice Hale ; but I did 
not know that he had ever written upon the sub- 
ject ; and I differ very much from thinking with 
the noble Lord, that this manuscript ought to be 
published. So far am I from it, that I wish the 
manuscript had never been named ; for Ireland 
is too tender a subject to be touched. The case 
of Ireland is as difl^erent as possible from that of 
our colonies. Ireland was a conquered country ; 
it had its pacta conventa and its regalia. But 
to what purpose is it to mention the manuscript? 
It is but the opinion of one man. When it was 
written, or for what particular object it was 
written, does not appear. It might possibly be 
only a work of youth, or an exercise of the un- 
derstanding, in sounding and trying a question 
problematically. All people, when they first 
enter professions, make their collections pretty 
early in life ; and the manuscript may be of that 
sort. However, be it what it may, the opinion 
is but problematical ; for the act to w^hich the 



writer refers never passed, and Lord Hale only 
said, that, if it had passed, the Parliament might 
have abdicated their right. 

But, my Lords, I shall make this application 
of it. You may abdicate your right over the 
colonies. Take care, my Lords, how you do so ; 
for such an act will be irrevocable. Proceed, 
then, my Lords, with spirit and firmness ; and, 
when you shall have established your authority, 
it will then be a time to show your lenity. The 
Americans, as I said before, ai'c a very good peo- 
ple, and I wish them exceedingly well ; but they 
are heated and inflamed. The noble Lord who 
.spoke before ended with a prayer. I can not 
end better than by saying to it. Amen ; and in 
the words of Maurice, prince of Orange, con- 
cerning the Hollanders, " God bless this indus- 
trious^ frugal^ and well-meaning^ hut easily-de- 
luded people.'''' 



The Stamp Act was repealed, and the De- 
claratory Act, thus advocated by Lord Mans- 
field, was also passed by a large majority. 

As Lord Campbell has pronounced the above 
argument unanswerable.! it may interest the young 
reader to know how it was actually answered by 
the Americans, and why they denied the right 
of Parliament to lay internal taxes upon them. 

1. They owed their existence not to Parlia- 
ment, but to the Crown. The King, in the ex- 
ercise of the high sovereignty then conceded to 
him, had made them by charter complete civil 
communities^ with Legislatures of their own hav- 
ing power to lay taxes and do all other acts which 
were necessary to their subsistence as distinct 
governments. Hence, 

2. They stood substantially on the same foot- 
ing as Scotland previous to the Union. Like her 
they were subject to the Navigation Act, and 
similar regulations touching the external rela- 
tions of the empire ; and like her the ordinary 
legislation of England did not reach them, nor 
did the common law any farther than they chose 
to adopt it. Hence, 

3. They held themselves amenable in their 
internal concerns, not to Parliament, but to the 
Crown alone. It was to the King in council or to 
his courts, that they made those occasional refer- 
ences and appeals, which Lord Mansfield endeav- 
ors to draw into precedents. So " the post tax" 
spoken of above, did not originate in Parliament, 
but in a charter to an individual which afterward 
reverted to the Crown, and it was in this way 
alone that the post-office in America became con- 
nected with that of- England. It was thus that 
the Americans answered the first three of Lord 
Mansfield's direct arguments (p. 1 49-50) . Their 
charters made them dependent not on Parliament, 
but on the Crown ; and their submission to En- 
glish authority, much as it involved their pecuni- 
ary interests, was rendered only to the latter. 
Weak as they were, the colonists had sometimes 
to temporize, and endure an occasional over- 
reaching by Parliament. It was not always easy 






1766.] 



TAXING AMERICA. 



153 



to draw the line between the laws of trade, to 
which they held themselves subject, and the 
general legislation of Parliament. But they 
considered it clear that their charters exempted 
them from the latter, giving it to their own Leg- 
islatures. — See Massachusetts State Papers, p. 
351 . On this ground, then, they denied the right 
of Parliament to tax them. It is a striking fact 
in confirmation of these views, as mentioned by 
Mr. Daniel Webster, that the American Decla- 
ration of Independence does not once refer to the 
British Parliament. They owed it no allegiance, 
their only obligations were to the King ; and 
hence the causes which they assigned for break- 
ing off from the British empire consisted in his 
conduct alone, and in his confederating with oth- 
ers in ^''pretended acts of legislation." 

They had, however, a second argument, that 
from long-continued usage. Commencing their 
existence as stated above, the British Parliament 
had never subjected them to internal taxation. 
When this was attempted, at the end of one hund- 
red and fifty years, they used the argument of 
Mr. Burke, '''You were not wont to do these things 
from the beginning f'"^ and while his inference 
was, "Your taxes are inexpedient and unwise," 
theirs was, "You have no right to lay them." 
Long-continued usage forms part of the English 
Constitution. Many of the rights and privileges 
of the people rest on no other foundation ; and a 
usage of this kind, commencing with the very 
existence of the colonies, had given them the ex- 
clusive right of intei-nal taxation through their 
own Legislatures, since they maintained their in- 
stitutions at their own expense without aid from 
the mother country. To give still greater force 
to this argument, the Americans appealed to the 
monstrous consequences of the contrary supposi- 
tion. If, as colonies, after supporting their own 
governments, they were liable to give England 
what part she chose of their earnings to support 
her government — one twentieth, one tenth, one 
half each year, at her bidding — they were no 
longer Englishmen, they w^ere vassals end slaves. 
When George the Third, therefore, undertook to 
lay taxes in America and collect them at the 
point of the bayonet, he invaded their privileges, 
he dissolved the connection of the colonies with 
the mother country, and they were of right free. 

A third argument was that of Lord Chatham. 
" Taxation," said his Lordship, " is no part of the 
governing or legislative power." A tax bill, 
from the very words in which it is framed, is "a 
gift and grant of the Commons alone," and the 
concurrence of the Peers and Crown is only nec- 
essary to give it the form of law. " When, 
therefore, in this House," said his Lordship, "we 
give and grant, we give and grant what is our 
own. But in an American tax what do we do? 
We, your Majesty's Commons for Great Britain, 
give and grant to your Majesty — What? Our 
own property ? No. We give and grant to your 
Majesty the property of your Majesty's subjects 
in America ! It is an absurdity m terms !" To 



this Lord Mansfield could only reply, as he does 
in his fourth direct argument (p. 150). " Amer- 
ica is virtually represented in the House of Com- 
mons." But this, as Lord Campbell admits, is 
idle and false. A virtual repi-esentation there 
may be of particular classes (as of minors and 
females), who live intermingled in the same com- 
munity with those who vote ; but a virtual rep- 
resentation of a whole people three thousand 
miles ofl', with no intermingling of society or in- 
terests, is beyond all doubt " an absurdity in 
terms." The idea is contrary to all English 
usage in such cases. When the Scotch were 
incorporated with the English in 1705, they were 
not considered as "virtually represented" in the 
English Parliament, but were allowed to send 
representatives of their own. It was so, also, 
with Wales, Chester, and Durham, at an earlier 
period. Nothing, in fact, could be more adverse 
to the principles of the English Constitution than 
the idea of the "virtual representation" of three 
millions of people living at the distance of three 
thousand miles from the body of English electors. 
But if not virtually represented, the Americans 
were not represented at all. A bill giving away 
their property was, therefore, null and void — as 
much so as a bill would be if passed by the House 
of Lords, levying taxes on the Commons of En- 
gland. Under the English Constitution, repre- 
sentation of some kind is essential to taxation. 

Lord Mansfield's last argument (p. 151) is, 
that " the distinction between external and in- 
ternal taxation is a false one." According to 
him, as Parliament, in cai'rying out the Naviga- 
tion Act, laid external taxes aflfecting the colonies, 
Parliament was likewise authorized to lay intern- 
al taxes upon them. The answer is given by 
Mr. Burke. The duties referred to were simply 
incidental to the Navigation Act. They were 
used solely as instruments of carrying it out, of 
checking trade and directing its channels. They 
had never from the first been regarded as a means 
of revenue. They stood, therefore, on a footing 
entirely different from that of internal taxes, which 
were " the gift and grant of the Commons alone." 
The distinction between them was absolute and 
entire ; and any attempt to confound them, and 
to take money on this ground from those who are 
not represented in Parliament, was subversive of 
the English Constitution.^ 

Such w'cre the arguments of the Americans ; 
and the world has generally considered them as 
forming a complete answer to the reasonings of 
Lord Mansfield. 



1 The reader will find this distinction fully drawn 
out in Mr. Burke's Speech on American Taxation, 
page 249, 250. He there shows, tliat during the 
whole operation of the Navigation Laws, down to 
1764, " a parliamentary revenue thence was never 
once in contemplation; that "the words which dis- 
tinguish revenue laws, specifically as such, were 
premeditatedly avoided ;" and that all duties of this 
kind previous to that period, stood on the ground of 
mere "commercial regulation and restraint." 



lo4 



LORD MANSFIELD WHEN SURROUNDED BY A MOB. 



[1768. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD MANSFIELD WHEN SURROUNDED BY A MOB IN THE COURT OF THE KING'S BENCH, ON 
A TRIAL RESPECTING THE OUTLAWRY OF JOHN WILKES, ESQ., DELIVERED JANUARY 8, 1768. 

INTRODUCTION. 
In 1761, Mr. Wilkes was prosecuted for a seditious libel upon the King:, and for aa obscene and impious 
publication entitled an Essay on Women. Verdicts were obtained against him under both these prose- 
cutions, and, as he had fled the country, and did not appear to receive sentence, he was outlawed in the 
sheriff's court for the county of Middlesex on the 12th of July, 1764. In 1768 he returned to England, and 
applied to the Court of the King's Bench for a reversal of the outlawry; alleging, among other things, that 
the sheriff's writ of exegent was not technically correct in its wording, since he merely described the court 
as "my county court," whereas he ought to have added a description of the place, viz., " of Middlesex." 
Mr. Wilkes was now the favorite of the populace. Tumultuous meetings were held in his behalf in va- 
rious parts of the metropolis; riots prevailed to an alarming extent; the Mansion House of the Lord 
Maj^or was frequently assailed by mobs ; members of Parliament were attacked or threatened in the 
streets ; and great fears were entertained for the safety of Lord Mansfield and the other judges of the 
Court of the King's Bench during the trial. On the 8th of June, 1768, the decision was given, the court 
being surrounded by an immense mob, waiting the result in a highly excited state. Under these circum- 
stances, Lord Mansfield, after reading his decision for a time, broke off suddenly, and, turning from the case 
before him, addressed to all within the reach of his voice a few words of admonition, in which we can not 
admire too much the dignity and firmness with which he opposed himself to the popular rage, and the per- 
fect willingness he showed to become a victim, if necessaiy, for the support of law. 

SPEECH, &c.^ 



But here let me pause. 

It is fit to take some notice of various terrors 
being out — the numerous crowds which have at- 
tended and now attend in and about the hall, out 
of all reach of hearing what passes in court, and 
the tumults which, in otlier places, have shame- 
fully insulted all order and government. Auda- 
cious addresses in print dictate to us, from those 
they call the people., the judgment to be given 
now, and afterward upon the conviction. Rea- 
scrras of policy are urged, from danger in the 
kingdom by commotions and general confusion. 

Give me leave to take the opportunity of this 
great and respectable audience to let the whole 
world know all such attempts are vain. Unless 
we have been able to find an error which bears 
us out to reverse the outlawry, it must be affirm- 
ed. The Constitution does not allow reasons of 
state to influence our judgments : God forbid it 
should ! We must not regai'd political conse- 
quences^ how formidable soever they might be. 
If rebellion was the certain consequence, we are 
bound to say, " Fiat justitia, ruat caelum."^ The 
Constitution trusts the King with reasons of state 
and policy. He may stop prosecutions ; he may 
pardon offenses ; it is his to judge whether the 
law or the criminal shall yield. We have no 
election. None of us encouraged or approved 
the commission of either of the crimes of which 
the defendant is convicted. None of us had any 
hand in his being prosecuted. As to myself, I 
took no part (in another place) in the addresses 



From Burrows Reports, iv., 2561. 

* Be justice done, though heaven in ruii s fall. 



for that prosecution. We did not advise or as- 
sist the defendant to fly from justice ; it was his 
own act, and he must take the consequences. 
None of us have been consulted or had any thing 
to do with the present prosecution. It is not in 
our power to stop it ; it was not in our power 
to bring it on. We can not pardon. We are to 
say what we take the law to be. If we do not 
speak our real opinions, we prevaricate with 
God and our own consciences. 

I pass over many anonymous letters I have 
received. Those in print are public, and some 
of them have been brought judicially before the 
court. Whoever the writers ai-e, they take the 
wrong ivay ! I will do my duty unawed. What 
am I to fear? That "mendax infamia" [lying 
scandal] from the press, which daily coins false 
facts and false motives ? The lies of calumny 
cany no terror to me. I trust that the temper 
of my mind, and the color and conduct of my 
life, have given me a suit of armor against these 
arrows. If during this King's reign I have ever 
supported his government, and assisted his meas- 
ures, I have done it without any other reward 
than the consciousness of doing what I thought 
right. If I have ever opposed, I have done it 
upon the points themselves, without mixing in 
party or faction, and without any collateral 
views. I honor the King and respect the peo- 
ple ; but many things acquired by the favor of 
either are, in my account, objects not worthy of 
ambition. I wish popularity, but it is that pop- 
ularity which follows, not that which is run aft- 
er. It is that popularity which, sooner or later, 
never fails to do justice to the pursuit of noble 



1769.] 



LORD MANSFIELD IN THE CASE OF EVANS. 



155 



ends by noble means. I will not do that which 
my conscience tells me is wrong upon this occa- 
sion, to gain the huzzas of thousands, or the 
daily praise of all the papers which come from 
the press. I will not avoid doing what I think 
is right, though it should draw on me the whole 
artillery of libels — all that falsehood and malice 
can invent, or the credulity of a deluded popu- 
lace can swallow. I can say with a great mag- 
istrate, upon an occasion and under circumstan- 
ces not unlike, " Ego hoc animo semper fui, ut 
invidiam virtute partam, gloriam non invidiam, 
putarem."^ 

The threats go farther than abuse — pei'sonal 
violence is denounced. I do not believe it. It 
is not the genius of the worst of men of this 
countrj', in the worst of times. But I have set 
ray mind at rest. The last end that can happen 
to any man never comes too soon, if he falls in 
support of the law and liberty of his country (for 
liberty is synonymous with law and government). 
Such a shock, too, might be productive of pub- 
lie good. It might awake the better pai't of the 
kingdom out of that lethargy which seems to 
have benumbed them, and bring the mad part 
back to their senses, as men intoxicated are 
sometimes stunned into sobriety. 

Once for all, let it be undei'stood, that no en- 
deavors of this kind will influence any man who 
at present sits here. If they had any effect, 
it would be contrary to their intent ; leaning 
against their impression might give a bias the 
other way. But I hope and I know that I have 
fortitude enough to resist even that weakness. 
No libels, no threats, nothing that has happened, 



nothing that can happen, will weigh a feather 
against allowing the defendant, upon this and 
every other question, not only the wiiole advant- 
age he is entitled to from substantial law and 
justice, but every benefit from the most critical 
nicety of form which any other defendant could 
claim under the like objection. The only effect 
I feel is an anxiety to be able to explain the 
grounds on which "we proceed, so as to satisfy 
all mankind " that a flaw of form given way to 
in this case, could not have been got over in any 
other." 



Lord Mansfield now resumed the discussion 
of the case, and stated in respect to the inser- 
tion of the qualifying phrase "of Middlesex," 
mentioned above, that " a series of authorities, 
unimpeachcd and vincontradicted, have said such 
w^ords are formally necessary ; and such author- 
ity, though begun without law, reason, or com- 
mon sense, ought to avail the defendant." He 
therefore (with the concurrence of the other 
judges) declared a reversal ; adding, "I beg to 
be understood, that I ground my opinion singly 
on the authority of the cases adjudged ; which, 
as they are on the favorable side, in a criminal 
case highly penal, I think ought not to be de- 
parted from." 

This reversal, however, did not relieve Mr. 
Wilkes from the operations of the verdicts al- 
ready mentioned. Ten days after, Mr. Justice 
Yates" pronounced the judgment of the court, sen- 
tencing him to be imprisoned for twenty-two 
months, and to pay a fine of one thousand pounds. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD MANSFIELD IN THE CASE OF THE CHAMBERLAIN OF LONDON AGAINST ALLAN EVANS, 
ESQ., DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, FEBRUARY 4, 1769. 



INTRODUCTION. 

This case affords a striking^ example of the abuses which spring up under a religious establishment. 

The city of London was in want of a new mansion bouse for the Lord Mayor, and resolved to build one 
on a scale of becoming magnificence. But, as the expense would be great, some ingenious churchmen 
devised a plan for extorting a large part of the money out of the Dissenters, who had for a number of yeai-s 
been growing in business and property, under the protection of the Toleration Act. The mode was this. 
A by-law of the city was passed, imposing a fine of £fiOO on any person who should be elected as sheriff 
and decline to serve. Some wealthy individual was then taken from the dissenting body, and, by a con- 
cert among the initiated, was chosen to the office of sheriff. Of course he was not expected to serve, for 
the Test and Corporation Acts rendered him incapable. He was, therefore, compelled to decline ; and 
was then fined i^600, under a by-law framed for the very purpose of extorting this money !^ Numerous 
appointments were thus made, and £15,000 were actuallj- paid in ; until it came to be a matter of mere 
sport to " roast a Dissenter," and bring another <£600 into the treasury toward the expenses of the man- 
sion house. 

At length Allan Evans, Esq., a man of spirit, who had been selected as a victim, resolved to try the 
question. He refused to pay the fine, and was sued in the Sheriffs Court. Hei-e he pleaded his rights 



^ This is one of those sentences of Cicero, in his 
first oration against CatiUne, which it is impossible 
to translate. Striking as the sentiment is, it owes 
much of its force and beauty to the fine antithesis 
with which it flashes upon the mind, and even to 
the paronomasia on the word invidiam, while its no- 
ble rhythraus adds greatly to the effect. To those 



who are not familiar with the original, the following 
may give a conception of the meaning: Such have 
always been my feelings, that I look upon odium in- 
curred by the practice of virtue, not as odium, but as 
the highest glory. 

^ See Parliamentary History. 



156 



LORD MANSFIELD IN THE 



[1767. 



under the Toleration Act, but lost his cause. He appealed to the Court of Hustings, where the decision 
was affirmed. He then appealed to the Court of Common Pleas, where judgment went in his favor; the 
decisions of tJie courts below being unanimously reversed. The city now brought a writ of error through 
their Chamberlain, and carried the case before the House of Lords. Here the subject was taken up by 
Lord Mansfield, who, in common with all the judges but one, of the Court of the King's Bench, was of 
opinion that Evans was protected by the Toleration Act, and exempted from the obligation to act as 
sheriff. These views he maintained in the following speech, which had great celebrity at the time, and 
is spoken of by Lord Campbell as "one of the finest specimens of forensic eloquence to be found in our 
books. '"2 It was published from notes taken by Dr. Phihp Furneaux, " with his Lordship's consent and 
approbation." Though it has not, in everj'- part, that perfection of style for which Loi-d Mansfield was 
distinguished, it is certainly an admirable model of juridical eloquence, being equally remarkable for the 
clearness of its statements, the force of its reasonings, and the liberal and enhghtened sentiments with 
which it abounds. It rises toward the close into a strain of indignant reprobation, and administers a ter- 
rible rebuke to the city of Loudon for suffering its name to be connected with so despicable a system of 
extortion. 



SPEE 

My Lords, — As I made the motion for taking 
the opinion of the learned judges, and proposed 
the question your Lordships have been pleased 
to put to them, it may be expected that I should 
make some farther motion, in consequence of the 
opinions they have delivered. 

In moving for the opinion of the judges, I had 
two views. The first was, that the House might 
have the benefit of their assistance in forming a 
right judgment in this cause now before us, upon 
this writ of error. The next was, that, the ques- 
tion being fully discussed, the grounds of our 
judgment, together with their exceptions, limita- 
tions, and restrictions, might be clearly and cer- 
tainly known, as a rule to be followed hereafter 
in all future cases of the like nature ; and this 
determined me as to the manner of wording the 
question, " How far the defendant might, in the 
present case, be allowed to plead his disability 
in bar of the action brought against him?" 

The question, thus worded, shows the point 
upon which your Lordships thought this case 
turned ; and the answer necessarily fixes a cri- 
terion, under what circumstances, and by what 
persons, such a disability may be pleaded as an 
exemption from the penalty inflicted by this by- 
law, upon those w'ho decline taking upon them 
the olHce of sheriff. 

In every view in which I have been able to 
consider this matter, I think this action can not 
be supported. 

I. If they rely on the Corporation Act ; by the 
Preliminary literal and express provision of that act, 
groundl^of ^^ person can be elected who hath not 
argument, within a ycar taken the sacrament in 
the Church of England. The defendant hath 
not taken the sacrament within a year ; he is 
not, therefore, elected. Here they fail. 

If they ground it on the general design of the 
Legislature in passing the Corporation Act ; the 
design was to exclude Dissenters from office, 
and disable them from serving. For, in those 
times, when a spirit of intolerance prevailed, and 
severe measures were pursued, the Dissenters 
were reputed and treated as persons ill affected 
and dangerous to the government. The defend- 



2 Lives of the Chancellors, v., 287. 



CH, &c. 

ant, therefore, a Dissenter, and in the eye of 
this law" a person dangerous and ill affected, is 
excluded from office, and disabled from serving. 
Hei-e they fail. 

If they ground the action on their own by- 
law ; that by-law was professedly made to pro- 
cure fit and able persons to serve the office, and 
the defendant is not fit and able, being expressly 
disabled by statute law. Here, too, they fail. 

If they ground it on his disability's being owing 
to a neglect of taking the sacrament at church, 
when he ought to have done it, the Toleration 
Act having freed the Dissenters from all obliga- 
tion to take the sacrament at church, the defend- 
ant is guilty of no neglect — no criminal neg- 
lect. Here, therefore, they fail. 

These points, my Lords, will appear clear and 
plain. 

II. The Corporation Act, pleaded by the de- 
fendant as rendering him ineligible to intent and 
this office, and incapable of taking it cl^orlti^n 
} upon him, was most certainly intended ^"^^ 
! by the Legislature to prohibit the persons there- 
! in described being elected to any corporation 
offices, and to disable them from taking such 
j offices upon them. The act had two parts : 
first, it appointed a commission for turning out 
j all that were at that time in office, w^ho would 
not comply with what was required as the con- 
dition of their continuance therein, and even 
gave a power to turn them out though they 
should comply; and then it farther enacted, 
that, from the termination of that commission, 
no person hereafter, who had not taken the sac- 
rament according to the rites of the Church of 
England within one year preceding the time of 
such election, should be placed, chosen, or elect- 
ed into ahy office of, or belonging to, the govern- 
ment of any corporation ; and this was done, as 
it was expressly declared in the preamble to the 
act, in order to perpetuate the succession in cor- 
porations in the hands of persons well affected 
to government in church and state. 

It was not their design (as hath been said) " to 
bring such persons into corporations by inducing 
them to take the sacrament in the Church of 
England ;" the Legislature did not mean to 
tempt persons who were ill affected to the gov- 



1767.] 



CASE OF EVANS. 



157 



ernment occasionally to conform. It was not, I 
say, their design to bring them in. They could 
not trust them, lest they should use the power 
of their offices to distress and annoy the state. 
And the reason is alleged in the act itself. It 
was because there were "evil spirits" among 
them ; and they were afraid of evil spirits, and 
determined to keep them out. They therefore 
put it out of the power of electors to choose 
such persons, and out of their power to serve ; 
and accordingly prescribed a mark or character, 
laid down a description whereby they should be 
known and distinguished by their conduct pre- 
vious to such an election. Instead of appointing 
a condition of their serving the office, resulting 
from their future conduct, or some consequent 
action to be performed by them, they declared 
such persons incapable of being chosen as had 
not taken the sacrament in the Church within a 
year before such election ; and, without this 
mark of their affection to the Church, they could 
not be in office, and there could be no election. 
But as the law then stood, no man could have 
pleaded this disability, resulting from the Corpo- 
ration Act, in bar of such an action as is now 
brought against the defendant, because this dis- 
ability was owing to what was then, in the eye 
of the law, a crime ; every man being required 
by the canon law (received and confirmed by the 
statute law) to take the sacrament in the Church 
at least once a year. The law would not then 
permit a man to say that he had not taken the 
sacrament in the Chui-ch of England ; and he 
could not be allowed to plead it in bar of any ac- 
tion brought against him. 

III. But the case is' quite altered since the Act 
Effect of the of Tolcratiou. It is now no crime 
Toleration Act ^-^^ ^ ^^^^^ ^^,|^q jg within thc descrip- 
tion of that act, to say he is a Dissenter ; nor is 
it any crime for him not to take the sacrament 
according to the rites of the Church of England ; 
nay, the crime is, if he does it contrary to the 
dictates of his conscience. 

If it is a crime not to take the sacrament at 
church, it must be a crime by some law ; which 
must be either common or statute law, the canon 
law enforcing it being dependent wholly upon 
the statute law. Now the statute law is re- 
pealed as to persons capable of pleading [under 
the Toleration Act] that they are so and so 
qualified ; and therefore the canon law is re- 
pealed with regard to those persons. 

If it is a crime by common law, it must be so 
either by usage or principle. But there is no 
usage or custom, independent of positive law, 
which makes nonconformity a crime. The eter- 
nal principles of natural religion are part of the 
common law. The essential principles of re- 
vealed religion are part of the common law; 
so that any person reviling, subverting, or ridi- 
culing them, may be prosecuted at common law. 
But it can not be show^n, from the principles of 
natural or revealed religion, that, independent 
of positive law, temporal punishments ought to 
be inflicted for mere opinions with respect to 
particular modes of worship. 



Persecution for a sincei'e thorgh erroneous 
conscience is not to be deduced from reason or 
the fitness of things. It can only stand upon 
positive law. 

IV. It has been said (1 .) That " the Toleration 
Act only amounts to an exemption Refutntionof 
of the Protestant Dissenters from the pi^i'itin's ar- 

, . n .1 , . gumeuts. 

penalties of certam laws therem par- 
ticularly mentioned, and to nothing more ; thnt, 
if it had been intended to bear, and to have any 
operation upon the Corporation Act, the Corpo- 
ration Act ought to have been mentioned there- 
in ; and there ought to have been some enacting 
clause, exempting Dissenters from prosecution 
in consequence of this act, and enabling them to 
plead their not having received the sacrament 
according to the rites of the Church of England 
in bar of such action." But this is much too 
limited and narrow a conception of the Tolera- 
tion Act, which amounts consequentially to a 
great deal more than this ; and it hath conse- 
quentially an inference and operation upon the 
Corporation Act in particular. The Toleration 
Act renders that which was illegal before, now 
legal. The Dissenters' way of worship is per- 
mitted and allowed by this act. It is not only 
exempted from punishment, but rendered inno- 
cent and lawful. It is established : it is put 
under the protection, and is not merely under 
the connivance of the law\ In case those who 
are appointed by law to register dissenting places 
of worship refuse on any pretense to do it, we 
must, upon application, send a mandamus to 
compel them. 

Now there can not be a plainer position than 
that the law protects nothing in that very re- 
spect in which it is (in the eye of the law) at 
the same time a crime. Dissenters, within the 
description of the Toleration Act, are restored 
to a legal consideration and capacity ; and a 
hundred consequences will from thence follow, 
which are not mentioned in the act. For in- 
stance, previous to the Toleration Act, it was 
unlawful to devise any legacy for the support of 
dissenting congregations, or for the benefit of 
dissenting ministers ; for the law knew no such 
assemblies, and no such persons ; and such a de- 
vise was absolutely void, being left to what the 
law called superstitious purposes. But will it 
be said in any court in England that such a de- 
vise is not a good and valid one now ? And 
yet there is nothing said of this in the Tolei'a- 
tion Act. By this act the Dissenters are fi-eed, 
not only from the pains and penalties of the laws 
therein particularly specified, but from all eccle- 
siastical censures, and fi'om all penalty and pun- 
ishment whatsoever, on account of their non- 
conformity, which is allowed and protected by 
this act, and is therefore, in the eye of the law, 
no longer a crime. Now, if the defendant may 
say he is a Dissenter ; if the law doth not stop 
his mouth ; if he may declare that he hath not 
taken the sacrament according to the rites of the 
Church of England, without being considered as 
criminal; if, I say, his mouth is not stopped by 
the law, he may then plead his not having taken 



158 



LORD MANSFIELD IN THE 



[1767. 



the sacrament according- to the rites of the Church 
of England, in bar of this action. It is such a 
disabilit}^ as doth not leave him liable to any ac- 
tion, or to any penalty whatsoever. 

(2.) It is indeed said to be " a maxim in law, 
that a man shall not be allowed to disable him- 
self." But, when this maxim is applied to the 
present case, it is laid down in too large a sense. 
When it is extended to comprehend a legal dis- 
ability, it is taken in too great a latitude. What ! 
Shall not a man be allowed to plead that he is 
not tit and able ? These words are inserted in 
the by-law, as the ground of making it ; and in 
the plaintifFs declaration, as the ground of his ac- 
tion against the defendant. It is alleged that the 
defendant was fit and able, and that he refused 
to serve, not having a reasonable excuse. It is 
certain, and it is hereby in effect admitted, that if 
he is not fit and able, and that if he hath a rea- 
sonable excuse, he may plead it in bar of this ac- 
tion. Surely he might plead that he was not 
worth 6£l 5,000, provided that was really the 
case, as a circumstance that would render him 
not fit and able. And if the law allows him to 
say that he hath not taken the sacrament accord- 
ing to the rites of the Church of England, being 
within the description of the Toleration Act, he 
may plead that likewise to show that he is not fit 
and able. It is a reasonable, it is a lawful excuse. 

My Lords, the meaning of this maxim, " that 
a man shall not disable himself," is solely this : 
that a man shall not disable himself by his ow^n 
willful crime ; and such a disability the law will 
not allow him to plead. If a man contracts to 
sell an estate to any person upon certain terms at 
such a time, and in the mean time he sells it to 
another, he shall not be allowed to say, " Sir, I 
can not fulfill my contract ; it is out of my power ; 
I have sold my estate to another." Such a plea 
would be no bar to an action, because the act 
of his selling it to another is the very bi-each of 
contract. So, likewise, a man who hath prom- 
ised marriage to one lady, and afterward marries 
another, can not plead in bar of a prosecution 
from the first lady that he is already married, 
because his marrying the second lady is the very 
breach of promise to the first. A man shall not 
be allowed to plead that he was drunk in bar of 
a criminal prosecution, though perhaps he was 
at the time as incapable of the exercise of reason 
as if he had been insane, because his drunken- 
ness was itself a crime. He shall not be allow- 
ed to excuse one crime by another. The Roman 
soldier, who cut off his thumbs, was not suffered 
to plead his disability for the service to procure 
his dismission with impunity, because his inca- 
pacity was designedly brought on him by his 
own willful fault. And I am glad to observe so 
good an agreement among the judges upon this 
point, who have stated it with great precision 
and clearness. 

When it was said, therefore, that " a man can 
not plead his crime in excuse for not doing what 
he is by law required to do," it only amounts to 
this, that he can not plead in excuse what, when 
pleaded, is no excuse ; but there is not in this 



the shadow of an objection to his pleading what 
is an excuse — pleading a legal disqualification. 
If he is nominated to be a justice of the peace, 
he may say, I can not be a justice of the peace, 
for I have not a hundred pounds a year. In like 
manner, a Dissenter may plead, " I have not qual- 
ified, and I can not qualify, and am not obliged to 
qualify ; and you have no right to fine me for 
not serving." 

(3.) It hath been said that " the King hath a 
right to the service of all his subjects." And 
this assertion is very true, provided it be prop- 
erly qualified. But surely, against the operation 
of this general right in particular cases, a man 
may plead a natural or civil disability. May 
not a man plead that he was upon the high seas ? 
May not idiocy or lunacy be pleaded, which are 
natural disabilities ; or a judgment of a court of 
law, and much more a judgment of Parliament, 
which are civil disabilities ? 

(4.) It hath been said to be a maxim " that no 
man can plead his being a lunatic to avoid a 
deed executed, or excuse an act done, at that 
time, because," it is said, "if he was a lunatic, 
he could not remember any action he did during 
the period of his insanity ;" and this was doctrine 
formerly laid down by some judges. But I am 
glad to find that of late it hath been generally 
exploded. For the reason assigned for it is, in 
my opinion, wholly insufiicient to support it ; be- 
cause, though he could not remember what pass- 
ed during his insanity, yet he might justly say, 
if he ever executed such a deed, or did such an 
action, it must have been during his confinement 
or lunacy, for he did not do it either before or 
since that time. 

As to the case in which a man's plea of in- 
sanity was actually set aside, it was nothing 
more than this : it was when they pleaded ore 
tenus [or verbally] : the man pleaded that he was 
at the time out of his senses. It was replied, 
How do you know that you were out of your 
senses ? No man that is so, knows himself to 
be so. And accordingly his plea was, upon this 
quibble, set aside ] not because it was not a valid 
one, if he teas out of his senses, but because 
they concluded he was not out of his senses. If 
he had alleged that he was at that time con- 
fined, being apprehended to be out of his senses, 
no advantage could have been taken of his man- 
ner of expressing himself, and his plea must 
have been allowed to be good. 

(5.) As to Larwood's case, he was not allow- 
ed the benefit of the Toleration Act, because he 
did not plead it. If he had insisted on his right 
to the benefit of it in his plea, the judgment must 
have been different. His inserting it in his rep- 
lication was not allowed, not because it was not 
an allegation that would have excused him if it 
had been originally taken notice of in his plea, 
but because its being not mentioned till after- 
ward was a departure from his plea. 

In the case of the Mayor of Guilford, the Tol- 
eration Act was pleaded. The plea was allow- 
ed good, the disability being esteemed a lawful 
one ; and the judgment was right. 



k 



ne?.] 



CASE OF EVANS. 



159 



And here the defendant hath likewise insisted 
on his right to the benefit of the Toleration Act. 
In his plea he saith he is bona fide a Dissenter, 
within the description of the Toleration Act ; 
that he hath taken the oaths, and subscribed the 
declaration required by that act, to show that he 
is not a popish recusant ; that he hath never re- 
ceived the sacrament according to the rites of 
the Church of England, and that he can not in 
conscience do it ; and that for more than fifty 
years past he hath not been present at church 
at the celebration of the established worship, but 
hath constantly received the sacrament and at- 
tended divine service among the Protestant Dis- 
senters. These facts are not denied by the 
plaintiff, though they might easily have been 
traversed ; and it was incumbent upon them to 
have done it, if they had not known they should 
certainly fail in it. There can be no doubt, 
therefore, that the defendant is a Dissenter — an 
honest, conscientious Dissenter ; and no conscien- 
tious Dissenter can take the sacrament at church. 
The defendant saith he can not do it, and he is 
not obliged to do it. And as this is the case, as 
the law allows him to say this, as it hath not 
stopped his mouth, the plea which he makes is 
a lawful plea, his disability being through no 
crime or fault of his own. I say, he is disabled 
by act of Parliament, without the concurrence or 
intervention of any fault or crime of his own ; 
and therefore he may plead this disability in bar 
of the present action. 

(6.) The ease of " atheists and infidels" is out 
of the present question ; they come not within 
the description of the Toleration Act. And this 
is the sole point to be inquired into in all cases 
of the like nature with that of the defendant, who 
here pleads the Toleration Act. Is the man 
bona fide a Dissenter within the description of 
that act ? If not, he can not plead his disability 
in consequence of his not having taken the sac- 
rament in the Church of England. If he is, he 
may lawfully and with effect plead it in bar of 
such an action ; and the question on which this 
distinction is grounded must be tried by a jury. 

(7.) It hath been said that " this being a mat- 
ter between God and a man's own conscience, it 
can not come under the cognizance of a juiy." 
But certainly it may ; and, though God alone is 
the absolute judge of a man's religious profes- 
sion and of his conscience, yet there are some 
marks even of sincerity, among which there is 
none more certain than consistency. Surely a 
man's sincerity may be judged of by overt acts. 
It is a just and excellent maxim, which will hold 
good in this, as in all other cases, "by their 
fruits ye shall know them." Do they, I do not 
say go to meeting now and then, but do they 
frequent the meeting-house ? Do they join gen- 
erally and statedly in divine worship with dis- 
senting congregations ? Whether they do or 
not, may be ascertained by their neighbors, and 
by those who frequent the same places of wor- 
ship. In case a man hath occasionally con- 
formed for the sake of places of ti-ust and profit •, 
in that case. I imagine, a jury would not hesitate 



in their verdict. If a man then alleges he is a 
Dissenter, and claims the protection and the ad- 
vantages of the Toleration Act, a jury may 
justly find that he is not a Dissenter within the 
description of the Toleration Act, so far as to 
render his disability a lawful one. If he takes 
the sacrament for his interest, the jury may 
fairly conclude that this scruple of conscience is 
a false pretense when set up to avoid a burden. 

The defendant in the present case pleads that 
he is a Dissenter within the description of the 
Toleration Act ; that he hath not taken the sac- 
rament in the Church of England within one 
year preceding the time of his supposed elec- 
tion, nor ever in his whole life ; and that he can 
not in conscience do it. 

Conscience is not controllable by human laws, 
nor amenable to human tribunals. Persecution, 
or attempts to force conscience, will never pro- 
duce conviction, and are only calculated to make 
hypocrites or martyrs. 

V. My Lords, there never was a single in- 
stance, from the Saxon times down to concluding 
our own, in which a man w^as ever "bservations. 
punished for erroneous opinions concerning rites 
or modes of worship, but upon some positive 
law. The common law of England, which is 
only common reason or usage, knows of no pros- 
ecution for mere opinions. For atheism, blas- 
phemy, and reviling the Christian religion, there 
have been instances of persons prosecuted and 
punished upon the common law. But bare non- 
conformity is no sin by the common law ; and 
all positive laws inflicting any pains or penalties 
for nonconformity to the established rites and 
modes, arc repealed by the Act of Toleration, 
and Dissenters are thereby exempted from all 
ecclesiastical censures. 

What bloodshed and confusion have been oc- 
casioned, from the reign of Henry the Fourth, 
when the first penal statutes were enacted, down 
to the revolution in this kingdom, by laws made 
to force conscience ! There is nothing, certainly, 
more unreasonable, more inconsistent with the 
rights of human nature, more contrary to the 
spirit and precepts of the Christian religion, more 
iniquitous and unjust, more impolitic, than per- 
secution. It is against natural religion, revealed 
religion, and sound policy. 

Sad experience and a large mind taught that 
great man, the President De Thou, this doctrine. 
Let any man read the many admirable things 
which, though a Papist, he hath dared to ad- 
vance upon the subject, in the dedication of his 
History to Harry the Fourth of France, which I 
never read without rapture, and he will be fully 
convinced, not only how cruel, but how impoli- 
tic it is to prosecute for religious opinions. I 
am sorry that of late his countrymen have begun 
to open their eyes, see their error, and adopt his 
sentiments. I should not have broken my heart 
(I hope I may say it without breach of Christian 
charity) if France had continued to cherish the 
Jesuits and to persecute the Huguenots.^ 



This is :\ most dexterous preparation for the cut- 



160 



LORD MANSFIELD ON 



fl770. 



There was no occasion to revoke the Edict of 
Nanles. The Jesuits needed only to have ad- 
vised a plan similar to what is contended for 
in the present case, Make a law to render them 
incapable of office, make another to punish them 
for not serving. If they accept, punish them 
(for it is admitted on all hands that the defend- 
ant, in the cause before your Lordships, is pros- 
ecutable for taking the olnce upon him) — if they 
accept, punish them ; if they refuse, punish them. 
If they say yes, punish them ; if they say no, 
punish them. My Lords, this is a most exqui- 
site dilemma, from which there is no escaping. 
It is a trap a man can not get out of; it is as 
bad persecution as that of Procrustes. If they 
are too short, stretch them ; if they are too long, 
lop them. Small would have been their consola- 
tion to have been gravely told, " The Edict of 
Nantes is kept inviolable. You have the full 
benefit of that act of toleration ; you may take 
the sacrament in your own way with impunity ; 
you are not compelled to go to mass." Were 
this case but told in the city of London, as of a 
proceeding in France, \\o\\ would they exclaim 
against the Jesuitical distinction ? And yet, in 
truth, it comes from themselves. The Jesuits 
never thought of it. When they meant to per- 
secute by their act of toleration, the Edict of 
Nantes was repealed. 

This by-law, by which the Dissenters are to 
be reduced to this wretched dilemma, is a by-law 
of the cit}-, a local corporation, contrary to an 
act of Parliament, which is the law of the land ; 
a modern by-law of a very modern date, made 
long since the Corporation Act, long since the 
Toleration Act, in the fax^e of them, for they 
knew these laws were in being. It was made 
in some year in the reign of the late King — I 
forget which ; but it was made about the time 
of building the mansion house J ! Now, if it 
could be supposed the city have a power of mak- 
ing such a by-law, it would entirely subvert the 
Toleration Act, the design of which was to ex- 
empt the Dissenters from all penalties ; for by 
such a by-law they have it in their power to 
make every Dissenter pay a fine of six hundred 
pounds, or any sum they please, for it amounts 
to that. 



The professed design of making this by-law 
was to get fit and able persons to serve the 
oflice ; and the plaintiff" sets forth in his declara- 
tion, that, if the Dissenters are excluded, they 
shall want fit and able persons to serve the 
oflftce. But, were I to deliver my own suspi- 
cion, it would be, that they did not so much wish 
for their services as their fines. Dissenters have 
been appointed to this office, one who was blind, 
another who was bed-ridden ; not, I suppose, on 
account of their being fit and able to sei've the 
office. No : they were disabled both by nature 
and by law. 

We had a case lately in the courts below, of 
a person chosen mayor of a corporation while 
he was beyond seas with his Majesty's troops in 
America, and they knew him to be so. Did 
they want him to serve the office ? No ; it was 
impossible. But they had a mind to continue 
the former mayor a year longer, and to have a 
pretense for setting aside him who was now 
chosen, on all future occasions, as having been 
elected before. 

In the case before your Lordships, the defend- 
ant was by law incapable at the time of his pre- 
tended election ; and it is my firm persuasion 
that he was chosen because he was incapable. 
If he had been capable, he had not been chosen, 
for they did not want him to serve the office. 
They chose him because, without a breach of 
the law, and a usurpation on the Crown, he could 
not serve the oflftce. They chose him, that he 
might fall under the penalty of their by-law, 
made to serve a particular purpose ; in opposi- 
tion to which, and to avoid the fine thereby im- 
posed, he hath pleaded a legal disability, ground- 
ed on two acts of Parliament. As I am of opin- 
ion that his plea is good, I conclude with moving 
your Lordships, 

" That the judgment be afl^irmed." 



The judgment was accordingly affirmed, and 
an end put to a system of extortion so mean and 
scandalous, that it seems difficult to ijnderstand, 
at the present day, how an English community 
could have endured, or English courts have up- 
held, it for a single hour. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD MANSFIELD ON A BILL TO DEPRIVE PEERS OF THE REALM OF CERTAIN PRIVILEGES, 
DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, MAY 8, 1770. 



INTRODUCTION. 
This speech is the best specimen extant of Lord Mansfield's parliamentary eloquence. It has that 
felicity of statement and clearness of reasoning for which he was so much distinguished, connected with 
an ardor and elevation of sentiment, that give double force to every argument he uses. The style is un- 
commonly chaste and polished. It has a conversational ease, and yet entire dignity throughout, which 
have made it the favorite of all who love pure and simple English. 



ting rebuke which follows. Nothing could be more 
mortifying to the citizens of London, among whom 
the fires of Smithfield had left a traditional horror 



of Popish cruelty, than to be thus held out to the 
world as more cruel and Jesuitical than the detested 
persecutors of the French Huguenots. 



2770.] 



DEPRIVING PEERS OF CERTAIN PRIVILEGES. 



161 



SPEE 

My Lords, — When I consider the importance 
of this bill to your Lordships. I am not surprised 
it has taken so much of your consideration. It 
is a bill, indeed, of no common magnitude. It is 
no less than to take away from two thirds of the 
Legislative body of this great kingdom, certain 
privileges and immunities of which they have 
been long possessed. Perhaps there is no situ- 
ation the human mind can be placed in, that is 
so difficult, and so trying, as where it is made a 
judge in its own cause. There is something im- 
planted in the breast of man so attached to itself, 
so tenacious of privileges once obtained, that, in 
such a situation, either to discuss with impartial- 
ity, or decide with justice, has ever been held as 
the summit of all human virtue. The bill now 
in question puts your Lordships in this very pre- 
dicament ; and I doubt not but the wisdom of 
your decision will convince the w^orld, that, where 
self-interest and justice are in opposite scales, the 
latter will ever preponderate with your Lord- 
ships. 

Privileges have been granted to legislators in 
all ages and in all countries. The practice is 
founded in wisdom ; and, indeed, it is peculiarly 
essential to the Constitution of this country, that 
the members of both Houses should be free in 
their persons in cases of civil suits ; for there 
may come a time when the safety and welfare 
of this whole empire may depend upon their at- 
tendance in Parliament. God forbid that I 
should advise any measure that would in future 
endanger the state. But the bill before your 
Lordships has, I am confident, no such tendency, 
for it expressly secures the persons of members 
of either House in all civil suits. This being the 
case, I confess, when I see many noble Lords, 
for whose judgment I have the greatest respect, 
standing up to oppose a bill which is calculated 
merely to facilitate the recovery of just and legal 
debts, I am astonished and amazed. They, I 
doubt not, oppose the bill upon public principles. 
I would not wish to insinuate that private interest 
has the least weight in their determination. 

This bill has been frequently proposed, and as 
frequently miscarried ; but it was always lost in 
the Lower House. Little did I think, when it 
had passed the Commons, that it possibly could 
have met with such opposition here. Shall it be 
said that you, my Lords, the grand council of the 
nation, the highest judicial and legislative body 
of the realm, endeavor to evade by privilege 
those very laws which you enforce on your fellow- 
subjects ? Forbid it, justice. I am sure, were 
the noble Lords as well acquainted as I am with 
but half the difficulties and delays that are every 
day occasioned in the courts of justice, under pre- 
tense of privilege, they would not, nay, they could 
not, oppose this bill. 

I have waited with patience to hear what ar- 
guments might be urged against the bill ; but I 
have waited in vain. The truth is, there is no 
argument that can weigh against it. The jus- 
tice and expediency of this bill are such as ren- 



CH, &c. 

der it self-evident. It is a proposition of that 
nature that can neither be weakened by argu- 
ment, nor entangled with sophistr}'. Much, in- 
deed, has been said by some noble Lords on the 
wisdom of our ancestors, and how difierently they 
thought from us. They not only decreed that 
privilege should prevent all civil suits from pro- 
ceeding during the sitting of Parliament, but like- 
wise granted protection to the very servants of 
members. I shall say nothing on the wisdom of 
our ancestors. It might perhaps appear invid- 
ious, and is not necessary in the present case. 
I .shall only say, that the noble Lords that flatter 
themselves with the weight of that reflection, 
should remember, that, as circumstances alter, 
things themselves should alter. Formerly it was 
not so fashionable either for masters or servants 
to run in debt as it is at present ; nor formerly 
were merchants or manufacturers members of 
Parliament, as at present. The case now is very 
different. Both merchants and manufacturers 
are, with great propriety, elected members of the 
Lower House. Commerce having thus got into 
the legislative body of the kingdom, privilege 
must be done away. We all know that the very 
soul and essence of trade are regular payments ; 
and sad experience teaches us that there are 
men who will not make their regular payments 
without the compulsive power of the laws. The 
law, then, ought to be equally open to all. Any 
exemption to particular men, or particular ranks 
of men, is, in a free commercial country, a sole- 
cism of the grossest nature. 

But I will not trouble your Lordships with ar- 
guments for that which is sufficiently evident 
without any. I shall only say a few words to 
some noble Lords, who foresee much inconven- 
ience from the persons of their servants being 
liable to be arrested. One noble Lord observes, 
that the coachman of a peer may be arrested 
while he is driving his master to the House, and 
consequently he will not be able to attend his 
duty in Parliament. If this was actually to hap- 
pen, there are so many methods by which the 
member might still get to the House, I can hardly 
think the noble Lord to be serious in his objec- 
tion. Another noble Lord said, that by this bill 
one might lose his most valuable and honest serv- 
ants. This I hold to be a contradiction in terms ; 
for he neither can be a valuable servant, nor an 
honest man, who gets into debt, which he neither 
is able nor willing to pay till compelled by law. 
If my servant, by unforeseen accidents, has got 
in debt, and I still wish to retain him, I certainly 
would pay the debt. But upon no principle of 
liberal legislation whatever can my servant have 
a title to set his creditors at defiance, while, for 
forty shillings only, the honest tradesman may be 
torn from his family and locked up in jail. It is 
monstrous injustice ! I flatter myself, however, 
the determination of this day will entirely put an 
end to all such partial proceedings for the future, 
by passing into a law the bill now under your 
Lordships' consideration. 



162 



LORD MANSFIELD ON DEPRIVLNG PEERS, &c. 



[1770. 



I now come to speak upon what, indeed, I 
would have gladly avoided, had I not been par- 
ticularly pointed at for the part I have taken in 
this bill. It has been said by a noble Lord on 
my left hand that I likewise am running the race 
of popularity. If the noble Lord means by pop- 
ularity that applause bestowed by after ages on 
good and virtuous actions, I have long been strug- 
gling in that race, to what purpose all-trying 
time can alone determine. But if the noble 
Lord means that mushi-oom popularity which is 
raised without merit, and lost without a crime, 
he is much mistaken in his opinion. I defy the 
noble Lord to point out a single action in my 
life where the popularity of the times ever had 
the smallest influence on my determinations. I 
thank God I have a more permanent and steady 
rule for my conduct — the dictates of my own 
breast. Those that have foregone that pleasing 
adviser, and given up their mind to be the slave 
of every popular impulse, I sincerely pity. I 
pity them still more if their vanity leads them to 
mistake the shouts of a mob for the trumpet of 
their fame. Experience might inform them that 
many who have been saluted with the huzzas of 
a crowd one day, have received their execrations 
the next ; and many who, by the popularity of 
their times, have been held up as spotless patri- 
ots, have nevertheless appeared upon the histori- 
an's page, when truth has triumphed over delu- 
sion, the assassins of liberty. 

Why, then, the noble Lord can think I am am- 
bitious of present popularity, that echo of folly 
and shadow of renown, I am at a loss to determ- 
ine. Besides, I do not know that the bill now 
before your Lordships will be popular. It de- 
pends much upon the caprice of the day. It 
may not be popular to compel people to pay their 
debts ; and in that case the present must be an 
unpopular bill. It may not be popular, neither, 
to take away any of the privileges of Parliament ; 
for I very well remember, and many of your 
Lordships may remember, that not long ago the 
popular cry was for the extension of privilege. 
And so far did they carry it at that time, that it 
was said that privilege protected members from 
criminal actions ; nay, such was the power of 
popular prejudices over weak minds, that the 



very decisions of some of the courts were tinc- 
tured with that doctrine.! It was undoubtedly 
an abominable doctrine. I thought so then, and 
think so still. But, nevertheless, it was a popular 
doctrine, and came immediately from those who 
were called the friends of liberty, how deservedly 
time will show. True liberty, in my opinion, 
can only exist when justice is equally adminis- 
tered to all — to the King and to the beggar. 
Where is the justice, then, or where is the law, 
that protects a member of Parliament more than 
any other man from the punishment due to his 
crimes ? The laws of this country allow no 
place nor employment to be a sanctuary for 
crimes; and, where I have the honor to sit as 
judge, neither royal favor nor popular applause 
shall ever protect the guilty. 

I have now only to beg pardon for having em- 
ployed so much of your Lordships' time ; and I 
am very sorry a bill, fraught with so good con- 
sequences, has not met with an abler advocate ; 
but I doubt not your Lordships' determination 
will convince the world that a bill, calculated to 
contribute so much to the equal distribution of 
justice as the present, requires, with your Lord- 
ships, but very little support. 



The act was finally passed. 



1 This refers to the case of Mr. Wilkes, who was 
arrested under a general warrant for a seditious 
libel on the King. He was taken before the Court 
of Common Pleas by a writ of Habeas Corpus, and 
there pleaded his privilege against arrest as a mem- 
ber of Parliament. The court, with Lord Camden 
at their head, unanimously decided, that members 
were free from arrest in all cases except treason, 
felony, and actual breach of the peace. Whatever 
may have been the merits of this case, it was un- 
worthj' of Lord Mansfield to sneer at Lord Camden 
and his associates as "weak minds." "As author- 
ities then stood," says Lord Campbell, " I think a 
court of law was bound to decide in favor of privi- 
lege in such a case." This, it is believed, has been 
the general sentiment of the English bar; while all 
agree that this extension of privilege to criminal 
cases was wrong in principle, and was very prop- 
erly set aside a short time after, by a joint resolu- 
tion of the two houses of Parliament. 



JUNIUS. 

STAT NOMINIS UMBRA. i 

The Letters of Junius have taken a permanent place in the eloquence of our 
language. Though often false in statement and malignant in spirit, they will never 
cease to be read as specimens of pow^erful composition : For the union of brilliancy 
and force, there is nothing superior to them in our literature. Nor is it for his style 
alone that Junius deserves to be studied. He shows great rhetorical skill in his mode 
of developing a subject. There is an arrangement of a given mass of thought, which 
serves to throw it upon the mind with the greatest possible effect. There is another 
arrangement which defeats its object, and renders the impression feeble or indistinct. 
Demosthenes was, of all men, most perfectly master of the one ; the majority of ex- 
temporaneous speakers are equally good examples of the other. 

Junius had evidently studied this subject with great care ; and it is for the sake 
of urging it upon the young orator that some of the ablest of his productions will 
now be given. Happily, the selection is easy. There are ten or twelve of his letters 
which stand far above the rest for strength of thought and elegance of diction. These 
will be found below, with the exception of his Letters to Lord Mansfield, which, 
though highly finished in respect to style, are now universally condemned for their 
errors, both in law and fact, and their unmerited abuse of the greatest of English 
jurists. In regard to his treatment of others, it is hardly necessary to say that the 
statements of Juiiius are to be taken with great allowance. He was an unscrupu- 
lous political partisan ; and though much that he said of the Duke of Grafton and 
the other objects of his vengeance was strictly true, they were by no means so weak 
or profligate as he here represents them. We might as well take Pope's Satires for 
a faithful exhibition of men and manners in the days of George IL 

It is, therefore, only as an orator — for such he undoubtedly was in public life, and 
such he truly is in these letters — that we are now to consider him. Li this char- 
acter his writings are worthy of the closest study, especially in respect to the quality 
alluded to above. Each of these letters was the result of severe and protracted 
labor. We should have known it, if he had not himself avowed the fact, for we 
see every where the marks of elaborate forecast and revision ; and we learn, from 
his private correspondence with Woodfall, that he expended on their composition an 
amount of anxiety and efibrt which hardly any other writer, especially one so proud, 
would have been wilhng to acknowledge. Yet it is certain that by far the greater 
part of all this toil was bestowed, not upon the language, but on the selection and ar- 
rangement of his ideas. His mind, in early life, had clearly been subjected to the 
severest logical training. Composition, with him, was the creation of a system of 
thought, in which every thing is made subordinate to a just order and sequence of 
ideas. One thought grows out of another in regular succession. His reasonings 

1 This celebrated motto was taken from the first book of Lucan's Pharsalia, line 135. The poet 
there speaks of Pompey, when he entered into the war with Cesar, as having his name, or repu- 
tation, chiefly in the past ; and adds, in reference to this idea, " Stat magni nominis umbra" — He 
stands the shadow of a mighty name. When the author of these letters collected them into a 
volume, he beautifully appropriated these words to himself, with the omission of the word magni, 
and a change of application. He placed them on the title-page, in connection with the word Junius, 
which " stands the shadow of a name," whose secret was intrusted to no one, and was never to be 
revealed. 



164: JUNIUS. 

often take the form of a syllogism, though usually with the omission of one of the 
terms ; and we never find him betrayed into that careless diffusion of style so com- 
mon with those who are ignorant of the principles of logic. In this respect, the 
Avritings of Junius will amply repay the closest study and analysis. Let the young 
orator enter completely into the scope and design of the author. Let him watch the 
under-current of his thoughts and feelings. Let him observe how perfectly every 
thing coincides to produce the desired impression — the statement of principles and 
the reference to facts, the shadings of thought and the colorings of imagery. Let 
him take one of the more striking passages, and remark the dexterous preparation 
by which each of its several parts is so shaped that the leading thoughts come for- 
ward to the best advantage ; clear in all their relations, standing boldly out, unen- 
cumbered by secondaiy ideas, and thus fitted to strike the mind with full and undi- 
vided force. Such a study of Junius will prepare the young reader to enter into the 
Logic of Thought. It will lead to the formation of a severe intellectual taste, which 
is the best guard against the dangers of hasty composition, and the still greater dan- 
gers of extemporaneous speaking. Such speaking can not be dispensed with. On 
the contrary, it is becoming more and more essential to the success of public men in 
every department of life. It is, therefore, of the highest importance for the student 
in oratory to be familiar ^vith models which shall preserve the purity of his style, and 
aid him in the formation of those intellectual habits Avithout which there can be 
neither clearness, nor force, nor continuity of thought in extemporaneous speaking. 
One of our most eloquent advocates, the late William Wirt, whose early training 
was of a different kind, remarked, in an address delivered not long before his death, 
that here lay the chief deficiency of our public speakers — that the want of severe 
intellectual discipline was the great want of American orators. 

There is also another lesson to be learned from Junius, viz., the art of throiuing 
aivay icnnecessai-y ideas. A large proportion of the thoughts which rise to the mind 
in first considering a subject, are not really essential to its clear and full develop- 
ment. No one ever felt this more strongly than Junius. He had studied in the 
school of the classics ; he had caught the spirit of the Grecian oratory ; and he knew 
that the first element of its power was a rigid scrutiny of the ideas to be brought 
forward, and a stern rejection of every form of thought, however plausible or attract- 
ive, which was not clearly indispensable to the attainment of his object. He learned, 
too, in the same school, another lesson of equal importance, in relation to the ideas 
selected for use. He saw how much could be done to abridge their statement, and 
set aside the necessity of qualifying terms and clauses, by such an arrangement of 
the leading thoughts that each should throw light upon the other, and all unite in 
one full, determinate impression. Our language is, indeed, poorly fitted for such pur- 
poses. It is a weak and imperfect instrument compared with others, whose varied 
inflections and numerous illative particles afford the readiest means of graceful trans- 
ition, and of binding ideas together in close-compacted masses. Such as it is, how- 
ever, Junius has used it to the utmost advantage. In his best passages, there is 
a fine compression of thought, arising from the skillful disposition of his materials, 
which it is far more easy to admire than to imitate. Not an idea is excluded which 
could promote his object. It is all there, but in the narrowest compass. The stroke 
is a single one, because nothing more is needed ; and it takes its full effect, because 
there is nothing in the way to weaken the force of the blow. He has thus given us 
some of the best specimens in our language of that " rich economy of expression," 
which was so much studied by the great writers of antiquity. 

There is only one more characteristic of Junius which will here be noticed. It 
is the wonderful power he possessed of insi7iuating ideas into the mind without 
giving them a formal or direct expression. Voltaire is the only writer who ever en- 



,^<.-'- y JUNIUS. 165 

joyed this power in an equal degree, and he used it chiefly in his hours of gayety 
and sport. Junius used it for the most serious purposes of his life. He made it the 
instrument of torturing his victims:/ It is a curious inquiry why this species of in- 
direct attack is so peculiarly painful to persons of education and refinement. The 
question is not why they sufler more than others from contempt and ridicule, but why 
sarcasm, irony, and the other forms of attack by inmiuation, have such extraordina- 
ry power to distress their feelings. Perhaps the reason is, that such persons are pe- 
culiarly qualified to understand and appreciate these forms of ingenious derision. The 
ignorant and vulgar have no power to comprehend them, and are therefore beyond 
their reach. But it is otherwise with men of cultivated minds. It is impossible for 
such men not to admire the efforts of genius ; and when they find these efforts turned 
against themselves, and see all the force of a subtle intellect employed in thus dex- 
terously insinuating suspicion or covering them with ridicule, whatever may be their 
consciousness of innocence, they can not but feel deeply. Coarse invective and re- 
proachful language would be a relief to the mind. Any one can ciy " fool," " liar," 
or " scoundrel." But to sketch a picture in which real traits of character are so in- 
geniously distorted that every one will recognize the likeness and apply the name, 
requires no ordinary force of genius ; and it is not wonderful that men of the firmest 
spirit shrink from such an assailant. We have seen how Lord Mansfield " suffered" 
under inflictions of this kind from Lord Chatham, till he could endure them no longer, 
and abruptly fled the contest. In addition to this, he who is thus assailed knows 
that the talent which he feels so keenly will be perfectly understood by others, and 
that attacks of this kind diffuse their influence, like a subtle poison, throughout the 
whole republic of letters. They will be read, he is aware, not only by that large 
class who dwell with malicious delight on the pages of detraction, but by multitudes 
whose good opinion he prizes most highly — in whose minds all that is dear to him in 
reputation will be mingled with images of ridicule and contempt, which can not fail 
to be remembered for their ingenuity, how much soever they may be condemned for 
their spirit. For these and perhaps other reasons, this covert mode of attack has al- 
vv'ays been the most potent engine of wounding the feelings and destroying charac- 
ter. Vjunius had not only the requisite talent and bitterness to wield this engine 
witSnerrible effect, but he stood on a vantage ground in using it, such as no other 
writer ever enjoyed. He had means of secret information, which men have labored 
in vain to trace out or conceive of. His searching eye penetrated equally into the 
retired circles of domestic life, the cabinets of ministers, and the closet of the King.^ 
Persons of the highest rank and most callous feelings were filled with alarm when 
they found their darkest intrigues laid open, their most hidden motives detected, their 
duplicity and tergiversation exposed to view, and even their private vices blazoned 
before the eyes of the public. Nor did Junius, on these points, very scrupulously 
confine himself to the truth. He gave currency to some of the basest slanders of 
the day, which he could not but know were unfounded, in order to blacken the char- 

2 The following is a curious instance. About two years after these Letters were commenced, 
Garrick learned confidentially from Woodfall that it was doubtful whether Junius would continue 
to write much longer. He flew instantly with the news to Mr. Ramus, one of the royal pages, 
who hastened with it to the King, then residing at Richmond. Within two days, Garrick received, 
through Woodfall, the following note from Junius : 

" I am verj' exactly informed of your impertinent inquiries, and of the information you so busily 
sent to Richmond, and with what triumph and exultation it was received. I knew every particu- 
lar of it the next day. Now, mark me, vagabond ! keep to your pantomimes, or be assured you 
shall hear of it. Meddle no more, thou busy informer ! It is in my power to make you curse the 
houi- in which you dared to interfere with Junius." 

Miss Seward states, in her Letters, that on the evening after the receipt of this note, Garrick, for 
once in his hfe, played badly. 



166 JUNIUS. 

acter of his opponents. He stood, in the mean time, unassailable himself, wrapped, 
like JEneas at the court of Dido, in the cloud around him, affording no opportunity 
for others to retort his accusations, to examine his past conduct, or to scan his pres- 
ent motives. With all these advantages, he toiled as few men ever toiled, to gain 
that exquisite finish of style, that perfect union of elegance and strength, which could 
alone express the refined bitterness of his feelings. He seemed to exult in gather- 
ing up the blunted weapons of attack thrown aside by others, and giving them a 
keener edge and a finer polish. "Ample justice," says he to one whom he assailed, 
" has been done by abler pens than mine to the separate merits of your life and charac- 
ter. Let it be my humble office to collect the scattered sweets, till their united vir- 
tue tortures, the sense.'" In the success of these labors he felt the proud consciousness 
that he was speaking to other generations besides his own, and declared concerning 
one of his victims, " I would pursue him through life, and try the last exertion of my 
abilities to jjreserve the perishahle infamy of his name, and tnake it immortal."'^ 

This reliance of Junius on his extraordinary powers of composition, naturally leads 
us to consider his style. We might pronounce it perfect, if it were only free from a 
slight appearance of labor, and were as easy and idiomatic as it is strong, pointed, 
and brilliant. But it seems hardly possible to unite all these qualities in the high- 
est degree. Where strength and compactness are carried to their utmost limit, there 
will almost of necessity be something rigid and unbending. A man in plate armor 
can not move with the freedom and lightness of an athlete. But Junius, on the 
whole, has been wonderfully successful in overcoming these difficulties. His sentences 
have generally an easy flow, with a dignified and varied rhythmus, and a harmoni- 
ous cadence. Clear in their construction, they grow in strength as they advance, 
and come ofi" at the close always with liveliness, and often with a sudden, stinging 
force. He is peculiarly happy in the choice of words. It has been said of Shak- 
speare, that one might as well attempt to push a brick out of its place in a well-con- 
structed wall, as to alter a single expression. In his finest passages, the same is true 
of Junius. He gives you the exact word, he brings out the most delicate shadings of 
thought, he throws it upon the mind with elastic force, and you say, " What is written 
is written !" There are, indeed, instances of bad grammar and inaccurate expression, 
but these may be ascribed, in most cases, to the difficulty and danger of his correcting 
the press. Still, there is reason to believe that he was not an author by profession. 
Certain words and forms of construction seem plainly to show, that he had never 
been trained to the minuter points of authorship. And, perhaps, for this very reason, 
he was a better writer. He could think of nothing but how to express his ideas 
with the utmost vividness and force. Hence he gave them a frank and fearless ut- 
terance, which, modified by a taste like his, has imparted to his best passages a per- 
fection of style which is never reached by mere mechanical labor. Among other 
things, Junius understood better than most writers where the true strength of lan- 
guage lies, viz., in the nouns and verbs. He is, therefore, sparing in the use of qual- 
ifying expressions.'' He relies mainly for effect on the frame-work of thought. In 
the filling out of his ideas, where qualifying terms must of course be employed, he 

^ How much Junius relied for success on the perfection of his statement, may be learned from 
the following fact. When he had hastily thrown off a letter containing a number of coarse and un- 
guarded expressions, of which he was afterward ashamed, he coolly requested Woodfall to say in 
a subsequent number, " We have some reason to suspect, that the last letter signed Junius in this 
paper %cas not written by the real Junius, though the observation escaped us at the time!" There 
is nothing equal to this in all the annals of literature, unless it be Cicero's famous letter to Lucceius, 
in which he asks the historian to lie a little in his favor in recording the events of his consulship, 
for the sake of making him a greater man ! 

^ Voltaire somewhere remarks, that the adjective is the greatest enemy of the substantive, though 
they agree together in gender, number, and case. 



JUNIUS. 167 

rarely uses intensives. His adverbs and adjectives are nearly all descriptive, and 
are designed to shade or to color the leading thoughts with increased exactness, and 
thus set them before the mind in bolder relief or with more graphic effect. He em- 
ploys contrast also, with much success, to heighten the impression. Xo one has 
shown greater skill in crushing discordant thoughts together in a single mass, and 
giving them, by their juxtaposition, a new and startling force. Hardly any one but 
Demosthenes has made so happy a use of antithesis. His only fault is, that he now 
and then allows it to run away with his judgment, and to sink into epigram. The 
imagery of Junius is uncommonly brilliant. It was the source of much of his power. 
He showed admirable dexterity in working his bold and burning metaphors into the 
very texture of his style. He was also equally happy in the use of plainer images, 
drawn from the ordinary concerns of life, and intended not so much to adorn, as to 
illustrate and enforce. A few instances of each will show his wide and easy com- 
mand of figurative language. In w^arning his countrymen against a readiness to be 
satisfied with some temporary gain, at the expense of great and permanent interests, 
he says, " In the shipwreck of the state, trifles float and are preserved, while every 
thing solid and valuable sinks to the bottom and is lost forever." Speaking of the 
numerous Avriters in favor of the ministry, he says, " They pile up reluctant quarto 
upon solid folio, as if their labors, because they are gigantic, could contend with truth 
and heaven."^ Again, " The very sunshine you live in is a prelude to your dissolu- 
tion : when you are ripe, you shall be plucked." Exhorting the King no longer to 
give importance to Wilkes by making him the object of royal persecution, he says, 
" The gentle breath of peace would leave him on the surface neglected and unre- 
moved. It is only the tempest that lifts him from his place." And again, in a 
higher strain, " The rays of royal indignation collected upon him, served only to il- 
luminate and could not consume." The last instance of this kind which will now 
be cited, has been already referred to on a preceding page, as perhaps suggested by 
a classical allusion of Lord Chatham. If so, it is a beautiful example of the way in 
which one man of genius often improves upon another. Many have pronounced it 
the finest metaphor in our language. Speaking of the King's sacrifice of honor in 
not instantly resenting the seizure of the Falkland Islands, he says, " A clear, un- 
blemished character comprehends not only the integrity that will not offer, but the 
spirit that will not submit to an injury ; and whether it belongs to an individual or 
to a community, it is the foundation of peace, of independence, and of safety. Private 
credit is wealth ; public honor is security. The feather that adorns the royal bird 
s2tpX)orts his flight. StrijJ him of his lAumage, and you fix him to the earth'' 
Such are some of the characteristics of the style of Junius, which made Mr. Mathias, 
author of the Pursuits of Literature, rank him among the English classics, in the 
place assigned to Livy and Tacitus among the ancients. 

Heference has already been made to the violent passions of Junius, and his want 
of candor toward most of his opponents. Still it will be seen, from the following sen- 
timents contained in a private letter, that in his cooler moments he had just and 
elevated views concerning the design of political discussions. He is speaking of an 
argument he had just stated in favor of rotten boroughs, and goes on to say, " The 
man who fairly and completely answers this argument, shall have my thanks and 
my applause. My heart is already with him. I am ready to be converted. I ad- 
mire his morality, and would gladly subscribe to the articles of his faith. Grateful 
as I am to the Good Being, whose bounty has imparted to me this reasoning intellect, 
whatever it is, I hold myself proportionably indebted to him, whose enlightened un- 
derstanding communicates another ray of knowledge to mine. But neither should 

^ Refernng to the story of the giants' tearing up mountains, and piling Pehon upon Ossa, in their 
contest with the gods. 



168 JUNIUS. 

I think the most exalted faculties of the human mind a gift worthy of the divinity, 
nor any assistance in the improvement of them a subject of gratitude to my fellow- 
creatures, if I were not satisfied that really to inform the understanding, corrects 
and eidarges the hearth " Si sic omnia !" Would that all were thus I Happy 
were it for the character of Junius as a man, if he had always been guided as a 
writer by such views and feelings I 

Who icas Junius 7 Volumes have been written to answer this question, and it 
remains still undecided. At the end of eighty years of inquiry and discussion, after 
the claims of nearly twenty persons have been examined and set aside, only two 
names remain before the public as candidates for this distinction.^ They are Sir 
Philip Francis, and Lord George Sackville, afterward Lord George Germain. In 
favor and against each of these, there is circumstantial evidence of considerable 
weight. Neither of them has left any specimens of style which are equal in ele- 
gance and force to the more finished productions of Junius. Lord George Sackville, 
however, is far inferior in this respect. He was never a practical writer ; and it 
seems impossible to believe, that the mind which expressed itself in the compositions 
he has left us, could ever have been raised by any excitement of emotion or fervor 
of effort, into a capacity to produce the Letters of Junius. Sir Philip Francis was 
confessedly a far more able writer. He had studied composition from early life. 
He was diligent in his attendance on Parliament ; and he reported some of Lord 
Chatham's speeches with uncommon elegance and force. If we must choose be- 
tween the two — if there is no other name to be brought forward, and this seems 
hardly possible — the weight of evidence is certainly in his favor. Mr. Macaulay has 
summed it up with his usual ability in the following terms : 

" Was he the author of the Letters of Junius ? Our own firm belief is, that he 
was. The external evidence is, we think, such as would support a verdict in a 
civil, nay, in a criminal proceeding. The handwriting of Junius is the very pecu- 
liar handwriting of Francis, slightly disguised. As to the position, pursuits, and 
connections of Junius, the following are the most important facts which can be con- 
sidered as clearly proved : First, that he was acquainted with the technical forms 
of the Secretary' of State's office ; secondly, that he was intimately acquainted with 
the business of the War office ; thirdly, that he, during the year 1770, attended de- 
bates in the House of Lords, and took notes of speeches, particularly of the speeches 
of Lord Chatham ; fourthly, that he bitterly resented the appointment of Mr. Cha- 
mier to the place of deputy Secretary at War ; fifthly, that he was bound by some 
strong tie to the first Lord Holland. Now Francis passed some years in the Secre- 
tary of State's office. He was subsequently chief clerk of the War office. He re- 
peatedly mentioned that he had himself, in 1770, heard speeches of Lord Chatham ; 
and some of those speeches were actually printed from his notes. He resigned his 
clerkship at the War office from resentment at the appointment of Mr. Chamier. It 
was by Lord Holland that he was first introduced into the public service. Now, 
here are five marks, all of which ought to be found in Junius. They are all five 
found in Francis. We do not believe that more than t^vo of them can be found in 
any other person whatever. If this argument does not settle the question, there is 
an end of all reasoning on circumstantial evidence. 

" The internal evidence seems to us to point the same way. The style of Francis 
bears a strong resemblance to that of Junius ; nor are we disposed to admit, what 
is generally taken for granted, that the acknowledged compositions of Francis are 
very decidedly inferior to the anonymous letters. The argument from inferiority, at 
all events, is one which may be urged with at least equal force against every claim- 

6 It has been shown in the London Atbenjieuin, that the recent attempts to make the younger Lyt- 
tleton Junius, and also a Scottish surgeon named Maclain, are entii-e failures. 



JUNIUS. 169 

ant that has ever been mentioned, with the single exception of Burke, who certainly 
was not Junius. And what conclusion, after all, can be drawn from mere inferior- 
ity ? Every writer must produce his best work ; and the interval between his best 
work and his second best work may be very wide indeed. Nobody will say that 
the best letters of Junius are more decidedly superior to the acknowledged works of 
Francis, than three or four of Corneille's tragedies to the rest ; than three or four of 
Ben Jonson's comedies to the rest ; than the Pilgrim's Progress to the other works 
of Bunyan ; than Don Q^uixote to the other works of Cervantes. Nay, it is certain 
that the Man in the Mask, whoever he may have been, was a most unequal writer. 
To go no farther than the Letters which bear the signature of Junius — the Letter 
to the King, and the Letters to Home Tooke, have little in common except the as- 
perity ; and asperity was an ingredient seldom wanting either in the writings or in 
the speeches of Francis. 

" Indeed, one of the strongest reasons for believing that Francis was Junius, is the 
moral resemblance between the two men. It is not difficult, from the letters which, 
under various signatures, are known to have been written by Junius, and from his 
deahngs with Woodfall and others, to form a tolerably con-ect notion of his charac- 
ter. He was clearly a man not destitute of real patriotism and magnanimity — a 
man whose vices were not of a sordid kind. But he must also have been a man in 
the highest degree arrogant and insolent — a man prone to malevolence, and prone to 
the error of mistaking his malevolence for public virtue. ' Doest thou well to be 
angry ?' was the question asked in old time of the Hebrew prophet. And he an- 
swered, 'I do well.' This was evidently the temper of Junius ; and to this cause 
we attribute the savage cruelty which disgraces several of his Letters. No man is 
so merciless as he who, under a strong self-delusion, confounds his antipathies with 
his duties. It may be added, that Junius, though allied with the democratic party 
by common enmities, was the very opposite of a democratic politician. "V^Ttiile at- 
tacking individuals with a ferocity which perpetually violated all the laws of literary 
warfare, he regarded the most defective parts of old constitutions with a respect 
amounting to pedantry — pleaded the cause of Old Sarum with fervor, and contempt- 
uously told the capitalists of Manchester and Leeds that, if they wanted votes, they 
might buy land and become freeholders of Lancashire and Yorkshire. All this, we 
believe, might stand, with scarcely any change, for a character of Philip Francis."''' 

"^ Clmi-Ies Butler, in his Reminiscences, suggests a mixed hypothesis on this subject. He thinks 
that Sir Philip Francis was too young to have produced these Letters, which indicate very thorough 
and extensive reading, and especially a profound knowledge of human character. He mentions, 
likewise, that Junius shows himself in the most unaffected manner, throughout his private corre- 
spondence with Woodfall, to have been not only a man of high rank, but of ample fortune — prom- 
ising to indemnify him against any loss he might suffer from being prosecuted, a thing which Fran- 
cis, with a mere clerkship in the War office, was unable to do. He therefore thinks that Sir Philip 
may have been the organ of some older man of the highest rank and wealth, who has chosen to 
remain in proud obscurity. It is certain that some one acted in conjunction with Junius, for he says 
in his fifty-first note to Woodfall, '' The gentleman who transacts the conveyancing part of this cor- 
respondence, tells me there was much difficulty last night." This person was once seen by a 
clerk of Woodfall, as he withdrew from the door, after having thrown in a Letter of Junius. He 
was a person who " wore a bag and a sword," showing that he was not a mere servant, but, as Ju- 
nius described him, a '' gentleman." It seems probable, also, that the hand of another was used 
in transcribing these Letters, for Junius says concerning one of them, '* You shall have the Letter 
some time to-morrow ; it can not be corrected and copied before ;" and again, of another, " The in- 
closed, though begun within these few days, has been greatly labored. It is very correctly copied.^'' 
This, though not decisive, has the air of one who is speaking of what another person had been do- 
ing, not himself. If this be admitted, Mr. Butler suggests that these Letters may actually have 
been sent to Woodfall in the handwriting of Francis, without his being the original author. Still, ' 
he by no means considers him a mere copyist. Fi-ancis may have collected valuable information; 
may have given very important hints ; may even have shared, to some extent, in the composition, 



170 JUNIUS. 

But, whatever may be thought of the origin of these Letters, it is not difRcult to 
understand the poUtical relations of the writer, and the feelings by which he was 
actuated. A few remarks on this subject will close the present sketch. 

The author of these Letters, as we learn from Woodfall, had been for some years 
an active pohtical partisan. He had written largely for the public prints under va- 
rious signatures, and with great ability. A crisis now arrived which induced him 
to come forward under a new name, and urged him by still higher motives to the 
utmost exertion of his powers. Lord Chatham's " checkered and dovetailed" cabinet 
had fallen to pieces, and the Duke of Grafton, as Junius expressed it, became " min- 
ister by accident," at the close of 1767. He immediately endeavored to strengthen 
himself on every side. He yielded to the wishes of the King by making Lord North 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and by raising Mr. Jenkinson, the organ of Lord Bute, 
to higher office and influence. Thus he gave a decided ascendency to the Tories. 
On the other hand, he endeavored to conciliate Lord Rockingham and the Duke of 
Bedford by very liberal proposals. But these gentlemen differing as to the lead of 
the House, the Bedford interest prevailed ; Lord "Weymouth, a member of that fam- 
ily, was made Secretary of the Home Department ; while Lord Rockingham was sent 
back to the ranks of Opposition under a sense of wrong and insult. Six months, down 
almost to the middle of 1768, were spent in these negotiations and arrangements. 

These things wrought powerfully on the mind of Junius, who was a Grenville ox 
Rockingham Whig. But in addition to this, he had strong private animosities. He 
not only saw with alarm and abhorrence the triumph of Tory principles, but he cher- 
ished the keenest personal resentment toward the King and most of his ministers. 
Those, especially, who had deserted their former Whig associates, he regarded as 
traitors to the cause of liberty. He therefore now determined to give full scope to 
his feelings, and to take up a system of attack far more galling to his opponents than 
had ever yet been adopted. One thing was favorable to such a design. Parliament 
w^as to expire within a few months ; and every blow now struck would give double 
alarm and distress to the government, while it served also to inflame the minds of 
the people, and rouse them to a more determined resistance in the approaching elec- 
tions. Accordingly, at the close of the Christmas holidays, when the business of the 
session really commences, he addressed his first Letter to the printer of the Public 
Advertiser, under date of January 21, 1769. It was elaborated with great care; 
but its most striking peculiarity was the daring spirit of personal attack by which it 
was characterized. Junius, for the first time, broke through the barriers thrown 
around the monarch by the maxim, " the King can do no wrong." He assailed him 
like any other man, though in more courtly and guarded language. Assuming an air 
of great respect for his motives, he threw out the most subtle insinuations, mingled 
with the keenest irony, as to his " love of low intrigue," and " the treacherous amuse- 
ment of double and triple negotiations." It was plainly his intention not only to 
distress, but to terrify. He represented the people as driven to the verge of despera- 
tion. He hinted at the possible consequences. He spoke of the crisis as one " from 
which a reasonable man can expect no remedy but poison, no relief but deaths He 
attacked the ministry in more direct terms, commenting with great severity on the 

or, at least, the revision of the Letters ; for the writer was plainly not an author by profession. In 
short, Francis may have been to him, in respect to these Letters, what Burke was more fully to 
Lord Rockingham, and what Alexander Hamilton was at times to Washington. On this theory 
the government would have the same motives to buy off Sir Philip Francis, a thing they seem 
plainly to have done when these Letters stopped so suddenly in 1772. It may have been a condi- 
tion made by Junius in favor of his friend. To have made it for himself seems inconsistent with 
his whole character and bearing, both in his Letters to the public and his confidential communi- 
cations to Woodfall. The theory is, at least, an ingenious one, and has therefore been here stated. 
It has, hovs'over, very serious difficulties, as the reader will easily perceive. 



JUNIUS. 171 

character of those who filled the prmcipal departments of state, and declaring, "We 
need look no farther for the cause of every mischief which befalls us." " It is not a 
casual concurrence of calamitous circumstances — it is the pernicious hand of govern- 
ment alone, that can make a whole people desperate." All this was done with a 
dignity, force, and elegance entirely without parallel in the columns of a newspaper. 
The attention of the public was strongly arrested. The poet Gray, in his corre- 
spondence, speaks of the absorbing power of this Letter over his mind, when he took it 
up casually for the first time at a country inn", where he had stopped for refreshment 
on a journey. He was unable to lay it down, or even to think of the food before him, un- 
til he had read it over and over again with the most painful interest. The same pro- 
found sensation was awakened in the higher political circles throughout the kingdom. 
Still it may be doubted ^vhether the writer, at this time, had formed any definite 
plan of continuing these Letters. Very possibly, except for a circumstance now to 
be mentioned, he might have stopped here ; and the name of Junius have been known 
only in our literature by this single specimen of eloquent vituperation. But he was 
instantly attacked. As if for the very purpose of compelHng him to go on, and of 
giving notoriety to his efforts, Sir "VYilliam Draper, Knight of the Bath, came out un- 
der his oicn signaUire, charging him with " maliciously traducing the best charac- 
ters of the kingdom," and going on particularly to defend the Commander in Chief, 
the Marquess of Granby, against the severe imputations of this Letter. Junius him- 
self could not have asked, or conceived of, any thing more perfectly suited to make 
him conspicuous in the eyes of the public. Sir William had the character of being 
an elegant scholar, and had gained high distinction as an officer in the army by the 
capture of Manilla, the capital of the Philippine Islands, in 1762. It was no light 
thing for such a man to throw himself into the lists without any personal provoca- 
tion, and challenge a combat with this unknown champion. It w^as the highest 
possible testimony to his powers. Junius saw his advantage. He perfectly under- 
stood his antagonist — an open-hearted and incautious man, vain of his literary attain- 
ments, and uncommonly sensitive to ridicule and contempt. He seized at once on 
the weak points of Sir William's letter. He turned the argument against him. He 
overwhelmed him with derision. He showed infinite dexterity in wresting every weap- 
on from his hands, and in turning all his praises of the Marquess, and apologies for his 
failings, into new instruments of attack. "It is yoic, Sir William, who make your 
friend appear awkward and ridiculous, by giving him a laced suit of taicdry qualifi- 
cation?, which Nature never intended him to wear I" " It is you who have taken 
pains to represent your friend in the character of a clrunkcn landlord, who deals 
out his promises as liberally as his liquor, and will sufi^er no man to leave his table 
either sorrowful or sober I" He then turned upon Sir William himself He glanced 
at some of the leading transactions of his life. He goaded him with the most hu- 
miliating insinuations and interrogatories. He hinted at the motives which the pub- 
lic would impute to him, in thus coming out from his retirement at Clifton ; and con- 
cluded by asking in a tone of lofty contempt, " And do you now, after a retreat not 
very like that of Scipio, presume to intrude yourself, unthought of, uncalled for, upon 
the patience of the public ?" Never was an assailant so instantaneously put on the 
defensive. Instead of silencing the " traducer," and making him the object of public 
indignation, he was himself dragged to the confessional, or rather placed as a culprit 
at the bar of the pubUc. His feelings at this sudden change seem much to have 
resembled those of a traveler in the forests of Africa, when he finds himself, without 
a moment's warning, wrapped in the folds of a boa constrictor, darting from above, 
and crushed beneath its weight. He exclaimed piteously against this " uncandid 
Junius," his " abominable scandals," his delight in putting men to " the rack," and 
" mangling their carcasses with a hatchet." He quoted Virgil, and made a feeling 



172 JUNIUS. 

allusion to JEsop's Fables : " You bite against a file ; cease, viper I" Junius replied 
in three Letters, two of which will be found below. He tells Sir William that an 
" academical education had given him an unlimited command over the most beauti- 
ful figures of speech." " Masks, hatchets, racks, and vipers dance through your let- 
ters in all the mazes of metaphorical confusion. These are the gloomy companions 
of a disturbed imagination ; the melancholy madness of poetry, without the inspira- 
tion." As the correspondence went on. Sir William did, indeed, clear himself of the 
imputations thrown out by Junius affecting his personal honesty, but he was so shock- 
ed and confounded by the overmastering power of his antagonist, that he soon gave 
up the contest. Some months after, when he saw t-hese Letters collected and repub- 
lished in a volume, he again came forward to complain of their injustice. "-HcBret 
lateri letUalis arundo''^ was the savage exclamation of Junius, when he saw the 
writhings of his prostrate foe. Such was the first encounter of Junius before the pub- 
lic. The whole nation looked on with astonishment ; and from this hour his name was 
known as familiarly in every part of the kingdom as that of Chatham or Johnson. It 
was a name of terror to the King and his ministers ; and of pride and exultation to 
thousands throughout the empire, not only of those who sympathized in his malignant 
feelings, but those who, like Burke, condemned his spirit, and yet considered him en- 
gaged in a just cause, and hailed him as a defender of the invaded rights of the people. 
Junius now resumed his attack on the ministry with still greater boldness and vir- 
ulence. After assailing the Duke of Grafton repeatedly on individual points, he 
came out in two Letters, under date of May 30th and July 8th, 1769, Avith a gen- 
eral review of his Grace's life and conduct. These are among his most finished pro- 
ductions, and will be given below. On the 19th of September, he attacked the Duke 
of Bedford, whose interests had been preferred to those of Lord Rockingham iu the 
ministerial arrangements mentioned above. This Letter has even more force than 
the two preceding ones, and will also be found in this collection. Three months after, 
December 19th, 1769, appeared his celebrated Letter to the King, the longest and 
most elaborate of all his performances. The reader will agree with Mr. Burke in 
saying, " it contains many hold truths by which a Avise prince might profit." Lord 
Chatham now made his appearance on the stage, after an illness of three years ; and 
at the opening of Parliament, January 9th, 1770, took up the cause with more than 
his accustomed boldness and eloquence. Without partaking of the bitter spirit of 
Junius, he maintained his principles on all the great questions of the day, in their 
fullest extent. He at once declared in the face of the country, " A breach has Been 
made in the Constitution — the battlements are dismantled — the citadel is open to 
the first invader — the walls totter — the Constitution is not tenable. What remains, 
then, but for us to stand foremost in the breach, to repair it, or perish in it ?" The 
result has already been stated in connection with that and his other speech on this 
subject, p. 114-18. At the end of nineteen days, January 28th, 1770, the Duke of 
Grafton was driven from power I About a fortnight after, Junius addressed his fall- 
en adversary in a Letter of great force, which closes the extracts from his writings 
in this volume. Lord North's ministry now commenced. Junius continued his la- 
bors with various ability, but with little success, nearly two years longer, until, in 
the month of January, 1772, the King remarked to a friend in confidence, " Junius 
is known, and will write no more." Such proved to be the fact. His last perform- 
ance was dated January 21st, 1772, three years to a day from his first great Letter 
to the printer of the Public Advertiser. Within a few months Sir Philip Francis 
was appointed to one of the highest stations of profit and trust in India, at a distance 
of fifteen thousand miles from the seat of English politics I 
8 Still rankles in his side the fatal dait. 



LETTERS OF JUNIUS. 



LETTER 

TO THE PRINTER "of THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 



Sir, — The .submission of a free people to the 
executive authority of government is no more 
than a compliance with laws which they them- 
selves have enacted. While the national honor 
is firmly maintained abroad, and while justice is 
impartially administered at home, the obedience 
of the subject will be voluntary, cheerful, and, I 
might say, almost unlimited. A generous na- 
tion is grateful even for the preservation of its 
rights, and willingly extends the respect due to 
the office of a good prince into an affection for 
his person. Loyalty, in the heart and under- 
standing of an Englishman, is a i*ational attach- 
ment to the guardian of the laws. Prejudices 
and passion have sometimes carried it to a crim- 
inal length ; and, whatever foreigners may im- 
agine, w^e know that Englishmen have erred as 
much in a mistaken zeal for particular persons 
and families, as they ever did in defense of what 
they thought most dear and interesting to them- 
selves. 

I. It naturally fills us with resentment to see 
such a temper insulted and abused.^ In reading 



1 Dated January 21, 1769. There is great regu- 
laritj- ill the stnicture of this letter. The first two 
paragraphs contain the exordium. The transitioii 
follows in the third paragraph, leading to the main 
proposition, which is contained in the fourth, viz., 
" that the existing discontent and disasters of the 
nation were justly chargeable on the King and min- 
istry." The next eight paragraphs are intended to 
give the proof of this proposition, by reviewing the 
chief departments of government, and endeavoring 
to show the incompetency or maladministration of 
the men to whom they were intrusted. A recapit- 
ulation follows in the last paragraph but one, lead- 
ing to a restatement of the proposition in still broad- 
er terms. This is strengthened in the conclusion by 
the remark, that if the nation should escape from its 
desperate condition through some signal interposi- 
tion of Divine Providence, posterity would not be- 
lieve the history of the times, or consider it possible 
that England should have survived a crisis ''so full 
of terror and despair." 

- We have here the starting point of the exordi- 
um, as it lay originally in the mind of Junius, viz., 
that the English nation was "insulted and abused" 
by the King and ministers. But this was too strong 
a statement to be brought out abruptly. Junius 
therefore went back, and prepared the way by show- 
ing in successive sentences, (1.) Why a free people 
obey the laws — " because they have themselves en- 
y acted them." (2.) That this obedience is ordinarily 
' cheerful, and almost unlimited. (3.) That such obe- 
/ dience to the guardian of the laws naturally leads 
to a strong affection for his person. (4.) That this 



the hi-story of a free people, whose rights have 
been invaded, we are interested in their cause. 
Our own feelings tell us how long they ought to 
have submitted, and at what moment it would 
have been treachery to themselves not to have 
resisted. How much warmer will be our re- 
sentment, if experience .should bring the fatal 
example home to ourselves ! 

' The situation of this country is alarming 
enough to rouse the attention of every man w4io 
pretends to a concern for the public welfare. 
Appearances justify suspicion ; and, when the 
safety of a nation is at stake, suspicion is a just 
ground of inquiiy. Let us enter into it with 
candor and decency. Respect is due to the sta- 
tion of ministers ; and if a resolution must at 
last be taken, there is none so likely to be sup- 
ported with firmness as that which has been 
adopted with moderation. 

• The ruin or prosperity of a state depends so 



affection (as shown in their history) had often been 
excessive among the English, who were, in fact, 
peculiarly liable to a "mistaken zeal for particular 
persons and families." Hence they were equally 
Uable (this is not said, but implied) to have their 
loyalty imposed upon ; and therefore the feeling 
then so prevalent was well founded, that the King, 
in his rash counsels and reckless choice of minis- 
ters, must have been taking advantage of the gen- 
erous confidence of his people, and playing on the 
easiness of their temper. If so, they were indeed 
insulted and abused. The exordium, then, is a 
complete chain of logical deduction, and the case 
is fully made out, provided the popular feeling re- 
ferred to was correct. And here we see where the 
fallacy of Junius lies, whenever he is in the wrong. 
It is in taking for granted one of the steps of his 
reasoning. He does not, in this case, even mention 
the feeling alluded to in direct terms. He knew it 
was beating in the hearts of the people ; his whole 
preceding train of thought was calculated to justify 
and inflame it ; and he therefore leaps at once to 
the conclusion it involves, and addresses them as 
actually filled with resentment " to see such a tem- 
per insulted and abused." The feeling, in this in- 
stance, was to a great extent well founded, and so 
far his logic is complete. In other cases his assump- 
tion is a false one. Ho lays hold of some slander of 
the day, some distorted statement of facts, some 
maxim which is only half true, some prevailing pas- 
sion or prejudice, and, dexterously intermingling 
them with a train of thought which in every other 
respect is logical and just, he hurries the mind to a 
conclusion which seems necessarily involved in the 
premises. Hardly any writer has so much art and 
plausibility in thus misleadintr the mind. 



174 



JUNIUS 



much upon the administration of its government, 
that, to be acquainted with the merit of a min- 
istry, we need only observe the condition of the 
people. If we see them obedient to the laws, 
prosperous in their industry, united at home, and 
respected abroad, we may reasonably presume 
that their affairs are conducted by men of expe- 
rience, abilities, and virtue. If, on the contrary, 
we see a universal spirit of distrust and dissat- 
isfaction, a rapid decay of trade, dissensions in all 
parts of the empire, and a total loss of respect 
in the eyes of foreign powers, we may pronounce, 
without hesitation, that the government of that 
country is weak, distracted, and corrupt. The 
multitude, in all countries, are patient to a cer- 
tain point. Ill usage may rouse their indigna- 
tion, and hurry them into excesses, but the orig- 
inal fault is in government.^ Perhaps there 
never was an instance of a change in the cir- 
cumstances and temper of a whole nation, so 
sudden and extraordinary as that which the mis- 
conduct of ministers has, within these very few 
years, produced in Great Britain. When our 
gracious sovereign ascended the throne, we were 
a flourishing and a contented people. If the per- 
sonal virtues of a king could have insured the 
happiness of his subjects, the scene could not 
have altered so entirely as it has done. The 
idea of uniting all parties, of trying all charac- 
ters, and distributing the offices of state by ro- 
tation, was gracious and benevolent to an ex- 
treme, though it has not yet produced the many 
salutary effects which were intended by it. To 
say nothing of the wisdom of such plan, it un- 
doubtedly arose from an unbounded goodness of 
heart, in which folly had no share. It was not 
a capricious partiality to new faces ; it was not 
a natural turn for low intrigue, nor was it the 
treacherous amusement of double and triple ne- 
gotiations. No, sir, it arose from a continued 
anxiety in the purest of all possible hearts for 
the general welfare.^ Unfortunately for us, the 



^ Here is the central idea of the letter — the prop- 
osition to be proved in respect to the King and his 
ministers. The former part of this paragraph con- 
tains the major premise, the remainder the minor 
down to the last sentence, which brings out the con- 
clusion in emphatic terras. In order to strengthen 
the minor, which was the most important premise, 
he rapidly contrasts the condition of England before 
and after the King ascended the throne. In doing 
this, he dilates on those errors of the King which led 
to, and which account for, so remarkable a change. 
Thus the conclusion is made doubly strong. This 
union of severe logic with the finest rhetorical skill 
in filling out the premises and giving them their ut- 
most effect, furnishes an excellent model for the stu- 
dent in oratory. 

* In this attack on the King, there is a refined 
artifice, rarely if ever equaled, in leading the mind 
gradually forward from the slightest possible insin- 
uation to the bitterest irony. First we have the 
"uniting of all parties," which is proper and desira- 
ble; next, "trying all characters," which suggests 
decidedly a want of judgment ; then " distributing 
the offices of state by rotation," a charge rendered 
plausible, at least, by the frequent changes of min- 
isters, and involving (if true) a weakness little short 



event has not been answerable to the design. 
After a rapid succession of changes, w^e are re- 
duced to that change which hardly any change 
can mend. Yet there is no extremity of dis- 
tress which of itself ought to reduce a great na- 
tion to despair. It is not the disorder, but the 
physician ; it is not a casual concurrence of ca- 
lamitous circumstances, it is the pernicious hand 
of government, which alone can make a whole 
people desperate. 

Without much political sagacity, or any ex- 
traordinary depth of observation, we need only 
mark how the principal departments of the 
state are bestowed [distributed], and look no 
farther for the true cause of every mischief that 
befalls us. 

The finances of a nation, sinking under its 
debts and expenses, are committed to a young 
nobleman already ruined by play.^ Introduced 



of absolute fatuity. The way being thus prepared, 
what was first insinuated is now openly expressed 
in the next sentence. The word "folly" is applied 
to the conduct of the King of England in the face of 
his subjects, and the application rendered doubly 
severe by the gravest irony. Still, there is one re- 
lief. Allusion is made to his "unbounded goodness 
of heart," from which, in the preceding chain of in- 
sinuations, these errors of judgment had been de- 
duced. The next sentence takes this away. It 
directly ascribes to the King, with an increased se- 
verity of ironical denial, some of the meanest pas- 
sions of royalty, " a capricious partiahty for new 
faces," a " natural love of low intrigue," " the treach- 
erous amusement of double and triple negotiations !" 
It is unnecessary to remark on the admirable pre- 
cision and force of the language in these expres- 
sions, and, indeed, throughout the whole passage. 
There had been just enough in the King's conduct 
for the last seven years to make the people suspect 
all this, and to weaken or destroy their affection for 
the Crown. It was all connected with that system 
of favoritism introduced by Lord Bute, which the 
nation so much abhorred. Nothing but this would 
have made them endure for a moment such an at- 
tack on their monarch, and especially the absolute 
mockery with which Junius concludes the whole, by 
speaking of " the anxiety of the purest of all possible 
hearts for the general welfare!" His entire Letter 
to the King, with all the rancor ascribed to it by- 
Burke, does not contain so much bitterness and in- 
sult as are concentrated in this single passage. 
While we can not but condemn its spirit, we are 
forced to acknowledge that there is in this and many 
other passages of Junius, a rhetorical skill in the 
evolution of thought which was never surpassed by 
Demosthenes. 

^ The Duke of Grafton, first Lord of the Treasury. 
It is unnecessary to remark on the dexterity of con- 
necting with this mention of a treasury, "sinking 
under its debts and expenses," the idea of its head 
being a gambler loaded with his own debts, and li- 
able continually to new distresses and temptations 
from his love of play. The thought is wisely left 
here. The argument which it implies would be 
weakened by any attempt to expand it. Junius 
often reminds us of the great Athenian orator, in 
thus striking a single blow, and then passing on to 
some other subject, as he does here to the apostasy 
of the Duke of Grafton, his inconsistency, caprice, 
and in-esolution. 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADVERTISER. 



175 



to act under the auspices of Lord Chatham, and 
left at the head of affairs by that nobleman's re- 
treat, he became a minister by accident ; but, de- 
serting the principles and professions which gave 
him a moment's popularity, we see him, from 
every honorable engagement to the public, an 
apostate by design. As for business, the world 
3'et knows nothing of his talents or resolution, 
unless a wavering, wayward inconsistency be a 
mark of genius, and caprice a demonstration of 
spirit. It may be said, perhaps, that it is his 
Grace's province, as surely it is his passion, rath- 
er to distribute than to save the public money, 
and that while Lord North is Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, the first Lord of the Treasury may 
be as thoughtless and extravagant as he pleases. 
I hope, however, he wnll not rely too much on 
the fertility of Lord North's genius for finance. 
His Lordship is yet to give us the first proof of 
his abilities. It may be candid to suppose that 
he has hitherto voluntarily concealed his tal- 
ents ; intending, perhaps, to astonish the world, 
when we least expect it, with a knowledge of 
trade, a choice of expedients, and a depth of re- 
sources equal to the necessities, and far beyond 
the hopes of his country. He must now exert 
the whole power of his capacity, if he would 
wish us to forget that, since he has been in office, 
no plan has been formed, no system adhered to, 
nor any one important measure adopted for the 
relief of public credit. If his plan for the serv- 
ice of the current year be not irrevocably fixed 
on, let me warn him to think seriously of conse- 
quences before he ventures to increase the pub- 
lic debt. Outraged and oppressed as we are, 
this nation will not bear, after a six years' peace, 
to see new millions borrowed, without any event- 
ual diminution of debt or reduction of interest. 
The attempt might rouse a spirit of resentment, 
which might reach beyond the sacrifice of a min- 
ister.] As to the debt upon the civil list, the 
people of England expect that it will not be paid 
without a strict inquiry how it was incurred. "^ 
If it must be paid by Parliament, let me advise 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer to think of some 
better expedient than a lottery. To support an 
expensive war, or in circumstances of absolute 
necessity, a lottery may perhaps be allowable ; 
but, besides that it is at all times the very worst 
way of raising money upon the people, I think it 
ill becomes the royal dignity to have the debts of 
a prince provided for, like the repairs of a coun- 
try bridge or a decayed hospital. The manage- 



^ Within about seven years, the King had run up 
a debt of £513,000 beyond the ample allowance 
made for his expenses on the civil list, and had just 
applied, at the opening of Parliament, for a grant to 
pay it off. The nation were indignant at such over- 
reaching. The debt, however, was paid this ses- 
sion, and in a few years there was another contract- 
ed. Thus it went on, from time to time, until 1782, 
when £300,000 more were paid, in addition to a 
large sura during the interval. At this time a par- 
tial provision was made, in connection with Mr. 
Burke's plan of economical reform, for preventing 
all future encroachments of this kind on the public 
revenues. 



ment of the King's affairs in the House of Com- 
mons can not be more disgraced than it has been. 
A leading minister repeatedly called down for ab- 
solute ignorance — ridiculous motions ridiculously 
withdrawn — deliberate plans disconcerted, and 
a week's preparation of graceful oratory lost in a 
moment, give us some, though not an adequate 
idea of Lord North's parliamentary abilities and 
influence.''' Yet, before he had the misfortune of 
being Chancellor of the Exchequer, he was nei- 
ther an object of derision to his enemies, nor of 
melancholy pity to his friends. 

A .series of inconsistent measures had alien- 
ated the colonies from their duty as subjects and 
from their natural affection to their common 
country. When Mr. Grenville was placed at 
the head of the treasury, he felt the impossibility 
of Great Britain's supporting such an establish- 
ment as her former successes had made indis- 
pensable, and, at the same time, of giving any 
sensible relief to foi-eign ti-ade and to the weight 
of the public debt. He thought it equitable that 
those parts of the empire which had benefited 
most by the expenses of the war, should contrib- 
ute something to the expenses of the peace, and 
he had no doubt of the constitutional right vest- 
ed in Parliament to raise the contribution. But, 
unfortunately for this country, Mr. Grenville was 
at any rate to be distressed because he was min- 
ister, and Mr. Pitt and Lord Camden were to be 
patrons of America, because they were in oppo- 
sition. Their declaration gave spirit and argu- 
ment to the colonies ; and while, perhaps, they 
meant no more than the ruin of a minister, they 
in effect divided one half of the empire from the 
other.^ 



■' Notwithstanding these early difficulties, Lord 
North became at last a very dexterous and effective 
debater. 

8 This attack on Lord Chatham and his fi-iend 
shows the political affinities of Junius. He believed 
with Mr. Grenville and Lord Rockingham in the 
right of Great Britain to tax America ; and in refer- 
ring to Mr. Grenville's attempt to enforce that right 
by the Stamp Act, he adopts his usual course of in- 
terweaving an argument in its favor into the lan- 
guage used. He thus prepares the way for his cen- 
sures on Lord Chatham and Lord Camden, affirming 
that they acted on the principle that " Mr. Grenville 
was at any rate to be distressed because he was 
minister and they were in opposition," thus imply- 
ing that they were actuated by factious and selfish 
views in their defense of America. About a year 
after this letter was written, Lord Rockingham was 
reconciled to Lord Chatham and Lord Camden, and 
all united to break down the Grafton ministry. Ju- 
nius now turned round and wrote his celebrated 
eulogium on Lord Chatham, contained in his fifty- 
fourth letter, in which he says, " Recorded honors 
shall gather round his monument, and thicken over 
him. It is a solid fabric, and will support the laurels 
that adorn it. I am not conversant in the language 
of panegyric. These praises are extorted from me ; 
but they will wear well, for they have been dearly 
earned." The last of his letters was addressed to 
Lord Camden, in which he says, "I turn with pleas- 
ure from that barren waste, in which no solitary 
plant takes root, no verdure quickens, to a charac- 



276 



JUNIUS 



Under one administration the Stamp Act is 
made, under the second it is repealed, under the 
third, in spite of all experience, a new mode of 
taxing the colonies is invented, and a question 
revived, which ought to have been buried in ob- 
livion. In these circumstances, a new office is 
established for the business of the Plantations, 
and the Earl of Hillsborough called forth, at a 
most critical season, to govern America. The 
choice at least announced to us a man of supe- 
rior capacity and knowledge. Whether he be so 
or not, let his dispatches as far as they have ap- 
peared, let his measures as far as they have oper- 
ated, determine for him. In the former we have 
seen strong assertions without proof, declamation 
without argument, and violent censures without 
dignity or moderation, but neither correctness in 
the composition, nor judgment in the design. As 
for his measures, let it be remembered that he 
was called upon to conciliate and unite, and that, 
when he entered into office, the most refractory 
of the colonies were still disposed to proceed by 
the constitutional methods of petition and remon- 
strance. Since that period they have been driv- 
en into excesses little short of rebellion. Pe- 
titions have been hindered from reaching the 
Throne, and the continuance of one of the prin- 
cipal assemblies put upon an arbitrary condition, 
which, considering the temper they were in, it 
was impossible they should comply with, and 
which would have availed nothing as to the gen- 
eral question if it had been complied with.^ So 
violent, and I believe I may call it so unconstitu- 
tional an exertion of the prerogative, to say noth- 
ing of the weak, injudicious terms in which it was 
conveyed, gives us as humble an opinion of his 
Lordship's capacity as it does of his temper and 
moderation. While we are at peace with other 
nations, our military force may perhaps be spared 
to support the Earl of Hillsborough's measures 
in America. Whenever that force shall be nec- 
essarily withdrawn or diminished, the dismission 
of such a minister will neither console us for his 
imprudence, nor remove the settled resentment 
of a people, who, complaining of an act of the 
Legislature, are outraged by an unwarranta- 
ble stretch of prerogative, and, supporting their 
claims by argument, are insulted with declama- 
tion. 

Drawing lots would be a prudent and reason- 
able method of appointing the officers of state, 
compared to a late disposition of the secretary's 
office. Lord Rochford was acquainted with the 
affairs and temper of the Southern courts ; Lord 
Weymouth was equally qualified for either de- 



ter fertile, as I willingly believe, in every gi-eat and 
good qualification." Political men have certainly a 
peculiar faculty of viewing the characters of others 
under very different lights, as they happen to affect 
their own interests and feelings. 

^ The " arbitrary condition" was that the General 
Court of Massachusetts should rescind one of their 
own resolutions and expunge it from their records. 
The whole of this passage in relation to Hillsborough 
is as correct in point of fact, as it is well reasoned 
and finely expressed. 



partment. By what unaccountable caprice has 
it happened, that the latter, who pretends to no 
experience whatsoever, is removed to the most 
important of the two departments, and the for- 
mer, by preference, placed in an office where his 
experience can be of no use to him '?^° Lord 
Weymouth had distinguished himself in his first 
employment by a spirited, if not judicious con- 
duct. He had animated the civil magistrate 
beyond the tone of civil authority, and had di- 
rected the operations of the army to more than 
military execution. Recovered from the errors 
of his youth, from the distraction of play, and 
the bewitching smiles of Burgundy, behold him 
exerting the whole strength of his clear, un- 
clouded faculties in the service of the Crown. 
It was not the heat of midnight excesses, nor 
ignorance of the laws, nor the furious spirit of 
the house of Bedford ; no, sir; when this respect- 
able minister interposed his authority between 
the magistrate and the people, and signed the 
mandate on which, for aught he knew, the lives 
of thousands depended, he did it from the deliber- 
ate motion of his heart, supported by the best of 
his judgment. "i 



1° The changes here censured had taken place 
about three months before. The office of Foreign 
Secretary for the Southern Department was made 
vacant by the resignation of Lord Shelburne, Lord 
Rochford, who had been minister to France, and 
thus made " acquainted with the temper of the 
Southern courts," ought naturally to have been ap- 
pointed (if at all) to this department. Instead of 
this, he was made Secretaiy of the Northern De- 
partment, for which he had been prepared by no pre- 
vious knowledge ; while Lord Weymouth was tak- 
en from the Home Department, and placed in the 
Southern, being "equally qualified" [that is, wholly 
unqualified by any "experience whatsoever"] for 
either department in the Foreign ofiice, whether 
Southern or Northern. 

1^ As Secretary of the Home Department, Lord 
Weymouth had addressed a letterto the magistrates 
of London, early in 1768, advising them to call in the 
military, provided certain disturbances in the streets 
should continue. The idea of setting the soldiery 
to fire on masses of unarmed men has always been 
abhorrent to the English nation. It was, therefore, 
a case admirably suited to the purposes of this Let- 
ter. In using it to inflame the people against Lord 
Weymouth, Junius charitably supposes that he was 
not repeating the eirors of his youth — that he was 
neither drunk, nor ignorant of what he did, nor im- 
pelled by "the furious spirit" of one of the proudest 
families of the realm — all of which Lord Weymouth 
would certainly say — and therefore (which his Lord- 
ship must also admit) that he did, from " the delib- 
erate motion of his heart, supported by the best of 
his judgment," sign a paper which the great body 
of the people considered as authorizing proniscuous 
murder, and which actually resulted in the death of 
fourteen persons three weeks after. The whole is 
so wrought up as to create the feeling, that Lord 
Weymouth was in both of these states of mind — 
that he acted with deliberation in carrying out the 
dictates of headlong or dininken passion. 

All this, of course, is greatly exaggerated. Se- 
vere measures did seem indispensable to suppress 
the mobs of that day, and, whoever stood forth to di- 
rect them, must of necessity incur the popular in- 



TO THE PRINTER OF THE PUBLIC ADV^EIITISER. 



177 



10 It has lately been a fashion to pay a compli- 
ment to the bravery and generosity of the Com- 
mander-in-chief [the Marquess of Granby] at the 
expense of his understanding. They who love 
him least make no question of his courage, while 
his friends dwell chiefly on the facility of his dis- 
position. Admitting him to be as brave as a 
total absence of all feeling and reflection can 
make him, let us see what sort of merit he de- 
rives from the remainder of his character. If it 
be generosity to accumulate in his own person 
and family a number of lucrative employments ; 
to provide, at the public expense, for every crea- 
ture that bears the name of Manners ; and, neg- 
lecting the merit and services of the rest of the 
army, to heap promotions upon his favorites and 
dependents, the present Commander-in-chief is 
the most generous man alive. Nature has been 
sparing of her gifts to this noble Lord ; but 
where birth and fortune ai-e united, we expect 
the noble pride and independence of a man of 
spirit, not the servile, humiliating complaisance 
of a courtier. As to the goodness of his heart, 
if a proof of it be taken from the facility of never 
refusing, what conclusion shall we draw^ from 
the indecency of never performing ? And if the 
discipline of the army be in any degree preserv- 
ed, what thanks are due to a man, whose cares, 
notoriously confined to filling up vacancies, have 
degraded the ofiice of Commander-in-chief into 
[that of] a broker of commissions.''' 

With respect to the navy, I shall only say, 
that this country is so highly indebted to Sir Ed- 
ward Hawke. that no expense should be spared 
to secure him an honorable and affluent retreat. 
" The pure and impai-tial administration of jus- 
tice is perhaps the firmest bond to secure a cheer- 
ful submission of the people, and to engage their 
affections to government. It is not sufficient 
that questions of private right or wrong are just- 
ly decided, nor that judges are superior to the 

dignation. Still, it was a question among the most 
candid men, whether milder means might not have 
been effectual. 

^^ The Marquess of Granby, personally considered, 
was perhaps the most popular member of the cabi- 
net, with the exception of Sir Edward Hawke. He 
was a warm-hearted man, of highly social qualities 
and generous feelings. As it was the object of Ju- 
nius to break down the ministry, it was peculiarly 
necessary for him to blast and destroj' his popular- 
ity. This he attempts to do by discrediting the 
character of the Marquess, as a man of firmness, 
strength of mind^nd disinterestedness in mana- 
ging the concerns of the army. This attack is dis- 
tinguished for its plausibility and bitterness. It is 
clear that Junius was in some way connected with 
the anny or with the War Department, and that in 
this situation he had not only the means of very ex- 
act information, but some private grudge against the 
Commander-in-chief. His charges and insinuations 
are greatly overstrained ; but it is certain that the 
army was moldering away at this time in a manner 
which left the country in a very defenseless condi- 
tion. Lord Chatham showed this by incontestible 
evidence, in his speech on the Falkland Islands, 
delivered about a year after this Letter was writ- 
ten. 

M 



vileness of pecuniary corruption. Jefleries him- 
self, when the court had no interest, was an up- 
right judge. A court of justice may be subject 
to another sort of bias, more important and per- 
nicious, as it reaches beyond the interest of indi- 
viduals, and affects the whole community. A 
judge, under the influence of government, may 
be honest enough in the decision of private caus- 
es, yet a traitor to the public. When a victim 
is marked out by the ministr}-, this judge will 
offer himself to perform the sacrifice. He will 
not scruple to prostitute his dignity, and betray 
the sanctity of his office, whenever an arbitrary 
point is to be carried for government, or the re- 
sentment of a Court to be gratified. 

^ These principles and proceedings, odious and 
contemptible as they are, in effect are no less in- 
judicious. A wise and generous people are 
roused by every appearance of oppressive, uncon- 
stitutional measures, whether those measures are 
supported openly by the power of government, 
or masked under the forms of a court of justice. 
Prudence and self-preservation will oblige the 
most moderate dispositions to make common 
cause, even with a man whose conduct they 
censure, if they see him persecuted in a way 
which the real spirit of the laws will not justify. 
The facts on which these remarks are founded, 
are too notorious to require an application.'^ 

- This, sir. is the detail. In one view, behold 
a nation overwhelmed with debt ; her revenues 
wasted ; her trade declining ; the affections of 
her colonies alienated ; the duty of the magis- 
trate transferred to the soldiery ; a gallant army, 
which never fought unwillingly but against their 
fellow-subjects, moldering away for want of the 
direction of a man of common abilities and spirit: 
and, in the last instance, the administration of 
justice become odious and su.spected to the whole 
body of the people. This deplorable scene ad- 
mits but of one addition — that we are governed 
by councils, from which a reasonable man can 
expect no i-emedy but poison, no relief but death. 
If, by the immediate interposition of Provi- 
dence, it were [be] possible for us to escape a 



^^ It is unnecessary to say that Lord Mansfield is 
here pointed at. No one now believes that this 
great jurist ever did the things here ascribed to him 
by Junius. All that is true is, that he was a very 
high Tory, and was, therefore, naturally led to exalt 
the prerogatives of the Crown ; and that ho was a 
very politic man (and this was the great failing in 
his character), and therefore unwilling to oppose the 
King or his ministers, when he knew in heart they 
were wrong. This was undoubtedly the case in re 
spect to the issuing of a general warrant for ap 
prehending Wilkes, which he ought publicly to have 
condemned ; but, as he remained silent, men natu 
rally considered him, in his character of Chief Jus 
tice, as having approved of the course directed by 
the King. Hence Mansfield was held responsible 
for the treatment of Wilkes, of whom Junius here 
speaks in very nearly the terms used by Lord Chat- 
ham, as a man whose "conduct" he censured, but 
with whom every moderate man must " make com- 
mon cause," when he was " persecuted in a way 
which the real spirit of the laws will not justify." 



178 



JUNIUS 



crisis so full of terror and despair, posterity will 1 or recovered from so desperate a condition, while 
not believe the history of the present times. | a Duke of Grafton was Prime Minister, a Lord 
They will either conclude that our distresses North Chancellor of the Exchequer, a Wey- 
were imaginary, or that we had the good for- | mouth and a Hillsborough Secretaries of State, 
tune to be governed by men of acknowledged in- a Granby Commander-in-chief, and a Mansfield 
tegrity and wisdom. They will not believe it \ chief criminal judge of the kingdom, 
possible that their ancestors could have survived, j Junius. 



LETTER 

TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER, KNIGHT OF THE BATH.i 



Sir, — The defense of Lord Granby does honor 
to the goodness of your heart. You feel, as you 
ought to do, for the reputation of your friend, 
and you express yourself in the warmest lan- 
guage of the passions. In any other cause, I 
doubt not, you would have cautiously weighed 
the consequences of committing your name to 
the licentious discourses and malignant opinions 
of the world. But here, I presume, you thought 
it would be a breach of friendship to lose one 
moment in consulting your understanding ; as if 
an appeal to the public were no more than a mil- 
itary coup de main^ where a brave man has no 
rules to follow but the dictates of his courage. 
Touched with your generosity, I freely forgive 
the excesses into which it has led you ; and, far 
from resenting those terms of reproach, which, 
considering that you are an advocate for deco- 
i-um, you have heaped upon me rather too liber- 
all}^, I place them to the account of an honest, 
unreflecting indignation, in which your cooler 
judgment and natural politeness had no concern. 
I approve of the spirit with which you have given 
your name to the public, and, if it were a proof 
of any thing but spirit, I should have thought my- 
self bound to follow your example. I should have 
hoped that even my name might carry some au- 
thority with it, if I had not seen how very little 
weight or consideration a printed paper receives 
even from the respectable signature of Sir Will- 
iam Draper.^ 



1 Dated February 7, 1769. It is unnecessary to 
give the letters of Sir William Draper, since their 
contents will be sufficiently understood from the re- 
plies, and our present concern is not with the merits 
of the controversy, but the peculiarities of Junius as 
a writer. 

2 The reader will be interested in the following 
brief sketch of Sir William Draper's life by a con- 
temporary : 

" Su' William, as a scholar, had been bred at Eton 
and King's College, Cambridge, but he chose the 
sword for his profession. In India he ranked with 
those famous warriors, Clive and Lawrence. In 
1761 be acted at Belleisle as a brigadier. In 1762 
he commanded the troops who conquered Manilla, 
which place was saved from plunder by the prom- 
ise of a ransom of £1,000,000, that was never paid. 
His first appearance as an able writer was in his 
clear refutation of the objections of the Spanish court 
to the payment of that ransom. His services were 
rewarded with the command of the sixteenth regi- 
ment of foot, which he resigned to Colonel Gisborne 
for his half-pay of X200 Irish. This common trans- 



You begin with a general assertion, that writ- 
ers, such as I am, are the real cause of all the 
public evils we complain of. And do you really 
think. Sir William, that the licentious pen of a 
political writer is able to produce such import- 
ant effects ? A little calm reflection might have 
shown you that national calamities do not arise 
from the description, but from the real character 
and conduct of ministers. To have supported 
your assertion, you should have proved that the 
present ministry are unquestionably the best and 
ir/g^/ifesf characters of the kingdom; and that, if 
the aflfections of the colonies have been alienated, 
if Corsica has been shamefully abandoned, if 
commerce languishes, if public credit is threat- 
ened with a new debt, and your own Manilla 
ransom most dishonorably given up, it has all 
been owing to the malice of political wi-iters, 
who will not suffer the best and brightest of 
characters (meaning still the present ministry) 
to take a single right step for the honor or in- 
terest of the nation.^ But it seems you were a 



action furnished Junius with many a sarcasm. Sir 
William had scarcely closed his contest with that 
formidable opponent, when he had the misfortune to 
lose his wife, who died on the 1st of September, 
1769. As he was foiled, he was no doubt mortified ; 
and he set out, in October of that year, to make the 
tour of the American colonies, which had now be- 
come objects of notice and scenes of travel. He ar- 
rived at Charleston, South Carolina, in January, 1770 ; 
and, traveling northward, he arrived, during the sum- 
mer of that year, in Maryland, where he was received 
with that hospitality which she always paid to stran- 
gers, and with the attentions that were due to the 
merit of such a visitor. From Maryland Sir Will- 
iam passed on to New York, where he married Miss 
De Lancey, a lady of great connections there, and 
agreeable endowments, who died in 1778, leaving 
him a daughter. In 1779 he was appointed Lieu- 
tenant Governor of Minorca — a trust which, however 
discharged, ended unhappily. He died at Bath, on 
the 8th of January, 1787." 

3 A few words of explanation may be necessary 
on two of the points here mentioned. 

The Corsicans had risen against their former mas- 
ters and oppressors, the Genoese, and, through the 
braveiy and conduct of their leader. General Paoli, 
had nearly recovered their liberties. Genoa now 
called in the aid of France, and finally sold her the 
island. Public sentiment in England was strongly 
in favor of the Corsicans ; and the general feeling 
was that of Lord Chatliam, that England ought to 
interfere, and prevent France from being aggrand- 
ized at the expense of the Corsicans. Instead of 



TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER. 



179 



little tender of coming to particulars. Your con- 
science insinuated to you that it would be pru- 
dent to leave the characters of Gi-afton, Noi'th, 
Hillsborough, Weymouth, and Mansfield to shift 
for themselves; and truly, Sir William, the part 
you have undertaken is at least as much as you 
are equal to. 

Without disputing Lord Granby's courage, 
we are yet to learn in what articles of military 
knowledge Nature has been so very liberal to his 
mind. If you have served with him, you ought 
to have pointed out some instances of able dis- 
position and well-concerted enterprise, which 
might fairly be attributed to his capacity as a 
general. It is you, Sir William, who make your 
friend appear awkward and ridiculous, by giving 
him a laced suit of tawdry qualifications which 
Nature never intended him to wear. 

You say, he has acquired nothing but honor 



in the field. Is the ordnance nothi 



Ai-e 



the Blues nothing ? Is the command of the 
army, with all the patronage annexed to it, noth- 
ing ? Where he got these nothings I know not ; 
but you, at least, ought to have told us where 
he deserved them. 

As to his bounty, compassion, &c., it would 
have been but little to the purpose, though you 
had proved all that you have a/gserted. I meddle 
with nothing but his character as Commander- 
in-chief; and though I acquit him of the base- 
ness of selling commissions, I still assert that his 
military cares have never extended beyond the 
disposal of vacancies ; and I am justified by the 
complaints of the whole army, when I say that, 
in this distribution, he consults nothing but par- 
liamentary interests, or the gratification of his 
immediate dependents. As to his servile sub- 
mission to the reigning ministry, let me ask, 
whether he did not desert the cause of the whole 
ai'my when he suflTered Sir JefTery Amherst to 
be sacrificed ? and what share he had in recall- 
inof that oflacer to the service ?^ Did he not be- 



this, the Grafton ministry had decided three months 
before to give her up, and the great body of the na- 
tion were indignant at this decision. 

lu respect to the Manilla ransom, it has already 
been stated, that the Spanish court, in their usual 
spirit, had endeavored to evade the debt. Year af- 
ter year had been spent in finiitless negotiations, 
when the decided tone recommended by Lord Chat- 
ham would have at once secured paj-ment. The na- 
tion felt disgraced by this tame endurance. Sir Will- 
iam Draper was indeed rewarded with the order of 
the Bath, whose " blushing ribbon" is so stingingly 
alluded to at the close of this letter. He also re- 
ceived the pecuniary emoluments here mentioned. 
But all this was considered by many as mere favor- 
itism, and the reward of his silence ; for Admiral 
Cornish, who commanded the fleet in that expedi- 
tion, together with the inferior officers and troops, 
was left to languish and die without redress. 

* Sir JefFery Amherst was a favoiite general of 
Lord Chatham, and conducted most of his great en- 
terprises in America. He was rewarded with the 
Bffice of Governor of Virginia, but was abruptly dis- 
placed in 1768, through the interposition of Hillsbor- 
Oagh, chiefly on account of his friendship for Chat- 
lam. He was, however, speedily raised to a high- 



tray the just interest of the army in permitting 
Lord Percy to have a regiment ? and does he 
not at this moment give up all character and 
dignity as a gentleman, in receding from his own 
repeated declarations in favor of Mr. Wilkes ? 

In the two next articles I think we are agreed. 
You candidly admit that he often makes such 
promises as it is a virtue in him to violate, and 
that no man is more assiduous to provide for his 
relations at the public expense. I did not urge 
the last as an absolute vice in his disposition, but 
to prove that a careless, disinterested spirit is no 
part of his character ; and as to the other, I de- 
sire it may be remembered that I never descend- 
ed to the indecency of inquiring into his convivial 
hows. It is you, Sir William Draper, who have 
taken pains to represent 3'our friend in the charac- 
ter of a drunken landlord, who deals out his prom- 
ises, as liberally as his liquor, and will suffer no 
man to leave his table either sorrowful or sober. 
None but an intimate friend, who must frequent- 
ly have seen him in these unhappy, disgraceful 
moments, could have described him so well. 

The last charge, of the neglect of the army, 
is indeed the most material of all. I am sorrv 
to tell you. Sir William, that in this article your 
first fact is false f and as there is nothing more 
painful to me than to give a direct contradiction 
to a gentleman of your appearance, I could wi.sh 
that, in your future publications, you would pa\' 
a greater attention to the truth of your premises, 
before you suffer your genius to hurry you to a 
conclusion. Lord Ligonier did not deliver the 
army (which you, in classical language, are 
pleased to call a Palladium) into Lord Granby's 
hands. It was taken from him, much against 
his inclination, some two or three years before 
Lord Granby was Commander-in-chief. As to 
the state of the army, I should be glad to know 
where you have received your intelligence. Was 
it in the rooms at Bath, or at your retreat at 
Clifton ? The reports of reviewing generals 
comprehend only a few regiments in England, 
which, as they are immediately under the royal 
inspection, are perhaps in some tolerable order. 
But do you know any thing of the troops in the 
West Indies, the Mediterranean, and North Amer- 
ica, to say nothing of a whole army absolutely 
ruined in Ireland ? Inquire a little into facts, 
Sir William, before you publish your next pane- 
gyric upon Lord Granby, and believe me you will 
find there is a fault at head-quarters, which even 
the acknowledged care and abilities of the Adju- 
tant General [General HarveyJ can not correct. 



er station in the army, through the determined in- 
terposition of his friends, but not (as Junius inti- 
mates) through that of Lord Granby. 

In respect to Lord Percy, it was bitterly com- 
plained of in the array that he should receive a regi- 
ment "plainly by way of pension to the noble, dis- 
interested house of Percy," for their support of the 
ministry, while the most meritorious officers were 
passed over in neglect, and suff"ered, after years of 
arduous service, to languish in want. 

* It is hardly correct to say that a fact is false, but 
rather the statement which affirms it. 



180 



JUNIUS 



Permit me now, Sir William, to address my- 
self personally to you, by way of thanks for the 
honor of your correspondence. You are by no 
means mideserving of notice ; and it may be of 
consequence even to Lord Granby to have it de- 
termined, whether or no the man, who has praised 
him so lavishly, be himself deserving of praise. 
When you returned to Europe, you zealously 
undertook the cause of that gallant army, by 
whose bravery at Manilla your own fortune had 
been established. You complained, you threat- 
ened, you even appealed to the public in print. 
By what accident did it happen that, in the 
midst of all this bustle, and all these clamors for 
justice to your injured troops, the name of the 
Manilla ransom was suddenly buried in a pro- 
found, and, since that time, an uninterrupted si- 
lence ? Did the ministry suggest any motives 
to you strong enough to tempt a man of honor 
to desert and betray the cause of his fellow-sol- 
diers ? Was it that blushing ribbon, which is 
now the perpetual ornament of your person ? Or 
was it that regiment, which you afterward (a 
thing unprecedented among soldiers) sold to 
Colonel Gisborne ? Or was it that government 
[of Yarmouth], the full pay of which you are 
contented to hold, with the half-pay of an Irish 
colonel ? And do you now, after a retreat not 
very like that of Scipio, presume to intrude your- 
self, imthought of, uncalled for, upon the pa- 
tience of the public ? Are your flatteries of the 
Commander-in-chief directed to another regi- 
ment, -which you may again dispose of on the 
same honorable terms? We know your pru- 
dence, Sir William, and I should be sorry to stop 
your preferment. Junius. 



Sir William Draper, in reply to this Letter, 
said, concerning Loi-d Granby, " My friend's po- 
litical engagements I know not, so can not pre- 
tend to explain them, or assert their consist- 
ency." He does, however, reassert "his mili- 



tary skill and capacity." As to the Manilla 
ransom, he says that he had complained, and 
even appealed to the public, but his efforts with 
the ministry were in vain. " Some were ingen- 
uous enough to own that they could not think 
of involving this distressed nation into another 
war for our private concerns. In short, our 
rights, for the present, are sacrificed to national 
convenience ; and I must confess that, although 
I may lose five-and-twenty thousand pounds by 
their acquiescence to this breach of faith in the 
Spaniards, I think they are in the right to tem- 
porize, considering the critical situation of this 
country, convulsed in every part by poison in- 
fused by anonymous, wicked, and incendiary writ- 
ers." 

His pecuniary transactions he explained in a 
manner which ought to have satisfied any can- 
did mind, that there was nothing in them either 
dishonest or dishonorable. As to his being re- 
warded with office and preferment, while his 
companions in arms were neglected, this was 
certainly not to be imputed to him as a crime, 
since his services merited all he received. Still, 
he may, on this account, have been more will- 
ing (as Junius insinuated) to remain quiet. He 
closed his second letter thus: "Junius makes 
much and frequent use of interrogations : they 
are arms that may be easily turned against him- 
self. I could, by malicious interrogation, disturb 
the peace of the most virtuous man in the king- 
dom. I could take the Decalogue, and say to 
one man, ' Did you never steal ?' to the next, 
' Did you never commit murder ?' and to Junius 
himself, who is putting my life and conduct to 
the rack, ' Did you never bear false witness 
against thy neighbor ?' Junius must easily see, 
that unless he affirms to the contrary in his real 
name, some people, who may be as ignorant of 
him as I am, will be apt to suspect him of hav- 
ing deviated a little from the truth ; therefore let 
Junius ask no more questions. You bite against 
a file ; cease, viper !" 



LETTER 



TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER, KNIGHT OF THE BATH.i 



Sir, — An academical education has given you 
an unlimited command over the most beautiful 
figures of speech. Masks, hatchets, racks, and 
vipers dance through your letters in all the mazes 
of metaphorical confusion. These are the gloomy 
companions of a disturbed imagination — the mel- 
ancholy madness of poetry without the inspira- 
tion. I will not contend with you in point of 
composition. You are a scholar, Sir William, 
and, if I am truly informed, you write Latin with 
almost as much purity as English. Suffer me, 
then, for I am a plain unlettered man, to continue 
that style of interrogation which suits my capac- 
ity, and to which, considering the readiness of 



1 Dated March 3, 1769. This was the lo Trium- 
phc of .Timi'is in closing the correspondence. 



your answers, you ought to have no objection. 
Even Mr. Bingley promises to answer, if put to 
the torture.^ 

Do you then really think that, if I were to ask 
a most virtuous man whether he ever committed 
theft, or murder, it would disturb his peace of 
mind ? Such a question might perhaps discom- 
pose the gravity of his muscles, but I believe it 



2 This man was a bookseller, who had been subpoe- 
naed by the government in the case of Wilkes. For 
some reason, he refused to answer the questions put 
by either party, and made himself the laughing-stock 
of both, by declaring under oath that he would never 
answer untWput to the torture. He was imprisoned 
a number of months for contempt of court, and at last 
released. 



TO SIR WILLIAM DRAPER. 



181 



would little affect the tranquillity of his con- 
science. Examine your own breast, Sir Will- 
iam, and you will discover that reproaches and 
inquiries have no power to afflict either the man 
of unblemished integrity, or the abandoned prof- 
ligate. It is the middle, compound character 
which alone is vulnerable : the man who, with- 
out firmness enough to avoid a dishonorable ac- 
tion, has feeling enough to be ashamed of it. 

I thank you for the hint of the Decalogue, and 
shall take an opportunit}'^ of applying it to some 
of your most virtuous friends in both houses of 
Parliament. 

You seem to have dropped the affair of your 
regiment ; so let it rest. When you are appoint- 
ed to another, I dare say you will not sell it, 
either for a gross sum, or for any annuity upon 
lives. 

I am truly glad (for really, Sir William, I am 
not your enemy, nor did I begin this contest with 
you) that you have been able to clear yourself 
of a crime, though at the expense of the highest 
indisci-etion. You say that your half pay was 
given you by way of pension. I will not dwell 
upon the singularity of uniting in your own per- 
son two sorts of provision, which, in their own 
nature, and in all military and parliamentary 
views, are incompatible ; but I call upon you to 
justify that declaration, wherein you charge your 
prince with having done an act in your favor no- 
toriously against law. The half pay, both in 
Ireland and in England, is appropriated by Par- 
liament ; and if it be given to persons who, like 
you, are legally incapable of holding it, it is a 
, broach of law. It would have been more decent 
i:i you to have called this dishonorable ti-ansac- 
tion by its true name ; a job to accommodate two 
persons, by particular interest and management 
at the Castle. What sense must government 
have had of your services, when the rewards 
they have given you are only a disgrace to you ! 

And now. Sir William, I shall take my leave 
of you forever. Motives, very different from any 
apprehension of your resentment, make it im- 
possible you should ever know me. In truth, 



you have some reason to hold yourself indebted 
to me. From the lessons I have given, you may 
collect a profitable instruction for your future 
life. They will either teach you so to regulate 
your conduct as to be able to set the most ma- 
licious inquiries at defiance, or, if that be a lost 
hope, they will teach you prudence enough not 
to attract the public attention to a character 
which will only pass without censure when it 
passes without observation. Junius. 



Junius added the following note when the let- 
ters wei-e collected into a volume, after the death 
of the Marquess of Granby : 

" It has been said, and I believe truly, that it 
was signified to Sir William Draper, at the re- 
quest of Lord Granby, that he should desist fronl 
writing in his Lordship's defense. Sir William 
Draper certainly drew Junius forward to say 
more of Lord Granby's character than he orig- 
inally intended. He was reduced to the dilem- 
ma of either being totally silenced, or of sup- 
porting his first letter. Whether Sir William 
had a right to reduce him to this dilemma, or to 
call upon him for his name, after a voluntary at- 
tack on his side, are questions submitted to the 
candor of the public. The death of Lord Gran- 
by was lamented by Junius. He undoubtedly 
owed some compensations to the public, and 
seemed determined to acquit himself of them. 
In private life, he was unquestionably that good 
man, who, for the interest of his country, ought 
to have been a great one. ' Bonum virum fa- 
cile dixeris ; magnum libenter.'-' I never spoke 
of him with resentment. His mistakes in public 
conduct did not arise either from want of senti- 
ment or want of judgment, but in genex'al from 
the difficulty of saying No ! to the bad people who 
surrounded him. As for the rest, the friends of 
Lord Granby should remember, that he himself 
thought proper to condemn, retract, and disavow, 
by a most solemn declaration in the House of 
Commons, that very system of political conduct 
which Junius had held forth to the disapproba- 
tion of the public."* 



LETTER 

TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.i 
My Lorb, — If the measures in which you have been most successful had been supported 



^ " You would readily call him a good man, and be 
glad to call him a great one." 

* This refers to the change of Lord Granby's 
views and feelings after Lord Chatham's speech of 
January 9Lh, 1770: see page 114. As already stated, 
page 114, he withdrew from the Duke of Grafton's 
administration, apologizing for the vote he had given 
for seating Colonel Luttrell in the House, deploring 
it as the greatest misfortune of his life. 

1 Dated May 30th, 1769. This, like the first letter, 
has great regularity of structure. It begins with an 
artful apology for its bitterness, representing the 
Duke as utterly incorrigible; as having such a reli- 
ance on his purchased majority in Parliament, and 



such audacity in vice, as made him treat with con- 
tempt all endeavors for his good, and left room only 
for the writer " to consider his character and con- 
duct as a subject of curious speculation." Junius 
then goes on to speak of, (1.) The stain which rested 
on the Duke's descent, and his resemblance to his re- 
puted ancestors. (2.) His education under Lord Chat- 
ham, and his early desertion of his patron and of all 
others who had ever confided in him. (3.) His man- 
agement under the third ministiy of Chatham, to en- 
gross power and influence by a union with the Duke 
of Bedford and a marriage into his family. (4.) His 
supposed design, by this union, to obtain the mastery 
of the closet, and take the place of the Favorite. (5.) 



182 



JUNIUS 



by any tolerable appearance of argument, I 
should have thought my time not ill employed 
in continuing to examine your conduct as a min- 
ister, and stating it fairly to the public. But 
when I see questions of the first national im- 
portance carried as they have been, and the first 
principles of the Constitution openly violated 
without argument or decency, I confess I give up 
the cause in despair. The meanest of your pred- 
ecessors had abilities sufficient to give a color to 
their measures. If they invaded the rights of 
the people, they did not dare to offer a direct in- 
sult to their understanding ; and, in former times, 
the most venal Parliaments made it a condition, 
in their bargain with the minister, that he should 
furnish them with some plausible pretenses for 
selling their country and themselves. You have 
had the merit of introducing a more compendious 
system of government and logic. You neither 
address youi-self to the passions nor to the un- 
derstanding, but simply to the touch. You ap- 
ply yourself immediately to the feelings of your 
friends, who, contrary to the forms of Parliament, 
never enter heartily into a debate until they have 
divided.* 

Relinquishing, therefore, all idle views of 
amendment to your Grace, or of benefit to the 
public, let me be permitted to consider your 
character and conduct merely as a subject of 
curious speculation. There is something in both 
which distinguishes you not only from all other 
ministers, but all other men. It is not that you 
do wrong by design, but that you should never 
do right by mistake. It is not that your indo- 
lence and your activity have been equally mis- 
applied, but that the first uniform principle, or, 
if I may so call it, the genius of your life, should 
have carried you through every possible change 
and contradiction of conduct, without the mo- 
mentary imputation or color of a virtue ; and 
that the wildest spirit of inconsistency should 
never once have betrayed you into a wise or 
honorable action. This, I own, gives an air of 
singularity to your fortune, as well as to your 
disposition. Let us look back together to a 
scene, in which a mind like yours will find noth- 
ing to repent of. Let us try, my Lord, how well 
you have supported the various relations in which 
you stood, to youi sovereign, your country, your 
friends, and yourself. Give us, if it be possible, 

His fluctuating policy in respect to America. (6.) His 
betrayal of the Corsicans into the hands of France, 
and his permitting the French to gain the ascend- 
ency in the Turkish Divan. (7.) His alienating tlie 
affections of the people from the King by his home 
administration, " sometimes allowing the laws to 
be scandalously relaxed, and sometimes violently 
stretched beyond their tone." He concludes by 
telling the Duke, as the only hope of his being ren- 
dered useful to mankind, " I mean to make you a 
negative instructor to your successors forever." 

2 About this time, as appears from the Court Cal- 
endar, one hundred and ninety-troo members of the 
House of Commons had places mider government, 
and were thus held in absolute subserviency to the 
minister; to say nothing of the more direct use of 
money alluded to above. 



some excuse to posterity, and to ourselves, for 
submitting to your administration. If not the 
abilities of a great minister, if not the integrity 
of a patriot, or the fidelity of a friend, show us, 
at least, the firmness of a man. For the sake of 
your mistress, the lover shall be spared. I will 
not lead her into public, as you have done, nor 
will I insult the memory of departed beauty. 
Her sex, which alone made her amiable in your 
eyes, makes her respectable in mine.^ 

The character of the reputed ancestors of 
some men has made it possible for their de- 
scendants to be vicious in the extreme, without 
being degenerate. Those of your Grace, for 
instance, left no distressing examples of virtue, 
even to their legitimate posterity ; and you may 
look back with pleasure to an illustrious pedi- 
gree, in which heraldry has not left a single good 
quality upon record to insult or upbraid you. 
You have better proofs of your descent, my Lord, 
than the register of a marriage, or any trouble- 
some inheritance of reputation. There are some 
hereditary strokes of character, by which a fam- 
ily may be as clearly distinguished as by the 
blackest features in the human face. Charles 
the First lived and died a hypocrite. Charles 
the Second w^as a hypocrite of another sort, and 
should have died upon the same scaffold. At 
the distance of a century, we see their different 
characters happily revived and blended in your 
Grace. Sullen and severe without religion, prof- 
ligate without gayety, you live like Charles the 
Second, without being an amiable companion, 
and, for aught I know, may die as his father did, 
without the reputation of a martyr.'' 

You had already taken your degrees with 
credit in those schools in which the English no- 
bility are formed to virtue, when you were in- 
troduced to Lord Chatham's protection. From 
Newmarket, White's, and the Opposition, he 
gave you to the world with an air of popularity, 



3 The Duke of Grafton had outraged public decen- 
cy a few months before, by appearing openly with 
his mistress, Miss Parsons, in places of general re- 
sort and amusement. Junius attacked him on the 
subject at that time (though not under his present 
signature), remarking ironically, " You have exceed- 
ed my warmest expectations. I did not think you 
capable of exhibiting the 'lovely Thais' at the Opera 
House, of sitting a whole night by her side, of call- 
ing for her carriage yourself, and of leading her to it 
through a crowd of the first men and women in this 
kingdom. To a mind like yours, such an outrage to 
your wife, such a triumph over decency, such an in- 
sult to the company, must have afforded the highest 
gratification. It was, I presume, your novissima vo- 
luptas." Junius very dexterously throws in this 
mention of the Duke of Grafton's dissolute habits to 
introduce the next paragraph, which traces his ori- 
gin from the most debauched of English monarchs. 

* The first Duke of Grafton was a natural son of 
Charles II., and the present Duke a great-grandchild 
of that debauched monarch. This reference to the 
fact was of itself sufficiently mortifying ; but it de- 
rives double severity from the ingenious turn by 
which the discordant qualities of his two royal an- 
cestors are made to meet and mingle in the person 
of his Grace. 



TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 



183 



which young men usually set out with, and- sel- 
dom preserve ; grave and plausible enough to be 
thought" fit for business ; too young for treach- 
ery ; and, in short, a patriot -of no unpromising 
expectations. Lord Chatham was the earliest 
object of your political wonder and attachme'nt ; 
yet you deserted him, upon the first hopes that 
offered of an equal share of power with Lord 
Rockingham. *When the Duke of Cumberland's 
first negotiation failed, and when the Favorite 
was pushed to the last extremity, you saved him, 
by joining with an administration in which Lord 
Chatham had refused to engage.'^ Still, how- 
ever, he was \'our friend, and you are yet to ex- 
plain to the world why )'ou consented to act 
without him, or why, after uniting with Lord 
Rockingham, you deserted and betrayed him. 
You complained that no measures were taken to 
satisfy your patron, and that your friend, Mr. 
Wilkes, who had suflfered so much for the party, 
had been abandoned to his fate. They have 
since contributed, not a little, to your present 
plenitude of power ; yet, I think. Lord Chatham 
has less reason than ever to be satisfied ; and as 
for Mr. Wilkes, it is, perhaps, the greatest mis- 
fortune of his life that you should have so many 
compensations to make in the closet for your 
former friendship with him. Your gracious mas- 
ter understands your character, and makes you 
a persecutor, because you have been a fi'lend.*^ 

Lord Chatham formed his last administration 
upon principles which you certainly concurred 
in, or you could never have been placed at the 
head of the treasury. By deserting those prin- 
ciples, and by acting in direct contradiction to 
them, in which he found you were secretly sup- 
ported in the closet, you soon forced him to leave 



s See on this subject the sketch of Lord Chatham's 
life, p. 66. The Duke of Grafton had been the pro- 
tege ai]d adherent of his Lordship ; but he joined 
the administration of Lord Rockingham in 1765, as 
Secretary of State, while Chatham declared to the 
House that he could not give his confidence or sup- 
port to the new ministers. Still, he stated in the 
same speech that " some of them asked his opinion 
before they accepted, and that he advised them to 
do it." The Duke of Grafton may have been one of 
the number, and in that case, the present is one of 
the many instances ill which Junius perverts facts 
for the sake of wounding an adversary. 

® Cooke, speaking of this period in his History of 
Party, vol. iii., 105, says, " The Duke of Grafton, the 
present premier, although still a young man, had 
passed through several shades of politics. During 
the struggle upon the subject of general warrants, 
he had strenuously supported Wilkes ; and he had, 
since that time, repeated his assurances of protec- 
tion and friendship. When placed by Lord Chat- 
ham at the head of the treasury, he had, through his 
own brother, conveyed a similar message to the im- 
patient democrat, who, inflated with hope, returned 
to England to receive his pardon. He found, how- 
ever, upon his arrival, that nothing was intended in 
his favor. He revenged himself by writing and pub- 
lishing a severe letter to the Duke of Grafton, tax- 
ing him with faithlessness and prevarication ; and 
he returned in bitter disappointment to his exile and 
his poverty." 



you to yourself, and to withdraw his name from 
an administration which had been formed on the 
credit of it.'^ You had then a prospect of friend- 
ships better suited to your genius, and more 
likely to fix your disposition. Marriage is the 
point on which every rake is stationary at last ; 
and truly, my Lord, you may well be weary of 
the circuit you have taken, for you have now 
fairly traveled through every sign in the political 
zodiac, from the Scorpion in which you stung 
Lord Chatham, to the hopes of a Virgin in the 
house of Bloomsbury. One would think that 
you had had sufficient experience of the frailty 
of nuptial engagements, or, at least, that such a 
friendship as the Duke of Bedford's might have 
been secured to you by the auspicious marriage 
of your late Duchess with his nephew. But ties 
of this tender nature can not be drawn too close ; 
and it may possibly be a part of the Duke of 
Bedford's ambition, after making her an honest 
woman, to work a miracle of the same sort upon 
your Grace. This worthy nobleman has long 
dealt in virtue. There has been a large con- 
sumption of it in his own family ; and in the way 
of traffic, I dare say, he has bought and sold 
more than half the representative integrity of 
the nation.^ 

In a political view this union is not imprudent. 
The favor of princes is a perishable commodity. 
You have now a strength sufficient to command 
the closet ; and if it be necessary to betray one 
friendship more, you may set even Lord Bute at 
defiance. Mr. Stuart Mackenzie may possibly 
remember what use the Duke of Bedford usually 
makes of his power f and our gracious sover- 

7 Lord Chatham did ultimately withdraw his name 
for this reason, October, 1768 ; though his previous 
illness had prevented him from taking the lead of 
the government, and had thus given the Duke of 
Grafton an opportunity to gain the King's favor, 
which could be permanently secured only by aban- 
doning the principles and friendship of Lord Chat- 
ham. 

^ The facts here referred to betray a shameless 
profligacy in all the parties concerned. While the 
Duke of Grafton was parading his mistress before 
the public at the Opera House, his wife had an adul- 
terou.s connection with Lord Upper Ossory, nephew 
of the Duke of Bedford. Fortius she was divorced, 
and was soon after mamed by her paramour, who 
thus brought her into the Bedford circle. Incredible 
as it may seem, the Duke of Grafton became in a 
short time affianced to a member of the same circle, 
Miss Wrottesley, a niece of the Duchess of Bedford 
("a virgin of the house of Bloomsbury") ; so that Ju- 
nius represents it as the ambition of the Duke of Bed- 
ford, after making the adultress " an honest woman, 
to work a miracle of the same sort" on her former 
husband, the Duke of Grafton ! This exposure oif 
their shame would have satisfied most persons ; but 
Junius, in the next paragraph, dexterously turns the 
whole to a new purpose, viz., that of inflaming the 
public mind against the minister, as designing, by 
this connection, to " gain strength sufficient to com- 
mand the closet ;" imputing to him the unpopular 
friendship of Lord Bute, and a design to betray it! 

^ When the Duke of Bedford became minister in 
1763, he forced the King, against his wishes (as it 



184 



JUNIUS 



eign, I doubt not, rejoices at this first appear- 
ance of union among his servants. His late 
Majesty, under the happy influence of a family 
connection between his ministers, was relieved 
from the cares of government. A more active 
prince may, perhaps, observe with suspicion, by 
what degrees an artful servant grows upon his 
master, from the first unlimited professions of 
duty and attachment to the painful representa- 
tion of the necessity of the royal service, and 
soon, in regular progression, to the humble inso- 
lence of dictating in all the obsequious forms of 
peremptory submission. The interval is care- 
fully employed in forming connections, creating 
interests, collecting a party, and laying the foun- 
dation of double marriages, until the deluded 
prince, who thought he had found a creature pros- 
tituted to his service, and insignificant enough to 
be always dependent upon his pleasure, finds 
him at last too strong to be commanded, and too 
formidable to be removed. 

Your Grace's public conduct, as a minister, 
is but the counterpart of your private history — 
the same inconsistency, the same contradictions. 
In America we trace you, from the first opposi- 
tion to the Stamp Act, on principles of conven- 
ience, to Mr. Pitt's surrender of the right ; then 
forward to Lord Rockingham's surrender of the 
fact ; then back again to Lord Rockingham's 
declaration of the right ; then forward to taxa- 
tion with Mr. Townsend ; and, in the last in- 
stance, from the gentle Conway's undetermined 
discretion, to blood and compulsion with the 
Duke of Bedford. '° Yet, if we may believe the 
simplicity of Lord North's eloquence, at the open- 
ing of next sessions you are once moi'e to be pa- 
tron of America. Is this the wisdom of a great 
minister, or is it the vibration of a pendulum ? 
Had you no opinion of your own, my Lord ? 
Or -was it the gratification of beti-aying ever}'- 
party with which you had been united, and of 
deserting every political principle in which you 
had concurred ? 

Your enemies may turn their eyes without re- 
gret from this admirable system of provincial gov- 
ernment : they will find gratification enough in 
the survey of your domestic and foreign policy. 

If, instead of disowning Lord Shelbui'ne, the 
British court had interposed with dignity and 
firmness, you know, my Lord, that Corsica 
would never have been invaded. ^^ The French 



was understood), to dismiss Mi-. Stuart Mackenzie, 
brother of Lord Bute. Mr. Mackenzie was restored 
as soon as the Duke retired ; and Junius here de- 
scribes, in the most graphic manner, the way in 
which the same man and his associates might be ex- 
pected to go on again, till he reached " the humble 
insolence of dictating in all the obsequious forms of 
peremptory submission," as was done to George II. 

1" This is substantially true. " The Duke of Graf- 
ton," says a well-informed writer, " occasionally fa- 
vored Mr. Pitt's opinion, occasionally the Marquess 
of Rockingbam's, and at last sided with Charles 
Townsend in a determined resolution to carry the 
system of taxation into effect at all hazards." 

" Loi'd Shelburne, then Secretary of Foreign Af- 
fairs, had instructed the English embassador at the 




saw the weakness of a distracted ministry, and 
were justified in treating you with contempt. 
They would probably have yielded in the first 
instance rather than hazard a rupture with this 
country ; but, being once engaged, they can not 
retreat without dishonor. Common sense fore- 
sees consequences which have escaped your 
Grace's penetration. Either we sulTer the French 
to make an acquisition, the importance of which 
you have probably no conception of, or we op- 
pose them by an underhand managemeij^which 
only disgraces us in the 
answering any purpose 
From secret, indiscreet 
to some more open, decisive measures bec'omes 
unavoidable, till at last we find ourselves'princi- 
pals in the war, and are obliged to hazard every 
thing for an object which might have originally 
been obtained without expense or danger. I am 
not versed in the politics of the North ; but this 
I believe is certain, that half the money you 
have distributed to carry the expulsion of Mr. 
Wilkes, or even your secretary's share in the last 
subscription, would have kept the Turks at your 
devotion. ^^ Was it economy, my Lord? or did 
the coy resistance you have constantly met with 
in the British Senate make you despair of cor- 
rupting the Divan ? Your friends, indeed, have 
the first claim upon your bounty ; but if five hund- 
red pounds a year can be spared in pension to Sir 
John Moore, it would not have disgraced you to 
have allowed something to the secret service of 
the public. ^^ 

You will say. perhaps, that the situation of af- 
fairs at home demanded and engrossed the whole 
of your attention. Here, I confess you have been 
active. An amiable, accomplished prince ascends 
the throne under the happiest of all auspices, the 
acclamations and united affections of his sub- 
jects. The first measures of his reign, and even 
the odium of a Favorite, were not able to shake 
their attachments. Your services, my Lord, have 
been more successful. Since you M-ere permit- 
ted to take the lead, we have seen the natural 
efTects of a system of govei-nment at once both 
odious and contemptible. We have seen the 
laws sometimes scandalously relaxed, sometimes 
violently stretched beyond their tone. We have 



court of France to remonstrate in spirited terms 
against the occupation of Corsica by the French. 
But Grafton and the rest of the ministry disavowed 
the instructions of their own secretary, and Lord 
Shelburne resigned on the 2]st of October, 1768, un- 
der a sense of injury. 

12 It was the policy of Great Britain, touching 
" the politics of the North," to prevent Russia from 
being weakened by Turkey in the war then exist- 
ing between them. French officers were aiding 
the Turks and disciplining their troops. Junius in- 
timates that a small sum comparatively might have 
prevented this, and served not only to curtail the 
growing power of the French in the Divan, but to 
have transferred the ascendency to the English. 

1^ Sir John Moore was an old Newmarket ac- 
quaintance of the Duke, who had squandered his 
private fortune, and had recently obtained from his 
Grace a pension of £500 a year. 



TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 



185 



seen the sacred person of the sovereign insulted ; 
and, in profound peace, and with an undisputed 
title, the fidelity of his subjects brought by his 
own servants into public question. ^^ Without 
abilities, resolution, or interest, you have done 
more than Lord Bute could accomplish with all 
Scotland at his heels. 

Your Grace, little anxious, perhaps, either for 
present or future reputation, will not desire to 
be handed down in these colors to posterity. You 
have reason to flatter yourself that the memory 
of your administration will survive even the forms 
of a constitution which our ancestors vainly hoped 



would be immortal ; and as for your personal char- 
acter, I will not, for the honor of human nature, 
suppose that you can wish to have it remem- 
bered. The condition of the present times is 
despei-ate indeed ; but there is a debt due to 
those who come after us, and it is the historian's 
oflice to punish, though he can not correct. I 
do not give you to posterity as a pattern to im- 
itate, but as an example to deter ; and as your 
conduct comprehends every thing that a wise or 
honest minister should avoid, I mean to make 
you a negative instruction to your successors 
forever. Junius. 



LETTER 



TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.i 



My Lord, — If nature had given you an un- 
derstanding qualified to keep pace with the wish- 
es and principles of your heart, she would have 
made you, perhaps, the most formidable minister 
that ever was employed, under a limited mon- 
arch, to accomplish the ruin of a free people. 
When neither the feelings of shame, the re- 
proaches of conscience, nor the dread of punish- 
ment, form any bar to the designs of a minister, 
the people would have too much reason to la- 
ment their condition, if they did not find some 
resource in the weakness of his understanding. 
We owe it to the bounty of Providence, that the 
completest depravity t)f the heart is sometimes 
strangely united with a confusion of the mind, 
which counteracts the most favorite principles, 
and makes the same man treacherous without 
art, and a hypocrite without deceiving. The 
measux-es, for instance, in which your Grace's 
activity has been chiefly exerted, as they were 
adopted without skill, should have been conduct- 
ed with more than common dexterity. But 
truly, my Lord, the execution has been as gross 
as the design. By one decisive step you have 
defeated all the arts of writing. You have fair- 
ly confounded the intrigues of Opposition, and si- 
lenced the clamors of faction. A dark, ambig- 
uous system might require and furnish the ma- 
terials of ingenious illustration, and, in doubtful 



** As the King became unpopular through his per- 
secution of Wilkes and for other causes, the Duke 
of Grafton had made exertions to procure addresses 
from various parts of the kingdom, expressive of the 
people's attachment to the Crown. In this he sig- 
nally failed, except in Scotland, and thus brought the 
fidelity of his Majesty's subjects into "public ques- 
tion." 

I Dated July 8th, 1769. This Letter is directed 
chiefly to one point— the daring step just taken by 
the ministry, of seating Mr. Luttrell in the House of 
Commons to the exclusion of Mr. Wilkes, when the 
former had received only 296 votes, and the latter 
1143 votes, and had been returned by the sheriff of 
Middlesex as the elected member. Junius does not 
enter into the argument, for the case was too clear 
to admit of extended reasoning. His object was to 
convince the King and the ministry, that the people 
would not endure so flagrant an act of violence. 



measures, the virulent exaggeration of party must 
be employed to rouse and engage the passions 
of the people. You have now brought the mer- 
its of your administration to an issue, on which 
every Englishman, of the narrowest capacity, 
may determine for himself. It is not an alarm 
to the passions, but a calm appeal to the judg- 
ment of the people upon their own most essential 
interests. A more experienced minister would 
not have hazarded a direct invasion of the first 
principles of the Constitution, before he had made 
some progress in subduing the spirit of the peo- 
ple. With such a cause as yours, my Lord, it 
is not sufficient that you have the court at your 
devotion, unless you can find means to corrupt 
or intimidate the jury. The collective body of 
the people form that jury, and from their decis- 
ion there is but one appeal. 

Whether you have talents to support you at 
a crisis of such difficulty and danger, should long 
since have been considered. Judging truly of 
your disposition, you have perhaps mistaken the 
extent of your capacity. Good faith and folly 
have so long been received as synonymous terms, 
that the reverse of the proposition has grown 
into credit, and every villain fancies himself a 
man of abilities. It is the apprehension of your 
friends, my Lord, that 3'ou have drawn some 
hast}^ conclusion of this sort, and that a partial 
reliance upon your moral character has betrayed 
you beyond the depth of your understanding. 
You have now carried things too far to retreat. 
You have plainly declared to the people what 
they are to expect from the continuance of your 
administration. It is time for your Grace to con- 
sider lA'hat you also may expect in return from 
their spirit and their resentment. 

Since the accession of our most gracious sov- 
ereign to the throne, we have seen a system of 
government which may well be called a reign of 
experiments. Parties of all denominations have 
been employed and dismis.sed. The advice of 
the ablest men in this country has been repeat- 
edly called for and rejected ; and when the royal 
displeasure has been signified to a minister, the 
marks of it have usually been proportioned to his 
abilities and integrity. The spirit of the Fa- 



186 



JUNIUS 



voRiTE had some apparent influence upon every 
administration ; and every set of ministers pre- 
served an appearance of duration as long as they 
submitted to that influence.'^ But there were 

2 If the reader v^'ishes to understand the true state 
of parties at this time, and the real merits of the so 
much agitated question oi favoritism, he will be aid- 
ed by a consideration of the following- facts : 

William III. was placed on the throne in the rev- 
olution of 1688, by a union of the great Whig fami- 
lies ; and his successors were held there against the 
efforts of the Jacobites by the same power. Hence 
the government of the counti-y "on Revolution prin- 
ciples," so often spoken of, was really, to a great 
extent, the government of the King himself as well 
as the coantry, by a union of these families power- 
ful enough to control Parliament. Junius has very 
graphically described, in the preceding Letter, the 
process by which George II., "under the happy in- 
fluence of a connection between his ministers, was 
relieved of the cares of government." When George 
III. came to the tlirone, he determined to break 
away from these shackles, and to rule according to 
his own views and feelings, selecting such men from 
all parties as he considered best fitted to adminis- 
ter the goveiTiment. If he had thrown himself into 
the hands of Lord Chatham for the accomplishment 
of this design, he would probably have succeeded. 
That great statesman, by the splendor of his abili- 
ties, and his unbounded influence with the body of 
the people, might have raised up a counterpoise 
against the weight of those great family combina- 
tions in the peerage. But George III. disliked the 
Great Commoner, and had no resource but his ear- 
ly friend, Lord Bute. But this nobleman had nei- 
ther the abilities nor the political influence which 
were necessary for the accomplishment of such a 
scheme. As a Scotchman, particularly, he had to 
encounter the bitterest jealousy of the English. 
After a brief effort to administer the government, he 
gave up the attempt in despair. Still, there was a 
wide-spread suspicion that he maintained an undue 
influence over the King by secret advice and inter- 
course. It seems now to be settled, however, that 
such was not the fact. The complaint of his con- 
tinuing to rule as Fa/vorito,, is now admitted to have 
been chiefly or wholly unfounded. But the King, 
if he persevered in his plan, must have some agents 
and advisers. Hence, it was maintained by Mr. 
Burke, in his celebrated pamphlet entitled Thoughts 
on the Present Discontents, that thei'e was a regu- 
lar organization, a " cabinet behind the throne," 
which oven-uled the measm*es of the ostensible min- 
istry. Such, substantially, were the views of Ju- 
nius, though he chose to give prominence to Lord 
Bute as most hated by the people. He represents 
one ministry after another to have been sacrificed 
through the influence of his Lordship. He treats 
the Duke of Grafton as the wilUng tool of this sys- 
tem of favoritism. All this was greatly exagger- 
ated. Private influence did probably exist to a lim- 
ited extent ; but the King's frequent changes of 
ministei's resulted partly from personal disgust, and 
partly from his inability to cany on the government 
without calling in new strength. The great Whig 
families, in the mean time, felt indignant at these 
attempts of the King to free himself from their con- 
trol. Junius represented the feelings of these men ; 
and there was much less of real patriotism in his at- 
tack on the King tlian he pretends. It was a strug- 
gle for power. "There were many," says an able 
writer, " among the Whig party, who rejoiced at the 



certain services to be performed for the Favor- 
ite's security, or to gratify his resentments, 
which your predecessors in office had the wis- 
dom or the virtue not to undertake. The mo- 
ment this refractory spirit was discovered, their 
disgrace was determined. Lord Chatham, Mr. 
Grenville, and Lord Rockingham have success- 
ively had the honor to be dismissed, for prefer- 
ring their duty, as servants of the public, to those 
compliances which were expected from their 
station. A submissive administration was at last 
gradually collected from the desertei's of all par- 
ties, interests, and connections ; and nothing re- 
mained but to find a leader for these gallant, 
well-disciplined troops. Stand forth, my Lord, 
for thou art the man ! Lord Bute found no re- 
source of dependence or security in the proud, 
imposing superiority of Lord Chatham's abilities, 
the shrewd, inflexible judgment of Mr. Grenville, 
nor in the mild but determined integrity of Lord 
Rockingham. His views and situation required 
a creature void of all these properties ; and he 
was forced to go through every division, reso- 
lution, composition, and refinement of political 
chemistry, before he happily arrived at the caput 
mortuum of vitriol in your Grace. Flat and in- 
sipid in your retired state, but, brought into ac- 
tion, you become vitriol again. Such are the 
extremes of alternate indolence or fury which 
have governed your whole administration. Your 
circumstances with regard to the people soon 
becoming desperate, like other honest servants, 
you determined to involve the best of masters in 
the same difficulties with yourself. We owe it 
to 3'our Grace's w^ell-directed labors, that your 
sovereign has been persuaded to doubt of the af- 
fections of his subjects, and the people to suspect 
the virtues of their sovereign, at a time when 
both were unquestionable. You have degraded 
the royal dignity into a base, dishonorable com- 
petition with Mr. Wilkes, nor had you abilities to 
carry even this last contemptible triumph over a 
private man, without the grossest violation of 
the fundamental laws of the Constitution and 



King's resolute determination to free himself from 
the thraldom in which ' the great Revolution fami- 
lies' were prepared to bind him. They felt that the 
reign of a haughty oligarchy was not merely degrad- 
ing to the sovereign, but niinous to tlie claims of 
'new men' endowed with genius and capacity for 
affairs." The King, however, had not the requisite 
largeness or strength of understanding to cany out 
the design, and he had rejected the only man who 
could have enabled him to do it. He therefore 
tlu-ew Imnself into tlie hands of the Tories. But Ids 
quaiTcl with Wilkes was the great misfortune of 
his life. He seems at first to have been ignorant of 
the law on the points in question, and his ministers 
had not the honesty and firmness to set him right. 
On the contrary-, they went forward, at his bidding, 
into the most flagrant violations of the Constitution. 
The great body of the nation became alienated in 
their affections. On these points the attacks of Ju- 
nius were just, and liis services important in defend- 
ing the rights of the people. The King was defeat- 
ed ; he was compelled to give up the contest ; and 
subsequent votes of Parliament estabhshed the prin- 
ciples for which Junius contended. 



TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 



187 



rights of the people. But these are rights, my 
Lord, which you can no more annihilate than 
you can the soil to which they are annexed. 
The question no longer turns upon points of na- 
tional honor and security abroad, or on the de- 
grees of expediency and propriety of measures 
at home. It was not inconsistent that you should 
abandon the cause of liberty in another country 
[Corsica], which you had persecuted in 3'our own ; 
and in the common arts of domestic corruption, 
we miss no part of Sir Robert Walpole's system 
except his abilities. In this humble, imitative 
line you might long have proceeded, safe and con- 
temptible. You might probably never have risen 
to the dignity of being hated, and you might even 
have been despised with moderation. But, it 
seems, you meant to be distinguished ; and to a 
mind like yours there was no other road to fame 
but by the destruction of a noble fabric, which 
you thought had been too long the admiration 
of mankind. The use you have made of the 
military force, introduced an alarming change in 
the mode of executing the laws. The arbitrary 
appointment of Mr. Luttrell invades the founda- 
tion of the laws themselves, as it manifestly 
transfers the right of legislation from those whom 
the people have chosen to those whom they have 
rejected. With a succession of such appoint- 
ments, we may soon see a House of Commons 
collected, in the choice of which the other towns 
and counties of England will have as little share 
as the devoted county of Middlesex. 

Yet I trust your Grace will find that the peo- 
ple of this country are neither to be intimidated 
by violent measures, nor deceived by refinement. 
When they see Mr. Luttrell seated in the House 
of Commons by mere dint of power, and in di- 
rect opposition to the choice of a whole county, 
they will not listen to those subtleties by which 
every arbitrary exertion of authority is explained 
into the law and privilege of Parliament. It re- 
quires no persuasion of argument, but simply the 
evidence of the senses, to convince them, that to 
transfer the right of election from the collective 
to the representative body of the people, contra- 
dicts all those ideas of a House of Commons 
which they have received from their forefathers, 
and which they had already, though vainly, per- 
haps, delivered to their children. The princi- 
ples on which this violent measure has been de- 
fended have added scorn to injury, and forced us 
to feel that we are not only oppressed, but in- 
sulted. 

With what force, my Lord, with what protec- 
tion, are you prepared to meet the united detest- 
ation of the people of England? The city of 
London has given a generous example to the 
kingdom, in what manner a King of this country 
ought to be addressed ; and I fancy, my Lord, it 
is not yet in your courage to stand bet\veen your 
sovereign and the addresses of his subjects. The 
injuries you have done this country are such as 
demand not only redress, but vengeance. In 
vain shall you look for protection to that venal 
vote which you have already paid for : another 
must be purchased ; and, to save a minister, the 



' House of Commons must declare themselves not 
only independent of their constituents, but the de- 
termined enemies of the Constitution. Consider, 
my Lord, whether this be an extremity to which 
their fears will permit them to advance ; or, if 
their protection should fail you, how far you are 
authorized to rely upon the sincerity of those 
smiles, which a pious court lavishes without re- 
luctance upon a libertine by profession. It is 
not, indeed, the least of the thousand contradic- 
tions which attend you, that a man, marked to 
the world by the grossest violation of all cere- 
mony and decorum, should be the first servant 
of a court, in which prayers are morality, and 
kneeling is religion.-^ Trust not too far to ap- 
pearances, by which your predecessors have been 
deceived, though they have not been injured. 
Even the best of princes may at last discover 
that this is a contention in which every thing 
may be lost, but nothing can be gained; and, as 
you became minister by accident, were adopted 
without choice, and continued without favor, be 
assured that, whenever an occasion presses, you 
will be discarded without even the forms of re- 
gret. You will then have reason to be thank- 
ful if you are permitted to retire to that seat 
of learning, which, in contemplation of the sys- 
tem of your life, the comparative purity of your 
mannei-s with those of their high steward [Lord 
Sandwich], and a thousand other recommending 
circumstances, has chosen you to encourage the 
growing virtue of their youth, and to preside 
over their education.^ Whenever the spirit of 
distributing prebends and bishoprics shall have 
departed from you, you will find that learned 
seminary perfectly recovered from the delirium 
of an installation, and, what in truth it ought to 
be, once more a peaceful scene of slumber and 
meditation. The venerable tutors of the uni- 
versity will no longer distress your modesty by 
proposing )^ou for a pattern to their pupils. The 
learned dullness of declamation will be silent ; 
and even the venal muse, though happiest in fic- 
tion, will forget your virtues. Yet, for the ben- 
efit of the succeeding age, I could wish that your 
retreat might be deferred until your morals shall 
happily be ripened to that maturity of corruption 
at which, philosophers tell us, the worst exam- 
ples cease to be contagious. Jui^ius. 



3 This attack on the moral and religious character 
of the King was wholly unmerited. A sovereign 
can not always find ministers able to carry on the 
government, whose private character he approves. 
George III. had no grimace in his religion ; he was 
sincere and conscientious ; and he at last wrought a 
surprising change in the outward morals of the higher 
classes, by the purity of his own honschold. All En- 
gland has borne testimony to the wide-spread and 
powerful influence of his reign in this respect. 

* The Duke of Grafton had recently been installed 
Chancellor of the University of Cambridge with great 
pomp. The poet Gray, who owed his professorship 
to the unsolicited patronage of the Duke, had com- 
posed his Ode for Music, to be performed on that oc- 
casion, commencing, 

Hence! avaunt! 'tis holy ground ! 

Comus and his nightly crew, &c. 



188 



JUNIUS 



LETTER 



TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. 



My Lord, — You are so little accustomed to 
receive any marks of respect or esteem from the 
public, that if, in the following lines, a compli- 
ment or expression of applause should escape 
me, I fear you would consider it as a mockery 



^ Dated September 19th, 1769. The Bedford fam- 
ily was at this time the richest in England, and, 
through its borough interest and wide-spread alli- 
ances, stood foremost in political influence. The 
present Duke was now sixty years old, and had 
spent half his life in the conflicts of party. He first 
held office under Lord Carteret, then under Mr. Pel- 
ham, and was made Viceroy of Ireland by Lord Chat- 
ham in his first administration. Thus far he had act- 
ed as a Whig. But when Lord Bute drove out Lord 
Chatham in 1761, he took the office of Privy Seal, 
made vacant by the resignation of Chatham's broth- 
er-in-law. Lord Temple, and was now considered as 
uniting his interests to those of the Favorite. When 
Lord Bute resigned in 1763, the influence of the 
Duke became ascendant in the cabinet, and the ad- 
ministration, though ostensibly that of Mr. Gren- 
ville, has often been spoken of as the Duke of Bed- 
ford's. It was extremely unpopular, from the gen- 
eral belief that Lord Bute still ruled as Favorite ; 
and in 1765 it gave way to the administration of 
Lord Rockingham, which threw the Duke of Bed- 
ford wholly into the back-ground. The Duke of Graf- 
ton, when he became minister in 1767, through the 
illness of Lord Chatham and the death of Charles 
Townsend, found it necessary to call in new strength, 
and opened negotiations, as already mentioned, with 
Lord Rockingham on the one hand and the Duke of 
Bedford on the other. The Rockingham Whigs had 
the strongest hopes of prevailing in these new ar- 
rangements, and of being made virtual masters of 
the government. But the influence of the Duke of 
Bedford prevailed. Three of his dependents, Lords 
Weymouth, Gower, and Sandwich, were received 
into the ministry; and the Duke of Bedford drew 
upon himself the bitterest resentment of the Rock- 
ingham Whigs for thus depriving them of povper, and 
becoming, as they conceived, the savior of Lord Bute 
and the Tories, and thus re-establishing the system 
of secret influence in the closet. These events, 
as stated above, were the immediate cause which 
led the writer of these Letters to come out under a 
new signature, and in a bolder style of attack. Aft- 
er assailing the Duke of Grafton, as we have seen 
in the preceding letters, he now turns upon the Duke 
of Bedford in a spirit of still fiercer resentment. He 
reviews the whole public and private conduct of his 
Grace, and endeavors to call up all the odium of past 
transactions to enkindle new jealousies against him, 
as about to give increased eff'ect to a system of fa- 
voritism in the closet; and seeks at the same time 
to overwhelm the Duke himself with a sense of dis- 
honor, baseness, and folly, which might make him 
shrink from the public eye. There is nothing in all 
the writings of Junius that is more vehemently elo- 
quent than the close of this letter. It is proper to 
add, that this eloquence is, in far too many cases, un- 
supported by facts. 



of your established character, and perhaps an 
insult to your understanding. You have nice 
feelings, my Lord, if we may judge from your 
resentments. Cautious, therefore, of giving of- 
fense, where you have so little deserved it, I 
shall leave the illustration of your virtues to 
other hands. Your friends have a privilege to 
play upon the easiness of your temper, or pos- 
sibly they are better acquainted with your good 
qualities than I am. You have done good by 
stealth. The rest is upon record. You have 
still left ample room for speculation, when pan- 
egyric is exhausted. 

You are indeed a very considerable man. The 
highest rank, a splendid fortune, and a name, glo- 
rious till it was yours, were sufGcient to have sup- 
ported you with meaner abilities than I think you 
possess. From the first, you derived a constitu- 
tional claim to respect ; from the second, a natu- 
ral extensive authority ; the last created a partial 
expectation of hereditary virtues. The use you 
have made of these uncommon advantages might 
have been more honorable to yourself, but could 
not be more instructive to mankind. We may 
trace it in the veneration of your country, in the 
choice of your friends, and in the accomplish- 
ment of every sanguine hope which the public 
might have conceived from the illustrious name 
of Russell, 

The eminence of your station gave you a com- 
manding prospect of your duty.^ The road, 
which led to honor, was open to your view. 
You could not lose it by mistake, and you had 
no temptation to depart from it by design. Com- 
pare the natural dignity and importance of the 
richest peer of England ; the noble independ- 
ence which he might have maintained in Parlia- 
ment ; and the real interest and respect which he 
might have acquired, not only in Parliament, but 
through the whole kingdom ; compare these glo- 
rious distinctions with the ambition of holding a 
.share in government, the emoluments of a place, 
the sale of a borough, or the purchase of a cor- 
poration ; and, though you luay not regret the 
virtues which create respect, you may see, with 
anguish, how much real importance and author- 
ity you have lost. Consider the character of an 
independent, virtuous Duke of Bedford ; imagine 

2 This and the next three paragraphs are among 
the finest specimens of composition to be found in 
Junius. Nowhere has he made so happy a use of 
contrast.' Commencing with a natural and express- 
ive image, he first sketches with ndujirable discrim- 
ination the character and conduct to be expected in 
the first peer of England, and then sets off" against 
it an artful and exaggerated representation of tlie 
political errors and private weaknesses of the Dake 
of Bedford during the preceding thirty years. 



I 



TO THE DUKE Of BEDFORD. 



189 



what he mighc be in this country, then reflect 
one moment upon what you are. If it be possi- 
ble for me to withdraw my attention from the 
fact, I will tell you in theory what such a man 
might be. 

Conscious of his own weight and importance, 
his conduct in Parliament would be directed by 
nothing but the constitutional duty of a peer. 
He would consider himself as a guardian of the 
laws. Willing to support the just measures of 
government, but determined to observe the con- 
duct of the minister with suspicion, he would op- 
pose the violence of faction with as much firm- 
ness as the encroachments of prerogative. He 
would be as little capable of bargaining with the 
minister for places for himself or his dependents, 
as of descending to mix himself in the intrigues 
of Opposition. Whenever an important ques- 
tion called for his opinion in Parliament, he would 
be heard, by the most profligate minister, with 
deference and respect. His authority would ei- 
ther sanctify or disgrace the measures of govern- 
ment. The people would look up to him as to 
their protector, and a virtuous prince would have 
one honest man in his dominions, in whose in- 
tegrity and judgment he might safely confide. 
If it should be the will of Providence to afflict 
him with a domestic misfortune, he would sub- 
mit to the stroke with feeling, but not without 
dignity.^ He would consider the people as his 
children, and receive a generous, heart-felt con- 
solation in the sympathizing tears and blessings 
of his country. 

Your Grace may probably discover something 
more intelligible in the negative part of this il- 
lustrious character. The man I have described 
would never prostitute his dignity in Parliament 
by an indecent violence either in opposing or de- 
fending a minister. He would not at one mo- 
ment rancorously persecute, at another basely 
cringe to the Favorite of his sovereign. After 
outraging the royal dignity with peremptory 
conditions, little short of menace and hostility, 
he would never descend to the humility of solicit- 
ing an interview with the Favorite, and of offer- 
ing to recover, at any price, the honor of his 
friendship.* Though deceived, perhaps, in his 
youth, he would not, through the course of a 



3 The Duke had lately lost his only son, Lord Tav- 
istock, by a fall from his horse. There is great beau- 
ty in the turn of the next sentence, "he would con- 
sider the people as his children," which might well 
be done by a descendant of Lord William Russell, 
whose memory was venerated by the people as a 
martyr iu the cause of liberty. This thought gives 
double severity to the contrast that follows, iu which 
the character and conduct of the Duke are presented 
in such a light, that, instead of being able to repose 
his sorrows on the bosom of the people, he had made 
himself an object of their aversion or contempt. As 
to the justice of these insinuations respecting a want 
of " feeling" and " dignity" under this calamity, see 
the remarks at the end of this Letter. 

* It is stated in a note by Junius, " At this inter- 
view, which passed at the house of the late Lord Eg- 
lintoun. Lord Bute told the Duke that he was de- 
termip.ed never to have anv connection with a man 



long life, have invariably chosen his friends from 
among the most profligate of mankind. His own 
honor would have forbidden him from mixing his 
private pleasures or conversation with jockeys, 
gamesters, blasphemers, gladiators, or buffoons. 
He would then have never felt, much less would 
he have submitted to the dishonest necessity of 
engaging in the interests and intrigues of his de- 
pendents — of supplying their vices, or relieving 
their beggary at the expense of his country. 
He would not have betrayed such ignorance or 
such contempt of the Constitution as openly to 
avow, in a court of justice, the purchase and sale 
of a borough.'' He would not have thought it 
consistent with his I'ank in the state, or even 
with his personal importance, to be the little ty- 
rant of a little corporation.^ He would never 
have been insulted with virtues which he had 
labored to extinguish, nor suffered the disgrace 
of a mortifying defeat, which has made him ri- 
diculous and contemptible, even to the few by 
whom he was not detested. I revei'ence the 
afflictions of a good man — his sorrows are sa- 
cred. But how can we take part in the dis- 
tresses of a man whom we can neither love nor 
esteem, or feel for a calamity of which he him- 
self is insensible ? Where was the father's 
heart when he could look for, or find an imme- 
diate consolation for the loss of an only son in 
consultations and bargains for a place at court, 
and even in the misery of balloting at the India 
House 'V 

Admitting, then, that you have mistaken or 
deserted those honorable principles which ought 
to have directed your conduct ; admitting that 
you have as little claim to private affection as to 
public esteem, let us see with what abilities, 
with what degree of judgment you have carried 
your own system into execution. A great man, 
in the success, and even in the magnitude of his 
crimes, finds a rescue from contempt. Your 
Grace is every way unfortunate. Yet I will not 
look back to those ridiculous scenes, by which, 
in your earlier days, you thought it an honor to 
be distinguished : the recorded stripes, the pub- 
lic infamy, your own sufl^erings, or Mr. Rigby's 
fortitude.* These events undoubtedly left an im- 



who had so basely betrayed him." Horace Wal- 
pole confirms this statement. 

^ This he did in an answer in Chancery, when 
sued for a large sum paid him by a gentleman, whom 
he had undertaken (but failed) to return as a mem- 
ber of Parliament. He was obliged to refund the 
money. 

^ The town of Bedford had been greatly exasper- 
ated by the overbearing disposition of the Duke. 
To deliver themselves from the thraldom in wliich 
he had held them, they admitted a great number of 
strangers to the freedom of the corporation, and the 
Duke was defeated. 

■^ As to the justice of this cruel attack, see the 
remarks at the end of the present Letter. 

^ Note by Junius. " Mr. Heston Humphrey, a coun- 
try attorney, horsewhipped the Duke, with equal 
Justice, severity, and perseverance, on the course at 
Litchfield. Rigby and Lord Trentham were also 
cudgeled in a most exemplary manner. This gave 



190 



JUxMUS 



pi-ession. though not upon your mind. To such 
a mind, it may perhaps be a pleasure to reflect, 
that there is hardly a corner of any of his Maj- 
esty's kingdoms, except France, in which, at one 
time or other, your valuable life has not been in 



Amiable 



! we see and acknowl- 



edge the protection of Providence, by which you 
have so often escaped the personal detestation of 
your fellow-subjects, and are still reserved for 
the public justice of your country. 

Your history begins to be important at that 
auspicious period at which you were deputed to 
represent the Earl of Bute at the court of Ver- 
sailles.^ It was an honorable office, and executed 
with the same spirit with which it was accepted. 
Your patrons wanted an embassador who would 
submit to make concessions w^ithout daring to in- 
sist upon any honorable condition for his sover- 
eign. Their business required a man who had 
as little feeling for his own dignity as for the 
welfare of his country ; and they found him in 
the first rank of the nobility! Belleisle, Goree, 
Guadaloupe, St. Lucia, Martinique, the Fishery, 
and the Havana, are glorious monuments of your 
Grace's talents for negotiation. My Lord, we 
are too well acquainted with your pecuniary 



rise to the following story : When the late King 
heard that Sir Edward Hawke had given the French 
a drubbing, his Majesty, who had never received 
that kind of chastisement, was pleased to ask Lord 
Chesterfield the meaning of the word. ' Sir,' said 
Lord Chesterfield, 'the meaning of the word — But 
here comes the Duke of Bedford, who is better able 
to explain it to your Majesty than I am.' " 

^ Soon after Lord Chatham was driven from office 
in the midst of his glorious ministry, Lord Bute sent 
the Duke of Bedford to negotiate a treaty of peace 
with France, which was signed November 3d, 1762. 
The concessions then made, which are here enumer- 
ated by Junius, were generally considered as highly 
dishonorable to the country. They were not, how- 
ever, chargeable to the Duke of Bedford personally, 
though he may have been liable to censure for con- 
senting to negotiate such a treaty. 

The insinuation which follows, respecting the 
Duke's having received "some private compensa- 
tion," refers to a report in circulation soon after the 
treaty was signed, that the Duke had been bribed 
by the French, in common with the Princess Dow- 
ager of Wales, Lord Bute, and Mr. Henry Fox. 
The story was too ridiculous to be seriously noticed, 
but the matter was investigated by a committee of 
the House of Commons, and found to rest solely on 
the statement of a man named Musgrave, who had 
"no credible authority for the imputations of treach- 
ery and corruption which he was willing to propa- 
gate." — See Heron's Junius, i., 269. Still, Junius re- 
vived the story at the end of six years, and, when 
called upon for proof, had nothing to allege, except 
that the Duke was understood to love money. " I 
combined the known temper of the man with the ex- 
travagant concessions of the embassador." There 
was another and perfectly well-known reason for 
these "concessions." Lord Bute could not raise 
funds to carry on the war. The moneyed men 
would not trust him. He was, therefore, compelled 
to make peace on such terms as he could obtain. 
The downright dishonesty of Junius in tliis case 
naturally leads us to receive all his statements with 
distrust, unless supported by other evidence. 



character to think it possible that so many pub- 
lic sacrifices should have been made without 
some private compensation. Your conduct car- 
ries with it an interior evidence, beyond all the 
legal proof of a court of justice. Even the cal- 
lous pride of Lord Egremont was alarmed. He 
saw and felt his own dishonor in corresponding 
with you ; and there certainly was a moment at 
which he meant to have resisted, had not a fatal 
lethargy prevailed over his faculties, and carried 
all sense and memoiy away with it. 

I wall not pretend to specify the secret terms 
on which you were invited to support an admin- 
istration which Lord Bute pretended to leave in 
full possession of their ministerial authority, and 
perfectly masters of themselves. ^° He was not 
of a temper to relinquish power, though he re- 
tired from employment. Stipulations were cer- 
tainly made between your Grace and him, and 
certainly violated. After two years' submission, 
you thought you had collected a strength suffi- 
cient to control his influence, and that it was 
your turn to be a tyrant, because you had been 
a slave. ^^ When you found yourself mistaken 
in your opinion of your gracious master's firm- 
ness, disappointment got the better of all your 
humble discretion, and carried you to an excess 
of outrage to his person, as distant from true 
spirit, as from all decency and respect. After 
robbing him of the rights of a King, you would 
not permit him to preserve the honor of a gen 
tleman. It was then Lord Weymouth was nom- 
inated to Ireland, and dispatched (we well re- 
member with what indecent hurry) to plunder 
the treasury of the first fruits of an employment 
which you well knew he was never to execute. ^^ 

This sudden declaration of war against the Fa- 
vorite might have given you a momentary merit 
with the public, if it had been either adopted 
upon principle, or maintained with resolution. 
Without looking back to all your former seryil- 



10 Junius here refers to the time when Lord Bute 
resigned, April 8th, 1763, and the Duke of Bedford 
and his friends came into power in connection with 
Mr. George Grenville. It was at this period that 
the Duke compelled the King, as mentioned in a 
former letter, to displace Mr. Stuart Mackenzie, 
brother of Lord Bute, who had received the royal 
promise of never being removed. This arose out of 
the Duke's jealousy of Lord Bute at that time, and 
a determination to show that he was not governed 
by him. 

^' Note by Junius. "The ministry having endeav- 
ored to exclude the Dowager out of the Regency 
Bill, the Earl of Bute determined to dismiss them. 
Upon this the Duke of Bedford demanded an audi- 
ence of the King — reproached him in plain terms 
with his duplicity, baseness, falsehood, treachery, 
hypocrisy — repeatedly gave him the lie, and left 
him in convulsions." How far there is any truth in 
this statement, it is not easy now to say. It is prob- 
able there vi-as a rumor of this kind at the time ; but 
no one will believe that the King would ever have 
invited the Duke of Bedford again into his service 
(as he afterward did), if a tenth part of these indig- 
nities had been offered him. 

'^ He received three thousand pounds for plate 
and equipage money. 



TO THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. 



191 



ity, we netd only observe your subsequent con- 
duct, to see upon what motives you acted. Ap- 
parently united with Mr. Grenville, you waited 
until Lord Rockingham's feeble administration 
should dissolve in its own weakness. The mo- 
ment their dismission was .suspected, the moment 
you perceived that another system was adopted 
in the closet, you thought it no disgrace to re- 
turn to your former dependence, and solicit once 
more the friendship of Lord Bute. You begged 
an interview, at which he had spirit enough to 
treat you with contempt.'-^ 

It would now be of little use to point out by 
what a train of weak, injudicious measures it be- 
came necessary, or was thought so, to call you 
back to a share in the administration.^* The 
friends, whom you did not in the last instance 
desert, were not of a character to add strength 
or credit to government ; and at that time your 
alliance with the Duke of Grafton was, I pre- 
sume, hardly foreseen. We must look for other 
stipulations, to account for that sudden resolu- 
tion of the closet, by which three of your de- 
pendents (whose characters, I think, can not be 
less respected than they are) were advanced to 
offices, through which you might again control 
the minister, and probably engross the whole 
direction of affairs. 

The possession of absolute power is now once 
more within your reach. The measures you have 
taken to obtain and confirm it are too gross to es- 
cape the eyes of a discerning, judicious prince. 
His palace is besieged ; the lines of circumvalla- 
tion are drawing round him ; and unless he finds ' 
a resource in his activity, or in the attachment 
of the real friends of his family, the best of 
princes must submit to the confinement of a 
state prisoner, until your Grace's death, or some 
less fortunate event, shall raise the siege. For 



^^ A negotiation was opened between Lord Tem- 
ple and Mr. Grenville on the one hand, and Lord Bute 
on the other. Mr. Grenville, however, refused to go 
forward without the Duke of Bedford, and Lord Bute, 
as stated above, refused to have any connection with 
his Grace. Horace Walpole makes a similar state- 
ment in his Memoirs of George III. 

^■^ This refers to the call of the Duke of Bedford 
into the administration about a year before, which 
created so much disappointment to the Rockingham 
Whigs, and was probably the occasion, as already 
stated, of the first letter of Junius. The King is un- 
derstood to have recommended that measure ; and 
Junius intimates that the close existing alliance 
with the Duke of Grafton had not then been con- 
templated. Three of the Duke of Bedford's depend- 
ents, viz., Lords "Weymouth, Gower, and Sandwich, 
were now placed in very important stations. The 
Duke of Bedford was also suspected of being again 
united in full confidence with Lord Bute. Thus Ju- 
nius insinuates, a plan was formed for giving him the 
absolute control over the government in conjunction 
with the Duke of Grafton, but with authority over 
him. The whole paragraph was intended to alarm 
the people on the one hand, and those who were 
considered "the King's friends" on the other. It 
need not be repeated that these suspicions of Lord 
Bute's continued secret influence were, to a great 
extent, unfounded. " 



the present, you may safely resume that style of 
insult and menace, which even a private gentle- 
man can not submit to hear without being con- 
temptible. Mr. Mackenzie's history is ncjt vet 
forgotten, and you may find precedents enough 
of the mode in which an imperious subject may 
signify his pleasure to his sovereign. Where 
will this gracious monarch look for assistance, 
when the wretched Grafton could forget his ob- 
ligations to his master, and desert him for a hol- 
low alliance with sicch a man as the Duke of 
Bedford ? 

Let us consider you, then, as arrived at the 
summit of worldly greatness.'^ Let us suppose 
that all your plans of avarice and ambition are 
accomplished, and your most sanguine wishes 
gratified, in the fear as well as the hatred of the 
people. Can age itself forget that you are now 
in the last act of life ? Can gray hairs make 
folly venerable ? and is there no period to be re- 
served for meditation and retirement ? For 
shame, my Lord ! • Let it not be recorded of 
you, that the latest moments of your life were 
dedicated to the same unworthy pursuits, the 
same busy agitations, in which your youth and 
manhood were exhausted. Consider, that, al- 
though you can not disgrace your former life, 
you are violating the character of age, and ex- 
posing the impotent imbecility, after you have 
lost the vigor of the passions. 

Your friends will ask, perhaps, Whither shall 
this unhappy old man retire ? Can he remain 
in the metropolis, where his life has been so often 
threatened, and his palace so often attacked ? If 
he returns to Woburn [his country seat], scorn 
and mockery await him. He must create a sol- 
itude round his estate, if he would avoid the face 
of reproach and derision. At Plymouth, his de- 
struction wovild be more than probable ; at Exe- 
ter, inevitable. No honest Englishman will ever 
forget his attachment, nor any honest Scotchman 
forgive his treachery, to Lord Bute. At every 
town he enters, he must change his liveries and 
his name. Whichever way he flies, the Hue and 
Cry of the country pursues him. 

In another kingdom, indeed, the blessings of 
his administration have been more sensibly felt ; 
his virtues better understood ; or, at worst, they 
will not, for him alone, forget their hospitality.^^ 
As well might Verres have returnee, to Sicily. 
You have twice escaped, my Lord ; beware of 
a third experiment. The indignation of a whole 
people, plundered, insulted, and oppressed as they 
have been, will not always be disappointed. 



^^ This and the remaining paragraphs are the most 
eloquent parts of the Letter. It is hardly necessary 
to remark how much there is in them of art, of pas- 
sion, and of keen discerninent into human character. 
There is a rapidity and glow of expression that ia 
truly admirable. The several places are enumer- 
ated where the Duke had formerly met with tokens 
of public aversion, and where he might expect again 
to be received with reproach and derision. 

1* The Duke had been once in Ireland as Viceroy, 
and again when he was appointed to the principal 
honorary office in the University of Dublin. 



192 



JUNIUS 



It is in vain, therefore, to shift the scene. You 
can no more fly from j'our enemies than from 
yourself. Persecuted abroad, you look into your 
own heart for consolation, and find nothing but 
reproaches and despair. But, my Lord, you may 
quit the field of business, though not the field of 
danger ; and though you can not be safe, you 
may cease to be ridiculous. I fear you have 
listened too long to the advice of those perni- 
cious friends with whose interests you have sor- 
didly united your own, and for whom you have 
sacrificed every thing that ought to be dear to a 
man of honor. They are still base enough to 
encourage the follies of your age, as they once 
did the vices of your youth. As little acquaint- 
ed with the rules of decorum as with the laws 
of morality, they will not suffer you to profit by 
experience, nor even to consult the propriety of 
a bad character. Even now they tell you that 
life is no more than a dramatic scene, in which 
the hero should preserve his consistency to the 
last, and that, as you lived without virtue, you 
should die without repentance. Junius. 



The Duke of Bedford died four months after 
the publication of this letter, and Junius has suc- 
ceeded in handing down his character to poster- 
ity, as a monstrous compound of baseness and 
folly. It has been shown, however, in the pre- 
ceding notes, that some of his statements were 
gross falsehoods, while others were equally gross 
exaggerations. 

The Duke was certainly a very unpopular 
man. He did experience the public indignities 
mentioned in this Letter. He was mobbed by 
the Spitalfield weavers ; his life was more than 
once put in danger ; and his palace in Blooms- 
bury Square was assaulted by congregated thou- 
sands. This was done because the price of silk 
goods fell greatly after the peace which he ne- 
gotiated with France in 1762, and men like Ju- 
nius taught those ignorant mechanics to believe 
that the Duke of Bedford was the cause, when 
the fault, if there was any, lay with Lord Bute. 
In like manner, his administration in Ireland was 
unfortunate. His manners were shy and cold ; 
his temper was quick and imperious ; he had 
bad friends and advisers. The Primate of Ii-e- 
land united the factions of the country against 
him ; and mobs were stirred up to break into the 
public buildings and set his authority at defiance. 
And yet Horace Walpole, who, from being his 
friend, had become his political enemy, states, 
without hesitation, that the Duke went to Ire- 
land with the best intentions, and was really de- 
sirous to improve the condition of that miserable 
and distracted country. He was charged with 
meanness in his pecuniary concerns, and Junius 
sneers at his doing good " by stealth." Walpole 
adverts to this, and says, " his great economy was 
called avarice ; if so, it was blended with more 
generosity and goodness than that passion will 
commonly unite with." A writer in his favor 
stated, without contradiction, that " he had paid 
his brother's debts to the amount of c3£lOO,000 ; 



had made a splendid provision for the son whom 
he lost, and afterward for his widow ; and that he 
was distinguished for his bounty to his depend- 
ents and domestics." The most cruel charge 
in this Letter was that of insensibility to the 
loss of his son : a charge which Junius repeated 
with great vehemence on a subsequent occasion. 
Upon this subject, it will be sufficient to give a 
note of Sir Dennis Le Marchant, editor of Wal- 
pole's INIemoirs of George III., vol. ii., p. 443. 
" The Duke's memory has been repeatedly vin- 
dicated from this cruel aspersion, and never with 
more generous and indignant eloquence than by 
Lord Brougham, in his Political Sketches, vol. 
iii. It has always been understood in the quar- 
ters likely to be best informed, that he felt his 
son's loss deeply to the last hour of his life.^'' 
Instead, however, of yielding to his grief, he en- 
deavored to employ his thoughts upon public 
business, and the natural fervor of his disposition 
insensibly engaged him in the scenes before him, 
perhaps more deeply than he was aware. The 
meeting he attended at the India House must, as 
appears from the Company's books, have been 
that of April 8th, which determined the course 
to be taken by the Company on the government 
propositions : a great question, in which he took 
a lively interest. The force of mind he thus 
displayed is noticed with commendation in a 
letter written at the time by David Hume, who, 
from his connection with Conway, is assuredly an 
impartial witness. The absurd charge brought 
by Junius [Letter xxix.] against the Duchess, 
of making money by her son Lord Tavistock's 
wardrobe, originated in its having been sold for 
the benefit of his valet and Lady Tavistock's 
maid, according to the general practice of that 
day." 

Horace Walpole, speaking of this subject, while 
he censures the Duke for going to the balloting 
at the India House, says he " was carried there 
by his creatures, Lord Sandwich, Earl Gower, 
and Mr. Rigby, to vote." He speaks also of 
these men and their associates, usually called 
" the Bloomsbury gang," as having been shunned 
by Lord Tavistock, and says, " the indecent indif- 
ference with which such a catastrophe [his sud- 
den death] was felt by the faction of the family, 
spoke too plainly that Lord Tavistock had lived 
a reproach and terror to them." We have here 
the secret of a considerable portion of the Duke's 
misfortunes for life — those "pernicious friends" 
spoken of by Junius, who had " a privilege to 
play on the easiness of his temper." He was a 
very ardent politician ; and was i-educed to " the 
necessity of engaging in the interest and in- 
trigues of his dependents : of supplying their 
vices and relieving their beggary at the expense 
of his country." His ardor in politics led him 
into the borough-mongering alluded to in this 
Letter, It also made him " at one time rancor- 
ously persecute, and at another basely cringe to, 
the Favorite of the Sovereign." In connection 



^'' "Walpole says that, "on hearing of his death, the 
Duke for a few days almost lost his senses." 



TO THE KING. 



193 



with the impetuosity of his feelings and his sud- 
den bursts of passion, it betrayed him into " in- 
decent violence in opposing or defending minis- 
ters." These were his real faults, and they were 
great ones ; but they by no means imply that de- 
pravity of heart imputed to him by Junius ; and it 
will be observed, that this writer, in all the bit- 
terness of his satire, does not charge the Duke 
with being personally an immoral man. Wal- 
pole says '^ he was a man of inflexible honesty 
and good will to his country." " His parts were 
certainly far from shining, and yet he spoke read- 
ily, and upon trade, well. His foible was speak- 



ing upon every subject, and imagining he under- 
stood it, as he must have done, by inspiration. 
He was always governed — generally by the 
Duchess ; though immeasurably obstinate when 
once he had formed or had an opinion instilled 
into him. His manner was impetuous, of which 
he was so little sensible, that, being told Lord 
Halifax was to succeed him, he said, ' He is too 
warm and overbearing : the King v»'ill never en- 
dure him.' If the Duke of Bedford would have 
thought less of himself, the world would proba- 
bly have thought better of him." — Memoirs of 
George II., vol. i., p. 186. 



LETTER 



TO THE KING. 



When the complaints of a brave and powerful 

^ Dated December 19th, 1769. The Whigs had 
now effected a union among- themselves. Lord 
Chatham had so far recovered from his three years' 
illness as to make it certain that he would soon be 
able to appear in the House of Lords. A I'econcili- 
ation had taken place between him and the Gren- 
ville and Rockingham Whigs ; a new session of Par- 
liament xvas about to commence ; and that voice 
was again to be heai'd in its councils which had so 
often summoned the nation to the defense of its 
rights. Junius, though acting by himself, would of 
course be acquainted with these arrangements ; and 
to prepare the way for the approaching struggle, he 
now turns from the ministry to the Throne, and en- 
deavors at once to intimidate the King, and to rouse 
the people to a determined resistance of the govern- 
ment. 

The leading object of this Letter is to show the 
King, (1.) How great an error he had committed in 
making the Tories (the hereditaiy suppoi'ters of the 
Stuarts) the depositories of his power, and in choos- 
ing a Favorite from among them, while he rejected 
the Whigs, who had brought in the Hanover family, 
and thus far held them on the throne. (2.) How dis- 
honorable was the contest he was then carrying on 
against a man of con-upt principles and abandoned 
life, whose cause good men wei'e nevertheless com- 
pelled to take up against their sovereign, in defense 
of the dearest rights of the subject. (3.) That the 
breach of the Constitution in seating Mr. Lnttrell, to 
the exclusion of Mr. Wilkes, in the House of Com- 
mons, was one which the nation could not long en- 
dure ; that a contest was coming on between the 
King and the English people, in which all his reli- 
ances throughout the empire would certainly fail 
him ; and that he ought in time to remember that 
" as his title to the throne was acquired by one rev- 
olution, it may be lost by another." Junius there- 
fore exhorts him to turn from his ministers to the 
nation ; to dissolve Parliament (a measure which 
the Whigs had now determined to press as their 
main point), and thus leave the people to decide the 
question by the choice of a new House of Commons. 
There is but little to condemn in this Letter, except 
the ridiculous charge that " England had been sold 
to France" in making the peace of 1762, and the at- 
tempt to create a national animosity against the 
Scotch. The King had fallen into great en-ors, al- 
though there were palliatinir circumstances in his 
N 



people are observed to increase in proportion to 
the wrongs they have suffered — when, instead 
of sinking into submission, they are roused to re- 
sistance — the time will soon arrive at which ev- 
ery inferior consideration must yield to the secu- 
rity of the sovereign and to the general safety of 
the state. There is a moment of difficulty and 
danger, at which flattery and falsehood can no 
longer deceive, and simplicity itself can no long- 
er be misled. Let us suppose it arrived. Let 
us suppose a gi-acious, well-intentioned prince, 
made sensible at last of the great duty he owes 
to his people, and of his own disgraceful situa- 
tion ; that he looks round him for assistance, and 
asks for no advice but how to gratify the wishes, 
and secure the happiness of his subjects. In 
these circumstances it may be matter of curious 
SPECULATION to considcr, if an honest man were 
permitted to appi'oach a King, in what terms he 
would address himself to his sovereign. Let it 
be imagined, no matter how improbable, that the 
first prejudice against his character is removed, 
that the ceremonious difficulties of an audience 
are surmounted, that he feels himself animated 
by the purest and most honorable affections to 
his King and country, and that the great person 
whom he addresses has spirit enough to bid him 
speak freely, and understanding enough to listen 
to him with attention. Unacquainted with the 
vain impertinence of forms, he would deliver his 
sentiments with dignity and firmness, but not 
without respect.^ 



early education, and his strong aversion to Wilkes 
as a licentious and profligate man. Still, they were 
errors which involved the safety of the empire ; it 
was right to expose them ; and while Junius does it 
with the utmost plainness, he shows comparatively 
little of that insulting and malignant spirit which 
characterized his attack upon the King in his first 
Letter. 

2 It will repay the student in oratory to review 
this introduction, and see how skillfully the reasons 
which justified so remarkable an address to the sov- 
ereign, are summed up and presented. He will ob- 
serve, too, how adroitly Junius assumes the air of 
one engaged in " a curious speculation" on a sup- 
posed case, giving what follows as a mere fancy' 



>4 



JUNIUS 



/ Sir, — It is the misfortune of your life, and 
originally the cause of every reproach and dis- 
tress which has attended your government, that 
you should never have been acquainted with the 
language of truth until you heard it in the com- 
plaints of your people. It is not, however, too 
late to correct the en-or of your education. We 
are still inclined to make an indulgent allowance 
for the pernicious lessons you received in your 
youth, and to form the most sanguine hopes 
from the natural benevolence of your disposition.^ 
We are far from thinking you capable of a di- 
rect, deliberate purpose to invade those original 
rights of your subjects, on which all their civil 



sketch, in order to take off the appearance of intend- 
ing^ any thing personally offensive to the King. He 
will be struck, also, with the dexterity shown in as- 
suming just the requisite appearance of playing with 
the subject, when he says, " if an honest man were 
permitted to approach a King ;" and the delicacy 
and apparent respect with which he enters on the 
task of administering to his sovereign unsought-for 
counsel and humiliating reproof. 

^ Note by Junius. The plan of tutelage and fu- 
ture dominion over the heir-apparent, laid many 
years ago at Carlton House between the Princess 
Dowager and her favorite the Earl of Bute, was as 
gross and palpable as that which was concerted be- 
tween Anne of Austria and Cardinal Mazarin to 
govern Louis the Fourteenth, and in effect to pro- 
long his minority until the end of their lives. That 
prince had strong natural parts, and used frequently 
to blush for his own ignorance and want of educa- 
tion, which had been willfully neglected by his moth- 
er and her minion. A little experience, however, 
soon showed him how shamefully he had been treat- 
ed, and for what infamous purposes he had been 
kept in ignorance. Our great Edward, too, at an 
early period, had sense enough to understand the 
nature of the connection between his abandoned 
mother and the detested Mortimer. But, since that 
time, human nature, we may observe, is greatly al 
tered for the better. Dowagers may be chaste, and 
minions may be honest. When it was proposed to 
settle the present King's household as Prince of 
Wales, it is well known that the Earl of Bute was 
forced into it, in direct contradiction to the late King's 
inclination. That was the salient point from which 
all the mischiefs and disgraces of the present reign 
took life and motion. From that moment. Lord Bute 
never suffered the Prince of Wales to be an instant 
out of his sight. We need not look farther. 

On this statement Mr. Heron makes the following 
remarks in his edition of Junius, vol. ii., 43 : " There 
was, therefore, no dishonest plan for keeping the 
King in perpetual pupilage formed between his 
mother and the Earl of Bute. Neither had George 
the Second nor the Princess Dowager of ^Vales 
committed the education of the young Prince to the 
Jacobites and Tories. His education was not neg- 
lected, but managed with admirable success and 
care. Not the young King, but their incapacity and 
unpopularity, drove the Newcastle party from pow- 
er. Not the King, but his own arrogance, and the 
opposition and dislike of the Newcastle party and 
others, dismissed Mr. Pitt from the administration. 
The union of parties, and the breaking down of the 
great Whig party, was originally the measure of 
Pitt, and arose from the natural progress of things. 
So unjust are the imputations with which this Let- 
ter commences." The truth lies between the two. 



and political liberties depend. Had it been pos- 
sible for us to entertain a suspicion so dishonor- 
able to your character, we should long since 
have adopted a style of remonstrance very dis- 
tant from the humility of complaint. The doc- 
trine inculcated by our laws, that the King can 
do no wrongs is admitted without reluctance. 
We separate the amiable, good-natured prince 
from the folly and treachery of his servants, and 
the private virtues of the man from the vices of 
his government. Were it not for this just dis- 
tinction, I know not whether your Majesty's con- 
dition, or that of the English nation, would de- 
serve most to be lamented. I would prenare 
your mind for a favorable reception of truth, by 
removing eveiy painful, offensive idea of per^-onal 
reproach. Your subjects, six-, wish for nothing 
but that, as they are reasonable and affectionate 
enough to separate your person from your gov- 
ernment, so you. in your turn, should distinguish 
between the conduct which becomes th'j perma- 
nent dignity of a King, and that which serves 
only to promote the temporary interest and mis- 
erable ambition of a minister. 

You ascended the throne with a declared, and, 
I doubt not, a sincere resolution of giving uni- 
versal satisfaction to your subjects. You found 
them pleased with the novelty of a young prince, 
whose countenance promised even more than his 
w^ords, and loyal to you not only from principle, 
but passion. It was not a cold profession of al- 
legiance to the first magistrate, but a partial, ani- 
mated attachment to a favorite prince, the native 
of their country. They did not wait to examine 
your conduct, nor to be determined by experi- 
ence, but gave yon a generous credit for the 
future blessings of your reign, and paid you in 
advance the dearest tribute of their affections. 
Such, sir, was once the disposition of a people, 
wiio now surround your throne with reproaches 
and complaints. Do justice to yourself. Banish 
from your mind these unw^orthy opinions with 
which some interested persons have labored to 
possess you. Distrust the men who tell 3'ou that 
the English are naturally light and inconstant ; 
that they complain w^ithout a cause. Withdraw 
your confidence equally from all parties — from 
ministers, favorites, and relations ; and let there 
be one moment in your life in which you have 
consulted your own understanding. 

When you affectedly renounced the name of 
Englishman,'* believe me, sir, you were persuad- 
ed to pay a very ill-judged compliment to one 
part of your subjects, at the expense of another. 
While the natives of Scotland are not in actual 
rebellion, they are undoubtedly entitled to pro- 
tection ; nor do I mean to condemn the policy 



* Junius here lays hold of and perverts the lan- 
guage used by the King in his first speech after 
coming to the throne: "Born and educated in this 
country, I glory in the name of Briton,'^ &c. The 
pi-evailing hostility to the Scotch led many to com- 
ment on this avoidance of the word Englishman, as 
probably dictated by Lord Bute, and as indicating 
too much anxiety to conciliate the people of Scot- 
land. 



TO THE KING. 



195 



of giving some encouragement to the novelty of 
their affections for the house of Hanover. I am 
ready to hope for every thing from their new- 
born zeal, and from the future steadiness of their 
allegiance. But hitherto they have no claim to 
your favor. To honor them wuth a determined 
predilection and confidence, in exclusion of your 
English subjects, vs'ho placed your family, and, 
in spite of treachery and rebellion, have support- 
ed it upon the throne, is a mistake too gross 
even for the unsuspecting generosity of youth. 
In this error we see a capital violation of the 
most obvious rules of policy and prudence. We 
trace it, however, to an original bias in your ed- 
ucation, and are ready to allow for your inexperi- 
ence. 

To the same early influence we attribute it, 
that you have descended to take a share not only 
in the narrow views and interests of particular 
persons, but in the fatal malignity of their pas- 
sions. At your accession to the throne, the 
whole system of government was altered, not 
from wisdom or deliberation, but because it had 
been adopted by your predecessor. A little 
personal motive of pique and resentment was 
sufficient to remove the ablest servants of the 
Crown ; but it is not in this countr)'^, sir, that 
such men can be dishonored by the frowns of a 
King.'' They were dismissed, but could not be 
disgraced. Without entering into a minuter 
discussion of the merits of the peace, we may 
observe, in the imprudent hurry with which the 
first overtures from France were accepted, in 
the conduct of the negotiation, and terms of the 
treaty, the strongest marks of that precipitate 
spirit of concession with which a certain part of 
your subjects have been at all times ready to 
purchase a peace with the natural enemies of 
this country. On your part we are satisfied 
that every thing was honorable and sincere, and 
if England was sold to France, we doubt not 
that your Majesty w^as equally betrayed. The 
conditions of the peace were matter of grief and 
surprise to your subjects, but not the immediate 
cause of their present discontent. 

Hitherto, sir, you had been sacrificed to the 
prejudices and passions of others. With what 
firmness will you bear the mention of your own ? 

A man, not very honorably distinguished in 
the world, commences a formal attack upon your 
Favorite, considering nothing but how he might 
best expose his person and principles to detest- 
ation, and the national character of his country- 
men to contempt. The natives of that country, 
sir, are as much distinguished by a peculiar 
character as by your Majesty's favor. Like 
another chosen people, they have been conduct- 
ed into the Land of Plenty, where they find 
themselves effectually marked, and divided from 
mankind. There is hardly a period at which 

^ Note by Junius. One of the first acts of the 
pi-esent reign was to dismiss Mr. Legfge. because 
he had some years before refused to yield his inter- 
est in Hampshire to a Scotchman recommended by 
Lord Bute. This was the reason publicly assigned 
by his Lordship. 



the most irregular character may not be re- 
deemed. The mistakes of one sex find a re- 
treat in patriotism ; those of the other in devo- 
tion. Mr. Wilkes brought with him into politics 
the same liberal sentiments by which his private 
conduct had been directed, and seemed to think, 
that, as there are few excesses in which an En- 
glish gentleman may not be permitted to indulge, 
the same latitude was allowed him in the choice 
of his political principles, and in the spirit of 
maintaining them. I mean to state, not entirely 
to defend his conduct. In the earnestness of 
his zeal, he suffered some unwarrantable insinu- 
ations to escape him. He said more than moder- 
ate men would justify, but not enough to entitle 
him to the honor of your Majesty's personal re- 
sentment. The rays of royal indignation, col- 
lected upon him, served only to illuminate, and 
could not consume. Animated by the favor of the 
people on one side, and heated by persecution on 
the other, his views and sentiments changed with 
his situation. Hardly serious at first, he is now 
an enthusiast. The coldest bodies warm with op- 
position, the hardest sparkle in collision. There 
is a wholly mistaken zeal in politics as well as re- 
ligion. By persuading others, we convince our- 
selves. The passions are engaged, and create 
a maternal affection in the mind, which forces us 
to love the cause for which we suffer. Is this a 
contention worthy of a King ? Are you not sen- 
sible how much the meanness of the cause gives 
an air of ridicule to the serious difficulties into 
which you have been betrayed ? The destruc- 
tion of one man has been now, for many years, the 
sole object of your government ; and, if there can 
be any thing still more disgraceful, we have seen, 
for such an object, the utmost influence of the ex- 
ecutive power, and every ministerial artifice, ex- 
erted without success. Nor can you ever suc- 
ceed, unless he should be imprudent enough to 
forfeit the protection of those laws to which you 
owe your crown, or unless your ministers should 
persuade you to make it a question of force alone, 
and try the whole strength of government in op- 
position to the people. The lessons he has re- 
ceived from experience will probably guard him 
from such excess of folly ; and in your Majesty's 
virtues we find an unquestionable assurance that 
no illegal violence will be attempted. 

Far from suspecting you of so horrible a de- 
sign, we would attribute the continued violation 
of the laws, and even this last enormous attack 
upon the vital principles of the Constitution, to 
an ill-advised, unworthy personal resentment. 
From one false step you have been betrayed into 
another, and, as the cause was unworthy of you, 
your ministers were determined that the pru- 
dence of the execution should correspond with 
the wisdom and dignity of the design. They 
have reduced you to the necessity of choosing 
out of a variety of difficulties — to a situation so 
unhappy, that you can neither do wrong without 
ruin, nor right without affliction. These worthy 
servants have undoubtedly given you many sin- 
gular proofs of their abilities. Not contented 
with making Mr. Wilkes a man of importance. 



19G 



JUNIUS 



they have judicionsly transferred the question 
from the rights and interests of one man to the 
most important rights and interests of the people, 
and forced your subjects, from wishing well to 
tlie cause of an individual, to unite with him in 
their own. Let them proceed as they have be- 
gun, and your Majesty need not doubt that the 
catastrophe will do no dishonor to the conduct 
of the piece. 

The circumstances to which you ai-e reduced 
will not admit of a compromise with the English 
nation. Undecisive, qualifying measures will 
disgrace your government still more than open 
violence, and, without satisfying the people, will 
excite their contempt. They have too much 
understanding and spirit to accept of an indirect 
satisfaction for a direct injury. Nothing less 
than a repeal, as formal as the resolution itself, 
can heal the wound which has been given to 
the Constitution, nor will any thing less be ac- 
cepted. I can readily believe that there is an 
influence sufficient to recall that pernicious vote. 
The House of Commons undoubtedly consider 
their duty to the Crown as paramount to all 
other obligations. To us they are only indebt- 
ed for an accidental existence, and have justly 
trans-ferred their gratitude from their parents to 
their benefactors — from those who gave them 
birth, to the minister from whose benevolence 
they derive the comforts and pleasures of their 
political life ; who has taken the tenderest care 
of their infancy, relieves their necessities with- 
out offending their delicacy, and has given them, 
what they value most, a virtuous education. 
But, if it were possible for their integrity to be 
degraded to a condition so vile and abject, that, 
compared with it, the present estimation they 
stand in is a state of honor and respect, con- 
sider, .sir, in w^hat manner you will afterward 
proceed ? Can you conceive that the people 
of this country will long submit to be governed 
by so flexible a House of Commons? It is not 
in the nature of human society that any form of 
government, in such circumstances, can long be 
preserved. In ours, the general contempt of the 
people is as fatal as their detestation. Such, I 
am persuaded, would bo the necessary effect of 
any base concession made by the present House 
of Commons ; and, as a qualifying measure would 
not be accepted, it remains for you to decide 
whether you will, at any hazai'd, support a set 
of men, who have reduced you to this unhappy 
dilemma, or whether you wnll gratify the united 
wishes of the whole people of England by dis- 
solving the Parliament. 

Taking it for granted, as I do very sincerely, 
that you have personally no design against the 
Constitution, nor any views inconsistent with the 
good of your subjects, I think you can not hesi- 
tate long upon the choice which it equally con- 
cerns your interest and your honor to adopt. On 
one side, you hazard the aflections of all your 
English subjecie ; you relinquish every hope of 
repose to yourseii", and you endanger the estab- 
lishment of your family forever. All this you 
venture for no ol)ject whatsoever, or for such an 



object as it would be an affront to you to name. 
Men of sense will examine your conduct with 
suspicion ; while those who are incapable of 
comprehending to what extent they are injured, 
afllict you with clamors equally insolent and un- 
meaning. Supposing it pos.sible that no fatal 
struggle should ensue, you determine at once to 
be unhappy, without the hope of a compensation 
either from interest or ambition. If an English 
king be hated or despised, he must be unhappy ; 
and this, perhaps, is the only political truth which 
he ought to be convinced of without experiment. 
But if the English people should no longer con- 
fine their resentment to a submissive represent- 
ation of their wrongs ; if, following the glorious 
example of their ancestors, they should no longer 
appeal to the creature of the Constitution, but to 
that high Being who gave them the rights of 
humanity, whose gifts it were sacrilege to sur- 
render, let me ask 3'ou, sir, upon what part of 
your subjects would you rely for assistance ? 

The people of Ireland have been uniformly 
plundered and oppressed. In return, they give 
you every day fresh marks of their resentment. 
They despise the miserable governor [Viscount 
Townsend] you have sent them, because he is 
the creature of Lord Bute ; nor is it from any 
natural confusion in their ideas that they are so 
ready to confound the original of a king with the 
disgraceful representation of him. 

The distance of the colonies would make it 
impossible for them to take an active concern in 
your affairs, if they were as well affected to your 
government as they once pretended to be to your 
person. They were ready enough to (distinguish 
between you and your ministers. They com- 
plained of an act of the Legislature, but traced 
the origin of it no higher than to the servants of 
the Crown. They pleased themselves with the 
hope that their Sovereign, if not favorable to 
their cause, at least was impartial. The deci- 
sive, personal part you took against them, has 
effectually banished that first distinction from 
their minds.° They consider you as united 
with your servants against America, and know 
how to distinguish the sovereign and a venal 
Parliament on one side, from the real sentiments 
of the English people on the other- Looking 
forward to independence, they might possibly 
I'eceive you for their king ; but, if ever you re- 
tire to America, be assured they will give you 
such a Covenant to digest, as the presbytery of 
Scotland would have been ashamed to offer to 
Charles the Second. They left their native 
land in search of freedom, and found it in a des- 
ert. Divided as they are into a thousand forms 

fi In the King's speech of 8th November, 1768, it 
was declared "that the spirit of faction had broken 

I out afresh in some of the colonies, and, in one of 

I them, proceeded to acts of violence and resistance 
to the execution of the laws ; that Boston was in a 

I .state of disobedience to all law and government, and 
had proceeded to measures subversive of the Con- 

I stitution, and attended with circumstances that man- 
ifested a disposition to throw off their dependence 

I on Great Britain." 



TO THE KING. 



197 



of policy and religion, there is one point in which 
they all agree : they equally detest the pageantry 
of a King, and the supercilious hypocrisy of a 
bishop. 

Il is not, then, from the alienated affections of 
Ireland or America, that you can reasonably look 
for assistance ; still less from the people of En- 
gland, who are actually contending for their 
rights, and, in this great question, are parties 
against you. You are not, however, destitute 
of every appearance of support. You have all 
the Jacobites, Nonjurors, Roman Catholics, and 
Tories of this country, and all Scotland without 
exception. Considering from what family you 
are descended, the choice of your friends has 
been singularly directed ; and truly, sir, if you 
had not lost the Whig interest of England, I 
should admire your dexterity in turning the 
hearts of your enemies. Is it possible for you 
to place any confidence in men, who, before they 
are faithful to you, must i-enounce every opinion, 
and betray every principle, both in church and 
state, which they inherit from their ancestors, 
and are confirmed in by their education ? whose 
numbers are so inconsiderable, that they have 
lotig since been obliged to give up the princi- 
ples and language which distinguished them as 
a party, and to fight under the banners of their 
enemies ? Their zeal begins with hypocrisy, 
and must conclude in treachery. At first they 
deceive, at last they betray. 

As to the Scotch, I must suppose your heart 
and understanding so biased, from your earliest 
infancy, in their favor, that nothing less than your 
own misfortunes can undeceive you. You will 
not accept of the uniform experience of 3'our an- 
cestors ; and when once a man is determined to 
believe, the very absurdity of the doctrine con- 
firms him in his faith. A bigoted understanding 
can draw a proof of attachment to the house of 
Hanover from a notorious zeal for the house of 
Stuart, and find an earnest of future loyalty in 
former rebellions. Appearances are, however, 
in their favor ; so sti'ongly, indeed, that one 
would think they had forgotten that you are 
their lawful King, and had mistaken you for a 
Pretender to the crown. Let it be admitted, 
then, that the Scotch are as sincere in their 
present professions as if you were in reality not 
an Englishman, but a Briton of the North — you 
would not be the first prince of their native 
country against whom they have rebelled, nor 
the first whom they have basely betx-ayed. Have 
you forgotten, sir, or has your Favorite concealed 
from you that part of our history, when the un- 
ha|»py Charles (and he, too, had private virtues) 
fled from the open, avowed indignation of his En- 
glish subjects, and surrendered himself at discre- 
tion to the good faith of his own countrymen ? 
Without looking for support in their affections 
as subjects, he applied only to their honor as 
gentlemen, for protection. They received him 
as they would your Majesty, with bows, and 
smiles, and falsehood, and kept him until they 
had settled their bargain with the English Par- 
liament; then basely sold their native king to 



the vengeance of his enemies. This, sir, was 
not the act of a few traitors, but the deliberate 
treachery of a Scotch Parliament representing 
the nation. A wise prince might draw from it 
two lessons of equal utility to himself. On one 
side he might learn to dread the undisguised re- 
sentment of a generous people, who dare openly 
assert their rights, and who, in a just cause, are 
ready to meet their sovereign in the field. On the 
other side, he would be taught to apprehend some- 
thing far more formidable — a fawning treachery, 
against which no prudence can guard, no courage 
can defend. The insidious smiles upon the cheek 
would warn him of the canker in the heart. 

From the uses to which one part of the army 
has been too frequently applied, you have some 
reason to expect that there are no services they 
would refuse. Here, too, we trace the partiality 
of your understanding. You take the sense of 
the army from the conduct of the Guards, with 
the same justice with which you collect the 
sense of the people from the representations of 
the ministry. Your marching regiments, sir, 
will not make the Guards their example, either 
as soldiers or subjects. They feel and resent, 
as they ought to do, that invariable, undistin- 
guishing favor with which the Guards are treat- 
ed ; while those gallant troops, by whom every 
hazardous, every laborious service is performed, 
are left to perish in garrisons abroad, or pine in 
quarters at home, neglected and forgotten." If 
they had no sense of the great original duty they 
owe their country, their resentment would oper- 
ate like patriotism, and leave your cause to be 
defended by those to whom you have lavished 
the rewards and honors of their profession. The 
Pretorian bands, enervated and debauched as they 
were, had still strength enough to awe the Ro- 
man populace ; but when the distant legions 
took the alarm, they marched to Rome, and 
gave away the Empire.^ 

On this side, then, whichever way you turn 
your eyes, you see nothing but perplexity and 
distress. You may determine to support the 
very ministry who have reduced your affairs to 
this deplorable situation ; you may shelter your- 
self under the forms of Parliament, and set your 



'' Note by Junius. The number of commissioned 
officers in the Guards ^*Ji.to the marching regiments C->^' 
as one to eleven ; the number of regiments given to 
the Guards, compared with those given to the line, 
is about three to one, at a moderate computation ; 
consequently, the partiality in favor of the Guards, 
is as thirty-three to one. So much for the officer.s 
The private men have fourpence a day to subsist 
on, and five hundred lashes if they desert. Under 
this punishment they frequently expire. With these 
encouragements, it is supposed they may be de- 
pended upon, whenever a certain person thinks it 
necessary to butcher h\s felloiv -subjects. 

8 This is one of the passages which show the fa- 
miliarity of .Junius with Tacitus, when composing 
these Letters. The event referred to was the 
marcli of the German legions to Rome, under Vitel- 
lius, and their defeat of the Pretorian Bands, who 
bad previously given the imperial dignity to Otho, 
from whom it passed to Vitellius. 



198 



JUNIUS 



people at defiance. But, be assured, sir, that 
such a resohition would be as imprudent as it 
would be odious. If it did not immediately 
shake your establishment, it would rob you of 
your peace of mind forever. 

On the other, how different is the prospect ! 
How easy, how safe and honorable is the path 
before you ! The English nation declare they 
are grossly injured by their representatives, and 
solicit your Majesty to exert your lawful pre- 
rogative, and give them an opportunity of recall- 
ing a trust, which, they find, has been so scan- 
dalously abused. You are not to be told that 
the power of the House of Commons is not orig- 
inal, but delegated to them for the welfare of the 
people, from whom they received it. A ques- 
tion of right arises between the constituent and 
the representative body. By what authority 
shall it be decided ? Will your Majesty inter- 
fere in a question in which you have properly no 
immediate concern ? It would be a step equal- 
ly odious and unnecessary. Shall the Lords be 
called upon to determine the rights and privi- 
leges of the Commons? They can not do it 
without a flagrant breach of the Constitution. 
Or will you refer it to the judges ? They have 
often told your ancestors that the law of Parlia- 
ment is above them. What party then remains, 
but to leave it to the people to determine for 
themselves ? They alone are injured ; and since 
there is no superior power to M'hich the cause 
can be referred, they alone ought to determine. 

I do not mean to perplex you with a tedious 
argument upon a subject already so discussed, 
that inspiration could hardly throw a new light 
upon it. There are, however, two points of 
view in which it particularly imports your Maj- 
esty to consider the late proceedings of the 
House of Commons. By depriving a subject of 
his birthright, they have attributed to their own 
vote an authority equal to an act of the whole 
Legislature ; and, though perhaps not with the 
same motives, have strictly followed the exam- 
ple of the Long Parliament, which first declared 
the regal office useless, and soon after, with as 
little ceremony, dissolved the House of Lords. 
The same pretended power which robs an En- 
glish subject of his birthright, may rob an En- 
glish King of his crown. In another view, the 
resolution of the House of Commons, apparently 
not so dangerous to your Majesty, is still more 
alarming to your people. Not contented with 
divesting one man of his right, they have arbi- 
trarily conveyed that right to another. They 
have set aside a return as illegal, without daring 
to censure those officers who were particularly 
apprised of Mr. Wilkes's incapacity, not only by 
the declaration of the House, but expressly by 
the writ directed to them, and who nevertheless 
returned him as duly elected.^ They have re- 



5 There is force in this remark. If there was any 
blame in the Middlesex election, it certainly rested 
with the returning officers. They ought to have 
known, better than the common people of Middlesex 
could be presumed to know, whether Mr. Wilkes 
was disqualified by his expulsion from the House. 



jected the majority of votes, the only criterion 
by which our laws judge of the sense of the peo- 
ple ; they have transferred the right of election 
from the collective to the representative body ; 
and by these acts, taken separately or together, 
they have essentially altered the original consti- 
tution of the House of Commons. Versed, as 
your Majesty undoubtedly is, in the English his- 
tory, it can not easily escape you, how much it 
is to your interest, as well as your duty, to pre- 
vent one of the three estates from encroaching 
upon the province of the other two, or assuming 
the authority of them all. When once they 
have departed from the great constitutional line 
by which all their proceedings should be direct- 
ed, who will answer for their future moderation? 
Or what assurance will they give you, that, 
when they have trampled upon their equals, 
they will submit to a superior ? Your Majesty 
may learn hereafter how nearly the slave and 
tyrant are allied. 

Some of your council, more candid than the 
rest, admit the abandoned profligacy of the pres- 
ent House of Commons, but oppose their disso- 
lution upon an opinion, I confess not very unwar- 
rantable, that their successors would be equally 
at the disposal of the treasury. I can not per- 
suade myself that the nation will have profited 
so little by experience. But if that opinion were 
well founded, you miorht then gratify our wishes 
at an easy rate, and appease the present clamor 
against your government without offering any 
material injury to the favorite cause of corrup- 
tion. 

You have still an honorable part to act. The 
affections of your subjects may still be recover- 
ed. But, before you subdue their hearts, you 
must gain a noble victory over your own. Dis- 
card those little personal resentments which have 
too long directed your public conduct. Pardon 
this man the remainder of his punishment, and, if 
resentment still prevails, make it, what it should 
have been long since, an act, not of mercy, but 
contempt. '° He will soon fall back into his nat- 
ural station — a silent senator, and hardly sup- 
porting the weekly eloquence of a newspaper. 
The gentle breath of peace would leave him on 



But they received the votes, and returned him as 
member, and then the House of Commons punished 
the electors by setting aside their votes, without a 
word of censure on the returning officers. 

10 He iva.'i pardoned and released from prison 
within less than four months. This Letter probably 
convinced the King that he could no longer main- 
tain the contest. A general illumination took place 
throughout London on the night following his re- 
lease. His debts had been previonsly paid or com- 
promised by the Society of the People's Rights. 
Wilkes was soon after chosen an alderman of Lon- 
don, and subsequently Lord Mayor. At the next 
general election in 1774, he was returned again as 
member for Middlesex, and took his seat without 
opposition. On the dismissal of Lord North's ad- 
ministration in 1782, the obnoxious resolutions which 
gave Colonel Luttrell his seat were expunged, on 
his own motion, from the journals of the House of 
Commons. 



TO THE KING. 



199 



the surface, neglected and unremoved. It is 
only the tempest that lifts him from his place. 

Without consulting your minister, call togeth- 
er your whole council. Let it appear to the 
public that you can determine and act for your- 
self. Come forward to your people. Lay aside 
the wretched formalities of a King, and speak to 
your subjects with the spirit of a man, and in 
the language of a gentleman. Tell them you 
have been fatally deceived. The acknowledg- 
ment will be no disgrace, but rather an honor to 
your understanding. Tell them you are determ- 
ined to remove every cause of complaint against 
your government ; that you will give your con- 
fidence to no man who does not possess the con- 
fidence of your subjects ; and leave it to them- 
selves to determine, by their conduct at a future 
election, whether or no it be in reality the gen- 
eral sense of the nation, that their rights have 
been arbitrarily invaded by the present House 
of Commons, and the Constitution betrayed. 
They will then do justice to their representa- 
tives and to themselves. 

These sentiments, sir, and the style they are 
conveyed in, may be offensive, perhaps, because 
they are new to you. Accustomed to the lan- 
guage of courtiers, you measure their affections 
by the vehemence of their expressions ; and when 
they only praise you indirectly, you admire their 
sincerity. But this is not a time to trifle with 
your fortune. They deceive you, sir, who tell 
you that you have many friends, whose affections 
are founded upon a principle of personal attach- 
ment. The first foundation of friendship is not 
the power of conferring benefits, but the equal- 
ity with which they are received, and viay be re- 
turned. The fortune which made you a King 
forbade you to have a friend. It is a law of na- 
ture which can not be violated with impunity. 
The mistaken prince, who looks for friendship, 
will find a Favorite, and in that Favorite the 
ruin of his affairs. 

The people of England are loyal to the house 
of Hanover, not from a vain preference of one 
family to another, but from a conviction that the 
establishment of that family was necessary to 
the support of their civil and religious liberties. 
This, sir, is a principle of allegiance equally sol- 
id and rational, fit for Englishmen to adopt, and 
well worthy of your Majesty's encouragement. 
We can not long be deluded by national distinc- 
tions. The name of Stuart, of itself, is only con- 
temptible ; armed wath the sovereign authority, 
their principles were formidable. The Prince, 
who imitates their conduct, should be warned 
by their example; and while he plumes himself 
upon the security of his title to the crown, should 
remember that, as it was acquired by one revo- 
lution, it may be lost by another. 

Junius. 



This letter was published just before the 
Christmas holidays, and immediately after their 
close. Parliament commenced its session. Lord 
Chatham came out at once as leader of the 
Whigs, now united into one body, and within 



nineteen days the Duke of Grafton was com- 
pelled to resign. But Junius and his friend.s 
were bitterly disappointed. The King had, in- 
deed, the wisdom to remove the great source of 
contention by pardoning Wilkes ; but he clung 
to his Tory advisers ; he placed Lord North at 
the head of affairs, and for twelve years persist- 
ed in his favorite measures, and especially his 
resolution to force taxation on America, until he 
drove her out of the empire. 

Before leaving this letter, it will be proper to 
give a brief account of the celebrated trial to 
which it gave rise. Woodfall, the publisher, 
was prosecuted for a seditious libel, and brought 
before the Court of King's Bench on the 13th 
of June, 1 770. Lord Mansfield, in charging the 
jury, told them " that there were only two points 
for their consideration : the first, the printing and 
publishing of the paper in question ; the second, 
the sense and meaning of it. That as to the 
charges of its being malicious, seditious, &c., 
these were inferences of law. That, therefore, 
the printing and sense of the paper were alone 
wiiat the jury had to consider of ; and that, if the 
paper should really contain no breach of law, 
that was a matter which might afterward be 
moved in arrest of judgment." This put the 
prisoner completely in the power of the judges. 
The jury had no right to inquire into his motives 
or the real merits of the case. As the fact of 
publication was admitted, and the meaning of 
the words was clear, they must pronounce him 
gtiilty, although perfectly satisfied that he had 
spoken the truth, and had been governed by up- 
right intentions. This, certainly, made the trial 
by jury in cases of libel a mere farce. In the 
present instance, the jury got round the difficulty 
by bringing in a verdict, " Guilty of the printing 
and publishing ow/t/." The question now arose, 
" What is the legal effect of this finding ?" The 
Attorney General claimed that it was to be taken 
as a conviction ; the counsel of Woodfall, that it 
amounted to an acquittal. The case was argued 
at length, and the court decided for neither party. 
They set the verdict aside, and ordered a new 
trial. This, how^ever, was the same to Wood- 
fall as an acquittal ; for it w^as perfectly well 
known that no jury could ever be found in the 
city of London to return a verdict against the 
publisher. The matter was therefore dropped, 
and Junius came off victorious. 

Much blame w^as thi'own upon Lord Mans- 
field for this decision. The subject was brought 
before the House of Lords by Lord Chatham, and 
Lord Mansfield said in reply, "His Lordship tells 
the House that doctrines no less new than dan- 
gerous have been inculcated in this court, and 
that, particularly in a charge which I delivered 
to the jury on Mr. Woodfall's trial, my direc- 
tions were contrary to law, repugnant to prac- 
tice, and injurious to the dearest liberties of the 
people. This is an alarming picture, my Lords; 
it is drawn with great parade, and colored to 
affect the passions amazingly. Unhappily, how- 
ever, for the painter, it wants the essential cir- 
cumstance of truth in the design, and must, like 



200 



JUNIUS 



many other political pictures, be thrown, not- 
withstanding the reputation of the artist, among 
the miserable daubings of faction. So far, my 
Lords, is the accusation without truth, that the 
directions now given to juries are the same that 
they have ever been. There is no novelty intro- 
duced — no chicanery attempted ; nor has there, 
till very lately, been any complaint of the integ- 
rity of the King's Bench." 

The opinion of enlightened jurists at the pres- 
ent day, as to the merits of the case, is expressed 
by Lord Campbell in his Lives of the Chief Jus- 
tices, vol. ii., p. 480. 

" Lord Mansfield, in the course of these tri- 
als, had done nothing to incur moral blame. I 
think his doctrine — that the jury were only to 
find the fact of publication and the innucndos — 
contrary to law as well as liberty. His grand 
argument for making the question of ' libel or 
not' exclusively one of law, that the defendant 
may demur or move in arrest of judgment, and 
so refer it to the court, admits of the easy an- 
swer, that, although there may be a writing set 
out in the information as libelous which it could 
under no circumstances be criminal to publish, 
yet that an information may set out a paper the 
publication of which may or may not be crim- 
inal, according to the intention of the defendant 
and the circumstances under which it is pub- 
lished. Therefore, supposing judges to be ever 
so pure, upright, and intelligent, justice could 
not be done by leaving to them the criminality 
or innocence of the paper alleged to be libelous, 
as a mere abstract question of law, to be decided 
by reading the i-eeord. Nevertheless, there were 
various authorities for the rule which Lord Mans- 



field had laid down ; and, in laying it down, he 
not only followed the example of his immediate 
predecessors, but he was supported by the unan- 
imous opinion of his brethren who sat by him. 
There was no pretense for representing him as 
a daring innovator, who, slavishly wishing to 
please the government, tried to subvert trial by 
jury, and to extinguish the liberty of the press." 

Junius, as might be expected, attacked Lord 
Mansfield soon after in the most vehement terms. 
If he had confined himself to the legal question 
and the rights of juries, no one could have con- 
demned him for using strong language ; but he 
followed his ordinary method of assailing char- 
acter and motives. He revived the exploded 
story of Mansfield's having drunk the Pretend- 
er's health on his knees. He tortured him by 
the most cruel insinuations. But he overshot 
his mark, and fell into the grossest errors, espe- 
cially in his grand controversy about the right 
of Lord Mansfield to bail a man named Eyre, in 
which, as Lord Campbell remarks, "Junius was 
egregiously in the wrong, clearly showing that 
he was not a lawyer, his mistakes not being de- 
signedly made for disguise, but palpably proceed- 
ing from an ignorant man affecting knowledge." 
—Ibid., p. 402. 

The trial of Woodfall was ultimately product- 
ive of good. It roused the public mind to the 
rights of juries. A similar case came up in 1 784, 
when the Dean of St. Asaph was tried for a libel ; 
and at this time Mr. Erskine made his celebrated 
argument on the subject, which prepared the 
way for an act of Pai'liament, declaring the right 
of juries to decide on the law as well as the facts 
in cases of libel. 



LETTER 



TO HIS GRACE THE DUKE OF GRAFTON.i 



My Lord, — If I were personally your enemy, i 
I might pity and forgive you. You have every j 
claim to compassion that can arise from misery I 
and di-stress. The condition you are reduced to 1 
would disarm a private enemy of his resentment, i 
and leave no consolation to the most vindictive ' 
spirit, but that such an object as you are would 
disgrace the dignity of revenge. But, in the re- i 
lation you have borne to this country, you have 

1 Dated February 14th, 1770. This Letter must ! 
have been commenced within a week after the res- i 
ignation of the Duke of Grafton. It is Junius' first i 
shout of triumph over the fall of his adversary. He ■ 
evidently regarded Lord North's ministry as a mere i 
modification of the Bedford party ; and, as he always 
unden-ated his talents, he now treats him, at the close 
of this Letter, with great contem[)t, expressing (what 
he undoubtedly felt) a firm conviction that the whole 
concern must soon fall to pieces, and the Whigs be ! 
called into office. 

This is one of the most finished productions of Ju- 
nius. It has more eloquence than the Letter to the 
King, and would deserve our unqualified admiration, 
if it were as just as it is elo(iuent. 



no title to indulgence ; and, if I had followed 
the dictates of my own opinion, I never should 
have allowed 3'ou the respite of a moment. In 
your public character, you have injured every 
subject of the empire ; and, though an individual 
is not authorized to forgive the injuries done to 
society, he is called upon to a.ssert his separate 
share in the public resentment. I submitted, 
however, to the judgment of men, more moder- 
ate, perhaps more candid than myself. For my 
own part, I do not pretend to understand those 
prudent forms of decorum, those gentle rules of 
discretion, which some men endeavor to unite 
with the conduct of the greatest and most haz- 
ardous affairs. Engaged in the defense of an 
honorable cause, I would take a decisive part. 
I should scorn to provide for a future retreat, or 
to keep terms with a man who preserves no 
measures with the public. Neither the abject 
submission of deserting his post in the hour of 
danger, nor even the sacred shield of cowardice,^ 

2 Sacro tremnerc timore. Every coward pretends 
to be planet-struck. 



TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 



201 



should protect him. I would pursue him thi'ough 
life, and try the last exertion of my abilities to pre- 
serve the perishable infamy of his name, and make 
it immortal. 

What then, my Lord, is this the event of all 
the sacrifices you have made to Lord Bute's pat- 
ronage, and to your own unfortunate ambition ? 
Was it for this you abandoned your earliest friend- 
ships — the warmest connections of your youth, 
and all those honorable engagements, by which 
you once solicited, and might have acquii'ed, the 
esteem of your country ? Have you secured no 
recompense for such a waste of honor ? Un- 
happy man ! What party will receive the com- 
mon deserter of all parties ? Without a client 
to flatter, without a friend to console you, and 
with only one companion from the honest house 
of Bloomsbury, you must now retire into a dread- 
ful solitude, [which you have created for your- 
self].^ At the most active period of life, you 
must quit the busy scene, and conceal yourself 
from the world, if you would hope to save the 
wretched remains of a ruined reputation. The 
vices never fail of their effect. They operate 
like age — bring on dishonor before its time, and, 
in the prime of youth, leave the character broken 
and exhausted. 

Yet your conduct has been mysterious as well 
as contemptible. Where is now that firmness, 
or obstinacy, so long boasted of by your friends, 
and acknowledged by your enemies ? We were 
taught to expect that you would not leave the 
ruin of this country to be completed by other 
hands, but were determined either to gain a de- 
cisive victory over the Constitution, or to perish, 
bravely at least, in the last dike of the preroga- 
tive. You knew the danger, and might have 
been provided for it. You took sufficient time 
to prepare for a meeting with your Parliament, 
to confirm the mercenary fidelity of your de- 
pendents, and to suggest to your Sovereign a 
language suited to his dignity, at least, if not to 
his benevolence and wisdom. Yet, while the 
whole kingdom was agitated with anxious ex- 
pectation upon one great point, you meanly 
evaded the question, and, instead of the explicit 
firmness and decision of a King, you gave us 
nothing but the misery of a ruined grazier,^ and 



^ The words in brackets were contained in the 
Letter as it originally appeared in the Public Ad- 
vertiser, but were struck out by Junius in his re- 
vised edition. As they add an important idea, and 
give the period an easier cadence, it may be doubt- 
ed whether the author did wisely to omit them. It 
is unnecessary to remark on the animated flow and 
condensed energy of this paragraph. An able critic 
has said, in rather strong terms, " No language, an- 
cient or modern, can afford a specimen of impressive 
eloquence superior to this." 

* The King's speech, which was drawn up by the 
Duke of Grafton for the opening of this session, went 
by the name of the "horned-cattle speech," because 
it commenced with referring to a prevalent distem- 
per among the horned cattle of the kingdom, as a 
matter of great importance, requiring the attention 
of Parliament. This created universal merriment; 
and Junius could not deny himself the pleasure of 



the whining piety of a Methodist. Wc had rea- 
son to expect that notice would have been taken 
of the petitions which the King has received from 
the English nation; and, although I can conceive 
some personal motives for not yielding to them, 
I can find none, in common prudence or decency, 
for treating them with contempt. Be assured, 
my Lord, the English people will not tamely 
submit to this unworthy treatment. They had 
a right to be heard ; and their petitions, if not 
granted, deserved to be considered. Whatever 
be the real views and doctrine of a court, the 
Sovereign should be taught to presei've some 
forms of attention to his subjects, and, if he will 
not redress their grievances, not to make them 
a topic of jest and mockery among the lords and 
ladies of the bedchamber. Injuries may be 
atoned for and forgiven ; but insults admit of no 
compensation. They degrade the mind in its 
own esteem, and force it to recover its level by 
revenge. This neglect of the petitions was, how- 
ever, a part of your original plan of government; 
nor will any consequences it has produced ac- 
count for your deserting your Sovereign in the 
midst of that distress in which you and your new 
friends [the Bedfords] had involved him. One 
would think, my Lord, you might have taken 
this spirited resolution before you had dissolved 
the last of those early connections which once, 
even in your own opinion, did honor to your 
youth — before you had obliged Lord Granby to 
quit a service he was attached to — before you 
had discarded one Chancellor and killed another.^ 

throwing it in the teeth of the Duke, especially as 
the petitions and remonstrances of London, West- 
minster, Surrey, York, and other parts of the king- 
dom, respecting the most urgent political concerns, 
were passed over in silence, and thus treated with 
contempt. 

^ Lord Granby had resigned his office as Com- 
mander-in-chief about a month before, affirming that 
he had been wholly misled under the administration 
of the Duke of Grafton as to the affair of Wilkes, and 
declaring that he considered his vote on that subject 
as the greatest misfortune of his life. 

When Lord Camden was discarded and compelled 
to resign, for saying in Parliament that he had long 
disapproved the measures of the cabinet, but had 
been unable to resist them, the King found it diffi- 
cult to induce any one to accept the office of Lord 
Chancellor. He applied to Mr. Charles Yorke, son 
of the celebrated Lord Hardwicke, but could not 
prevail with him, because an acceptance would 
have been a virtual abandonment of his principles. 
After trying in other quarters, the King again re- 
quested a private interview with Mr. Yorke, and 
made such a[)peals to him (it is believed) as no mon- 
arch ought ever to address to a subject, declaring 
that, if he would only accept the seals, "an admin- 
istration might soon be formed which the nation 
would entirely approve." Mr. Yorke was at length 
overpowered ; he sunk on his knees in token of 
submission ; and the King gave him his hand to 
kiss, saluting him as Lord Ch.ancellor of England, 
Mr. Yorke instantly repaired to the house of bis 
brother. Lord Hardwicke, to explain the step he 
had taken, and, to his great surprise, found Lord 
Rockingham, and the other leaders of Opposition, 
there, concerting with his brother the best means 



202 



JUNIUS 



To whal an abject condition have 3'ou labored 
to reduce the best of princes, when the unhappy 
man, who yields at last to such personal instance 
and solicitation as never can be fairly employed 
against a subject, feels himself degraded by his 
compliance, and is unable to survive the dis- 
graceful honors which his gracious Sovereign 
had compelled him to accept. He was a man 
of spirit, for he had a quick sense of shame, and 
death has redeemed his character. I know your 
Grace too well to appeal to your feelings upon 
this event ; but there is another heart, not yet, I 
hope, quite callous to the touch of humanity, to 
which it ought to be a dreadful lesson forever. 

Now, my Lord, let us consider the situation 
to which you have conducted, and in which you 
have thought it advisable to abandon your royal 
master. Whenever the people have complained, 
and nothing better could be said in defense of the 
measures of government, it has been the fashion 
to answer us, though not very fairly, with an 
appeal to the private virtues of your sovereign. 
" Has he not, to relieve the people, surrendered 
a considerable part of his revenue ? Has he not 
made the judges independent by fixing them in 
their places for life ?" My Lord, we acknowl- 
edge the gracious principle which gave birth to 
these concessions, and have nothing to regret but 
that it has never been adhered to. At the end 
of seven years, we are loaded with a debt of 
above five hundred thousand pounds upon the 
civil list, and we now see the Chancellor of 
Great Britain tyrannically forced out of his of- 
fice, not for want of abilities, not for want of in- 
tegrity, or of attention to his duty, but for deliv- 
ering his honest opinion in Parliament upon the 
greatest constitutional question that has arisen 
since the Revolution. We care not to whose 
private virtues you appeal ; the theory of such 
a government is falsehood and mockery ; the 
practice is oppression. You have labored, then 
{though I confess to no purpose), to rob your 
master of the only plausible answer that ever 
was given in defense of his government — of the 
opinion which the people have conceived of his 
personal honor and integrity. The Duke of Bed- 
ford was more moderate than your Grace. He 
only forced his master to violate a solemn prom- 
ise made to an individual [Mr. Stuart Mackenzie]. 
But you, my Lord, have successfully extended 
your advice to every political, every moral en- 
gagement that could bind either the magistrate 
or the man. The condition of a King is often 
miserable ; but it required your Grace's abilities 

of carrying on their attack upon the government. 
When he told his story, they all turned upon him 
with a burst of indignation, and reproached him as 
guilty of a flagrant breach of honor. He returned 
to his house overwhelmed with grief, and within 
two days his death was announced. There w^as a 
general suspicion of suicide, and it has never yet 
been made certain that he died a natural death. 
Well might Junius say, in reference to the King, 
"There is another heart not yet, I hope, quite cal- 
lous to the touch of humanity, to which it ought to 
be a dreadful lesson forever." 



to make it contemptible. You will say, perhaps, 
that the faithful servants in whose hands you 
have left him are able to retrieve his honor and 
to support his government. You have publicly 
declared, even since your resignation, that you 
approved of their measures and admired their 
conduct, particularly that of the Earl of Sand- 
wich.^ What a pity it is that, with all this ap- 
pearance, you should think it necessary to sep- 
arate yourself from such amiable companions ! 
You forget, m}'^ Lord, that while you are lavish 
in the praise of men whom you desert, you are 
publicly opposing your conduct to your opinions, 
and depriving yourself of the only plausible pre- 
tense you had for leaving your sovereign over- 
whelmed with distress — I call it plausible, for, 
in truth, there is no reason whatsoever, less than 
the frowns of your master, that could justify a 
man of spirit for abandoning his post at a mo- 
ment so critical and important ! It is in vain to 
evade the question. If you wull not speak out, 
the public have a right to judge from appearan- 
ces. We are authorized to conclude that you 
either difl^ered from j^our colleagues, whose meas- 
ures you still affect to defend, or that you thought 
the administration of the King's afTairs no longer 
tenable. You are at liberty to choose between 
the hypocrite and the coward. Your best friends 
are in doubt w^hich way they shall incline. Your 
country unites the characters, and gives you cred- 
it for them both. For my own part, I see noth- 
ing inconsistent in your conduct. You began 
with betraying the people — you conclude w^ith 
betraying the King. 

In your treatment of particular persons, you 
have preserved the uniformity of your character. 
Even Mr. Bradshaw declares that no man was 
ever so ill used as himself. As to the provision 
you have made for his family, he was entitled to 
it by the house he lives in.''' The successor of 
one chancellor might well pretend to be the rival 
of another. It is the breach of private friend- 
ship which touches Mr. Bradshaw ; and, to say 
the truth, when a man of his rank and abilities 
had taken so active a part in your affairs, he 
ought not to have been let down at last with a 
miserable pension of fifteen hundred pounds a 



*" This nobleman was notoriously profligate in his 
life. Such was the case also, to a great extent, with 
Gower, R.igby, and all the Bedford men in the Duke 
of Grafton's ministry. 

'' Mr. Bradshaw, a dependent of the Duke of Graf- 
ton, received a pension of £1500 a year for his own 
life and the lives of all his sons, while Sir Edward 
Hawke, who had saved the state, received what 
was actually worth a less sum. Junius, alluding to 
Bradshaw's complaints, sneeringly says that he was 
certainly entitled to a large pension on account of 
"the house he lives in," referring to a fact which 
occasioned considerable speculation, viz., that Brad- 
shaw had just taken a very costly residence, pre- 
viously occupied by Lord Chancellor Northington. 
The whole passage is obviously a sneering one, 
though Heron takes it seriously, and then repre- 
sents Junius as inconsistent with himself, because 
he alludes, in a note, to the largeness of Bradshaw's 
pension as compared with Admiral Hawke's. 



TO THE DUKE OF GRAFTON. 



203 



year. Colonel Luttiell, Mr. Onslow, and IMr. 
Burgoyne were equally engaged with you, and 
have rather more reason to complain than Mr. 
Bradshaw. These are men, my Lord, whose 
friendship you should have adhered to on the 
same principle on which you deserted Lord 
Rockingham, Lord Chatham, Lord Camden, and 
the Duke of Portland. We can easily account 
for your violating your engagements with men of 
honor, but why should you betray your natural 
connections ? Why separate yourself from Lord 
Sandwich, Lord Gower, and Mr. Rigby, or leave 
the three worthy gentlemen above mentioned to 
shift for themselves ? With all the fashionable 
indulgence of the times, this country does not 
abound in characters like theirs ; and you may 
find it a dilTicult matter to recruit the black cat- 
alogue of your friends. 

The recollection of the royal patent you sold 
to Mr. Hine obliges me to say a word in defense 
of a man [Mr. Vaughan] whom you have taken 
the most dishonorable means to injure.^ I do 
not refer to the sham prosecution which you af- 
fected to carry on against him. On that ground, 
I doubt not he is prepared to meet you with ten- 



8 This alludes to the patent of an office granted 
for the benefit of Mr. Burgoyne, who, with the Duke 
of Grafton's pei'mission, sold out the annual income 
for a gross sum to a person named Hine. The pros- 
ecution mentioned in the next sentence is thus spo- 
ken of by Woodfall, in his Junius, vol. i., 322 : " Mr. 
Samuel Vaughan was a merchant in the city, of hith- 
erto unblemished character, and strongly attached 
to the popular cause. The office he attempted to 
procure had at times been previously disposed offer 
a pecuniary consideration, and had, on one particu- 
lar occasion, been sold by an order of a Court of 
Chancery, and consisted in the reversion of the 
clerkship to the Supreme Court in the island of Ja- 
maica. A Mr. Howell was, in fact, at this very time 
in treaty with the patentee for the purchase of his 
resignation, which clearly disproved any criminal in- 
tention in Mr. Vaughan. He was, however, pros- 
ecuted, obviously from political motives, but the 
prosecution was dropped after the aftair of Hine's 
patent was brought before the public." Mr. Heron 
states, however, that " the office itself had never 
been directly or avowedly sold by the Crown, though 
the life-interest had been, under a decree of Chance- 
ry." It is not surprising (if this were so) that Mr. 
Vaughan, not being a professional man, should have 
failed to discern the difference. His application, 
therefore, may have been made without any crim- 
inal intention. To prosecute in such a case does 
seem a very severe measure ; and, as the prosecu- 
tion was dropped from this time, it would seem that 
the Duke himself considered it a bad business. 

It may be added, that Sir Dennis Le Marchant, in 
bis edition of Walpole's Memoirs of George III., 
says, "Junius's account of the prosecution [of 
Vaughan] is fair — making, the usual deductions." 
Walpole censures the prosecution as foolish. As 
to Hine's patent, he says, "It was proved that he 
[the Duke] had bestowed on Colonel Burgoyne a 
place, which the latter vax to sell to reimburse him- 
self for the expenses of his election at Preston." — 
Vol. iii., 400. This was the statement made by Ju- 
nius ; and it is not, therefore, wonderful that, after 
the exposure of such a transaction, the Duke thought 
best to say as little as possible about Mr. Vaughan, 



fold recrimination, and to set you at defiance. 
The injury you have done him affects his moral 
character. You knew that the offer to purchase 
the reversion of a place which has hitherto been 
sold under a decree of the Court of Chancery, 
however imprudent in his situation, would no 
way tend to cover him with that sort of guilt 
which you wished to fix upon him in the eyes 
of the world. You labored then, by every spe- 
cies of false suggestion, and even by publishing 
counterfeit letters, to have it understood that he 
had proposed terms of accommodation to you, 
and had offered to abandon his principles, his 
party, and his friends. You consulted your own 
breast for a character of consummate treachery, 
and gave it to the public for that of Mr. Vaughan. 
I think myself obliged to do this justice to an in- 
jured man, because I was deceived by the ap- 
pearances thrown out by your Grace, and have 
frequently spoken of his conduct with indigna- 
tion. If he really be, what I think him, honest, 
though mistaken, he will be happy in recovering 
his reputation, though at the expense of his un- 
derstanding. Here, I .see, the matter is likely 
to rest. Your Grace is afraid to carry on the 
prosecution. Mr. Hine keeps quiet possession 
of his purchase ; and Governor Burgoyne, re- 
lieved from the apprehension of refunding the 
money, sits down, for the remainder of his life, 
INFAMOUS and contented. 

I believe, my Lord, I may now take my leave 
of you forever. You are no longer that resolute 
minister who had spirit to support the most vio- 
lent measures ; who compensated for the want 
of good and great qualities by a brave determin- 
ation (which some people admired and relied on) 
to maintain himself without them. The reputa- 
tion of obstinacy and perseverance might have 
supplied the place of all the absent virtues. You 
have now added the last negative to your char- 
acter, and meanly confessed that you are desti- 
tute of the common spirit of a man. Retire 
then, my Lord, and hide your blushes from the 
world ; for, with such a load of shame, even 
BLACK may change its color. A mind .such as 
yours, in the solitary hours of domestic enjoy- 
ment, may still find topics of consolation. You 
may find it in the memory of violated friend- 
ship, in the afflictions of an accomplished prince, 
whom you have disgraced and deserted, and in 
the agitations of a great country, driven by your 
councils to the brink of destruction. 

The palm of ministerial firmness is now trans- 
ferred to Lord North. He tells us so himself, 
with the plenitude of the ore rotnndo f and I am 
ready enough to believe that, while he can keep 
his place, he will not easily be persuaded to re- 
sign it. Your Grace was the firm minister of 
yesterday : Lord North is the firm minister of 
to-day. To-morrow, perhaps, his Majesty, in 
his wisdom, may give us a rival for you both. 



' Note by Junius. " This eloiiucnt person has got 
as far as the r7?.sa/>//«e of Demosthenes. He constant- 
ly speaks with pebbles in his mouth, to improve his 
articulation." — This refers to a peculiarity of Lord 
North, whose " tongue was too large for his mouth." 



204 



ESTIMATES OF JUNIUS. 



You are too well acquainted with the temper of 
your late allies to think it possible that Lord 
North should be permitted to govern this coun- 
try. If we may believe common fame, they 
have shown him their superiority already. His 
Majesty is indeed too gracious to insult his sub- 
jects by choosing his first minister from among 
the domestics of the Duke of Bedford. That 
would have been too gross an outrage to the 
three kingdoms. Their purpose, however, is 
equally answered by pushing forward this un- 
happy figure, and forcing it to bear the odium 
of measures which they in reality direct. With- 
out immediately appearing to govern, they pos- 
sess the power, and distribute the emoluments 
of government as they think proper. They still 
adhere to the spirit of that calculation which 
made M\\ Luttrell representative of Middlesex. 
Far from regretting your retreat, they assure us 
very gravely that it increases the real strength 
of the ministry. According to this way of rea- 
soning, they will probably grow stronger, and 
more flourishing, every hour they exist ; for I 
think there is hardly a day passes in which some 
one or other of his Majesty's servants does not 
leave them to improve by the loss of his assist- 
ance. But, alas ! their countenances speak a 
different language. When the members drop 
off, the main body can not be insensible of its 
approaching dissolution. Even the violence of 
their proceedings is a signal of despair. Like 
broken tenants, who have had warning to quit 
the premises, they curse their landlord, destroy 
the fixtures, throw every thing into confusion, 
and care not what mischief they do to the estate. 

Junius. 



The character of the Duke of Grafton, as given 
by Horace Walpole in his Memoirs of George 
III., accords in most respects with the represent- 
ations of Junius. " His fall from power was 
universally ascribed to his pusillanimity ; but 
whether betrayed by his fears or his friends, he 
had certainly been the chief author of his own 
disgrace. His haughtiness, indolence, reserve, 
and improvidence, had conjured up the storm ; 
but his obstinacy and fickleness always relaying 
each other, and always mal a propos^ were the 
radical causes of the numerous absurdities that 
discolored his conduct and exposed him to de- 
served reproaches — nor had he a depth of un- 
derstanding to counterbalance the defects of his 
temper." — Vol. iv., 69. His love of the turf 
brought him into habits of intimacy with low 
and unprincipled men, whose wants he was com- 
pelled to supply, and whose characters often re- 
flected dishonor upon his own. His immorali- 
ties, though public, appeared less disgraceful at 
that day, when the standard of sentiment on this 
subject was extremely low ; and in this respect 
he was so far outdone by Lord Sandwich and 
others of "the Bloomsbury gang," with whom 
he was connected, that his vices were thrown 
comparatively into the shade. It ought to be 
stated, in justice to the Duke of Grafton, that he 
entered very early into public life, when his judg- 



ment was immature, and his strength of purpose 
unequal to the control of his passions. He was 
only thirty-four years old when he was driven 
from power. During a long life which followed, 
he retrieved his character. He showed himself, 
as Sir Dennis Le Marchant states, to be " by no 
means the insignificant or worthless personage 
that he appears in the pages of Walpole and 
Junius. A genuine love of peace, and hatred of 
oppression, either civil or religious, marked his 
whole political life ; and great as were the er- 
rors which Walpole and Junius have justly de- 
nounced in his private conduct, it is only just to 
sa)', that from the date of these Memoirs [1771] 
to his death, which comprises a period of near 
foi-ty years, there were few individuals more 
highly and more generally esteemed." — Note to 
Walpole's Memoirs of George III., vol. iv., p. 73. 

In leaving Junius, the reader will be gratified 
to see the following estimates of his character 
and writings from the two most distinguished 
literary men of that day, Mr. Burke, a Whig, 
and Dr. Johnson, a Tory. 

EsToiATE OF Junius, by Mr. Burke. ^ 
How comes this Junius to have broke through 
the cobwebs of the law, and to range uncontrol- 
led, unpunished through the land ? The myr- 
midons of the Court have been long, and are 
still, pursuing him in vain. They will not spend 
their time upon me, or you, or you. No ; they 
disdain such vermin, when the mighty boar of 
the forest, that has broken throuirh all their toils, 
is before them. But what will all their efforts 
avail ? No sooner has he wounded one than he 
lays another dead at his feet. For my part, 
when I saw his attack upon the King. I own my 
blood ran cold. I thought tharhe had ventured 
too far, and there was an end of his triumphs. 
Not that he had not asserted many truths. Yes, 
sir, there are in that composition many bold 
truths, by which a wise prince might profit. It 
was the rancor and venom with which I was 
struck. In these respects the North Briton is 
as much inferior to him, as in strength, wit, and 
judgment. But while I expected in this daring 
flight his final ruin and fall, behold him rising 
still higher, and coming down souse upon both 
houses of Parliament. Yes, he did make you his 
quarry, and you still bleed from the wounds of 
his talons. You crouched, and still crouch, be- 
neath his rage. Nor has he dreaded the terrors 
of your brow, sir f he has attacked even you — 
he has — and I believe you have no reason to 
triumph in the encounter. In short, after carry- 
ing away our Royal Eagle in his pounces, and 
dashing him against a rock, he has laid you pros- 
trate. Kings, Lords, and Commons are but the 
sport of his fury. Were he a member of this 
House, what might not be expected from his 

' From a speech delivered in the House of Com- 
mons. 

2 Sir Fletcher Norton, Speaker of the House, was 
distinguished for the largeness of his overhanging 
eyebrows. 



ESTIMATES OF JUNIUS. 



205 



knowledge, his firmness, and integrity ? He 
would be easily known by his contempt of all 
danger, by his penetration, by his vigor. Noth- 
ing would escape his vigilance and activity. Bad 
ministers could conceal nothing from his sagaci- 
ty ; nor could promises nor threats induce him 
to conceal any thing from the public. 

Estimate of Junius, by Dr. Johnson. '^ 
This thirst of blood, however the visible pro- 
moters of sedition may think it convenient to 
shrink from the accusation, is loudly avowed by 
Junius, the writer to whom his party owes much 
of its pride, and some of its popularity. Of Ju- 
nius it can not be said, as of Ulysses, that he 
scatters ambiguous expressions among the vul- 
gar ]* for he cries havoc without reserve, and en- 
deavors to let slip the dogs of foreign and of 
civil war, ignorant whither they are going, and 
careless what may be their prey.^ Junius has 
sometimes made his satire felt ; but let not in- 
judicious admiration mistake the venom of the 
shaft for the vigor of the blow. He has some- 
times sported with lucky malice ; but to him 
that know^s his company, it is not hard to be sar- 
castic in a mask. While he walks like Jack the 
Giant Killer in a coat of darkness, he may do 
much mischief with little strength. Novelty 
captivates the superficial and thoughtless ; ve- 
hemence delights the discontented and turbulent. 
/^He that contradicts acknowledged truth will al- 
ways have an audience ; he that vilifies estab- 
lished authority will always find abettors. " 

Junius burst into notice with a blaze of im- 
pudence which has rarely glared upon the world 
before, and drew the rabble after him as a mon- 
ster makes a show. When he had once pro- 
vided for his safety by impenetrable secrecy, he 
had nothing to combat but truth and justice, en- 
emies whom he know^s to be feeble in the dark. 
Being then at liberty to indulge himself in all 
the immunities of invisibility — out of the reach 
of danger, he has been bold ; out of the reach of 
shame, he has been confident. As a rhetorician, 

3 From a pamphlet on the seizure of the Falk- 
land Islands, published in 1771. 
* Hinc semper Ulj'sses 

Crirninibus terrere novis ; hinc spargere voces 
lu valgum ambiguas. — Virgil, yEneid, ii., 97. 
^ And Cesar's spirit, ranging for revenge, 
With Ate by his side, come hot from hell. 
Shall iu these confines, with a monarch's voice. 
Cry Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war. 
Shakspeare's Julius Cesar, Act iii., Sc. ii. 



he has the art of persuading when he seconded 
desire ; as a reasoner, he has convinced those 
who had no doubt before ; as a moralist, he has 
taught that virtue may disgrace ; and as a pa- 
triot, he has gratified the mean by insults on the 
high. Finding sedition ascendant, he has been 
able to advance it ; finding the nation combusti- 
ble, he has been able to inflame it. Let us ab- 
stract from his wit the vivacity of insolence, and 
withdraw from his efficacy the .sympathetic favor 
of plebeian malignity ; I do not say that we shall 
leave him nothing ; the cause that I defend 
scorns the help of falsehood ; but if we leave 
him only his merit, what will be his praise ? 

It is not by his liveliness of imagery, his pun- 
gency of periods, or his fertility of allusion, that 
he detains the cits of London and the boors of 
Middlesex. Of style and sentiment they take no 
cognizance. They admire him for virtues like 
their own, for contempt of order and violence 
of outrage, for rage of defamation and audacity 
of falsehood. The supporters of the Bill of 
Rights feel no niceties of composition nor dex- 
terities of sophistry; their faculties are better 
proportioned to the bawl of Bellas or barbarity 
of Beckford ; but they are told that Junius is on 
their side, and they are therefore sure that Ju- 
nius is infallible. Those who know not whither 
he would lead them, resolve to follow him ; and 
those who can not find his meaning, hope he 
means rebellion. 

Junius is an unusual phenomena, on which 
some have gazed with wonder, and some with 
terror ; but wonder and terror are transitory pas- 
sions. He \\'\\\ soon be more closely viewed or 
more attentively examined, and what folly has 
taken for a comet, that from its flaming hair 
shook pestilence and war, inquiry will find to be 
only a meteor formed by the vapors of putref}'- 
ing democracy, and kindled into flame by the 
effervescence of interest struggling with convic- 
tion, which, after having plunged its followers in 
a bog, will leave us inquiring why we regard- 
ed it. 

Yet, though I can not think the style of Ju- 
nius secure from criticism — though his expres- 
sions are often trite, and his periods feeble — I 
should never have stationed him where ho has 
placed himself, had I not rated him by his mor- 
als rather than his faculties. " What,"' says 
Pope. " must be the priest, where the monkey is 
a god ?" What must be the drudge of a party, 
of which the heads are Wilkes and Crosby, Saw- 
bridge and Townsend ? .^ 



EDMUND BURKE. 

Edmund Burke was the son of a respectable barrister in Dublin, and was born in 
that city on the first day of January, 1730. Being of a delicate and consumptive 
habit, he was unable to share in the ordinary sports of childhood ; and was thus led 
to find his earliest enjoyment in reading and thought. 

When eleven years old, he was sent to a school at Ballitore, about twenty miles 
from Dublin, under the care of a duaker named Shackleton, who was distinguished, 
not only for the accuracy of his scholarship, but for his extraordinary power of draw- 
ing forth the talents of his pupils, and giving a right direction to their moral princi- 
ples. Mr. Burke uniformly spoke of his instructor in after life with the warmest af- 
fection, and rarely failed, during forty years, whenever he went to Ireland, to pay him 
a visit. He once alluded to him in the House of Commons, in the following terms : 
"I was educated," said he, " as a Protestant of the Church of England, by a Dis- 
senter who was an honor to his sect, though that sect has ever been considered as one 
of the purest. Under his eye, I read the Bible, morning, noon, and night ; and have 
ever since been a happier and better man for such reading." Under these influences, 
the development of his intellect and of his better feelings was steady and rapid. He 
formed those habits of industry and perseverance, which were the most striking traits 
in his character, and which led him to say in after life, " Nitor in adversu'tn, is the 
motto for a man like me." He learned that simplicity and frankness, that bold as- 
sertion of moral principle, that reverence for the Word of God, and the habit of going 
freely to its pages for imagery and illustration, by which he was equally distinguished 
as a man and an orator. At this period, too, he began to exhibit his extraordinary 
powers of memory. In every task or exercise dependent on this faculty, he easily out- 
stripped all his competitors ; and it is not improbable that he gained, under his early 
(iuaker discipline, those habits of systematic thought, and that admirable arrange- 
ment of all his acquired knowledge, which made his memory one vast storehouse of 
facts, principles, and illustrations, ready for use at a moment's call. At this early pe- 
riod, too, the imaginative cast of his mind was strongly developed. He delighted 
above all things in works of fancy. The old romances, such as Palmerin of England 
and Don Belianis of Greece, were his favorite study ; and we can hardly doubt, con- 
sidering the peculiar susceptibility of his mind, that such reading had a powerful in- 
fluence in producing that gorgeousness of style which characterized so many of his pro- 
ductions in after life. 

Quitting school at the end of three years, he became a member of Trinity College, 
Dublin, in 1744. Here he remained six years, engaged chiefly in a course of study of 
his own, though not to the neglect of his regular college duties. It was said by Gold- 
smith, perhaps to excuse his own indolence, that Burke's scholarship at college was 
low. This could not have been the case ; for in his third year he was elected Scholar 
of the House, which, his biographer assures us, "confers distinction in the classics 
throughout life." Still, he gave no peculiar promise of his future eminence. Leland, 
the translator of Demosthenes, who was then a fellow, used to say, that "he was 
known as a young man of superior but unpretending talents, and more anxious to ac- 
quire knowledge than to display it." That his college life was one of severe study, is 
evident from the extent and accuracy of his knowledge when he left the University. 



EDMUND BURKE. 207 

A few things have come down to us, as to his course of reading. lie had mastered 
most of the great writers of antiquity. Demosthenes was his favorite orator, though he 
was led in after life, by the bent of his genius, to form himself on the model of Cicero, 
whom he more resembled in magnificencfe and copiousness of thought. He delight- 
ed in Plutarch. He read most of the great poets of antiquity ; and was peculiarly 
fond of Virgil, Horace, and Lucretius, a large part of whose writings he committed to 
memory.^ In English he read the essays of Lord Bacon again and again with in- 
creasing admiration, and pronounced them " the greatest works of that great man." 
Shakspeare was his daily study. But his highest reverence was reserved for Milton, 
" whose richness of language, boundless learning, and scriptural grandeur of concep- 
tion," were the first and last themes of his applause. The philosophical tendency of 
his mind began now to display itself with great distinctness, and became, from this 
period, the m.aster principle of his genius. " Rerum cognoscere causas,''' seems ever 
to have been his delight, and soon became the object of all his studies and reflections. 
He had an exquisite sensibility to the beauties of nature, of art, and of elegant com- 
position, but he could never rest here. " Whence this enjoyment ?" " On what prin- 
ciple does it depend V " How might it be carried to a still higher point ?" — these are 
questions which seem almost from boyhood to have occurred instinctively to his mind. 
His attempts at philosophical criticism commenced in college, and led to his produc- 
ing one of the most beautiful works of this kind to be found in any language. In like 
manner, history to him, even at this early period, was not a mere chronicle of events, 
a picture of battles and sieges, or of life and manners : to make it liistory, it must 
bind events together by the causes which produced them. The science of politics 
and government was in his mind the science of man ; not a system of arbitrary reg- 
ulations, or a thing of policy and intrigue, but founded on a knowledge of those prin- 
ciples, feelings, and even prejudices, which unite a people together in one communi- 
ty — " ties," as he beautifully expresses it, " which, though light as air, are strong as 
links of iron." Such were the habits of thought to which his mind was tending even 
from his college days, and they made him pre-eminently the great Philosophical 
Orator of our language.'^ 

Being intended by his father for the bar, Mr. Burke was sent to London at the age 
of twenty, to pursue his studies at the Middle Temple. But he was never interested 
in the law. He saw enough of it to convince him that it is " one of the first and no- 
blest of human sciences — a science which does more to quicken and invigorate the 
understanding, than all other kinds of learning put together." Still, it was too dry 
and technical for a mind like his ; and he felt, that, " except in persons very happily 
born, it was not apt to open and liberalize the mind in the same proportion." He 
therefore soon gave himself up, with all the warmth of his early attachment, to the 
pursuits of literature and philosophy. His diligence in study was now carried to its 

1 Notwithstanding the extent of his reading in the classics, Mr. Burke (like many Irish scholars) 
paid but little attention to the subject of quantity, and a blunder in this respect, which was charged 
upon him in the House of Commons, gave rise to one of his happiest retorts. In attacking Lord 
North for being in want of still larger supplies, in the iBidst of the most lavish expenditure, he 
quoted the words of Cicero, " Magnum vectigal est parsimouia," accenting the word vcctigal on the 
first syllable. Lord North cried out in a contemptuous tone from the Treasuiy Beach, vcctigal, 
vectigal. Mr. Burke instantly replied, "I thank the right honorable gentleman for his correction; 
and, that he may enjoy the benefit of it, I repeat the w^ords, Magnum vectigal est parsimonia." 

2 These early tendencies of Mr. Burke's genius explain a fact which has been spoken of with 
surprise by all his biographers; namely, that he preferred the ^neid of Virgil to the Iliad of Ho- 
mer, though he admitted, at the same time, the superiority of the latter in invention, force, and sub- 
limity. To a mind like his, so full of sentiment and philosophy, there is something more delightful 
in the description of the world of spirits, in the sixth book of the .^neid, and the almost Christian 
anticipations of the Pollio, than in all the battle scenes of Homer. His extravagant attachment to 
Young's Night Thoughts, in early hfe, may be accounted for in the same way. 



208 EDMUND BURKE. 

highest point. He devoted every moment to severe labor ; spending his evenings, 
however, in conversation with the ablest men engaged in the same employments, 
and thus varying, perhaps increasing, the demand for mental exertion. Few men 
ever studied to greater effect. He early acquired a power which belongs peculiarly 
to superior minds — that of thinking at all times and in every place, and not merely 
at stated seasons in the retirement of the closet. His mind seems never to have 
floated on the current of passing events. He was always tvorking out trains of 
thought. His reading, though wide and multifarious, appears from the first to have 
been perfectly digested. His views on every subject were formed into a complete sys- 
tem ; and his habits of daily discussing with others whatever he was revolving in 
his own mind, not only quickened his powers, but made him guarded in statement, 
and led him to contemplate every subject under a great variety of aspects. His ex- 
uberant fancy, which in most men would have been a fatal impediment to any attempt 
at speculation, was in him the ready servant of the intellect, supplying boundless stores 
of thought and illustration for every inquiry. Such were his habits of study from this 
period, during nearly fifty years, down to the time of his death. Once only, as he 
stated to a friend, did his mind ever appear to flag. At the age of forty-five, he felt 
weary of this incessant struggle of thought. He resolved to pause and rest satisfied 
with the knowledge he had gained. But a week's experience taught him the miser}-^ 
of being idle ; and he resumed his labors with the noble determination of the Greek 
philosopher, yrjpdaiceLV dcdaaKOf^svog, to grow old in learning. Gifted as he was with 
pre-eminent genius, it is not surprising that diligence like this, which would have 
raised even moderate abilities into talents of a high order, should have made him 
from early life an object of admiration to his friends, and have laid the foundation 
of that richness and amplitude of thought in which he far surpassed every modern 
orator. 

Being on a journey to Scotland in 1753, Mr. Burke learned that the office of Pro- 
fessor of Logic had become vacant in the University of Glasgow, and would be award- 
ed to the successful competitor at a public disputation. He at once offered himself 
as a candidate. Farther inquiries, however, showed that private arrangements in 
the city and University precluded all possibility of his being elected. He therefore 
withdrew from the contest ; and the name of Mr. James Clow has come down to pos- 
terity as the man who succeeded when Edmund Burke failed. 

Soon after his return from Scotland, the literary world was much excited by the 
publication of Lord Bolingbroke's philosophical works. Unwilling to incur the odium 
of so atrocious an attack on morals and religion, his Lordship had left his manuscripts, 
with a small legacy, in the hands of Mallet, to be published immediately after his 
death. This gave rise to Johnson's remark, that " Bolingbroke was a scoundrel and 
a coward — a scoundrel, for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality ; 
and a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it himself, but left half a crown 
to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger." Mr. Burke took this occasion to 
make his first appearance before the public. He wrote a pamphlet of one hundred 
and six pages, under the title of a Vindication of Natural Society, which came out in 
the spring of 1756, and had all the appearance of being a posthumous work of Bo- 
lingbroke. His object was to expose his Lordship's mode of reasoning, by running it 
out into its legitimate consequences. He therefore applied it to civil society. He 
undertook; in the person of Bolingbroke, and with the closest imitation of his impetu- 
ous and overbearing eloquence, to expose the crimes and Avretchedness which have 
prevailed under every form of government, and thus to show that society is itself an 
evil, and the savage state the only one favorable to virtue and happiness. Li this 
pamphlet he gave the most perfect specimen which the world has ever seen, of the 
urt of imitating the style and manner of another. He v.'ent beyond the mere choice 



EDMUND BURKE. 209 

of words, the structure of sentences, and the cast of imagery, into the deepest recesses 
of thought ; and so completely had he imbued himself with the spirit of Bolingbroke, 
that he brought out precisely what every one sees his Lordship ought to have said 
on his own principles, and might be expected to say, if he dared to express his senti- 
ments. . The work, therefore, can hardly be called ironical, for irony takes care to make 
its object known, by pressing things, at times, into open extravagance. But such was 
tile closeness of the imitation, that Chesterfield and Warburton were for a while de- 
ceived, and even Mallet felt called upon to deny its authenticity. If he had made 
it professedly ironical, it would undoubtedly have taken better with the public. Every 
one would have enjoyed its keenness, had it come in the form of satire. But, as it 
was, some were vexed to find they had mistaken the author's meaning, and others re- 
garded it only as " a clever imitation." Thus it happened to Mr. Burke in his first 
appearance before the pubhc, as in some cases of greater importance in after life, that 
the very ability with which he executed his task, was for a time the reason of its be- 
ing less highly appreciated. If his Vindication of Natural Society was at first a fail- 
ure, his speech on the Nabob of Arcot's debts was so little understood at the time 
of delivery, and heard with so much impatience by the House of Commons, that Mr. 
Pitt and Lord Grenville considered it as needing no reply I 

At the close of the same year, 1756, Mr. Burke published his celebrated treatise on 
the Sublime and Beautiful. This was the first attempt in our language to discuss 
the subject with philosophical accuracy and precision. Addison had, indeed, written 
a series of papers on the Pleasures of the Imagination ; but his object was rather to 
exemplify and illustrate, than to trace those pleasures to any specific source. Mr. 
Burke boldly propounded a theory designed to account, upon a few simple principles, 
for all the diversified enjoyments of taste. His treatise shows great ingenuity, sur- 
prising accuracy of observation, and an exquisite sense of the sublime and beautiful, 
both in the works of nature and art. Like all his writings, it abounds in rich trains 
of thought, and observations of great value in themselves, whatever we may think 
of his theory. It contains, also, many things which are purely fanciful, as when he 
traces the pleasures of taste to states of the bodily system ; and maintains that the 
sublime is connected with " an unnatural tension and certain violent motions of the 
nerves," while beauty acts " by relaxing the solids of the whole body !" These are 
some of the things which he learned to laugh at himself, in after life. His theory, 
as a whole, is rather defective than erroneous. It is one of those hasty generaliza- 
tions which we are always to expect in the first stages of a new science. The work, 
however, was an extraordinary production for a youth of twenty-six ; and in style 
and manner, was regarded by Johnson as " a model of philosophical criticism." 
With some few blemishes, such as we always look for in the writings of Burke, it has 
a clearness of statement, a purity of language, an ease and variety in the structure 
of sentences, and an admirable richness of imagery, which place it in the foremost 
rank of our elegant literature. 

Such a work, from one who had been hitherto unknown to the public, excited a 
general and lively interest. Its author was every Avhere greeted with applause. His 
acquaintance was sought by the most distinguished literary men and friends of learn- 
ing, such as Pulteney, Earl of Bath ; Markham, soon after Archbishop of York ; Lord 
Lyttleton, Soame Jenyns, Johnson, and many others. In such society, his remark- 
able talents for conversation secured his success. Every one was struck with the 
activity of his mind, the singular extent and variety of his knowledge, his glowing 
power of thought, and the force and beauty of his language. Even Johnson, whose 
acknowledged supremacy made him in most cases 

" Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne," 
was soon conciliated or subdued bv the conversational powers of Burke. It was a 




210 EDMUND BURKE. 

striking spectacle to see one so proud and stubborn, who had for years been accus- 
tomed to give forth his dicta with the authority of an oracle, submit to contradiction 
from a youth of twenty-seven. But, though Johnson differed from Burke on politics, 
and occasionally on other subjects, he always did him justice. He spoke of him from 
the first in terms of the highest respect. " Burke," said he, " is an extraordinary man. 
His stream of talk is perpetual ; and he does not talk from any desire of distinction, 
but because his mind is full." " He is the 07ily man," said he, at a later period, 
when Burke was at the zenith of his reputation, " whose common conversation cor- 
responds with the general fame which he has in the world. Take him up where you 
please, he is ready to meet you." " No man of sense," he said, " could meet Burke 
by accident under a gateway to avoid a shower, without being convinced that he was 
the first man in England.' , A striking confirmation of this remark occurred some 
years after, when Mr. Burke was passing through Litchfield, the birth-place of John- 
son. Wishing to see the Cathedral during the change of horses, he stepped into the 
building, and was met by one of the clergy of the place, who kindly offered to point 
out the principal objects of curiosity. " A conversation ensued ; but, in a few moments, 
the clergyman's pride of local information was completely subdued by the copious 
and minute knowledge displayed by the stranger. Whatever topic the objects before 
them suggested, whether the theme was architecture or antiquities, some obscure 
passage in ecclesiastical history, or some question respecting the life of a saint, he 
touched it as with a sun-beam. His information appeared universal ; his mind, clear 
intellect, without one particle of ignorance. A few minutes after their separation, 
the clergyman was met hurrying through the street. ' I have had,' said he, ' quite 
an adventure. I have been conversing for this half hour past with a man of the most 
extraordinary powers of mind and extent of information which it has ever been my 
fortune to meet with ; and I am now going to the inn, to ascertain, if possible, who 
this stranger is.' " 

In 1757, Mr. Burke married a daughter of Dr. Nugent, of Bath, and took up liter- 
ature as a profession. The colonies upon the American coast being now an object of 
public interest, he prepared, during this year (perhaps in conjunction with his two 
brothers), a work in two octavo volumes, entitled an Account of the European Settle- 
ments of America. These labors, thus casually undertaken, had great influence in 
shaping his subsequent course as a statesman. He became deeply interested in the 
early history of the British colonies ; and was led naturally, by his habits of thought, 
to trace the character of their institutions to the spirit of their ancestors, and to fol- 
low out that spirit in the enterprise, perseverance, and indomitable love of liberty, 
which animated the whole body of the people. He saw, too, the boundless resources 
of the country, and the irrepressible strength to which it must soon attain. Thus was 
he prepared, when the troubles came on, ten years after, and Avhen there was hardly 
a man in England, except Lord Chatham, who had the least conception of the force 
and resolution of the colonies, to come forward with those rich stores of knowledge, 
and those fine trains of reasoning, conceived in the truest spirit of philosophy, which 
astonished and delighted, though they failed to convince, the Parliament of Great 
Britain. 

In the next year, 1758, Mr. Burke projected the Annual Register, a work of great 
utility, which has been continued for nearly a century, down to the present time. 
The plan was admirable, presenting for each year a succinct statement of the de- 
bates in Parliament ; a historical sketch of the principal occurrences in every part 
of the world connected with European politics ; and a view of the progress of liter- 
ature and science, with brief notices of the most important works published during 
the year. Such an undertaking required ail the resources and self-reliance of a man 



I vi; 



EDMUND BURKE. ' 211 

like Burke, and would never have been commenced except by one of his extraordinary- 
vigor and enterprise. It was entirely successful. So great was the demand, that 
some of the early volumes were reprinted five or six times. At first, Mr. Burke pre- 
pared the entire volume for the vear, containing five or six hundred pages, with hard- 
ly any assistance. He finally confined himself to the debates and the historical 
sketches, which for quite a number of years were written by himself, and afterv\''ard 
by others under his direction and superintendence. No employment could have been 
suited more perfectly to train him for his subsequent duties as a statesm„an. His at- 
tendance on the debates in Parliament made him familiar with the rules of business. 
(Questions were continually arising in respect to trade, finance, the relations of other 
countries, or the past history of his own, which, to one of his ardent and inquisitive mind, 
would furnish unnumbered topics for study and reflection. His views were enlarged 
by the nature of his task, so as to embrace the entire range of European politics. His 
disposition to philosophize was hemmed in and directed by the great facts in politics 
and history, with which he had constantly to deal. The result was, that he became, 
in the strictest sense of the term, a j)ractical statesman, whose philosophy was that 
of man in the concrete, and as he exists in society ; so that no one had ever a greater 
contempt of abstract principles, or was more completely governed in his reasonings 
by the lessons of time and experience. Rarely has any work been of so much bene- 
fit, at once to its author and the public, as the Annual Register in its earlier volumes. 
Mr. Burke's first entrance on political life was in 1761. Lord Halifax, being ap- 
pointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, took with him William Gerard Hamilton (com- 
monly called single-speech Hamilton) as Principal Secretary of State.^ Hamilton, 
from the nature of his office, was the acting minister for Ireland, and needed the as- 
sistance of some able adviser who was well acquainted with the country. He there- 
fore induced Mr. Burke to accompany him in this character, under the title of private 
secretaiy. Halifax was highly successful in his administration, showing great dexter- 
ity in disarming or neutralizing the various factions into which Ireland was divided. 
How far he was indebted for this success to the counsels of Mr. Burke, it is impossible 
to say, since the principal secretary would, of course, have the credit of every sugges- 
tion which came from that quarter. One thing, however, is certain ; Hamilton per- 
fectly understood the value of Mr. Burke's services. He obtained for him a pension of 
X300 on the Irish establishment ; and after the secretaryship expired, and both had 
returned to England, in 1763, he actually endeavored to make this pension the means 
of attaching Mr. Burke to him for life, as a coadjutor and humble dependent. " It 
was," said Mr. Burke, in a letter on the subject, " an insolent and intolerable demand, 
amounting to no less than a claim of servitude during the whole course of my life, 
without leaving me at any time a power either of getting forward with honor, or of 
retiring with tranquillity." Such a demand was of course met with an indignant re- 

3 Hamilton gained this title in the following manner. When Newcastle's administration was 
suffering from Lord Chatham's tremendous attacks in 175.5, Hamilton (who voted with the minis- 
try), finding their cause in extreme danger one evening, suddenly arose, though he had never spok- 
en in the House before, and poured forth a speech of sui-prising cogency of argument and fervor of 
emotion, with all the ease and self-command of a practiced orator. Every one expected that he 
■would take his place at once among the leading debaters of the day. But, excepting a few words 
on the same subject soon after, he never made a speech of any length in the British Parliament, 
though he w^as a member for thirty years ; nor did he speak elsewhere, except twice or three times, 
when compelled to do so, in the Irish Parliament. He was undoubtedly a man of talents ; but, hav- 
ing gained so high a reputation by his maiden speech, he was afraid to make another — ever prepar- 
ing, but never ready, for a second effort which should outdo the first. He left nothing as the result 
of sitting thirty years in the British Parliament, except a meager treatise on parliamentary logic.^ 

is example furnishes one lesson to young orators, worth more than all the precepts of his book, '^ 
viz., that he who would succeed as a speaker must be content sometimes to fail. 



212 EDMUND BURKE. 

fusal. Mr. Burke's nice sense of honor made him propose, without the least reason 
or propriety, to surrender the pension which his services had richly merited. Ham- 
ilton had the meanness to accept it ; and whether he pocketed the money himself, or 
gave it to some miserable dependent, he deserves a title more stinging and contempt- 
uous even than the one he bears. 

About two years after, in the month of July, 1765, Mr. Burke entered permanently 
on the duties of public life. The administration of Lord Rockingham was now formed ; 
and the new minister, being desirous to avail himself of Mr. Burke's splendid abilities, 
invited him to become his confidential adviser, with a seat in Parliament, and the 
office of private secretary. The arrangement was gratifying, in a high degree, to the 
friends of Rockingham. " The British dominions," says one who knew perfectly the 
character of the political men of the time, " did not furnish a more able and fit per- 
son for that important and confidential situation ; the only man since the days of Cic- 
ero, who united the graces of speaking and writing with irresistible force and ele- 
gance." Mr. Burke, on his part, though pleased with this unlooked-for token of con- 
fidence, had no very sanguine expectations of the success or permanency of the new 
ministry. Highly as he estimated Lord Rockingham himself, he knew the discordant 
materials of which the cabinet was composed. But there was a question at issue with 
which he was better acquainted than any man in the kingdom — American Taxa- 
tion ; and no opportunity of influencing the decision of such a question was to be lost 
or neglected. Accordingly, having taken his seat as member for Wendover, Mr. Burke 
came forward, at the opening of the session, January, 1766, in a maiden speech of 
great compass and power, on the absorbing topic of the day, the Stamp Act. He was 
followed by Mr. Pitt (Lord Chatham), who commenced by saying, that " the young 
member had proved a very able advocate. He had himself intended to enter at 
length into the details, but he had been anticipated with such ingenuity and elo- 
quence, that there was but little left for him to say. He congratulated him on his 
success, and his friends on the value of the acquisition they had made." Such an en- 
comium, from the greatest of English orators, gave him at once a high reputation in 
the House and in the country. To a mind like Mr. Burke's, it afTorded an ample rec- 
ompense for all his labors. " Laudari a laudato viro,"^ is perhaps the highest grati- 
fication of genius. 

The ministry had determined to repeal the Stamp Act, but in doing so, to pass a 
declaration affirming the right of Parliament to lay taxes on America. This put 
them between two fires. The courtiers and landed interest resisted the repeal ; Lord 
Chatham and Lord Camden condemned the declaration. " Every thing on every 
side," to use the highly figurative language of Mr. Burke, " was full of traps and mines. 
Earth below shook; heaven above menaced; all the elements of ministerial safety 
were dissolved." The motion for repeal was made by General Conway ; and Mr. 
Burke, who took a leading part in the debate, thus described the scene in one of his 
speeches at a later period. " I knew well enough the true state of things ; but in my 
life, I never came with such spirits into this House. It was a time for a man to act 
in. We had a great battle to fight, but we had the means of fighting it. We did 
fight, that day, and conquer. ^ ^ * In that crisis, the whole trading interest of this 
empire, crammed in your lobbies, with a trembling and anxious expectation, waited 
almost to a winter's return of light their fate from your resolution. When, at length, 
you had determined in their favor, and your doors, thrown open, showed them the fig- 
ure of their deliverer [General Conway] in the well-earned triumph of his important 
victory, from the whole of that grave multitude there arose an involuntary burst of 
gratitude and transport. They jumped upon him like children on a long- absent fa- 
ther. All England, all America, joined in his applause. Nor did he seem insensible 

^ Praise from the praised. 



EDMUND BURKE. 213 

to the best of all earthly rewards. * Hope elevated and joy brightened his crest. '^ 
I stood near him ; and his face, to use the expression of the Scripture of the first mar- 
tyr, * his face was as if it had been the face of an angel.' I do not know how others 
feel ; but if I had stood in that situation, I would never have exchanged it for all that 
kings in their profusion could bestow." Notwithstanding the generosity of Mr. Burke 
in thus transferring to another the honor of that victory, every one knows that he was 
himself the chief agent in providing "the means" of fighting the battle; and if 
Charles Townsend had not soon after thrown every thing into confusion by his rash- 
ness, posterity might have looked back to Edmund Burke, in his connection with 
Rockingham, as the great instrument of putting an end to the contest with America. 

The King, much against his will, though pacified in some degree by the Declara- 
tion, signed the act for repeal, March 18th, 1766. But the fate of the ministry was 
sealed. Four months after. Lord Rockingham was dismissed. 

Lord Chatham now followed with his third administration. Under this, Mr. Burke 
was offered a very important and lucrative oflfice, that of one of the Lords of Trade. 
But, though "free to choose another connection as any man in the country," and even 
advised by Lord Rockingham to accept the ofier, he had that delicate sense of honor 
which forbade him to share in the titles and emoluments of those who had united to 
remove his patron. The death of Charles Townsend thirteen months after, Septem- 
ber 2d, 1767, put an end to this ministry, and that of the Duke of Grafton succeeded. 
Here commenced the ascendency of the Tories, which lasted about two years under 
the Duke of Grafton, and more than twelve years under Lord North, down to the 
close of the American war in 1782. During this whole period, Mr. Burke was the 
acknowledged leader of the Rockingham Whigs in the House, comprising the great 
body of the Opposition. He took part in every important debate, and, next to Chat- 
ham, who had now passed into the House of Lords, was universally regarded as the 
most eloquent speaker in Parliament. 

The political career of Mr. Burke may be divided into three periods, corresponding 
to the three great subjects, America, India, and France, which successively occupied 
the anxieties and labors of his fife, A brief notice of each of these periods is all that 
can be attempted in a sketch like this. 

The ^rs^ period, which is equal in length to both the others, consists of about six- 
teen years, extending from 1766, when he took his seat in Parliament, to the end of 
the American war in 1782. It was, on the whole, the happiest and most successful 
part of his life. Though he had many difficulties to encounter, from his want of 
wealth, rank, and family connections, in addition to the strong prejudice under which 
he labored as an Irishman, he rose from year to year in the estimation of the House. 
Every one admired his talents ; every one was delighted with his eloquence. The 
country cheered him on, as the great advocate of popular rights. His connection 
with Lord Rockingham secured him the support of a large proportion of the Whigs — 
a support which could not, indeed, have made him minister under a change of ad- 
ministration, but which enabled him to carry many important measures in their name 
and through their infl.uence. It rendered him formidable, also, as leader of the Op- 
position ; for those who are eager to gain office will rally under almost any one who 
has great powers of attack. In this respect, Mr. Burke stood for many years without 
a rival in the House of Commons. And, though inferior to Lord Chatham in that fire 
and condensed energy which are the highest characteristics of oratory, he far sur- 
passed him in the patient examination of every subject in debate, the accuracy of his 
knowledge, the variety and force of his reasonings, and his views of policy, at once 
comprehensive and practical in the highest degree. Nor was his influence as a lead- 
er confined to the discussions of the House. No man, probably, in the whole history 

fi Milton. 



214 EDMUND BURKE. 

of English politics, ever did so much to instruct his friends in private on the ques- 
tions in debate. His exuberant stores of information were open to every one. Mr. 
Fox declared toward the close of his life, that he had learned more in conversation 
with Mr. Burke, than from all the books he had ever read, and all the other men with 
whom he had ever associated. 

In 1771, Mr. Burke received the appointment of agent for the colony of New York, 
with a. salary of about ,£1000 a year. This office he held nearly four years, till the 
commencement of the American war. It gave him great advantages for obtaining 
a minute knowledge of the spirit and resources of the colonies, while, at the same 
time, it lessened the influence of his speeches on American affairs, by awakening the 
prejudice which is always felt against the arguments of a paid advocate. 

Mr. Burke's first published speech was that on American Taxation, delivered April 
19th, 1774. Often as he had dwelt on this topic in preceding years, no attempt had 
been made to give any regular report of his speeches. In the present instance, the 
evening was far advanced before he rose to address the House. The opening of the 
debate was dull, and many of the members had withdrawn into the adjoining apart- 
ments or places of refreshment. But the first few sentences of his stinging exordium 
awakened universal attention. The report of what was going on spread in every 
quarter ; and the members came crowding back, till the hall was filled to the utmost, 
and resounded throughout the speech with the loudest expressions of applause. High- 
ly as they had estimated Mr. Burke's talents, the House were completely taken by sur- 
prise. Lord John Tow^nsend exclaimed aloud, at the close of one of those powerful 
passages in which the speech abounds, " Heavens I what a man this is I Where 
could he acquire such transcendent powers I" The opening of his peroration, espe- 
cially, came with great weight on the minds of all. " Let us embrace," said he, 
" some system or other before we end this session. Do you mean to tax America, and 
draw a productive revenue from thence ? If you do, speak out ; name, fix, ascertain 
this revenue ; settle its quantity ; define its objects ; provide for its collection ; and 
then fight, when you have something to fight for. If you murder, rob ; if you kill, 
take possession ; and do not appear in the character of madmen as well as assassins, 
violent, vindictive, bloody, and tyrannical, ivithout an ohjectT 

The moment Mr. Burke closed, his friends crowded around his seat, and urged him 
to commit his speech to writing, and give it immediately to the world, as a protest 
against the headlong measures which threatened the dismemberment of the empire. 
He did so, and on five other occasions he repeated the task ; thus leaving us six 
speeches as representatives of several hundreds, many of which are said to have been 
equal, if not superior, in eloquence to those which were thus preserved. One espe- 
cially, delivered about four years after, on the employment of the Indians in the war, 
was spoken of by his friends as the most powerful appeal which he ever made. 
Colonel Barre, in the fervor of his excitement, declared that, if it could be written 
out, he would nail it on every church door in the kingdom. Sir George Savile said, 
" He who did not hear that speech, has failed to witness the greatest triumph of 
eloquence within my memory." Governor Johnstone said on the floor of the House, 
" It was fortunate for the noble Lords [North and Germaine] that spectators had 
been excluded during that debate, for if any had been present, they w^ould have ex- 
cited the people to tear the noble Lords in pieces in their way home." 

Parliament being dissolved in the autumn of 1774, Mr. Burke was invited to offer 
himself as a candidate for Bristol, in connection with Mr. Henry Cruger, a merchant 
largely engaged in the American trade. The contest was a sharp one, requiring Mr. 
Burke and Mr. Cruger to appear daily on the hustings for nearly a month, ready to 
answer questions of every sort, and to address the electors at a moment's call. Mr. 
Burke, of course, took the lead ; and a laughable incident occurred on one of these 



EDMUND BURKE. 215 

occasions, showing the power with which he so often absorbed and bore away the 
minds of others in his glowing trains of thought. Mr. Cruger, being called upon tc 
follow him after one of these harangues, was so lost in admiration that he could only- 
cry out, with the genuine enthusiasm of the counting-house, " I say ditto to Mr. 
Burke, I say ditto to Mr, Burke !" It was undoubtedly the best speech that any 
man could have made under such circumstances. 

The contest terminated in their favor, and Mr. Burke had the gratification of being 
declared a member from the second commercial city of the kingdom, November 3d, 
1774. But at the moment of returning thanks, he offended a large part of his sup- 
porters by a manly assertion of his rights. It was a doctrine much insisted upon 
at Bristol, that a representative was bound to act and vote according to the instruc- 
tions of his constituents. To this doctrine Mr, Cruger gave a public assent at the 
close of the poll. Mr. Burke, in adverting to the subject, remarked, " My worthy 
colleaguer says his will ought to be subject to yours. If that be all, the thing is in- 
nocent. If government were a matter of ivill upon any side, yours, without ques- 
tion, ought to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of reason 
and judgment, and not of inclination ; and what sort of reason is that in which de- 
termination precedes discussion, in which one set of men deliberate and another 
decide, and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles 
distant from those who hear the arguments ?" These sentiments, as we shall see 
hereafter, lost him the vote of Bristol at the next general election. 

America was the all-absorbing topic during the first session of the new Parliament, 
On the 20th of February, 1775, Lord North brought forward an artful scheme, pro- 
fessedly for the purpose of " conciliating the differences with America," but really 
intended to divide the colonies among themselves, by exempting from taxation those 
who, through their General Assemblies, should " contribute their proportion to the 
common defense." Mr. Burke seized the opportunity thus presented, and endeavored 
to turn the scheme into its true and proper shape — that of leaving all taxes levied 
within the colonies, to be laid by their General Assemblies ; and thus establishing 
the great principle of English liberty, that taxation and representation are insep- 
arably conjoined. This gave rise to his celebrated speech on Conciliation with 
America, delivered March 22d, 1775. It would seem hardly possible that, in speak- 
ing so soon again on the same subject, he could avoid making this speech, to some 
extent, an echo of his former one. But never were two productions more entirely 
different. His " stand-point" in the first was England. His topics were the in- 
consistency and folly of the ministry in their " miserable circle of occasional argu- 
ments and temporary expedients" for raising a revenue in America, His object was 
to recall the House to the original principles of the English colonial system — that of 
regulating the trade of the colonies, and making it subservient to the interests of the 
mother country, while in other respects she left them " every characteristic mark of 
a free people in all their internal concerns." His " stand-point" in the second speech 
was Ariierica. His topics were her growing population, agriculture, commerce, and 
fisheries ; the causes of her fierce spirit of liberty ; the impossibility of repressing it 
by force ; and the consequent necessity of some concession on the part of England. 
His object was (waiving all abstract questions about the right of taxation) to show 
that Parliament ought " to admit the people of the colonies into an interest in the 
Constitution," by giving them (like Ireland, Wales, Chester, and Durham) a share 
in the representation ; and to do this, by leaving internal taxation to the colonial 
Assemblies, since no one could think of an actual representation of America in Par- 
liament at the distance of three thousand miles. The two speeches were equally 
diverse in their spirit. The first was in a strain of incessant attack, full of the keen- 
est sarcasm, and shaped from beginning to end for the purpose of putting down the 



216 EDMUND BURKE. 

ministry. The second, like the plan it proposed, was conciliatory ; temperate and 
respectful toward Lord North ; designed to inform those who were ignorant of the 
real strength and feelings of America ; instinct with the finest philosophy of man 
and of social institutions ; and intended, if possible, to lead the House, through Lord 
North's scheme, into a final adjustment of the dispute on the true principles of 
English liberty. [It is the most finished of Mr. Burke's speeches ; and though it 
contains no passage of such vividness and force as the description of Hyder Ali in his 
speech on the Nabob of Arcot's debts, it will be read probably more than any of his 
other speeches, for the richness of its style and the lasting character of the instruction 
it conveys. Twenty years after, Mr. Fox said, in applying its principles to the sub- 
ject of parliamentary reform, " Let gentlemen read this speech by day and meditate on 
it by night ; let them peruse it again and again, study it, imprint it on their mhids, 
'impress it on their heartS:^they will there learn that representatioii is the sovereign 
remedy for every evil."! Both of Mr. Burke's speeches on America, indeed, are full 
of materials for the orator and the statesman. After all that has been written on the 
origin of our Revolution, there is nowhere else to be found so admirable a summation 
of the causes which produced it. They both deserve to be studied with the utmost 
diligence by every American scholar. \ 

The next speech which Mr. Burke wrote out for publication was that on Econom- 
ical Reform, delivered February 20th, 1780. The subject is one which has no inter- 
est for the American reader, and the speech is therefore omitted in this collection. 
Like all his great efforts, it is distinguished by comprehensiveness of design and a 
minute knowledge of details. It has an exuberance of fancy, and too much of that 
coarse humor in which Mr. Burke sometimes indulged. His proposal was to reduce 
the expenses of the government by abolishing a large number of those sinecure offices 
which gave such enormous patronage to the Crown. But he had the most formi- 
dable difficulties to encounter. Lord Talbot had previously attempted to reform a 
single class of expenses — those of the royal kitchen ; but was foiled at the outset, as 
Mr. Burke tells us in his speech, " because the King's turnspit was a member of 
Parliament r' Against the present scheme were arrayed, not only every turnspit 
in the palace, but the keepers of the stag, buck, and fox hounds, in the shape of hon- 
orable members, or lords in waiting, together with scores of others among the nobil- 
ity and gentry, who were living on offices now fallen into total disuse, which once 
ministered to the pleasure or safety of the monarch. As might be expected, the plan, 
though highly approved of by the public, was voted down in the House ; and Mr. 
Burke was left to console himself under his defeat with the popularity of his propo- 
sals, and the praises bestowed on his eloquence. 

Six years had now elapsed since Mr. Burke's election as member for Bristol ; and 
he was suddenly called upon, by the dissolution of Parliament, September 1st, 1780, 
to appear again before his constituents, and solicit their favor. It was a difficult 
task. He had differed from them widely on several important subjects. Many had 
taken offense at the course he pursued, not only in respect to America, but to the open- 
ing of the Irish trade, and other measures afi^ecting the interests of Bristol. On some 
of these points he had explained and justified his conduct, in three able pamphlets, 
to be found in his works, addressed to the Sheriffs of Bristol, or to citizens of that 
place. Still, there was a violent hostility to his re-election. He had disobeyed the 
instructions of his constituents ; he had, as they imagined, sacrificed some of their 
most important interests ; he had wounded their pride by neglecting to visit them 
since the previous election. Hence, when he arrived in town to commence his can- 
vass, he found himself met by the most formidable opposition. It was on this occa- 
sion that he came forward, September 6th, 1780, with his celebrated speech pre- 
vious to the election at Bristol ; " the best ever uttered on such an occasion, and per- 



EDMUND BURKE. 217 

haps never excelled by any thing he ever delivered elsewhere." Sir Samuel Romilly 
speaks of it as " perhaps the best piece of oratory in our language." — Works, i., 213. 
Being addressed to plain men, it has less fancy, less of studied ornament and classical 
allusion, than his speeches in Parliament. It is more business-like, simple, and di- 
rect. At the same time, it has all the higher quaHties of Mr. Burke's mind ; his 
thorough knowledge of human nature ; his deep insight into political and social in- 
stitutions ; his enlarged views ; his generous sentiments ; his keen sensibility to the 
sufferings and wrongs of others ; and his inflexible determination to do right, at all 
hazards and under all circumstances. Its manliness is, after all, its most striking 
characteristic. He had the strongest motives to shuffle, to evade, to conciliate. 
But he met every thing full in the face. " I did not obey your instructions. No I 
I conformed to the instructions of truth and nature, and maintained your interests 
against your opinions, with a constancy that became me. A representative worthy 
of you, ought to be a person of stability. I am to look, indeed, to your opinions, but 
to such opinions as you and I must have five years hence. I was not to look to the 
flash of the day. I knew that you chose me, in my place, along with others, to be a 
pillar of the state, and not a weathercock on the top of the edifice, exalted for my 
levity and versatility, and of no use but to indicate the shiftings of every fashionable 
gale." 

It was apparent, at the close of his speech, that although the main body of the 
Corporation and of the Dissenters were with him, together with much of the wealth 
and respectability of the city, there was no chance of his being re-elected. He there- 
fore determined at once to decline the contest, and did so, the next day, in a short 
speech, containing one of those touching reflections, embalmed in the most beautiful 
imagery, which occur so often in the writings of Mr. Burke. One of his competitors, 
Mr. Coombe, overcome by the excitement and agitation of the canvass, had died the 
preceding night. Such an event was indeed " an awful lesson against being too much 
troubled about any of the objects of ordinary ambition." Well might Mr. Burke say, 
in taking leave, " The worthy gentleman who has been snatched from us at the mo- 
ment of the election, and in the middle of the contest, while his desires were as warm, 
and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us tvhat shadoivs ice are, and ivhat 
shadoivs ice 'pursue .'" 

Through the influence of Lord Rockingham, Mr. Burke was returned at once as 
member for Malton, and sat for this place during the remainder of his public life. 
'* That humble borough," as Mr. Adolphus has remarked in his History of England, 
*' gained by such a member an honor which the greatest commercial city might rea- 
sonably envy." 

On the 27th of November, 1781, Mr. Burke, in animadverting on the King's speech, 
delivered one of his most eloquent philippics against the continuance of the American 
war. It was not, however, reported with any degree of fullness or accuracy, and is 
remembered only for the striking figure which it contained of " shearing the wolf." 
" The noble Lord tells us that we went to war for the maintenance of rights : the 
King's speech says, we will go on for the maintenance of our rights. Oh, invaluable 
rights, that have cost Great Britain thirteen provinces, four islands, a hundred thou- 
sand men, and seventy millions of money I Oh, inestimable rights, that have taken 
from us our rank among nations, our importance abroad, and our happiness at home ; 
that ha\'e taken from us our trade, our manufactures, our commerce ; that have re- 
duced us from the most flourishing empire in the world, to be one of the most miser- 
able and abject powers on the face of the globe ! All this we did because we had 
a right to tax America ! Miserable and infatuated ministers I Wretched and un- 
done country l^riot to know that right signifies nothing without might — that the 
claim, withourthe power of enforcing it, is nugatory and idle !^ We had a right to 



218 EDMUND BURKE. 

tax America I Such is the reasoning by which the noble Lord justifies his conduct. 
Similar was the reasoning of him who was resolved to shear the ivolf ! What ! 
shear a wolf? Have you considered the difficulty, the resistance, the danger ? No ! 
says the madman, I have considered nothing but the right I Man has a right of 
dominion over the inferior animals. A wolf has wool ; animals that have wool 
are to be shorn ; therefore I will shear the wolf I" ^ \ 

Well might Mr. Burke employ such language ; for the news had reached London 
only two days before, that Lord Cornwalhs had capitulated at Yorktown, with the 
loss of his entire army. When the intelligence was carried to Lord North, he re- 
ceived it, says an eye-witness, " as he would have taken a ball into his breast !" 
He threw open his arms, exclaiming wildly, as he paced the room, "It is all over ! 
it is all over I" And yet the war was to go on I Such was the inflexible determ- 
ination of the King, who came forward the next day in his speech at the opening of 
Parliament, with increased demands for " concurrence and assistance" to carry on 
the contest. Such obstinacy justified the remarks of Mr. Burke, and the still greater 
severity with which Mr. Fox, in the same debate, pointed directly at the King him- 
self. " We have heard a speech," said he, " breathing vengeance, blood, misery, and 
rancor. It speaks exactly this language : ' Much has been lost ; much blood, much 
treasure has been squandered ; the burdens of my people are almost intolerable ; 
but my passions are yet ungratified ; my object of subjugation and revenge is yet 
unfulfilled; and therefore I am determined to persevere.' " And he did persevere. 
He compelled his ministers to persevere three months longer, during which the at- 
tack in the House of Commons was carried on with increased vehemence by Mr. 
Burke, Mr. Fox, and their associates, until, on the 27th of February, 1782, Lord North 
was voted down by a majority of 234 to 215. When the result was declared, there 
arose, says an eye-witness, a shout of triumph throughout the House, which seemed 
to pierce the roof, and then rolled away into the remotest parts of Westminster Hall. 
The King was conquered ! At the close of March, a new ministry was formed, with 
Lord Rockingham at its head, having a cabinet composed of five Rockingham and five 
Shelburne Whigs. As the two parties could not agree on the disposal of the great 
seal, Lord Thurlow, with all his violent Tory feelings, was retained as Lord Chan- 
cellor, much to the satisfaction of the King. 

We now come to the second period of Mr. Burke's political life. It would natu- 
rally be supposed that he who had borne nearly all the labor of this protracted con- 
test, and had for years been the acknowledged head of the Opposition, would now 
be rewarded with a seat in the cabinet and the leadership of the House. Had Lord 
North resigned three years before, such might perhaps have been the case ; but the 
pupil had risen above the master. Mr. Fox was now actuated by the keenest desire 
for popularity and power ; and at this juncture he enjoyed peculiar advantages for 
placing himself at the head of the Whig party. His manners were highly concilia- 
ting ; he was universally popular among the middle classes ; while, as the favorite 
son of Lord Holland, he had unbounded influence with many of the most powerful 
families of the kingdom among the nobility and gentry. Though far inferior to Mr. 
Burke in richness of thought and copiousness of eloquence, he was a much more ef- 
fective debater. He had made himself, by long practice, a perfect master of the 
science of attack and defense. When we add to this that he had a peculiar tact, 
beyond any of his contemporaries, for training and directing a political party, it is not 
surprising that he obtained the leadership of the House, and was made Secretary of 
State, while Mr. Burke was appointed Paymaster-general of the Forces. Whatever 
pain it may have cost him, Burke submitted to this arrangement with that noble 
generosity of feeling which was one of the brightest traits in his character. His bi- 
ographer has truly said, " A vain man would have resented this treatment ; a weak 



EDMUND BURKE. 219 

man would have complained of it ; an ambitious or selfish man would have taken 
advantage of the first opportunity to quit the connection, and throw the weight of his 
name and talents into the opposite scale ;" but Mr. Burke quietly yielded the prece- 
dence. He gave all the force of his transcendent abilities for the support and ad- 
vancement of one who had crowded into his place. The whole history of politics 
affords hardly another instance of such a sacrifice, made in a spirit so truly noble 
and magnanimous. Nor did he ever separate himself, in action or feeling, from Mr. 
Fox, until the French Revolution put an end at once to their political connection 
and their private friendship. 

Under the new ministry, measures of the highest importance were immediately 
brought forward, and carried successfully through Parhament. In most of these 
measures Mr. Burke took the lead and responsibility far more than Mr. Fox. His 
plan of Economical Reform, which had previously been defeated, was now revived. 
Though narrowed in some of /its provisions, it was strenuously resisted by the adher- 
ents of the Court, but ultimately passed by a large majority. Many useless offices 
were abolished in the royal household, with a saving of nearly a hundred thousand 
pounds a year. Provision was thus made for paying off the King's debts, which al- 
ready amounted to £300,000 ; and a check was put to the recurrence of such exor- 
bitant demands in future. His bill for regulating the duties of the Paymaster's de- 
partment, was considered an extraordinary specimen of tact and ingenuity in arrrang- 
ing the details of a most complicated business. Any material reform here had been 
regarded as hopeless. And so it w^ould have proved, if he had not commenced with 
himself ; if he had not swept away at once enormous perquisites attached to his own 
office, arising out of profits on contracts, &c., together with the use of nearly a mill- 
ion of the public money, which made the situation of Paymaster the most lucrative 
one under the government. Considering his straitened circumstances, this was an 
extraordinary sacrifice. Lord Chatham alone had dechned to use the public money, 
and placed it on deposit in the bank, Mr. Burke did more. He stripped himself 
of all his perquisites. He abolished them forever, and thus made a saving to the 
public which a pension of ten thousand pounds a year would have poorly recom- 
pensed. 

Lord Rockingham died suddenly on the first of July, 1782, at the end of thirteen 
weeks from the commencement of his administration. Lord Shelburne, without a 
word of consultation with his colleagues, instantly seized the reins. Mr. Fox and 
Mr. Burke, together with the Rockingham Whigs, considered themselves ill treated, 
and at once resigned. The Shelburne administration, which will be spoken of more 
fully hereafter, lasted hardly eight months. It was overthrown February the 21st, 
1783, by the famous coalition between Mr. Fox and Lord North, which, giving the 
nominal headship to the Duke of Portland, made Mr, Fox the real and responsible 
minister. To this ill-advised union with their former enemy, Mr. Burke acceded with 
reluctance, overcome, as his biographer declares, by " the persuasions of Mr. Fox, 
who was both eloquent and urgent with him on that occasion." Under the coalition 
ministry, he again became Paymaster of the Forces. 

The great measure of this administration, on which its fate at last turned, was the 
celebrated East India Bill of Mr. Fox, As this measure originated with Mr. Burke, 
who was the animating spirit of every party to which he belonged, it will be proper 
to speak briefly on the subject in this place. More than ten years before, his atten- 
tion was strongly drawn to the affairs of India. He studied the subject with his 
accustomed assiduity, and showed so intimate an acquaintance with its minutest de- 
tails, when the affairs of the East India Company came before the House in 1772, 
that Lord North, with a view, no doubt, to get rid of a troublesome opponent, sound- 

*5 See page 56. 



220 EDMUND EURKE. 

ed him on the question " whether he was willing to go out at the head of a commis- 
sion for revising the whole interior administration of India." About four years after, 
his brother William went to that country, where he became agent for the Rajah of 
Tanjore, and afterward Deputy Paymaster-general of India. Through him Mr. 
Burke obtained much minute information respecting the Company's concerns, which 
could only have been collected by a person living on the spot. These studies were 
pursued wdth still greater diligence after he was appointed a member of the Select 
Committee to inquire into the concerns of the East India Company, and the result 
has been thus graphically described by Mr. Macaulay, who was qualified, by a resi- 
dence of some years on the banks of the Ganges, to speak decisively on the subject : 
" Mr. Burke's knowledge of India was such as few, even of those Europeans who 
have passed many years in that country, have attained, and such as certainly was 
never attained by any public man who had not quitted Europe. ^He had studied the 
history, the laws, and the usages of the East with an industry such as is" seldom 
found united to so much genius and so much sensibility. In every part of those 
huge bales of Indian information, which repelled almost all other readers, his mind, 
at once philosophical and poetical, found something to instruct or to delight. His 
reason analyzed and digested those vast and shapeless masses ; his imagination ani- 
mated and colored them. He had in the highest degree that noble faculty whereby 
man is able to live in the past and the future, in the distant and the unreal. India 
and its inhabitants were not to him, as to most Englishmen, mere names and ab- 
stractions, but a real country and a real people. The burning sun ; the strange 
vegetation of the palm and cocoa-nut tree ; the rice-fields and the tank ; the huge 
trees, older than the Mogul empire, under which the village crowds assemble ; the 
thatched roof of the peasant's hut, and the rich tracery of the mosque, where the 
imaum prayed with his face toward Mecca ; the drums, and banners, and gaudy 
idols ; the devotee SAvinging in the air ; the graceful maiden, with the pitcher on 
her head, descending the steps to the river side ; the black faces, the long beards, 
the yellow streaks of sect ; the turbans and the flowing robes ; the spears and the 
silver maces ; the elephants, with their canopies of state ; the gorgeous palanquin 
of the prince, and the close litter of the lady, all these things were to him as the ob- 
jects amid which his own life had been passed, as the objects which lay on the 
road between Beaconsfield and St. James's Street. All India was present to the eye 
of his mind, from the halls where suitors laid gold and perfumes at the feet of sover- 
eigns, to the wild moor where the gipsy-camp was pitched ; from the bazars, hum- 
ming like bee-hives with the crowd of buyers and sellers, to the jungle, where the 
lonely courier shakes his bunch of iron rings to scare away the hyenas. He had just 
as lively an idea of the insurrection at Benares as of Lord George Gordon's riots, and 
of the execution of Nuncomar as of the execution of Dr. Dodd. Oppression in Ben- 
gal was to him the same thing as oppression in the streets of London."^] 

And why should it not be ? Under the government of India, as now administered, 
the crimes of Englishmen abroad are punished on the same principles as the crimes 
of Englishmen at home. If a hundredth part of the cruelty and extortion of which 
Burke complained, were now found to exist among the Company's servants in India, 
all England would be moved with indignation, and nothing but the severest punish- 
ment could satisfy the demands of public justice. This change has been wrought 
mainly by the eloquence of Mr. Burke. The perpetrators of those crimes were indeed 
sufl^ered to escape, for the nation had shared too largely in the profit to be fit execu- 
tioners of the guilty. But every one felt that such enormities must cease ; and the 
high ground taken by Mr. Burke was, perhaps, the only one which could have produced 
60 entire a change of public sentiment. He was satisfied that the East India Com- 
"> Miscellanies, Warren Hastings. 



EDMUND BURKE. 221 

pany, from its very constitution, was unable to redress these evils ; and he therefore 
proposed at once to set aside their charter, and commit all their concerns, with the 
entire government of India, to Commissioners to be appointed by the House of Com- 
mons. Such, in substance, was the intent of Mr. Fox's East India Bill ; and what- 
ever ambitious designs that gentleman may have been charged with in bringing for- 
ward this measure, no one suspects Mr. Burke of having been actuated by any other 
motives but those of justice and humanity. On the question of going into a commit- 
tee on the bill, December 1st, 1783, he delivered a speech of more than three hours 
in length, which completely exhausted the subject. As a piece of lucid and powerful 
reasoning, entering into the minutest details, and yet bringing every position to the 
test of general principles, it is incomparably superior to both of Mr. Fox's speeches in 
explanation and defense of his bill. This speech was committed to writing, and pub- 
lished by Mr. Burke soon after its delivery. It will be found below, with the omission 
of some of the numerous details which were necessary to make out the argument, but 
which have no longer any interest for the general reader. The bill, it is well known, 
passed the House of Commons by a large majority, but was defeated in the House of 
Lords by the direct interposition of the King. The details of this subject will be given 
hereafter in the sketch of Mr. Fox's life. Suffice it to say, that the coalition ministry 
was dismissed on the ISth of December, 1783, and Mr. William Pitt placed at the 
head of affairs. Mr. Burke went into opposition with Mr. Fox, under a deep sense of 
wrong as to the means employed for driving them from office ; and from this time, for 
nearly ten years, he was one of the most strenuous opponents of Mr. Pitt's administration. 

On the 28th of February, 1785, Mr. Burke dehvered the last of the six great speeches 
which he wrote out for publication. It was that on the Nabob of Arcot's debts. The 
theme was unpromising, and he rose to speak under every possible disadvantage. It 
was late at night, or rather early in the morning, and the House was so exhausted by 
the previous debate, and so wear}^ of the whole subject, that they seemed almost to 
a man determined not to hear him. He proceeded, however, amid much noise and 
interruption, and poured out his feeUngs, for nearly five hours, with an ardor and im- 
petuosity which he had never before equaled. In this speech we have the most sur- 
prising exhibition to be found in any of Mr. Burke's productions, of the compass and 
variety of thought which he was able to crowd into a single effort. In rhetorical ad- 
dress, vivid painting, lofty declamation, bitter sarcasm, and withering invective, it 
surpasses all his former speeches. It has also more of the peculiar faults which be- 
longed to his extemporaneous speaking. In some passages there is a violence of attack 
which seems almost savage, and a coarseness of imagery, where he seeks to degrade, 
which he never allowed himself to use in any other of his printed productions. 

Warren Hastings, whom he regarded as the responsible author of nearly all the 
calamities of India, landed in England about three months after, on the 16th of June, 
1785. Within four days, Mr. Burke gave notice that, if 7io one else cmne forward 
as his accuser, he should himself move for an inquiry into his conduct as Governor 
General of India, with a view to his impeachment before the House of Lords. In 
thus challenging the ministry to take up the prosecution, he acted wisely ; for it is 
hardly possible for any one, except those in power, to command the necessary evidence 
in such a case, or to use it with effect. Until within a brief period, the leading mem- 
bers of the administration had been nearly or quite as hostile to Mr. Hastings as Mr. 
Burke himself Mr. Dundas, when chairman of a committee on Indian affairs, had 
moved a series of the severest resolutions against him, recommending, among other 
things, his immediate recall. But times were now changed. Mr. Pitt's East India 
Bill had virtually placed the government of India in the hands of Mr. Dundas, as 
head of the Board of Control. It was now the interest of the ministry to keep things 
quiet. They could not decently refuse an inquiry^ but they had no wish to promote 



222 EDMUND BURKE. 

it. Mr. Pitt's policy was to gain credit by assuming the character of an umpire, and 
to defeat the impeachment, if he saw fit, during the course of the mtroductory pro- 
ceedings in the House. 

To go forward under such circumstances required a degree of courage in Mr. Burke 
bordering upon rashness. It seemed almost certain that he must fail. Hastings was 
a personal favorite of the King. He had gained the confidence of the Board of Con- 
trol, who were willing to overlook his past delinquencies in view of the stability he 
had given to the British empire in India. He had the warm support of the East 
India Company, which was saved from ruin and emiched with the spoils of king- 
doms by his unscrupulous devotion to its interests. He was popular with the British 
residents in India, many of whom had gained immense fortunes under his adminis- 
tration at the expense of the natives, and were therefore ready to testify in his favor. 
He had friends of the highest rank in England, and among them Lord Thurlow, the 
favorite Chancellor of George III., who had pledged all their influence for his eleva- 
tion to the peerage, and even higher honors which it was supposed the King was ready 
to bestow. Intrenched as Mr. Hastings thus w^as on every side, what could seem more 
hopeless than Mr. Burke's attempt to obtain the evidence of his crimes ? Accord- 
ingly, when he and Mr. Fox called for the requisite papers in February, 1786, they 
were met by the ministry with impediments at every step, showing the strong reluct- 
ance of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas to go on with the inquiry. A stormy debate ensued, 
which only increased the difficulty. Mr. Burke next brought forward (June, 1786) 
the Rohilla war as his first charge. Mr. Hastings' conduct in relation to this war 
had been pointedly condemned by Mr. Dundas himself in the resolutions mentioned 
above. It was a simple contract for blood, under which Mr. Hastings, in consideration 
of £400,000 received from Sujah Dowlah, gave him a British army ivith ichich to 
subjugate, or rather destroy, the neighboring nation of the Rohillas, who had never 
done the slightest injury to the British. Such were the facts, as admitted by all par- 
ties. The only defense was "state necessity I" The £400,000 were wanted to 
maintain the British conquests in India ! It was, indeed, the price of blood. Nearly 
all the nation was exterminated. " More than a hundred thousand people fled from 
their homes to pestilential jungles, preferring famnie, and fever, and the haunts of 
tigers, to the tyranny of him to whom an English and a Christian government had 
for shameful lucre sold their substance and their blood, and the honor of their wives 
and children I" And yet Mr. Dundas, admitting that " the Rohilla war was an un- 
justifiable measure," talked of " state 'policy''' as the grand rule by which the sover- 
eigns of powerful nations generally governed their public conduct, dwelt on " the 
essential services Mr. Hastings had rendered his country in the latter part of the war," 
and spoke of him as " the Savior of India I" Mr. Pitt said nothing ! His friend, 
Mr. Wilberforce, did indeed support Mr. Burke's motion, declaring Mr. Hastings' con- 
tract with Sujah Dowlah " indefensible, and for an end inhuman and scandalous ;" 
but the adherents of the minister understood how they were to vote, and absolved 
Mr. Hastings by a majority of 119 to 67.^ 

It is surprising that Mr. Burke and his friends did not instantly drop the prosecu- 
tion. Hastings felt sure of the victory ; and when Mr. Fox, supported by Sir Philip 
Francis, came forward, ten days after, with the charge of extortion in the case of 
Cheyte Sing, Rajah of Benares, the public universally expected a second acquittal, es- 
pecially as the supporters of government in the House had received a note requesting 
them to be present, and to vote against Mr. Fox's motion. But, to the astonishment 
of all, the charge had hardly been made, when Mr. Pitt rose and declared that he 
should vote in favor of the motion for inquiring into Mr. Hastings' conduct. A few 
independent men on the ministerial benches were so completely scandahzed by this 
8 Parliamentary History, vol. xxvi., 91. 



EDMUND BURKE. 223 

sudden change, that they refused him their vote ; but the great body remained true 
to the principles of party disciphne, and the minister carried with him precisely the 
same number (119) for condemning Mr. Hastings, which he had used ten days before 
to acquit him, when charged with an offense incomparably more atrocious I Such a 
change must, of course, have been owing to some new light which had suddenly 
broke in upon the minds of Mr. Pitt and Mr. Dundas, in the doubtful game of poli- 
tics in which they were then engaged. It is thus alluded to by Mr. Macaulay in his 
elaborate sketch of the life and character of Hastings, first published in the Edinburgh 
Review : " It was asserted," he says, "by Mr. Hastings, that, early on the morning 
of that very day on which the debate took place, Dundas called on Pitt, woke him, 
and was closeted with him many hours. The result of this conference was a determ- 
ination to give up the late Governor-general to the vengeance of the Opposition. ^' ^ 
The friends of Mr. Hastings, most of whom, it is to be observed, generally supported 
the administration, affirmed that the motive of Pitt and Dundas was jealousy. Hast 
ings was personally a favorite with the King. He was the idol of the East Indir. 
Company. If he were absolved by the Commons, seated among the Lords, admitted 
to the Board of Control, closely allied with the strong-minded and imperious Thur- 
low, was it not almost certain that he would soon draw to himself the entire man- 
agement of Indian afTairs ? Was it not possible that he might become a formidable 
rival in the cabinet ? If the Commons impeached Hastings, all danger was at an 
end. The proceeding, however it might terminate, would probably last some year?. 
In the mean time, the accused person would be excluded from honors and public em- 
ployments, and could scarcely venture even to pay his service at court. Such were 
the motives attributed by a great part of the public to the young minister, whose 
ruling passion was generally believed to be avarice of power." From this time forth 
there was no more difficulty in the reception of charges. On the 7th of February, 
1787, Mr. Sheridan delivered his brilliant speech on the cruelties practiced upon the 
Begums, or Princesses of Oude, and a Committee of Impeachment was soon after 
formed. This committee consisted of Burke, Fox, Sheridan, Windham, and Charles 
Grey, afterward Earl Grey, who acted as managers ; together with fifteen others, 
who took no active part in the prosecution. The articles of impeachment Avere 
drawn up by Mr. Burke, and delivered to the House on the 25th of April. After a 
brief discussion, they were adopted; and on the 10th of May, 1787, Mr. Burke, at- 
tended by the members of the House of Commons, went to the bar of the House of 
Lords, and there in form impeached Warren Hastings of high crimes and misde- 
meanor. 

The trial commenced in Westminster Hall on the 13th of February, 1788. After 
two days spent in the preliminary ceremonies, Mr. Burke opened the case in a speech 
which lasted four days, and was designed to give the members of the court a view 
of the character and condition of the people of India; the origin of the power exer- 
cised by the East India Company ; the situation of the natives under the govern- 
ment of the Enghsh ; the miseries they had endured through the agency of Mr. 
Hastings ; and the motives by which he was influenced in his multiplied acts of cru- 
elty and oppression. This speech has, perhaps, been truly characterized as the great- 
est intellectual effort ever made before the Parliament of Great Britain. A writer 
adverse to the impeachment has remarked, that " Mr. Burke astonished even those 
who were most intimately acquainted with him by the vast extent of his readiaig, the 
variety of his resources, the minuteness of his information, and the lucid order in 
which he arranged the whole for the support of his subject, and to make a deep im- 
pression on the minds of his auditory." On the third day, when he described the 
cruelties inflicted upon the natives by Debi Sing, one of Mr. Hastings' agents, a 
convulsive shudder ran throughout the whole assembly. " In this part of his speech," 



224 EDMUND BURKE. 

says the reporter, "his descriptions were more vivid, more harrowing, more horiiiic, 
than human utterance, on either fact or fancy, perhaps ever formed before." Mr. 
Burke himself was so much overpowered at one time that he dropped his head upon 
his hands, and was unable for some minutes to proceed ; while " the bosoms of his 
auditors became convulsed with passion, and those of more delicate organs or a weak- 
er frame swooned away." Even Mr. Hastings himself, who, not having ordered 
these inflictions, had always claimed that he was not involved in their guilt, was 
utterly overwhelmed. In describing the scene afterward, he said, " For half an hour 
I looked up at the orator in a revery of v/onder, and actually felt myself to be the 
most culpable man on earth." " But at length," he added (in reference to the 
grounds just mentioned), " I recurred to my own bosom, and there found a conscious- 
ness that consoled me under all I heard and all I suffered." 

Such a speech it was impossible for any reporter adequately to record, and Mr. 
Burke never wrote it out for publication. He left numerous papers, however, from 
which, after his death, a continuous report was framed of this and his other speeches 
against Hastings, chiefly in his own language, though we can not suppose that, in 
the vehement passages mentioned above, we have the exact expressions, the vivid 
painting, or impassioned energy with which he electrified Westminster Hall, and 
filled that vast assembly with mingled emotions of indignation and horror. The pe- 
roration of this speech, as delivered by Mr. Burke, will be given below. 

The trial lasted one hundred and forty-seven days. If conducted in an ordinary 
court of justice, it would have been finished in less than three months; but in the 
House of Lords, being taken up only three or four hours at a time, in the intervals 
of other business, it extended through seven years. Mr. Burke made his closing 
speech in behalf of the managers on the 16th of July, 1794. It was in the darkest 
season of the French Revolution, a few days before the fall of Robespierre, when the 
British empire was agitated with conflicting passions, and fears were entertained by 
many of secret conspiracies to overthrow the government. To these things he re- 
ferred at the close of his peroration, which has a grandeur and solemnity becoming 
the conclusion of such a trial. 

"My Lords, I have done ! The part of the Commons is concluded ! With a trembling hand, 
we consign the product of these long, long labors to your charge. Take it / Take it ! It is a 
sacred trust ! Never before was a cause of such magnitude submitted to any human tribunal ! 

" My Lords, at this awful close, in the name of the Commons, and surrounded by them, I attest 
the retiring, I attest the advancing genei'ations, between which, as a link in the chain of eternal 
order, we stand. We call this nation, we call the world, to witness, that the Commons have shrunk 
from no labor ; that we have been guilty of no prevarications ; that we have made no compromise 
with crime ; that we have not feared any odium whatsoever, in the long warfare which we have 
carried on with the crimes, the vices, the exorbitant wealth, the enormous and overpowering influ- 
ence, of Eastern corruption. 

" A business which has so long occupied the councils and tribunals of Great Britain, can not pos- 
sibly be hurried over in the course of vulgar, trite, and transitory events. Nothing but some of 
those great revolutions that bi'eak the traditionary chain of human memory, and alter the very face 
of nature itself, can possibly obscure it. My Lords, we are all elevated to a degree of importance 
by it. The meanest of us will, by means of it, become more or less the concern of poster itrj. 

" My Lords, your House yet stands ; it stands, a great edifice ; but, let me say, it stands in the 
midst of ruins — in the midst of ruins that have been made by the greatest moral earthquake that 
ever convulsed and shattered this globe of ours. My Lords, it has pleased Providence to place us 
in such a state, that we appear every moment to be on the verge of some great mutation. There 
is one thing, and one thing only, that defies mutation — that which existed before the world itself. 
I mean justice ; that justice which, emanating from the Divinity, has a place in the breast of every 
one of us, given us for our guide with regard to ourselves, and with regard to others ; and which 
will stand after this globe is burned to ashes, our advocate or our accuser before the great Judge, 
when he comes to call upon us for the tenor of a well-spent life. 

" My Lords, the Commons will share in every fate with your Lordships. There is nothing sin- 
ister which can happen to you, in which we are not involved. And if it should so happen that your 
Lordships, .stripped of all the decorous distinctions of human society, should, by hands at once base 



i 



EDMUND BURKE. 225 

and cruel, be led to those scaffolds and machines' of murder upon which great kings and glorious 
queens have shed their blood, amid the prelates, the nobles, the magistrates who supported their 
thrones, may you in those moments feel that consolation which I am persuaded they felt in the criti- 
cal moments of their dreadful agony ! * ^ * 

"My Lords, if you must fall, may you so fall! But if you stand — and stand I trust you will, 
together with the fortunes of this ancient monarchy ; together with the ancient laws and liberties 
of this great and illustrious kingdom — may you stand as unimpeached in honor as in power ! JNIay 
you stand, not as a substitute for virtue ; may you stand, and long stand, the terror of tyrants ; 
may you stand, the refuge of afflicted nations ; may you stand, a sacred temple for the perpetual 
residence of inviolable justice !" 

Mr. Hastings, it is well known, was acquitted by the House of Lords. This, how- 
ever, does not imply that the atrocities so eloquently described by Mr. Burke were 
found to be overstated. Far from it. They are now matters of undisputed history.^ 
One difhculty lay in the mode of proof. In previous cases of impeachment, the 
High Court of Parliament had never been bound by those strict rules of evidence 
which prevail in the lower courts. Proof of every kind was admitted which goes to 
satisfy men in the ordinary concerns of life, as to the truth or falsity of a charge. 
But it was now decided to adhere to the strict rules of legal evidence. The de- 
cision marks an advance in English justice. If these rules are wrong, they should 
be altered ; but they should be one and the same in the highest and the lowest 
courts. The managers, however, were prepared for no such decision ; and the mo- 
ment it was made, the acquittal of Mr. Hastings became morally certain. Hundreds 
whom we know to be guilty, are acquitted every year in our courts of justice for 
want of legal proof. Much of the proof relied upon by the managers was ruled out 
on the principles now adopted, and what every body believed to be true, and history 
has recorded as fact, the court could not receive m evidence. In addition to this, 
the cruelty and injustice in such cases must be chiefly exercised through intermedi- 
ate agents ; and it is often impossible to connect those agents by legal proof with 
the real author of the crimes. There was still another difficulty. These crimes, in 
most instances, as the court were made to believe, were the o(iily possible mea.ns of 
upholding the British government in India. They were committed for the sake of 
raising money in crises of extreme danger, and often of sudden rebellion, when, with- 
out money to support his troops, Mr. Hastings and his government would have been 
swept out of India in a single month. These considerations were powerfully urged 
by Mr. Erskine in his defense of Stockdale for publishing a pamphlet in favor of 
Hastings. " It may and must be true that Mr. Hastings has repeatedly oflended 
against the rights and privileges of Asiatic government, if he was the faithful deputy 
of a power which could not maintain itself for an hour v^ithout trampling upon both. 
He may and must have offended against the laws of God and nature, if he was the 
faithful viceroy of an empire wrested in blood from the people to whom God and 
nature had given it. He may and must have preserved that unjust dominion over 
timorous and abject nations by a terrifying, overbearing, insulting superiority, if he 
was the faithful administrator of your government, which, having no root in consent 
or affection, no foundation in similarity of interests, no support from any one princi- 
ple which cements men together in society, can be upheld only by alternate strata- 
gem and force." Such were the considerations which turned the tide of popular 
sentiment in favor of Mr. Hastings, and made it impossible to convict him, though 
morally guilty, if not of all the crimes laid to his charge, at least of numerous and 
most flagrant acts of cruelty and oppression. But if Mr. Burke failed in the im- 
peachment, he succeeded in the main object which he had in view, that of lay- 
ing open to the indignant gaze of the public the enormities practiced under the 
British government in India. Nothing more was necessary to secure their correc- 
tion ; and his " long, long labors" in this cause became the means, though not so 
^ See Mill's British India, vol. v., passim. 
P 



226 EDMUND BURKE. 

(lireotly as lie intended, of great and lasting benefits to a hundred and fifty millions 
of people. 

In addition to these labors, and during their greatest urgency, Mr. Burke was 
drawn into a new conflict with Mr. Pitt, of the most exciting nature. The King 
became deranged in October, 1788, and the "Regency Cluestion" instantly arose to 
agitate and divide the empire. The Opposition took the ground that the Prince of 
Wales had the inherent right, as heir of the crown, to act as regent during his 
father's loss of reason. Mr. Pitt denied this right, affirming that it lay with Parlia- 
ment alone to provide for such an exigency — that they might commit the custody 
of the King's person and the administration of the government to other hands, if they 
saw fit ; and might impose whatever restrictions they thought proper on the authority 
of the Prnice of Wales, if they declared him regent. The subject more naturally 
belongs to the measures of Mr. Fox, and will be dwelt upon hereafter in the sketch of 
his life. It is necessary in this place only to say, that Mr. Burke took up the ques- 
tion, which was debated nearly two months, with more than his ordinary zeal and 
strength of feeling. He thought the Prince of Wales was treated with harshness 
and injustice. He maintained his cause with consummate ability ; and it is now 
known that he drew up the celebrated letter on the subject, addressed by the Prince 
to Mr. Pitt, which has been so much admired, not only as a fine specimen of English 
composition, but as showing " the true, transmigrating power of genius, which en- 
abled him thus to pass his spirit into the station of royalty, and to assume the calm 
dignity, both of style and feeling, that became it." 

It has been already remarked that the first period of Mr. Burke's political life was 
the happiest. He was on the ascendent scale of influence and usefulness. His fac- 
ulties were fresh ; his hopes were high ; and whenever he rose to speak, he was 
cheered by the consciousness of being listened to with interest and respect. But 
after the defeat of Mr. Fox's East India Bill, all was changed. In common with 
Mr. Fox, he was loaded with unpopularity ; and, being retired in his habits, he never 
attempted, like his great leader, to cast off' the odium thus incurred by a familiar in- 
tercourse with his political opponents. On the contrary, he was often drawn into 
personal altercations with Mr. Pitt, in which he lost his temper, and thus became 
doubly exposed to that cutting sarcasm or withering contempt with which the young 
minister knew how, better than any man of his age, to overwhelm an antagonist. A 
course of systematic insult was likewise adopted by certain members of the House, 
for the purpose of putting him down. " Muzzling the lion" was the term applied 
to such treatment of the greatest genius of the age. Wlien he arose to speak, he was 
usually assailed with coughing, ironical cheers, affected laughter, and other tokens of 
dislike. Such things, of course, he could not ordinarily notice ; though he did, in one 
instance, stop to remark, that " he could teach a pack of hounds to yelp with more 
melody and equal comprehension." George Selwyn used to tell a story with much 
effect, of a country member who exclaimed, as Mr. Burke rose to speak with a paper 
in his hand, " I hope the gentleman does not mean to read that large bundle of pa- 
pers, and bore us with a speech into the bargain I" Mr. Burke was so much over- 
come, or rather suffocated with rage, that he was incapable of utterance, and rushed 
at once out of the House. " Never before," said Selwyn, " did I see the fable real- 
ized, of a lion put to flight by the braying of an ass." Such treatment soured his 
mind ; and as he advanced in years, he was sometimes betrayed into violent fits of 
passion before the House, which were a source of grief to his friends, and of increased 
insult from his enemies. Under all these discouragements, however, " Nitor in ad- 
versum" was still his motto. His public labors were such as no other man of the 
age could have performed. Besides his attendance on the House, he had nearly all 
the burden of carrying forward Mr. Hastings' impeachment ; involving charges more 



^1 



EDMUND BURKE. 227 

complicated in their nature, and embracing a wider range of proof, than had ever 
been submitted to an English tribunal. Seven years were spent in this drudgery ; 
and it shows the unconquerable spirit of Mr. Burke, that he never once faltered, but 
brought his impeachment to a close with a dignity becoming his own character and 
the greatness of the interests involved. 

In thus reaching forward to the end of Mr. Hastings' trial, we have already en- 
tered on the third period of Mr. Burke's political life. As America Avas the leadmg 
object of interest in the first, and India in the second of these great divisions of his 
public labors, France and its portentous revolution occupied the third stage of his 
eventful career, and called forth, at the close of life, the most brilliant efforts of his 
genius. It is a striking fact, that Mr. Burke was the only man in England who re- 
garded the French Revolution of 1789, from its very commencement, with jealousy 
and alarm. Most of the nation hailed it with delight, and Mr. Pitt, no less than Mr. 
Fox, was carried away for a time in the general current of sympathy and admiration. 
But Mr. Burke, in writing to a friend only two months after the assembling of the 
States-General, expressed his fears of the result in the following terms : " Though I 
thought I saw something like this in progress for several years, it has something in it 
paradoxical and mysterious. The spirit it is impossible not to admire ; but the Paris- 
ian ferocity has broken out in a shocking manner. It is true this may be no more 
than a sudden explosion ; if so, no indication can be taken from it. But if it should 
be character rather than accident, the people are not Jit for liberty T A few months 
confirmed his worst apprehensions. The levity, rashness, and presumption which 
had so long characterized the French nation, gained a complete ascendency. The 
better class of men who shared in the early movement were at first set aside, and 
soon after driven away or murdered. The States-General, breaking up the original 
balance of the Constitution, resolved the three chambers into one, under the name of 
the National Assembly ; and the Third Estate, or Commons, became not only the sole 
legislative, but the sole governing power of the country. The galleries of that as- 
sembly were filled with a Parisian mob, which dictated to the representatives of the 
people the measures to be adopted. The sway of a ferocious populace became unre- 
strained. The King and Glueen were dragged in triumph from Versailles to Paris, 
where they were virtually held as prisoners from the first, in fearful expectation of 
the fate which ultimately befell them. All this took place within little more than 
three months I^" 

It may be said, however, that the Hevolution was at last productive of important 
benefits to France ; and some persons seem for this reason to have a vague impres- 

1° The States-General resolved themselves into the National Assemhly on the 17th of .June, and 
the King and Queen were taken from Versailles to Paris on the 6th of October, 1789. 

The following extracts from the diary and correspondence of Mr. Gouverneur Morris, the Amer- 
ican minister at Paris during the early stages of the Revolution, show that his views of the French 
people at this time coincided with those of Mr. Burke. "There is one fatal principle which per- 
vades all ranks. lb is, a perfect indifference to the violation of engagements. Inconstancy is so min- 
gled in the blood, marrow, and very essence of this people, that, when a man of high rank and im- 
portance laughs to-day at what he seriously asserted yesterday, it is considered the natural order of 
things." — Sparks' Life of Morris, vol. ii., p. 68. It is not, therefore, wonderful, that Mr. Morris had 
no fiiith in the Revolution. He told Lafayette, in reference to the leaders of it, '' Their views re- 
specting this nation are totally inconsistent with the materials of which it is composed, and the 
worst thing which could possibly happen would be to grant their wishes." Lafayette acknowl- 
edged the fact. " He tells me he is sensible that his party are mad, and tells them so." — Vol. i., 
314. At a later period, speaking of Lafayette as commander of the National Guards, he says, " La- 
fayette has marched [to Versailles] by compulsion, guarded by his own troops, who suspect and 
threaten him. Dreadful situation ! Obliged to do what he abhors, or suiTer an ignominious death, 
with the certainty that the sacrifice of his life will not prevent the mischief." — Vol. i., 327. Mr. 
Morris seems to have anticipated from the first, what happened at no very distant period, that La~ 
foyette would be obliged to flee from France, to escape the dagger of the assassin. 



228 EDMUND BURKE. 

siou that Mr. Burke did WTong in opposing it. There is no doubt that this utter dis- 
ruption of society was the means of removing great and manifold abuses, just as the 
fire of London burned out the corruptions of centuries in the heart of that city. But 
no one hesitates, on this account, to condemn the spirit of the incendiary. It should 
also be remembered, that these benefits were not the natural or direct results of the 
rash spirit of innovation opposed by Mr. Burke. On the contrary, they were never 
experienced imtil the nation had fled for protection against that spirit, to one of the 
sternest forms of despotism. Nor can any one prove that the benefits in question could 
be purchased only at this terrible expense. Lafayette, at least, always maintained the 
contrary ; and the writer has reason to know that, in recommending Mignet's History 
of the Revolution to a friend as worthy of confidence, he made a distinct exception on 
this point, censuring in the strongest terms a kind of fatalism which runs through the 
pages of that historian, who seems to have regarded the whole series of crimes and mis- 
eries which marked that frightful convulsion, as the only possible means of doing away 
the evils of the old regime. But, even if this were so, who, at that early period, was 
to discover such a fact ? And who is authorized, at the present day, to speak slight- 
ingly of Mr. Burke as rash and wanting in sagacity, because, while his predictions were 
so many of them fulfilled to the very letter, an overruhng Providence brought good out 
of evil, in a way wdiich no human forecast could anticipate ? It should be remembered, 
too, that Mr. Burke never looked on the Revolution as an isolated fact, a mere struggle for 
power or for a new foiin of government, involving the interests of the French people 
alone. Considered in this light, he would have left it to take its course ; he would never 
probably have written a syllable on the subject. But an event of this kind could not fail 
to afTect the whole system of European politics, as a fire, breaking out in the heart of 
a forest, endangers the habitations of all who dwell on its borders. Whatever he said 
and wTote respecting France was, therefore, primarily intended for England. " Urit 
proximus Ucalegon," was his own account of his reasons for coming forward. " When- 
ever our neighbor's house is on fire, it can not be amiss for the engines to play a little 
on our own. Better be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too con- 
fident a security." There were many in Great Britam who not only justified the early 
excesses of the Revolution, and exulted when they saw the King and Q.ueen of France 
led to prison by a mob, but significantly pomted to a repetition of similar scenes upon 
English ground. Dr. Price, in a sermon before the Constitutional Society, said, m 
respect to the Kmg of France, " led in triumph, and surrendering liimself to his sub- 
jects," " I am thankful that I have lived to see this period. I could almost say, 
' Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart m peace, for mine eyes have seen thy sal- 
vation.' " When clergymen went so far, men of the world very naturally went farther. 
Societies were soon formed in London and the other large townis of the kingdom, "with 
the avowed purpose of obtaining political reformation by other means than those which 
the Constitution pointed out as legitimate. "^^ Some of them maintained a correspond- 
ence with the Jacobin clubs of Paris ; and, at a somewhat later period, five thousand 
persons belonging to the united societies of London, Manchester, and other places, held 
the following language, in a public address to the French National Assembly : " We 
are of opinion that it is the duty of every true Briton to assist, to the utmost of our 
power, the defenders of the rights of man, and to swear inviolable friendship to a na- 
tion which proceeds on the plan you have adopted. Frenchmen, you are already free, 
and Britons are pre2Mring to become soT^'^ It was under these circumstances, and 

^^ Wade's British History, p. 551. 

^2 It is stated in the London Christian Observer for 1807, which was edited at that time by 
Zachary Macaulay, Esq., father of the celebrated historian, " there seems to be but little doubt of 
the formation of a plan to raise aja insurrection in London about the close of 1792 or the beginning 
of 1793." 



EDMUND BURKE. 229 

while such a spirit was beginning to prevail in the country, that Mr. Burke came for- 
ward to guard the people of England against the infection of principles which tended 
to such results. AAliatever may have been his eiTors at a later period, who will ques- 
tion \A'hether he was right in warning his countrymen against every thing that could 
engender a spirit of insurrection ? Without deciding whether the liberties of the people 
can ever be established on the Continent of Europe except by open rebellion, all will 
agree that nothing could be more disastrous to the cause of free principles than any 
attempts at reform in England by violence and bloodshed. The Revolution of 1688 
has opened a new era on this subject. The progress of the English in throwing off the 
abuses which still belong to their political system, will take place hereafter in a series 
oi peaceful revolutions, like that of Parliamentary Reform in 1832. The right of pe- 
tition among such a people has more force than the bayonet. When they are once 
united in a good cause, neither the crown nor the peerage can stand before them. 

The first reference to the French Revolution on the floor of the House of Commons 
was made by Mr. Fox in a debate on the army estimates, February oth, 1790. He 
spoke of it m terms of eulogy and of high expectation, applaudhig especially the defec- 
tion of the French soldiery from their officers and government. "It is now known 
throughout all Europe," he said, "that a man, by becoming a soldier, does not cease 
to be a citizen." These last remarks were certainly unfortunate. Unqualified as they 
Avere, they might naturally be understood to recommend a similar course to British 
soldiers in the event of civil commotions. It was still more unfortunate that, when 
Colonel Phipps, who followed, reminded him of this, stating the entire difference be 
tween the situation of thmgs in England and France, and pointing, as a better exam- 
ple, to the conduct of the English troops during the London riots of 1760, " who pa- 
tiently submitted to insult, and, in defiance of provocation, maintained the laws of the 
realm, acting under the authority of the civil power," Mr. Fox did not instantly avail 
himself of the opportunity to explain his remarks, and guard them against such an ap- 
plication. On the contraiy, he remained silent ! In justice to Mr. Burke, this fact 
ought to be kept in view as we approach the period of his separation from Mr. Fox. 
The leader of the Whig party, if he expected the continued support of his adherents, 
was bound to free them from all imputations on a subject like this. Four days after, 
when the question came up again, Mr. Burke felt bound to. express his feelings at large, 
in view of Mr. Fox's remarks. In the course of his speech, he said, 

*' Since the House was prorogued in the summer, much work has been done in France. The 
French have shown themselves the greatest architects of I'uin that have hitherto existed in the 
world. In that very short space of time they have completely pulled down to the ground their 
monarchy, their Church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their com- 
merce, their arts, and their manufactures. They have done their business for us as rivals in a wav 
which twenty Ramillies and Blenheims could never have done. 

" In the last age we were in danger of being entangled by the example of France in a net of 
relentless despotism. That no longer exists. Our present danger arises from the example of a 
people whose character knows no medium. It is, with regard to government, a danger from an- 
archy — a danger of being led, through'admiration of successful fraud and violence, to imitation of 
the excesses of an irrational, unprincipled, proscribing, confiscating, plundering, ferocious, bloody, 
and tyrannical democracy. On the side of religion, the danger of their example is no longer in 
intolerance, but atheism — a foul, unnatural vice, foe to all the dignity and consolation of mankind, 
which seems in France, for a long time, to have been embodied into a faction, accredited and al- 
most avowed. These are our present dangers from France. 

"But the very worst part of the example set is, in the late assumption of citizenship by the ar- 
my, and the whole of the arrangement of their military. I am sorry that my right honorable friend 
has dropped even a word expressive of exultation on that circumstance. I attribute this opinion of 
Mr. Fox entirely to his own zeal for the best of all causes — liberty. It is with pain inexpressible 
I am obliged to have even a shadow of a difference with my friend, whose authority would be al- 
ways great with me and with all thinking people. My confidence in Mr. Fox is such and so am- 
ple as to be almost implicit. I am not ashamed to avow that degree of docility, for. when the 
choice is well made, it strengthens instead of oppressing our intellect. He who calls in the aid 
of an equal understanding doubles his own. He who profits of a superior understanding, raises 



230 EDMUND BURKE. 

his power to a level with the height of the superior understanding he unites with. I have found 
the benefit of such a junction, and would not lightly depart from it. I wish almost on all occasions 
my sentiments were understood to be conveyed in Mr. Fox's words, and wish, among the greatest 
benefits I can wish the country, an eminent share of power to that right honorable gentleman, be- 
cause I know that to his great and masterly understanding he has joined the greatest possible degree 
of that natural moderation which is the best corrective of power. He is of the most artless, candid, 
open, and benevolent disposition ; disinterested in the extreme; of a temper mild and placable even 
to a fault, without one drop of gall in his whole constitution. The House must perceive, from my 
coming forward to mark an expression or two of my best friend, how anxious I am to keep the dis- 
temper of France from the least countenance in England, where some wicked persons have shown 
a strong disposition to recommend an imitation of the French spirit of reform. 

"I am so strongly opposed to any the least tendency toward the means of introducing a democ- 
racy like theirs, as well as to the end itself, that, much as it would afflict me if such a thing could 
be attempted, and that any friend of mine should concur in such measui'es, / would abandon my 
best friends ayid join ivith my ivorst enemies to oppose either the means or the end.'^^^ 

Mr. Fox replied in kind and respectful language, but he did not explain or mod- 
ify his expressions respecting the soldiery (referred to by Mr. Burke) in those full and 
explicit terms which the occasion seemed to require. He certainly looked for no re- 
forms in England, except through the regular channels provided by the Constitution. 
He ought, therefore, to have accepted the distinction suggested by Colonel Phipps, 
and declared at once, that whatever might be proper in France, the English soldiery 
ought not to turn upon their officers, or resist the civil magistrate. Such a decla- 
ration would have been useful in the excited state of the public mind at that period, 
and it seems to have been absolutely demanded by the shape which the question had 
assumed. Instead of this, he simply said, " He never would lend himself to support 
any cabal or scheme formed in order to introduce any dangerous innovation into our 
excellent Constitution" — language which was at least rather indefinite ; and de- 
clared as to the soldiery, that " when he described himself as exulting over the suc- 
cess of some of the late attempts in France, he certainly meant to pay a just tribute 
of applause to those who, feelingly alive to a sense of the oppressions under which 
their countrymen had groaned, disobeyed the despotic commands of their leaders, and 
gallantly espoused the cause of their fellow-citizens, in a struggle for the acquisition 
of that liberty, the sweets of which we all enjoyed." He said, also, that while he 
lamented the scenes of bloodshed and cruelty among the French, he thought these 
excesses should be " spoken of with some degree of compassion ;" and that he be- 
lieved " their present state, unsettled as it was, to be preferable to their former con- 
dition." Such views were so entirely different from those of Mr. Burke, that it was 
already apparent they could not act much longer in concert. 

Mr. Sheridan now came forward to widen the breach. His remarks are given very 
differently by different reporters. One of them represents him as charging Mr. Burke 
with " deserting from the camp ; with assaulting the principles of freedom itself; with 
defending despotism ; with loving to obtrude himself as the libeler of liberty, and the 
enemy of men laboring for the noblest objects of mankind." His language, as after- 
ward given in the Parliamentary History, is less harsh ; but, whatever may have beon 
his exact expressions, they were such as induced Mr. Burke to rise at once, and de- 
clare, in calm but indignant terms, that " such language ought to have been spared, 
were it only as a sacrifice to the ghost oi departed friendshi'p. The language itself 
was not new to him ; it was but a repetition of what was to be perpetually heard at 
the reforming clubs and societies with which the honorable gentleman had lately be- 
come entangled, and for whose plaudits he had chosen to sacrifice his friends, though 
he might in time find that the value of such praise was not worth the price at which 
it was purchased. Henceforward they tvere separated in politics forever T^"^ 

*^ Parliamentary History, vol. xxviii., p. 356. 

*'* Moore ascribes this to jealousy, a fault never before charged on Burke. Sheridan's habits 
were bad, and this made it easy for Burke to give him up. 



EDMUND BURKE. 231 

This debate has been given at greater ]ength, because it was the immediate oc- 
casion of Mr. Burke's writing his work on the French Revolution, and more remotely 
of his separation from Mr. Fox and the Whig party. His breach with Mr. Sheridan 
put him on the defensive, and he at once determined to carry the question before the 
pubhc. Accordingly, in the month of November, 1790, he published his " Reflec- 
tions on the Revolution in France," in an octavo volume of four hundred pages. 
No political treatise in the English tongue has ever awakened so lively an interest, 
or met with so wide-spread and rapid a circulation. Thirty thousand copies were 
sold in Great Britain alone, at a time when the reading public embraced hardly a 
third of its present number. Some of the principles of this work, whether true or 
false, in regard to European society, can, of course, have no application to America, 
such as the necessity of an established Church, and the benefits of a titled aristoc- 
racy, which last is beautifully described as " the Corinthian capital" of the state. 
It must also be admitted that, in exposing the crimes of the revolutionists, Mr. 
Burke Avas betrayed into an error which his warmest admirers should be the first to 
acknowledge, since it arose from those generous sensibilities which are peculiarly 
liable to be misled. All Ms sympathies icere on one side. The horror he felt at 
the atrocities of the Revolution made him forget the wrongs by which it was oc- 
casioned. It led him to think too favorably of the immediate sufferers, to overlook, 
and even palliate their vices or crimes. He felt only for princes and nobles, and 
forgot the body of the people, who had for ages been held down by Feudalism in ig- 
norance, wretchedness, and degradation. The same feeling led him to defend in- 
stitutions which, under other circumstances, he would have regarded only- with ab- 
horrence. This accounts for his arguing so strenuously in favor of monastic estab- 
lishments, which the whole history of Europe has shown to be cancers on the body 
politic. It accounts, also, for his maintaining that the old regime was " a despo- 
tism rather in appearance than in reality," an assertion which w411 aM^aken the 
reader's astonishment just in proportion as he is acquainted with the history of 
France, and remembers the lettres de cachet, the corvee, the gabelle, and the thousand 
other instruments of tyranny, which had held the nation for centuries under the 
most grinding oppression. These one-sided views were the result of a peculiarity 
of mind in Mr. Burke which we have seen strikingly exemplified at a later period 
in Sir Walter Scott, that of looking with an excess of veneration upon every thing 
old. His prolific fancy covered all the early forms of society with romantic and ven- 
erable associations, so that abuses which would elsewhere have called forth his keen- 
est reprobation seemed to him in old governments, if not positive benefits, at least 
evils to be touched with a trembling hand, like the weaknesses of an aged parent. 

While we can not, for these reasons, give our sympathy or assent to every part of 
this volume, facts have shown that Mr. Burke was in the right far more than Mr. 
Fox as to the main point at issue, the character and prospects of the Revolution in 
France. Mr. Fox lived to see this, and when Lord Lauderdale once remarked in 
his presence, that Burke was a splendid madman, Mr. Fox replied, " It is difficult 
to say whether he is mad or inspired, but whether the one or the other, every one 
must agree that he is d. prophet.'' Lord Brougham observed at a much later period, 
"All his predictions, except one momentary expression [relative to the martial spirit 
of the French], have been more than fulfilled." And down to the present day (for 
the Revolution is still in progress), what has been the result of the experiments which 
the French have been making in government for the last sixty years ? They took 
refuge from their repubhc in a military despotism ; they received back one branch 
of the Bourbons and exchanged it for another ; they again tried a repubhc for a little 
more than three years ; and they have now submitted to the usurpation of another 
Bonaparte, as weak in intellect and despicable in character as the former one was 



232 EDMUND BURKE. 

powerful and illustrious. In all this they have shown — and it was this, in reality, 
that Mr. Burke set out to inculcate — that a people who cast off the fear of God and 
are governed by impulse, not by fixed principle, who have extravagant hopes of re- 
generating society by a mere change of its outward forms, and have learned from a 
scoffing philosophy to despise those great original instincts of our nature and those 
finer sensibilities of the heart, which are the ultimate security of social order, can 
not, in the nature of things, be "fit for freedom." This was the real scope of Mr. 
Burke's " Reflections on the Revolution in France." He erred, indeed, in connecting 
these truths with church establishments and monarchical institutions, but the truths 
themselves were of imperishable value, not only for the age in which he wrote, but 
for all coming ages in that long struggle on which the world has entered for the es- 
tablishment of free institutions. 

In a literary view, there can be but one opinion of this work. Though desultory 
in its character, and sometimes careless or prolix in style, it contains more richness 
of thought, splendor of imagination, and beauty of diction than any volume of the 
same size in our language. Robert Hall has truly said, " Mr. Burke's imperial fanc}- 
has laid all nature under tribute, and has collected riches from every scene of the 
creation and every walk of art. His eulogium on the dueen of France is a master- 
piece of pathetic composition, so select in its images, so fraught with tenderness, and 
so rich with colors ' dipt in heaven,' that he who can read it without rapture may 
have merit as a reasoner, but must resign all pretensions to taste and sensibility." 
At the present day, however, when the topics discussed are no longer of any prac- 
tical importance, it is a book, like Milton's Paradise Lost, to be once resolutely gone 
through with by every literary man, and then read and re-read /or life in select pas- 
sages, which will awaken an ever-growing admiration of Mr. Burke for his compass 
of thought, his keen sagacity, his profound wisdom, his generous sentiments, his truth 
to nature and the best feelings of the heart. It is, indeed, the great peculiarity of 
his writings, that every reflecting man learns to estimate them more highly as he 
advances in knowledge and in years. 

We now come to the most painful event of Mr. Burke's life, except the loss of his 
son — his separation from Mr. Fox. After the emphatic declaration he had made 
before the House, that " he would abandon his best friends and join with his worst 
enemies" to oppose French principles, we should naturally expect that the Whigs 
would treat him with great tenderness and forbearance if they did not mean to drive 
him from their ranks, and especially w^ould not goad him on the subject, and provoke 
a quarrel, by bringing it up unnecessarily in debate. But such was the warmth and 
frankness of Mr. Fox, that whatever w^as upon his mind was on his tongue ; and as 
he was conscious of having only the kindest feelings toward Mr. Burke, and was slow 
to take offense himself, he seems never once to have dreamed that any liberties he 
might use could lead, by any possibility, to a breach between him and his old friend. 
He therefore expressed his dissent from the principles of Mr. Burke's work in the 
strongest terms ; and during a debate on the formation of a government for Canada 
he made a pointed allusion to certain well-known passages of the volume, speaking 
in a sarcastic manner of "those titles of honor the extinction of which some gentle- 
men so much deplored," and of "that sjnrit of chivalry which had fallen into dis- 
grace in a neighboring country." In a debate a few evenings after, he went out of 
his way to praise the new Constitution of France, declaring, with a direct reference 
to Mr. Burke's strictures on that instrument, " I for one admire the new Constitution, 
considered altogether, as the most glorious fabric ever raised hy human integrity 
since the creation of man .'" Mr. Burke instantly rose with visible emotion to give 
vent to his feelings, but his Whig friends interposed to prevent him ; the cry of 
" Question, question" became general throughout the House ; and as it was then 



EDMUND BURKE. 233 

three o'clock in the morning, Mr. Burke at last gave way, and reserved himself for 
another occasion. 

Great efforts were now made by the Whigs to prevent Mr. Burke from coming out 
in reply ; but he felt himself pledged to the House and country ; it would look like 
cowardice, he said, to shrink from a contest which was thus provoked. Still he spoke 
kindly and with honor of Mr. Fox, and, at a private interview between them, " talked 
over the plan of all he intended to say, opened the different branches of his argu- 
ment, and explained the limitations which he meant to impose upon himself."^^ They 
then walked together to the House, and Mr. Fox took occasion almost immediately 
to say, that " he was extremely sorry to differ from any of his friends, but that he 
should never be backward in declaring his opinion, and that he did not wish to re- 
cede from any thing he had formerly said." This was generally considered as a di- 
rect challenge, if not a defiance of Mr. Burke, who was desirous instantly to reply ; 
but, finding that the House preferred to adjourn the question over the holidays, which 
were then commencing, he again postponed his remarks. 

When the recess was over and the Canada Bill came up (May Gth, 1791), Mr. 
Burke opened the debate. But the moment he touched on the French R.evolution, 
in reply to Mr. Fox, he was called to order by a friend of the latter, and Mr. Fox 
himself immediately interposed in a strain of the bitterest irony, remarking, " that his 
right honorable friend could hardly be said to be out of order. It seemed this was a 
day of privilege, when any gentleman might stand up, select his mark, and abuse 
any government he pleased. Although nobody had said a word on the subject of 
the French Revolution [sic f), his friend had risen up and abused that event. Every 
gentleman had a right that day to abuse the government of every country, whether 
ancient or modern, as much as he pleased, and in as gross terms as he thought proper, 
with his right honorable friend." A very extraordinary scene ensued. Mr. Burke 
attempted to explain and to discuss the question of order, but was continually inter- 
rupted from his own side of the House. Seven times were his remarks broken in 
upon by renewed calls of " order." Mr. Fox repeated his irony about " the gentle- 
man's right to discuss the Constitution of France ;" and when Mr. Pitt defended his 
old opponent, affirming that Mr. Burke, in examining the government proposed for 
Canada, had a right to draw his illustrations from that of France, Mr. Fox took the 
floor, and, after a series of very severe remarks, said that Mr. Burke had once told 
the House, in a speech on American affairs, that he did not know how to draw up a 
bill of indictment against a whole people, but " he had now learned to do it, and to 
crowd it with all the technicalities which disgraced our statute-book, such as ' false,' 
' wicked,' ' by instigation of the devil,' &c. ; that no book his friend could cite, no 
words he could deliver in debate, however ingenious or eloquent, could induce him 
to change or abandon his opinions ; he differed on that subject with his right honor- 
able friend, toto ccclo."^'^ Mr. Burke now rose and made an extended reply, com- 
mencing in " a grave and governed tone of voice." Among other things, he remark- 
ed, that "his friend had treated him in every sentence with uncommon harshness," 
and " had endeavored to crush him at once by declaring a censure upon his whole 
life and opinions." " It was certainly an indiscretion," he said, " at any period, and 
especially at his time of life, to provoke enemies, or to give his friends occasion to de- 
sert him ; yet if his firm and steady adherence to the British Constitution placed him 
in this dilemma, he would risk all ; and as public duty and public prudence taught 
him, with his last words he would exclaim, 'Fly from the French Constitution.'" 
[Mr. Fox here whispered that " there was no loss of friends."] Mr. Burke replied, 
emphatically, " Yes, there is a loss of friends I I know the price of my conduct. I 
have done my duty at the price of my friend. Our fnejidshijj is at an end!''' Mr. 

15 Annual Register, vol. xxxiii., p. 116. ^^ Parliamentary Flistory, vol. xxix., p. 38). 



234 EDMUND BURKE. 

Fox rose in the utmost agitation, showing that he had never once suspected the ex- 
tremities to which he was driving Mr. Burke. " For some minutes he could not pro- 
ceed. Tears trickled down his cheeks, and he strove in vain to give utterance to 
his feelings." When at last he was able to speak, he adverted, in the most tender 
and generous terms, to their early friendship and his obligations to Mr. Burke, and 
expressed his hope " that, notwithstanding what had happened, his friend would 
think on past times, and, however any imprudent w^ords or intemperance of his might 
have offended him, it would show that it had not been, at least, intentionally his fault." 
Unfortunately, however, w'hen he came to reassert and defend his own views, he did 
it with some veiy pointed allusions to the former opinions of his friend, as inconsist- 
ent with, his present ones. This grated so harshly on Mr. Burke's feelings, that he 
remarked, in entering on his reply, that " the tenderness which had been displayed 
in the beginning and conclusion of Mr. Fox's speech had been quite obliterated by 
what had occurred in the middle." The breach w^as irreparable. They never met 
again except in public ; and even on his death-bed, Mr. Burke declined an interview 
which Mr. Fox solicited in the kindest terms, declaring, that " it had cost him the 
most heartfelt pain to obey the stern voice of duty in rending asunder a long friend- 
ship ; that his principles continued the same, and could be enforced o?ily by the gen- 
eral 2^Grsuasion of his sincerity ^ This last consideration appears to have governed 
him chiefly in breaking away from his old friend. It was not the irritability of his 
temper, as represented by Mr. Fox's adherents, nor was it mere wounded feeling, 
which time w^ould easily have assuaged ; it w^as a sense of duty (though carried, cer- 
tainly, to an extreme), which impelled him, with all the force of a religious senti- 
ment, to bear public testimony against one w^hose opinions he thought dangerous to 
the state ; like the aged apostle, wlio is said to have hurried from one of the public 
baths when he saw Cerinthus enter it, declaring that he would not remain for a mo- 
ment under the same roof with a man who inculcated such fatal errors. 

From this time Mr. Burke began to act with Mr. Pitt, and, though he never took 
office under his old opponent, his son, whom he had long been training for public life, 
had an important station assigned him in the government of Ireland. 

There is no page in the history of our English statesmen more full of tenderness 
and melancholy than that which records the disappointment of Mr. Burke in regard 
to this son. He was an only child, on whom all his parents' hopes were centered. 
In the prospect of a speedy retirement from public life, it was the last fond wash of 
the father that his son should take his place, especially as he was one who "had 
within him" (and would carry into the service of his country) " a salient, living spring 
of generous and manly action." "^e," as the father thought, " would have sup- 
plied every deficiency, and symmetrized every disproportion" in his own political life. 
No doubt he overrated his son's abilities, for he considered them greater than his 
own ; but there is the best evidence that Hichard Burke had not only a heart full 
of tenderness and generosity, but a finely-balanced mind, much knowledge, great 
firmness and decision, united to strict integrity and high moral principle. Without 
his father's suspecting it, his constitution had given way before his appointment to 
Ireland. He w-as sinking into consumption, and his physicians detained him from 
his post ; not daring, however, to apprise Mr. Burke of the danger, for they knew 
that, like the patriarch of old, " his life was bound up in the lad's life," and were 
convinced that a knowledge of the truth would prove fatal to him sooner than to his 
son. He was, therefore, kept in ignorance until a week before the closing scene, and 
from that time until all was over, " he slept not, he scarcely tasted food, or ceased 
from the most affecting lamentations." The last moments of young Burke present 
one of those striking cases in which nature seems to rally all her powers at the ap- 
proach of dissolution, as the taper often burns brightest in the act of going out. His 



EDMUiND BURKE. 235 

parents were waiting his departure in an adjoining room (for they were unable to 
bear the sight), when he rose from his bed, dressed himself completely, and leaning 
on his nurse, entered the apartment where they were sitting. " Speak to me, my 
dear father," said he, as he saw them bowed to the earth under the poignancy of 
their grief "I am in no terror ; I feel myself better and in spirits ; yet my heart 
flutters, I know not why ! Pray talk to me — of religion — of morality — of indifferent 
subjects." Then turning, he exclaimed, "What noise is that? Does it rain? Oh 
no, it is the rusthng of the wind in the trees ;" and broke out at once, with a clear, 
sweet voice, in that beautiful passage (the favorite lines of his father) from the Morn- 
ing Hymn in Milton : 

His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow, 
Breathe soft or loud ; and wave your tops, ye pines, 
With every plant in sign of worship wave ! 

He began again, and again repeated them with the same tenderness and fervor, 
bowing his head as in the act of worship, and then " sunk into the arms of his par- 
ents as in a profound and sweet sleep." It would be too painful to dwell on the 
scenes that followed, until the father laid all that remained to hi%i, of his child beneath 
the Beaconsfield church, adjoining his estate. From that hour he never looked, if 
he could avoid it, toward that church I Eighteen months after, when he had some- 
what recovered his composure, he thus adverted to his loss in his celebrated "Letter 
to a Noble Lord :" " The storm has gone over me, and I lie like one of those old oaks 
which the late hurricane has scattered around me. I am stripped of all my honors ; 
I am torn up by the roots, and lie prostrate on the earth I There, and prostrate 
there, I most unfeignedly recognize the divine justice, and in some degree submit to 
it." " / am alone ! I have none to 7neet my e7iemies in the gate .'" 

The " Letter" referred to was called forth by an ungenerous attack from the Duke 
of Bedford, a young man who had just entered upon life. At the age of sixty-five, 
after devoting more than thirty years to the service of his country, Mr. Burke found 
himself oppressed with debts, arising chiefly from his kindness and liberality to indi- 
gent men of genius who sought his aid. This fact being known, a pension of £3600 
a year was granted him in October, 1795, by the express order of the King, without 
the slightest solicitation of Mr. Burke or his friends. The Duke of Bedford, who had 
become infected with French principles in politics and religion, made a very offens- 
ive allusion to this grant in a debate soon after, and has immortalized his name (the 
only way he could ever have done it) by the castigation which he thus provoked. 
Of this "Letter" Mr. Mathias says, in his "Pursuits of Literature," "I perceive in 
it genius, ability, dignity, imagination ; sights more than youthful poets when they 
dreamed ; and sometimes the philosophy of Plato and the wit of Lucan." 

Within less than a year, Mr. Burke commenced his last work, being " Thoughts 
on the Prospect of a Regicide Peace," which came out in three successive letters in 
1796-7. His object was to animate his countrymen to a zealous prosecution of the 
contest Avith France, and he now brought out with astonishing ingenuity and elo- 
quence those extreme principles respecting a war with the French Republic which 
constituted the chief error of his life. In his "Reflections" he dwelt mainly on the 
rashness of the French in their experiments upon government, as a warning to his 
own countrymen against repeating the error. He now took the ground of shutting 
France out from the society of nations ! " This pretended republic is founded in 
crimes, and exists by wrong and robbery ; and wrong and robbery, far from giving a 
title to any thing, is a war with mankind." War, therefore, to the utmost and to 
the end, was the only measure to be pursued with the French Republic ! " To be 
at peace with robbery," said he, " is to be an accomplice with it !" It seems won- 
derful how a man like Burke could have fallen into this confusion of ideas between 



236 EDMUND BURKE. 

the crimes of individuals against the community in which they live, and the acts of 
an organized government, hoM^ever wrongly constituted, and however cruel or op- 
pressive in the treatment of those within its borders. If the Republic robbed England 
or her subjects, there was just ground of war. But if the internal policy of a gov- 
ernment — its crimes (however great) against those who live under it — can justify an 
attack from surrounding nations, what government in Europe could escape ? or what 
would Europe itself be but a field of blood ? The principle of Mr. Burke was that 
on which Austria and Prussia sent the Duke of Brunswick, in 1792, to invade France. 
And what was the consequence ? Prostrate as she was — broken down so completely 
in her military spirit and resources, that Mr. Burke seemed justified in his famous 
sarcasm, " Gallos quoque in bellis floruisse audivimus," we have heard that the 
French were once distinguished in war — France, in a little more than a month, 
chased every foreign soldier from her borders ; the Republican leaders learned the 
art of composing every dissension by turning the passions of the people into a rage 
for foreign conquest, until seven hundred and fifty thousand men stood ready to carry 
their principles throughout Europe by fire and sword ; and, what was worse than 
all, the sympathy of the friends of freedom in every country on the Continent was 
turned against their own governments, and given for a time with the warmest zeal 
and confidence to this republic of blood. Still, Mr. Burke adhered to his principle. 
His only inference from the disasters of the allies was, that they had used means 
which were shamefully inadequate to the occasion ; that all they had done or at- 
tempted was only like " pelting a volcano with pebble stones ;" and that the whole 
of Europe ought to combine in one grand confederacy to " let loose the ministers of 
vengeance in famine, fever, plagues, and death upon a guilty race, to whose frame, 
and to all whose habit, order, peace, rehgion, and virtue were ahen and abhorrent." 

It is remarkable that this was the only subject on which Mr. Burke was ever be- 
trayed into extreme opinions. Though many have thought otherwise from looking 
exclusively at this period of his life, his whole history shows that he was pre-emi- 
nently a man of cautious and moderate views. Lord Brougham has truly said, "It 
would be difl[icult to find any statesman of any age whose opinions were more ha- 
bitually marked by moderation ; by a constant regard to the dictates of an enlarged 
reason ; by a fixed determination to be practical at the time he was giving scope to 
the most extensive general views ; by a cautious and prudent abstinence from all 
extremes. He brought this spirit of moderation into public affairs with him ; and 
if we except the very end of his life, when he had ceased to live much in public, it 
stuck by him to the last." And why did it now desert him ? Because, apparently, 
the dangers of the French Revolution, magnified by his powerful imagination, turned 
his caution into terror ; and all experience shows that nothing is so rash, so head- 
long, so cruel even, as extreme terror when it takes full possession of a vigorous and 
determined intellect. Even our virtues in such cases go to swell our excesses ; and 
we thus see how a man of Mr. Burke's justice, humanity, and love of genuine freedom, 
could become the advocate of war upon principles which would make it eternal, and 
be led to justify that doctrine of intervention, which absolute governments have ever 
since been using to arrest the progress of liberal institutions in the world. 

Before he had finished his " Regicide Peace," Mr. Burke found his health rapidly 
declining, and in February, 1797, he removed to Bath to try the effect of its waters. 
But his constitution was gone ; and after remaining there three months, confined 
almost entirely to his bed, he made a last effort to return to Beaconsfield, that his 
bones might there rest with those of his son. " It will be so far, at least," said he, 
"on my way to the tomb, and I may as well travel it alive as dead !" During the 
short period that remained to him of life, he gave directions with the utmost calm- 
ness about the disposal of his papers ; he bore his sufferings with placid resignation, 



EDMUND BURKE. 237 

hoping for divine mercy through the intercession of the E.edeemer, which, in his own 
words, he " had long sought with unfeigned humiliation, and to which he looked 
Avith trembling hope." He died on the 9th of July, 1797, in the sixty-eighth year 
of his age, and was interred, according to his own directions, in the same grave with 
his son. It was the wish of his friends, and even proposed by Mr. Fox in the House 
of Commons, that he should be buried in Westminster Abbey, but the plan was aban- 
doned when the provisions of his will were made known. 

Pains have been taken in this memoir to bring out the most striking qualities of 
Mr. Burke's mind in connection with the principal events of his life, and thus to 
avoid the necessity of an extended summation at the close. He was what the Ger- 
mans would call a " many-sided man," so that any general analysis of his character 
must of necessity be imperfect. We can form a correct estimate of most orators from 
three or four of their best speeches, but fully to know Mr. Burke one must take into 
view all that he ever spoke, all that he ever wrote. 

As an orator he derived little or no advantage from his personal qualifications. 
He was tall, but not robust ; his gait and gesture were awkward ; his countenance, 
though intellectual, was destitute of softness, and rarely relaxed into a smile ; and as 
he always wore spectacles, his eye gave him no command over an audience. " His 
enunciation," says Wraxall, "was vehement and rapid ; and his Irish accent, which 
was as strong as if he had never quitted the banks of the Shannon, diminished to the 
ear the effect of his eloquence on the mind." 

The variety and extent of his powers in debate was greater than that of any other 
orator in ancient or modern times. No one ever poured forth such a flood of thought 
— so many original combinations of inventive genius ; so much knowledge of man 
and the working of political systems ; so many just remarks on the relation of gov- 
ernment to the manners, the spirit, and even the prejudices of a people ; so many 
wise maxims as to a change in constitutions and laws ; so many beautiful effusions 
of lofty and generous sentiment ; such exuberant stores of illustration, ornament, and 
apt allusion ; all intermingled with the liveliest sallies of wit or the boldest flights of 
a sublime imagination. In actual debate, as a contemporary informs us, he passed 
more rapidly from one exercise of his powers to another, than in his printed produc- 
tions. During the same evening, sometimes in the space of a few moments, he would 
be pathetic and humorous, acrimonious and conciliating, now giving vent to his in- 
dignant feelings in lofty declamation, and again, almost in the same breath, convuls- 
ing his audience by the most laughable exhibitions of ridicule or burlesque. In respect 
to the versatility of Mr. Burke as an orator. Dr. Parr says, " Who among men of el- 
oquence and learning was ever more profoundly versed in every branch of science ? 
Who is there that can transfer so happily the results of laborious research to the 
most familiar and popular topics ? AYho is there that possesses so extensive yet so 
accurate an acquaintance with every transaction recent or remote ? Who is there 
that can deviate from his subject for the purposes of delight with such engaging ease, 
and insensibly conduct his hearers or readers from the severity of reasoning to the 
festivity of wit ? Who is there that can melt them, if the occasion requires, with 
such resistless power to grief or pity ? Who is there that combines the charm of in- 

Ckable grace and urbanity with such magnificent and boundless expansion?" 
A prominent feature in the character of Mr. Burke, which prepared him for this 
de exercise of his powers, was intellectual independence. He leaned on no other 
man's understanding, however greatT'^^'In'Tlie true^nse^f the term, he never bor- 
rowed an idea or an image. Like food in a healthy system, every thing from with- 
out was perfectly assimilated ; it entered by a new combination into the very struc- 
ture of his thoughts, as when the blood, freshly formed, goes out to the extremities 
under the strong pulsations of the heart. On most subjects, at the present day, this 



238 EDMUND BURKE. 

is all we can expect o^ originality ; the thoughts and feelings which a man expresses 
must be truly his oivn.^ 

In the structure of nis mind he had a strong resemblance to Bacon, nor Avas he 
greatly his inferior in the leading attributes of his intellect. In imagination he went 
far beyond him. He united more perfectly than any other man the discordant qual- 
ities of the philosopher and the poet, and this union was equally the source of some 
of his greatest excellencies and faults as an orator. 

The first thing that strikes us in a survey of his understanding is its remarkable 
comprehensiveness. He had an amplitude of mind, a power and compass of intel- 
lectual vision, beyond that of most men that ever lived. He looked on a subject like 
a man standing upon an eminence, taking a large and rounded view of it on every 
side, contemplating each of its parts under a vast variety of relations, and those re- 
lations often extremely complex or remote. To this wide grasp of original thought 
he added every variety of information gathered from abroad. There was no subject 
on which he had not read, no system relating to the interests of man as a social 
being which he had not thoroughly explored. All these treasures of acquired knowl- 
edge he brought home to amplify and adorn the products of his own genius, as the 
ancient Romans collected every thing that was beautiful in the spoils of conquered 
nations, to give new splendor to the seat of empire. 

To this largeness of view he added a surprising subtlety of intellect. So quick 
and delicate were his perceptions that he saw his way clearly through the most 
complicated relations, following out the finest thread of thought without once letting 
go his hold, or becoming lost or perplexed in the intricacies of the subject. This 
subtlety, however, did not usually take the form of mere logical acuteness in the 
detection of fallacies. He was not remarkable for his dexterity as a disputant. He 
loved rather to build up than to pull down ; he dwelt not so much on the differences 
of things, as on some hidden agreement between them when apparently most dis- 
similar. The association of resemblance was one of the most active principles of his 
nature. While it filled his mind with all the imagery of the poet, it gave an im- 
pulse and direction to his researches as a philosopher. It led him, as his favorite 
employment, to trace out analogies, correspondencies, or contrasts (which last, as 
Brown remarks, are the necessary result of a quick sense of resemblance) ; thus 
filling up his originally comprehensive mind with a beautiful series of associated 
thoughts, showing often the identity of things which appeared the most unlike, and 
binding together in one system what might seem the most unconnected or contra- 
dictory phenomena. To this he added another principle of association, still more 
characteristic of the philosopher, that oi cause and effect. "Why?" "Whence?" 
'• By what means ?" "For what end ?" " With what results ?" these questions from 
childhood were continually pressing upon his mind. To answer them in respect to 
man in all his multiplied relations as the creature of society, to trace out the work- 
ing of political institutions, to establish the principles of wise legislation, to lay open 
the sources of national security and advancement, was the great object of his life ; 
and he here found the widest scope for that extraordinary subtlety of intellect of 
which we are now speaking. In the two principles just mxcntioned, we see the ori- 
gin of Mr. Burke's inexhaustible richness of invention. We see, also, how it was that 
in his mode of viewing a subject there was never any thing ordinary or common- 
place. If the topic was a trite one, the manner of presenting it was peculiarly his 
own. As in the kaleidoscope, the same object takes a thousand new shapes and col- 
ors under a change of light, so in his mind the most hackneyed theme was trans- 
formed and illuminated by the radiance of his genius, or placed in new relations 
which gave it all the freshness of original thought. 

This amplitude and subtlety of intellect, in connection with his peculiar habits of 



EDMUND BURKE. 239 

association, prepared the way for another oharacteristic of Mr. Burke, his remarkable 
poiver of generalization. Without this he might have been one of the greatest of 
poets, but not a philosopher or a scientific statesman. " To generalize," says Sir 
James Mackintosh, " is to philosophize ; and comprehension of mind, joined to the 
habit of careful and patient observation, forms the true genius of philosophy." But 
it was not in his case a mere " habit," it was a kind of instinct of his nature, which 
led him to gather all the results of his thinking, as by an elective affinity, around 
their appropriate centers ; and, knowing that truths are valuable just in proportion 
as they have a wider reach, to rise from particulars to generals, and so to shape his 
statements as to give them the weight and authority of universal propositions. His 
philosophy, however, was not that of abstract truth ; it was confined to things in the 
concrete, and chiefly to man, society, and government. He was no metaphysician ; 
he had, in fact, a dislike, amounting to weakness, of all abstract reasonings in poli- 
tics, affirming, on one occasion, as to certain statements touching the rights of man, 
that just " in proportion as they were metaphysically true, they were morally and 
politically false I" He was, as he himself said, " a philosopher in action f' his gen- 
eralizations embraced the great facts of human society and political institutions as 
aflected by all the interests and passions, the prejudices and frailties of a being like 
man. The impression he made was owing, in a great degree, to the remoteness of 
the ideas which he brought together, the startling novelty and yet justness of his 
combinations, the heightening power of contrast, and the striking manner in which he 
connected truths of imperishable value with the individual case before him. It is here 
that we find the true character and office of Mr. Burke. He was the man of prin- 
ciples ; one of the greatest teachers of" civil prudence" that the world has ever seen. 
A collection of maxims might be made from his writings infinitely superior to those 
of Rochefoucauld ; equally true to nature, and adapted, at the same time, not to pro- 
duce selfishness and distrust, but to call into action all that is generous, and noble, 
and elevated in the heart of man. His high moral sentiment and strong sense of 
religion added greatly to the force of these maxims; and, as a result of these fine 
generalizations, Mr. Burke has this peculiarity, which distinguishes him from every 
other writer, that he is almost equally instructive whether he is right or wrong as to 
the particular point in debate. He may fail to make out his case ; opposing consid- 
erations may induce us to decide against him ; and yet every argument he uses is 
full of instruction : it contains great truths, which, if they do not turn the scale here, 
may do it elsewhere ; so that he whose mind is filled with the maxims of Burke has 
within him not only one of the finest incentives of genius, but a fountain of the rich- 
est thought, which may flow forth through a thousand channels in all the efforts of 
his own intellect, to whatever subject those effbrts may be directed. 

"With these qualities and habits of mind, the oratory of Mr. Burke Avas of necessity 
didactic. His speeches were lectures, and, though often impassioned, enlivened at 
one time with wit, and rising at another into sublimity or pathos, they usually be- 
came wearisome to the House from their minuteness and subtlety, as 

" He went on refining, 
And thought of convincing while they thought of dining." 

We see, then, in the philosophical habits of his mind (admirable as the results were 
in most respects), why he spoke so often to empty benches, while Fox, by seizing on 
the strong points of the case, by throwing away intermediate thoughts, and striking 
at the heart of the subject, never failed to carry the House with him in breathless 
attention. 

His metJwd was admirable, in respect at least to his published speeches. No 
man ever bestowed more care on the arrangement of his thoughts. The exceptions 
to this remark are apparent, not real. There is now and then a slight irregularity 



240 EDMUND BURKE. 

in his mode of transition, which seems purposely thrown in to avoid an air of same- 
ness ; and the subordinate heads sometimes spread out so widely, that their connec- 
tion with the main topic is not always obvious. But there is reigning throughout 
the whole a massive unity of design like that of a great cathedral, whatever may be 
the intricacy of its details. 

In his rcasoiiings (for he was one of the greatest masters of reason in our language, 
though some have strangely thought him deficient in this respect) Mr. Burke did not 
usually adopt the outward forms of logic. He has left us, indeed, some beautiful spec- 
imens of dialectical abihty, but his arguments, in most instances, consisted of the am- 
plest enumeration and the clearest display of all the facts and principles, the analogies, 
relations, or tendencies which were applicable to the case, and were adapted to settle 
it on the immutable basis of the nature and constitution of things. Here again he 
appeared, of necessity, more as a teacher than a logician, and hence many were led 
to underrate his argumentative powers. The exuberance of his fancy was likewise 
prejudicial to him in this respect. ^TMen are apt to doubt the solidity of a structure 
which is covered ail -over with flowers. > As to this pecuharity of his eloquence, Mr. 
Fox truly said, "It injures his reputation ; it casts a vail over his wisdom. Reduce 
his language, withdraw his images, and you will find that he is more wise than elo- 
quent ; you will have your full weight of metal though you melt down the chasing." 

In respect to Mr. Burke's imagery, however, it may be proper to remark, that a 
large part of it is not liable to any censure of this kind ; many of his figures are so 
finely wrought into the texture of his style, that w^ hardly think of them as figures 
at all. His great fault in other cases is that of giving them too bold a relief, or 
dwelling on them too long, so that the primary idea is lost sight of in the image. 
Sometimes the prurience of his fancy makes him low and even filthy. He is like 
a man depicting the scenes of nature, who is not content to give us those features 
of the landscape that delight the eye, but fills out his canvas with objects which are 
coarse, disgusting, or noisome. Hence no writer in any language has such extremes 
of imagery as Mr. Burke, from his picture of the dueen of France, " glittering hke 
the morning star, full of life, and splendor, and joy," or of friendship, as " the soft green 
of the soul, on which the eye loves to repose," to Lord Chatham's administration 
"pigging together in the same truckle-bed," and Mr. Dundas, with his East India 
bills, " exposed like the imperial sow of augury, lying in the mud with the prodigies 
of her fertility about her, as evidences of her delicate amours." 

His language, though copious, was not verbose. Every word had its peculiar force 
and application. His chief fault was that of overloading his sentences with second- 
ary thoughts, which weakened the blow by dividing it. His style is, at times, more 
careless and inaccurate than might be expected in so great a writer. But his mind 
was on higher things. His idea of a truly fine sentence, as once stated to a friend, 
is worthy of being remembered. It consists, said he, in a union of thought, feeling, 
and imagery — of a striking truth and a corresponding sentiment, rendered doubly 
striking by the force and beauty of figurative language. There are more sentences 
of this kind in the pages of Mr. Burke than of any other writer. 

In conclusion, we may say, without paradox, since oratory is only one branch of 
the quality we are now considering, that while Mr. Burke was inferior as an orator 
to Lord Chatham and Mr. Fox, he has been surpassed by no one in the richness and 
splendor of his eloquence ; and that he has left us something greater and better than 
aU eloquence in his countless lessons of moral and civil wisdom. 



SPEECH 

OF MR. BURKE ON AMERICAN TAXATION, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, APRIL 9, 1774. 

INTRODUCTION. 

The measures of the different British ministers respecting American taxation, from the passing of the 
Stamp Act in 1765 to the repeal of all taxes except that on tea in 1770, have been detailed already, in con- 
nection with the speeches of Lord Chatham. Lord North's policy in respect to America was arbitrary and 
fluctuating. It was well described by a contemporary writer as " a heterogeneous mixture of concession 
and coercion ; of concession not tending to conciliate, and of coercion that could not be earned into exe- 
cution — at once exciting hatred for the intention and contempt for the weakness." After the destraction 
of the tea in the harbor of Boston, violent measures prevailed. In March, 1774, laws were passed depriv- 
ing Massachusetts of her charter, and closing the port of Boston against all commerce. Some, however, 
who had supported Lord North in these measures, thought they should be accompanied by an act indica- 
tive of a desire to conciliate. Accordingly, Mr. Rose Fuller, of Rye, who usually voted with the ministry, 
moved on the 19th of April, 1774, "that the House resolve itself into a committee of the whole House, to 
take into consideration the duty of threepence per pound on tea, payable in all his Majesty's dominions 
in America," with a view to repealing the same. Mr. Burke seconded the proposal, and sustained it in the 
following speech. The unfavoi-able circumstances under which he commenced, and the complete mastery 
which he soon gained over his audience, have been already described. The applause so lavishly be- 
stowed upon this speech was richly merited. No one had ever been delivered in the Parliament of Great 
Britain so full at once of deep research, cogent reasoning, cutting sarcasm, graphic description, profound 
political wisdom, and fervid declamation. Lord Chatham alone had surpassed it in glowing and impas- 
sioned eloquence. 

In discussing the subject, Mr. Burke confined himself to the single question, " Ought the tax on tea to be 
abandoned, and with it the entire scheme of raising a parliamentary' revenue out of the colonies?" The 
measure had been popular throughout all England, except in a few commercial cities ; and, whether wisely 
adopted or not, there were strong objections to an abandonment of the system while America remained in 
the attitude of open resistance. Instead of reserving these objections to be answered in form at the close 
of the main argument, Mr. Burke disposes of them at once in a preliminary head, under what he calls " the 
narrow" view of the subject; i. e , the mere question oi repeal. Here he obviates the dilBculties referred 
to; not speaking to the several points, however, under the name of objections, but rather turning the ta- 
bles on Lord North with admirable dexterity, and showing that by his previous concessions he had him- 
self opened the way for an immediate and entire repeal. Mr. Burke next enters on his main argument 
by giving a historical sketch of the colonial system of England from the passing of the Navigation Act in 
1651. He shows that this system did not originally contemplate any direct taxation of the colonies. He 
traces the steps by which the scheme of obtaining a revenue from America was introduced and modified; 
sketches the character of the men concerned ; and urges a return to the original principles of the Naviga- 
tion Act, as the only means of restoring peace to the empire. 

It would be difiicult to find any oration, ancient or modern, in which the matter is more admirably ar- 
ranged. The several parts support each other, and the whole forms a complete system of thought. The 
sketches of Mr. Grenville, Mr. Townsend, Lord Chatham, and his administration, are not strictly excres- 
cences, though it would be unsafe for any man less gifted than Mr. Burke to arrest the progress of the dis- 
cussion, and conduct the audience through such a picture-gallery of statesmen. They do, in one sense, 
form a part of the argument; for it was the character of the men that decided the character of the meas- 
ures, and showed how England had been led to adopt a system which ought forever to be abandoned. 
Even the glowing picture of General Conway's reception by "the trading interest," as they "jumped 
upon him like children on a long-absent father," and " clung upon him as captives about their redeemer," 
when he carried through the repeal of the Stamp Act, adds force to the argument, for it shows how Amer- 
ican taxation was regarded by those who were best infonned on the subject. 

The language of this speech is racy and pungent. It is nowhere so polished or rounded off as to lose its 
sharpness. The folly of American taxation is exposed in the keenest tenns, from the opening paragraph, 
where the House is spoken of as having, "for nine long years," been "lashed round and round this mis- 
erable circle of occasional arguments and temporary expedients," to the closing sentence, in which Mr. 
Burke tells the ministry, "Until you come back to that system [the system of the Navigation Act], there 
will be no peace for England." * 

Q 



242 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1774. 



SPEECH, &c. 



Sir, — I agree with the honorable gentleman^ 
who spoke last, that this subject is not new in 
this House. Very disagreeably to this House, 
very unfortunatel}'^ to this nation, and to the 
peace and prosperity of this whole empire, no 
topic has been more familiar to us. For nine 
long years, session after session, we have been 
lashed round and round this miserable circle of 
occasional arguments and temporary expedients. 
I am sure our heads must turn, and our stomachs 
nauseate with them. We have had them in ev- 
ery shape ; we have looked at them in every 
point of view. Invention is exhausted ; reason 
is fatigued ; experience has given judgment ; but 
obstinacy is not yet conquered. 

The honorable gentleman has made one en- 
deavor more to diversify the form of this disgust- 
ing argument. He has thrown out a speech com- 
posed almost entirely of challenges. Challenges 
are serious things ; and, as he is a man of pru- 
dence as well as resolution, I dare say he has 
very well weighed those challenges before he 
delivered them. I had long the happiness to sit 
at the same side of the House, and to agree with 
the honorable gentleman on all the American 
questions. My sentiments, I am sure, are well 
known to him ; and I thought I had been per- 
fectly acquainted with his. Though I find my- 
self mistaken, he w^ill still permit me to use the 
privilege of an old friendship ; he will permit me 
to apply myself to the House under the sanction 
of his authority ; and on the various grounds he 
has measured out, to submit to you the poor opin- 
ions which I have formed upon a matter of im- 
portance enough to demand the fullest consider- 
ation I could bestow upon it. 

He has stated to the House two grounds of 
Two modes deliberation, one narrow and simple, 
of discussion, g^nd merely confined to the question on 
your paper; the other more large and compli- 
cated ; comprehending the whole series of the 
parliamentary proceedings with regard to Amer- 
ica, their causes, and their consequences. With 
regard to the latter ground, he states it as use- 
less, and thinks it may be even dangerous to en- 
ter into so extensive a field of inquiry. Yet, to my 
surprise, he has hardly laid down this restrictive 
proposition, to which bis authority would have 
given so much weight, when directly, and with 
the same authority, he condemns it, and declares 
it absolutely necessary to enter into the most am- 
ple historical detail. His zeal has thrown him a 
little out of his usual accuracy. In this perplex- 
ity, what shall we do, sir, who are willing to sub- 
mit to the law he gives us ? He has reprobated 
in one part of his speech the rule he had laid 
down for debate in the other ; and, after narrow- 
ing the ground for all those who are to speak 
after him, he takes an excursion himself, as un- 



1 Chas. Wolfran Cornwall, Esq., one of the Lords 
of the Treasury, and afterward Speaker of the House 
of Commons. 



bounded as the subject and the extent of his great 
abilities. 

Sir, when I can not obey all his laws, I will do 
the best I can. I will endeavor to obey 
such of them as have the sanction of his view the 
example; and to stick to that rule, p'°p"°°^- 
which, though not consistent with the other, is 
the most rational. He was certainly in the 
right when he took the matter largely. I can 
not prevail on myself to agree with him in his 
censure of his ow^n conduct. It is not, he will 
give me leave to say, either useless or danger- 
ous. He asserts that retrospect is not wnse ; 
and the proper, the only proper subject of in- 
quiry is, " not how we got into this difficulty, 
but how we are to get out of it." In other 
words, we are, according to him, to consult our 
invention and to reject our experience. The 
mode of deliberation he recommends is diametri- 
cally opposite to every rule of reason, and every 
principle of good sense established among man- 
kind ; for that sense and that reason I have al- 
ways understood absolutely to prescribe, when- 
ever we are involved in difficulties from the 
measures we have pursued, that we should take 
a strict review of those measures, in order to cor- 
rect our errors, if they should be corrigible ; or 
at least to avoid a dull uniformity in mischief, 
and the unpitied calamity of being repeatedly 
caught in the same snare. 

Sir, I wull freely follow the honorable gentle- 
man in his historical discussion, without the least 
management for men or measures, farther than 
as they shall seem to me to deserve it. But be- 
fore I go into that large consideration, because 
I would omit nothing that can give the House 
satisfaction, I wish to tread, 

I. The NARROW GROUND, to which alone the 
honorable gentleman, in one part of his objections to 
speech, has so strictly confined us. "'® '"'^p''^- 

(1.) He desires to know w^hether, if we were 
to repeal this tax agreeably to the ^;„ ^^^ ^^^^ 
proposition of the honorable gentle- Americans de- 
man who made the motion, the Amer- " "^°^^' 
icans would not take post on this concession, in 
order to make a new attack on the next body of 
taxes ; and whether they w^ould not call for a re 
peal of the duty on wnnc as loudly as they do 
now for the repeal of the duty on tea ? Sir, I 
can give no security on this subject. But I will 
do all that I can, and all that can be fairly de- 
manded. To the experience which the honora- 
ble gentleman reprobates in one instant and re 
verts to in the next ; to that experience, w^ithout 
the least wavering or hesitation on my part, I 
steadily appeal ; and would to God there was no 
other arbiter to decide on the vote with wiiich 
the House is to conclude this day ! 

When Parliament repealed the Stamp Act in 
the year 1766, I affirm, first, that the Americans 
did not, in consequence of this measure, call upon 
you to give up the former parliamentary revenue 
which .subsisted in that country, or even any one 



1774.] 



AMERICAN TAXATION. 



243 



of the articles which compose it.^ I affirm, also, 
that when, departing from the maxims of that re- 
peal, you revived the scheme of taxation, and 
thereby filled the mind.s of the colonists with new 
jealousy, and all sorts of apprehension, then it was 
that they quarreled with the old taxes as well as 
the new ; then it was, and not till then, that they 
questioned all the parts of your legislative power ; 
and by the battery of such questions have shaken 
the solid structure of this empire to its deepest 
foundations. 

Of those two propositions I shall, before I have 
done, give such convincing, such damning proof, 
that, however the contrary may be whispered in 
circles, or bawled in newspapers, they never more 
will dare to raise their voices in this House. I 
speak with great confidence. I have reason for 
it. The ministers are with me. They^ at least, 
are convinced that the repeal of the Stamp Act 
had not, and that no repeal can have, the conse- 
quences which the honorable gentleman who de- 
, fends their measures is so much alai-med at. To 
their conduct I refer him for a conclusive answer 
to his objection. I carry my proof irresistibly 
into the very body of both ministry and Parlia- 
ment ; not on any general reasoning growing 
out of collateral matter, but on the conduct of 
the honorable gentleman's ministerial friends on 
the new revenue itself. 

The act of 1767, which grants this tea duty, 
sets forth in its pi-eamble that it was expedient 
to raise a revenue in America for the support of 
the civil government there, as well as for pur- 
poses still more extensive. To this support the 
act assigns six branches of duties. About two 
years after this act passed, the ministry — I mean 
the present ministry — thought it expedient to re- 
peal five of the duties, and to leave, for reasons 
best knowa to themselves, only the sixth stand- 
ing. Suppose any person, at the time of that 
repeal, had thus addressed the minister :^ " Con- 
demning, as you do, the repeal of the Stamp Act, 
why do you venture to repeal the duties upon 
glass, paper, and painters' colors ? Let your 
pretense for the repeal be what it will, are you 
not thoroughly convinced that your concessions 
will produce, not satisfaction, but insolence, in 
the Americans ; and that the giving up these 
taxes will necessitate the giving up of all the 
rest?" This objection was as palpable then as 
it is now ; and it was as good for preserving the 
five duties as for retaining the sixth. Besides, 
the minister will recollect, that the repeal of the 
Stamp Act had but just preceded his repeal ; and 
the ill policy of that measure (had it been so im- 
politic as it has been represented), and the mis- 
chiefs it produced, w^ere quite recent. Upon the 
principles, therefore, of the honorable gentleman, 
upon the principles of the minister himself, the 
minister has nothing at all to answer. He stands 

2 There is reason to believe that the colonies 
would not have made any opposition to duties im- 
posed for the mere regulation of trade. 

3 Lord North, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
was minister at the time of this repeal, March 5th, 
1770. 



condemned by himself, and by all his as.sociates, 
old and new, as a destroyer, in the first trust of 
finance, in the revenues ; and in the first rank of 
honor, as a betrayer of the dignity of his country. 

Most men, especially great men, do not always 
know their well-wishers. I come to rescue that 
noble Lord out of the hands of those he calls his 
friends, and even out of his own. I will do him 
the justice he is denied at home. He has not 
been this wicked or imprudent man. He knew 
that a repeal had no tendency to produce the mis- 
chiefs which give so much alarm to his honora- 
ble friend. His work was not bad in its princi- 
ple, but imperfect in its execution ; and the mo- 
tion on your paper presses him only to complete 
a proper plan, which, by some unfortunate and 
unaccountable error, he had left unfinished. 

I hope, sir, the honorable gentleman who spoke 
last is thoroughly satisfied, and satisfied out of the 
proceedings of the ministry on their own favorite 
act, that his fears from a repeal are groundless. 
If he is not, I leave him, and the noble Lord who 
sits by him, to settle the matter, as well as they 
can, together ; for if the repeal of American taxes 
destroys all our government in America — he is 
the man ! — and he is the worst of all the repeal- 
ers, because he is the last.^ 

(2.) But I hear it continually rung in my cars, 
now and formerly, " the preamble ! „. „ 

•11 1 r ^ 1 1 •(. ^^i"consi8t- 

what will become of the preamble, if enry permit 
you repeal this tax?" I am sorry to ^""^^^^ ' 
be compelled so often to expose the calamities 
and disgraces of Parliament. The preamble of 
this law, standing as it now" stands, has the lie di- 
rect given to it by the provisionary part of the 
act; if that can be called provisionary which 
makes no provision. I should be afraid to ex- 
press myself in this manner, especially in the face 
of such a formidable array of ability as is now 
drawn up before me, composed of the ancient 
household troops of that side of the House, and 
the new recruits from this, if the matter were 
not clear and indisputable. Nothing but truth 
could give me this firmness ; but plain truth and 
clear evidence can be beat down by no ability. 
The clerk will be so good as to turn to the act, 
and to read this favorite preamble. 
[It was read in the following words : 
" Whereas it is expedient that a revenue 
should be raised in j^our Majesty's dominions in 
America, for making a more certain and adequate 
provision for defraying the charge of the admin- 
istration of justice and support of civil govern- 
ment in such provinces where it shall be found 
necessary, and toward farther defraying the ex- 
penses of defending, protecting, and securing the 
said dominions."] 

You have heard this pompous performance. 
Now where is the revenue which is to do all 
these mighty things? Five sixths repealed — 
abandoned — sunk — gone — lost forever. Does 



* The pungency of this argumeyitum ad hominem 
is increased by the ingenious turn given to it by Mr. 
Burke, that he is defending Lord North against his 
own friends and adherents. 



244 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1774 



the poor solitary tea duty support the purposes 
of this preamble ? Is not the supply there stated 
as effectually abandoned as if the tea duty had 
perished in the general wreck ? Here, Mr. 
Speaker, is a precious mockery — a preamble 
without an act — taxes granted in order to be re- 
pealed — and the reasons of the grant still care- 
fully kept up ! This is raising a revenue in 
America ! This is preserving dignity in En- 
gland ! If you repeal this tax in compliance 
with the motion, I readily admit that you lose 
this fair preamble. Estimate your loss in it. 
The object of the act is gone already ; and all 
you suffer is the purging the statute-book of the 
opprobrium of an empty, absurd, and false re- 
cital. 

It has been said again and again, that the five 
Pretense that taxcs wcrc repealed on commercial 
those taxes principles. It is so said in the paper 

were repealed ,, . 

on commercial in my hand^ — a paper which I con- 
stantly carry about, which I have oft- 
en used, and shall often use again. What is got 
by this paltry pretense of commercial principles 
I know not ; for, if your government in America 
is destroyed by the repeal of taxes, it is of no con- 
sequence upon what ideas the repeal is ground- 
ed. Repeal this tax, too, upon commercial prin- 
ciples, if you please. These principles will serve 
as well now as they did formerly. But you know 
that, either your objection to a repeal from these 
supposed consequences has no validity, or that 
this pretense never could remove it. This com- 
mercial motive never was believed by any man, 
either in America, which this letter is meant to 
soothe, or in England, which it is meant to de- 
ceive. It was impossible it should ; because ev- 
ery man, in the least acquainted with the detail 
of commerce, must know, that several of the ar- 
ticles on which the tax was repealed were fitter 
objects of duties than almost any other articles 
that could possibly be chosen ; without compari- 
son moi-e so than the tea that was left taxed, as 
infinitely less liable to be eluded by contraband. 
The tax upon red and white lead was of this na- 
ture. You have, in this kingdom, an advantage 
in lead that amounts to a monopoly. When you 
find yourself in this situation of advantage, you 
sometimes venture to tax even your own export. 
You did so, soon after the last war, when, upon 
this principle, you ventured to impose a duty on 
coals. In all the articles of American contra- 
band trade, who ever heard of the smuggling of 
red lead and white lead ? You might, there- 
fore, well enough, without danger of contraband, 
and without injury to commerce (if this were the 
whole consideration), have taxed these commodi- 
ties. The same may be said of glass. Besides, 
some of the things taxed were so trivial, that the 
loss of the objects themselves, and their utter an- 
nihilation out of American commerce, would have 
been comparatively as nothing. But is the arti- 
cle of tea such an object in the trade of England 
as not to be felt, or felt but slightly, like white 

5 Lord Hillsborough's circular letter to the gov- 
ernors of the colonies concerning the repeal of some 
of the duties laid in the act of 176" 



lead, and red lead, and painters' colors ? Tea is 
an object of far other importance. Tea is per- 
haps the most important object, taking it with its 
necessary connections, of any in the mighty cir- 
cle of our commerce. If commercial principles 
had been the true motives to the repeal, or had 
they been at all attended to, tea tvould have been 
the last article we should have left taxed for a 
subject of controversy. 

Sir, it is not a pleasant consideration ; but 
nothing in the world can read so awful and so in- 
structive a lesson, as the conduct of ministry in 
this business, upon the mischief of not having 
large and liberal ideas in the management of 
great affairs.*^ Never have the servants of the 
state looked at the whole of your complicated in- 
terests in one connected view. They have taken 
things by bits and scraps, some at one time and 
one pretense, and some at another, just as they 
pressed, without any sort of regard to their rela- 
tions or dependencies. They never had any kind 
of system, right or wrong, but only invented oc- 
casionally some miserable tale for the day, in or- 
der meanly to sneak out of difficulties into which 
they had proudly strutted. And they were put 
to all these shifts and devices, full of meanness and 
full of mischief, in order to pilfer piecemeal a re- 
peal of an act which they had not the generous 
courage, when they found and felt their error, 
honorably and fairly to disclaim. By such man- 
agement, by the irresistible operation of feeble 
counsels, so paltry a sum as threepence in the 
eyes of a financier, so insignificant an article as 
tea in the eyes of a philosopher, have shaken the 
pillars of a commercial empire that circled the 
whole globe. 

Do you forget that, in the very last year, you 
stood on the precipice of a general xue wants of 
bankruptcy ? 

deed great. You were distressed 
the affairs of the East India Company ; and you 
well know w^hat sort of things are involved in the 
comprehensive energy of that significant appella- 
tion. I am not called upon to enlarge to you on 
that danger, which you thought proper yourselves 
to aggravate, and to display to the world with 
all the parade of indiscreet declamation. The 
monopoly of the most lucrative trades and the 
possession of imperial revenues had brought you 
to the verge of beggary and ruin. Such was 
your representation — such, in some measure, 
was your case. The vent of ten millions of 
pounds of this commodity, now locked up by the 



Your danaer was in- l^^.tplny 

forbid the tax. 



6 Mr. Burke here pauses for a moment in the prog- 
ress of his argument, to give us one of those fine gen- 
eralizations with which he so often strengthens and 
dignifies his discussion of a particular point, by ris- 
ing to some broader truth with which it is connected. 
The stinging force of his imagery in some parts, and 
the beauty of it in others, are worthy of attention. 
In the next paragraph he puts the argument on a 
new ground, viz., that the wants of the East India 
Company ought to have prevented a quarrel about 
tea with the colonies, which would have furnished 
an immense market, if they had not been led to com- 
bine against the use of it by abhorrence of the tax : 
he then returns to the subject of the preamble. 



1774.] 



AMERICAN TAXATION. 



245 



operation of an injudicious tax, and i-otting in the 
warehouses of the Company, would have pre- 
vented all this distress, and all that series of des- 
perate measures which you thou^jht yourselves 
obliged to take in consequence of it. America 
would have furnished that vent, which no oth- 
er part of the world can furnish but America ; 
where tea is next to a necessary of life, and 
where the demand grows upon the supply. I 
hope our dear-bought East India committees 
have done us at least so much good as to let us 
know, that without a more extensive sale of that 
article, our East India revenues and acquisitions 
can have no certain connection with this countr}'. 
It is through the American trade of tea that your 
East India conquests are to be prevented from 
crushing you with their burden. They are 
ponderous indeed ; and they must have that 
gi'eat country to lean upon, or they tumble upon 
your head. It is the same folly that has lost you 
at once the benefit of the West and of the East. 
This folly has thrown open folding doors to con- 
traband, and will be the means of giving the prof- 
its of the trade of your colonies to every nation 
but 3'ourselves. Never did a people suffer so 
much for the empty words of a preamble. It 
must be given up. For on what principle does 
it stand ? This famous revenue stands, at this 
hour, on all the debate, as a description of rev- 
enue not as yet known in all the comprehensive, 
but too comprehensive ! vocabulary of finance — 
a preambulary tax. It is, indeed, a tax of soph- 
istry, a tax of pedantry, a tax of disputation, a 
tax of war and rebellion, a tax for any thing but 
benefit to the imposers, or satisfaction to the sub- 
ject. 

(3.) Well ! but, w^hatever it is, gentlemen will 
» ,, ,, force the colonists to take the teas. 

uuglit so small 

a tax to be com- You will forcc them ? Has seven 

plained of? , - , ^ ^ i> 

years struggle been yet able to lorce 
them ? O, but it seems we are yet in the right. 
The tax is ^''trifling — in effect, it is rather an 
exoneration than an imposition ; three fourths 
of the duty formerly payable on teas exported to 
America is taken off; the place of collection is 
only shifted ; instead of the retention of a shilling 
from the drawback here, it is threepence custom 
paid in America." All this, sir, is very true. 
But this is the very folly and mischief of the act. 
Incredible as it may seem, you know that }'ou 
have deliberately thrown away a large duty 
which you held secure and quiet in your hands, 
for the vain hope of getting one three fourths 
less, through every hazard, through certain liti- 
gation, and possibly through war. 

The manner of proceeding in the duties on 
Shown to be paper and glass imposed by the same 
TTri^factti'.^ act, was exactly in the same spirit, 
it i3 small. There are heavy excises on those ar- 
ticles when used in England. On export, these 
excises are drawn back. But instead of with- 
holding the drawback, which might have been 
done, with ease, without charge, without possi- 
bility of smuggling ; and instead of applyinof the 
money (money already in your hands) according 
to your pleasure, you began your operations in 



finance by flinging away your revenue ; you al- 
lowed the whole drawback on export, and then 
you charged the duty (which you had before dis- 
charged) payable in the colonies, where it was 
certain the collection would devour it to the 
bone, if any revenue were ever suffered to be 
collected at all. One spirit pervades and ani- 
mates the whole mass. 

Could any thing be a subject of more just 
alarm to America than to see you go out of the 
plain high road of finance, and give up your most 
certain revenues and your clearest interest mere- 
ly for the sake of insulting your colonies ? No 
man ever doubted that the commodity of tea 
could bear an imposition of threepence. But no 
commodity will bear threepence, or will bear a 
penny, when the general feelings of men are ir- 
ritated, and two millions of people are resolved 
not to pay. The feelings of the colonies were 
formerly the feelings of Great Britain. Theirs 
were formerly the feelings of Mr. Hampden when 
called upon for the payment of twenty shillings.'^ 
Would twenty shillings have ruined Mr. Hamp- 
den's fortune ? No ! but the payment of half 
twenty shillings, on the principle it was demand- 
ed, would have made him a slave. It is the 
weight of that preamble, of which you are so 
fond, and not the weight of the duty, that the 
Americans are unable and unwilling to bear. 

It is then, sir, upon the principle of this meas- 
ure, and nothing else, that we ai-e at issue. It 
is a principle of political expediency. Your act 
of 1767 asserts that it is expedient to raise a 
revenue in America; your act of 1769 [March, 
1770], which takes away that revenue, contra- 
dicts the act of 1767 ; and, by something much 
stronger than words, asserts that it is not expe- 
dient. It is a reflection upon your wisdom to 
persist in a solemn parliamentary declaration of 
the expediency of any object, for which, at the 
same time, you make no sort of provision. And 
pray, sir, let not this circumstance escape you — 
it is very material — that the preamble of this act, 
which we wish to repeal, is not declaratory of a 
right, as some gentlemen seem to argue it ; it is 
only a recital of the expediency of a certain ex- 
ercise of a right supposed already to have been 
asserted ; an exercise you are now contending 
for by ways and means, which you confess, 
though they were obeyed, to be utterly insuffi- 
cient for their purpose. You ai'e, therefore, at 
this moment in the awkward situation of fight- 
ing for a phantom — a quiddity — a thing that 
wants not only a substance, but even a name ; 
for a thing which is neither abstract right, nor 
profitable enjoyment. 

(4.) They tell you, sir, that your dignity is 



tied to it. I know not how it happens. 



Will dignity 



but this dignity of yours is a terrible pennit 
encumbrance to you, for it has of late ^^ 
been at war with your interest, your equity, and 
every idea of your policy. Show the thing you 

■' The refusal of this celebrated man to pay " ship- 
money," when illegally demanded by Charles I., is 
known to all. 



246 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1774. 



contend for to be reason ; show it to be common 
sense ; show it to be the means of attaining some 
useful end ; and then I am content to allow it 
what dignity you please. But what dignity is 
derived Irom the perseverance in absurdity, is 
more than ever I could discern. The honorable 
gentleman has said well — indeed, in most of his 
general observations I agree with him — he says, 
that this subject does not stand as it did formerly. 
Oh, certainly not ! every hour you continue on 
this ill-chosen ground, your difficulties thicken on 
you ; and, therefore, my conclusion is, remove 
from a bad position as quickly as you can. The 
disgrace, and the necessity of 3'ielding, both of 
them, grow upon you every hour of your delay. 
But will you repeal the act, says the honorable 
Dignity did gentleman, at this instant, when Amer- 
not prevent jga jg [n open rcsistancc to your au- 

tlie promise . ' . -^ . 

or a repeal in thority, and that you have just revived 
circumstan"^ your systcm of taxation ? He thinks 
^^^' he has driven us into a corner. But 

thus pent up, I am content to meet him, be- 
cause I enter the lists supported by my old au- 
thority, his new friends, the ministers themselves. 
The honorable gentleman remembers that about 
five years ago as great disturbances as the pres- 
ent prevailed in America on account of the new 
taxes. The ministers represented these disturb- 
ances as treasonable ; and this House thought 
proper, on that representation, to make a famous 
address for a revival and for a new application 
of a statute of Henry VIH. We besought the 
King, in that well-considered address, to inquire 
into treasons, and to bring the supposed traitors 
from America to Great Britain for trial .^ His 
Majesty was pleased graciously to promise a 
compliance with our request. All the attempts 
from this side of the House to resist these vio- 
lences, and to bring about a repeal, were treated 
with the utmost scorn. An apprehension of the 
very consequences now stated by the honorable 
gentleman was then given as a reason for shut- 
ting the door against all hope of such an altera- 
tion. And so strong was the spirit for support- 
ing the new taxes, that the session concluded 
with the following remarkable declaration. Aft- 
er stating the vigorous measures which had been 
pursued, the speech from the throne proceeds : 

'' You have assured me of your firm support 
m the prosecution of them. Nothing, in my 
opinion, could be more likely to enable the well- 
disposed among my subjects in that part of the 
world effectually to discourage and defeat the 
designs of the factious and seditious, than the 
hearty concurrence of every branch of the Leg- 
islature in maintaining the execution of the laws 
in every part of my dominions." 

After this, no man dreamed that a repeal un- 
der this ministry could possibly take place. The 
honorable gentleman knows as well as I that 
the idea was utterly exploded by those who sway 



8 111 February, 1769, Parliament addressed the 
King, at the suggestion of ministers, requesting liim 
to exercise the powers here mentioned, under an ob- 
solete act of the 35th of Henry VIII. 



the House. This speech was made on the 9th 
day of May, 1769. Five days after this speech, 
that is, on the 13th of the same month, the public 
circular letter, a part of which I am going to 
read to you, was written by Lord Hillsborough, 
secretary of state for the colonies. After re- 
citing the substance of the King's speech, he 
goes on thus : 

" I can take upon me to assure you, notwith- 
standing insinuations to the contrary, from men 
with factious and seditious views, that his Maj- 
esty's present administration have at no time 
entertained a design to propose to Parliament to 
lay any farther taxes upon America for the pur- 
pose of raising a revenue ; and that it is at pres- 
ent their intention to propose, the next session 
of Parliament, to take off the duties upon glass, 
paper, and colors, upon consideration of such du- 
ties having been laid contrary to the true prin- 
ciples of commerce. 

" These have always been, and still are, the 
sentiments of his Majesty's present servants, and 
by which their conduct in respect to America 
has been governed. And his Majesty relies upon 
your prudence and fidelity for such an explana- 
tion of his measures as may tend to remove the 
prejudices which have been excited by the mis- 
representations of those who are enemies to the 
peace and prosperity of Great Britain and her 
colonies, and to re-establish that mutual confi- 
dence and affection upon which the glory and 
safety of the British empire depend." 

Here, sir, is a canonical book of ministerial 
scripture ; the Genei-al Epistle to the Ameri- 
cans. What does the gentleman say to it ? 
Hei-e a repeal is promised ; promised without 
condition, and while your authority was actually 
resisted. I pass by the public promise of a peer 
relative to the repeal of taxes by this House. I 
pa.ss by the use of the King's name in a matter 
of supply — that sacred and reserved right of the 
Commons. I conceal the ridiculous figure of 
Parliament, hurling its thunders at the gigantic 
rebellion of America, and then, five days after, 
prostrate at the feet of those assemblies we af- 
fected to despise, begging them, by the inter- 
vention of our ministerial sureties, to receive our 
submission, and heartily promising amendment. 
These might have been serious matters formerly ; 
but we are grown wiser than our fathers. Pass- 
ing, therefore, from the constitutional considera- 
tion to the mere policy, does not this letter imply 
that the idea of taxing America for the purpose 
of revenue is an abominable project, when the 
ministry suppose none but factious men, and with 
seditious views, could charge them with it ? Does 
not this letter adopt and sanctify the American 
distinction of taxing for a revenue ? Does it not 
state the ministerial rejection of such principle of 
taxation, not as the occasional, but the constant 
opinion of the King's servants ? Does it not 
say — I care not how consistently — but does it 
not say that their conduct with regard to Amer- 
ica has been always governed by this policy ? It 
goes a great deal farther. These excellent and 
trusty servants of the King, justly fearful lest they 



1774.] 



AMERICAN TAXATION. 



247 



themselves should have lost all credit with the 
world, bring out the image of their gracious Sov- 
ereign from the inmost and most sacred shrine, 
and they pawn him as a security for their prom- 
ises. " His Majesty relies on your prudence and 
fidelity for such an explanation of his measures." 
These sentiments of the minister, and these meas- 
ures of his Majesty, can only relate to the princi- 
ple and practice of taxing for a revenue ; and, ac- 
cordingly. Lord Botetourt, stating it as such, did, 
with great propriety, and in the exact spirit of 
his instructions, endeavor to remove the fears of 
the Virginian assembly, lest the sentiments which 
it seems (unknown to the world) had always been 
those of the ministers, and by which their conduct 
in respect to America had been governed, should, 
by some possible revolution, favorable to wicked 
American taxers, be hereafter counteracted. He 
addresses them in this manner : 

" It may possibly be objected that, as his Maj- 
esty's present administration are not immortal, 
their successors may be inclined to attempt to 
undo what the present ministers shall have at- 
tempted to perform ; and to that objection I can 
give but this answer : that it is my firm opinion 
that the plan I have stated to you will certainly 
take place, and that it will never be departed 
from ; and so determined am I forever to abide 
by it, that I will be content to be declared infa- 
mous if I do not, to the last hour of my life, at 
all times, in all places, and upon all occasions, 
exert eveiy power with which I either am, or 
ever shall be legally invested, in order to obtain 
and maintain for the continent of America that 
satisfaction which I have been authorized to 
promise this day, by the confidential servants 
of our gracious Sovereign, who, to my certain 
knowledge, rates his honor so high, that he 
would rather part with his crown than preserve 
it by deceit.'"^ 

A glorious and true character ! which (since 
we suffer his ministers with impunity to answer 
for his ideas of taxation) we ought to make it ou| 
business to enable his Majesty to preserve in all 
its luster. Let him have character, since ours 
is no more ! Let some part of government be 
kept in respect ! 

This epistle is not the letter of Lord Hillsbor- 
ough solely, though he held the official pen. It 

9 A material point is omitted by Mr. Burke in this 
speech, viz., the manner in which the Americans re- 
ceived this royal assurance. The Assembly of Vir- 
ginia, in their address in answer to Lord Botetourt's 
speech, express themselves thus : " We will not suf- 
fer our present hopes, arising from the pleasing pros- 
pect your Lordship hath so kindly opened and dis- 
played to us, to be dashed by the bitter reflection 
that any future administration will entertain a wish 
to depart from that plan which affords the surest and 
most permanent foundation of public tranquillity and 
happiness. No, my Lord, we are sure our most gra- 
cious Sovereign, under whatever changes may hap- 
pen in his confidential servants, will remain immu- 
table in the ways of truth and justice, and that he is 
incapable of deceiving his faithful subjects; and we 
esteem your Lordship's infonnation not only as war- 
ranted, but even sanctified by the royal word." 



was the letter of the noble Lord upon the floor, 
[Lord North], and of all the King's then ministers, 
who (with, I think, the exception of two only) are 
his ministers at this hour. The very first news 
that a British Pax-liament heard of what it was to 
do with the duties which it had given and grant- 
ed to the King, was by the publication of the 
votes of American assemblies. It was in Amer- 
ica that your resolutions were predeclared. It 
was from thence that we knew to a certainty 
how much exactly, and not a scruple more or 
less, we were to repeal. We were unworthy to 
be let into the seci-et of our own conduct. The 
assemblies had confidential communications from 
his Majesty's confidential servants. We were 
nothing but instruments. Do you, after this, 
wonder that you have no weight and no respect 
in the colonies ? After this, are you surprised 
that Parliament is every day and every where 
losing (I feel it with sorrow, I utter it with re- 
luctance) that reverential affection which so en- 
dearing a name of authority ought ever to carry 
with it ; that 3-ou are obeyed solely from respect 
to the bayonet ; and that this House, the ground 
and pillar of freedom, is itself held up only by 
the treachei'ous under-pinning and clumsy but- 
tresses of arbitrary power ? 

If this dignity, which is to stand in the place 
of just policy and common sense, had been con- 
sulted, there was a time for preserving it, and for 
reconciling it with any concession. If, in the ses- 
sion of 1768, that session of idle terror and empty 
menaces, you had, as you were often pressed to 
do, repealed those taxes, then your strong oper- 
ations would have come justified and enforced, 
in case your concessions had been returned by 
outrages. But, preposterously, you began with 
violence ; and before terrors could have any ef- 
fect, either good or bad, your ministers immedi- 
ately begged pardon, and promised that repeal 
to the obstinate Americans which they had re- 
fused in an easy, good-natured, complying Brit- 
ish Parliament. The assemblies, which had been 
publicly and avowedly dissolved for their contu- 
macy, are called together to receive your sub- 
mission. Your ministerial directors blustered 
like tragic tyrants here ; and then went mump- 
ing with a sore leg in America, canting, and 
whining, and complaining of faction, which rep- 
resented them as friends to a revenue from the 
colonies. I hope nobody in this House will here- 
after have the impudence to defend American 
taxes in the name of ministr3\ The moment 
they do, with this letter of attorney in my hand, 
I will tell them, in the authorized terms, they 
are wretches, " with factious and seditious 
views; enemies to the peace and prosperity of 
the mother country and the colonies," and sub- 
verters " of the mutual affection and confidence 
on which the glory and safety of the British em- 
pire depend." 

After this letter, the question is no more on 
propriety or dignity. They are gone already. 
The faith of your sovereign is pledged for the 
political principle. The general declaration in 
the letter goes to the whole of it. You must 



248 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1774. 



therefore either abandon the scheme of taxing, 
or you must send the ministers tarred and feath- 
ered to America, who dared to hold out the royal 
faith for a renunciation of all taxes for revenue. 
Them you must punish, or this faith you must 
preserve. The preservation of this faith is of 
more consequence than the duties on red lead, 
or white lead, or on broken glass, or atlas-ordi- 
nary, or demy-fine, or blue royal, or bastard, or 
fool's-cap, which you have given up, or the three- 
pence on tea which you have retained. The 
letter went stamped with the public authority of 
this kingdom. The instructions for the colony 
government go under no other sanction ; and 
America can not believe, and will not obey you, 
if you do not preserve this channel of communi- 
cation sacred. You are now punishing the col- 
onies for acting on distinctions held out by that 
very ministry which is here shining in riches, in 
favor, and in power, and urging the punishment 
of the very offense to which they had themselves 
been the tempters. 

Sir, if reasons respecting simply your own com- 
merce, which is your own convenience, were the 
sole grounds of the repeal of the five duties, why 
does Lord Hillsborough, in disclaiming in the 
name of the King and ministry their ever having 
had an intent to tax for revenue, mention it as the 
means of " re-establishing the confidence and af- 
fection of the colonies ?" Is it a way of soothing 
others to assure them that you will take good 
care of yourself? The medium, the only medi- 
um, for regaining their affection and confidence 
is, that you will take off" something oppressive to 
their minds. Sir, the letter strongly enforces 
that idea ; for, though the repeal of the taxes is 
promised on commercial principles, yet the 
means of counteracting " the insinuations of men 
with factious and seditious views," is by a dis- 
claimer of the intention of taxing for revenue, 
as a constant invariable sentiment and rule of con- 
duct in the government of America. 

I remember that the noble Lord [Lord North] 
on the floor — not in a former debate, 
to be sure (it would be disorderly to 
refer to it — I suppose I read it some- 
where) — but the noble Lord was 
pleased to say that he did not con- 
ceive how it could enter into the head 
of man to impose such taxes as those of 1767 
(I mean those taxes which he voted for imposing 
and voted for repealing), as being taxes, contrary 
to all the principles of commerce, laid on British 
manufactures. 

I dare say the noble Lord is perfectly well read, 
because the duty of his particular office requires 
he should be so, in all our revenue laws, and in 
the policy which is to be collected out of them. 
Now, sir, when he had read this act of American 
revenue, and a little recovered from his astonish- 
ment, I suppose he made one step retrograde (it 
is but one), and looked at the act which stands 
just before in the statute-book. The American 
revenue is the forty-fifth chapter ; the other to 
which I refer is the forty-fourth of the same ses- 
sion. These two acts are both to the same pur- 



Proof from the 
taxes on tlie 
Isle of Man, 
that those on 
America were 
not repealed on 
commercial 
principles. 



pose ; both revenue acts ; both taxmg out of the 
kingdom ; and both taxing British manufactures 
exported. As the forty-fifth is an act for raising 
a revenue in America, the forty-fourth is an act 
for raising a revenue in the Isle of Man. The 
two acts perfectly agree in all respects except 
one. In the act for taxing the Isle of Man, the 
noble Lord will find (not, as in the American act, 
four or five articles, but) almost the whole body 
of British manufactures taxed from two and a 
half to fifteen per cent., and some articles, such 
as that of spirits, a great deal higher. You did 
not think it uncommercial to tax the whole mass 
of your manufactures, and, let me add, your ag- 
riculture too ; for, I now recollect, British corn 
is thei-e also taxed up to ten per cent., and this, 
too, in the very head-quarters, the very citadel of 
.smuggling, the Isle of Man. Now, will the no- 
ble Lord condescend to tell me why he repealed 
the taxes on your manufactures sent out to Amer- 
ica, and not the taxes on the manufactures ex- 
ported to the Isle of Man ? The principle was 
exactly the same, the objects charged infinitely 
more extensive, the duties without comparison 
higher. Why ? why, notwithstanding all his 
childish pretexts, because the taxes were quietly 
submitted to in the Isle of Man ; and because they 
raised a flame in America. Your reasons were 
political, not commercial. The repeal was made, 
as Lord Hillsborough's letter well expresses it, to 
regain " the confidence and affection of the colo- 
nies, on which the glory and safety of the British 
empire depend." A wise and just motive surely, 
if ever there was such. But the mischief and 
dishonor is, that you have not done what you had 
given the colonies just cause to expect, when your 
ministei's disclaimed the idea of taxes for a rev- 
enue. There is nothing simple, nothing manly, 
nothing ingenuous, open, decisive, or steady in 
the proceeding, with regard either to the contin- 
uance or the repeal of the taxes. The whole 
has an air of littleness and fraud. The article 
of tea is slurred over in the circular letter, as it 
were by accident. Nothing is said of a resolu- 
tion either to keep that tax or to give it up. 
There is no fair dealing in any part of the trans- 
action. 

If you mean to follow your true motive and 
your public faith, give up your tax on tea for 
raising a revenue, the principle of which has, in 
efiect, been disclaimed in your name, and which 
produces you no advantage — no, not a penny. 
Or, if you choose to go on with a poor pretense 
instead of a solid reason, and will still adhere to 
your cant of commerce, you have ten thousand 
times moi-e strong commercial reasons for giv- 
ing up this duty on tea than for abandoning the 
five others that you have already renounced. 

The American consumption of teas is annually, 
I believe, worth c£300,000, at the least farthing. 
If you urge the American violence as a justifi- 
cation of your perseverance in enforcing this tax, 
you know that you can never answer this plain 
question, " Why did you repeal the others given 
in the same act, while the very same violence 
subsisted?" But you did not find the violence 



1774.] 



AMERICAN TAXATION. 



249 



cease upon that concession ? No ! because the 
concession was far short of satisfying the princi- 
ple which Lord Hillsborough had abjured, or 
even the pretense on which the repeal of the 
other taxes was announced ; and because, by en- 
abling the East India Company to open a shop 
for defeating the American resolution not to pay 
that specific tax, you manifestly showed a hank- 
ering after the principle of the act which you for- 
merly had renounced. Whatever road you take 
leads to a compliance with this motion. It opens 
to you at the end of every vista. Your com- 
merce, your policy, your promises, your reasons, 
your pretenses, your consistency, your inconsist- 
ency — all jointly oblige you to this repeal. ^° 

But still it sticks in our throats. If we go so 
far, the Americans will go farther. We do not 
know that. We ought, from experience, rather 
to presume the contrary. Do we not know for 
certain that the Americans are going on as fast 
as possible, while we refuse to gratify them ? 
Can they do more, or can they do worse, if we 
yield this point? I think this concession will 
rather fix a turnpike to" prevent their farther 
progress. It is impossible to answer for bodies 
of men. But I am sure the natural effect of fidel- 
ity, clemency, kindness, in governors, is peace, 
good will, order, and esteem, on the part of the 
governed. I would certainly, at least, give these 
fair principles a fair ti'ial, which, since the mak- 
ing of this act to this hour, they never have had. 

II. Sir, the honorable gentleman having .spok- 
Broad and his- ^^ ^^at hc thought ncccssary upon 
toricai view of the narrow part of the subject, I have 

the subject. . , . ' ^- r I 

given him, i hope, a satisfactory an- 
swer. He next presses me, by a variety of di- 
rect challenges and oblique reflections, to say 
something on the historical part. I shall 
therefore, sir, open myself fully on that important 
and delicate subject; not for the sake of telling 
you a long story (which I know, Mr. Speaker, 
you are not particularly fond of), but for the 
sake of the w^eighty instruction that, I flatter my- 
self, will necessarily result from it. It shall not 
be longer, if I can help it, than so serious a mat- 
ter requires. 

(1.) Permit me then, sir, to lead your atten- 

First Period : ^^^"^ ^^^J ^^"^ ^^^^ '^^ck tO thc Act of 

policy of the Navigation — the corner-stone of the 

Navigation Act i- r i • • , i 

policy of this country with regard to 
its colonies.^^ Sir, that policy was, from the be- 



10 If any man has been accustomed to regard Mr. 
Burke as more of a rhetorician than a reasoner, let 
him turn back and study over the series of arguments 
contained in this first head. There is nothing in any 
of the speeches of Mr. Fox or Mr. Pitt which surpass- 
es it for close reasoning on the facts of the case, or 
the binding force with which, at every step, the con- 
clusion is linked to the premises. It is unnecessary 
to speak of the pungency of its application, or the 
power with which he brings to bear upon Lord North 
the whole course of his measures respecting the col- 
onies, as an argument for repealing this " solitary 
dnty on tea." 

^' This celebrated act was passed during the 
sway of Cromwell in 1651, at the suggestion of St. 
John, the English embassador to Holland, who had 



ginning, purely commercial ; and the commer- 
cial system w^as wholly restrictive. It was the 
system of a monopoly. No trade was let loose 
from that constraint, but merely to enable the col- 
onists to dispose of what, in the course of your 
trade, you could not take ; or to enable them to 
dispose of such articles as we forced upon them, 
and for which, without some degree of liberty, 
they could not pay. Hence all your specific 
and detailed enumerations ; hence the innumer- 
able checks and counter checks ; hence that in- 
finite variety of paper chains by which you bind 
together this complicated system of the colonies. 
This principle of commercial monopoly runs 
through no less than twenty-nine acts of Parlia- 
ment, from the year 1660 to the unfortunate pe- 
riod of 1764. 

In all those acts the system of commerce 
is established, as that from whence ^, , 

' The laws under 

alone you proposed to make the col- that system not 
onies contribute (I mean directly and 
by the operation of your superintending legisla- 
tive power) to the strength of the empire. I ven- 
ture to say, that during that whole period, a par- 
liamentary revenue from thence was never once 
in contemplation. Accordingly, in all the num- 
ber of laws passed with regard to the planta- 
tions, the words which distinguish revenue law^s, 
specifically as such, were, I think, premeditated- 
ly avoided. I do not say, sir, that a form of 
words alters the nature of the law, or abridges 
the power of the law-giver. It certainly does 
not. However, titles and formal preambles are 
not always idle words ; and the lawyers fre- 
quently argue from them. I state these facts 
to show, not what w^as your right, but what has 
been your settled policy. Our revenue laws have 
usually a title, purporting their being grants ; and 
the w^ords give and grant usually precede the en- 
acting parts. Although duties were imposed on 
America in acts of King Charles the Second, and 
in acts of King William, no one title of giving 
"an aid to his Majesty," or any of the usual ti- 
tles to revenue acts, was to be found in any of 
them till 1764; nor were the words "give and 
grant" in any preamble until the 6th of George 
the Second. However, the title of this act of 
George the Second, notwithstanding the words 
of donation, considers it merely as a regulation — 
" an act for the better securing of the trade of 
his Majesty's sugar colonies in America." This 
act was made on a compromise of all, at the ex- 
press desire of a part of the colonies themselves. 
It was therefore in some measure with their con- 
sent ; and having a title directly purporting only 
a commercial regulation, and being in truth noth- 
ing more, the words were passed by, at a time 

been treated with gross indignity by the Dutch. It 
was designed to deprive the Dutch of the immense 
carrying trade which they enjoyed, and therefore 
prohibited the importation into England or any of 
her dependencies, \nforeign vessels, of any commod- 
ities which were not the growth of the respective 
countries in whose vessels they were imported. At 
a subsequent period, other acts were passed for the 
increased advantage of British shipping. 



250 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1774 



when no jealousy was entertained and things 
were little scrutinized. Even Governor Bernax'd, 
in his second printed letter, dated in 1763, gives 
it as his opinion, that "it was an act o( prohibi- 
tion, not of revenue.'' This is cei'tainly true, 
that no act avowedly for the purpose of revenue, 
and with the ordinary title and recital taken to- 
gethei-, is found in the statute-book until the 
year I have mentioned, that is, the year 1764. 
All before this period stood on commercial reg- 
ulation and restraint. The scheme of a colony 
revenue by British authority appeared therefore 
to the Americans in the light of a great innova- 
tion ; the words of Governor Bernard's ninth let- 
ter, written in November, 1765, state this idea 
very strongly; "it must," says he, "have been 
supposed, such an innovation as a parliamentary 
taxation would cause a great alarm, and meet 
with much opposition in most parts of America. 
It was quite new to the people, and had no visi- 
ble boicnds set to it." After stating the weak- 
ness of government there, he says, " Was this a 
time to introduce so gx'eat a novelty as a parlia- 
mentary inland taxation in America?" What- 
ever the right might have been, this mode of 
using it was absolutely new in policy and prac- 
tice. 

Sir, they who are friends to the schemes of 
No answer to American revenue say that the com- 
^tiontws we're mcrcial restraint is full as hard a 
oppressive. j^w for America to live under. I 
think so too. I think it, if uncompensated, to be 
a condition of as rigorous servitude as men can 
be subject to. But America bore it from the fun- 
damental Act of Navigation until 1764. Why? 
Because men do bear the inevitable constitution of 
their original nature with all its infirmities. The 
Act of Navigation attended the colonies from their 
infanc}^, grew with their growth, and strength- 
ened with their strength. They were confirmed 
in obedience to it, even more by usage than by 
law. They scarcely had remembered a time 
when they were not subject to such restraint. 
There were Bcsidcs, they wcrc indemnified for it 
compensations. ^^ ^ pecuniary compensation. Their 
monopolist happened to be one of the richest men 
in the world. By his immense capital (prima- 
rily employed, not for their benefit, but his own), 
they were enabled to proceed with their fisheries, 
their agriculture, their ship-building, and their 
trade too, within the limits, in such a manner as 
got far the start of the slow, languid operations 
of unassisted nature. This capital was a hot- 
bed to them. Nothing in the history of mankind 
is like their progress. For my part, I never cast 
an eye on their flourishing commerce, and their 
cultivated and commodious life, but they seem 
to me rather ancient nations grown to perfection 
through a long series of fortunate events, and a 
train of successful industry, accumulating wealth 
in many centuries, than the colonies of yesterday — 
than a set of miserable outcasts, a few" years ago, 
not so much sent as thrown out, on the bleak and 
barren shore of a desolate wilderness three thou- 
sand miles from all civilized intercourse. 

All this was done by England, while England 



pursued trade and forgot revenue. You not 
only acquired commerce, but you actually cre- 
ated the very objects of trade in America ; and 
by that creation you raised the trade of this 
kingdom at least four-fold. America had the 
compensation of your capital, which made her 
bear her servitude. She had another compensa- 
tion, which you are now going to take away 
from her. She had, except the commercial re- 
straint, every characteristic mark of a free peo- 
ple in all her internal concerns. She had the 
image of the British Constitution. She had the 
substance. She was taxed by her own repre- 
sentatives. She chose most of her own magis- 
trates. She paid them all. She had, in effect, 
the sole disposal of her own internal government. 
This whole state of commercial servitude and 
civil liberty, taken together, is certainly not per- 
fect freedom ; but, comparing it with the ordi- 
nary circumstances of human nature, it was a 
happy and a liberal condition. 

I know, sir, that great and not unsuccessful 
pains have been taken to inflame our ^n^prica sub- 
minds by an outcry, in this House mitted to these 
and out of it, that in America the Act 
of Navigation neither is, nor ever was obeyed. 
But if you take the colonies through, I affirm 
that its authority never was disputed ; that it 
was nowhere disputed for any length of time \ 
and, on the whole, that it was well observed. 
Wherever the act pressed hard, many individuals 
indeed evaded it. This is nothing. These scat- 
tered individuals never denied the law, and never 
obeyed it. Just as it happens whenever the laws 
of trade, whenever the laws of revenue, press 
hard upon the people in England ; in that case 
all your shores are full of contraband. Your 
right to give a monopoly to the East India Com- 
pany, your right to lay immense duties on French 
brandy, ai'e not disputed in England. You do 
not make this charge on any man. But you 
know that there is not a creek from Pentland 
Firth to the Isle of Wight, in which they do not 
smuggle immense quantities of teas. East India 
goods, and brandies. I take it for granted that 
the authority of Governor Bernard on this point 
is indisputable. Speaking of these laws, as they 
regarded that part of America now in so unhap- 
py a condition, he says, " I believe they are no- 
where better supported than in this pi-ovince. I 
do not pretend that it is entirely free from a 
breach of these laws ; but that such a breach, if 
discovered, is justly punished." What more can 
you say of the obedience to any laws in any coun- 
try ? An obedience to these laws formed the 
acknowledgment, instituted by yourselves, for 
your superiority, and was the payment you 
originally imposed for 3'our protection. 

Whether you w^ere right or wrong in estab- 
lishing the colonies on the principles of commer- 
cial monopoly, rather than on that of revenue, is 
at this day a problem of mere speculation. You 
can not have both by the same authority. To 
join together the restraints of a universal inter- 
nal and external monopoly, with a universal in- 
ternal and external taxation, is an unnatural un- 



1774.] 



AMERICAN TAXATION. 



251 



ion — perfect uncompensated slavery. You have 
long since decided for yourself and them ; and 
you and they have prospered exceedingly under 
that decision. 

(2.) This nation, sir, never thought of depart- 
second Period, ing from that choice until the period 
^^^n^reVe^nue immediately on the close of the last 
from America, ^r^f. Then a schcmc of government 
nevv in many things seemed to have been adopt- 
ed. I saw, or thought I saw, several symptoms 
of a great change, while I sat in your gallery, a 
good while before I had the honor of a seat in 
this House. At that period the necessity was 
established of keeping up no less than twenty 
new regiments, with twenty colonels capable of 
seats in this House. This scheme was adopted 
wnth very general applause from all sides, at the 
very time that, by your conquests in America, 
your danger from foreign attempts in that part of 
the world was much lessened, or, indeed, rather 
quite over. When this huge increase of military 
establishment was resolved on, a revenue was to 
be found to support so great a burden. Country 
gentlemen, the great patrons of economy, and 
the great resisters of a standing armed force, 
would not have entered with much alacrity into 
the vote for so large and expensive an army, if 
they had been very sure that they were to con- 
tinue to pay for it. But hopes of another kind 
were held out to them ; and in particular, I well 
remember that Mr. Townsend, in a brilliant ha- 
rangue on this subject, did dazzle them, by play- 
ing before their eyes the image of a revenue to 
be raised in America. 

Here began to dawn the first glimmerings of 
this new colony system. It appeared more dis- 
tinctly afterward, when it was devolved upon a 
person [Mr. Grenville] to whom, on other ac- 
counts, this countiy owes very great obligations. 
I do believe that he had a very serious desire to 
benefit the public. But with no small study of 
the detail, he did not seem to have his view, at 
least equally, carried to the total circuit of our 
affairs. He generally considered his objects in 
lights that were rather too detached. Whether 
the business of an American revenue was im- 
posed upon him altogether ; whether it was en- 
tirely the result of his own speculation ; or, what 
is moi'e probable, that his own ideas rather coin- 
cided with the instructions he had received, cer- 
tain it is, that, with the best intentions in the 
world, he first brought this fatal scheme into 
form, and established it by act of Parliament. 

No man can believe that at this time of day I 
mean to lean on the venerable memory of a great 
man, whose loss we deplore in common. Our 
little party differences have been long ago com- 
posed : and I have acted more with him, and cer- 
tainly with more pleasure with him, than ever I 
acted against him. Undoubtedly Mr. Grenville 
was a first-rate figure in this country. With a 
masculine understanding, and a stout and reso- 
lute heart, he had an application undissipatcd 
and unwearied. He took public business, not as 
a duty which he was to fulfill, but as a pleasure he 
was to enjoy ; and he seemed to have no delifjht 



out of this House, except in such things as in some 
way related to the business that was to be done 
within it. If he was ambitious, I will say this for 
him, his ambition was of a noble and generous 
strain. It was to raise himself, not by the low, 
pimping politics of a court, but to win his way to 
power through the laborious gradations of pub- 
lic service, and to secure himself a well-earned 
rank in Parliament by a thorough knowledge 
of its constitution, and a perfect practice in all 
its business. 

Sir, if such a man fell into errors, it must be 
from defects not intrinsical ; they must be rather 
sought in the particular habits of his life, which, 
though they do not alter the groundwork of 
character, yet tinge it with their own hue. He 
was bred in a profession. He was bred to the 
law, which is, in my opinion, one of the first and 
noblest of human sciences — a science which does 
more to quicken and invigorate the understanding 
than all the other kinds of learning put together; 
but it is not apt, except in persons very happily 
born, to open and to liberalize the mind exactly 
in the same proportion. Passing from that study, 
he did not go very largely into the world, but 
plunged into business ; I mean, into the business 
of office, and the limited and fixed methods and 
forms established there. Much knowledge is to 
be had undoubtedly in that line ; and there is no 
knowledge which is not valuable. But it may 
be truly said that men too much conversant in 
office are rarely minds of remarkable enlarge- 
ment. Their habits of office are apt to give 
them a turn to think the substance of business 
not to be much more important than the forms 
in which it is conducted. These forms are 
adapted to ordinary occasions ; and, therefore, 
persons w^ho are nurtured in office do admirably 
well, as long as things go on in their common 
order ; but when the high-roads are broken up, 
and the waters out, when a new and troubled 
scene is opened, and the file affords no prece- 
dent, then it is that a greater knowledge of man- 
kind, and a far more extensive comprehension of 
things is requisite than ever office gave, or than 
office can ever give.^^ Mr. Grenville thought 
better of the wisdom and power of human legis- 
lation than in truth it deserves. He conceived, 
and many conceived along with him, that the 
flourishing trade of this country was greatly ow- 
ing to law and institution, and not quite so much 
to liberty ; for but too many are apt to believe 
regulation to be commerce, and taxes to be rev- 

^2 This admirable sketch has one peculiarity which 
is highly characteristic of Mr. Burke. It does not so 
much describe the objective qualities of the man, as 
the formative principles of his character. The traits 
mentioned were causes of his being what he was, and 
doing what he did. They account (and for this rea- 
son they are brought forward) for the course he took 
in respect to America. The saine, also, is true re- 
specting the sketch of Charles Townsend which fol- 
lows, and, to some extent, respecting the sketch of 
Lord Chatham. This is one of the thousand exhibi- 
tions of the pliilosophical tendencies of Mr. Burke's 
mind, his absorption in the idea of cause ar i effect, 
of the action and reaction of principles and feelings. 



252 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1774. 



enue. Among regulations, that which stood first 
in reputation was his idol. I mean the Act of 
Navigation. He has often professed it to be so. 
The policy of that act is, I readily admit, in 
many respects well understood. But I do say, 
that if the act be suffered to run the full length 
of its principle, and is not changed and modified 
according to the change of times and the fluctu- 
ation of circumstances, it must do great mischief, 
and frequently even defeat its own purpose. 

After the [French] wax*, and in the last years 
of it, the trade of America had increased far be- 
yond the speculations of the most sanguine imag- 
inations. It swelled out on every side. It filled 
all its proper channels to the brim. It over- 
flowed wnth a rich redundance, and, breaking its 
banks on the right and on the left, it spread out 
upon some places where it was indeed improp- 
er, upon others where it was only irregular. It 
is the nature of all greatness not to be exact ; 
and crreat trade will always be attended with 
considerable abuses. The contraband will al- 
ways keep pace in some measure with the fair 
trade. It should stand as a fundamental maxim, 
that no vulgar precaution ought to be employed 
in the cure of evils which are closely connected 
wuth the cause of our prosperity. Perhaps this 
great person turned his eye somewhat less than 
was just toward the incredible increase of the 
fair trade, and looked with something of too ex- 
quisite a jealousy tow^ard the contraband. He 
certainly felt a singular degree of anxiety on the 
subject, and even began to act from that passion 
earlier than is commonly imagined. For, w^hile 
he was first Lord of the Admiralty, though not 
strictly called upon in his official line, he pre- 
sented a very strong memorial to the Lords of 
the Treasury (my Lord Bute was then at the head 
of the board), heavily complaining of the growth 
of the illicit commerce in America. Some mis- 
chief happened even at that time from this over- 
earnest zeal. Much greater happened after- 
ward, when it operated with greater powder in 
the highest department of the finances. The 
bonds of the Act of Navigation were straitened 
so much, that America was on the point of hav- 
ing no trade, either contraband or legitimate.^'' 
They found, under the construction and execu- 
tion then used, the act no longer tying, but actu- 
ally strangling them. All this coming with new 
enumerations of commodities ; with regulations 
which in a manner put a stop to the mutual 
coasting intercourse of the colonies ; with the ap- 
pointment of Courts of Admiralty under various 
improper circumstances ; with a sudden extinc- 
tion of the paper currencies j^'* with a compul- 

^^ For some years previous to the peace of 176.3, 
the Ainerican colonies carried on an extensive trade 
in British manufactured articles with the colonies of 
Spain and France. This, though not against the spir- 
it of the Navigation Act, was a violation of its letter, 
and was stopped for a time, though afterward allowed 
under duties amounting to a prohibition. In carrying 
out these regulations, the accused were to be pros- 
ecuted in the Admiralty Courts, and thus deprived of 
a trial by jury. 

1* Paper money was issued by most of the colo- 



sory provision for the quartering of soldiers, the 
people of America thought themselves proceed- 
ed against as delinquents, or at best as people 
under suspicion of delinquency, and in such a 
manner as they imagined their recent services 
in the war did not at all merit. '^ An}' of these 
innumerable regulations, perhaps, would not have 
alarmed alone ; some might be thought reason- 
able ; the multitude struck them with terror. 

But the grand maneuver in that business of 
new regulating the colonies was the 15th act of 
the fourth of George III., which, besides contain- 
ing several of the matters to which I have just 
alluded, opened a new principle ; and here prop- 
erly began the second period of the policy of this 
country with regard to the colonies, by which 
the scheme of a regular plantation parliamentary 
revenue was adopted in theory and settled in 
practice. A revenue, not substituted in the 
place of, but superadded to a monopoh^ ; which 
monopoly was enforced at the same time with 
additional strictness, and the execution put into 
military hands. 

This act, sir, had for the first time the title of 
" granting duties in the colonies and plantations 
of America;" and for the first time it was as- 
serted in the preamble, " that it was j'tist and nec- 
essary that a revenue should be raised there." 
Then came the technical words of " giving and 
granting ;" and thus a complete American rev- 
enue act was made in all the forms, and with a 
full avowal of the right, equit}'^, policy, and even 
necessity of taxing the colonies, without any 
formal consent of theirs. There are contained 
also in the preamble to that act these very re- 
markable words: the Commons, &c. — "being 
desirous to make some provision in the present 
session of Parliament toward raising the said rev- 
enue." By these words it appeared to the col- 
onies that this act was but a beginning of sor- 
rows ; that every session was to produce some- 
thing of the same kind ; that we were to go on 
from day to day. in chai'ging them with such tax- 
es as we pleased, for such a military force as we 
should think proper. Had this plan been pur- 
sued, it was evident that the provincial assem- 
blies, in which the Americans felt all their por- 
tion of importance, and beheld their sole image 
of freedom, were ipso facto annihilated. This 
ill prospect before them seemed to be boundless 
in extent, and endless in duration. Six-, they 
were not mistaken. The ministry valued them- 
selves wiien this act passed, and when they gave 
notice of the Stamp Act, that both of the duties 
came very short of their ideas of American tax- 
ation. Great w'as the applause of this measure 
here. In England w'e cried out for new taxes 

nies to supply a currency, when the coin was with- 
drawn in the course of trade to England. Regula- 
tions putting a sudden stop to this currency pro- 
duced great trouble in America. 

^^ The colonies had entered warmly into the war 
against France ; and such was their zeal, that of 
their own accord they advanced for carrying it on, 
much larger suras than were allotted as their quota 
by the British government. 



1774.] 



AMERICAN TAXATION. 



253 



oil America, while they cried out that they were 
nearly crushed with those which the war and 
their own grants had brought upon them. 

Sir, it has been said in the debate, that when 
Pretense Uiat ^^^ ^^^^ American revenue act (the 
the Americans act iu 1764, imuosinij thc port du- 

did not at hrst . ' ' = . i- , 

object to being tics) passcu, the Americans did not 
"^ ■ object to the principle.'^ It is true 

they touched it but very tenderly. It was not 
a direct attack. They were, it is true, as yet 
novices ; as yet unaccustomed to direct attacks 
upon any of the rights of Parliament. The du- 
ties were port duties, like those they had been 
accustomed to bear, with this dilFerence, that the 
title was not the same, the preamble not the 
same, and the spirit altogether unlike. But of 
what service is this observation to the cause of 
those that make it ? It is a full refutation of the 
pretense for their present cruelty to America ; for 
it shows, out of their own mouths, that our col- 
onies were backward to enter into the present 
vexatious and ruinous controversy. 

There is also another circulation abroad (spread 
with a malignant intention, which I can 

Pretense that ., ^ , , ' , 

then the op- not attribute to those who say the same 
enUi^m o^r thing in this House), that ^Ir. Grenville 
^kef "^^ gave the colony agents an option for 
their assemblies to tax themselves, 
which they had refused. I find that much sti'ess 

'^ It is far from being true that " the Americans did 
not object to the principle" of the act of 1764 ; nor is 
Mr. Burke correct in saying they '' touched it very 
tenderly." The first act of the British Parliament 
for the avowed purpose of raising a revenue in Amer- 
ica was passed April 5th, 1764. Within a month aft- 
er the news reached Boston, the General Court of 
Massachusetts met, and on the 13th of June, 1764, ad- 
dressed a letter to Mr Mauduit, their agent in En- 
gland, giving him spirited and decisive instructions 
on the subject. It seems he had misconstrued their 
silence respecting another law, and had not, there- 
fore, come forward in their behalf against the act. 
They say, " No agent of the province has povver to 
make concessions in any case without express or- 
ders ; and that the silence of the province should 
have been imputed to any cause, even to despair, 
rather thnn to have been construed into a tacit ces- 
sion of their rights, or an acknowledgment of a right 
in Parliament to impose duties and taxes upon a peo- 
ple who are not represented in the House of Com- 
mons.'" A committee was also chosen with power 
to sit in the recess of the General Court, and direct- 
ed to correspond with the other provinces on the sub- 
ject, acquainting them with the instructions sent to 
Mr. Mauduit, and requesting the concurrence of the 
other provincial assemblies in resisting " any impo- 
sitions and taxes upon this and the other American 
provinces." Accordingly, in November of the same 
year, the House of Burgesses in Virginia sent an ad- 
dress to the House of Lords and a remonstrance to 
the House of Commons on the same subject. Re- 
monstrances were likewise sent from Massachusetts 
and New York to the Privy Council. James Otis 
also published during this year his pamphlet against 
the right of Parliament to tax the colonies while un- 
represented in the House of Commons. This was 
printed in London in 1765, about the time when the 
Stamp Act was passed. — See Holmes's American 
Annals, 2d ed., vol. ii., p. 225-6. 



is laid on this as a fact. However, it happens 
neither to be true nor possible. I will observe, 
first, that i\Ir. Grenville never thought fit to make 
this apology for himself in the innumerable de- 
bates that were had upon the subject. He might 
have proposed to the colony agents that they 
should agree in some mode of taxation as the 
ground of an act of Parliament, but he never 
could have proposed that they should tax them- 
selves on requisition, which is the assertion of 
the day. Indeed, Mr. Grenville well knew that 
thc colony agents could have no general powers 
to consent to it ; and they had no time to con- 
sult their assemblies for particular powers before 
he passed his first revenue act. If you compare 
dates, you will find it impossible. Burdened as 
the agents knew the colonies were at that time, 
they could not give the least hope of such grants. 
His own favorite governor was of opinion that 
the Americans were not then taxable objects. 

" Nor was the time less favorable to the equity 
of such a taxation. I don't mean to dispute the 
reasonableness of America contributing to the 
charges of Great Britain when she is able ; nor, 
I believe, would the Americans themselves have 
disputed it, at a proper time and sea.son. But 
it should be considered that the American gov- 
ernments themselves have, in the prosecution of 
the late war, contracted very large debts, which 
it will take some years to pay off', and in the 
mean time, occasion very burdensome taxes for 
that purpose only. For instance, this govern- 
ment, which is as much beforehand as any, 
raises every year ^37,500 sterling for sinking 
their debt, and must continue it for four years 
longer at least before it will clear." 

These are the words of Governor Bernard's 
letter to a member of the old ministry, and which 
he has since printed. Mr. Grenville could not 
have made this proposition to the agents for an- 
other reason. He was of opinion, which he has 
declared in this House a hundred times, that the 
colonies could not legally grant any revenue to 
the crown ; and that infinite mischiefs would be 
the consequence of such a power. When Mr. 
Grenville had passed the first revenue act, and 
in the same session had made this House come 
to a resolution for laying a stamp duty on Amer- 
ica, between that time and the passing the Stamp 
Act into a law, he told a considerable and most 
respectable merchant, a member of this House, 
whom I am truly sorry I do not now see in his 
place, when he represented against this proceed- 
ing, that if the stamp duty was disliked, he was 
willing to exchange it for any other equally pi'o- 
ductive : but that, if he objected to the Ameri- 
cans being taxed by Parliament, he might save 
himself the trouble of the discussion, as he was 
determined on the measure. This is the fact, 
and, if you please, I will mention a very unques- 
tionable authority for it. 

Thus, sir, I have disposed of this falsehood. 
But falsehood has a perennial spring, p,,^,^,^^,,,^ 
It is said that no conjecture could be ^''^ opposition 

1 r- . T 1-1 c 1 1 • ol the A men- 

made oi the dislike oi the colonies to cans <ouid not 

the principle. This is as untrue as * °^^-^^'^- 



254 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1774. 



the other. After the resolution of the House, 
and before the passing of the Stamp Act, the col- 
onies of JNIassachusetts Bay and New York did 
send remonstrances, objecting to this mode of 
parliamentary taxation. What was the conse- 
quence ? They were suppressed ; they were put 
under the table — notwithstanding an order of 
council to the contrary — by the ministry which 
composed the very council that had made the or- 
der ; and thus the House proceeded to its busi- 
ness of taxing without the least regular knowl- 
edge of the objections which were made to it. 
But, to give that House its due, it was not over- 
desirous to receive information or to hear remon- 
strance. On the 15th of February, 1765, while 
the Stamp Act was under deliberation, they re- 
fused with scorn even so much as to receive four 
petitions presented from so respectable colonies 
as Connecticut, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Car- 
olina, besides one from the traders of Jamaica. 
As to the colonies, they had no alternative left to 
them but to disobey, or to pay the taxes im- 
posed by that Parliament which was not suffered, 
or did not suffer itself, even to hear them remon- 
strate upon the subject. 

(3.) This was the state of the colonies before 
Third Period, his Majesty thought fit to change his 
h°in''s^dmi'^s- ministers. It stands upon no author- 
pe^i'^ofth^^ ity of mine. It is proved by incon- 
stamp Act. trovcrtiblc records. The honorable 
gentleman has desired some of us to lay our hands 
upon our hearts, and answer to his queries upon 
the historical part of this consideration ; and by 
his manner (as well as my eyes could discern it) 
he seemed to address himself to me. 

Sir, I will answer him as clearly as I am able, 
and with great openness, I have nothing to con- 
ceal. In the year sixty-five, being in a very pri- 
vate station, far enough from any line of business, 
and not having the honor of a seat in this House, 
it was my fortune, unknowing and unknown to 
the then ministry, by the intervention of a com- 
mon friend, to become connected with a very no- 
ble person [Lord Rockingham], and at the head 
of the treasury department.^''' It was indeed in 
a situation of little rank and no consequence, suit- 
able to the mediocrity of my talents and preten- 
sions ; but a situation near enough to enable 
rae to see, as well as others, what was going on ; 
and I did see in that noble person such sound 
px'inciples, such an enlargement of mind, such 
clear and sagacious sense, and such unshaken 
fortitude, as have bound me, as well as others 
much better than me, by an inviolable attachment 
to him from time forward. Sii", Lord Rocking- 
ham very early in that summer received a strong 
representation from many weighty English mer- 
chants and manufacturers, from governors of 
provinces and commanders of men of war, against 
almost the whole of the American commercial 
regulations ; and particularly with regard to the 
total ruin which was threatened to the Spanish 

1'' Mr. Burke became private secretary to Lord 
Rockingham in July, 1765, and was thus united with 
him in his political measures. 



trade. I believe, sir, the noble Lord soon saw 
his way in this business. But he did not rashly 
determine against acts which it might be sup- 
posed were the result of much deliberation. 
However, sir, he scarcely began to open the 
ground, when the whole veteran body of office 
took the alarm. A violent outcry of all (except 
those who knew and felt the mischief) was rais- 
ed against any alteration. On one hand, his at- 
tempt was a direct violation of treaties and pub- 
lic law. On the other, the Act of Navigation and 
all the corps of trade laws were drawn up in ar- 
ray against it. 

The first step the noble Lord took was to have 
the opinion of his excellent, learned, and ever-la- 
mented friend, the late JNIr. Yorke, then attorney 
general, on the point of law.'^ When he knew 
that formally and officially, which in substance 
he had known before, he immediately dispatched 
orders to redress the grievance. But I will say 
it for the then minister, he is of that constitution 
of mind, that I know he would have issued, on 
the same critical occasion, the very same orders, 
if the acts of trade had been, as they were not, 
directly against him ; and would have cheerfully 
submitted to the equity of Parliament for his in- 
demnity. 

On the conclusion of this business of the Span- 
ish trade, the news of the troubles, on account of 
the Stamp Act, arrived in England. It was not 
until the end of October that these accounts were 
received. No sooner had the sound of that 
mighty tempest reached us in England, than the 
whole of the then Opposition, instead of feeling 
humbled by the unhappy issue of their meas- 
ures, seemed to be infinitely elated, and cried out 
that the ministiy, from envy to the glory of their 
predecessors, were prepared to repeal the Stamp 
Act. Near nine years after, the honorable gen- 
tleman takes quite opposite ground, and now 
challenges me to put my hand to my heart, and 
say whether the ministry had resolved on the 
repeal till a considerable time after the meeting 
of Parliament. Though I do not very well know 
what the honorable gentleman wishes to infer 
from the admission or from the denial of this fact, 
on which he so earnestly adjures me, I do put 
my hand on my heart, and assure him that they 
did not come to a resolution directly to repeal. 
They weighed this matter as its difficulty and 
importance required. They considered maturely 
among themselves. They consulted with all 
who could give advice or information. It was 
not detei-mined until a little before the meeting 
of Parliament ; but it was determined, and the 
main lines of their own plan marked out, before 
that meeting. Two questions arose. I hope I 
am not going into a narrative troublesome to the 
House. 

[A cry of go on, go on.] 

The first of the two considerations was wheth- 
er the repeal should be total, or whether only par- 



^^ Mr. Charles Yorke, whose sudden death in 1770, 
after having had the office of Lord Chancellor forced 
upon him by the King, is mentioned in a Letter of 
Junius to tbe Duke of Grafton. See page 201. 



1774.] 



AMERICAN TAXATION. 



255 



tial ; taking out every thing burdensome and pro- 
ductive, and reserving only an empty acknowl- 
edgment, such as a stamp on cards or dice. The 
other question was, on what principle the act 
should be repealed. On this head, also, two prin- 
ciples were started : one, that the legislative 
rights of this country, with regai'd to America, 
were not entire, but had certain restrictions and 
limitations. The other principle was, that taxes 
of this kind were contrary to the fundamental 
principles of commerce on which the colonies 
were founded, and contrary to every idea of po- 
litical eqidty ; by which equity we are bound as 
much as possible to extend the spii'it and benefit 
of the British Constitution to every part of the 
British dominions. The option, both of the meas- 
ure and of the principle of repeal, was made be- 
fore the session ; and I wonder how an}'' one can 
read the King's speech at the opening of that 
session without seeing in that speech both the 
repeal and the Declaratory Act very sufBciently 
crayoned out. Those who can not see this can 
see nothing. 

Surely the honorable gentleman will not think 
that a great deal less time than was then em- 
ployed ought to have been spent in deliberation, 
when he considers that the news of the troubles 
did not arrive till toward the end of October. 
The Parliament sat to fill the vacancies on the 
14th day of December, and on business the 14th 
of the following January. 

Sir, a partial repeal, or, as the bon ton of the 
Court then was, a modification^ would have satis- 
fied a timid, unsystematic, procrastinating minis- 
try, as such a measure has since done such a min- 
istry [Lord North's]. A modification is the con- 
stant resource of weak, undeciding minds. To 
repeal by a denial of our right to tax in the pre- 
amble (and this, too, did not want advisers), 
would have cut, in the heroic style, the Gordian 
knot with a sword. Either measure would have 
cost no more than a day's debate. But when the 
total repeal was adopted, and adopted on princi- 
ples of policy, of equity, and of commerce, this 
plan made it necessary to enter into many and 
difficult measures. It became necessary to open 
a very large field of evidence commensurate to 
these extensive views. But then this labor did 
knight's service. It opened the eyes of several 
to the true state of American affairs ; it enlarged 
their ideas, it removed their prejudices, and it 
conciliated the opinions and affections of men. 
The noble Lord who then took the lead in the ad- 
ministration, my honorable friend [Mr. Dowdes- 
well] under me, and a right honorable gentleman 
[General Conway] (if he will not reject his share, 
and it was a large one, of this business), exerted 
the most laudable industry in bringing before you 
the fullest, most impartial, and least garbled body 
of evidence that was ever produced to this House. 
I think the inquiry lasted in the committee for 
six weeks ; and, at its conclusion, this House, by 
an independent, noble, spirited, and unexpected 
majority — by a majority that will redeem all the 
acts ever done by majorities in Parliament, in the 
teeth of all the old mercenary Swiss of state, in 



despite of all the old speculators and augurs of 
political events, in defiance of the whole embat- 
tled legion of veteran pensioners and practiced 
instruments of a court, gave a total repeal to the 
Stamp Act, and (if it had been so permitted) a 
lasting peace to this whole empire. 

I state, sir, these particulars, because this act 
of spirit and fortitude has lately been, in the cir- 
culation of the season, and in some hazarded dec- 
clamations in this House, attributed to timidity. 
If, sir, the conduct of ministrj', in proposing the 
repeal, had arisen from timidity with regard to 
themselves, it would have been greatly to be con- 
demned. Interested timidity disgraces as much 
in the cabinet as personal timiclity does in the 
field. But timidity, with regard to the well- 
being of our country, is heroic virtue. The no- 
ble Lord who then conducted aflTairs, and his 
worthy colleagues, while they trembled at the 
prospect of such distresses as you have since 
brought upon yourselves, were not afraid stead- 
ily to look in the face that glaring and dazzling 
influence at which the eyes of eagles have 
blenched. He looked in the face of one of the 
ablest, and, let me say, not the most scrupulous 
Oppositions that, perhaps, ever was in this House, 
and withstood it, unaided by even one of the usual 
supporters of administration. He did this when 
he repealed the Stamp Act. He looked in the 
face of a person he had long respected and re- 
garded, and whose aid was then particularly 
wanting. I mean Lord Chatham. He did this 
when he passed the Declaratory Act.^^ 

It is now given out, for the usual purposes, by 
the usual emissaries, that Lord Rockingham did 
not consent to the repeal of this act until he was 
bullied into it by Lord Chatham ; and the re- 
porters have gone so far as publicly to assert, in 
a hundred companies, that the honorable gentle- 
man under the gallery [General Conway], who 
proposed the repeal in the American committee, 
had another set of resolutions in his pocket di- 
rectly the reverse of those he moved. These 
artifices of a desperate cause are, at this time, 
spread abroad with incredible care, in every part 
of the town, from the highest to the lowest com- 
panies ; as if the industry of the circulation were 
to make amends for the absurdity of the report. 

Sir, w^hether the noble Lord- is of a complex- 
ion to be bullied by Lord Chatham, or by any 
man, I must submit to those who know him. I 
confess, when I look back at that time, I consid- 
er him as placed in one of the most trying situ- 
ations in w^hich. perhaps, any man ever stood. 
In the House of Peers there were very few of the 
ministry, out of the noble Lord's particular con- 
nection (except Lord Egmont, who acted, as far 
as I could discern, an honorable and manly part), 
that did not look to some other future arrange- 
ment, which warped his politics. There were in 
both Houses new and menacing appearances, that 
might very naturally drive any other than a most 

^^ See Lord Chatham's speech on the Stamp Act, 
page 103. in which he explicitly declared to Lord 
Rockingham and his associates that he could not 
give them his support. 



256 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1774. 



resolute minister from his measure or from his 
station. The household troops openly revolted. 
The allies of ministry (those, I mean, who sup- 
poi-ted some of their measures, but refused re- 
sponsibility for any) endeavored to undermine 
their credit, and to take ground that must be fa- 
tal to the success of the very cause which they 
would be thought to countenance. The question 
of the repeal was brought on by ministry in the 
committee of this House, in the very instant when 
it was known that more than one court negotia- 
tion was carrying on with the heads of the Op- 
position. Every thing, upon every side, was full 
of traps and mines. Earth below shook ; heav- 
en above menaced ; all the elements of minis- 
terial safety were dissolved. It was in the midst 
of this chaos of plots and counter-plots — it was 
in the midst of this complicated warfare against 
public opposition and private treachery, that the 
firmness of that noble person was put to the 
proof. He never stirred from his ground — no, 
not an inch. He remained fixed and determined, 
in principle, in measure, and in conduct. He 
practiced no managements. He secured no re- 
treat. He sought no apology .^° 

I will likeM'ise do justice — I ought to do it — 
to the honorable gentleman who led us in this 
House [General Conway]. Far from the duplic- 
ity wickedly charged on him, he acted his part 
with alacrity and resolution. We all felt inspired 
by the example he gave us, down even to myself, 
the weakest in that phalanx. I declare for one, 
I knew well enough (it could not be concealed 
from any body) the true state of things ; but, in 
my life, I never came with so much spirits into 
this House. It was a time for a man to act in. 
We had powerful enemies, but we had faithful 
and determined friends, and a glorious cause. 
We had a great battle to fight, but we had the 
means of fighting ; not as now, when our arms 
are tied behind us. We did fight that day, and 
conquer. 

I remember, sir, with a melancholy pleasure, 
the situation of the honorable gentleman [Gener- 
al Conway], who made the motion for the repeal, 
in that crisis, when the whole trading interest 
of this empire, crammed into your lobbies, with 
a trembling and anxious expectation, waited, al- 
most to a winter's return of light, their fate from 
your resolutions. When, at length, you had de- 
termined in their favor, and your doors, thrown 
open, showed them the figure of their deliverer 
in the well-earned triumph of his important vic- 
tory, from the whole of that grave multitude there 
arose an involuntary burst of gratitude and trans- 
port. They jumped upon him like children on 



20 The Rockingham administration was distracted 
by internal dissensions, and obnoxious to the King 
because they had determined to repeal the Stamp 
Act, and also on personal grounds, because they neg- 
lected to apply to Parliament for an allowance to the 
younger brothers of his Majesty. The Declaratory 
Act was passed for the purpose of pro[)itiating the 
King when the Stamp Act was repealed. But it 
failed of its object ; and the administration of Lord 
Rockingham was dissolved a few months after. 



a long-absent father. They clung upon him as 
captives about their redeemer. All England, 
all America, joined to his applause. Nor did he 
seem insensible to the best of all earthly rewards, 
the love and admiration of his fellow-citizens. 
"Hope elevated aiid joy 
Brightened his crest." 

Milton's Par. Lout, ix., 634. 
I stood near him ; and his face, to use the ex- 
pression of the scripture of the first martyr, " his 
face was as if it had been the face of an angel." 
I do not know how others feel, but if I had stood 
in that situation, I never would have exchanged 
it for all that Kings in their profusion could be- 
stow.^^ I did hope that that day's danger and 
honor would have been a bond to hold us all 
together forever. But, alas ! that, with other 
pleasing visions, is long since vanished. 

Sir, this act of supreme magnanimity has been 
represented as if it had been a measure of an 
administration that, having no scheme of their 
own, took a middle line, pilfered a bit from one 
side and a bit from the other. Sir, they took no 
middle lines. They diflfered fundamentally from 
the schemes of both parties, but they preserved 
the objects of both. They preserved the author- 
ity of Great Britain. They preserved the equity 
of Great Britain. They made the Declaratory 
Act. They repealed the Stamp Act. They 
did both fully ; because the Declaratory Act 
was without qualification, and the repeal of the 
Stamp Act total. This they did in the situation 
I have ascribed. 

Now, sir, what will the adversary say to both 
these acts ? If the principle of the Declaratory 
Act was not good, the principle we are contend- 
ing for this day is monstrous. If the principle 
of the repeal was not good, why are we not at 
war for a real, substantial, effective revenue ? If 
both were bad, w^iy has this ministry incurred 
all the inconveniences of both and of all schemes ? 
Why have they enacted, repealed, enforced, 
yielded, and now attempt to enforce again? 

Sir, I think I may as well now, as at any other 
time, speak to a certain matter of Refutation or the 
fact, not wholly unrelated to the pretense that the 

' _ J . . repeal produced 

question under your consideration, the disturbances 
We, who would persuade you to re- 
vert to the ancient policy of this kingdom, labor 

2' General Conway must have felt this passage 
keenly, and he deserved it. He was now connect- 
ed with Lord North, and had gratified the King by 
going the whole length of the l^iost violent measures 
against Wilkes. About three weeks before, he had 
said respecting the Boston Port Bill, that he "was 
particularly happy in the mode of punishment adopt- 
ed in it." He was then enjoying his reward in the 
emoluments pertaining to the office of Governor of 
Jersey, to which he had been promoted after holding 
for some years that of Lieutenant General of the Ord- 
nance. In justice to Conway, it ought, however, to 
be said, that notwithstanding his hasty remark in fa- 
vor of the Boston Port Bill, he was always o])posed 
to American taxation. He differed from Lord North 
at every step as to carrying on the war, and made 
the motion for ending it, Febraary 22d, 1762, which 
drove Lord North from power. 



1774.] 



AMERICAN TAXATION. 



257 



under the effect of this short current phrase, 
which the court leaders have given out to all 
their corps, in order to take away the credit of 
those who would prevent you from that frantic 
war you are going to wage upon your colonies. 
Their cant is this: "All the disturbances in 
America have been created by the repeal of the 
Stamp Act." I suppress for a moment my in- 
dignation at the falsehood, baseness, and absurd- 
ity of this most audacious assertion. Instead of 
remarking on the motives and character of those 
who have issued it for circulation, I will clearly 
lay before you the state of America, antecedently 
to that repeal, after the repeal, and since the re- 
newal of the schemes of American taxation. 

It is said that the disturbances, if there were 
The disturban- any before the repeal, were slight, 
befor/Ihe^re*^ and without difficulty or inconven- 
P^^'- ience might have been suppressed. 

For an answer to this assertion, I will send you 
to the great author and patron of the Stamp Act, 
who, certainly meaning well to the authority of 
this country, and fully apprised of the state of 
that, made, before a repeal was so much as ag- 
itated in this House, the motion which is on your 
journals ; and which, to save the clerk the 
trouble of turning to it, I will now read to you. 
It was for an amendment to the address of the 
17th of December, 1765. 

" To express our just resentment and indigna- 
tion at the outrageous tumults and insurrections 
which have been excited and carried on in North 
America; and at the resistance given by open 
and rebellious force to the execution of the laws 
in that part of his Majesty's dominions ; and to 
assure his Majesty that his faithful commons, an- 
imated with the warmest duty and attachment 
to his royal person and government, will firmly 
and effectually support his Majesty in all such 
measures as shall be necessary for preserving 
and supporting the legal dependence of the col- 
onies on the mother country," &c., &c. 

Here was certainly a disturbance preceding 
the repeal ; such a disturbance as Mr. Grenville 
thought necessary to qualify by the name of an 
insurrection, and the epithet of a rebellious force : 
terms much stronger than any by which those 
who then supported his motion have ever since 
thought proper to distinguish the subsequent dis- 
turbances in America. They were disturbances 
which seemed to him and his friends to justify as 
strong a promise of support as hath been usual 
to give in the beginning of a war with the most 
powerful and declared enemies. When the ac- 
counts of the American governors came before 
the House, they appeared stronger even than the 
warmth of public imagination had painted them ; 
so much stronger, that the papers on your table 
bear me out in saying, that all the late disturb- 
ances, which have been at one time the minister's 
motives for the repeal of five out of six of the 
new court taxes, and are now his pretenses for 
refusing to repeal that sixth, did not amount — 
why do I compare them ? no, not to a tenth part 
of the tumults and violence which prevailed long 
before the repeal of that act. 
R 



Ministry can not refuse the authority of the 
commander-in-chief. General Gage, who, in his 
letter of the 4th of November, from New York, 
thus represents the state of things : 

" It is difficult to say, from the highest to the 
lowest, who has not been accessory to this insur- 
rection, either by writing or mutual agreements 
to oppose the act, by what they are pleased to 
term all legal opposition to it. Nothing effectu- 
ally has been proposed, either to prevent or quell 
the tumult. The rest of the provinces are in the 
same situation as to a positive refusal to take the 
stamps ; and threatening those who shall take 
them, to plunder and murder them ; and this af- 
fair stands in all the provinces, that unless the 
act, from its own nature, enforce itself, nothing 
but a very considerable military force can do it." 

It is remarkable, sir, that the persons who for- 
merly trumpeted forth the most loudly the violent 
resolutions of assemblies ; the universal insurrec- 
tions ; the seizing and burning the stamped pa- 
pers ; the forcing stamp officers to resign their 
commissions under the gallows ; the rifling and 
pulling down of the houses of magistrates ; and 
the expulsion from their country of all who dared 
to write or speak a single word in defense of the 
powers of Parliament — these very trumpeters are 
now the men that I'epresent the whole as a mere 
trifle, and choose to date all the disturbances 
from the repeal of the Stamp Act, which put an 
end to them. Hear your officers abroad, and let 
them refute this shameless falsehood, who, in all 
their correspondence, state the disturbances as 
owing to their true causes, the discontent of the 
people, from the taxes. You have this evidence 
in your own archives ; and it will give you com- 
plete satisfaction, if you are not so far lost to all 
parliamentary ideas of information as rather to 
credit the lie of the day than the records of your 
own House. 

Sir, this vermin of court reporters, when they 
are forced into day upon one point, Did not spring 
are sure to burrow in another: but from opposition 

' LQ tlie House to 

they shall have no refuge ; I will the stamp Act 
make them bolt out of all their holes. "* ^" ''**'* ' 
Conscious that they must be baffled, when they 
attribute a precedent disturbance to a subse- 
quent measure, they take othec ground, almost 
as absurd, but very common in modern practice, 
and very wicked ; which is, to attribute the ill 
effect of ill-judged conduct to the arguments 
which had been used to dissuade us from it. 
They say that the opposition made in Parliament 
to the Stamp Act, at the time of its passing, en- 
couraged the Americans to their resistance. This 
has even formally appeared in print in a regular 
volume, from an advocate of that faction, a Doc- 
tor Tucker. This Doctor Tucker is already a 
dean, and his earnest labors in this vineyard will, 
I suppose, raise him to a bi.shopric. But this as- 
sertion, too, just like the rest, is false. In all the 
papers which have loaded your table ; in all the 
vast crowd of verbal witnesses that appeared at 
your bar — witnesses which were indiscriminate- 
ly produced from both sides of the House — not 
the least hint of such a cause of distu-bance has 



258 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1774. 



ever appeared. As to the fact of a strenuous 
opposition to the Stamp Act, I sat as a stranger 
in your gallery when the act was under consid- 
eration. Far from any thing inflammator}^, I 
never heard a more languid debate in this House. 
No more than two or three gentlemen, as I re- 
member, spoke against the act, and that with 
great reserve and remarkable temper. There 
was but one division in the whole progress of the 
bill ; and the minority did not reach to more than 
thirty-nine or forty. In the House of Lords I do 
not recollect that there was any debatr^ or divi- 
sion at all. I am sure there was no protest. In 
fact, the affair passed with so very, very little 
noise, that in town they scarcely knew the na- 
ture of what you were doing. The opposition 
to the bill in England never could have done 
this mischief, because there scarcely ever was 
less of opposition to a bill of consequence. 

Sir, the agents and distributors of falsehoods 
Nor from the havc, with their usual industry, cir- 
Gr™vme'^'^imn. culatcd auothcr lie of the same na- 
istry. lyj^YQ of the former. It is this, that 

the disturbances ax-ose from the account which 
had been received in America of the change in 
the ministry. No longer awed, it seems, wnth 
the spirit of the former rulers, they thought them- 
selves a match for what our calumniators choose 
to qualify by the name of so feeble a ministry as 
succeeded. Feeble in one sense these men cer- 
tainly may be called; for, with all their efforts, 
and they have made manj^, they have not been 
able to resist the distempered vigor and insane 
alacrity with which you are rushing to your ruin. 
But it does so happen, that the falsity of this cir- 
culation is, like the rest, demonstrated by indis- 
putable dates and records. 

So little was the change knowm in America, 
that the letters of your governors, giving an ac- 
count of these disturbances long after they had 
arrived at their highest pitch, were all directed 
to the old ministry, and particularly to the Earl 
of Halifax, the secretary of state corresponding 
with the colonies, without once in the smallest 
degree intimating the slightest suspicion of any 
ministerial revolution whatsoever. The ministry 
was not changed in England until the 10th day of 
July, 1765. On the 14th of the preceding June, 
Governor Fauquier, from Virginia, writes thus, 
and writes thus to the Earl of Halifax : " Gov- 
ernment is set at defiance, not having strength 
enough in her hands to enforce obedience to 
the laws of the country. The private distress 
which every man feels, increases the general dis- 
satisfaction at the duties laid by the Stamp Act, 
which breaks out and shows itself upon every tri- 
fling occasion." The general dissatisfaction had 
produced some time before, that is, on the 29th of 
May, several strong public resolves against the 
Stamp Act; and those resolves are assigned by 
Governor Bernard as the cause of the insurrec- 
tions in Massachusetts Bay, in his letter of the 
15th of August, still addressed to the Earl of 
Halifax ; and he continued to address such ac- 
counts to that minister quite to the 7th of Sep- 
tember of the same year. Similar accounts, and 



of as late a date, were sent from other govern- 
ors, and all directed to Lord Halifax. Not one 
of these letters indicates the slightest idea of a 
change, either known, or even apprehended. 

Thus are blown away the insect race of court- 
ly falsehoods ! thus perish the miserable inven- 
tions of the wn-etched runners for a wretched 
cause, which they have flyblown into every weak 
and rotten part of the country, in vain hopes that 
when their maggots had taken wing, their impor- 
tunate buzzing might sound something like the 
public voice ! 

Sir, I have troubled you sufficiently with the 
state of America before the repeal. The disturban- 
Now I turn to the honorable gentle- l^^edmSyaa^ 
man w^ho so stoutly challenges us to ti'« repeal. 
tell whether, after the repeal, the provinces were 
quiet ? This is coming home to the point. Here 
I meet him directly, and answer most readily : 
Theij ivere quiet. And I, in my turn, challenge 
him to prove when, where, and by whom, and in 
w^hat numbers, and with what violence, the other 
laws of trade, as gentlemen assert, were violated 
in consequence of your concession ? or that even 
your other revenue laws were attacked ? But I 
quit the vantage ground on which I stand, and 
where I might leave the burden of proof upon 
him. I walk down upon the open plain, and un- 
dertake to show that they were not only quiet, 
but showed many unequivocal marks of acknowl- 
edgment and gratitude. And, to give him every 
advantage, I select the obnoxious colony of Mas- 
sachusetts Bay, which at this time (but without 
hearing her) is so heavily a culprit before Par- 
liament. I will select their proceedings even 
under circumstances of no small irritation; for, 
a little imprudently, I must say. Governor Ber- 
nard mixed in the administration of the lenitive 
of the repeal no small acrimony arising from mat- 
ters of a separate nature. Yet see, sir, the effect 
of that lenitive, though mixed with these bitter 
ingredients ; and how this rugged people can 
express themselves on a measure of concession : 

"If it is not in our power," say they, in their 
address to Governor Bernard, " in so full a man- 
ner as will be expected, to show our respectful 
gratitude to the mother country, or to make a 
dutiful and affectionate return to the indulgence 
of the King and Parliament, it shall be no fault 
of ours; for this we intend, and hope we shall be 
able fully to effect." 

Would to God that this temper had been cul- 
tivated, managed, and set in action ! Other ef- 
fects than those which we have since felt would 
have resulted from it. On the requisition for 
compensation to those who had suffered from the 
violence of the po{)uh«e, in the same address 
they say : " The recommendation enjoined by 
Mr. Secretary Conway's letter, and in conse- 
quence thereof made to us, we will embrace the 
first convenient opportunity to consider and act 
upon." They did consider; they did act upon 
it. They obeyed the requisition. I know the 
mode has been chicaned upon ; but it was sub- 
stantially obeyed, and much better obc3^ed than 
I fear the parliamentary requisition of this ses- 



1774.] 



AMERICAN TAXATION. 



259 



sion will be, though enforced by all your rigor, 
and backed with all your power. In a word, 
the damages of popular fury were compensated 
by legislative gravity. Almost every other part 
of America in various ways demonstrated their 
gratitude. I am bold to say, that so sudden a 
calm recovered after so violent a storm is with- 
out parallel in history. To say that no other 
' disturbance should happen from any other cause, 
is folly. But, as far as appearances went, by the 
judicious sacrifice of one law, you procured an 
acquiescence in all that remained. After this 
experience, nobody shall persuade me, when a 
whole people are concerned, that acts of lenity 
are not means of conciliation. 

I hope the honorable gentleman has received 

a fair and full answer to his question. 

y/ (4.) I have done with the third period of your 

Fourth Period. poHcy— that of your repeal ; and the 

New taxes laid return of vour ancient system, and 

by Charles . •' . ■^ ' 

Towiisend.un- your ancient tranquillity and con- 

der Lord Chat- •', o-^u- -J * c 

ham's tiiird cord. Sir, this period was not as 
ministry. -^^^^ ^^ j^ ^^^^^ happy. Auothcr scene 

was opened, and other actors appeared on the 
stage. The state, in the condition I have de- 
scribed it, was delivered into the hands of Lord 
Chatham — a great and celebrated name — a name 
that keeps the name of this country respectable 
in every other on the globe. It may be truly 
called 

Clarum et venerabile nomeu, 
Gentibus, et multum uostraa quod proderat urbi.^^ 
Sir, the venerable age of this great man, his 
merited rank, his superior eloquence, his splen- 
did qualities, his eminent services, the vast space 
he fills in the eye of mankind, and, more than all 
the rest, his fall from power, which, like death, 
canonizes and sanctifies a great character, will 
not suffer me to censure any part of his conduct. 
I am afraid to flatter him ; 1 am sure I am not 
disposed to blame him. Let those who have be- 
trayed him by their adulation, insult him with 
their malevolence. But what I do not presume 
to censure, I may have leave to lament. For a 
wise man, he seemed to me at that time to be 
governed too much by general maxims. I speak 
with the freedom of history, and. I hope, without 
offense. One or two of these maxims, flowing 
from an opinion not the most indulgent to our 
unhappy species, and surely a little too general, 
led him into measures that were greatly mis- 
chievous to himself; and, for that reason, among 
others, perhaps, fatal to his country ; measures, 
the elTects of which, I am afraid, are forever in- 
cm-able. He made an administration so check- 
ered and speckled : he put together a piece of 
joineiy so crossly indented and whimsically dove- 
tailed ; a cabinet so variously inlaid ; such a piece 
of diversified mosaic ; such a tesselated pave- 
ment without cement : here a bit of black stone, 



22 A name illustrious and revered by nations, 
And rich in blessings for our country's good. 

The passage may be found in Lucan's Pbarsalia, 
book ix., V. 202, and forms part of the character of 
Pompey, as put by the poet in the mouth of Cato. 



and there a bit of white ; patriots and courtiers, 
king's friends and Republicans, Whigs and To- 
ries, treacherous friends and open enemies ; that 
it was indeed a very curious show, but utterly 
unsafe to touch, and unsure to stand on. The 
colleagues whom he had assorted at the same 
boards, stared at each other, and were obliged 
to ask, " Sir, your name ? Sir, you have the ad- 
vantage of me — Mr. Such-a-one — I beg a thou- 
sand pardons." I venture to say, it did so hap- 
pen, that persons had a single office divided be- 
tween them, who had never spoke to each other 
in their lives, until they found themselves, they 
knew not how, pigging together, heads and 
points, in the same truckle-bed.^^ 

Sir, in consequence of this arrangement, hav- 
ing put so much the larger portion of his enemies 
and opposers in power, the confusion was such, 
that his own principles could not possibly have 
any effect or influence in the conduct of affairs. 
If ever he fell into a fit of the gout, or if any other 
cause withdrew him from public cares, principles 
directly the contrary were sure to predominate. 
When he had executed his plan, he had not an 
inch of ground to stand upon. When he had ac- 
complished his scheme of administration, he was 
no longer a minister. 

When his face was hid but for a moment, his 
whole system was on a wide sea, without chart 
or compass. The gentlemen, his particular 
friends, who, with the names of various depart- 
ments of ministry, were admitted to seem as if 
they acted under him, with a modesty that be- 
comes all men. and with a confidence in him 
which was justified, even in its extravagance, by 
his superior abilities, had never, in any instance, 
presumed upon any opinion of their own. De- 
prived of his guiding influence, they were whirled 
about, the sport of every gust, and easily driven 
into any port ; and as those who joined with them 
in manning the vessel were the most directly op- 
posite to his opinions, measures, and character, 
and far the most artful and most powerful of the 
set, they easily prevailed, so as to seize upon the 
vacant, unoccupied, and derelict minds of his 
friends ; and instantly they turned the vessel 
wholly out of the course of his policy. As if it 
were to insult as well as to betray him, even 
long before the close of the first session of his 
administration, when every thing was publicly 
transacted, and w^ith great parade, in his name, 
they made an act declaring it highly just and 
expedient to raise a revenue in America. For 
even then, sir, even before this splendid orb was 
entirely set, and while the western horizon was 
in a blaze with his descending glory, on the op- 
posite quarter of the heavens arose another lu- 
minary, and, for his hour, became lord of the as- 
cendant. ^'V 

This light, too, is passed and set forever. You 
understand, to be sure, that I speak of Charles 

23 Supposed to allude to the Right Honorable Lord 
North, and George Cooke, Esq., who were made 
joint paymasters in the summer of 1766, on the re- 
moval of the Rockingham administration. 



260 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1774. 



Townsend, officially the reproducer of this fatal 
scheme, whom I can not even now remember 
without some degree of sensibility. In truth, 
sir, he was the delight and ornament of this 
House, and the charm of every society which he 
honored with his presence. Perhaps there never 
arose in this country, nor in any country, a man 
of a more pointed and finished wnt, and (where his 
passions were not concerned) of a more refined, 
exquisite, and penetrating judgment. If he had 
not so great a stock as some have had who flour- 
ished formerly, of knowledge long treasured up, 
he knew better by far, than any man I ever was 
acquainted with, how to bring together within a 
short time all that was necessary to establish, to 
illustrate, and to decorate that side of the ques- 
tion he supported. He stated his matter skill- 
fully and powerfully. He particularly excelled 
in a most luminous explanation and display of his 
subject. His style of argument was neither 
trite and vulgar, nor subtle and abstruse. He 
hit the House just between wind and water ; and, 
not being troubled with too anxious a zeal for any 
matter in question, he was never more tedious or 
more earnest than the preconceived opinions and 
present temper of his hearers required, to whom 
he was always in perfect unison. He conformed 
exactly to the temper of the House ; and he 
seemed to guide, because he was always sure to 
follow it. 

I beg pardon, sir, if, when I speak of this and 
other great men, I appear to digress in saying 
something of their characters. In this eventful 
history of the revolutions of America, the charac- 
ters of such men are of much importance. Great 
men are the guide-posts and land-marks in the 
state. The credit of such men at court, or in the 
nation, is the sole cause of all the public meas- 
ures. It would be an invidious thing (most for- 
eign, I trust, to what you think my disposition) 
to remark the errors into which the authority of 
great names has brought the nation, without do- 
ing justice at the same time to the great quali- 
ties whence that authority arose. The subject 
is instructive to those who wish to form them- 
selves on whatever of excellence has gone before 
them. There are many young members in the 
House (such of late has been the rapid succes- 
sion of public men) who never saw that prodigy, 
Charles Townsend, nor, of course, know what a 
ferment he was able to excite in every thing, by 
the violent ebullition of his mixed virtues and fail- 
ings. For failings he had, undoubtedly. Many 
of us remember them. We are this day consid- 
ering the effect of them. But he had no failings 
which were not owing to a noble cause — to an 
ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion 
for fame — a passion which is the instinct of all 
great souls. He worshiped that goddess where- 
soever she appeared; but he paid his particular 
devotions to her in her favorite habitation, in her 
chosen temple, the House of Commons. Be- 
sides the characters of the individuals that com- 
pose our body, it is impossible, Mr. Speaker, not 
to observe, thasi this House has a collective char- 
acter of its own. That character, too, however 



imperfect, is not unamiable. Like all great pub- 
lic collections of men, you possess a marked love 
of virtue, and an abhorrence of vice. But among 
vices, there is none which the House abhors in the 
same degree with obstinacy. Obstinacy, sir, is 
certainly a great vice ; and, in the changeful 
state of political affairs, it is frequently the cause 
of great mischief. It happens, however, very un- 
fortunately, that almost the whole line of the great 
and masculine virtues, constancy, gravity, mag- 
nanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and firmness, are 
closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of 
which you have so just an abhorrence ; and, in 
their excess, all these virtues very easily fall into 
it. He who paid such a punctilious attention to 
all your feelings, certainly took care not to shock 
them by that vice which is the most disgustful 
to you. 

That fear of displeasing those who ought most 
to be pleased, betrayed him sometimes into the 
other extreme. He had voted, and, in the year 
1765, had been an advocate for the Stamp Act. 
Things and the disposition of men's minds were 
changed. In short, the Stamp Act began to be 
no favorite in this House. He therefore attend- 
ed at the private meeting in which the resolu- 
tions moved by a right honorable gentleman wei-e 
settled — resolutions leading to the repeal. The 
next day he voted for that repeal — and he would 
have spoken for it, too, if an illness (not, as was 
then given out, a political, but, to my knowledge, 
a very real illness) had not prevented it. 

The very next session, as the fashion of this 
world passeth away, the repeal began to be in 
as bad an odor in this House as the Stamp Act 
had been in the session before. To conform to 
the temper which began to prevail, and to pre- 
vail mostly among those most in power, he de- 
clared, very early in the winter, that a revenue 
must be had out of America. Instantly he was 
tied down to his engagements by some who had 
no objections to such experiments, when made 
at the cost of persons for whom they had no par- 
ticular regard. 2* The whole body of courtiers 
drove him onward. They always talked as if 
the King stood in a sort of humiliated state until 
something of the kind should be done. 

Here this extraordinary man, then Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, found himself in great straits. 
To please universally was the object of his life ; 
but to tax and to please, no more than to love 
and to be wMse, is not given to men. However, 
he attempted it. To render the tax palatable to 
the partisans of American revenue, he made a 
preamble stating the necessity of such a revenue. 
To close with the American distinction, this rev- 
enue was external., or port duty ; but again, to 
soften it to the other part}', it was a duty of 
supply. To gratify the colonists, it was laid on 
British manufactures; to satisfy the merchants 
of Britain, the duty was trivial, and, except that 
on tea, which touched only the devoted East In- 
dia Company, on none of the grand objects of 

2* See the introduction to Lord Chatham's speech 
on taxing America, p. 102, where the circumstances 
of this engagement are stated. 



1774.] 



AMERICAN TAXATION. 



261 



commerce. To counterwork the American con- 
traband, the duty on tea was reduced from a shil- 
ling to threepence. But, to secure the favor of 
those who would tax America, the scene of col- 
lection was changed, and, with the rest, it was 
levied in the colonies. What need 1 say more ? 
This fine-spun scheme had the usual fate of all 
exquisite policy. But the original plan of the 
duties, and the mode of executing that plan, both 
arose singly and solely from a love of our ap- 
plause. He was truly the child of the House. 
He never thought, did, or said any thing but with 
a view to you. He every day adapted himself 
to your disposition, and adjusted himself before it 
as at a looking-glass.^^ 

He had observed (indeed, it could not escape 
him) that several persons, infinitely his inferiors 
in all respects, had formerly rendered themselves 
considerable in this House by one method alone. 
They were a race of men (I hope in God the spe- 
cies is extinct) who, when they rose in their place, 
no man living could divine, from any known ad- 
herence to parties, to opinions, or to principles, 
from any order or system in their politics, or from 
any sequel or connection in their ideas, what part 
Ihey were going to take in any debate. It is as- 
tonishing how much this uncertainty, especially 
at critical times, called the attention of all par- 
ties on such men. All eyes were fixed on them, 
all ears open to hear them. Each party gaped, 
and looked alternately for their vote, almost to 
the end of their speeches. While the House 
hung in this uncertainty, now the hear-hwi's rose 
from this side — now they rebellowed from the 
other ; and that party to whom they fell at length 
from their tremulous and dancing balance, always 
received them in a tempest of applause. The for- 
tune of such men was a temptation too great to be 
resisted by one to whom a single whiff of incense 
withheld gave much greater pain than he re- 
ceived delight in the clouds of it which daily rose 
about him, from the prodigal superstition of innu- 
merable admirers. He was a candidate for con- 
tradictory honors, and his great aim was to make 
those agree in admiration of him who never 
agreed in any thing else. 



23 Mr. Burke has here touched with great tender- 
ness and forbearance on the peculiar faults of Town- 
send. Horace Walpole has given them with per- 
haps too much prominence in the following sketch: 
"He had almost every great talent and every Httle 
quality. His vanit}' exceeded even his abilities, and 
his suspicions seemed to make him doubt whether he 
had any. With such a capacity, he must have been 
the greatest man of his age, and perhaps inferior to 
no man in any age, had his faults been only in a mod- 
erate proportion— in short, if he had had but common 
truth, common sincerity, common honesty, common 
modesty, common steadiness, common courage, and 
common sense." Sir Dermis Le Marchant remarks 
in a note: "This portrait has the broad lines of 
truth, and is more to be depended upon than Mr. 
Burke's splendid and affectionate panegyric (Speech 
on American Taxation) ; and yet. who can blame the 
warmth with which this great man claims admira- 
tion for a genius which in some points resembled 
his own?" 



Hence arose this unfortunate act, the subject 
of this day's debate ; from a disposition which, 
after making an American revenue to please one, 
repealed it to please others, and again revived it 
in hopes of pleasing a third, and of catching some 
thing in the ideas of all. 

(4.) The revenue act of 1767 formed the fourth 
period of American policy- How we have fared 
since then ; what woeful variety of schemes have 
been adopted ; what enforcing and what repeal- 
ing ; what bullying and what submitting; what 
doing and undoing ; what straining and what re- 
laxing ; what assemblies dissolved for not obey- 
ing, and called again without obedience; what 
troops sent out to quell resistance, and, on meet- 
ing that resistance, recalled ; what shiftings, and 
changes, and jumblings of all kinds of men at 
home, which left no possibility of order, consist- 
ency, vigor, or even so much as a decent unity of 
color in any one public measure — It is a tedious, 
irksome task. My duty may call me to open it 
out some other time ; on a former occasion I tried 
your temper on a part of it ;"° for the present I 
shall forbear. 

After all these changes and agitations, your 
immediate situation upon the question ., , , 

* ^ A final ami total 

on your paper is at length brought to repeal now de- 
this. You have an act of Parliament, 
stating that " it is expedient to raise a revenue 
in America." By a partial repeal you annihi- 
lated the greatest part of that revenue, which 
this preamble declares to be so expedient. You 
have substituted no other in the place of it. A 
secretary of state has disclaimed, in the King's 
name, all thoughts of such a substitution in fu- 
ture. The principle of this disclaimer goes to 
what has been left as well as what has been re- 
pealed. The tax which lingers after its com- 
panions (under a preamble declaring an Ameri- 
can revenue expedient, and for the sole purpose 
of supporting the theory of that preamble) mill 
tates with the assurance authentically conveyed 
to the colonies, and is an exhaustless source of 
jealousy and animosity. On this state, which I 
take to be a fair one, not being able to discern any 
grounds of honor, advantage, peace, or power, for 
adhering either to the act or to the preamble, I 
shall vole for the question which leads to the re- 
peal of both. 

If you do not fall in with this motion, then se 
cure something to fight for, consistent in theory 
and valuable in practice. If you must employ 
your strength, employ it to uphold you in some 
honorable right or some profitable wrong. If 
you are apprehensive that the concession recom- 
mended to you, though proper, should be a means 
of drawing on you farther but unreasonable 
claims, why then employ your force in support- 
ing that reasonable concession against those un- 
reasonable demands. You will employ it with 
more grace, with better effect, and with great 
probable concurrence of all the quiet and ration- 
al people in the provinces, who are now united 



^^ By moving certain resolutions relative to the 
disturbances in America, in May, 1770. 



262 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1774. 



with and hurried away by the violent ; having, 
indeed, different dispositions, but a common inter- 
est. If you apprehend that on a concession you 
shall be punished by metaphysical process to the 
extreme lines, and argued out of your whole au- 
thority, my advice is this : When you have recov- 
ered your old, your strong, your tenable position, 
then face about — stop short — do nothing more — 
reason not at all — oppose the ancient policy and 
practice of the empire as a rampart against the 
speculations of innovators on both sides of the 
question, and you will stand on great, manly, and 
sure ground. On this solid basis fix your ma- 
chines, and they will draw worlds toward you. 

Your ministers, in their own and his Majesty's 
name, have already adopted the American dis- 
tinction of internal and external duties. It is a 
distinction, whatever merit it may have, that was 
originally moved by the Americans themselves ; 
and I think they will acquiesce in it, if they are 
not pushed with too much logic and too little 
sense in all the consequences ; that is, if exter- 
nal taxation be understood as they and you un- 
derstand it when you please, to be, not a distinc- 
tion of geography, but of policy ; that it is a pow- 
er for regulating trade, and not for supporting es- 
tablishments. The distinction, which is as noth- 
ing with regard to right, is of most weighty con- 
sideration in practice. Recover your old ground 
and your old tranquillity. Try it. I am persuad- 
ed the Americans will compromise with you. 
When confidence is once restored, the odious and 
suspicious swmmum jus'''' will perish of course. 
The spirit of practicability, of moderation, and 
mutual convenience, will never call in geometri- 
cal exactness as the arbitrator of an amicable 
settlement. Consult and follow yoiir experience. 
Let not the long story with which I have exer- 
cised your patience prove fruitless to your inter- 
ests. 

For my part, I should choose (if I could have 
my wish) that the proposition of the honorable 
gentleman [Mr. Fuller] for the repeal could go 
to America without the attendance of the penal 
bills. Alone, I could almost answer for its suc- 
cess. I can not be certain of its reception in the 
bad company it may keep. In such heteroge- 
neous assortments, the most innocent person will 
lose the effect of his innocency. Though you 
should send out this angel of peace, yet you are 
sending out a destroying angel too ; and what 
would be the effect of the conflict of these two 
adverse spirits, or which would predominate in 
the end, is what I dare not say : whether the 
lenient measures would cause American passion 
to subside, or the severe would increase its fury. 
All this is in the hand of Providence. Yet now, 
even now, I should confide in the prevailing vir- 
tue and efficacious operation of lenity, though 
working in darkness, and in chaos, in the midst 
of all this unnatural and turbid combination. I 
should hope it might produce order and beauty 
in the end. 

27 Referring to the adage, " Summum jus et sum- 
ma injuria" — Right, when pressed to an extreme, be- 
comes the height of injustice. 



Let us, sir, embrace some system or other be- 
fore we end this session. Do you mean 

, . Ill Peroration 

to tax America, and to draw a product- 
ive revenue from thence ? If you do, speak out : 
name, fix, ascertain this revenue ; settle its quan- 
tity : define its objects ; provide for its collection ; 
and then fight, when you have something to fight 
for. If you mui'der, rob ! If you kill, take pos- 
session ; and do not appear in the character of 
madmen, as well as assassins, violent, vindictive, 
bloody, and tyrannical, without an object. But 
may better counsels guide you ! 

Again and again revert to your old principles.. 
Seek peace and en.sue it. Leave America, if she 
has taxable matter in her, to tax herself. I am 
not here giving into the distinctions of rights, nor 
attempting to mark their boundaries. I do not 
enter into these metaphysical distinctions. I 
hate the very sound of them. Leave the Amer- 
icans as they anciently stood, and these distinc- 
tions, born of our unhappy contest, will die along 
with it. They and we, and their and our ances- 
tors, have been happy under that system. Let 
the memory of all actions, in contradiction to that 
good old mode, on both sides, be extinguished for- 
ever. Be content to bind America by laws of 
trade ; you have always done it. Let this be 
your reason for binding their trade. Do not 
burden them with taxes ; you were not used to 
do so from the beginning. Let this be your rea- 
son for not taxing. These are the arguments of 
states and kingdoms. Leave the rest to the 
schools, for there only they may be discussed 
with safety. But if, intemperately, unwisely, fa- 
tally, you sophisticate and poison the very source 
of government, by urging subtle deductions, and 
consequences odious to those you govern, from 
the unlimited and illimitable nature of supreme 
sovereignty, you will teach them by these means 
to call that sovereignty itself in question. When 
you drive him hard, the boar will surely turn upon 
the hunters. If that sovereignty and their free- 
dom can not be reconciled, which will they take ? 
They will cast your sovereignty in your face. 
Nobody will be argued into slavery. Sir, let 
the gentlemen on the other side call forth all 
their ability ; let the best of them get up and 
tell me what one character of liberty the Amer- 
icans have, and what one brand of slavery they 
are free from, if they are bound in their property 
and industry by all the restraints you can imag- 
ine on commerce, and at the same time are made 
pack-horses of every tax you choose to impose, 
without the least share in granting them ? When 
they bear the burdens of unlimited monopoly, will 
you bring them to bear the burdens of unlimited 
revenue too? The Englishman in America will 
feel that this is slavery — that it is legal slavery 
will be no compensation either to his feelings or 
his understanding. 

A noble Lord [Lord Carmarthen], who spoke 
some time ago, is full of the fire of ingenuous 
youth; and when he has modeled the ideas of a 
lively imagination by farther experience, he will 
be an ornament to his country in either House. 
He has said that the Americans are our children, 



1774.] 



AMERICAN TAXATION. 



263 



and how can they revolt against their parent? 
He says that if they are not iVee in their present 
state, England is not tree, because Manchester, 
and other considerable places, are not represent- 
ed. So, then, because some towns in England are 
not represented, America is to have no represent- 
ative at all. They are '• our children;" but when 
children ask for bread, we are not to give a stone. 
Is it because the natural resistance of things, and 
the various mutations of time, hinders our govern- 
ment, or any scheme of government, from being 
any more than a sort of approximation to the 
right, is it therefore that the colonies are to re- 
cede from it infinitely ? When this child of ours 
wishes to assimilate to its parent, and to reflect 
with a true filial resemblance the beauteous coun- 
tenance of British liberty, are we to turn to them 
the shameful parts of our Constitution ? Are we 
to give them our weakness for their strength — 
our opprobrium for their glory ; and the slough 
of slavery, which w^e are not able to work off, to 
serve them for their freedom ? 

If this be the case, ask yourselves this ques- 
tion : Will they be content in such a state of 
slavery ? If not, look to the consequences. Re- 
flect how you ought to govern a people who 
think they ought to be free, and think they are 
not. Your scheme yields no revenue ; it yields 
nothing bat discontent, disorder, disobedience ; 
and, such is the state of America, that, after wad- 
ing up to your eyes in blood, you could only end 
just Vi^iere you began ; that is, to tax where no 
revenue is to be found; to — my voice fails me; 
my inclination, indeed, carries me no farther — all 
is confusion beyond it. [Here Mr. Burke was 
compelled by illness to stop for a short time, aft- 
er which he proceeded :] 

Well, sir, I have recovered a little, and, before 
I sit down, I must say something to another point 
with which gentlemen urge us : What is to be- 
come of the Declaratory Act, asserting the en- 
tireness of British legislative authority, if we 
abandon the practice of taxation ? 

For my part, I look upon the rights stated in 
Declaratory Act that act cxactly in the manner in 
r°pedofthe Tea which I vicwcd them on its very first 
'*-'^'- proposition, and which I have often 

taken the liberty, with great humility, to lay be- 
fore you. I look, I say, on the imperial rights of 
Great Britain, and the privileges which the col- 
onists ought to enjoy under these rights, to be 
just the most reconcilable things in the world. 
The Parliament of Great Britain sits at the head 
of her extensive empire in two capacities : one 
as the local Legislature of this island, providing 
for all things at home, immediately, and by no 
other instrument than the executive power. The 
other, and, I think, her nobler capacity, is what I 
call her imperial character, in which, as from the 
throne of heaven, she superintends all the sever- 
al inferior Legislatures, and guides and controls 
them all without annihilating any. As all these 
provincial Legislatures are only co-ordinate to 
each other, they ought all to be subordinate to 
her ; else they can neither preserve mutual 
peace, nor hope for mutual justice, nor effect- 



ually afford mutual assistance. It is necessary 
to coerce the negligent, to restrain the violent, 
and to aid the weak and defi,cient by the over- 
ruling plenitude of her power. She is never to 
intrude into the place of others while they are 
equal to the common ends of their institution. 
But, in order to enable Parliament to answer all 
these ends of provident and beneficent superin- 
tendence, her powers must be boundless. The 
gentlemen who think the powers of Parliament 
limited, may please themselves to talk of requi- 
sitions. But suppose the requisitions are not 
obeyed. What ! shall there be no reserved 
power in the empire to supply a deficiency 
which may weaken, divide, and dissipate the 
whole ? We are engaged in war ; the Secre- 
tary of State calls upon the colonies to contrib- 
ute ; some would do it — I think most would 
cheerfully furnish whatever is demanded ; one 
or two, suppose, hang back, and, easing them- 
selves, let the stress of the draught lie on the 
others : surely it is proper that some authority 
might legally say, " Tax yourselves for the 
common supply, or Parliament will do it for 
you." This backwardness was, as I am told, 
actually the case of Pennsylvania for some short 
time toward the beginning of the last war, ow- 
ing to some internal dissensions in the colony. 
But, whether the fact were so or otherwise, the 
case is equally to be provided for by a compe- 
tent sovereign power. But then this ought to 
be no ordinary power, nor ever used in the first 
instance. This is what I meant when I have 
said at various times that I consider the power 
of taxing in Parliament as an instrument of em- 
pire, and not as a means of supply. 

Such, sir, is my idea of the constitution of the 
British empire, as distinguished from the consti- 
tution of Britain ; and on these grounds I think 
subordination and liberty may be sufficiently rec- 
onciled through the whole ; whether to serve a 
refining speculatist or a factious demagogue, I 
know not ; but enough, surely, for the ease and 
happiness of man. 

Sir, while we held this happy course, we drew 
more from the colonies than all the impotent vi- 
olence of despotism ever could extort from them. 
We did this abundantly in the last war. It has 
never been once denied ; and what reason have 
we to imagine that the colonies would not have 
proceeded in supplying government as liberally, 
if you had not stepped in and hindei-ed them from 
contributing, by interrupting the channel in which 
their liberality flowed with so strong a course ; 
by attempting to take, instead of being satisfied 
to receive ? Sir William Temple says, that Hol- 
land has loaded itself with ten times the imposi- 
tions which it revolted from Spain rather than 
submit to. He says true. Tyranny is a poor 
provider. It knows neither how to accumulate 
nor how to extract. 

I chai'ge, therefore, to this new and unfortunate 
system, the loss not only of peace, of union, and 
of commerce, but even of revenue, which its 
friends are contending for. It is mox-ally certain 
that we have lost at least a million of fi-ee grants 



264 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1774. 



since the peace. I think we have lost a great 
deal more ; and that those who look for a rev- 
enue from the provinces, never could have pur- 
sued, even in that light, a course more directly 
repugnant to their purposes. 

Now, sir, I trust I have shown, first, on that 
narrow ground which the honorable gentleman 
measured, that you are like to lose nothing by 
complying with the motion except what you have 
lost already. I have shown afterward, that in 
time of peace you flourished in commerce, and 
when war required it, had saflicient aid from the 
colonies, while you pursued your ancient policy ; 
that you threw every thing into confusion when 
you made the Stamp Act ; and that you restored 
every thing to peace and order when you re- 
pealed it. I have shown that the revival of the 
system pf taxation has produced the very worst 
effects ; and that the partial repeal has produced, 
not partial good, but universal evil. Let these 
considerations, founded on facts, not one of which 
can be denied, bring us back to our reason by 
the road of our experience. 

I can not, as I have said, answer for mixed 
measures ; but surely this mixture of lenity 
would give the whole a better chance of success. 
When you once regain confidence, the way will 
be clear before you. Then you may enforce the 
Act of Navigation when it ought to be enforced. 
You will yourselves open it where it ought still 
failher to be opened. Proceed in what you do, 
whatever you do, from policy, and not from ran- 
cor. Let us act like men, let us act like states- 
men. Let us hold some sort of consistent con- 
duct. It is agreed that a revenue is not to be 
had in America. If we lose the profit, let us get 
rid of the odium. 

On this business of America, I confess I am 
serious even to sadness. I have had but one 
opinion concerning it since I sat, and before I sat, 
in Parliament. The noble Lord [Lord North] 
will, as usual, probably attribute the part taken 
by me and my friends in this business to a de- 
sire of getting his places. Let him enjoy this 
happy and original idea. If I deprived him of 
it, I should take away most of his wit, and all 
his argument. But I had rather bear the brunt 
of all his wit, and, indeed, blows much heavier, 
than stand answerable to God for embracing a 
system that tends to the destruction of some of 
the very best and fairest of his wox-ks. But I 
know the map of England as well as the noble 
Lord, or as any other person ; and I know that 
the way I take is not the road to preferment. 
My excellent and honorable friend under me on 
the floor [Mr. Dowdeswell] has trod that road 
with great toil for upward of twenty years to- 
gether. He is not yet arrived at the noble Lord's 
destination. However, the tracks of my worthy 
friend are those I have ever wished to follow, 
because I know they lead to honor. Long may 
we tread the same road together, whoever may 
accompany us, or whoever may laugh at us on 
our journey. I honestly and solemnly declare, 
I have in all seasons adhered to the system of 
1766, for no other reason than that I think it 



laid deep in your truest interests ; and that, by 
limiting the exercise, it fixes on the firmest foun- 
dations a real, consistent, well-grounded author- 
ity in Parliament. Until you come back to thai 
system, there will be no peace for England. 



INIr. Burke's motion was negatived by a vote 
of 182 to 49. The ministry were bent on vio- 
lent measures, and the act for quartering troops 
in Boston was passed about a month after. 

The name of Lord North occurs so often in 
this speech and in other parts of this volume, that 
the reader will be interested in a brief notice of 
his life and character. He was the eldest son of 
the Earl of Guilford, and was born in 1732. 
Having completed his education at Oxford, and 
traveled extensively on the Continent, he became 
a member of Parliament in 1754, and in 1759 
was brought into office by Lord Chatham as a 
Commissioner of the Treasury. This office he 
continued to hold during Lord Bute's administra- 
tion, and at the close of it was made head of the 
board by Mr. Grenville, who could always rely 
on him as a determined advocate of American 
taxation. He was thrown out of ofl[ice in 1766, 
when Lord Rockingham came into power ; but 
the next year was made Paymaster of the Forces 
by Loi'd Chatham, in his third administration, so 
graphically described in this speech. In 1767 
he became Chancellor of the Exchequer under 
the Duke of Grafton, and when the latter resign- 
ed in 1770, took his place as First Lord of the 
Treasury and prime minister. The King felt 
greatly indebted to Lord North for thus saving 
him the necessity of going back to the Whigs 
under Lord Chatham and Lord Rockingham ; 
and Lord North, on his part, yielded implicitly to 
the King's wishes, and carried on the war long 
after he was convinced that the contest was hope- 
less. At the end of twelve years he was defeat- 
ed on this subject in the House of Commons, and, 
although urged by the King to persevere, he re- 
signed his office on the 19th of March, 1782. 
Within a year from this time he formed his co- 
alition with Mr. Fox, and came again into power 
as joint Secretary of State with his old opponent. 
They were dismissed, however, within less than 
nine months, and from this time Lord North held 
no responsible office under government. 

As leader of the House of Commons, he showed 
much more talent than his early opponents, es- 
pecially Junius, supposed him to possess. He 
never rose into high eloquence, but he succeeded 
admirably in managing the House. He had ex- 
traordinary tact, perfect self-command, and m- 
flexible courage. To these was added a great 
fund of wit, which he used with much eflfect in 
allaying the violence of debate, when rendered 
almost savage, as it was at times, by the impet- 
uous attacks of Mr. Fox and his other opponents. 
Often, when assailed with the bitterest invectives, 
threatened with impeachment, or held out as a 
fit object of popular violence, he would rise at the 
close of a debate and turn the laugh on his oppo- 
nents by his good-humored pleasantry, while he 



1774 ] AMERICAN TAXATION. 265 

furnished the ministerial benches with plausible | North attempted to allay the feeling, and check 
reasons, at least, for carrying him through by their i the prevailing disposition to take offense at what 
votes. He sometimes refreshed himself with a | was said in debate. He referred to the attacks 
nap during these attacks ; and on one occasion, | on himself, and the manner in which he was ac- 
when the orator, who had been threatening him customed to treat them. "A gentleman," he 
with the block for his crimes, poured out an invect- remarked, " spoke of me some time ago as that 
ive against him for being able to slumber over the thing called a minister. Now," said he, looking 
ruin of his country. Lord North rose and com- \ down at his large, round form, and patting his 
plained of it as cruel that he should be denied a | side, " I certainly am a thing : the member, when 
privilege alwa3'S granted to criminals, that of a he called me so, said what was true. I can not, 



good night's rest before going to execution, therefore, be angry with him. And when he 
After his union with Mr. Fox, when Mr. Mar- j spoke of me as the thing called a minister, he 
tin, who harped continually on the subject, said ; called me that which of all things he wished to 
" he wished he could see a starling perched on | be himself, and therefore I took it as a compli- 
the right elbow of the speaker's chair, to repeat \ ment.''^ In private life. Lord North was beloved 
incessantly to the Treasury Bench ' disgraceful, by all ; and, notwithstanding the incessant at- 
shameless Coalition,' " Lord North suggested it tacks to which he was subjected in the House of 
would be a saving of expense to have the honor- Commons, it is probably true, as Charles Butler 
able gentleman himself perfoi'm the service, as \ remarks, that " among all his political adversa- 
deputy to the starling. In one instance, when ries he had not a single enemy." On the death 
the worst possible spirit prevailed in the House, \ of his father in 1790, he succeeded to the earl- 
arising out of an attack made by Colonel Fuller- ', dom of Guilford, and died about two years after, 
ton on Lord Shelburne, and Mr. Adam on Mr. at the age of sixty. 
Fox (leading to a duel in the latter case), Lord [ 



SPEECH 



OF MR. BURKE ON MOVING HIS RESOLUTIONS FOR CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA, DELIVERED IN 
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 22, 1775. 

INTRODUCTION. 

This speech was occasioned by one of those sudden changes of policy which occurred so often in Lord 
North's treatment of the colonies. 

In the midst of violent measures, and at the moment when bills were before Parliament for extinguish- 
ing the entire trade of America, he came forward, to the astonishment of his nearest friends, with a plan 
for concilialion ! It was in substance this, that, whenever a colony, in addition to providing for its own 
government, should raise a fair proportion for the common defense, and place this sum at the disposql of 
Parliament, that colony should be exempted from all farther taxation, except such duties as might be nec- 
essary for the regulation of commerce. This was obviously an insidious scheme for sowing dissension 
among the Americans. Lord North's design was to open the way for treating separately with the differ- 
ent provinces. He could thus favor the loyal and burden the disaffected. He could array them against 
each other by creating hostile interests ; and thus taking them in detail, he could reduce them all to com- 
plete subjection. There was cunning in the scheme, but it proceeded on a false estimate of American 
character. It sprung from a total ignorance of the spirit which actuated the colonies in resisting the mother 
country; and exemplified in a striking manner the truth of the remarks made by Mr. Burke in the pre- 
ceding speech, on " the mischief of not having large and liberal ideas in the management of great affairs." 

While Mr. Burke saw through this scheme, he thought it presented a favorable opportunity for bringing 
forward a plan of conciliation suited to the exigencies of the case ; a plan which, if not adopted, might at 
least put the ministry wholly in the wrong. The idea of conciliating, and even of conceding, before Amer- 
ica had submitted, was certainly admissible, for the minister himself had founded his scheme upon it. 
Mr. Burke, therefore, proposed "to admit the Americans to an equal interest in the British Constitution, 
and place them, at once on the footing of other Englishm-enJ' In urging this measure, he discusses two 
questions : 

1st. " Ought we to concede ?"' and if so, 

2dly. " What should the concession be?" 

In considering the first question, he enters minutely, and with surprising accuracy of detail, into the con- 
dition of the colonies, (1.) their population, (2.) commerce, (3.) agriculture, and (4.) fisheries. He shows that 
force is an improper and inadequate instrument for holding such a people in subjection to the mother coun- 
try ; especially considering their spirit of liberty, which he traces to (1.) their descent, (2.) their fonns of 
government, (3.) the religious principles of the North, (4.) the social institutions of the South, (5.) the pecu- 
liarities of their education, and (6.) their remoteness from Great Britain. He concludes this head by show- 
ing that it is vain to think either (1.) of extinguishing this spirit by removing the causes mentioned above 
(since this is plainly impossible), or (2.) of putting it down by proceeding agamst it as criminal. He 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1775. 



comes, therefore, to the conclusion that it must be propitiated ; or, in other words, that England must con- 
cede. He now considers, 

2dly. "What should the concession be?" 

He remarks that it must obviously relate to taxation, since this was the origin of the contest ; and then 
appeals to the case of Ireland, which was early allowed a Parliament of its own, and of Wales, Chester, 
and Durham, which were admitted to a representation in the Parliament of England. After obviating ob- 
jections, and exposing the evils of Lord North's scheme, he comes to the conclusion that the Americans 
ought (as in the cases adduced) to be admitted to the peculiar privilege of Englishmen, that of " giving 
and grantins-," through their oicn Legislatures, whatever they contributed in aid of the Crown; and not 
be subjected to the imposition of taxes by a Parhament in which they were not represented. He there- 
fore offers six main resolutions asserting these principles, and three subordinate ones for rescinding the 
penal statutes against America, thus carrying the plan of conciUation into full effect. 

After the sketch hei-e given, it is hardly necessary to say that this speech is distinguished for the felic- 
itous selection of its topics ; the lucid order in which they are arranged ; their close connection ; the ease 
with which one thought grows out of another in a regular and progressive series ; and the tendency of the 
whole to a single point, with all the force and completeness of a moral demonstration. The argument 
throughout is founded on facts ; and yet never was there a speech which had less the character of a mere 
"matter of fact" production than the one before us. The outline just given is filled up with thoughts 
fresh from a mind teeming with original and profound reflections on the science of government and the 
nature of man. There are more passages in this than in any other of Mr. Burke's speeches, which have 
been admired and quoted for the richness of their imagery, or the force and beauty of their descriptions. 
The lansruas-e was evidently elaborated with great care; and Sir James Mackintosh has pronounced it 
"the most faultless of Mr. Burke's productions." 

SPEECH, &c. 



I HOPE, sir, that, notv^-ithstanding the austerity 
of the chair, your good nature will incline you to 
some degree of indulgence toward human frailty.^ 
You will not think it unnatural that those who 
have an object depending, which strongly enga- 
ges their hopes and fears, should be somewhat in- 
clined to superstition. As I came into the House 
full of anxiety about the event of my motion, I 
found, to my infinite surprise, that the grand pe- 
nal bill, by which we had passed sentence on the 
trade and sustenance of America, is to be re- 
turned to us from the other House." I do con- 
fess, I could not help looking on this event as a 
fortunate omen. I look upon it as a sort of prov- 
idential favor, by which we are put once more in 
possession of our deliberative capacity, upon a 
business so very questionable in its nature, so 
very uncertain in its issue. By the return of this 

1 There is too much that isfaiicifulm some parts 
of this exordium. A man who was wholly absorbed 
in his subject would not talk thus about himself, or 
about " the austerity of the chair," " indulgence to- 
ward human frailty," being "inclined to supersti- 
tion," "a fortunate omen," "a superior warning 
voice," &c. It was this that made Mr. Hazlitt say, 
"Most of his speeches have a sort of parliamentary 
preamble to them: there is an air of affected mod- 
esty, and ostentatious trifling in them: he seems 
fond of coqueting with the House of Commons, and 
is perpetually calling the speaker out to dance a 
minuet with him before he begins." This is strongly 
stated, but it shows a fault in Mr. Burke, which was 
often spoken of by his contemporaries. Hazlitt at- 
tributes it to his having been "raised into public 
life : he was prouder of his new dignity than be- 
came so great a man." Perhaps a truer solution is, 
that Mr. Burke's fancy too often outran his judgment, 
which v^'as certainly the occasion of most of his er- 
rors in composition. 

2 An act interdicting the trade and fisheries of all 
the New England colonies. 



bill, which seemed to have taken its flight for- 
ever, we are, at this very instant, nearly as free 
to choose a plan for our American government, 
as we were on the first day of the session. If, 
sir, we incline to the side of conciliation, we are 
not at all embarrassed (unless we please to make 
ourselves so) by any incongruous mixture of co- 
ercion and restraint. We are therefore called 
upon, as it were by a superior warning voice, 
again to attend to America ; to attend to the 
whole of it together ; and to review the subject 
wath an unusual degree of care and calmness. 

Surely it is an awful subject, or there is none 
so on this side of the grave. When The subject one 

-. „ , , , , p • 1 • that requires sys- 

1 first had the honor ot a seat m this tematic views. 
House, the affairs of that continent pressed them- 
selves upon us as the most important and most 
delicate object of parliamentary attention. ]My 
little share in this great deliberation oppressed 
me. I found myself a partaker in a very high 
trust ; and having no sort of reason to rely on 
the strength of my natural abilities for the prop- 
er execution of that trust, J was obliged to take 
more than common pains to instruct myself in ev- 
ery thing which relates to our colonies. I was not 
less under the necessity of forming some fixed 
ideas concerning the general policy of the British 
empire. Something of this sort seemed to be in- 
dispensable, in order, amid so vast a flucluation of 
passions and opinions, to concenter my thoughts ; 
to ballast my conduct ; to preserve me from be- 
ing blown about by every wind of fashionable 
doctrine. I really did not think it safe, or man- 
ly, to have fresh principles to seek upon every 
fresh mail which should arrive from America. 

At that period I had the fortune to find my- 
self in perfect concurrence with a large majority 
in this House. ^ Bowinor under that hi^h author- 



- This was in 1766, when the Stamp Act was re- 
pealed by the Hockingham administration. 



1775.] 



CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 



267 



ity, and penetrated with the sharpness and 
strength of that early impression, I have contin- 
ued ever since in my original sentiments without 
the least deviation. Whether this be owing to 
an obstinate perseverance in error, or to a relig- 
ious adherence to what appears to me truth and 
reason, it is in your equity to judge. 

Sir, Parliament having an enlarged view of 
objects, made, during, this interval, more frequent 
changes in their sentiment and their conduct than 
could be justified in a particular person upon the 
contracted scale of private information. But 
though I do not hazard any thing approaching 
to a censure on the motives of former Parliaments 
to all those alterations, one fact is undoubted — 
that under them the state of America has been 
kept in continual agitation. Every thing admin- 
istered as remedy to the public complaint, if it 
did not produce, was at least followed by, a 
heightening of the distemper ; until, by a variety 
of experiments, that important country has been 
brought into her present situation — a situation 
which I will not miscall, which I dare not name, 
which I scarcely know how to comprehend in the 
terms of any description. 

In this posture, sir, things stood at the begin- 
. ning of the session. About that time, 
te.ito come for- a wortliy mcmbcr [Mr. Rose Fuller] 
of gi-eat parliamentary experience, 
who, in the year 1766, filled the chair of the Amer- 
ican committee with much ability, took me aside, 
and, lamenting the present aspect of our politics, 
told me, things were come to such a pass, that 
our former methods of proceeding in the House 
would be no longer tolerated. That the public 
tribunal (never too indulgent to a long and un- 
successful Opposition) would now scrutinize our 
conduct with unusual severity. That the very 
vicissitudes andshiftings of ministerial measures, 
instead of convicting their authors of inconstancy 
and want of S3-stem, w^ould be taken as an occa- 
sion of charging us with a predetermined discon- 
tent, which nothing could satisfy ; while we ac- 
cused every measure of vigor as cruel, and ev- 
eiy pro[)osal of lenity as weak and irresolute. 
The public, he said, would not have patience to 
see us play the game out with our adversaries: 
we must produce our hand. It would be ex- 
pected, that those who for many years had been 
active in such affairs, should show that they had 
formed some clear and decided idea of the prin- 
ciples of colony government, and were capable 
of drawing out something like a platform of the 
ground which might be laid for future and per- 
manent tranquillity. 

I felt the truth of what my honorable friend 
Reluctance I'cprcsentcd, but I felt my situation too. 
to do so. fj[y applicaticn might have been made 
with far greater propriety to many other gentle- 
men. No man was, indeed, ever better disposed 
or worse qualified for such an undertaking than 
myself. Though I gave so far into his opinion 
that I immediately threw my thoughts into a 
sort of parliamentary form, I was by no means 
equally ready to produce them. It generally 
argues some degree of natural impotence of 



mind, or some want of knowledge of the world, 
to hazai'd plans of government, except from a 
seat of authority. Propositions are made, not 
onl}'' ineffectually, but somewhat disreputably, 
when the minds of men are not properly dis- 
posed for their reception ; and, for my part, 1 
am not ambitious of ridicule — not absolutely a 
candidate for disgrace. 

Besides, sir, to speak the plain truth, I have in 
general no very exalted opinion of the virtue of 
paper government, nor of any politics in which 
the plan is to be wholly separated from the exe- 
cution. But when I saw that anger and vio- 
lence prevailed every day more and more, and 
that things were hastening tow^ard an incurable 
alienation of our colonies, I confess my caution 
gave w^ay. I felt this, as one of those few mo- 
ments in which decorum yields to a higher duty. 
Public calamity is a mighty leveler, and there 
are occasions when any, even the slightest, 
chance of doing good, must be laid hold on, even 
by the most inconsiderable person. 

To restore order and repose to an empire so 
great and so disti'acted as ours, is, merely in the 
attempt, an undertaking that would ennoble the 
flights of the highest genius, and obtain pardon 
for the efforts of the meanest understanding. 
Struggling a good while with these thoughts, by 
degrees I felt myself more firm. I derived, at 
length, some confidence from what in other cir- 
cumstances usually produces timidity. I grew 
less anxious, even from the idea of my own insig- 
nificance. For, judging of what you are by what 
you ought to be, I persuaded myself that you 
would not reject a reasonable proposition be- 
cause it had nothing but its reason to recom- 
mend it. On the other hand, being totally des- 
titute of all shadow" of influence, natural or adven- 
titious, I was very sure that if my proposition 
were futile or dangerous — if it were weakly 
conceived or improperly timed, there was noth- 
ing exterior to it of power to aw^e, dazzle, or de- 
lude you. You will see it just as it is, and you 
will treat it just as it deserves. 

The PROPOSITION is peace. Not peace through 
the medium of war ; not peace to be hunt- xiie thing 
ed through the labyrinth of intricate and f"-"P°=*«J^ 
endless negotiations ; not peace to arise out of 
universal discord, fomented from principle, in all 
parts of the empire ; not peace to depend on the 
juridical determination of perplexing questions, 
or the precise marking the shadowy boundaries 
of a complex government. It is simple peace, 
sought in its natural course and its ordinary 
haunts. It is peace sought in the spirit of peace, 
and laid in principles pv;rcly pacific. I propose, 
by removing the ground of the dillerencc, and by 
restoring the former unsuspecting confidence of 
the colonies in the mother country, to give per- 
manent satisfaction to your people ; and, far 
from a scheme of ruling by discord, to reconcile 
them to each other in the same act, and by the 
bond of the very same interest, which reconciles 
them to British government. 

My idea is nothing more. Refined policy ever 
has been the parent of confusion, and ever will be 



268 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1775. 



so as long as the world endures. Plain good 
intention, which is as easily discovered at the 
first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is 
(let me say) of no mean force in the govern- 
ment of mankind. Genuine simplicity of heart 
is a healing and cementing principle. My plan, 
therefore, being formed upon the most simple 
grounds imaginable, may disappoint some peo- 
ple when they hear it. It has nothing to rec- 
ommend it to the pruriency of curious ears. 
There is nothing at all new and captivating in 
it. It has nothing of the splendor of the project 
which has been lately laid upon your table by 
the noble Lord in the blue ribbon'' [Lord North]. 
It does not propose to fill your lobby with squab- 
bling colony agents, who will require the inter- 
position of your mace at every instant to keep 
the peace among them. It does not institute a 
magnificent auction of finance, where captivated 
provinces come to general ransom by bidding 
against each other, until you knock down the 
hammer, and determine a proportion of pay- 
ments beyond all the powers of algebra to 
equalize and settle. 

The plan which I shall presume to suggest 
The plan jus- dcrivcs, hovvevcr, one great advantage 
Nortil's pro/- ^'O"! the proposition and registry of 
«ct- that noble Lord's project. The idea 

of conciliation is admissible. First, the House, in 
accepting the resolution moved by the noble Lord, 
has admitted, notwithstanding the menacing front 
of our address,'' notwithstanding our heavy bill of 
pains and penalties, that we do not think ourselves 
precluded from all ideas of free grace and bounty. 

The House has gone farther ; it has declared 
conciliation admissible, previous to any submis- 
sion on the part of America. It has even shot a 

4 That when the governor, council, or Assembly, or 
General Court of any of his Majesty's provinces or 
colonies in America, shall propose to make provision, 
according to the condition, circumstances, and situa- 
tion of such province or colony, for contributing their 
proportion to the common defense (such proportion to 
be raised under the authorit}- of the General Court or 
General Assembly of such province or colon}', and 
disposable by Parliament), and shall engage to make 
provision also for the support of the civil government 
and the administration of justice in sucb province or 
colony, it will be proper, if such proposal shall be ap- 
proved by his Majesty and the two houses of Parlia- 
ment, and for so long as such provision shall be made 
accordingly, to forbear, in respect of such province 
or colony, to levy any duty, tax, or assessment, or to 
impose any farther duty, tax, or assessment, except 
such duties as it may be expedient to continue to 
levy or impose for the regulation of commerce: the 
net produce of the duties last mentioned to be car- 
ried to the account of such province or colony re- 
spectively. — Resolution moved by Lord North in 
the committee, and agreed to by the House, 27th 
February, 1775. 

^ The ministry had previously procured the pass- 
ing of an address to the King, declaring that a re- 
bellion existed in Massachusetts ; requesting his 
Majesty to take effectual means for its supi)ression ; 
and pledging the zealous co-operation of Parliament 
in whatever measures he might adopt for that pur- 
pose. 



good deal beyond that mark, and has admitted 
that the complaints of our former mode of exert- 
ing the right of taxation were not wholly un- 
founded. That right, thus exerted, is allowed 
to have had something reprehensible in it, some- 
thing unwise, or something grievous ; since, in 
the mid.st of our heat and resentment, we, of our- 
selves, have proposed a capital alteration, and, 
in order to get rid of what seemed so very ex- 
ceptionable, have instituted a mode that is alto- 
gether new; one that is, indeed, wholly alien 
from all the ancient methods and forms of Par- 
liament. 

The principle of this proceeding is large 
enough for my purpose. The means proposed 
by the noble Lord for carrying his ideas into ex- 
ecution, I think, indeed, are very indifferently 
suited to the end ; and this I shall endeavor to 
show you before I sit down. But, for the pres- 
ent, I take my ground on the admitted principle. 
I mean to give peace. Peace implies reconcil- 
iation ; and, where there has been a material dis- 
pute, reconciliation does in a manner always im- 
ply concession on the one part or on the other. 
In this state of things I make no difficulty in 
affirming that the proposal ought to originate 
from us. Great and acknowledged force is not 
impaired, either in effect or in opinion, by an un- 
willingness to exert itself. The .superior power 
may offer peace with honor and with safety. 
Such an offer from such a power will be attrib- 
uted to magnanimity. But the concessions of the 
weak are the concessions of fear. When such a 
one is disarmed, he is wholly at the mercy of his 
superior, and he loses forever that time and those 
chances which, as they happen to all men, are 
the strength and resources of all inferior power. 

The capital leading questions on which you 
must this day decide, are these two : First, 
whether you ought to concede ; and, secondly, 
what your concession ought to be. 

I. On the first of these questions we have 
gained, as I have just taken the liberty of observ- 
ing to you, some ground. But I am sensible ihat 
a good deal more is still to be done. Indeed, sir, 
to enable us to determine both on the one and the 
other of these great questions with a firm and pre- 
ci.se judgment, I think it may be necessary to con- 
sider distinctly, 

The true nature and the peculiar circum- 
stances of the object which we have ^irst general 
before us ; because, after all our struf. consideration : 

, ' " State and cir- 

g\e, whether we will or not, we must cumsianceaof 
govern America according to that na- 
ture and to those circumstances, and not accord- 
ing to our imaginations ; not according to abstract 
ideas of right ; by no means according to mere 
general theories of government, the resort to 
which appears to me, in our present situation, 
no better than arrant trifling. I shall therefore 
endeavor, with your leave, to lay before you some 
of the most material of these circumstances in as 
full and as clear a manner as I am able to state 
them. 

(1.) The first thing that we have to considei 
with regard to the nature of the object, is the 



1775.] 



CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 



269 



number of people in the colonies. I 
have taken for some years a good deal 
of pains on that point. I can by no calculation 
justify myself in placing the number below two 
millions of inhabitants of our own European 
blood and color, besides at least five hundred 
thousand others, who form no inconsiderable part 
of the strength and opulence of the whole. This, 
sir, is, I believe, about the true number. There 
is no occasion to exaggerate, where plain truth 
is of so much weight and importance. But 
■whether I put the present numbers too high or 
too low, is a matter of little moment. Such is 
the strength with which population shoots in 
that part of the world, that, state the numbers 
as high as we will, while the dispute continues, 
the exaggeration ends. While we are discuss- 
ing any given magnitude, they are grown to it. 
While we spend our time in deliberating on the 
mode of governing two millions, we shall find 
we have two millions more to manage. Your 
children do not grow faster from infancy to man- 
hood, than they spread from families to commu- 
nities, and from villages to nations.^ 

I put this consideration of the present and the 
growing numbers in the front of our deliberation ; 
because, sir, this consideration will make it evi- 
dent to a blunter discernment than yours, that no 
partial, narrow, contracted, pinched, occasional 
system will be at all suitable to such an object. 
It will show you that it is not to be considered 
as one of those minima which are out of the eye 
and consideration of the law ; not a paltry ex- 
crescence of the state ; not a mean dependent, 
who may be neglected with little damage, and 
provoked with little danger. It will prove that 
some degree of care and caution is required in 
the handling such an object ; it will show that 
you ought not, in reason, to trifle with so large 
a mass of the interests and feelings of the human 
race. You could at no time do so without guilt ; 
and, be assured, you will not be able to do it long 
with impunity. 

(2.) But the population of this country, the 
great and jjrowing population, thoujrh 

Commerce. = . ^ => ^ ^ . , .' =,, 

a very important consideration, will 
lose much of its weight, if not combined with 
other circumstances. The commerce of your 
colonies is out of all proportion beyond the num- 
bers of the people. This ground of their com- 
merce, indeed, has been trod some days ago, and 

^ This is in Mr. Barkers best stj'Ie. The compar- 
ison beautifully illustrates the idea, and justifies his 
assertion, that while " the dispute continues, the ex- 
aggeration ends." It is curious to observe, as one 
of the artifices of language, how Johnson treats the 
same idea in his Taxation no Tyranny, where he 
contrives to cover it with contempt in the minds of 
the Tories, for whom he wrote, by a dexterous use 
of sneers and appropriate imagery. "We are told 
that the continent of North America contains three 
millions, not merely of men, but of Whigs — of Whigs 
fierce for liberty and disdainful of dominion ; that 
they multiply with the fecundity of their rattle- 
snakes, so that every quarter of a century they 
double their numbers !" His conclusion is, that 
they must be crushed in the e^^. 



with great ability, by a distinguished person [Mr. 
Gower] at your bar. This gentleman, after thir- 
ty-five years — it is so long since he appeared at 
the same place to plead for the commerce of 
Great Britain — has come again before you to 
plead the same cause, without any other effect of 
time, than that, to the fire of imagination and ex- 
tent of erudition which even then marked him as 
one of the first literary characters of his age, he 
has added a consummate knowledge in the com- 
mercial interest of his country, formed by a long 
course of enlightened and discriminating expe- 
rience. 

Sir, I should be inexcusable in coming after 
such a person with any detail, if a great part of 
the members who now fill the House had not 
the misfortune to be absent when he appeared 
at your bar. Besides, sir, I propose to take the 
matter at periods of time somewhat different 
from his. There is, if I mistake not, a point of 
view, from whence, if you will look at this sub- 
ject, it is impossible that it should not make an 
impression upon you. 

I have in my hand two accounts : one a com- 
parative state of the export trade of England to 
its colonies as it stood in the year 1704, and as 
it stood in the year 1772; the other a state of 
the export trade of this country to its colonies 
alone, as it stood in 1772, compared with the 
whole trade of England to all parts of the world, 
the colonies included, in the year 1704. They 
are from good vouchers ; the latter period from 
the accounts on your table, the earlier from an 
original manuscript of Davenant, who first es- 
tablished the inspector general's office, which 
has been ever since his time so abundant a 
source of parliamentary information. 

The export trade to the colonies consists of 
three great branches : the African, which, term- 
inating almost wholly in the colonies, must be 
put to the account of their commerce ; the West 
Indian, and the North American. All these are 
so interwoven, that the attempt to separate them 
would tear to pieces the contexture of the whole, 
and, if not entirely destroy, would very much de- 
preciate the value of all the parts. I therefore 
consider these three denominations to be, what 
in effect they are, one trade. 

The trade to the colonies, taken on the export 
side, at the beginning of this century, that is, in 
the year 1704, stood thus : 

Exports to North America and the 

West Indies .£483,265 

To Africa ^Q>M5 

c£569,930 

In the year 1772, which I take as a middle 
year between the highest and lowest of those late- 
ly laid on your table, the account was as follows : 
To North America and the West 

Indies <£4,791,734 

To Africa 866,398 

To which, if you add the export 
trade fi"om Scotland, which 

had in 1704 no existence 364.000 

666.022,398 



270 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1775. 



From five hundred and odd thousand, it has 
grown to six millions. It has increased no less 
than twelve-fold. This is the state of the colony 
trade, as compared with itself at these two pe- 
riods, within this century ; and this is matter for 
meditation. But this is not all. Examine my 
second account. See how the export trade to 
the colonies alone in 1772 stood in the other 
point of view, that is, as compared to the whole 
trade of England in 1704. 

The whole export trade of En- 
gland, including that to the 

colonies, in 1704 .£6,509,000 

Exported to the colonies alone, 

in 1772 6,024,000 

Difference.. c€485,000 

The trade with America alone is now within 
less than c£500,000 of being equal to what this 
great commercial nation, England, carried on at 
the beginning of this century with the whole 
world ! If I had taken the largest year of those 
on your table, it would rather have exceeded. 
But, it will be said, is not this American trade 
an unnatural pi'otuberance, that has drawn the 
juices from the rest of the body ? The reverse. 
It is the very food that has nourished every other 
part into its present magnitude. Our general 
trade has been greatly augmented, and aug- 
mented more or less in almost ev^ery part to which 
it ever extended, but with this material differ- 
ence, that of the six millions which in the be- 
ginning of the century constituted the whole mass 
of our export commerce, the colony trade was 
but one twelfth part ; it is now (as a part of six- 
teen millions) considerably more than a third of 
the whole. This is the relative proportion of the 
importance of the colonies at these two periods ; 
and all reasoning concerning our mode of treat- 
ing them must have this proportion as its basis, 
or it is a reasoning weak, rotten, and sophistical. 

Mr. Speaker, I cannot prevail on myself to 
hurry over this great consideration. It is good 
for us to be here. We stand where we have an 
immense view of what is, and what is past. 
Clouds, indeed, and darkness, rest upon the fu- 
ture. Let us, however, before we descend from 
this noble eminence, reflect that this growth of 
our national prosperity has happened within the 
.short period of the life of man. It has happened 
within sixty-eight years. There are those alive 
whose memory might touch the two extremities. 
For instance, my Lord Bathurst might remem- 
ber all the stages of the progress. He was in 
1704 of an age at least to be made to compre- 
hend such things. He was then old enough '" acta 
parentum jam legere, ct quaj sit poterit cognos- 
cere virtus."'' Suppose, sir, that the angel of this 

■' Mr. Burke in adapting this passage to the con- 
text, has changed some of the words and omitted 
others, so as to render the construction obscure. 
When he made the first infinitive, Icp^crc, dependent 
on the preceding English phrase, he should have done 
the same with cognoaccre, omitting poterit. Thus 
it would read, " He was then old enough to read the 
exploits of his ancestors, and learn what virtue is." 



auspicious youth, foreseeing the many virtues, 
which made him one of the most amiable, as he 
is one of the most fortunate men of his age, had 
opened to him in vision, that when, in the fourth 
generation, the third prince of the house of Bruns- 
wick had sat twelve years on the throne of that 
nation, which, by the happy issue of moderate and 
healing councils, was to be made Great Britain, 
he should see his son. Lord Chancellor of England, 
turn back the current of hereditary dignity to its 
fountain, and raise him to a higher rank of peer- 
age, while he enriched the family with a new 
one. If, amid these bright and happy scenes of 
domestic honor and prosperity, that angel should 
have drawn up the curtain, and unfolded the ris- 
ing glories of his country, and while he was gaz- 
ing with admiration on the then commercial 
grandeur of England, the genius should point out 
to him a little speck, scarce visible in the mass 
of the national interest, a small seminal principle 
rather than a formed body, and should tell him, 
" Young man, there is America — which at this 
day serves for little more than to amuse you with 
stories of savage men and uncouth manners ; yet 
shall, before you taste death, show itself equal to 
the whole of that commerce which now attracts 
the envy of the world. Whatever England has 
been growing to by a progressive increase of im- 
provement, brought in by varieties of people, by 
succession of civilizing conquests and civilizing 
settlements in a series of seventeen hundred years, 
you shall see as much added to her by America 
in the course of a single life !" If this state of 
his country had been foretold to him, would it 
not require all the sanguine credulity of youth, 
and all the fervid glow of enthusiasm, to make 
him believe it? Fortunate man, he has lived 
to see it ! Fortunate indeed, if he live to see 

The quotation is taken from Virgil's fourth Eclogue, 
where the poet predicts the birth of a child who 
should restore the peace and plenty of the Golden 
Age. The passage has been commonly referred to 
a child whose birth was expected from the sister of 
Augustus, and which the Emperor designed to adopt 
as his own. Hence the " acta parentis" in the words 
below. 

At simul heroum laudes et acta Pai-entis 
Jam legere, et qvce sit poteris cognoscere virtus, 
Molli paulatim flavescet campus arista, 
Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus riva, 
Et durae quercus sudabunt roscida mella. 

When thou can'st read 
Our heroes' praises and thy Father's deeds, 
And know what virtue is, o'er all our plains 
Shall golden harvests wave with ripened corn; 
The ruddy grape hang from uncultured thorns, 
And dewy honey flow from rugged oaks. 

In thus alluding to Lord Bathurst, Mr. Burke un- 
doubtedly thought of him only as advanced in years, 
without reflecting on his exact age. He was born 
in 1684, and w-as therefore, in 1704, not only "of an 
age to be made to comprehend such things," but on 
the verge of manhood, and actually took his seat in 
Parliament the next year, 1705. The son of Lord 
Bathurst, referred to above, was Henry, created Lord 
Apsley, and raised to the dignity of Lord Chancellor 
in 1771. 



1775.] 



CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 



271 



nothing to vary the prospect and cloud the set- 
ting of his day !^ 

Excuse me, sir, if, turning from such thoughts, 
I resume this comparative view once more. You 
have seen it on a large scale ; look at it on a 
small one. I will point out to your attention a 
particular instance of it in the single province of 
Pennsylvania. In the year 1704 that province 
called for c€l 1,459 in value of your commodities, 
native and foreign. This was the whole. What 
did it demand in 1772 ? Why nearly fifty times 
as much ; for in that year the export to Pennsyl- 
vania was c£507,909, nearly equal to the export 
to all the colonies together in the first period. 

I choose, sir, to enter into these minute and par- 
ticular details, because generalities, which, in all 
other cases are apt to heighten and raise the sub- 
ject, have here a tendency to sink it. When we 
speak of the commerce with our colonies, fiction 
lags after truth ; invention is unfruitful, and im- 
agination cold and barren. 

So far, sir, as to the importance of the object in 
the viev.' of its commerce, as concerned in the ex- 
ports from England. If I were to detail the im- 
ports, I could show how many enjoyments they 
procure, which deceive the burden of life ; how 
many materials which invigorate the springs of 
national industry, and extend and animate every 
part of our foreign and domestic commerce. 
This would be a curious subject indeed ; but I 
must prescribe bounds to myself in a matter so 
vast and various. 

(3.) I pass, therefore, to the colonies in another 
point of view — their agriculture. This 

Agriculture. , , i • i i 

they have prosecuted with such a spir- 
it, that, besides feeding plentifully their own grow- 
ing multitude, their annual export of grain, com- 
prehending rice, has, some years ago, exceeded a 
million in value. Of their last harvest I am per- 
suaded they will export much more. At the be- 
ginning of the century, some of these colonies im- 
ported corn from the mother country. For some 
time past the old world has been fed from the new. 
The scarcity which you have felt would have been 
a desolating famine, if this child of your old age, 
with a true filial piety, with a Roman charity, had 
not put the full breast of its youthful exuberance 
to the mouth of its exhausted parent.^ 

8 It may be doubted whether this amplification, 
and the more graphic one which follows in respect 
to the fisheries of New England, are not out of place 
in an argument of this kind before the House of Com- 
mons. They would have been perfectly appropriate 
in an address like that of Daniel Webster on the 
landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, since the au- 
dience had met for the very purpose of being de- 
lighted with rich trains of thought, beautifully ex- 
pressed. We who read the speech at the present 
day, dwell on such passages with unmingled grati- 
fication, because we peruse them much in the same 
spirit. But they would certainly be unsafe models 
for a business speaker. 

9 The deed of" Roman charity" refcn-ed to in this 
beautiful image was celebrated in the annals of the 
republic, and is related by Pliny in his Natural His- 
tory, lib. vii., 36, and also, more at large, by Vale- 
rius Maxiinns. lib. v., 4. A woman was condemned 



(4.) As to the wealth which the colonies have 
drawn from the sea by their fisheries, you 

1111. ,• II 1 Fisheries. 

had all that matter iully opened at your 
bar. You surely thought those acquisitions of 
value, for they seemed even to excite your envy ; 
and yet, the spirit by which that enterprising em- 
ployment has been exercised, ought rather, in my 
opinion, to have raised your esteem and admira- 
tion. And pray, sir, what in the world is equal 
to it? Pass by the other parts, and look at the 
manner in which the people of New England have 
of late carried on the whale fishery. While we 
follow them among the tumbling mountains of 
ice, and behold them penetrating into the deep- 
est frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's 
Strait.s — while we are looking for them be- 
neath the arctic circle, we hear that they have 
pierced into the opposite region of polar cold — 
that they are at the antipodes, and engaged un- 
der the frozen Serpent of the south. ^° Falkland 
Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an 
object for the grasp of national ambition, is but a 
stage and resting-place in the progress of their 
victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat 
more discouraging to them than the accumulated 
winter of both the poles. We know that while 
some of them draw the line and strike the har- 
poon on the coast of Africa, others run the lon- 
gitude, and pursue their gigantic game along the 
coast of Brazil. No sea but what is vexed by 
their fisheries. No climate that is not witness 
to their toils. Neither the perseverance of Hol- 
land, nor the activity of France, nor the dexter- 
ous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever 
carried this most perilous mode of hardy industry 
to the extent to which it has been pushed by this 
recent people — a people who are still, as it were, 
but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the 
bone of manhood. When I contemplate these 
things — when I know^ that the colonies in general 
owe little or nothing to any care of ours, and that 
they are not squeezed into this happy form by 
the constraints of watchful and suspicious gov- 
ernment, but that, through a wise and salutary 
neglect, a generous nature has been suffered to 



for some atrocious crime to be strangled in prison ; 
but the jailer, disliking to execute the sentence, left 
her without food to perish of hunger. Her daughter, 
with great importunity, obtained permission to visit 
her from time to time, but only after beimr carefully 
searched to prevent the introduction of food. As 
the woman lived beyond all expectation, the jailer 
resolved to discover the secret; and, coming sud- 
denly upon them, found the daughter (who had a 
little before given birth to a child) sustaining the 
mother from her own breast. The magistrates, 
struck with admiration at this instance of filial pi- 
ety, pardoned the mother for the daughter's sake, 
and provided for the support of both at the public 
expense. Festus and Solinus, writers of a later 
age, represent it to have been a father, not a moth- 
er, who was thus sustained ; and in this form the 
story has been more generally received in modern 
times. 

^° The Hydrus, or Water Serpent, is a small con- 
stellation lying very far to the south, within the ant- 
arctic circle. 



272 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1775. 



take her own way to perfection — when I reflect 
upon these effects — when I see how profitable 
they have been to us, I feel all the pride of pow- 
er sink, and all presumption in the wisdom of hu- 
man contrivances melt, and die away within me. 
My rigor relents. I pardon something to the 
spirit of liberty. 

I am sensible, sir, that all which I have as- 
, serted in my detail is admitted in the 

Second general •' . 

consideration: gross ; biTt that ouitc a diuerent con- 
Force ought , . . T \- -^ A 

not to be used clusiou IS drawu trom It. America, 
in such a case, gg^tjej^eu say, is a noble object. It 
is an object well worth fighting for. Certainly it 
is, if fighting a people be the best way of gain- 
ing them. Gentlemen in this respect w^ill be led 
to their choice of means by their complexions and 
their habits. Those who understand the military 
art will, ofcour.se, have some predilection for it. 
Those who wield the thunder of the state may 
have more confidence in the efficacy of arms. 
But I confess, possibly for w^ant of this knowl- 
edge, my opinion is much more in favor of pru- 
dent management than of force ; considering 
force not as an odious, but a feeble in.strument, 
for preserving a people so numerous, so active, 
so growing, so spirited as this, in a profitable 
and subordinate connection with us. 

(1.) First, six-, permit me to observe, that the 
use of force alone is but temporary. It may sub- 
due for a moment, but it does not remove the ne- 
cessity of subduing again ; and a naiion is not 
governed which is perpetually to be conquered. 

(2.) My next objection is its uncertainty. 
Terror is not always the efTect of force ; and an 
armament is not a victory. If you do not suc- 
ceed, you are without resource ; for, conciliation 
failing, force remains ; but, force failing, no far- 
ther hope of reconciliation is left. Power and 
authority are sometimes bought by kindness, but 
they can never be begged as alms by an impov- 
erished and defeated violence. 

(3.) A farther objection to force is, that you 
impair the object by your very endeavors to pre- 
.serve it. The thing you fought for is not the 
thing which you recover ; but depreciated, sunk, 
v^'asted, and consumed in the contest. Nothing 
less will content me than xchole America. I do 
not choose to consume its strength along with 
our own, because in all parts it is the British 
strength that I consume. I do not choose to be 
caught by a foreign enemy at the end of this ex- 
hausting conflict, and still less in the midst of it. 
I may escape; but I can make no insurance 
against such an event. Let me add, that I do 
not choose wholly to break the American spirit, 
because it is the spirit that has made the coun- 
try. 

(4.) Lastly, we have no sort of experience in 
favor of force as an instrument in the rule of our 
colonies. Their growth and their utility has been 
owing to methods altogether different. Our an- 
cient indulgence has been said to be pursued to 
a fault. It may be so; but we know, if feeling 
is evidence, that our fault was more tolerable 
than our attempt to mend it; and our .sin far 
more salutary than our penitence. 



These, sir, are my reasons for not entertaining 
that high opinion of untried force, by which many 
gentlemen, for whose sentiments in other partic- 
ulars 1 have great respect, seem to be so great- 
ly captivated. ^^ 

But there is still behind a third consideration 
concerning this object, which serves ^j^j^^ general 
to determine my opinion on the sort consideration: 

of policy which ought to be pursued America and 

in the management of America, even "^*•^^"^^^• 
more than its population and its commerce — I 
mean its temper and character. In this charac- 
ter of the Americans a love of freedom is the pre- 
dominating feature, which marks and distinguish- 
es the whole ; and, as an ardent is always a jealous 
affection, your colonies become suspicious, rest- 
ive, and untractable, whenever they see the least 
attempt to wrest from them by force, or shuffle 
from them by chicane, what they think the only 
advantage worth living for. This fierce spirit 
of liberty is stronger in the English colonies, 
probably, than in any other people of the earth, 
and this from a variety of powerful causes, 
which, to understand the true temper of their 
minds, and the direction which this spirit takes, 
it will not be amiss to lay open somewhat more 
largely.'^ 

(1.) First, the people of the colonies are de- 
scendants of Englishmen. England, sir, is ^ . . 

, • , Ml T 1 1 Origin 

a nation which still, I hope, respects, and 
formerly adored her freedom. The colonists 
emigrated from you when this part of your char- 
acter was most predominant ; and they took this 
bias and direction the moment they parted from 
your hands. They are, therefore, not only devo- 
ted to liberty, but to liberty according to English 
ideas and on English principles. Abstract lib- 
erty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be 
found. Liberty inheres in some sensible object ; 
and every nation has formed to itself some favor- 
ite point which, by way of eminence, becomes 
the criterion of their happiness. It happened, 
you know, sir, that the great contests for freedom 
in this country were, from the earliest times, chief- 
ly upon the question of taxing. Most of the con- 
tests in the ancient commonwealths turned pri- 

11 These four arguments show how admirably Mr. 
Burke could condertse when he saw fit. 

12 We here see the secret of Mr. Burke's rich- 
ness of thought. It consisted, to a great extent, in 
his habit of viewing things in their causes, or trac- 
ing them out in their results. Let the reader study 
these pages with reference to this fact. Let him 
observe how Mr. Burke brings out the leading cha- 
racteristics of the colonists, not as isolated facts, but 
as dependent upon certain /<9?-mz«^ influences in the 
mind of the English people: their early contests, 
civil and religious ; the necessary results of certain 
relations of society and forms of mental development. 
Such habits of thought, if well directed, furnish an 
endless variety of valuable remarks in filling out a 
subject. If not abstract in their statement, but ren- 
dered intelligible and striking by a proper reference 
to individual cases, they always interest at the same 
time that they instruct. It is with reference to this 
subject, especially, that Mr. Burke should be studied 
by the young orator. 



1775.] 



CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 



273 



aiarily on the right of election of magistrates, or 
on the balance among the several orders of the 
state. The question of money was not with 
them so immediate. But in England it was 
otherwise. On this point of taxes the ablest 
pens and most eloquent tongues have been ex- 
ercised ; the greatest spirits have acted and suf- 
fered. In order to give the fullest satisfaction 
concerning the importance of this point, it was 
not only necessary for those who in argument 
defended the excellence of the English Consti- 
tution, to insist on this privilege of granting 
money as a dry point of fact, and to prove that 
the right had been acknowledged in ancient 
parchments and blind usages to reside in a cer- 
tain body called the House of Commons. They 
went much farther : they attempted to prove 
(and they succeeded) that in theory it ought to 
be so, from the particular nature of a House of 
Commons, as an immediate representative of the 
people, whether the old records had delivered 
this oracle or not. They took infinite pains to 
inculcate, as a fundamental principle, that, in all 
monarchies, the people must, in effect, themselves, 
mediately or immediately, possess the power of 
granting their own money, or no shadow of lib- 
erty could subsist. The colonies draw from you, 
as with their life-blood, those ideas and principles. 
Their love of liberty, as with you, fixed and at- 
tached on this specific point of taxing. Liberty 
might be safe or might be endangered in twen- 
ty other particulars, without their being much 
pleased or alarmed. Here they felt its pulse ; 
and, as they found that beat, they thought them- 
selves sick or sound. I do not say whether they 
were right or wrong in applying your general 
arguments to their own case. It is not easy, in- 
deed, to make a monopoly of theorems and co- 
rollaries. The fact is, that they did thus apply 
those general arguments : and your mode of gov- 
erning them, whether through lenity or indolence, 
through wisdom or mistake, confirmed them in 
the imagination that they, as well as you, had an 
interest in these common principles. 

(2.) They were further confirmed in this pleas- 
Form of gov- ing error by the form of their provincial 
ernaient. legislative assembHcs. Their govern- 
ments are popular in a high degree ; some are 
merely popular; in all, the popular representa- 
tive is the most weighty ;^^ and this share of 
the people in their ordinary government never 
fails to inspire them with lofty sentiments, and 
with a strong aversion from whatever tends to 
deprive them of their chief importance. 

(3.) If any thing were wanting to this neces- 
Reii-ion ^^'7 operation of the form of government, 
religion would have given it a complete 
effect. Religion, always a principle of energy, 
in this new people is no way worn out or im- 
paired ; and their mode of professing it is also 
■ « 1 

'- In some of the colonies all the officers of gov- 
ernment were chosen directly by the people. In 
others, the governor and some of the magistrates 
were appointed by the Crown, but were unable to 
act without the co-operation of Assemblies elected 
by the colonists. 

S 



one main cause of this free spirit. The people 
are Protestants ; and of that kind which is the 
most adverse to all implicit submission of mind 
and opinion. This is a persuasion not only fa- 
vorable to liberty, but built upon it. I do not 
think, sir, that the reason of this averseness in 
the dissenting churches from all that looks like 
absolute government, is so much to be sought in 
their religious tenets as in their history. Every 
one knows that the Roman Catholic religion is at 
least coeval with most of the governments where 
it prevails ; that it has generally gone hand in 
hand with them ; and received great favor and 
every kind of support from authority. The 
Church of England, too, was formed from her 
cradle under the nursing care of regular gov- 
ernment. But the dissenting interests have 
sprung up in direct opposition to all the ordina- 
ry powers of the world, and could justify that 
opposition only on a strong claim to natural lib- 
erty. Their very existence depended on the 
powerful and unremitted assertion of that claim. 
All Protestantism, even the most cold and pass- 
ive, is a kind of dissent. But the religion most 
prevalent in our northern colonies is a refine- 
ment on the principle of resistance ; it is the 
dissidence^* of dissent; and the Protestantism of 
the Protestant religion. This religion, under a 
variety of denominations, agreeing in nothing 
but in the communion of the spirit of liberty, is 
predominant in most of the northern provinces ; 
where the Church of England, notwithstanding 
its legal rights, is in reality no more than a sort 
of private sect, not composing most probably 
the tenth of the people. The colonists left 
England when this spirit was high, and in the 
emigrants was the highest of all ; and even that 
stream of foreigners, which has been constantly 
flowing into these colonies, has, for the greatest 
part, been composed of dissenters from the es- 
tablishments of their several countries, and have 
brought with them a temper and character far 
from alien to that of the people with whom thoy 
mixed. 

(4.) Sir, I can perceive by their manner that 
some gentlemen olDJect to the latitude Domestic in- 
of this description, because in the =*""'"'"'■'"• 
southern colonies the Church of England forms 
a large bod}^, and has a regular establishment. 
It is certainly true. There is, however, a cir- 
cumstance attending these colonies, M'hich, in 
my opinion, fully counterbalances this diflerence, 
and makes the spirit of liberty still more high 
and haughty than in those to the northward. It 
is that in Virginia and the Carolinas they have 
a vast multitude of slaves. Where this is the 
case in any part of the world, those who are 
free are by far the most proud and jealous of 
their freedom. Freedom is to them not only an 
enjoyment, but a kind of rank and privilege. 
Not seeing there that freedom, as in countries 
where it is a common blessing, and as broad 



'*In Chapman's Select. Speeches, and in some 
editions of Burke, both in this country and in En- 
gland, this word has been strangely altered into dif- 
Jidence- 



274 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1775. 



and general as the air, may be united with 
much abject toil, with great misery, with all 
the exterior of servitude, liberty looks, among 
them, like somelhing that is more noble and lib- 
eral. I do not mean, sir, to commend the su- 
perior morality of this sentiment, which has at 
least as much pride as virtue in it ; but I can 
not alter the nature of man. The fact is so; 
and these people of the southern colonies are 
much more strongly, and with a higher and 
more stubborn spirit, attached to liberty than 
those to the northward. Such were all the an- 
cient commonwealths ; such were our Gothic 
ancestors; such, in our days, were the Poles ;^^ 
and such will be all masters of slaves, who are 
not slaves themselves. In such a people the 
haughtiness of domination combines with the 
spirit of freedom, fortifies it, and renders it in- 
vincible. 

(5.) Permit me, sir, to add another circum- 
stance in our colonies, which contributes 

Education. ' 

no mean part toward the growth and 
effect of this untractable spirit — I mean their 
education. In no country perhaps in the world 
is the law so general a study. The profession 
itself is numerous and powerful ; and in most 
provinces it takes the lead. The greater num- 
ber of the deputies sent to Congress were law- 
yers. But all who read, and most do read, 
endeavor to obtain some smattering in that sci- 
ence. I have been told by an eminent booksel- 
ler, that in no branch of his business, after 
tracts of popular devotion, were so many books 
as those on the law exported to the Plantations. 
The colonists have now fallen into the way of 
printing them for their own use. I hear that 
they have sold nearly as many of Blackstone's 
Commentaries in America as in England. Gen- 
eral Gage marks out this disposition very partic- 
ularly in a letter on your table. He states, that 
all the people in his government are lawyers, or 
smatterers in law ; and that in Boston they have 
been enabled, by successful chicane, wholly to 
evade many parts of one of your capital penal 
constitutions. ^"^ The smartness of debate will 
say, that this knowledge ought to teach them 
more clearly the rights of legislature, their obli- 
gations to obedience, and the penalties of rebell- 
ion. All this is mighty well. But my honor- 
able and learned friend [Mr., afterward Lord 
Thurlow] on the floor, who condescends to mark 
what I say for animadversion, will disdain that 

^* When this speech was delivered, Poland had 
recently been struck from the list of nations, the 
first partition of her territory having been made by 
Austria, Prussia, and Russia in 1772. 

^^ An amusing case of this kind may be mention- 
ed. General Gage, in carrying out the coercive 
statutes, forbade by proclamation the calling of any 
town meetings after August 1st, 1774. One was 
held by the Bostonians, however, in defiance of the 
proclamation; and when measures were taken by 
the government to disperse it, the legality of the 
meeting was strenuously asserted, on the ground 
that it had not been "called" since the first of Au- 
gust, but had been only adjourned over from time 
to time ! 



ground. He has heard, as well as I, that when 
great honors and great emoluments do not win 
over this knowledge to the service of the state, 
it is a formidable adversary to government. If 
the spirit be not tamed and broken by these hap- 
py methods, it is stubborn and litigious. Abe- 
unt studia in mores}'' This study renders men 
acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, 
ready in defense, full of resources. In other 
countries, the people, more simple and of a less 
mercurial cast, judge of an ill principle in gov- 
ernment only by an actual grievance. Here 
they anticipate the evil, and judge of the press- 
ure of the grievance by the badness of the 
principle. They augur misgovernment at a 
distance ; and snufT the approach of tyranny in 
every tainted breeze. 

(6.) The last cause of this disobedient spirit 
in the colonies is hardly less powerful „ 

, , . . •' ^ Remoteness. 

than the rest, as it is not merely mor- 
al, but laid deep in the natural constitution of 
things. Three thousand miles of ocean lie be- 
tween you and them. No contrivance can pre- 
vent the effect of this distance in weakening gov- 
ernment. Seas roll, and months pass, between 
the order and the execution ; and the want of a 
speedy explanation of a single point is enough 
to defeat the whole system. You have, indeed, 
" winged ministers" of vengeance, who carry 
your bolts in their pounces to the remotest verge 
of the sea.^^ But there a power steps in, that 
limits the arrogance of raging passions and furi- 
ous elements, and says, '' So far shalt thou go, 
and no farther." Who are you, that should fret 
and rage, and bite the chains of nature? Noth- 
ing worse happens to you than does to all na- 
tions who have extensive empire ; and it hap- 
pens in all the forms into which empire can be 
thrown. In large bodies, the circulation of 
power must be less vigorous at the extremities. 
Nature has said it. The Turk can not govern 
Egypt, and Arabia, and Koordistan, as he gov- 
erns Thrace ; nor has he the same dominion in 
Crimea and Algiers which he has at Broosa 
and Smyrna. Despotism itself is obliged to 
truck and huckster. The Sultan gets such 
obedience as he can. He governs with a loose 
rein, that he may govern at all ; and the whole 
of the force and vigor of his authority in his 
center, is derived from a prudent relaxation in 
all his borders. Spain, in her provinces, is, per- 
haps, not so well obeyed as you are in yours. 
She complies too ; she submits ; she watches 
times. This is the immutable condition, the 
eternal law, of extensive and detached empire. 

Then, sir, from these six capital sources of 
descent, of form of government, of religion in 
the northern provinces, of manners in the south- 
ern, of education, of the remoteness of situation 
from the first mover of government — from all 



^'' Studies pass into habits. 

'* Ministrum fulminis alitem. — Horace, Odes, book 
iv., ode i. "We have seen (p. 116) Lord Chatham's 
application of this image to the army of England. 
Rlr. Burke here applies it, in an expanded form, to 
her ships of war. 



1775.] 



CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 



275 



these causes a fierce spirit of liberty has grown 
up. It has grown with the growth of the peo- 
ple in your colonie.s, and increased with the in- 
crease of their wealth ; a spirit that, unhappily 
meeting with an exercise of power in England, 
which, however lawful, is not reconcilable to 
any ideas of liberty, much less with theirs, has 
kindled this flame, that is ready to consume us. 
I do not mean to commend either the spirit 
Tiie spirit of the ^" *^^^ Bxccss, or the moral causes 
Americans firm which producG it. Perhaps a more 

and mtractable. , ^ , , . ' . . „ 

smooth and accommodatmg spirit ot 
freedom in them would be more acceptable to 
us. Perhaps ideas of liberty might be desired, 
more reconcilable with an arbiti'ary and bound- 
less authority. Perhaps we might wish the col- 
onists to be persuaded that their liberty is more 
secure when held in trust for them by us, as 
guardians during a perpetual minority, than 
with any part of it in their own hands. But the 
question is not whether their spirit deserves 
praise or blame. What, in the name of God, 
shall we do with it ? You have before you the 
object, such as it is, with all its glories, with all 
its imperfections on its head. You see the mag- 
nitude, the importance, the temper, the habit.s, 
the disorders. B}'- all these considerations we 
are strongly urged to determine something con- 
cerning it. We are called upon to fix some rule 
and line for our future conduct, wiiich may give 
a little stability to our politics, and prevent the 
return of such unhappy deliberations as the pres- 
ent. Every such return will bring the matter 
before us in a still more untractable form. For, 
what astonishing and incredible things have we 
not seen already ? What monsters have not been 
generated from this unnatural contention ? While 
every principle of authority and resistance has 
been pushed, upon both sides, as far as it would 
go, there is nothing so solid and certain, either 
in reasoning or in practice, that has not been 
shaken. Until very lately, all authority in 
America seemed to be nothing but an emanation 
from yours. Even the popular part of the colo- 
ny constitution derived all its activity, and its 
first vital movement, from the pleasure of the 
Crown. We thought, sir, that the utmost which 
the discontented colonists could do, was to dis- 
turb authority. We never dreamed they could 
of themselves supply it, knowing in general what 
an operose business it is to establish a govern- 
ment absolutely new. But having, for our pur- 
poses in this contention, resolved that none but 
an obedient assembly should sit, the humors of 
the people there, finding all passage through the 
legal channel stopped, with great violence broke 
out another way. Some provinces have tried 
their experiment, as we have tried ours; and 
theirs has succeeded. They have formed a gov- 
ernment suflicient for its purposes, without the 
bustle of a revolution, or the troublesome form- 
ality of an election. Evident necessity and tacit 
consent have done the business in an instant. So 
well they have done it, that Lord Dunmore (the 
account is among the fragments on your tabic) 
tells you, that the new institution is infinitely bet- 



ter obeyed than the ancient government ever was 
in its most fortunate periods. Obedience is what 
makes government, and not the names by which 
it is called ; not the name of governor, as for- 
merly, or committee, as at present. This new 
government has originated directly from the peo- 
ple, and was not transmitted through any of the 
ordinary artificial media of a positive constitution. 
It was not a manufacture ready formed, and trans- 
mitted to them in that condition from England. 
The evil arising from hence is this : that the col- 
onists having once found the possibility of enjoy- 
ing the advantages of order in the midst of a 
struggle for liberty, such struggles will not hence- 
forward seem so terrible to the settled and sober 
part of mankind as they had appeared before the 
trial. 

Pursuing the same plan of punishing by the de- 
nial of the exercise of government to still greater 
lengths, we wholly abrogated the ancient gov- 
ernment of Massachusetts. We were confident 
that the first feeling, if not the very prospect of 
anarchy, would instantly enforce a complete sub- 
mission. The experiment was tried. A new, 
strange, unexpected face of things appeared. 
Anarchy is found tolerable. A vast province 
has now subsisted, and subsisted in a considera- 
ble degree of health and vigor, for near a twelve- 
month, without governor, without public coun- 
cil, without judges, without executive magis- 
trates. How long it will continue in this state, 
or what may arise out of this unheard-of situa- 
tion, how can the wisest of us conjecture ? Our 
late experience has taught us, that many of those 
fundamental principles, formerly believed infalli- 
ble, are either not of the importance they were 
imagined to be, or that we have not at all ad- 
verted to some other far more important and for 
more powerful principles, which entirely over- 
rule those we had considered as omnipotent. I 
am much against any farther experiments, which 
tend to put to the proof any more of these allow- 
ed opinions, which contribute so much to the pub- 
lic tranquillity. In effect, we suffer as much at 
home by this loosening of all ties, and this con- 
cussion of all established opinions, as we do 
abroad. For, in order to prove that the Amer- 
icans have no right to their liberties, we are ev- 
ery day endeavoring to subvert the maxims which 
preserve the whole spirit of our own. To prove 
that the Americans ought not to be free, we are 
obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself; 
and w^e never seem to gain a paltry advantage 
over them in debate, without attacking some of 
those principles, or deriding some of those feel- 
ings, for which our ancestors have shed their 
blood. 

But, sir, in wishing to put an end to pernicious 
experiments, I do not mean to pre- oniy three po* 
clude the fullest inquiry. Far from deati„T«.?th°^ 
it. Far from deciding on a sudden the American 
or partial view, I would patiently go *^"^' ' 
round and round the subject, and survey it mi- 
nutely in every possible aspect. Sir, if I were 
capable of engaging you to an equal attention, I 
would state that, as far as I am capable of dis- 



276 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1775. 



ceniing, there are but three ways of proceed infj 
relative !o this stubborn spirit which prevails in 
your colonies and disturbs your government. 
These ai*e, to change that spirit, as inconvenient, 
by removing the causes ; to prosecute it as crim- 
inal ; or to comply with it as necessary. I would 
not be guilty of an imperfect enumeration. I can 
think of but these three. Another has, indeed, 
been started — that of giving up the colonies ; but 
it met so slight a reception, that I do not think 
myself obliged to dwell a great while upon it. 
It is nothing but a little sally of anger, like the 
frowardness of peevish children, who, when they 
can not get all they would have, are resolved to 
take nothing. 

(1.) The first of these plans, to change the 
To change it by Spirit, as inconvenieut, by removing 
TauZ'lnnZr- the causcs, I think is the most like a 
^■'•^'^- systematic proceeding. It is radical 

ill its principle, but it is attended with great dif- 
ficulties, some of them little short, as I conceive, 
of impossibilities. This will appear by examin- 
ing into the plans which have been proposed. 

As the growing population of the colonies is 
evidently one cause of their resistance, it was 
last session mentioned in both houses by men of 
weight, and received, not without applause, that, 
in order to check this evil, it would be proper for 
the Crown to make no farther grants of land. 
But to this scheme there are two objections. 
The first, that thei-e is already so much unsettled 
land in private hands as to afford room for an im- 
mense future population, although the Crown not 
only withheld its grants, but annihilated its soil. 
If this be the case, then the only effect of this av- 
arice of desolation, this hoarding of a royal wil- 
derness, would be to raise the value of the pos- 
sessions in the hands of the great private monop- 
olists without any adequate check to the growing 
pnd alarming mischief of population. 

But if you stopped your grants, what would 
be the consequence ? The people would occupy 
without grants. They have already so occupied 
ill many places. You can not station garrisons 
in every part of these deserts. If you drive the 
jieople from one place, they will carry on their 
annual tillage, and remove with their flocks and 
herds to another. Many of the people in the 
back settlements are already little attached to 
particular situations. Already they have topped 
the Apalachian Mountains. From thence they 
behold before them an immense plain, one vast, 
rich, level meadow — a square of five hundred 
miles. Over this they would wander without 
a possibility of restraint. They would change 
their manners with the habits of their life ; would 
soon forget a government by which they were dis- 
owned ; would become hordes of English Tar- 
tars ; and, pouring down upon your unfortified 
frontiers a fierce and irresistible cavalry, be- 
come masters of your governors and your coun- 
selors, your collectors and controllers, and of all 
the slaves that adhei-ed to them.'** Such would, 

'^ It is in descriptions of this kind that Mr. Burke 
is more truly admirable than in those of a brilliant 
and imaginative character which precede. 



and, in no long time, must be the effect of at- 
tempting to forbid as a crime, and to suppress as 
an evil, the command and blessing of Providence. 
" Increase and multiply." Such would be the 
happy result of an endeavor to keep as a lair of 
wild beasts that earth which God by an express 
charter has given to the children of men. Far 
different, and surely much wiser, has been our 
policy hitherto. Hitherto we have invited our 
people, by every kind of bounty, to fixed estab- 
lishments. We have invited the husbandman to 
look to authority for his title. We have taught 
him piously to believe in the mysterious virtue 
of wax and parchment. We have thrown each 
tract of land, as it was peopled, into districts, 
that the ruling power should never be wholly 
out of sight. We have settled all we could, and 
we have carefully attended every settlement with 
government. 

Adhering, sir, as I do, to this policy, as well as 
for the reasons I have just given, I think this new 
project of hedging in population to be neither pru- 
dent nor practicable. 

To impoverish the colonies in general, and in 
particular to arrest the noble course of their ma- 
rine enterprises, would be a more easy task. I 
freely confess it. We have shown a disposition 
to a system of this kind ; a disposition even to 
continue the restraint after the offense, looking 
on ourselves as rivals to our colonies, and per- 
suaded that of course we must gain all that they 
shall lose. Much mischief we may certainly do. 
The power inadequate to all other things is often 
moi-e than sufficient for this. I do not look on 
the dix-ect and immediate power of the colonies 
to resist our violence as very formidable. In 
this, however, I may be mistaken. But when I 
consider that we have colonies for no purpose but 
to be serviceable to us, it seems to my poor un- 
derstanding a little preposterous to make them 
unserviceable in order to keep them obedient. It 
is, in truth, nothing more than the old, and, as I 
thought, exploded problem of tyranny, which pro- 
poses to beggar its subjects into submission. But, 
remember, when you have completed your system 
of impoverishment, that nature still proceeds in 
her ordinary course ; that discontent will increase 
with misery ; and that there are critical moments 
in the fortune of all states, when they who are too 
weak to contribute to your prosperity may be 
strong enough to complete your ruin " Spoliatis 
arma supersunt."-" 

The temper and character which prevail in our 
colonies are, I am afraid, unalterable by any hu- 
man art. We can not, I fear, falsify the pedigree 
of this fierce people, and persuade them that they 
are not sprung from a nation in whose veins the 
blood of freedom circulates. The language in 
which they would hear you tell them this tale 
would detect the imposition. Your speech would 
betray you. An Englishman is the unfittest per- 
son on earth to argue another Englishman into 
slavery. 

I think it is nearly as little in our power to 

^^ Arms remain to the plundered. 



1775] 



CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 



277 



change their republican religion as their free de- 
scent ; or to substitute the Roman Catholic as a 
penalty, or the Church of England as an improve- 
ment. The mode of inquisition and dragooning 
is going out of fashion in the old world, and I 
should not confide much to their efficacy in the 
new. The education of the Americans is also 
on the same unalterable bottom with their relig- 
ion. You can not persuade them to burn their 
books of curious science; to banish their lawyers 
from their courts of law ; or to quench the lights 
of their assemblies, by refusing to choose those 
persons who are best read in their privileges. It 
would be no less impracticable to think of wholly 
annihilating the popular assemblies in w^hich these 
lawyers sit. The army, by which we must gov- 
ern in their place, would be far more chargeable 
to us ; not quite so effectual ; and perhaps, in the 
end, full as difficult to be kept in obedience. 

With regard to the high aristocratic spirit of 
Virginia and the southern colonies, it has been 
proposed, I know, to reduce it, by declaring a 
general enfranchisement of their slaves. This 
project has had its advocates and panegyrists, 
yet I never could argue myself into an opinion 
of it. Slaves are often much attached to their 
masters. A general wild offer of liberty would 
not always be accepted. History furnishes few" 
instances of it. It is sometimes as hard to per- 
suade slaves to be free as it is to compel freemen 
to be slaves ; and in this auspicious scheme we 
should have both these pleasing tasks on our 
hands at once. But w^hen we talk of enfran- 
chisement, do we not perceive that the Ameri- 
can master may enfranchise too, and arm servile 
hands in defense of freedom? A measure to 
which other people have had recourse more than 
once, and not without success, in a desperate situ- 
ation of their affaii-s. 

Slaves as these unfortunate black people are, 
and dull as all men are from slavery, must they 
not a little suspect the offer of freedom from that 
very nation which has sold them to their present 
masters ? From that nation, one of whose causes 
of (juarrel with those masters is their refusal to 
deal any more in that inhuman traffic ? An offer 
of freedom from England w^ould come rather odd- 
ly, shipped to them in an African vessel, which 
is refused an entry into the ports of Virginia or 
Carolina, with a cargo of three hundred Angola 
negroes. It would be curious to see the Guinea 
captain attempt at the same instant to publish 
his proclamation of liberty and to advertise his 
sale of slaves. 

But let us suppose all these moral difficulties 
got over. The ocean remains. You can not 
pump this dry : and as long as it continues in its 
present bed, so long all the causes which weak- 
en authority by distance will continue. 

" Ye gods ! annihilate but space and time, 
And make two lovers happy !" 
was a pious and passionate prayer, but just as 
reasonable as many of these serious wishes of 
very grave and solemn politicians. 

(2.) If then, sir, it seems almost desperate to 
think of any alterative course for chancrinjT the 



moral causes (and not quite easy to remove tho 
natural) which produce the prejudices to prosecute 
irreconcilable to the late exercise of '^^''^mnin^. 
our authority, but that the spirit infallibly wall 
continue, and, continuing, will produce such ef- 
fects as now embarrass us, the second mode un- 
der consideration is to prosecute that spirit in its 
overt acts as criminal. 

At this proposition I must pause a moment. 
The thing seems a great deal too big for my 
ideas of jurisprudence It should seem, to my 
way of conceiving such matters, that there is a 
very wide difference in reason and policy be- 
tween the mode of proceeding on the irregular 
conduct of scattered individuals, or even of bands 
of men, who disturb order within the state, and 
the civil dissensions which may, from time to 
time, on great questions, agitate the several 
communities which compose a great empire. It 
looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply 
the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great 
public contest. I do not know the method of 
drawing up an indictment against a whole peo- 
ple. I can not insult and ridicule the feelings 
of millions of my fellow-creatures, as Sir Edward 
Coke insulted one excellent individual [Sir Walter 
Raleigh] at the bar.'"^ I am not ripe to pass sen- 
tence on the gravest public bodies, intrusted with 
magistracies of great authority and dignity, and 
charged with the safety of their fellow-citizens, 
upon the very same title that I am. I really think 
that, for wise men, this is not judicious ; for sober 
men, not decent ; for minds tinctured with human- 
ity, not mild and merciful. 

Perhaps, sir, I am mistaken in ray idea of an 
empire, as distinguished from a single Distinction be- 
.state or kingdom. But my idea of it pTrrrndTkhTg- 
is this : that an empire is the aggre- """'■ 
gate of many states, under one common head, 
whether this head be a monarch or a presiding 
republic. It does, in such constitutions, frequent- 
ly happen (and nothing but the dismal, cold, dead 
uniformity of servitude can prevent its happen- 
ing) that the subordinate parts have many local 
privileges and immunities. Between these priv- 
ileges and the supreme common authority, the line 
may be extremely nice. Of course, disputes — 
often, too, very bitter disputes, and much ill blood, 
will arise. But though every privilege is an ex- 
emption, in the case, from the ordinary exercise 



21 See Howell's State Trials, vol. ii., p. l,et seq., 
for an exhibition of coarse and brutal treatment, 
which Jeffries never surpassed. The following may 
serve as a specimen : Coke. I will prove you the no- 
toriest traitor that ever came to the bar. Raleigh. 
Your words can not condemn me ; my innocency is 
my defense. Coke. Thou art a monster. Thou hast 
an English face, but a Spanish heart. Raleigh. Let 
me answer for myself. Coke. Thou shalt not. Ra- 
leigh. It concerneth my life. Coke. Oh! Do I touch 
j-ou ? Now see the most lioirible practices that ever 
came out of the bottomless pit of the lowest hell. 
Raleigh. Here is no treason of mine. If Lord Cob- 
ham be a traitor, what is that to me ? Coke. AH 
that he did was by thy instigation, thou viper. Such 
was the language by which officers of justice recom- 
mended themselves to the favor of James I. 



278 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1775. 



of the supreme authority, it is no denial of it. The 
claim of a privilege seems rather, ex vi termini." 
to imply a superior power ; for to talk of the priv- 
ileo;es of a state or of a person who has no su- 
perior, is hardly any better than speaking non- 
sense. Now, in such unfortunate quarrels among 
the component parts of a great political union 
of communities, I can scarcely conceive any 
thing more completely imprudent than for the 
head of the empire to insist that, if any privilege 
is pleaded against his will or his acts, that his 
ivholc authority is denied ; instantly to proclaim 
rebellion, to beat to arms, and to put the offend- 
ing provinces under the ban. Will not this, sir, 
very soon teach the provinces to make no distinc- 
tions on their part ? Will it not teach them that 
the government against which a claim of liberty 
is tantamount to high treason, is a government 
to which submission is equivalent to slavery ? It 
may not always be quite convenient to impress 
dependent communities with such an idea. 

We are, indeed, in all disputes with the colo- 
nies, by the necessity of things, the judge. It is 
true, sir ; but I confess that the character of judge 
in my own cause is a thing that frightens me. In- 
stead of filling me with pride, I am exceeding- 
ly humbled by it. I can not pi'oceed with a 
stern, assured, judicial confidence, until I find 
myself in something more like a judicial char- 
acter. 1 must have these hesitations as long as 
I am compelled to recollect that, in my little 
reading upon such contests as these, the sense 
of mankind has at least as often decided against 
the superior as the subordinate power. Sir, let 
me add, too, that the opinion of my having some 
abstract right in my favor would not put me 
much at my ease in passing sentence, unless I 
could be sure that there were no rights w^hich, 
in their exercise under certain circumstances, 
were not the most odious of all wrongs, and the 
most vexatious of all injustice. Sir, these con- 
siderations have great weight with me, when I 
find things so circumstanced that I see the same 
party at once a civil litigant against me in point 
of right and a culprit before me ; while I sit as 
criminal judge on acts of his whose moral quality 
is to be decided on upon the merits of that very 
litigation. JNIen are every now and then put, by 
the complexity of human affairs, into strange 
situations ; but justice is the same, let the judge 
be in what situation he will. 

There is, sir, also a circumstance which con- 
vinces me that this mode of criminal proceeding 
is not, at least in the present stage of our contest, 
altogether expedient, which is nothing less than 
the conduct of those very persons who have 
seemed to adopt that mode, by lately declaring 
a rebellion in Massachusetts Bay, as they had 
formerly addressed to have traitors brought 
hither, under an act of Hem-y the Eighth, for 
trial. For, though rebellion is declared, it is 
not proceeded against as such ; nor have any 
steps been taken toward the apprehension or 
conviction of any individual offender, either on 



22 From the very import of the term. 



our late or our former address ; but modes of 
public coercion have been adopted, and such as 
have much more resemblance to a sort of quali- 
fied hostility toward an independent power than 
the punishment of rebellious subjects. All this 
seems rather inconsistent ; but it shows how dif- 
ficult it is to apply these juridical ideas to our 
present case. 

In this situation, let us seriously and coolly 
ponder. What is it we have got by all our 
menaces, which have been many and ferocious? 
What advantage have we derived from the penal 
laws we have passed, and which, for the time, 
have been severe and numerous ? What ad- 
vances have we made toward our object by the 
sending of a force which, by land and sea, is no 
contemptible strength ? Has the disorder abat- 
ed ? Nothing less. When I see things in this 
situation, after such confident hopes, bold prom- 
ises, and active exertions, I can not, for my life, 
avoid a suspicion that the plan itself is not cor- 
rectly right. 

If, then, the removal of the causes of this spirit 
of American liberty be, for the greater part, or 
rather entirely, impracticable; if the ideas of 
criminal process be inapplicable, or, if applica- 
ble, are in the highest degree inexpedient, what 
way yet remains? No way is open but the- 
third and last — to comply with the American 
spirit as necessary, or, if you please, to submit 
to it as a necessary evil. 

If we adopt this mode, if we mean to concili- 
ate and concede, let us see, 

II. Of what nature the concession ought 
TO BE. To ascertain the nature of Theconression 
our concession, we must look at their *" ^^ "^^'^'^■ 
complaint. The colonies complain that they 
have not the characteristic mark and seal of 
British freedom. They complain that they are 
taxed in Parliament in which they are not rep- 
resented. If you mean to satisfy them at all, 
you must satisfy them with regard to this com- 
plaint. If you mean to please any people, you 
must give them the boon which they ask ; not 
what you may think better for them, but of a 
kind totally different. Such an act may be a 
wise regulation, but it is no concession, whereas 
our present theme is the mode of giving satis- 
faction. 

Sir, I think you must perceive that I am re- 
solved this day to have nothing at all Rj„|,toftnxa- 
to do wnth the question of the right t'"" "^t to be 

(. • r>T <-i , discussed. 

ot taxation.--* Some gentlemen star- 
tle, but it is true. I put it totally out of the 
question. It is less than nothing in my consid- 
eration. I do not, indeed, wonder, nor will you, 
sir, that gentlemen of profound learning are fond 
of displaying it on this profound subject. But 
my consideration is narrow, confined, and whol- 



es Mr. Burke here shows one of his most striking 
peculiarities as a reasoner on political subjects, viz., 
his fixed determination never to discuss them on 
the ground of me'-e abstract i-ight. His mind fast- 
ened upon prescription as the principal guide in all 
such cases. We see it as fully in his early speech- 
es as in his Reflections on the French Revolution. 



1775.] 



CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 



279 



ly limited to the policy of the question. I do 
not examine whether the giving away a man's 
money be a powei- excepted and reserved out 
of the general trust of government, and how far 
all mankind, in all forms of polity, are entitled 
to an exercise of that right by the charter of 
nature ; or whether, on the contrary, a right of 
taxation is necessarily involved in the general 
principle of legislation, and inseperable from the 
ordinary supreme power. These are deep ques- 
tions, where great names militate against each 
other ; where reason is perplexed ; and an ap- 
peal to authorities only thickens the confusion ; 
for high and reverend authorities lift up their 
heads on both sides, and there is no sure footing 
in the middle. This point is 

That Serbonian bog 

Betwixt Damieta and Mount Cassias old, 

Where armies whole have sunk. 

Milton's Par. Lost, ii., 594. 

I do not intend to be overwhelmed in this bog, 
though in such respectable company. The 
question with me is, not whether you have a 
right to render your people miserable, but 
whether it is not your interest to make them 
happy. It is not what a lawyer tells me I may 
do, but what humanity, reason, and justice tell 
me I ought to do. Is a politic act the worse for 
being a generous one? Is no concession proper 
but that which is made from your want of right 
to keep what you grant ? Or does it lessen the 
grace or dignity of relaxing in the exercise of an 
odious claim, because you have your evidence- 
room full of titles, and your magazines stuffed 
with arms to enforce them? What signify all 
those titles and all those arms ? Of what avail are 
they, when the reason of the thing tells me that 
the assertion of my title is the loss of my suit, 
and that I could do nothing but wound myself 
by the use of my own weapons ? 

Such is steadfastly my opinion of the absolute 
necessity of keeping up the concord of this em- 
pire by a unity of spirit, though in a diversity 
of operations, that, if I were sure the colonists 
had, at their leaving this country, sealed a reg- 
ular compact of servitude ; that they had sol- 
emnly abjured all the rights of citizens ; that 
they had made a vow to renounce all ideas of 
liberty for them and their posterity to all gen- 
erations, yet I should hold myself obliged to 
conform to the temper I found universally prev- 
alent in my own day, and to govern two mill- 
ions of men, impatient of servitude, on the prin- 
ciples of freedom. I am not determining a point 
of law. I am restoring ti-anquillity, and the gen- 
eral character and situation of a people must de- 
termine what sort of government is fitted for them. 
That point nothing else can or ought to determine. 

My idea, therefore, without considering wheth- 
The Americans sr wc yield as matter of right, or 
the^rigusof En- g^aut as matter of favor, is to admit 
giishmen. ^/jg people of OUT colonics into an in- 

terest in the constitution^ and, by recording that 
admission in the journals of Parliament, to give 
them as strong an assurance as the nature of the 
thino- will admit, that we mean forever to adhere 



to that solemn declaration of systematic indulg- 
ence. 

Some years ago, the repeal of a revenue act, 
upon its understood principle, might Taxation for 
have served to show that we intended brpubTciyrc^ 
an unconditional abatement of the ex- -""""ted. 
ercise of a taxing power. Such a measure was 
then sufficient to remove all suspicion, and to 
give perfect content. But unfortunate events, 
since that time, may make something farther 
necessary, and not more necessary for the satis- 
faction of the colonics, than for the dignity and 
consistency of our own future proceedings. 

I have taken a very incorrect measure of the 
disposition of the House, if this proposal in itself 
would be received with dislike. I think, sir, we 
have few American financiers. But our misfor- 
tune is, we are too acute ; we are too exquisite 
in our conjectures of the future, for men oppress- 
ed with such great and present evils. The moro 
moderate among the opposcrs of parliamentary 
concession freely confess that they hope no good 
from taxation, but they apprehend the colonists 
have farther views, and, if this point were con- 
ceded, they would instantly attack the Trade 
Laws. These gentlemen are convinced that 
this was the intention from the beginning, and 
the quai-rel of the Americans with taxation was 
no more than a cloak and cover to this design. 
Such has been the language even of a gentle- 
man [Mr. Rice] of real moderation, and of a 
natural temper well adjusted to fair and equal 
government. I am, however, sir, not a little 
surprised at this kind of discourse, w^henever I 
hear it ; and I am the more surprised, on account 
of the arguments which I constantly find in com- 
pany with it, and which are often ux-ged from 
the same mouths and on the same day. 

For instance, when we allege that it is against 
reason to tax a people under so many ^„,„„„3t,„,y 
restraints in trade as the Americans, of those who in- 

ii » 1 T 1 tt 1 i»t it. 1 sist on taxation. 

the noble Lord [Lord North] m the 
blue ribbon shall tell you that the restraints on 
trade are futile and useless ; of no advantage to 
us, and of no burden to those on whom they are 
imposed ; that the trade of America is not se- 
cured by the acts of navigation, but by the nat- 
ural and irresistible advantage of a commercial 
preference. 

Such is the merit of the trade laws in this 
posture of the debate. But when strong intern- 
al circumstances are urged against the taxes ; 
when the scheme is dissected ; when experience 
and the nature of things are brought to prove, 
and do prove, the utter impossibility of obtaining 
an effective revenue from the colonies ; when 
these things are pressed, or rather press them- 
selves, so as to drive the advocates of colony 
taxes to a clear admission of the futility of the 
scheme ; then, sir, the sleeping ti'ade laws revive 
from their trance, and this useless taxation is to 
be kept sacred, not for its own sake, but as a 
counterguard and security of the laws of trade. 

Then, sir, you keep up revenue laws which 
are mischievous, in order to preserve trade laws 
that are useless. Such is the wisdom of our 



280 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1775. 



plan in both its members. They are separately | 
given up as of no value, and yet one is always ! 
to be defended for the sake of the other. But I 
can not agree vsith the noble Lord, nor with the 
pamphlet from whence he seems to have bor- 
rowed these ideas, concerning the inutility of 
the trade laws ; for, without idolizing them, I 
am sure they are still, in many ways, of great 
use to us ; and in former times, they have been 
of the greatest. They do confine, and they do 
greatly narrow the market for the Americans ; 
but my perfect conviction of this does not help 
me in the least to discern how the revenue laws 
form any security whatsoever to the commercial 
regulation.s, or that these commercial regula- 
tions are the true ground of the quarrel, or that 
the giving way in any one instance of authority 
is to lose all that may remain unconceded. 

One fact is clear and indisputable. The pub- 
The contest ^^^ ^"^ avowcd Origin of this quarrel 
sprung from was ou taxation. This quarrel has in- 

taxation. i i i t 

deed brought on new disputes on new 
questions, but certainly the least bitter, and the 
fewest of all, on the trade law^s. To judge 
which of the two be the real radical cause of 
quarrel, we have to see whether the commercial 
dispute did, in order of time, precede the dispute 
on taxation. There is not a shadow of evidence 
for it. Next, to enable us to judge whether at 
this moment a dislike to the trade laws be the 
real cause of quarrel, it is absolutely necessary 
to put the taxes out of the question by a repeal. 
See how the Americans act in this position, and 
then you will be able to discern correctly what 
is the true object of the controversy, or whether 
any controversy at all will remain. Unless you 
consent to remove this cause of difference, it is 
impossible, with decency, to assert that the dis- 
pute is not upon what it is avowed to be. And 
I would, sir, recommend to your serious consid- 
eration, whether it be prudent to form a rule for 
punishing people, not on their own acts, but on 
your conjectures. Surely it is preposterous at 
the very best. It is not justifying your anger 
by their misconduct, but it is converting your ill 
will into their delinquency. 

But the colonies will go farther. Alas ! alas ! 
oi.jection that whcn wiU this speculating against 
resirttfNavl" fact and rcasou end? What will 
gation Act. quiet these panic fears which we en- 
tertain of the hostile effect of a conciliatory con- 
duct ? Is it true that no case can exist in which 
it is proper for the sovereign to accede to the de- 
sires of his discontented subjects ? Is there any 
thing peculiar in this case to make a rule for it- 
.self? Is all authority of course lost, when it is 
not pushed to the extreme ? Is it a certain max- 
im, that the fewer causes of dissatisfaction are 
left by government the more the subject will be 
inclined to resist and rebel ? 

All these objections being, in fact, no more than 
suspicions, conjectures, divinations, formed in de- 
fiance of fact and experience, they did not, sir, 
discourage me from entertaining the idea of a 
-conciliatory concession, founded on the principles 
which I have just stated. 



In forming a plan for this purpose, I endeav- 
ored to put myself in that frame of principles and 
mind which was the most natural c^'i'iiuaion^a 
and the most reasonable, and which ^aie guide. 
was certainly the most probable means of secur- 
ing me from all error. I set out with a perfect 
distrust of my own abilities ; a total renunciation 
of every speculation of my own ; and with a pro- 
found reverence for the wisdom of our ancestors, 
who have left us the inheritance of so happy a 
constitution and so flourishing an empire, and, 
what is a thousand times more valuable, the 
treasury of the maxims and principles which 
formed the one and obtained the other. 

During the reigns of the Kings of Spain of the 
Austrian family, whenever they were at a loss 
in the Spanish councils, it w^as common for their 
statesmen to say, that they ought to consult the 
genius of Philip the Second. The genius of 
Philip the Second might mislead them ; and the 
issue of their affairs showed that they had not 
chosen the most perfect standard. But, sir, I 
am sure that I shall not be misled, when, in a 
case of constitutional difficulty, I consult the ge- 
nius of the English constitution. Consulting at 
that oracle (it was with all due humility and pi- 
ety), I found four capital examples in a similar 
case before me : those of Ireland, Wales, Ches- 
ter, and Durham. 

(1.) Ireland, before the English conquest, 
though never governed by a despotic First ex- 
power, had no Parliament. How far the ^"^p'^' 
English Parliament itself was at that time mod- 
eled according to the present foi-ra, is disput- 
ed among antiquarians.^'* But we have all the 
reason in the world to be assured, that a form of 
Parliament, such as England then enjoyed, she 
instantly communicated to Ireland ; and we are 
equally sure that almost every successive im- 
provement in constitutional liberty, as fast as it 
was made here, was transmitted thither. The 
feudal baronage and the feudal knighthood, the 
roots of our primitive constitution, were early 
transplanted into that soil, and grew and flour- 
ished there. Magna Charta, if it did not give us 
originally the House of Commons, gave us, at 
least, a House of Commons of weight and conse- 
quence. But your ancestors did not churlishly 
sit down alone to the feast of Magna Charta. 
Ireland was made immediately a partaker. This 

2* The Witenagemote, or national council, whose 
consent was requisite for the enactment of laws, 
may be considered as the Parliament of the Anglo- 
Saxon times. It was composed of the bishops and 
abbots, the aldermen or governors of counties (after- 
ward called earls), and those landed proprietors who 
were possessed of about four or five thousand acres. 
The boroughs do not appear, at this early period, to 
have sent any representatives. Magna Charta ex- 
pressly provided, that " no scutage or aid" (with three 
exceptions) " shall be raised in our kingdom but by 
the general council of the nations," and this was de- 
scribed as composed of "the prelates and greater 
barons." The first representation of the Commons 
ill Parliament is now generally agreed to have taken 
])lace toward the close of the reign of Henry III., or 
about A.D. 1264. 



1775.] 



CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 



281 



benefit of English laws and liberties, I confess, 
wa.s not at first extended to all Ireland. Mark 
the consequence. English authority and English 
liberty had exactly the same boundaries. Your 
standard could never be advanced an inch before 
your privileges.^^ Sir John Davis shows beyond 
a doubt, that the refusal of a general communi- 
cation of these rights was the true cause why 
Ireland was five hundred years in subduing ; and 
after the vain projects of a military government, 
attempted in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it 
was soon discovered that nothing could make 
that country English, in civility and allegiance, 
but your laws and your forms of legislature. It 
was not English arms, but the English constitu- 
tion, that conquered Ireland. From that time, 
Ireland has ever had a general Parliament, as she 
had before a partial Parliament. You changed 
the people ; you altered the religion ; but you 
never touched the form or the vital substance of 
free government in that kingdom. You deposed 
kings ; you restored them ; you altered the suc- 
cession to theirs, as well as to your own crown ; 
but you never altered their constitution ; the 
principle of which was respected by usurpation ; 
restored with the restoration of monarchy, and 
established, I trust, forever, by the glorious rev- 
olution. This has made Ireland the great and 
flourishing kingdom that it is ; and from a dis- 
grace and a burden intolerable to this nation, has 
rendered her a principal part of our strength and 
ornament. This country can not be said to have 
ever formally taxed her. The irregular things 
done in the confusion of mighty troubles, and on 
the hinge of great revolutions, even if all were 
done that is said to have been done, form no ex- 
ample. If they have any effect in argument, 
they make an exception to prove the rule. None 
of your own liberties could stand a moment if the 
casual deviations from them, at such times, were 
suffei-ed to be used as proofs of their nullity. 
By the lucrative amount of such casual breaches 
in the constitution, judge what the stated and 
fixed rule of supply has been in that kingdom. 
Your Irish pensioners w^ould starve, if they had 
no other fund to live on than taxes granted by 
English authority. Turn your eyes to those pop- 
ular grants from whence all your great supplies 
are come, and learn to respect that only source 
of public wealth in the British empire. 

(2.) My next example is Wales. This coun- 
second ex- try was said to be reduced by Henry the 
ample. Third.^s It was said more truly to be 
so by Edward the First. But though then con- 



^ 25 The English settlers in Ireland, after the inva- 
sion of Strongbow, kept themselves within certain 
limits distinct from the natives, called " the Pale." 
They enjoyed English law, vtrhile the natives were 
for a long time denied it ; and this gave rise to in- 
cessant contentions. By an act of James I., the priv- 
ileges of the Pale were extended to all Ireland. 

26 Wales was held in vassalage by Henry III. 
through its Prince Llewellen, who in this way pur- 
chased the aid of Henry against a rebellious son; 
but was not reduced under English sway as part of 
the kingdom till the time of Edward I. 



quered, it was not looked upon as any part of the 
realm of England. Its old constitution, what- 
ever that might have been, was destroyed, and 
no good one was substituted in its place. The 
care of that tract was put into the hands of lords 
marchers — a form of government of a very sin- 
gular kind ; a strange heterogeneous monster, 
something between hostility and government ; 
perhaps it has a sort of resemblance, according 
to the modes of those times, to that of command- 
er-in-chief at present, to whom all civil power is 
granted as secondar3^ The manners of the 
Welsh nation followed the genius of the govern- 
ment. The people were ferocious, restive, sav- 
age, and uncultivated ; sometimes composed, 
never pacified. Wales, within itself, was in per- 
petual disorder ; and it kept the frontier of En- 
gland in perpetual alarm. Benefits from it to 
the state there were none. Wales was only 
known to England by incursion and invasion. 

Sir, during that state of things, Parliament was 
not idle. They attempted to subdue the fierce 
spirit of the Welsh by all sorts of rigorous laws. 
They prohibited by statute the sending all sorts 
of arms into Wales, as you prohibit by proclama- 
tion (with something more of doubt on the legal- 
ity) the sending arms to America. They dis- 
armed the Welsh by statute, as you attempted 
(but still with more question on the legality) to 
disarm New England by an instruction. They 
made an act to drag offenders from Wales into 
England for trial, as you have done (but with 
more hardship) with regard to America. By 
another act, where one of the parties was an En- 
glishman, they ordained that his trial should be 
always by English. They made acts to restrain 
trade, as you do ; and they prevented the Welsh 
from the use of fairs and markets, as you do the 
Americans from fisheries and foreign ports. In 
short, when the statute-book was not quite so 
much swelled as it is now, you find no less than 
fifteen acts of penal regulation on the subject of 
Wales. 

Here we rub our hands. A fine body of prec- 
edents for the authority of Parliament and the use 
of it ! I admit it fully ; and pray add likewise 
to these precedents, that all the while Wales rid 
this kingdom like an incubus ; that it was an 
unprofitable and oppressive burden ; and that 
an Englishman traveling in that country could 
not go six yai'ds from the highroad without be- 
ing murdered. 

The march of the human mind is slow. Sir, 
it was not until after two hundred years discov- 
ered that, by an eternal law. Providence had de- 
creed vexation to violence, and poverty to rapijne. 
Your ancestors did, however, at length open their 
eyes to the ill husbandry of injustice. They found 
that the tyranny of a free people could of all tyr- 
annies the least be endured, and that laws made 
against a w^hole nation were not the most effect- 
ual methods for securing its obedience. Accord- 
ingly, in the twenty-seventh year of Henry VIII., 
the course was entirely altered. With a pream- 
ble stating the entire and perfect rights of the 
Crown of England, it gave to the Welsh all the 



182 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1775. 



rights and privileges of English subjects. A 
political order was established ; the military 
power gave way to the civil ; the marches were 
turned into counties. But that a nation should 
have a right to English liberties, and yet no 
share at all in the fundamental security of these 
liberties, the grant of their own property, seemed 
a thing so incongruous, that, eight years after, 
that is, in the thirty-fifth of that reign, a com- 
plete and not ill-proportioned representation by 
counties and boroughs was bestowed upon Wales 
by act of Parliament. From that moment, as by 
a charm, the tumults subsided ; obedience was 
restored ; peace, order, and civilization followed 
in the train of liberty. When the day-star of the 
English Constitution had arisen in their hearts, 
all was harmony within and without. 

Simul alba nautis 

Stella vefulsit, 
Defluit saxis agitatus humor: 
Concidunt venti, fugiuntque nubes ; 
Et minax (quod sic voluere) pouto 

Unda recumbit.2'' 

(3.) The very same year the county palatine 
Third ex- of Chcstcr rcceivcd the same relief from 
ample. jj^ opprcssious and the same remedy to 
its disorders. Before this time Chester was lit- 
tle less distempered than Wales. The inhab- 
itants, without rights themselves, were the fit- 
test to destroy the rights of others ; and from 
thence Richard II. drew the standing army of 
archers with which for a time he oppressed En- 
gland. The people of Chester applied to Parlia- 
ment in a petition penned as I shall read to you : 

'• To the King our sovereign lord, in most hum- 
ble wise shown unto your excellent Majesty, the 
inhabitants of your grace's county palatine of 
Chester; that where the said county palatine of 
Chester is and hath been always hitherto exempt, 
excluded and separated out and from your high 
court of Parliament, to have any knights and bur- 
ges.ses within the said court ; by reason whereof 
the said inhabitants have hitherto sustained mani- 
fold disherisons, losses, and damages, as well in 
their lands, goods, and bodies, as in the good, 
civil, and politic governance and maintenance 
of the commonwealth of their said country : (2.) 
And, forasmuch as the said inhabitants have al- 
ways hitherto been bound by the acts and stat- 
utes made and ordained by your said highness 
and your most noble progenitors, by authority of 
the said court, as far forth as other counties, cit- 
ies, and boroughs have been, that have had their 

^■^ The passag-e is taken from an Ode of Horace 
to Augustus Cesar, lib. i., 12, in which the poet cele- 
brates the praises of his imperial master by placing 
him on a level with gods and deified heroes. With 
a delicate allusion to the peaceful influence of Au- 
gustus, he refers to Castor and Pollux, the patron 
deities of mariners, and the effect of their constella- 
tion (the Twins) in composing tempests. 
When their auspicious star 
To the sailor shines afai% 
The troubled waters leave the rocks at rest: 
The clouds are gone, the winds are still, 
The angry wave obeys their will, 
Atid calmly sleeps upon the ocean's breast. 



knights and burgesses within your said court of 
Parliament, and yet have had neither knight ne 
burgess there for the said county palatine ; the 
said inhabitants, for lack thereof, have been often- 
times touched and grieved with acts and statutes 
made within the said court, as well derogatory 
unto the most ancient jurisdictions, liberties, and 
privileges of your said county palatine, as preju- 
dicial unto the common wealth, quietness, rest, 
and peace of your grace's most bounden sub- 
jects inhabiting within the same." 

What did Parliament with this audacious ad- 
dress ? Reject it as a libel ? Treat it as an 
affront to government ? Spurn it as a deroga- 
tion from the rights of legislature ? Did they 
toss it over the table ? Did they burn it by the 
hands of the common hangman ? They took the 
petition of grievance, all rugged as it was, with- 
out softening or temperament, unpurged of the 
original bitterness and indignation of complaint; 
they made it the very preamble to their act of 
redress, and consecrated its principle to all ages 
in the sanctuary of legislation. 

Here is my third example. It was attended 
with the success of the two former. Chester, 
civilized as well as Wales, has demonstrated 
that freedom, and not servitude, is the cure of 
anarchy, as religion, and not atheism, is the 
true remedy for superstition. Sir, this pattern 
of Chester was followed in the reign Fouithex- 
of Charles II. with regard to the coun- *'"'^'^- 
ty palatine of Durham, which is my fourth exam- 
ple. This county had long lain out of the pale 
of free legislation. So scrupulously was the ex- 
ample of Chester followed, that the style of the 
preamble is nearly the same with that of the Ches- 
ter act ; and without affecting the abstract extent 
of the authority of Parliament, it recognizes the 
equity of not suffering any considerable district 
in which the British subjects may act as a body to 
b« taxed without their own voice in the grant. 

Now, if the doctrines of policy contained in 
these preambles, and the force of these examples 
in the acts of Parliament, avail any thing, what 
can be said against applying them with regard 
to America ? Are not the people of America as 
much Englishmen as the Welsh? The pream- 
ble of the act of Henry VIII. says the Welsh 
speak a language no way resembling that of his 
Majesty's English subjects. Are the Americans 
not as numerous ? If we may trust the learned 
and accurate Judge Barrington's account of 
North Wales, and take that as a standard to 
measure the rest, there is no comparison. The 
people can not amount to above two hundred 
thousand ; not a tenth part of the number in the 
colonies. Is America in rebellion ? Wales was 
hardly ever free from it. Have you attempted to 
govern America by penal statutes ? You made 
fifteen for Wales. But your legislative authority 
is perfect with regard to America. Was it less 
perfect in Wales, Chester, and Durham ? But 
America is virtually represented. What ! does 
the electric force of virtual representation more 
easily pass over the Atlantic than pervade Wales, 
which lies in your neighborhood ; or than Chester 



1775.] 



CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 



283 



and Durham, surrounded by abundance of repre- 
sentation that is actual and palpable ? But, sir, 
your ancestors thoufjht this sort of virtual repre- 
sentation, however ample, to be totally insuffi- 
cient for the freedom of the inhabitants of terri- 
tories that are so near, and comparatively so in- 
considerable. How, then, can I think it sufficient 
for those which are infinitely greater and infinitely 
more remote ? 

You will now, sir, perhaps imagine that I 
am on the point of proposing to you 

America not to * ■ c , 

be represented a schcme for representation of the 
.<! idmen . p^j^j^j^g jj^ Parliament. Perhaps I 
might be inclined to entertain some such thought, 
but a great flood stops me in my course. 0[ipo- 
suit natura.-^^ I can not remove the eternal bar- 
riers of the creation. The thing in that mode I 
do not know to be possible. As I meddle with 
no theory, I do not absolutely assert the imprac- 
ticability of such a representation ; but I do not 
see my way to it ; and those w'ho have been 
more confident have not been more successful. 
However, the arm of public benevolence is not 
shortened, and there are often several means to 
the same end. What nature has disjoined in 
one way wisdom may unite in another. When 
we can not give the benefit as we would wnsh, 
let us not refuse it altogether. If we can not 
give the principal, let us find a substitute. But 
how ? Where ? What substitute ? 

Fortunately I am not obliged for the ways 
and means of this substitute to tax my own un- 
productive invention. I am not even obliged to 
go to the rich treasury of the fertile framers of 
imaginary commonwealths ; not to the Republic 
of Plato, not to the Utopia of More, not to the 
Oceana of Harrington. It is before me. It is 
at my feet, 

And the dull swain 
Treads daily on it with his clouted shoon.^^ 
Milton's Comus. 

1 only wish you to recognize, for the theory, the 
ancient constitutional policy of this kingdom with 
regard to representation, as that policy has been 
declared in acts of Parliament ; and, as to the 
practice, to return to that mode which a uniform 
experience has marked out to you as best, and 
in which you w^alked with security, advantage, 
and honor, until the year 1763. 

My resolutions, therefore, mean to establish 
Bnttoaidti.e ^^® equity and justice of a taxation 
Crown by of America bv erant, and not by im- 

grants of their t. "^ , ' , , j ^ 

Provincial As- fosition. 1 o mark the legal compe- 
tency of the colony assemblies for the 
support of their government in peace, and for 
public aids in time of war. To acknowledge 
that this legal competency has had a dutiful and 
beneficial exercise ; and that experience has shown 
the benefit of their grants, and the futility of par- 
liamentary taxation as a method of supply. 

These solid truths compose six fundamental 
propositions. There are three more resolutions 
corollary to these. If you admit the first set, you 
can hardly reject the others. But if you admit 



23 Nature forbids. 



Obsolete plural of shoe. 



the first, I shall be far from solicitous \A'hether 
you accept or refuse the last. I think these six 
massive pillars will be of strength sufficient to 
support the temple of British concord. I have 
no more doubt than I entertain of my existence, 
that, if you admitted these, you would command 
an immediate peace ; and, with but tolerable fu- 
ture management, a lasting obedience in Amer- 
ica. I am not arrogant in this confident assur- 
ance. The propositions are all mere matters of 
fact ; and if they are such facts as draw irresist- 
ible conclusions even in the stating, this is the 
power of truth, and not any management of mine. 
Sir, I shall open the whole plan to you togeth- 
er, with such observations on the mo- „ . . 

. 1-11 1 Purport of 

tions as may tend to illustrate them Mr. Burke's 

, ^, ^ , . resolutions. 

where they may want explanation. 
The first is a resolution " That the colonies and 
plantations of Great Britain in North America, 
consisting of fourteen separate governments, 
and containing two millions and upward of free 
inhabitants, have not had the liberty and privilege 
of electing and sending any knights and burgess- 
es or others to represent them in the high court 
of Parliament." This is a plain matter of fact, 
necessary to be laid down, and (excepting the 
description) it is laid down in the language of 
the Constitution : it is taken nearly verbatim 
from acts of Parliament. 

The second is like unto the first, " That the 
said colonies and plantations have been liable to 
and bounden by several subsidies, payments, 
rates, and taxes, given and granted by Parlia- 
ment, though the said colonies and plantations 
have not their knights and burgesses in the said 
high court of Parliament, of their ow^n election, 
to represent the condition of their country ; by 
lack whereof they have been oftentimes touched 
and grieved by subsidies given, granted, and as- 
sented to, in said court, in a manner prejudicial 
to the commonwealth, quietness, rest, and peace 
of the subjects inhabiting within the same." 

Is this description too hot or too cold, too 
strong or too weak ? Does it arrogate too much 
to the supreme Legislature? Does it lean too 
much to the claims of the people ? If it runs 
into any of these errors, the fault is not mine. 
It is the language of your own ancient acts of 
Parliament. 

Non meus hie sermo est sed quae praecipit Ofellus, 

Rusticus, abnormis sapiens. ^o 
It is the genuine produce of the ancient, rustic, 
manly, home-bred sense of this country. I did 
not dare to rub ofTa particle of the venerable rust 
that rather adorns and preserves, than destroys 
the metal. It w^ould be a profanation to touch 
with a tool the stones w^iich construct the sacred 
altar of peace.^^ I would not violate with mod- 
ern polish the ingenuous and noble roughness of 



^° The precept is not mine. 

Ofellus gave it iu his rustic strain, 
Irregular, but wise. — Horace, Sat.,\.,2. 
Ofellus is a Sabine peasant, iu whose mouth the 
poet puts this satire. 

31 " If thou lift thy tool upon it [the altar], thou 
hast polluted it." — Exodus, xx., 25. 



284 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1775. 



these truly constitutional materials. Above all 
things, I was resolved not to be guilty of tam- 
pering, the odious vice of restless and unstable 
minds. I put my foot in the tracks of our fore- 
fathers, where I can neither wander nor stumble. 
Determining to fix articles of peace, I was re- 
solved not to be wise beyond what was written ; 
I was resolved to use nothing else than the form 
of sound words, to let others abound in their own 
sense, and carefully to abstain from all expressions 
of niy own. What the law has said, I say. In 
all things else I am silent. I have no organ but 
for her words. This, if it be not ingenious, I am 
sure, is safe. 

There are, indeed, words expressive of griev- 
ance in this second resolution, which those who 
are resolved always to be in the right \vill deny 
to contain matter of fact, as applied to the pres- 
ent case, although Parliament thought them true 
with regard to the counties of Chester and Dur- 
ham. They will deny that the Americans were 
ever " touched and grieved" with the taxes. If 
they consider nothing in taxes but their weight 
as pecuniary impositions, there might be some 
pretense for this denial. But men may be sorely 
touched and deeply grieved in their privileges as 
well as in their purses. Men may lose little in 
property by the act which takes away all their 
freedom. When a man is robbed of a trifle on 
the highway, it is not the twopence lost that con- 
stitutes the capital outrage. This is not con- 
fined to privileges. Even ancient indulgences 
withdrawn, without offense on the part of those 
who enjoyed such favors, operate as grievances. 
But were the Americans, then, not touched and 
grieved by the taxes, in some measure, merely 
as taxes ? If so, why were they almost all either 
wholly repealed or exceedingly reduced ? Were 
they not touched and grieved, even by the regu- 
lating duties of the sixth of George II. ? Else 
why were the duties first reduced to one third 
in 1764, and afterward to a third of that third 
in the year 1766? Were they not touched and 
grieved by the Stamp Act? I shall say they 
were, until that tax is revived. Were they not 
touched and grieved by the duties of 1767, which 
were likewise repealed, and which Lord Hills- 
borough tells you, for the ministry, were laid con- 
trary to the true principle of commerce ? Is not 
the assurance given by that noble person to the 
colonies of a resolution to lay no more taxes on 
them an admission that taxes would touch and 
grieve them ? Is not the resolution of the noble 
Lord in the blue ribbon, now standing on your 
journals, the strongest of all proofs that parlia- 
mentary subsidies really touched and grieved 
them? Else why all these changes, modifica- 
tions, repeals, assurances, and resolutions ? 

The next proposition is, " That, from the dis- 
tance of the said colonies, and from other circum- 
stances, no method hath hithei-to been devised for 
procuring a representation in Parliament for the 
said colonies." This is an assertion of a fact. I 
go no farther on the paper ; though, in my pri- 
vate judgment, a useful representation is impos- 
sible ; I am sure it is not desired by them, nor 



ought it, perhaps, by us ; but I abstain from opin- 
ions. 

The fourth resolution is, " That each of the 
said colonies hath within itself a bodv, chosen 
in part, or in the whole, by the freemen, freehold- 
ers, or other free inhabitants thereof, commonly 
called the General Assembl}-, or General Court, 
with powers legally to raise, levy, and assess, 
according to the several u.sages of such colonies, 
duties and taxes toward the defraying all sorts 
of public services." 

This competence in the colony assemblies is 
certain. It is proved by the whole tenor of their 
acts of supply in all the assemblies, in which the 
constant style of granting is, " an aid to his Maj- 
esty ;" and acts granting to the Crown have reg- 
ularly for near a century passed the public offices 
without dispute. Those who have been pleased 
parodoxically to deny this right, holding that 
none but the British Parliament can grant to the 
Crown, are wished to look to what is done, not 
only in the colonies, but in Ireland, in one uni- 
form, unbroken tenor every session. Sir, I am 
surprised that this doctrine should come from 
some of the law servants of the Crown. I say 
that if the Crown could be responsible, his ^laj- 
esty — but certainly the ministers, and even these 
law officers themselves, through whose hands 
the acts pass biennially in Ireland, or annually in 
the colonies, are in a habitual course of commit- 
ting impeachable offenses. What habitual of- 
fenders have been all presidents of the council, 
all secretaries of state, all first lords of trade, all 
attorneys, and all solicitors general ! However, 
they are safe, as no one impeaches them; and 
there is no ground of charge against them ex- 
cept in their own unfounded theories. 

The fifth resolution is also a resolution of 
fact : " That the said General Assemblies, Gen- 
eral Courts, or other bodies legally qualified as 
aforesaid, have at sundry times freely granted 
several large .subsidies and public aids for his 
Majesty's service, according to their abilities, 
when required thereto by letter from one of his 
Majesty's principal secretaries of state. And 
that their right to grant the same, and their 
cheerfulness and sufficiency in the said grants, 
have been at sundry times acknowledged b}- 
Parliament." To say nothing of their great ex- 
penses in the Indian wars ; and not to take their 
exei-tion in foreign ones, so high as the supplies 
in the year 1695, not to go back to their public 
contributions in the year 1710, 1 shall pr.,of u.at such 
begin to travel only where the jour- grants are i^am-- 

, •' -f tioned by usage. 

nals give me light; resolving to deal 
in nothing but fact authenticated by parliament- 
ary record, and to build myself wholly on that 
solid basis. 

On the 4th of April, 1748.^^ a committee of 
this House came to the following resolution : 

" Resolved, That it is the opinion of this com- 
mittee, that it is just and reasonable that the 
several provinces and colonies of Massachusetts 
Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode 

^2 Journals of the House,, vol. xxv. 



1775] 



CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 



Island; be reimbursed the expenses they have 
been at in taking and securing to the Crown of 
Great Britain the island of Cape Breton and its 
dependencies." 

These expenses were immense for such colo- 
nies. They were above c£200,000 sterling ; 
money first raised and advanced on their public 
credit. 

On the 28th of January, 1756,^^ a message 
from the King came to us, to this efTect : " His 
Majesty, being sensible of the zeal and vigor 
with which his faithful subjects of certain colo- 
nies in North America have exerted themselves 
in defense of his Majesty's just rights and pos- 
sessions, i-ecommends it to this House to take 
the same into their consideration, and to enable 
his Majesty to give them such assistance as may 
be a. proper reward and encouragement.''' 

On the third of February, 1756,^^ the House 
came to a suitable resolution, expressed in words 
nearly the same as those of the message ; but 
with the farther addition, that the money then 
voted was an encouragement to the colonies to 
exert themselves with vigor. It will not be nec- 
essary to go through all the testimonies which 
your own x'ecords have given to the truth of my 
resolutions. I will only refer you to the places 
in the journals : 

Vol. xxvii. 16th and 19th May, 1757. 

Vol. xxviii. June 1st, 1758 — April 26th and 
30th, 1759 — Mar. 26th and 31st, and April 
28th, 1760— Jan. 9th and 20th, 1761. 

Vol. xxix. Jan. 22d and 26th, 1762 — March 
14th and 17th, 1763. 

Sir, here is the repeated acknowledgment of 
Parliament, that the colonies not only gave, but 
gave to satiety. This nation has formally ac- 
knowledged two things ; first, that the colonies 
had gone beyond their abilities, Parliament hav- 
ing thought it necessary to reimburse them ; 
secondly, that they had acted legally and lauda- 
bly in their grants of money, and their mainte- 
nance of troops, since the compensation is ex- 
pressly given as reward and encouragement.^''^ 
Reward is not bestowed for acts that are unlaw- 
ful ; and encouragement is not held out to things 
that deserve reprehension. My resolution, there- 
fore, does nothing more than collect into one 
proposition what is scattered through your jour- 
nals. I give you nothing but your own, and you 
can not refuse in the gross what you have so 
often acknowledged in detail. The admission 
of this, which will be so honorable to them and 
to you, will, indeed, be mortal to all the misera- 
ble stories by which the passions of the mis- 

33 Journals of the House, vol. xxvii. 3* Ibid. 

35 It had been asserted, ac^ainst Mr. Burke's plan, 
that the colonies could not legally make grants to 
the Crown ; that it tended to render the King inde- 
pendent of Parliament, and stood on the same foot- 
ing as the ancient benevolencies ; and that Parlia- 
ment nmst, therefore, impose the tax on the colonies 
if it was in any way to benefit the empire as a 
whole. Mr. Grenville and others were of this opin- 
ion. Hence Mr. Burke insists so strongly on these 
precedents. 



guided people have been engaged in an unhap- 
py .system. The people heard, indeed, from the 
beginning of these disputes, one thing continu- 
ally dinned in their ears, that reason and justice 
demanded that the Americans, who paid no 
taxes, should be compelled to contribute. How- 
did that fact of their paying nothing stand, when 
the taxing system began ? When Mr. Grenville 
began to form his system of American revenue, 
he stated in this House that the colonies were 
then in debt two million six hundred thousand 
pounds sterling money, and was of opinion they 
would discharge that debt in four years. On 
this state, those untaxed people were actu- 
ally subject to the payment of taxes to the 
amount of six hundred and fifty thousand a year. 
In fact, howevei-, Mr. Grenville was mistaken. 
The funds given for sinking the debt did not 
prove quite so ample as both the colonies and 
he expected. The calculation was too san- 
guine : the reduction was not completed till 
some years after, and at different times in differ- 
ent colonies. However, the taxes after the war 
continued too great to bear any addition, with 
prudence or propriety ; and when the burdens 
imposed in consequence of former requisitions 
were discharged, our tone became too high to 
resort again to requisition. No colony, since 
that time, ever has had any requisition whatso- 
ever made to it. 

We see the sense of the Crown, and the sense 
of Parliament, on the productive nature of a 
revenue by grant. Now search the same jour- 
nals for the produce of the revenue by imposition. 
Where is it ? Let us know the volume and the 
page. What is the gross, what is the net prod- 
uce ? To what service is it applied ? How 
have )-ou appropriated its surplus? What, can 
none of the many skillful index-makers that we 
are now employing, find any trace of it ? Well, 
let them and that rest together. But are the 
journals, wiiich say nothing of the revenue, as 
silent on the discontent ? Oh no ! a child may 
find it. It is the melancholy burden and blot of 
every page. 

I think, then, I am. from those journals, justi- 
fied in the sixth and last resolution, which is : 
''That it hath been found by experience, that 
the manner of granting the said supplies and 
aids, by the said general assemblies, hath been 
more agreeable to the said colonies, and more 
beneficial and conducive to the public service, 
than the mode of giving and granting aids in 
Parliament, to be raised and paid in the said 
colonies." This makes the whole of the funda- 
mental part of the plan. The conclusion is ir- 
resistible. You can not say, that you were driv- 
en by any necessity to an exercise of the utmost 
rights of legislature. You can not assert, that 
you took on yourselves the task of imposing col- 
ony taxes, from the want of another legal body, 
that is competent to the purpose of supplying 
the exigencies of the state without woundinfj the 
prejudices of the people. Neither is it true that 
the body so qualified, and having that compe- 
tence, had neglected the duty. 



286 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1775. 



The question now, on all this accumulated 
matter, is — whether you will choose to abide by 
a profitable experience, or a mischievous theory ; 
whether you choose to build on imagination or 
fact; whether you prefer enjoyment or hope; 
satisfaction in your subjects or discontent? 

If these propositions are accepted, every thing 
which has been made to enforce a contrary sys- 
tem must, I take it for granted, fall along with 
it. On that ground I have drawn the following 
resolution, wiiich, when it comes to be moved, 
will naturally be divided in a proper manner : 
" That it may be proper to repeal an act, made 
in the seventh year of the reign of his present 
Majesty, entitled. An act for granting certain 
duties in the British colonies and plantations in 
America; for allowing a drawback of the duties 
of customs upon the exportation from this king- 
dom, of coffee and cocoa-nuts of the produce of 
the said colonies or plantations ; for discontinu- 
ing the drawbacks payable on China earthen- 
ware exported to America, and for more effectu- 
ally preventing the clandestine running of goods 
in the said colonies and plantations ; and that it 
may be proper to repeal an act, made in the 
fourteenth year of the reign of his present Maj- 
est}", entitled. An act to discontinue, in such 
manner, and for such time as are therein men- 
tioned, the landing and discharging, lading or 
shipping, of goods, wares, and merchandise, at 
the town and within the harbor of Boston, in the 
province of Massachusetts Bay, in North Ameri- 
ca; and that it may be proper to repeal an act, 
made in the fourteenth year of the reign of his 
present Majesty, entitled. An act for the impar- 
tial administration of justice in the cases of per- 
sons questioned for any acts done by them in the 
execution of the law, or for the suppression of 
riots and tumults in the province of Massachu- 
setts Bay, in New England ; and that it may be 
proper to repeal an act, made in the fourteenth 
year of the reign of his present Majesty, entitled. 
An act for the better regulating the government 
of the province of Massachusetts Bay, in New 
England; and also, that it may be proper to ex- 
plain and amend an act, made in the thirty-fifth 
year of the reign of King Henry the Eighth, en- 
titled, An act for the trial of treasons committed 
out of the King's dominions." 

I wish, sir, to repeal the Boston Port Bill, be- 
cause (independently of the dangerous precedent 
of suspending the rights of the subject during 
the King's pleasure) it was passed, as I appre- 
hend, with less regularity, and on more partial 
principles, than it ought. The corporation of 
Boston was not heard before it was condemned. 
Other towns, full as guilty as she was, have not 
had their ports blocked up. Even the restrain- 
ing bill of the present session does not go to the 
length of the Boston Port Act. The same ideas 
of prudence which induced you not to extend 
equal punishment to equal guilt, even when you 
were punishing, induce me, who mean not to 
chastise, but to reconcile, to be satisfied with 
the punishment already partially inflicted. 

Ideas of prudence, and accommodation to cir- 



cumstances, prevent you from taking away the 
charters of Connecticut and Rhode Island, as 
you have taken away that of Massachusetts 
Colony, though the Crown has far less power in 
the two former provinces than it enjoyed in the 
latter; and though the abuses have been full as 
great and as flagrant in the exempted as in the 
punished. The same reasons of prudence and 
accommodation have weight with me in restor- 
ing the charter of Massachusetts Bay. Besides, 
sir, the act which changes the charter of Mas- 
sachusetts is ill many particulars so exceptiona- 
ble, that if I did not wish absolutely to repeal, 
I would by all means desire to alter it, as sev- 
eral of its provisions tend to the subversion of 
all public and private justice. Such, amosg 
others, is the power in the Governor to change 
the SheriflT at his pleasure, and to make a new 
returning oflicer for every special cause. It is 
shameful to behold such a regulation standing 
among English laws. 

The act for bringing persons accused of com- 
mitting murder under the orders of government 
to England for trial, is but temporary. That 
act has calculated the probable duration of our 
quarrel with the colonies, and is accommodated 
to that supposed duration. I would hasten the 
happy moment of reconciliation, and therefore 
must, on my principle, get rid of that most justly 
obnoxious act. 

The act of Henry the Eighth, for the trial of 
treasons, I do not mean to take away, but to 
confine it to its proper bounds and original in- 
tention ; to make it expressly for trial of trea- 
sons (and the greatest treasons may be commit- 
ted) in places where the jurisdiction of the 
Crown does not extend. 

Having guarded the privileges of local legis- 
lature, I would next secure to the colonies a fiiir 
I and unbiased judicature ; for which purpose, sir, 
I propose the following resolution : ''That, fVom 
the time when the General Assembly or Gen- 
eral Court of any colony or plantation in North 
America, shall have appointed by act of assem- 
bly, duly confirmed, a settled salary to the ofli- 
ces of the Chief Justice and other judges of the 
Superior Court, it may proper that the said 
Chief Justice and other judges of the Superior 
Courts of such colony, shall hold his and their 
office and offices during their good behavior; 
and shall not be removed therefrom, but when 
the said removal shall be adjudged by his Maj- 
esty in council, upon a hearing on complaint 
from the General Assembly, or on a complaint 
from the Governor, or Council, or the House 
of Representatives severally, of the colony in 
which the said Chief Justice and other judges 
have exercised the said offices." 

The next resolution relates to the Courts of 
Admiralty. 

It is this : " That it may be proper to regu- 
late the Courts of Admiralty, or Vice Admi- 
ralty, authorized by the 15th chapter of the 4th 
of George the Third, in such a manner as to 
make the same more commodious to those who 
sue, or are sued, in the said courts, and to pro- 



1775.] 



CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 



287 



vide for the more decent maintenance of the 
judges in the same." 

These courts I do not wish to take away. 
They are in themselves proper establishments. 
This court is one of the capital securities of the 
Act of Navigation. The extent of its jurisdic- 
tion, indeed, has been increased ; but this is alto- 
gether as proper, and is, indeed, on many ac- 
counts, more eligible, where new powers were 
wanted, than a court absolutely new. But 
courts incommodiously situated, in effect, deny 
justice ; and a court, partaking in the fruits of 
its own condemnation, is a robber. The Con- 
gress complain, and complain justly, of this 
grievance.^^ 

These are the three consequential proposi- 
tions. I have thought of two or three more, 
but they come rather too near detail, and to the 
province of executive government, which I wish 
Parliament always to superintend, never to as- 
sume. If the first six are granted, congruity will 
carry the latter three. If not, the things that re- 
main unrepealed will be, I hope, rather unseemly 
encumbrances on the building, than very materi- 
ally detrimental to its strength and stability. 

Here, sir, I should close, but that I plainly per- 
objections ccivc somc objectious remain, which I 
refuted, ought, if possiblc, to rcmovc. The first 
will be, that, in resorting to the doctrine of our 
ancestors, as contained in the preamble to the 
Chester act, I prove too much; that the griev- 
ance from a want of representation stated in 
that preamble, goes to the whole of legislation 
as well as to taxation. And that the colonies, 
grounding themselves upon that doctrine, will 
apply it to all parts of legislative authority. 

To this objection, with all possible deference 
and humilit}^, and wishing as little as any man 
living to impair the smallest particle of our su- 
preme authority, I answer, that the words are the 
xoords of Parliament^ and not mine ; and that all 
false and inconclusive inferences drawn from 
them are not mine, for I heartily disclaim any 
such inference. I have chosen the woixls of an 
act of Parliament, which Mr. Grenville, surely a 
tolerably zealous and verj- judicious advocate for 
the sovereignty of Parliament, formerly moved 
to have read at your table, in confirmation of 
his tenets. It is true that Lord Chatham con- 
sidered these preambles as declaring strongly in 
favor of his opinions. He was a no less power- 
ful advocate for the privileges of the Americans. 
Ought I not from hence to presume that these 
preambles are as favorable as possible to both, 
when properly understood ; favorable both to the 
rights of Parliament, and to the privilege of the 
dependencies of this crow^n ? But, sir, the ob- 
ject of grievance in my resolution I have not 
taken from the Chester, but from the Durham 
act, which confines the hardship of want of rep- 
resentation to the case of subsidies, and which. 



36 The Solicitor General informed Mi'. B., when 
the resolutions were separately moved, that the 
grievance of the judges partaking of the profits of 
the seizure had been redressed by office ; accord- 
ingly, the resolution was amended. 



therefore, falls in exactly with the case of the 
colonies. But whether the unrepresented coun- 
ties v.'cre de jure or de facto bound, the pream- 
bles do not accurately distinguish ; nor indeed 
was it necessary ; for, whether de jure or de fac- 
to^ the Legislature thought the exercise of the 
power of taxing, as of right, or as of fact with- 
out right, equally a grievance, and equally op- 
pressive. 

I do not know that the colonies have, in any 
general way or in any cool hour, gone much be- 
yond the demand of immunity in relation to taxes. 
It is not fair to judge of the temper or disposi- 
tions of any man, or any set of men, when they 
are composed and at rest, from their conduct or 
their expressions in a state of disturbance and 
irritation. It is, besides, a very great mistake 
to imagine that mankind follow up practically 
any speculative principle, either of government 
or freedom, as far as it will go in argument 
and logical illation. We Englishmen stop very 
short of the principles upon which we support 
any given part of our Constitution, or even the 
whole of it together. I could easily, if I had 
not already tired you, give you very striking 
and convincing instances of it. This is nothing 
but what is natural and proper. All govern- 
ment, indeed every human benefit and enjoy- 
ment, every virtue and every prudent act, is 
founded on compromise and barter. We bal- 
ance inconveniences ; we give and take : we 
remit some rights that we may enjoy others ; 
and we choose rather to be happy citizens than 
subtle disputants. As we must give away some 
natural liberty to enjoy civil advantages, so we 
must sacrifice some civil liberties for the advant- 
ages to be derived from the communion and fel- 
lowship of a great empire. But, in all fair deal- 
ings, the thing bought must bear some propor- 
tion to the purchase paid. None will barter 
away "the immediate jewel of his soul."^^ 
Though a great house is apt to make slaves 
haughty, yet it is purchasing a part of the arti- 
ficial importance of a great empire too dear to 
pay for it all essential rights and all the intrin- 
sic dignity of human nature. None of us who 
would not risk his life rather than fall under a 
government purely ax-bitrary. But, although 
there are some among us who think our Con- 
stitution wants many improvements to make it 
a complete system of liberty, perhaps none who 
are of that opinion would think it right to aim at 
such improvement by disturbing his country, and 
risking every thing that is dear to him. In every 
arduous enterprise we consider what we are to 
lose as well as what we are to gain ; and the 
more and better stake of liberty every people 
possess, the less they will hazard in a vain at- 
tempt to make it more. These are the cords of 
man. Man acts from adequate motives relative 
to his interest, and not on metaphysical specula- 
tions. Aristotle, the great master of reasoning, 

2^ Good name in man and woman, dear my Lord, 
Is the immediate jewel of their souls. 

Shakspeare's Othello, Act iii., Sc. 5. 



288 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1775. 



cautions us, and with great weight and propriety, 
against this species of delusive geometrical ac- 
curacy in moral arguments as the most fallacious 
of all sophistry. 

The Americans will have no interest contrary 
to the grandeur and glory of England, when 
they are not oppressed by the w^eight of it ; and 
they will rather be inclined to respect the acts of 
a superintending Legislature, when they see them 
the acts of that power which is itself the security, 
not the rival, of their secondary importance. In 
this assurance my mind most perfectly acqui- 
esces, and I confess I feci not the least alarm 
from the discontents which are to arise from 
putting people at their ease ; nor do I appre- 
hend the destruction of this empire from giving, 
by an act of free grace and indulgence, to two 
millions of my fellow-citizens, some share of 
those rights upon which I have always been 
taught to value myself. 

It is said, indeed, that this power of granting, 
vested in American assemblies, would dissolve 
the unity of the empire, which was preserved en- 
tire, although Wales, and Chester, and Durham 
were added to it. Truly, Mr. Speaker, I do not 
know what this unity means, nor has it ever been 
heard of, that I know, in the constitutional policy 
of this country. The very idea of subordination 
of parts excludes this notion of simple and undi- 
vided unity. England is the head, but she is not 
the head and the members too. Ireland has ever 
had from the beginning a separate, but not an in- 
dependent Legislature, which, far from distract- 
ing, promoted the union of the whole. Every 
thing was sweetly and harmoniously disposed 
through both islands for the conservation of En- 
glish dominion and the communication of English 
liber-ties. I do not see that the same principles 
might not be carried into twenty islands, and 
with the same good effect. This is my model 
with regard to America, as far as the internal 
circumstances of the two countries are the same. 
I know no other unity of this empire than I can 
draw from its example during these periods, 
when it seemed to my poor understanding more 
united than it is now, or than it is likely to be by 
the present methods. 

But since I speak of these methods, I recol- 
Lord Nortij'3 ^^^^ ^^^- Speaker, almost too late, 
scheme exam- that I promi.scd, bcforc I finished, to 
say somethmg oi the proposition of 
the noble Lord [Lord North] on the floor, which 
has been so lately received, and stands on your 
journals. I must be deeply concerned when- 
ever it is mj' misfortune to continue a difference 
with a majority of this House. But as the rea- 
sons for that difference are my apology for thus 
troubling you, suffer me to state them in a very 
few words. I shall compress them into as small 
a body as I possibly can, having already debated 
that matter at large when the question was be- 
fore the committee. 

First, then, I can not admit that proposition 
of a ransom by auction, because it is a mere 
project. It is a thing new ; unheard of; sup- 
ported by no experience ; justified by no anal- 



ogy ; without example of our ancestors, or root 
in the Constitution. It is neither regular parlia- 
mentary taxation nor colony grant. '" Experi- 
mentum in corpore vili'"^'' is a good rule, which 
will ever make me adverse to any trial of experi- 
ments on what is certainly the most valuable of 
all subjects, the peace of this empire. 

Secondly, it is an experiment which must be 
fatal, in the end, to our Constitution. For what 
is it but a scheme for taxing the colonies in the 
ante-chamber of the noble Lord and his success- 
ors ? To settle the quotas and proportions in 
this House is clearly impossible. You, sir, may 
flatter yourself you shall sit a state auctioneer, 
with your hammer in your hand, and knock 
down to each colony as its bids. But to settle 
(on the plan laid down by the noble Lord) the 
true proportional payment for four or five-and- 
twenty governments, according to the absolute 
and the relative wealth of each, and according 
to the British proportion of wealth and burden, 
is a wild and chimerical notion. This new tax- 
ation must therefore come in by the back door of 
the Constitution. Each quota must be brought 
to this House ready formed ; you can neither add 
nor alter. You must register it. You can do 
nothing farther. For on what grounds can you 
deliberate, either before or after the proposition ? 
You can not hear the counsel for all these prov- 
inces, quarreling each on its own quantitv of pay- 
ment, and its proportion to others. If you should 
attempt it, the committee of provincial ways and 
means, or by whatever other name it will delioht 
to be called, must swallow up all the time of Par- 
liament. 

Thirdly, it does not give satisfaction to the 
complaint of the colonies. They complain that 
they are taxed without their consent ; you an- 
swer, that you will fix the sum at which they 
shall be taxed. That is, you give them the very 
grievance for the remedy. You tell them, in- 
deed, that you will leave the mode to themselves. 
I really beg pardon. It gives me pain to men- 
tion it; but you must be sensible that you will 
not perform this part of the contract. For, sup- 
pose the colonies were to lay the duties which 
furnished their contingent upon the importation 
of your manufactures ; you know you would never 
suffer such a tax to be laid. You know, too, that 
you would not suffer many other modes of taxa- 
tion ; so that, when you come to explain your- 
self, it will be found that you will neither leave 
to themselves the quantum nor the mode, nor, in- 
deed, any thing. The whole is delusion from 
one end to the other. 

Fourthly, this method of ransom by auction, 
unless it be universally accepted, will plunge 
you into great and inextricable difliculties. In 
what year of our Lord are the proportions of 
payments to be settled, to say nothing of the im- 
possibilit}'-, that colony agents should have gen- 
eral powers of taxing the colonies at their dis- 
cretion ? Consider, I implore you, that the com- 



^■^ This was an old maxim among physical inqui- 
rers, ''An experiment should be made upon some 
worthless object." 



1775.] 



CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 



289 



munication by special messages, and orders be- 
tween these agents and their constituents on each 
variation of the case, when the parties come to 
contend together, and to dispute on their relative 
proportions, wnll be a matter of delay, perplexity, 
and confusion that never can have an end. 

If all the colonies do not appear at the out- 
cry, what is the condition of those assemblies, 
who offer, by themselves or .their agents, to tax 
themselves up to your ideas of their proportion ? 
The refi-actory colonies who refuse all composi- 
tion will remain taxed only to your old imposi- 
tions, which, however grievous in principle, are 
trifling as to production. The obedient colonies 
in this scheme are heavily taxed ; the refractory 
remain unburdened. What will you do ? Will 
you lay new and heavier taxes by Parliament 
on the disobedient ? Pray consider in what way 
you can do it. You are perfectly convinced that 
in the way of taxing you can do nothing but at 
the ports. Now suppose it is Virginia that re- 
fuses to appear at your auction, while Mary- 
land and North Carolina bid handsomely for their 
ransom, and are taxed to your quota. , How 
will you put these colonies on a par? Will 
you tax the tobacco of Virginia ? If you do, 
you give its death wound to your English reve- 
nue at home, and to one of the very greatest 
articles of your own foreign trade. If you tax 
the import of that rebellious colony, what do you 
tax but your own manufactures, or the goods of 
some other obedient and already well-taxed col- 
ony ? Who has said one word on this labyrinth 
of detail, which bewilders you more and more 
as you enter into it ? Who has presented, who 
can present you with a clew to lead you out of 
it ? I think, sir, it is impossible that you should 
not recollect that the colony bounds are so im- 
plicated in one another (you know it by your 
own experiments in the bill for prohibiting the 
New England fishery), that you can lay no pos- 
sible restraints on almost any of them which 
may not be presently eluded, if you do not con- 
found the innocent with the guilty, and burden 
those whom, upon every principle, you ought 
to exonerate. He must be grossly ignorant of 
America who thinks that, without falling into 
this confusion of all rules of equity and policy, 
you can restrain any single colony, especially 
Virginia and Maryland, the central and most 
important of them all. 

Let it also be considered, that either in the 
present confusion you settle a permanent con- 
tingent w^hich will and must be trifling, and then 
you have no effectual revenue ; or, you change 
the quota at every exigency, and then on every 
new repartition you will have a new quarrel. 

Reflect, besides, that when you have fixed a 
quota for every colony, you have not provided 
for prompt and punctual payment. Suppose 
one, two, five, ten years arreai-s. You can not 
issue a treasury' extent against the failing colony. 
You must make new Boston Port bills, new re- 
straining laws, new acts for dragging men to 
England for trial. You must send out new 
fleets, new armies. All is to begin again. From 



this day forward the empire is never to know 
an hour's ti'anquillity. An intestine fire will be 
kept alive in the bowels of the colonies, which 
one time or other must consume this whole em- 
pire. I allow, indeed, that the empire of Ger- 
many raises her revenue and her troops by quo- 
tas and contingents ; but the revenue of the Em- 
pire, and the army of the Empire, is the worst 
revenue and the worst army in the world. 

Instead of a standing revenue, you will there- 
fore have a perpetual quarrel. Indeed, the no- 
ble Lord, who proposed this project of a ransom 
by auction, seemed himself to be of that opinion. 
His project was rather designed for breaking 
the union of the colonics than for establishing a 
revenue. He confessed that he apprehended that 
his proposal would not be to their taste. I say this 
scheme of disunion seems to be at the bottom of 
the pi'oject ; for I will not suspect that the no- 
ble Lord meant nothing but merely to delude the 
nation by an airy phantom which he never in- 
tended to realize. But, whatever his views may 
be, as I propose the peace and union of the col- 
onies as the very foundation of my plan, it can 
not accord with one whose foundation is perpet- 
ual discord. 

Compare the two. This I offer to give you, 
is plain and simple. The other full of ^^ . 
perplexed and mtricate mazes. This is schemes- 
mild; that harsh. This is found by ex- ^°"^^^^^ : 
perience effectual for its purposes ; the other is 
a new project. This is universal ; the other cal- 
culated for certain colonies only. This is im- 
mediate in its conciliatory operation ; the other 
remote, contingent, full of hazard. Mine is what 
becomes the dignity of a ruling people ; gratui- 
tous, unconditional, and not held out as matter 
of bargain and sale. I have done my duty in 
proposing it to you. I have indeed tired you by 
a long discourse ; but this is the misfortune of 
those to whose influence nothing wall be con- 
ceded, and who must win every inch of their 
ground by argument. You have heard me with 
goodness. May you decide with wisdom ! For 
mv part, I feel my mind greatly disburdened by 
what I have done to day. I have been the less 
fearful of trying your patience, because on this 
subject I mean to spare it altogether in future. I 
have this comfort, that in every stage of the 
American affairs, I have steadily opposed the 
measures that have produced the confusion, and 
may bring on the destruction of this empire. I 
now go so far as to risk a proposal of my own. 
If I can not give peace to my country, I give it 
to my conscience. 

But what, says the financier, is peace to us 
without money ? Your plan gives us Mr. Burke's 
no revenue. No ! But it does. For ^';^^:;;i";°?^ 
it secures to the subject the power of the country. 
refusal — the first of all revenues. Experience 
is a cheat, and fact a liar, if this power in the 
subject of proportioning his grant, or of not 
granting at all, has not been found the richest 
mine of revenue ever discovered by the skill or 
by the fortune of man. It does not indeed vote 
you c£l52,750 lis. 2~(^, nor any other paltry 



290 



MR. BURKE ON 



[1775. 



limited sum, but it gives the strong box itself, 
the fund, the bank, from whence only revenues 
can arise among a people sensible of freedom : 
Posita luditur arca.^^ Can not you in England ; 
can not you at this time of day ; can not you — 
a House of Commons — trust to the principle 
which has raised so mighty a revenue, and ac- 
cumulated a debt of near one hundred and forty 
millions in this country ? Is this principle to be 
true in England and false every where else ? Is 
it not true in Ireland ? Has it not hitherto been 
true in the colonies ? Why should you presume, 
that in any country, a body duly constituted for 
any functions will neglect to perform its duty, 
and abdicate its trust? Such a presumption 
would go against all government in all modes. 
But, in truth, this dread of penury of supply, 
from a free assembly, has no foundation in na- 
ture. For first observe, that, besides the desire, 
which all men have naturally, of supporting the 
honor of their own government, that sense of 
dignity, and that security of property, which 
ever attends freedom, has a tendency to increase 
the stock of the free community. Most may be 
taken where most is accumulated. And what 
is the »oil or climate where experience has not 
uniformly proved that the voluntary flow of 
heaped-up plenty, bursting from the weight of 
its own rich luxuriance, has ever run with a 
more copious stream of revenue, than could be 
squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed indi- 
gence, by the straining of all the politic machin- 
ery in the world. 

Next, we know that parties must ever exist in 
a free country. We know, too, that the emula- 
tions of such parties, their contradictions, their re- 
ciprocal necessities, their hopes, and their fears, 
must send them all in their tvu'ns to him that 
holds the balance of the state. The parties are 
the gamesters, but government keeps the table, 
and is sure to be the winner in the end. When 
this game is played, I really think it is more to 
be feared that the people will be exhausted, than 
that government will not be supplied ; whereas, 
whatever is got by acts of absolute power, ill 
obeyed, because odious, or by contracts ill kept, 
because constrained, will be narrow, feeble, un- 
certain, and precarious. 

Ease would retract 
Vows made in pain, as violent and void.— MilL 

I, for one, protest against compounding our de- 
mands. I declare against compounding, for a 
poor limited sum, the immense, ever-growing, 
eternal debt"*" which is due to jjenerous jjovern- 



39 The quotation is taken from the first Satire of 
Juvenal, the ninetieth line, where the poet de- 
scribes the excess to which gambling was then car- 
ried on at Rome. 

Neque enim loculis comitantibus itur 
Ad casum tabulae, posita sed luditur area. 

For now no more the pocket's stores supply 
The boundless fliarges of the desperate die ; 
The chest is staked!— Gifford. 

*" " The debt immense of endless gratitude." 

Milton's Par. Lost, iv., 53. 



ment from protected freedom. And so may I 
speed in the great object I propose to you, as I 
think it would not only be an act of injustice, but 
would be the worst economy in the world, to com- 
pel the colonies to a sum certain, either in the 
way of ransom or in the way of compulsory com- 
pact. 

But to clear up my ideas on this subject : a 
revenue from America transmitted xo ,;■>«« rev- 
hither — do not delude yourselves — 'xpecrerfrom* 
you never can receive it — no, not a America. 
shilling. We have experience that from remote 
countries it is not to be expected. If, when you 
attempted to extract revenue from Bengal, you 
were obliged to return in loan what you had ta- 
ken in imposition, what can you expect from 
North America ? for certainly, if ever there was 
a country qualified to produce wealth, it is India ; 
or an institution fit for the transmission, it is the 
East India Company. America has none of these 
aptitudes. If America gives you taxable objects 
on which you lay your duties here., and gives you, 
at the same time, a surplus by a foreign sale of 
her commodities to pay the duties on these ob- 
jects which you tax at home, she has performed 
her part to the British revenue. But with re- 
gard to her own internal establishments, she 
may, I doubt not she will, contribute in moder- 
ation ; I say in moderation ; for she ought not to 
be permitted to exhaust herself. She ought to be 
reserved to a war, the weight of which, with the 
enemies that we are most likely to have, must be 
considerable in her quarter of the globe. There 
she may serve you, and serve you essentially. 

For that service, for all service, whether of 
x'evenue, trade, or empire, my trust is 
in her interest in the British Constitu- ^''''^^ '°"" 
tion. My hold of the colonies is in the close af- 
fection which grows from common names, from 
kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal 
protection. These are ties which, though light 
as air, are as strong as links of ix-on. Let the 
colonies always keep the idea of their civil rights 
associated with your government ; they will cling 
and grapple to you, and no force under heaven 
will be of power to tear them from their alle- 
giance. But let it be once understood that your 
government may be one thing, and their privi- 
leges another; that these two things may exist 
without any mutual relation ; the cement is gone ; 
the cohesion is loosened ; and every thing hastens 
to decay and dissolution. As long as you have 
the wisdom to keep the sovereign authority of 
this country as the sanctuary of liberty, the sa- 
cred temple consecrated to our common faith, 
wherever the chosen race and sons of England 
worship Freedom, they will turn their faces to- 
ward you.^^ The more they multiply, the more 

** This is one of those beautiful allusions to the 
Scriptures with which Mr. Burke so often adorns 
his pages. The practice among the Jews of wor- 
shiping toward the temple in all their dispersions, 
was founded on the prayer of Solomon at its dedica- 
tion : " Ifthy people go out to battle, or whithersoever 
thou shalt send them, and shall pray unto the Lord 
toward the city which thott hast chosen, and toward 



1775.1 



CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. 



291 



friends you will have. The more ardently they 
love liberty, the more perfect will be their obe- 
dience. Slavery they can have any where. It 
is a weed that grows in every soil. They may 
have it from Spain ; they may have it from Prus- 
sia ; but, until you become lost to all feeling of 
your true interest and your natural dignity, free- 
dom they can have from none but you. This is 
the commodity of price, of which you have the 
monopoly. This is the true Act of Navigation, 
which binds to you the commerce of the colonies, 
and through them secures to you the wealth of 
the world. Deny them this participation of free- 
dom, and you break that sole bond which origin- 
ally made, and must still preserve, the unity of 
the empire. Do not entertain so weak an imag- 
ination as that your registers and your bonds, 
your affidavits and your sufferances, your cockets 
and your clearances, are what form the great se- 
curities of your commerce. Do not dream that 
your letters of office, and your instructions, and 
your suspending clauses, are the things that hold 
together the great contexture of this mysterious 
whole. These things do not make your govern- 
ment. Dead instruments, passive tools as thej^ 
are, it is the spirit of the English communion 
that gives all their life and efficacy to them. It 
is the spirit of the English Constitution, which, in- 
fused through the mighty mass, pervades, feeds, 
unites, invigorates, vivifies every part of the em- 
pire, even down to the minutest member."*-^ 

Is it not the same virtue which does every 
thing for us here in England ? Do you imagine, 
then, that it is the land tax w^hich raises your 
revenue ? that it is the annual vote in the Com- 
mittee of Supply, which gives you your army ? or 
that it is the Mutiny Bill which inspires it with 



the House that I have built for thy name, then hear 
thou in heaven their prayer and their supplication, 
and maintain their cause." — 1st Kings, ix., 44-5. 
Accordingly, "When Daniel knew that the writing 
was signed, he went into his house ; and his win- 
dotcs being' open toicard Jerusalem, he kneeled upon 
his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave 
thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." — Dan., 
vi., 10. 

*2 The reader of Virgil will trace the origin of this 
beautiful sentence to the poet's description of the 
Animus Mundi, or soul of the universe, in the sixth 
book of the iEneid, lines 926-7. 

Spiritus iutus alit; totamque infusa per artus 
Mens agitat molem et magno se corpore miscit. 

Within a Spirit lives : a Mind infused 
Through every member of that mighty mass. 
Pervades, sustains, and actuates the whole. 

Mr. Burke's application of this image to the Spirit 
of Freedom in the English Constitution is one of the 
finest conceptions of his genius. The thought rises 
into new dignity and strength when we view it (as 
it lay in the mind of Burke) in connection with the 
sublime passage by which it was suggested. 



bravery and discipline ? No ! surely no ! It is 
the love of the people ; it is their attachment to 
their government, from the sense of the deep 
stake they have in such a glorious institution, 
which gives you your army and your navy, and 
infuses into both that liberal obedience, without 
which your army would be a base rabble, and 
3"our navy nothing but rotten timber. 

All this, I know w*ell enough, will sound wild 
and chimerical to the profane herd of those vul- 
gar and mechanical politicians, who have no place 
among us ; a sort of people who think that noth- 
ing exists but what is gross and material, and 
who therefore, far from being qualified to be 
directors of the great movement of empire, are 
not fit to turn a wheel in the machine. But to 
men truly initiated and rightly taught, these rul- 
ing and master principles, which, in the opinion 
of such m.en as I have mentioned, have no sub- 
stantial existence, are in truth every thing and all 
in all. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom 
the truest wisdom : and a great empire and lit- 
tle minds go ill together. If we are conscious 
of our situation, and glow with zeal to fill our 
place as becomes our station and ourselves, we 
ought to auspicate all our public proceedings on 
America with the old warning of the Church, Sur- 
sum corda .'^^ We ought to elevate our minds to 
the greatness of that trust to which the order of 
Providence has called us. By adverting to the 
dignity of this high calling, our ancestors have 
turned a savage wilderness into a glorious em- 
pire, and have made the most extensive and the 
only honorable conquests, not by destroying, but 
by promoting, the wealth, the number, the hap- 
piness of the human race. Let us get an Amer- 
ican revenue as we have got an American em- 
pire. English privileges have made it all that 
it is ; English privileges alone will make it all it 
can be. 

In full confidence of this unalterable truth, I 
now {quod fclix faustumque si7)'** lay the first 
stone in the temple of peace ; and I move you, 

" That the colonies and plantations of Great 
Britain in North America, consisting of fourteen 
separate governments, and containing two mill- 
ions and upward of free inhabitants, have not 
had the liberty and privilege of electing and 
sending any knights and burgesses, or others, to 
represent them in the high court of Parliament." 



On this resolution the previous question was 
demanded, and was carried against Mr. Burke 
by a majority of 270 to 78. The other resolu- 
tions, of course, fell to the ground. 

*^ " Let J our hearts rise upward," a call to silent 
prayer, at certain intervals of the Roman Catholic 
service. 

** This was a form of prayer among the Romans 
at the commencement of any important undertaking, 
"that it may be happy and prosperous." 



292 



MR. BURKE PREVIOUS TO 



[1780. 



V 

SPEECH 

OF MR. BURKE AT BRISTOL, PREVIOUS TO THE ELECTION, DELIVERED SEPTEMBER 6, 1780. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Mr. Burke did not originally seek the honor of representing the city of Bristol in the House of Com- 
mons. On the dissolution of Parliament in 1774, he was chosen member for Malton in Yorkshire, through 
the influence of Lord Rockingham; and was in the act of returning thanks to his constituents, when a 
deputation arrived from Bristol, infoniiing him that he had been put in nomination by his friends there. 
He repaired immediately to the spot, and after a severe contest was elected by a considerable majority. 

During the six yeai's which followed, Mr. Burke was laboriously engaged in his duties as a member 
of Parliament. His time was so fully occupied, that while he never neglected the interests of his con- 
stituents, he found but little leisure or opportunity to see them in person. He was, indeed, ill fitted, 
in some respects, for conciliating popular favor by visits and entertainments. His studious habits and 
refined tastes led him to shrink from the noise and bustle of a progress among the people of Bristol, 
which, in so large a city, would almost of necessity assume the character of a regular canvass. In addi- 
tion to this, he had offended a majority of his constituents by his political conduct, especially by opposing 
the American war — by voting (against their positive instructions) for the grant of increased privileges to 
the Irish trade — by supporting Lord Beauchamp's bill for the relief of insolvent debtors — and by the share 
he took in the repeal of some very cruel enactments against the Roman Catholics. 

In this state of things, Parliament was iinexpectedly dissolved about a year before its regular term of 
expiration, and Mr. Burke found himself suddenly thrown, under every possible disadvantage, into the 
midst of a contested election. He immediately repaired to Bristol ; and, as a preliminary step, in order 
to try his ground, he requested a meeting of the corporation, at which he delivered the following speech 
in explanation and defense of his conduct. Never was there a more manly or triumphant vindication. 
Conscious of the rectitude of his intentions, he makes no attempt to shuflfie or evade. "No," he ex- 
claims, " 7 did not obey your i?istriictions. I conformed to the instructions of truth and nature, and main- 
tained your interest against your opinions, with the constancy that became me. A representative that 
was worthy of you ought to be a person of stability. I am to look, indeed, to j'our opinions; but to such 
opinions as you and I must have five years hence. I was not to look at the flash of the day. I knew 
that you chose me in my place, along with others, to be a pillar of the state, and notaweather-cochon the 
top of the edifice, exalted for my levity and versatility, and of no use but to indicate the shif tings of every 
fashionable gale." The voice of posterity has decided in Mr. Burke's favor upon all the topics here 
discussed; and the wonder is, that these masterly reasonings should ever have been necessary, in de- 
fense of measures which were equally demanded by justice and humanity, and perhaps by the very 
existence of the empire. 

This is, in many respects, the best speech of Mr. Burke for the study and imitation of a young orator. 
It is more simple and direct than any of his other speeches. It was addressed to merchants and busi- 
ness-men; and while it abounds quite as much as any of his productions in the rich fruits of political 
wisdom, and has occasionally very bold and striking images, it is less ambitious in style, and less proflu- 
ent in illustration, than his more elaborate efforts in the House of Commons. 



SPEECH, &c. 



Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen, — I am ex- 
tremely pleased at the appearance of this large 
and respectable meeting. The steps I may be 
obliged to take will want the sanction of a con- 
siderable authority ; and in explaining any thing 
which may appear doubtful in my public con- 
duct, I must naturally desire a very full audience. 

I have been backward to begin my canvass. 
The dissolution of the Parliament was uncertain ; 
and it did not become me, by an unseasonable 
importunity, to appear diffident of the fact of my 
six years' endeavors to please you. I had served 
the city of Bristol honorably ; and the city of 
Bristol had no reason to think that the means 
of honorable service to the public were become 
indifferent to me. 



I found, on my arrival here, that three gentle- 
men had been long in eager pursuit of 

. " r. Reasons for 

an object which but two ol us can ob- requesting 
tain. I found that they had all met ^'"^'^"°'- 
with encouragement. A contested election in 
such a city as this is no light thing. I paused 
on the brink of the precipice. These three gen- 
tlemen, by various merits, and on various titles, 
I made no doubt were worthy of your favor. I 
shall never attempt to raise myself by deprecia- 
ting the merits of my competitoi-s. In the com- 
plexity and confusion of these cross pursuits, I 
wished to take the authentic public sense of my 
friends upon a business of so much delicacy. I 
wi.shed to take your opinion along with me ; that 
if I should give up the contest at the very begin- 



1780.] 



THE BRISTOL ELECTION. 



293 



ning, my surrender of my post may not seem the 
effect of inconstancy, or timidity, or anger, or dis- 
gust, or indolence, or any other temper unbecom- 
ing a man who has engaged in the public serv- 
ice. If, on the contrary, I should undertake the 
election, and fail of success, I was full as anxious 
that it should be manifest to the whole world 
that the peace of the city had not been broken 
by my rashness, presumption, or fond conceit of 
my own merit. 

I am not come, by a false and counterfeit show 
of deference to your judgment, to seduce it in 
my favor. I ask it seriously and unaffectedly. 
If you wish that I should retire, I shall not con- 
sider that advice as a censure upon my conduct, 
or an altei-ation in your sentiments, but as a 
rational submission to the circumstances of af- 
fairs. If, on the contrary, you should think it 
proper for me to proceed on my canvass, if you 
will risk the trouble on your part, I will risk it 
on mine. My pretensions are such as you can 
not be ashamed of, whether they succeed or fail. 

If you call upon me, I shall solicit the favor 
of the city upon manly ground. I come before 
you with the plain confidence of an honest serv- 
ant in the equity of a candid and discerning 
master. I come to claim your approbation, not 
to amuse you with vain apologies, or with pro- 
fessions still more vain and senseless. I have 
lived too long to be served by apologies, or to 
stand in need of them. The part I have acted 
has been in open day ; and to hold out to a con- 
duct, which stands in that clear and steady light 
for all its good and all its evil, to hold out to 
that conduct the paltry winking tapers of excuses 
and promises, I never will do it. They may 
obscure it with their smoke, but they never can 
illumine sunshine by such a flame as theirs. 

I am sensible that no endeavors have been left 
untried to injure me in your opinion. But the 
Transition: ^^^ ^f character is to be a shield against 
fhouidnot" (^(^i^rnny. I could wish, undoubtedly (if 
be treated idle wishcs wcrc not the most idle of 
cap OU8 i . ^j J things) , to make every part of my con- 
duct agreeable to every one of my constituents. 
But in so great a city, and so greatly divided as 
this, it is weak to expect it. In such a discord- 
ancy of sentiments, it is better to look to the na- 
ture of things than to the humors of men. The 
very attempt toward pleasing every body, dis- 
covers a temper always flashy, and often false 
and insincere. Therefore, as I have proceeded 
straight onward in my conduct, so I will proceed 
in my account of those parts of it which have 
been most excepted to. But I must first beg 
leave just to hint to you, that we may suffer very 
great detriment by being open to every talker. 
It is not to be imagined how much of service is 
lost from spirits full of activity and full of ener- 
gy, who are pressing, who are rushing forward 
to great and capital objects, when you oblige 
them to be continually looking back. While they 
are defending one service, they defraud you of a 
hundred. Applaud us when w^e run ; console 
us when we fall ; cheer us when we recover ; but 
let us pass on — for God's sake, let us pass on. 



Do you think, gentlemen, that every public 
act in the six years since I stood in this place 
before you — that all the arduous things which 
have been done in this eventful period, which 
has crowded into a few years' space the revolu- 
tions of an age, can be opened to you on their 
fair grounds in half an hour's conversation ? 

But it is no reason, because there is a bad 
mode of inquiry, that there should be no exam- 
ination at all. Most certainly it is our duty to 
examine ; it is our interest too. But it must be 
with discretion ; with an attention to all the cir- 
cumstances, and to all the motives ; like sound 
judges, and not like caviling pettifoggers and 
quibbling pleaders, prying into flaws and hunt- 
ing for exceptions. Look, gentlemen, to the whole 
tenor of your member's conduct. Try whether 
his ambition or his avarice have justled him out 
of the straight line of duty, or whether that grand 
foe of the oliices of active life — that master-vice 
in men of business, a degenerate and inglorious 
sloth — has made him flag, and languish in his 
course. This is the object of our inquiry. If 
our member's conduct can bear this touch, mark 
it for sterling. He may have fallen into errors ; 
he must have faults ; but our error is greater, 
and our fault is radically ruinous to ourselves, 
if we do not bear, if we do not even applaud 
the whole compound and mixed mass of such a 
character. Not to act thus is folly ; I had almost 
said, it is impiety. He censures God who quar- 
rels with the imperfections of man. 

Gentlemen, we must not be peevish with those 
who serve the people; for none will it win drive 
serve us while there is a Court to ^en'^ceT u.e 
serve, but those who are of a nice people. 
and jealous honor. They who think every 
thing, in comparison of that honor, to be dust 
and ashes, will not bear to have it soiled and 
impaired by those for whose sake they make a 
thousand sacrifices to preserve it immaculate 
and whole. We shall either drive such men 
from the public stage, or we shall send them to 
the Court for protection, where, if they must 
sacrifice their reputation, they will at least se- 
cure their intex-est. Depend upon it, that the 



lovers of freedom will be free. 



will 



late their conscience to please us in order after- 
ward to discharge that conscience which they 
have violated by doing us faithful and affection- 
ate service. If we degrade and deprave their 
minds by servility, it will be absurd to expect 
that they who are creeping and abject toward 
us will ever be bold and incorruptible asserters 
of our freedom against the most seducing and 
the most formidable of all powers. No ! Hu- 
man nature is not so formed ; nor shall we im- 
prove the faculties or better the morals of public 
men by our possession of the most infallible re- 
ceipt in the world for making cheats and hypo- 
crites. 

Let me say with plainness, I, who am no 
longer in a public character, that if by a fair, by 
an indulgent, by a gentlemanly behavior to our 
representatives, we do not give confidence to 
their minds and a liberal scope to their under- 



294 



MR. BURKE PREVIOUS TO 



[1780. 



standings ; if we do not permit our members to 
act upon a very enlarged view of things, we 
shall at length infallibly degrade our national 
representation into a confused and shuffling bus- 
tle of local agency. When the popular member 
is narrowed in his ideas, and rendered tirnid in 
his proceedings, the service of the Crown will 
be the sole nursery of statesmen. Among the 
frolics of the Court, it may at length take that of 
attending to its business. Then the monopoly of 
mental power will be added to the pov/er of all 
other kinds it possesses. On the side of the peo- 
ple there will be nothing but impotence ; for ig- 
norance is impotence ; narrowness ofmind is im- 
potence ; timidity is itself impotence, and makes 
all other qualities that go along with it impotent 
and useless. 

At present it^is the plan of the Court to make 
its servants insignificant. If the people should 
fall into the same humor, and should choose their 
servants on the same pi'inciples of mere obsequi- 
ousness, and flexibility, and total vacancy or in- 
difference of opinion in all public matters, then 
no part of the state will be sound, and it will be 
in vain to think of saving it.^ 

I thought it very expedient at this time to 
give you this candid counsel ; and with this coun- 
sel I would willingly close, if the matters which 
at various times have been objected to me in this 
city concerned only myself and my own election. 
These charges, I think, are four in number : my 
Subject: charg. "eglcct of a duc attention to my con- 
es against Mr. stitueuts : thc uot pavinfj more fre- 

Burke aa repre- . . , i. j o 

sentativeofBris- queut visits hcrc ; my conduct on 
^°'' the affairs of the first Irish trade 

acts ; my opinion and mode of proceeding on 
Lord Beauchamp's debtor's bills; and my votes 
on the late affairs of the Roman Catholics. All 
of these (except, perhaps, the first) relate to mat- 
ters of very considerable public concern ; and it 
is not lest you should censure me improperly, 
but lest you should form improper opinions on 
matters of some moment to you, that I trouble 
you at all upon the subject. My conduct is of 
small importance. 

I. With regard to the first charge, my friends 
„. . ^, have spoken to me of it in the style 

First Charge = „ f , , , . "^ 

Neglect of con- of amicablc expostulation ; not so 
much blaming the thing, as lament- 
ing the effects. Others, less partial to me, were 
less kind in assigning the motives. I admit, 
there is a decorum and propriety in a member 
of Parliament's paying a respectful court to his 
constituents. If I were conscious to myself that 
pleasure or dissipation, or low, unworthy occupa- 
tions had detained me from personal attendance 
on you, I would readily admit my fault, and qui- 
etly submit to the penalty. But, gentlemen, I 
live a hundred miles distance from Bristol ; and 
at the end of a session I come to my own house. 



^ It is hardly necessary to remark how much strik- 
ing and just thought is crowded into this exordium 
and transition. It would be difficult to find any 
where in the same space an equal amount of 
weighty considerations so perfectly suited to intro- 
duce such a discussion. 



fatigued in body and in mind, to a little repose, 
and to a very little attention to my family and my 
private concerns. A visit to Bristol is always a 
sort of canvass, else it will do more harm than 
good. To pass from the toils of a session to the 
toils of a canvass is the farthest thing in the 
world from repose. I could hardly serve you 
as I have done and court you too. Most of you 
have heard that I do not very remarkably spare 
myself in public business ; and in the hu services 
private business of my constituents I '" Lont^o"- 
have done very near as much as those who have 
nothing else to do. My canvass of you was not 
on the 'change, nor in the county meetings, nor 
in the clubs of this city. It was in the House 
of Commons ; it was at the Custom-house ; it 
was at the Council; it was at the Treasury ; it 
was at the Admiralty. I canvassed you through 
your affairs, and not your persons. I was not 
only your representative as a body ; I was the 
agent, the solicitor of individuals. I ran about 
wherever your alfairs could call me ; and in act- 
ing for you, I often appeared rather as a ship-bro- 
ker than as a member of Parliament. There was 
nothing too laborious or too low for me to under- 
take. The meanness of the business was raised 
by the dignity of the object. If some lesser mat- 
ters have slipped through my fingers, it was be- 
cause I filled my hands too full, and, in my ea- 
gerness to serve you, took in more than my hands 
could grasp. Several gentlemen stand round 
me who are my willing witnesses, and there ai's 
others who, if they were here, would be still bet- 
ter, because they would be unwilling witnesses 
to the same truth. It was in the middle of a 
summer residence in London, and in the middle 
of a negotiation at the Admiralty for your trade, 
that I was called to Bristol ; and this late visit, 
at this late day, has been possibly in prejudice to 
your affairs. 

Since I have touched upon this matter, let me 
say, gentlemen, that if I had a dispo- Mr. Burke, on 
sition or a right to complain, I have reL'^Tn'to com- 
some cause of complaint on my side. ?'"'"• 
With a petition of this city in my hand, passed 
through the corporation without a dissenting 
voice, a petition in unison with almost the whole 
voice of the kingdom (with whose formal thanks 
I was covered over), while I labored on no less 
than five bills for a public reform,^ and fought 
against the opposition of great abilities, and of 
the greatest power, every clause, and every 
word of the largest of those bills, almost to the 
very last day of a very long session — all this 
time a canvass in Bristol was as calmly carried 
on as if I were dead. I was considered as a 
man wholly out of the question. While I watch- 
ed, and fasted, and sweated in the House of 
Commons, by the most easy and ordinary arts of 
election, by dinners and visits, by " How-do-you- 
dos" and " My worthy friends," I was to be qui- 
etly moved out of my seat ; and promises were 
made, and engagements entered into, without 

2 Mr. Burke here refers to his bills for economical 
reform, which were advocated in his speech on this 
subject, delivered February 11th, 1780. 



1780.] 



THE BRISTOL ELECTION. 



295 



any exception or reserve, as if my laborious zeal 
in my duty had been a regular abdication of my 
trust. 

To open my whole heart to you on this sub- 
Grounds of J®^*' ^ ^"^ confcss, howcvcr, that there 
reluctance to were Other times besides the two years 
in which I did visit you, when I was 
not wholly without leisure for repeating that 
mark of my respect ; but I could not bring my 
mind to see you. You remember that in the 
beginning of this American war (that era of ca- 
lamity, disgrace, and downfall — an era which no 
feeling mind will ever mention without a tear 
for England) you were greatly divided ; and a 
very strong body, if not the strongest, opposed it- 
self to the madness which every art and every 
power were employed to render popular, in or- 
der that the errors of the rulers might be lost in 
the general blindness of the nation. This oppo- 
sition continued until after our great, but most 
unfortunate victory at Long Island.^ Then all 
the mounds and banks of our constancy were 
borne down at once, and the phrensy of the Amer- 
ican war broke in upon us like a deluge. This 
victory, which seemed to put an immediate end 
to all difficulties, perfected in us that spirit of 
domination which our unparalleled prosperity 
had but too long nurtured. We had been so 
very powerful, and so very prosperous, that even 
the humblest of us w^ere degraded into the vices 
and follies of kings. We lost all measure be- 
tween means and ends ; and our headlong de- 
sires became our politics and our morals. All 
men who wished for peace, or retained any sen- 
timents of moderation, were overborne or si- 
lenced ; and this city was led by every artifice 
(and probably with more management, because 
I was one of your members) to distinguish itself 
by its zeal for that fatal cause. In this temper 
of yours and of my mind, I should have sooner 
fled to the extremities of the earth than have 
shown myself here. I, who saw in every Amer- 
ican victory (for you have had a long series of 
these misfortunes) the germ and seed of the na- 
val power of France and Spain, which all our 
heat and warmth against America was only 
hatching into life — I should not have been a 
welcome visitant with the brow and the lan- 
guage of such feelings. When afterward the 
other face of your calamity was turned upon 
you, and showed itself in defeat and distress, I 
shunned you full as much. I felt sorely this va- 
riety in our wretchedness, and I did not wish to 
have the least appearance of insulting you with 
that show of superiority which, though it may 
not be assumed, is generally suspected in a time 
of calamity from those whose previous warnings 
have been despised. I could not bear to show 
you a representative whose face did not reflect 
that of his constituents ; a face that could not 
joy in your joys and sorrow in your son'ows. 

3 This occurred in August, 1776, when the army 
under Washington was defeated, and New York 
taken by the British. This success made the war 
popular throughout England, and created an expect- 
ation of the immediate reduction of the colonies. 



But time at length has made us all of one opin- 
ion; and we have all opened our eyes on the 
true nature of the American war, to the true 
nature of all its successes and all its failures. 

In that public storm, too, I had my private 
feelings. I had seen blown down and prostrate 
on the ground several of those houses to whom 
I was chiefly indebted for the honor this city has 
done me. I confess, that while the wounds of 
those I loved were yet green, I could not bear 
to show myself in pride and triumph in that 
place into which their partiality had brought 
me, and to appear at feasts and rejoiQi^gs, in 
the midst of the grief and calamity of my warm 
friends, my zealous supporters, my generous ben- 
efactors. This is a true, un\'arnished, undisguis- 
ed state of the affair. You will judge of it. 

This is the only one of the charges in which 
I am personally concerned. As to the other 
matters objected against me, which in their turn 
I shall mention to you, remember once more I do 
not mean to extenuate or excuse. Why should 
I, w'hen the things charged are among those 
upon w^hich I found all m}' reputation ? What 
would be left to me, if I myself was the man who 
softened, and blended, and diluted, and weaken- 
ed, all the distinguishing colors of my life, so as 
to leave nothing distinct and determinate in my 
whole conduct?* 

II. It has been said, and it is the second charge, 
that in the questions of the Irish § o a h <>• • 
trade I did not consult the interest Givm^ free trade 

P . , , to Ireland. 

oi my constituents, or, to speak out 
strongly, that I rather acted as a native of Ire- 
land, than as an English member of Parliament. 
I certainly have very warm, good wishes for 
the place of my birth. Bat the sphere of ray 
duties is my true country. It was as a man at- 
tached to your interests, and zealous for the con- 
servation of your power and dignit}^, that I act 
ed on that occasion, and on all occasions. You 
were involved in the American war. A new 
w^orld of policy was opened, to which it was 
necessary we should conform, whether we would 
or not ; and my only thought was how to con- 
form to our situation in such a manner as to 
unite to this kingdom, in prosperity and in affec- 
tion, w^iatever remained of the empire. I was 
true to my old, standing, invariable principle, 
that all things which came from Great Britain 
should issue as a gift of her bounty and benefi- 



* It is an old adage, that the audience makes the 
orator; and it is certainly the fact that Mr. Burke, 
in speaking thus largely of himself before a body 
of plain men like the people of Bristol, was entirely 
free from that appearance of display, and that intru- 
sion of what is purely fanciful, which sometimes 
marked his performances in the House of Commons. 
Never was a defense more ingenious, and yet more 
simple and manly. There is no affected modesty 
about it, nor is there the slightest appearance of 
vanity or arrogance. If any one should consider be- 
forehand what kind of answer was to be given to 
so frivolous an objection, it would hardly seem pos- 
sible to frame one containing so much solid and in- 
genious thought, and yet so perfectly suited to the 
nature of the case. 



296 



MR. BURKE PREVIOUS TO 



[1780. 



cence, rather than as claims recovered against a 
struggling litigant ; or at least, that if your be- 
neficence obtained no credit in your concessions, 
yet that they should appear the salutary provi- 
sions of your wisdom and foresight ; not as things 
wrung from you with your blood, by the cruel 
gripe of a rigid necessity. The first conces- 
sions, by being (much against my will) mangled 
and stripped of the parts which were necessaiy 
to make out their just correspondence and con- 
nection in trade, were of no use. The next year 
a feeble attempt was made to bring the thing 
into better shape. This attempt (countenanced 
by the Minister), on the very first appearance of 
.some popular uneasiness, was, after a consider- 
able progress through the House, thrown out by 

What was the consequence ? The whole 
„ , , kingdom of Ireland was instantlv in a 

Demanded „ rr<< ^ ^ r • " i 

by the Irish flame. Threatened by loreigners, and, 
inarms. ^^ ^^^^^ thought, insultcd b}' England, 
they resolved at once to resist the power of 



5 Ireland was reduced to so much distress by the 
stoppage of trade during the American war, that 
Lord Nugent offered a number of resolutions in 1778 
for removing the restrictions of the Navigation Act, 
and allowing her a large participation in the com- 
merce of the world. Tliis was vehemently opposed 
by Bristol, in common with the other great commer- 
cial towns ; but Mr. Burke felt himself bound to sup- 
port the measure against the wishes and instruc- 
tions of his constituents. The ministry, however, 
became alarmed by the clamor, and nothing effect- 
ual was done. In 1779, another attempt of the same 
nature was made by Lord Nugent, with Lord North's 
approbation ; but the minister became alarmed again, 
and defeated the plan. The Irish, indignant at this 
treatment, now formed associations (after the exam- 
ple of the Americans) to abstain from the use of all 
English manufactured articles. Associations of a 
still more alarming character had already commen- 
ced. The French and Spanish fleets effected a 
junction in August, 1779, and, driving back the En- 
glish fleet (which was much inferior), swept the 
channel without resistance or molestation, and 
threatened a descent on Ireland. The people, left 
without protection by the English government, flew 
to arms; a part of them under an implied authority 
from the magistrates, and part with no authority but 
the necessity of national defense. The celebrated 
corps of Irish Volunteers, consisting of between 
forty and fifty thousand men, was embodied, armed, 
and officered, within a few weeks. The Irish Par- 
liament met shortly after, and approved their con- 
duct by a unanimous vote of thanks. With these 
troops at their command, they sent a significant ad- 
dress to the King, declaring that "it was not by 
temporary expedients, but by a. free trade that the 
nation was to be saved from impending ruin." To 
enforce this address, they limited their supplies to 
the period of six months, instead of the ordinary 
term of two years. It was now obvious that a re- 
bellion in Ireland would be added to that in the 
colonies, unless the ministry yielded at once. The 
whole nation " had their face toward America, and 
their back toward England." Hence the instan- 
taneous concessions so graphically described by 
Mr. Burke. Even the woolen trade — " the sacred 
fleece" — which the English had guarded with such 
jealous care, was thrown open to the Irish. 



France, and to cast ofT yours. As for us, we 
were aHe neither to protect nor to restrain 
them. Forty thousand men were raised and 
disciplined without commission from the Crown. 
Two illegal armies were seen with banners dis- 
played at the same time, and in the same coun- 
try. No executive magistrate, no judicature in 
Ireland, would acknowledge the legality of the 
army which bore the King's commission ; and 
no law, or appearance of law, authorized the 
army commissioned by itself. In this unexam- 
pled state of things, which the least error, the 
least trespass on the right or left, would have 
hurried down the precipice into an abyss of 
blood and confusion, the people of Ireland de- 
mand a freedom of trade with arms in their 
hands. They interdict all commerce between 
the two nations. They deny all new supply in 
the House of Commons, although in time of war. 
They stint the trust of the old revenue, given for 
two years to all the King's predecessors, to six 
months. The British Parliament, in a former 
session frightened into a limited concession by 
the menaces of Ireland, frightened out of it by 
the menaces of England, was now frightened 
back again, and made a universal surrender of 
all that had been thought the peculiar, reserved, 
uncommunicable rights of England — the exclu- 
sive commerce of America, of Africa, of the 
"West Indies — all the enumerations of the Acts 
of Navigation — all the manufactm-es, iron, glass, 
even the last pledge of jealousy and pride, the 
interest hid in the secret of our hearts, the in- 
veterate prejudice molded into the constitution 
of our frame, even the sacred fleece itself,^ all 
went together. No reserve ; no exception ; no 
debate ; no discussion. A sudden light broke in 
upon us all. It broke in, not through well-con- 
trived and well-disposed windows, but through 
flaws and breaches; through the yawning 
chasms of our ruin. We were taught wisdom 
by humiliation. No town in England presumed 
to have a prejudice, or dared to mutter a peti- 
tion. What was worse, the whole Parliament 
of England, which retained authority for nothing 
but surrenders, was despoiled of every shadow 
of superintendence. It was, without any quali- 
fication, denied in theor}', as it had been tram- 
pled upon in practice. This scene of shame and 
disgrace has, in a manner while I am speakings 
ended by the perpetual establishment of military 
power, in the dominions of this Crown, without 
consent of the British Legislature, contrary to 
the policy of the constitution, contrary to the 
declaration of right -, ''' and by this your liberties 



^ The allusion here is to the story of the Argo- 
nauts, and the golden fleece of Colchis, which was 
guarded by a dragon that never slept. Many have 
supposed this to be a historical myth, relating to 
the first introduction of sheep into Greece from the 
Euxine for the sake of their wool, and Mr. Burke 
perhaps so regarded it. The image that ibllows is 
one of the strongest to be found in the speeches of 
Mr. Burke or any other orator. 

'' The Irish Parliament, flushed by their success 
in respect to trade, passed a bill enacting that the 



1780.J 



THE BRISTOL ELECTION. 



297 



are swept away along with your supreme au- 
thority — and both, linked together from the be- 
ginning, have, I am afraid, both together perish- 
ed forever. 

What! gentlemen, was I not to foresee, oi*. 
Course of foreseeing, was I not to endeavor to 
Mr. Burke, gave you ffom all these multiplied mis- 
chiefs and disgraces ? Would the little, silly, can- 
vass prattle of obeying instructions, and having 
no opinions but yours, and such idle, senseless 
tales, which amuse the vacant ears of unthink- 
ing men, have saved you from " that pelting of 
the pitiless storm," to which the loose improvi- 
dence, the cowardly rashness of those who dare 
not look danger in the face, so as to provide 
against it in time, and therefore throw them- 
selves headlong into the midst of it, have expos- 
ed this degraded nation, beat down and prostrate 
on the earth, unsheltered, unarmed, unresisting? 
Was I an Irishman on that day, that I boldly 
withstood our pride ? or on the day that I hung 
down my head, and wept in shame and silence 
over the humiliation of Great Britain ? I be- 
came unpopular in England for the one, and in 
Ireland for the other.^ What then ? What ob- 
ligation lay on me to be popular ? I was bound 
to serve both kingdoms. To be pleased with 
my service was their affair, not mine. 

I was an Irishman in the Iri.sh business, just as 
He acted in re- "luch as I was an American, when, 
^P'i'^S^"]'"^'*"'' on the same principles, I wished you 

as lie had previ- i « • • 

to concede to America, at a time 
when she prayed concession at our 
feet. Just as much was I an American, when 
I wished Parliament to offer terms in victory, 
and not to wait the well-chosen hour of defeat, 
for making good, by weakness and by supplica- 
tion, a claim of prerogative, pre-eminence, and 
authority. 

Instead of requiring it from me as a point of 
duty to kindle with your passions, had you all been 
as cool as I was, you would have been saved dis- 
graces and distresses that are unutterable. Do 
you remember our commission ? We sent out 
a solemn embassy across the Atlantic Ocean, to 
lay the crown, the peerage, the Commons of 
Great Britain, at the feet of the American Con- 
gress.^ That our disgrace might want no sort 



pre 

ously done in re- 
gard to America. 



military force of Ireland should be governed by laws 
of their ow^n country, and not of the English Parlia- 
ment. Lord North yielded, and introduced an alter- 
ation by which the law was made perpetual. It 
was hence called the Irish Perpetual Mutiny Act, 
and was strongly condemned by Mr. Burke and 
many of the best friends of Ireland, for the reasons 
here given. 

8 Mr. Burke "withstood the pride" of England, 
when he insisted on the grant of free trade to the 
Irish, who had always been treated as a conquered 
people ; and '' wept in shame and silence over the 
humiliation of Great Britain," when the Irish Per- 
petual Mutiny Act was passed. The former made 
him unpopular in England, the latter in Ireland. 

^ This was soon after the defeat of Burgoyne ; and 
Mr. Burke argues, that as the people of Bristol now 
saw he was right in wishing to conciliate America, 
and prevent these disgraces, so he was also right in 



of brightening and burnishing, observe who they 
were that composed this famous embassy. My 
Lord Carlisle is among the first ranks of our no- 
bility. He is the identical man who, but two 
years before, had been put forward at the open- 
ing of a session in the House of Lords, as the 
mover of a haughty and rigorous address against 
America. He was put in the front of the em- 
bassy of submission. Mr. Eden was taken from 
the office of Lord Suffolk, to whom he was then 
under Secretary of State ; from the office of that 
Lord Suffolk, who, but a few weeks before, in 
his place in Parliament, did not deign to inquire 
where a congress of vagrants was to be found. 
This Lord Suffolk sent Mr. Eden to find these 
vagrants, without knowing where his King's gen- 
erals were to be found, who were joined in the 
same commission of supplicating those whom 
they were sent to subdue. They enter the cap- 
ital of America only to abandon it ; and these 
assertors and representatives of the dignity of 
England, at the tail of a flying army, let fly their 
Parthian shafts of memorials and remonstrances 
at random behind them. Their promises and their 
oflers, their flatteries and their menaces, were all 
despised ; and we were saved the disgrace of 
their formal reception, only because the Congress 
scorned to receive them ; while the State House 
of independent Philadelphia opened her doors to 
the public entry of the embasador of France. 
From war and blood we went to submission ; and 
from submission plunged back again to war and 
blood ; to desolate and be desolated, without mea- 
sure, hope, or end. I am a Royalist : I blushed for 
this degradation of the Crown. 1 am a Whig : I 
blu.shed for the dishonor of Parliament. I am 
a true Englishman : I felt to the quick for the 
disgrace of England. I am a man : I felt for 
the melancholy reverse of human affairs, in the 
fall of the first power in the world. 

To read what was approaching in Ireland, in 
the black and bloody characters of the American 
war, was a painful, but it was a necessary part 
of my public duty ; for, gentlemen, it is not 
your fond desires or mine that can alter the na- 
ture of things ; by contending against which what 
have we got, or shall ever get, but defeat and 
shame ? I did not obey your instructions ! No, 
I conformed to the instructions of truth and na- 
ture, and maintained your interest against your 
opinions with a constancy that became me. A 
representative worthy of you ought to be a per- 
son of stability. I am to look, indeed, to your 
opinions ; but to such opinions as you and I must 
have five years hence. I was not to look to the 
flash of the day : I knew that you chose me, in 
my place along with others, to be a pillar of the 
state, and not a weather-cock on the top of the 
edifice, exalted for my levity and versatility, and 
of no use but to indicate the shiftings of every 
fashionable gale. Would to God, the value of 
my sentiments on Ireland and on America had 
been at this day a subject of doubt and discussion ! 



voting for an extension of trade to Ireland, as 
measure of conciliation for that country. 



298 



MR. BURKE PREVIOUS TO 



[1780. 



No matter what my sufferings had been, so that 
this kingdom had kept the authority I wished it to 
maintain, by a grave foresight, and by an equi- 
table temperance in the use of its power. 

III. Tiie next article of charge on my public 
Third ciiar-e- ^onduct, and that which I find rather 
Reiierofin,''oi- the most prevalent of all, is Loi'd 
Beauchamp's bill.^° I mean his bill of 
last session, for reforming the law-process con- 
cerning imprisonment. It is said (to aggravate 
the offense) that I treated the petition of this 
city with contempt, even in presenting it to the 
House, and expressed myself in terms of marked 
disrespect. Had this latter part of the charge 
been true, no merits on the side of the question 
which I took could possibly excuse me. But I 
am incapable of treating this city with disrespect. 
Very fortunately, at this minute (if my bad eye- 
sight does not deceive me), the worthy gentle- 
man [Mr. Williams], deputed on this business, 
stands directly before me. To him I appeal, 
whether I did not, though it militated with my 
oldest and my most recent public opinions, deliv- 
er the petition with a strong and more than 
usual recommendation to the consideration of the 
House, on account of the character and conse- 
quence of those who signed it. I believe the 
worthy gentleman will tell you, that the very day 
I received it I applied to the solicitor, now the 
attorney general, to give it an immediate con- 
sideration, and he most obligingly and instantly 
consented to employ a great deal of his very val- 
uable time to write an explanation of the bill. I 
attended the committee with all possible care and 
diligence, in order that every objection of yours 
might meet with a solution, or produce an alter- 
ation. I entreated your learned recorder (always 
ready in business in which you take a concern) 
to attend. But what will you say to those who 
blame me for supporting Lord Beauchamp's 
bill, as a disrespectful treatment of your petition, 
when you hear that, out of respect to you, I my- 
self was the cause of the loss of that very bill ? 
For the noble Lord who brought it in, and who, 
I must say, has much merit for this and some 
other measures, at my request consented to put 
it off" for a week, which the speaker's illness 
lengthened to a fortnight ; and then the frantic 
tumult about popery drove that and every ra- 
tional business from the House. ^^ So that if I 
chose to make a defense of myself, on the little 
principles of a culprit, pleading in his exculpa- 

10 This bill (introduced Feb. 10, 1780) allowed an 
imprisoned debtor, who gave up all his property, and 
made oath that he was not worth five pounds in the 
world, except the bedding of his wife and the clothes 
of his children, to appear before a court. This court 
was strictly to investigate the facts, and release him 
if they saw fit, from imprisonment, though not from 
bis debt, for which his future earnings were still 
liable. This bill Mr. Burke supported. It was lost, 
however, in the way mentioned above. And yet at 
Bristol he was overwhelmed with obloquy, for giv- 
ing his countenance to this imperfect measure of 
justice and humanity, and actually lost his election 
chiefly on this ground. 

*^ The ' No Popery" riots which for some days 



tion, I might not only secure my acquittal, but 
make merit with the opposers of the bill. But 
I shall do no such thing. The truth is, that I did 
occasion the loss of the bill, and by a delay caused 
by my respect to you. But such an event was 
never in my contemplation ; and I am so far from 
taking credit for the defeat of that measure, that 
I can not sufficiently lament my misfortune, if but 
one man who ought to be at large has passed a 
year in prison by my means. I am a debtor to 
the debtors : I confess judgment : I owe what, 
if ever it be in my power, I shall most certainly 
pay — ample atonement, and usurious amends to 
liberty and humanity for my unhappy lapse. 
For, gentlemen. Lord Beauchamp's bill was a 
law of justice and policy, as far as it went ; I say 
as far as it w-ent, for its fault was its being, in 
the remedial part, miserably defective. 

There are two capital faults in our law with 
relation to civil debts. One is, that ^ 

' Errors of the 

every man is presumed solvent: a law for the re- 

• . 1 , covery of debts. 

presumption, in innumerable cases, 
directly against truth. Therefore the debtor is 
ordered, on a supposition of ability and fraud, to 
be coerced his liberty until he makes payment. 
By this means, in all cases of civil insolvency 
without a pardon from his creditor, he is to be 
imprisoned for life ; and thus a miserable, mis- 
taken invention of artificial science, operates to 
change a civil into a criminal judgment, and to 
scourge misfortune or indiscretion with a punish- 
ment which the law does not inflict on the great- 
est crimes. 

The next fault is, that the inflicting of that pun- 
ishment is not on the opinion of an equal and pub- 
lic judge, but is referred to the arbitrary discretion 
of a private, nay, interested and irritated individ- 
ual. He who formally is, and substantially ought 
to be the judge, is in reality no more than minis- 
terial, a mere executive instrument of a private 
man, who is at once judge and party. Every 
idea of judicial order is subverted by this pro- 
cedure. If the insolvency be no crime, why is 
it punished with arbitrary imprisonment ? If it 
be a crime, why is it delivered into private hands 
to pardon without discretion, or to punish without 
mercy and without measure ? 

To these faults, gross and cruel faults in our 
law, the excellent principle of Lord „ 

T. 1 ) 1 -11 1- J Remedy pro- 

Beauchamp s bill applied some sort posed by Lord 
of remedy. I know that credit must ''*"*^ ^'^^' 
be preserved, but equity must be preserved too; 
and it is impossible that any thing should be nec- 
essary to commerce which is inconsistent with 
justice. The principle of credit was not weak- 
ened by that bill. God forbid ! The enforcement 
of that credit was only put into the same public 
judicial hands on which we depend for our lives, 
and all that makes life dear to us. But, indeed, 
this business was taken up too warmly, both here 
and elsewhere. The bill was extremely mistak- 
en. It was suppo.sed to enact what it never en- 
acted ; and complaints were made of clauses in 



involved Parliament in danger, and brought London 
to the verge of a general conflagi'atiou. 



1780.J 



THE BRISTOL ELECTION. 



299 



it as novelties, which existed before the noble 
Lord that brought in the bill was born. There 
was a fallacy that ran through the whole of the 
objections. The gentlemen who opposed the bill 
always argued as if the option lay between that 
bill and the ancient law ; but this is a grand mis- 
take ; for practically the option is between, not 
that bill and the old law, but between that bill 
and those occasional laws called " acts of grace." 
For the opei-ation of the old law is so savage, and 
so inconvenient to society, that, for a long time 
past, once in every Parliament, and lately twice, 
the Legislature has been obliged to make a gen- 
eral arbitrary jail delivery, and at once to set 
open, by its sovereign authority, all the prisons 
in England. 

Gentlemen, I never relished acts of grace, nor 
ever submitted to them, but from de- 
the worst pos- spair of better. They are a dishonor- 
s.bie remedy, ^^^j^ invention, by which, not from hu- 
manity, not from policy, but merely because w^e 
have not room enough to hold these victims of 
the absurdity of our laws, we turn loose upon the 
public three or four thousand naked wretches, 
corrupted by the habits, debased by the ignominy 
of a prison. If the creditor had a right to those 
carcasses as a natural security for his property, I 
am sure we have no right to deprive him of that 
security ; but if the few pounds of flesh were not 
necessary to his security, we had not a right to 
detain the unfortunate debtor, without any bene- 
fit at all to the person who confined him. Take 
it as you will, we commit injustice. Nov/ Lord 
Beauchamp's bill intended to do deliberately, and 
with great caution and circumspection, upon each 
several case, and with all attention to the just 
claimant, what acts of grace do in a much great- 
er measure, and with very little care, caution, or 
deliberation. 

I suspect that here, too, if vre contrive to op- 
The existing posc this bill, wc shall be found in a 
to teToMg°en^'* Struggle against the nature of things ; 
dured. for^ as we grow enlightened, the pub- 

lic will not bear, for any length of time, to pay 
for the maintenance of whole armies of prison- 
ers ; nor, at their own expense, submit to keep 
jails as a sort of garrisons, merely to fortify the 
absurd principle of making men judges in their 
own cause. For credit has little or no concern 
in this cruelty. I speak in a commercial assem- 
bly. You know that credit is given because cap- 
ital 7nust be employed ; that men calculate the 
chances of insolvency ; and they cither withhold 
the credit or make the debtor pay the risk in the 
price. The counting-house has no alliance with 
the jail. Holland understands trade as well as 
we, and she has done much more than this obnox- 
ious bill intended to do. There was not, when 
Mr. Howard visited Holland, more than one pris- 
oner for debt in the great city of Rotterdam. Al- 
though Lord Beauchamp's [other] act (which 
was previous to this bill, and intended to feel the 
way for it) has already preserved liberty to thou- 
sands, and though it is not three years since the 
last act of grace passed, yet, by Mr. Howard's last 
account, there were near three thousand again in 



jail. 1 can not name this gentleman without re- 
mai'king that his labors and writings have done 
much to open the eyes and hearts of mankind. He 
has visited all Europe, not to survey the sumptu- 
ousness of palaces or the stateliness of temples ; 
not to make accurate measurements of the re- 
mains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of 
the curiosity of modern art ; not to collect medals, 
or collate manuscripts, but to dive into the depths 
of dungeons ; to plunge into the infection of hos- 
pitals ; to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain , 
to take the gage and dimensions of misery, de- 
pression, and contempt ; to remember the forgot- 
ten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsak- 
en, and to compare and collate the distresses of 
all men in all countries. His plan is original, 
and it is as full of genius as it is of humanity. 
It was a voyage of discovery ; a circumnaviga- 
tion of charity. Already the benefit of his la- 
bor is felt more or less in every country : I hope 
he will anticipate his final reward, by seeing all 
its effects fully realized in his own. He will re 
ceive, not by retail, but in gross, the reward of 
those who visit the prisoner ; and he has so fore- 
stalled and monopolized this branch of charity, 
that there w^ill be, I trust, little room to merit by 
such acts of benevolence hereafter, ^^ 

IV, Nothing now remains to trouble you with 
but the fourth charge against me — 

... o 1 r, ^ , Fourth Charge: 

the busmess ot the Roman Catho- Relief of Komar 
lics.^^ It is a business closely con- 
nected with the rest. They are all on one and 
the same pi'inciple. My little scheme of con- 
duct, such as it is, is all arranged. I could do 
nothing but what I have done on this subject, 
without confounding the whole train of my ideas 
and disturbing the whole order of my life. Gen- 
tlemen, I ought to apologize to you for seeming 
to think any thing at all necessary to be said upon 
this matter. The calumny is fitter to be scrawled 
with the midnight chalk of incendiaries, with " No 
popery," on walls and doors of devoted houses, 
than to be mentioned in any civilized company. 
I had heard that the spirit of discontent on that 
subject w^as very prevalent here. With pleasure 
I find that I have been grossly misinformed. If 
it exists at all in this city, the laws have crushed 
its exertions, and our morals have shamed its ap- 
pearance in daylight. I have pursued this spirit 
wherever I could trace it, but it still fled from me. 

^2 This admirable sketch forms not only a just 
tribute to the labors of Mr. Howard, and a beautiful 
rounding off of the present head, but it has all the 
force of an argument from admitted facta ; for Lord 
Beauchamp's bill was designed to prevent tens of 
thousands from being immured in those very prisons 
whose filth and wretchedness I\Ir. Howard had laid 
open before the public. Mr. Burke's image of "a 
voyage of discovery, a circumnavigation of charity," 
was suggested by the exploring expedition of Cap- 
tain Cooke, whose recent death at Owyhee had just 
been heard of in England. This made the allusion 
one of double interest to the public, who were at 
that time lamenting his death. 

'^ This charge i-elates to Mr. Burke's vote in 1773 
for repealing a cruel law against the Roman Catlio- 
lics. This repeal gave rise to the No Popery riots. 



300 



MR. BURKE PREVIOUS TO 



[1780. 



It was a ghost which all had heard of, but none 
had seen. None would acknowledge that he 
thought the public proceeding with regard to 
our Catholic Dissenters to be blamable, but sev- 
eral were sorry it had made an ill impression 
upon others, and that my interest was hurt by 
my share in the business. I find with satisfac- 
tion and pride, that not above four or five in this 
city (and I dare say these misled by some gross 
misrepresentation) have signed that symbol of de- 
lusion and bond of sedition, that libel on the na- 
tional religion and English character, the Protest- 
ant Association.^* It is, therefore, gentlemen, not 
by way of cure, but of prevention, and lest the arts 
of wicked men may prevail over the integrity of 
any one among us, that I think it necessary to 
open to you the merits of this transaction pretty 
much at large ; and I beg your patience upon it ; 
for, although the reasonings that have been used 
to depreciate the act are of little force, and though 
the authority of the men concerned in this ill de- 
sign is not very imposing, yet the audaciousness 
of these conspirators against the national honor, 
and the extensive wickedness of their attempts, 
have raised persons of little importance to a de- 
gree of evil eminence, and imparted a sort of sin- 
ister dignity to proceedings that had their origin 
in only the meanest and blindest malice. 

In explaining to you the proceedings of Par- 
liament which have been complained of, I will 
state to you, first, the thing that was done ; next, 
the persons who did it ; and, lastly, the grounds 
and reasons upon which the Legislature pro- 
ceeded in this deliberate act of public justice 
and public prudence. 

1. Gentlemen, the condition of our nature is 
Causes which ^^^di, that we buy our blessings at a 
led to severe pricc. The Reformation, one of the 

measures ^ • i p i • 

against Roman greatest pcriods ot human miprove- 
^ '""'^" ment, was a time of trouble and con- 
fusion. The vast structure of superstition and 
tyranny which had been for ages in rearing, and 
which was combined with the interest of the great 
and of the many ; which was molded into the 
laws, the manners, and civil institutions of na- 
tions, and blended with the frame and policy of 
states, could not be brought to the ground with- 
out a fearful struggle ; nor could it fall without 
a violent concussion of itself and all about it. 
When this great revolution was attempted in a 
more regular mode by government, it was op- 
posed by plots and seditions of the people ; when 
by popular efforts, it was repressed as rebellion 
by the hand of power; and bloody executions 
(often bloodily returned) marked the whole of its 
progress through all its stages. The affairs of 
religion, which are no longer heard of in the tu- 
mult of our present contentions, made a principal 
ingredient in the wars and politics of that time ; 
the enthusiasm of religion threw a gloom over 
the politics, and political interests poisoned and 
perverted the spirit of religion upon all sides. 



^* Those who siijned the articles of this associa- 
tion became pledged to use all the efforts in their 
power to obtain the re-enactment of the law in ques- 
tion. 



The Protestant religion, in that violent struggle, 
infected, as the Popish had been before, by world- 
ly interests and worldly passions, became a per- 
secutor in its turn, sometimes of the new sects, 
which carried their own principles farther than 
it was convenient to the original reformers, and 
always of the body from whom they parted ; 
and this persecuting spirit arose not only from 
the bitterness of retaliation, but from the merci- 
less policy of fear. 

It was long before the spirit of true piety and 
true wisdom, involved in the principles of refor- 
mation, could be depurated from the dregs and 
feculence of the contention with which it was car- 
ried through. However, until this be done, the 
reformation is not complete ; and those that think 
themselves good Protestants, from their animosity 
to others, are in that respect no Protestants at all. 
It was at first thought necessary, perhaps, to op- 
pose to popery another popery, to get the better 
of it. Whatever was the cause, laws were made 
in many countries, and in this kingdom in partic- 
ular, against Papists, which are as bloody as any 
of those which had been enacted by the popish 
princes and states ; and where those laws were 
not bloody, in my opinion they were worse, as 
they were slow, cruel outrages on our nature, 
and kept men alive only to insult in their persons 
every one of the rights and feelings of humanity. 
I pass those statutes, because I would spare your 
pious ears the repetition of such shocking things ; 
and I come to that particular law the repeal of 
which has produced so many unnatural and un- 
expected consequences. 

A statute was fabricated in the year 1699 by 
which the saying mass (a church serv- „, 

Character 

ice in the Latin tongue, not exactly the of the law 
same as our Liturgy, but very near it, '"i"^^^'""- 
and containing no offense whatsoever against the 
laws or against good morals) was forged into a 
crime punishable with perpetual imprisonment. 
The teaching school, a useful and virtuous occu- 
pation, even the teaching in a private family, was 
in every Catholic subjected to the same unpro- 
portioned punishment. Your industry and the 
bread of your children was taxed for a pecuniary 
reward to stimulate avarice to do what nature re- 
fused ; to inform and prosecute on this law. Ev- 
ery Roman Catholic was, under the same act, to 
forfeit his estate to his nearest Protestant rela- 
lation, until, through a profession of what he did 
not believe, he redeemed by his hypocrisy what 
the law had transferred to the kinsman as the 
recompense of his profligacy. When thus turn- 
ed out of doors from his paternal estate, he was 
disabled from acquiring any other by any indus- 
try, donation, or charity, but was rendered a for- 
eigner in his native land, only because he re- 
tained the religion along with the property hand- 
ed down to him from those who had been the old 
inhabitants of that land before him. 

Does any one who hears me approve this 
scheme of things, or think there is common just- 
ice, common sense, or common honesty in any 
part of it ? If any does, let him say it, and I am 
ready to discuss the point with temper and can- 



1780.] 



THE BRISTOL ELECTION. 



301 



dor. But instead of approving, I perceive a vir- 
tuous indignation beginning to rise in your minds 
on the mere cold stating of the statute. 

But what will you feel when you know from 
Reasons for history how this statute passed, and 
faw!'",fd*^mode what wcrc the motives, and what the 
of doing it. mode of making it? A party in this 
nation, enemies to the system of the Revolution, 
were in opposition to the government of King 
William. They knew that our glorious deliv- 
erer was an enemy to all persecution. They 
knew that he came to free us from slavery and 
popery, out of a country where a third of the 
people are contented Catholics under a Protest- 
ant government. He came, with a part of his 
army composed of those very Catholics, to over- 
set the power of a Popish prince. Such is the 
effect of a tolerating spirit ; and so much is lib- 
erty served in every way, and by all persons, by 
a manly adherence to its own principles. While 
freedom is true to itself, every thing becomes sub- 
ject to it, and its very adversaries are an instru- 
ment in its hands. 

The party I speak of (like some among us who 
would disparage the best friends of their country) 
resolved to make the king either violate his prin- 
ciples of toleration, or incur the odium of protect- 
ing Papists. They therefore brought in this bill, 
and made it purposely wicked and absurd, that it 
might be rejected. The then Court party, dis- 
covering their game, turned the tables on them, 
and returned their bill to them stuffed with still 
greater absurdities, that its loss might lie upon 
its original authors. They, finding their own 
ball thrown back to them, kicked it back again 
to their adversaries ; and thus this act, loaded 
with the double injustice of two parties, neither 
of ivhom intended to pass what they hoped the 
other would be persuaded to reject, went through 
the Legislature, contrary to the real wish of all 
parts of it, and of all the parties that composed 
it. In this manner these insolent and profligate 
factions, as if they were playing with balls and 
counters, made a sport of the fortunes and the 
liberties of their fellow-creatures. Other acts of 
persecution have been acts of malice. This was 
a subversion of justice from wantonness and pet- 
ulance. Look into the history of Bishop Burnet. 
He is a witness without exception. 

The effects of the act have been as mlschiev- 
operation ous as its Origin was ludicrous and 
of the law. shameful. From that time every per- 
son of that communion, lay and ecclesiastic, has 
been obliged to fly from the face of day. The 
clergy, concealed in garrets of private houses, or 
obliged to take shelter (hardly safe to themselves, 
but infinitely dangerous to their country) under 
the privileges of foreign ministers, officiated as 
their servants, and under their protection. The 
whole body of the Catholics, condemned to beg- 
gary and to ignorance in their native land, have 
been obliged to learn the principles of letters, at 
the hazai'd of all their other principles, from the 
charity of your enemies. ^^ They have been taxed 

15 Hundreds were sent to the college at St. Omer 



to their ruin at the pleasure of necessitous and 
profligate relations, and according to the meas- 
ure of their necessity and profligacy. Examples 
of this are many and afl'ecting. Some of them 
are known to a friend who stands near me in 
this hall. It is but six or seven years since a 
clergyman of the name of Malony, a man of mor- 
als, neither guilty nor accused of any thing nox- 
ious to the state, was condemned to perpetual im- 
prisonment for exercising the functions of his re- 
ligion, and, after lying in jail two or three years, 
was relieved by the mercy of government from 
perpetual imprisonment, on condition of perpet- 
ual banishment. A brother of the Earl of 
Shrewsbury, a Talbot, a name respectable in 
this country while its glory is any part of its 
concern, was hauled to the bar of the Old Bailey 
among common felons, and only escaped the same 
doom, either by some error in the process, or that 
the wretch who brought him there could not coi*- 
rectly describe his person ; I now forget which. 
In short, the persecution would never have re- 
lented for a moment, if the judges, superseding 
(though with an ambiguous example) the strict 
rule of their artificial duty by the higher obliga- 
tion of their conscience, did not constantly throw 
every difficulty in the way of such informers. 
But so ineffectual is the power of legal evasion 
against legal iniquity, that it was but the other 
day that a lady of condition, beyond the middle 
of life, was on the point of being stripped of her 
whole fortune by a near relation, to whom she 
had been a friend and benefactor ; and she must 
have been totally ruined, without a power of re- 
dress or mitigation from the courts of law, had 
not the Legislature itself ru.shed in, and, by a 
special act of Parliament, rescued her from the 
injustice of its own statutes. One of the acts 
authorizing such things was that which we in 
part repealed, knowing what our duty was, and 
doing that duty as men of honor and virtue, as 
good Protestants, and as good citizens ! Let 
him stand forth that disapproves what we have 
done ! 

Gentlemen, bad laws are the worst sort of 
tvranny. In such a country as this, „ ,. 

V null,. 1 Peculiar malig. 

they are of all bad things the worst : nityof a bad 

1 f ^, , 1 law in England. 

worse by tar than any where else ; 
and they derive a particular malignity even from 
the wisdom and soundness of the rest of our in- 
stitutions. For very obvious reasons, you can 
not trust the Crown wnth a dispensing power 
over any of your laws. However, a government, 
be it as bad as it may, will, in the exercise of a 
disci-etionary power, discriminate times and per- 
sons : and will not ordinarily pursue any man, 
when its own safety is not concerned. A mer- 
cenary informer knows no distinction. L^'nder 
such a system, the obnoxious people arc slaves, 
not only to the government, but they live at the 
mercy of every individual. They are at once 
the slaves of the whole community, and of every 
and other institutions in France, where a sense of 
wrong conspiring with the instructions of lueu at- 
tached to absolute monarchy, made theui enemiea 
of the Ene-lish government. 



302 



MR. BURKE PREVIOUS TO 



[1780. 



part of it ; and the worst and most unmerciful 
men are those on whose goodness they most de- 
pend. 

In this situation men not only shrink from 
the frowns of a stern magistrate, but they are 
obliged to fly from their very species. The 
seeds of destruction are sown in civil inter- 
course, in social habitudes. The blood of whole- 
some kindred is infected. Their tables and beds 
are surrounded with snares. All the means giv- 
en by Providence to make life safe and comfort- 
able are perverted into instruments of terror and 
torment. This species of universal subservien- 
cy, that makes the very servant who waits be- 
hind your chair the arbiter of your life and for- 
tune, has such a tendency to degrade and abase 
mankind, and to deprive them of that assured 
and liberal state of mind, which alone can make 
us what we ought to be, that I vow to God I 
would sooner bring myself to put a man to im- 
mediate death for opinions I disliked, and so to 
get rid of the man and his opinions at once, than 
to fret him with a feverish being, tainted with 
the jail distemper of a contagious servitude, to 
keep him above ground, an animated mass of 
putrefaction ; corrupted himself, and corrupting 
all about him.^^ 

2. The act repealed was of this direct tend- 
Authorof ency, and it was made in the manner 
the repeal, ^hich I havc related to you. I will now 
tell you by whom the bill of repeal was brought 
into Parliament. I find it has been industriously 
given out in this city (from kindness to me, un- 
questionably) that I was the mover or the sec- 
onder. The fact is, I did not once open my lips 



1^ Mr. Burke's mode of treating a subject will be 
seen more clearly, if we compare him with such a 
speaker as Mr. Fox. In the present case, for in- 
stance: (1.) He prepares the way by a beautiful 
narration, full of thought, in which he shows how it 
was possible for Protestants, in defiance of all their 
principles, to become persecutors. (2.) He states at 
large the cruel enactments of the law in question. 
(3.) He describes the manner in which it was pass- 
ed amid the conflicts of " insolent and profligate 
factions," who on both sides had "made it purposely 
wicked and absurd, that it might be rejected" by 
the opposing party. (4.) He shows that this law, 
instead of being suffered to sink at once into abey- 
ance as too bad to be executed, had been carried 
into effect with terrible fidelity. (5.) He adds force 
and dignity to these individual statements by rising 
to a general truth, that "bad laws are the w^orst 
sort of tyranny," converting "all that makes life 
safe and comfortable into instruments of terror and 
torment." Now Mr. Fox, from his habit of striking 
directly at the heart of a subject, would probably 
have thrown away the first of these heads, and com- 
meuced at once with the third ; showing the atro- 
ciously wicked manner in which the law was pass- 
ed, and interweaving with his statement just enough 
of the provisions of the act and the cruelties of its 
execution, to make it stand forth in all its enormity 
as deserving public execration. Experience show- 
ed that Mr. Fox's method was best suited to the pur- 
poses of actual debate ; while Mr. Burke's speeches 
have come down to posterity as objects of far great- 
er interest to reflecting men for the depth, and com- 
pass, and richness of their thoughts. 



on the subject during the whole progress of the 
bill. I do not say this as disclaiming my share 
in that measure. Very far from it. I inform 
you of this fact, lest I should seem to arrogate 
to myself the merits which belong to others. 
To have been the man chosen out to redeem 
our fellow-citizens from slavery ; to purify our 
laws from absurdity and injustice ; and to cleanse 
our religion from the blot and stain of persecu- 
tion, would be an honor and happiness to which 
my wishes would undoubtedly aspire, but to 
which nothing but my wishes could possibly 
have entitled me. That great work was in 
hands in every respect far better qualified than 
mine. The mover of the bill was Sir George 
Savile. 

When an act of great and signal humanity 
was to be done, and done with all the weight 
and authority that belonged to it, the world 
could cast its eyes upon none but him. I hope 
that few things which have a tendency to bless 
or adorn life have wholly escaped my observa- 
tion in my passage through it. I have sought 
the acquaintance of that gentleman, and have 
seen him in all situations. He is a true genius ; 
with an understanding vigorous, and acute, and 
refined, and distinguishing even to excess ; and 
illuminated with a most unbounded, peculiar, and 
original cast of imagination. With these he 
possesses many external and instrumental ad- 
vantages, and he makes use of them all. His 
fortune is among the largest — a fortune which, 
wholly unincumbered, as it is, with one single 
charge from luxury, vanity, or excess, sinks un- 
der the benevolence of its dispenser. This pri- 
vate benevolence, expanding itself into patriot- 
ism, renders his whole being the estate of the 
public, in which he has not reserved a pcculium 
for himself of profit, diversion, or relaxation. ^^ 
During the session, the first in, and the last out 
of the House of Commons ; he passes from the 
senate to the camp ; and, seldom seeing the seat 
of his ancestors, he is always in Parliament to 
serve his country, or in the field to defend it. 
But in all well-wrought compositions, some par- 
ticulars stand out more eminently than the rest; 
and the things which will carry his name to pos- 
terity are his two bills — I mean that for a lim- 
itation of the claims of the Crown upon landed 
estates,'^ and this for the relief of the Roman 
Catholics. By the former, he has emancipated 
property; by the latter, he has quieted con- 
science ; and by both, he has taught that grand 
lesson to government and subject — no longer to 
regard each other as adverse parties. 



17 The peculiuvi among the Romans was that 
small amount of property which a slave was allow- 
ed to possess and call his own, as distinct from his 
master's estate. 

i« This bill, passed in 1769, was called the Nullum 
TempuG Act, because it set aside the old maxim, 
"Nullum Tempus Regi occurrit," no length of pos- 
session bars the King. It provided that the Crown 
should have no claim upon any estate which had 
been enjoyed by any one during sixty years of un- 
disputed possession. 



1780.] 



THE BRISTOL ELECTION. 



Such was the mover of the act that is com- 
plained of by men who are not quite so good as 
he is ; an act, most assuredly, not brought in by 
him from any partiality to that sect which is the 
object of it ; for, among his faults, I really can 
not help reckoning a greater degree of prejudice 
against that people than becomes so wise a man. 
I know that he inclines to a sort of disgust, mix- 
ed with a considerable degree of asperity, to the 
system ; and he has few, or rather no habits [in 
common] with an}'' of its professors. What he 
has done was on quite other motives. The mo- 
tives were these, which he declared in his excel- 
lent speech on his motion for the bill ; namely, 
his extreme zeal to the Protestant religion, which 
he thought utterly disgraced by the act of 1699 ; 
and his rooted hatred to all kind of oppression, 
under any color or upon any pretense whatsoever. 

The seconder was worthy of the mover and 
the motion. I was not the seconder. It was 
Mr. Dunning, recorder of this city. I shall say 
the less of him, because his near relation to you 
makes you more particularly acquainted with 
his merits. But I should appear little acquaint- 
ed with them, or little sensible of them, if I could 
utter his name on this occasion without express- 
ing my esteem for his character. I am not afraid 
of offending a most learned body, and most jeal- 
ous of its reputation for that learning, when I 
say he is the first of his profession. It is a point 
settled by those who settle every thing else ; and 
I must add (what I am enabled to say from my 
own long and close observation) that there is not 
a man, of any profession, or in any situation, of 
a more erect and independent spirit ; of a more 
proud honor ; a more manly mind ; a more firm 
and determined integrity. Assure yourselves 
that the names of two such men will bear a 
great load of prejudice in the other scale, before 
they can be entirely outweighed. 

With this mover and this seconder agreed 
the whole House of Commons ; the whole House 
of Lords ; the whole bench of Bishops ; the King ; 
the Ministry; the Opposition; all the distinguish- 
ed clergy of the establishment; all the eminent 
Hghts (for they were consulted) of the dissent- 
ing churches. This according voice of national 
wisdom ought to be listened to with reverence. 
To say that all these descriptions of Englishmen 
unanimously concurred in a scheme for introduc- 
ing the Catholic religion, or that none of them 
understood the nature and effects of what they 
were doing, so well as a few obscure clubs of 
people whose names you never heard of, is 
shamelessly absurd. Surely it is paying a mis- 
erable compliment to the religion we profess, to 
suggest that every thing eminent in the kingdom 
is indifferent, or even adverse to that religion, 
and that its security is wholly abandoned to the 
zeal of those who have nothing but their zeal to 
distinguish them. In weighing this unanimous 
concurrence of whatever the nation has to boast 
of, I hope you will recollect that all these con- 
curring parties do by no means love one another 
enough to agree in any point which was not 
both evidently and importantly right. 



3. To prove this — to prove that the measure 
was both clearly and materially proper. Reasons for 
I will next lay before you (as I prom- ^''® ""^p®^ 
ised) the political grounds and reasons for the 
repeal of that penal statute, and the motives to 
its repeal at that particular time. 

(1.) Gentlemen, America — when the English 
nation seemed to be dangei'ously, if ,, ,,. 

° •" (l.)It\vasdue 

not irrecoverably divided ; when one, to the gener- 
and that the most growing branch, was ""e Roman" 
torn from the parent stock, and in- ^'^^''^''^s. 
grafted on the power of France, a great terror 
fell upon this kingdom. On a sudden we awak- 
ened from our dreams of conquest, and saw our- 
selves threatened with an immediate invasion ; 
which we were, at that time, very ill prepared 
to resist. You remember the cloud that gloomed 
over us all. In that hour of our dismay, from the 
bottom of the hiding-places into which the indis- 
criminate rigor of our statutes had driven them, 
came out the Roman Catholics. They appeared 
before the steps of a tottering throne with one 
of the most sober, measured, steady, and dutiful 
addresses that was ever presented to the Crown. ^^ 
It was no holiday ceremony ; no anniversary com- 
pliment of parade and show. It was signed by 
almost every gentleman of that persuasion of 
note or property in England. At such a crisis, 
nothing but a decided resolution to stand or fall 
with their country could have dictated such an 
address ; the direct tendency of which was to 
cut off all retreat, and to render them peculiarly 
obnoxious to an invader of their own communion. 
The address showed, what I long languished to 
see, that all the subjects of England had cast off 
all foreign views and connections, and that every 
man looked for his relief from every grievance 
at the hands only of his own natural government. 
It was necessary, on our part, that the natural 
government should show itself worthy of that 
name. It was necessary, at the crisis I speak 
of, that the supreme power of the state should 
meet the conciliatory dispositions of the subject. 
To delay protection would be to reject allegiance. 
And why should it be rejected, or even coldly 
and suspiciously received ? If any independent 
Catholic state should choose to take part with 
this kingdom in a war with France and Spain, 
that bigot (if such a bigot could be found) would 
be heard with little respect who could dream of 
objecting his rehgion to an ally, whom the nation 
would not only receive with its freest thanks, but 
purchase with the last remains of its exhausted 
treasure. To such an ally we should not daro 



^^ This address may be found in Belsham's George 
III., vol. ii., p. 496. It is all that Mr. Burke repre- 
sents it. Among other things it says, " In a time of 
public danger, when your Majesty's subjects can 
have but one interest, and ought to have but one 
wish and sentiment, we humbly hope it will not be 
deemed improper to assure your Majesty of our un- 
reserved affection to your government, of our unal- 
terable attachment to the cause and welfare of our 
common coantiy, and our utter detestation of the de- 
signs and views of any foreign power against the 
dignity of your Majesty's Crown, the safety and tran- 
quillity of yoTir Majesty's subjects." 



304 



MR. BURKE PREVIOUS TO 



[1780. 



to whisper a single syllable of those base and in- 
vidious topics, upon which some unhappy men 
would persuade the state to reject the duty and 
allegiance of its own members. Is it, then, be- 
cause foreigners are in a condition to set our 
malice at defiance, that with them we are will- 
ing to contract engagements of friendship, and 
to keep them with fidelity and honor ; but that, 
because we conceive some descriptions of our 
countrymen are not powerful enough to punish 
our malignity, we will not permit them to sup- 
port our common interest ? Is it on that ground 
that our anger is to be kindled by their offered 
kindness ? Is it on that ground that they are to 
be subjected to penalties, because they are will- 
ing by actual merit to purge themselves from 
imputed crimes ? Lest by an adherence to the 
pause of their country they should acquire a title 
to fair and equitable treatment, are we resolved 
to furnish them with causes of eternal enmity, and 
rather supply them with just and founded mo- 
tives to disatfection, than not to have that dis- 
affection in existence to justify an oppression, 
which, not from policy but disposition, we have 
predetermined to exercise ? 

What shadow of reason could be assigned, 
why, at a time when the most Protestant part of 
this Protestant empire [America] found it for its 
advantage to unite with the two principal Popish 
states, to unite itself in the closest bonds with 
France and Spain for our destruction, that we 
should refuse to miite with our own Catholic 
countrymen for our own preservation ? Ought 
we, like madmen, to tear off the plasters that the 
lenient hand of prudence had spread over the 
wounds and gashes, which, in our delirium of 
ambition, we had given to our own body ? No 
person ever reprobated the American war more 
than I did, and do, and ever shall. But I never 
will consent that we should lay additional volun- 
tary penalties on ourselves for a fault which car- 
ries but too much of its own punishment in its 
own nature. For one, I was delighted with the 
proposal of internal peace. I accepted the bless- 
ing with thankfulness and transport ; I was truly 
happy to find one good effect of our civil dis- 
tractions, that they had put an end to all relig- 
ious strife and heart-burning in our own bowels. 
What must be the sentiments of a man, who 
would wish to perpetuate domestic hostility, when 
the causes of dispute are at an end ; and who, 
crying out for peace with one part of the nation 
on the most humiliating terms, should deny it 
to those who offer friendship without any terms 
at all ? 

(2.1 But if I was unable to reconcile such a 
denial to the contracted principles of 

(2.) Due to , , , , , 1 T • 

the claims of local duty, what answer could i give 
umanity. ^^ ^^^^ broad claiiTis of general human- 
ity? 1 confess to you freely, that the sufferings 
and distresses of the people of America in this 
cruel war have at times affected me more deeply 
than I can express. I felt every gazette of tri- 
umph as a blow upon my heart, which has a hund- 
red times sunk and fainted within me at all the 
mischiefs brought upon those who bear the whole 



brunt of war in the heart of their country. Vet 
the Americans are utter strangers to me ; a na- 
tion among whom I am not sure that I have a 
single acquaintance. Was I to suffer my mind 
to be so unaccountably warped ; was I to keep 
such iniquitous weights and measures of temper 
and of reason, as to sympathize with those who 
are in open rebellion against an authority which I 
respect, at war with a country which by every 
title ought to be, and is most dear to me ; and 
yet to have no feeling at all for the hardships and 
indignities suffered by men, who, by their very 
vicinity, are bound up in a nearer relation to us ; 
who contribute their share, and more than their 
share, to the common prosperity ; who perform 
the common offices of social life, and who obey 
the laws to the full as well as I do ? Gentlemen, 
the danger to the state being out of the question 
(of which, let me tell you, statesmen themselves 
are apt to have but too exquisite a sense), I could 
assign no one reason of justice, policy, or feeling, 
for not concurring most cordially, as most cor- 
dially I did concur, in softening some part of that 
shameful servitude, under which several of my 
worthy fellow-citizens were groaning. 

(3.) Important effects followed this act of wis- 
dom. They appeared at home and (s.) Justified by 
abroad to the great benefit of this 'fects'onlheBr'it- 
kingdom ; and, let me hope, to the '^i' Empire. 
advantage of mankind at large. It betokened 
union among ourselves. It showed soundness 
even on the part of the persecuted, which gen- 
erally is the weak side of every community. But 
its most essential operation was not in England. 
The act was immediately, though very imper- 
fectly, copied in Ireland ; and this im- ^^^ concUia- 
perfect transcript of an imperfect act, ting the peo- 

. o n ■ •, 1 r> 1 • pleof Irelaud. 

this first famt sketch of toleration, 
which did little more than disclose a principle, 
and mark out a disposition, completed in a most 
wonderful manner the re-union to the state of all 
the Catholics of that country. It made us, what 
we ought always to have been, one family, one 
body, one heart and soul, against the family com- 
bination, and all other combinations of our ene- 
mies. We have indeed obligations to that peo- 
ple, who received such small benefits with so 
much gratitude ; and for which gratitude and at- 
tachment to us, I am afraid, they have suffered 
not a little in other places.^^ 

I dare say you have all heard of the privileges 
indulged to the Irish Catholics residing in Spain. 
You have likewise heard with what circumstances 
of severity they have been lately expelled from the 
sea-ports of that kingdom, driven into the inland 
cities, and there detained as a sort of prisoners of 
state. I have good reason to believe that it was 
the zeal to our government and our cause (sorae- 

20 This remark Mr. Burke goes on to illustrate in 
the next paragraph, by referring to a recent perse- 
cution of Irish Catholics in Spain, and then argues 
that if they are persecuted abroad for their attach- 
ment to the English government, it is doubly cruel 
to persecute them at home as if enemies of the state. 
Unless this connection is noticed, the remarks which 
follow may seem a useless digression. 



178U.] 



THE BRISTOL ELECTION. 



305 



what indiscreetly expressed in one of the ad- 
dresses of the Catholics of Ireland) which has 
thus drawn down on their heads the indignation 
of the Court of Madrid, to the inexpressible loss 
of several individuals, and, in future, perhaps, to 
the great detriment of the whole of their body. 
Now, that our people should be persecuted in 
Spain for iheir attachment to this country, and 
persecuted in this country for their supposed en- 
mity to us, is such a jarring reconciliation of con- 
tradictory distresses, is a thing at once so dread- 
ful and ridiculous, that no malice short of diabol- 
ical would wish to continue any human creatures 
in such a situation. But honest men will not for- 
get either their merit or their sufferings. There 
are men (and many, I trust, there are) who, out 
of love to their country and their kind, would tor- 
ture their invention to find excuses for the mis- 
takes of their brethren, and who, to stifle dissen- 
sion, would construe even doubtful appearances 
with the utmost favor. Such men will never 
persuade themselves to be ingenious and refined 
in discovering disaffection and treason in the man- 
ifest, palpable signs of suffering loyalty. Perse- 
cution is so unnatural to them, that they gladly 
snatch the very first opportunity of laying aside 
all the tricks and devices of penal politics, and of 
returning home, after all their irksome and vex- 
atious wanderings, to our natural family mansion, 
to the grand social principle that unites all men, 
in all descriptions, under the shadow of an equal 
and impartial justice. 

Men of another sort — I mean the bigoted en- 
emies to liberty — may perhaps, in their politics, 
make no account of the good or ill affection of 
the Catholics of England, who are but a handful 
of people (enough to torment, but not enough to 
fear), perhaps not so many, of both sexes and 
of all ages, as fifty thousand. But, gentlemen, it 
is possible you may not know that the people of 
that persuasion in Ireland amount at least to six- 
teen or seventeen hundred thousand souls. I do 
not at all exaggerate the number. A nation to 
be persecuted ! While we were masters of the 
sea, embodied with America, and in alliance with 
half the powers of the Continent, we might per- 
haps, in that remote corner of Europe, afford to 
tyrannize with impunity. But there is a revolu- 
tion in our affairs which makes it prudent to be 
just. In our late awkward contest with Ireland 
about trade, had religion been thrown in, to fer- 
ment and imbitter the mass of discontents, the 
consequences might have been truly dreadful ; 
but, very happily, that cause of quarrel was pre- 
viously quieted by the wisdom of the acts I am 
I commending. 

Even in England, where I admit the danger 
Kee in" ^^°"^ ^^^ discontcnt of that persuasion 
valuable mefi to bc Icss than in Ireland ; yet, even 
^ in England, j^^^,^^ ^^^ ^^^ listened to the counsels 
of fanaticism and folly, we might have wounded 
'ourselves very deeply, and wounded ourselves in 
a very tender part. You are apprised that the 
Catholics of England consist mostly of your best 
manufacturei's. Had the Legislature chosen, in- 
stead of returning their declarations of duty with 
U 



correspondent good will, to drive them to despair, 
there is a country at their very door to which they 
would be invited ; a country in all respects as good 
as ours, and with the finest cities in the world 
ready built to receive them ; and thus the bigotry 
of a free country, and in an enlightened age, would 
have repeopled the cities of Flanders, which, in 
the darkness of two hundred years ago, had been 
desolated by the superstition of a cruel tyrant. 
Our manufactures were the growth of the perse- 
cutions in the Low Countries. What a specta- 
cle would it be to Europe to see us, at this time 
of day, balancing the account of tyranny with 
those very countries, and, by our persecutions, 
driving back trade and manufacture, as a sort 
of vagabonds, to their original settlement ! But 
I trust we shall be saved this last of disgraces. 

(4.) So far as to the effect of the act on the in- 
terests of this nation. With regard (4.) -Tustified by 
to the interests of mankind at la^rge, ImJreTn (j^ifg^a 
I am sure the benefit was very con- c''""*"^- 
siderable. Long before this act, indeed, the spirit 
of toleration began to gain ground in Europe. In 
Holland the third part of the people are Catho- 
lics ; they live at ease, and are a sound part of 
the state. In many parts of Germany, Protest- 
ants and Papists partake the same cities, the 
same councils, and even the same churches. The 
unbounded liberality of the King of Prussia's con- 
duct on this occasion is known to all the world, 
and it is of a piece with the other grand maxims 
of his reign. The magnanimity of the imperial 
court, breaking through the narrow principles of 
its predecessors, has indulged its Protestant sub- 
jects not only with property, wath worship, with 
liberal education, but with honors and trusts, both 
civil and military. A worthy Protestant gentle- 
man of this country now fills, and fills with cred- 
it, a high office in the Austrian Netherlands. 
Even the Lutheran obstinacy of Svv^eden has 
thawed at length, and opened a toleration to all 
religions. I know, myself, that in France the 
Protestants begin to be at rest. The army, 
which in that country is every thing, is open to 
them ; and some of the military rewards and 
decorations w^hich the laws deny, are supplied 
by others, to make the service acceptable and 
honorable. The fii*st minister of finance in that 
country [Necker] is a Protestant. Two years' 
war without a tax is among the first fruits of 
their liberality. Tarnished as the glory of this 
nation is, and as far as it has waded into the 
shades of an eclipse, some beams of its former 
illumination still play upon its surface, and what 
is done in England is still looked to as argument, 
and as example. It is certainly true, that no law 
of this country ever met with such universal ap- 
plause abroad, or was so likely to produce the 
perfection of that tolerating spirit, which, as I 
observed, has been long gaining ground in Eu- 
rope ; for abroad it was universally thought that 
we had done what, I am sorry to say, we had not ; 
they thought we had granted a full toleration. 
That opinion was, however, so far from hurting 
the Protestant cause, that I declare, with the 
most serious solemnity, my firm be'iof, that no 



306 



MR. BURKE PREVIOUS TO 



[1780. 



one thing done for these fifty years past was so 
likely to prove deeply beneficial to our religion 
at large as Sir George Savile's act. In its effects 
it was " an act for tolerating and protecting Prot- 
estantism throughout Europe ;" and I hope that 
those who were taking steps for the quiet and 
settlement of our Protestant brethren in other 
countries will, even yet, rather consider the 
steady equity of the greater and better part of 
the people of Great Britain, than the vanity and 
violence of a few. 

I perceive, gentlemen, by the manner of all 
The uestion ^bout mc, that you look with horror 
answered, Why on the wicked clamor which has been 
rrationmade" raised On this subject, and that, in- 

more complete? ^^^^^ ^^ ^^ apology for what WaS 

done, you rather demand from me an account 
why the execution of the scheme of toleration 
was not made more answerable to the large 
and liberal grounds on which it was taken up. 
The question is natural and proper ; and I re- 
member that a great and learned magistrate 
[Lord Thurlow], distinguished for his strong 
and systematic undei'standing, and who at that 
time was a member of the House of Commons, 
made the same objection to the proceeding. 
The statutes, as they now stand, are, without 
doubt, perfectly absurd ; but I beg leave to ex- 
plain the cause of this gross imperfection in the 
tolerating plan as well and as shortly as I am 
able. It was universally thought that the ses- 
sion ought not to pass over without doing some- 
thing in this business. To revise the whole 
body of the penal statutes was conceived to be 
an object too big for the time. The penal statute, 
therefore, which was chosen for repeal (chosen to 
show our disposition to conciliate, not to perfect 
a toleration) was this act of ludicrous cruelty, of 
which I have just given you the history. It is 
an act which, though not by a great deal so 
fierce and bloody as some of the rest, was infi- 
nitely more ready in the execution. It was the 
act which gave the greatest encouragement to 
those pests of society, mercenary informers, and 
interested disturbers of household peace ; and it 
was observed, with truth, that the prosecutions, 
either carried to conviction or compounded, for 
many years, had been all commenced upon that 
act. It was said, that while we were deliber- 
ating on a more perfect scheme, the spirit of the 
age would never come up to the execution of 
the statutes which remained, especially as more 
steps, and a co-operation of more minds and pow- 
ers, were required towaixl a mischievous use of 
them, than for the execution of the act to be re- 
pealed ; that it was better to unravel this texture 
from below than from above, beginning with the 
latest, which, in general practice, is the severest 
evil. It was alleged that this slow proceeding 
would be attended with the advantage of a pro- 
gressive experience, and that the people would 
grow reconciled to toleration, when they should 
find, by the effects, that justice was not so irrec- 
oncilable an enemy to convenience as they had 
imagined. 

These, gentlemen, were the reasons why we 



left this good work in the rude, unfinished state 
in which good works are commonly left, tlirough 
the tame circumspection with which a timid pru- 
dence so frequently enervates beneficence. In 
doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, 
and sluggish, and, of all things, afraid of being 
too much in the right. But the works of malice 
and injustice are quite in another style. They 
are finished with a bold, masterly hand ; touched, 
as they are, with the spirit of those vehement pas- 
sions that call foi'th all our energies whenever we 
oppress and persecute. 

Thus this matter was left for the time, with 
the full determination in Parliament not to suffer 
other and wor.se statutes to remain, for the pur- 
pose of counteracting the benefits proposed by 
the repeal of one penal law ; for nobody then 
dreamed of defending what was done as a ben- 
efit, on the ground of its being no benefit at all. 
We were not then ripe for so mean a subterfuge. 

I do not wish to go over the horrid scene that 
was afterward acted.^^ Would to Farther .action 
God it could be expunged forever Fhr'No'ptJery 
from the annals of this country ! but, '"'"'s. 
since it must subsist for our shame, let it subsist 
for our instruction. In the year 1780 there were 
found in this nation men deluded enough (for I 
give the whole to their delusion), on pretenses 
of zeal and piet}', without any sort of provoca- 
tion whatsoever, real or pretended, to make a 
desperate attempt, which would have consumed 
all the gloi-y and power of this country in the 
flames of London, and buried all law, order, and 
religion, under the ruins of the metropolis of the 
Protestant world. Whether all this mischief 
done, or in the direct train of doing, was in their 
original scheme, I can not say. I hope it was 
not ; but this would have been the unavoidable 
consequence of their proceedings, had not the 
flames they lighted up in their fury been extin- 
guished in their blood. 

All the time that this horrid scene was acting 
or avenging, as well as for some time before, and 
ever since, the wicked instigators of this unhappy 
multitude, guilty, with every aggravation, of all 
their crimes, and screened in a cowardly dark- 
ness from their punishment, continued, without 
interruption, pity, or remorse, to blow up the 
blind rage of the populace with a continued 
blast of pestilential libels, which infected and 
poisoned the very air we breathed in. 

The main drift of all the libels and all the 
riots was, to force Parliament (to Reasons fomot 
persuade us was hopeless) into an re-enacting these 

^ ' . • 1 1- persecuting laws, 

act oi national perfidy which has as demanded by 
no example ; for, gentlemen, it is 



^^ The powerful descriptions of Dickens in his Bar- 
naby Rudge have made the public familiar with the 
temble scenes enacted in London during the " No 
Popery" riots of 1780. Those who first framed the 
Protestant Association were actuated, no doubt, by 
a mistaken zeal for religion, but those who took up 
the cause afterward had far other designs. Dr. 
Johnson truly said : " Those who in age of infidelity 
exclaim, "Popery! Popery! would have cried fire 
j in the midst of the general deluge." 



1780] 



THE BRISTOL ELECTION. 



307 



proper you should all know what infamy we es- 
caped by refusings that repeal, for a refusal of 
which, it seems, I, among others, stand some- 
where or other accused. When we took away, 
on the motives which I had the honor of stating 
to you, a few of the innumerable penalties upon 
an oppressed and injured people, the relief was 
not absolute, but given on a stipulation and com- 
pact between them and us ; for we bound down 
the Roman Catholics with the most solemn oaths 
to bear true allegiance to this government ; to 
abjure all sort of temporal power in any other ; 
and to renounce, under the same solemn obliga- 
tions, the doctrines of systematic perfidy with 
which they stood (I conceive very unjustly) 
charged. Now our modest petitioners came up 
to us, most humbly praying nothing more than 
that we should break our faith, without any one 
cause whatsoever of forfeiture assigned ; and 
when the subjects of this kingdom had on their 
part fully performed their engagement, we should 
refuse on our part the benefit we had stipulated 
on the performance of those very conditions that 
were prescribed by our own authority, and taken 
on the sanction of our public faith, that is to 
say, when we had inveigled them with fair prom- 
ises within our door, we were to shut it on them, 
and, adding mockery to outrage, to tell them 
" Now we have got you fast ; your consciences 
are bound to a power resolved on your destruc- 
tion. We have made you swear that your re- 
ligion obliges you to keep your faith. Fools, as 
3'ou are ! we will now let you see that our relig- 
ion enjoins us to keep no faith with you." They 
who would advisedly call upon us to do such 
things must certainly have thought us not only 
a convention of treacherous tyrants, but a gang 
of the lowest and dirtiest wretches that ever dis- 
graced humanity. Had we done this, we should 
have indeed proved that there were so}7ie in the 
world whom no faith could bind ; and we should 
have convicted ourselves of that odious principle 
of which Papists stood accused by those very sav- 
ages, who wished us, on that accusation, to de- 
liver them over to their fury. 

In this audacious tumult, when our very name 
and character, as gentlemen, was to be canceled 
forever, along with the faith and honor of the na- 
tion, I, who had exerted myself very little on the 
quiet passing of the bill, thought it necessary 
then to come forward. I was not alone ; but 
though some distinguished members on all sides, 
and particularly on ours, added much to their 
high reputation by the part they took on that 
day (a part which will be remembered as long 
as honor, spirit, and eloquence have estimation 
in the world), I may and will value myself so 
far, that, yielding in abilities to many, I yielded 
in zeal to none. With warmth and with vigor, 
and animated with a just and natural indigna- 
tion, I called forth every faculty that I possessed, 
and I directed it in every way which 1 could pos- 
sibly employ it. I labored night and day. I la- 
bored in Pai'liament. I labored out of Parlia- 
ment. If, therefore, the resolution of the House 
of Commons, refusing to commit this act of un- 



matched turpitude, be a crime, I am guilty among 
the foremost; but indeed, whatever the faults of 
that House may have been, no one member was 
found hardy enough to propose so infamous a 
thing ; and, on full debate, we passed the resolu- 
tion against the petitions with as much unanim- 
ity as we had formerly passed the law of which 
these petitions demanded the repeal. 

There was a circumstance (justice will not 
sufier me to pass it over) which, if Exemplary de- 
any thinjj could enforce the reasons I portmeiitofthe 

, •' .= 1 1 /■ ,1 • -p 1 Roman Catho- 

have given, would lully justiiy the lies during the 
act of relief, and render a repeal, or 
any thing like a repeal, unnatural, impossible. 
It was the behavior of the persecuted Roman 
Catholics under the acts of violence and brutal 
insolence which they suffered. I suppose there 
are not in London less than four or five thousand 
of that persuasion from my country, who do a 
great deal of the most laborious works in the 
metropolis, and they chiefly inhabit those quar- 
ters which were the principal theater of the fury 
of the bigoted multitude. They are known to 
be men of strong arms and quick feelings, and 
more remarkable for a determined resolution than 
clear ideas or much foresight ; but though pro- 
voked by every thing that can stir the blood of 
men, their houses and chapels in flames, and with 
the most atrocious profanations of every thing 
which they hold sacred before their eyes, not a 
hand was moved to retaliate, or even to defend. 
Had a conflict once begun, the rage of their per- 
secutors would have redoubled. Thus, fury in- 
creasing by the reverberation of outrages, house 
being fired for house, and church for chapel, I am 
convinced that no power under heaven could have 
prevented a general conflagration, and at this day 
London would have been a tale ; but I am well 
informed, and the thing speaks it, that their clergy 
exerted their whole influence to keep their people 
in such a state of forbearance and (piiet, as, when 
I look back, fills me with astonishment; but not 
with astonishment only. Their merits on that oc- 
casion ought not to be forgotten ; nor will they, 
when Englishmen come to recollect themselves. 
I am sure it were far more proper to have called 
them forth and given them the thanks of both 
houses of Parliament, than to have sufl!ered those 
worthy clergymen and excellent citizens to be 
hunted into holes and corners, while we are mak- 
ing low-minded inquisitions into the number of 
their people ; as if a tolerating principle was 
never to prevail, unless we were very sure that 
only a few could possibly take advantage of it. 
But indeed we are not yet well recovered of our 
fright. Our reason, I trust, will return with our 
security, and this unfortunate temper will pass 
over like a cloud. '^ 

Gentlemen, I have now laid before you a few 
of the reasons for taking away the pen- objections to 
alties of the act of 1699, and for re- the repeal ex- 
fusing to establish them on the riotous 
requisition of 1780. Because I would not suf- 



^- Tlape?,dElv ucKEp VE<p6g. — Demosthenes, de 
Corona. 



308 



MR. BURKE PREVIOUS TO 



[1780. 



fer any thing which may be for your satisfaction 
to escape, permit me just to touch on the objec- 
tions urged against our act and our resolves, and 
intended as a justification of the violence offered 
( XT. tP„ to both houses. "Parliament," they 
liament acted asscrt, was too hasty, and they ought, 

ia haste. . • i i i • i 

m SO essential and alarmmg a change, 
to have proceeded with a far greater degree of 
deliberation." The direct contrary. Parliament 
was too slow. They took fourscore years to de- 
liberate on the repeal of an act which ought not 
to have sui'vived a second session. When at 
length, after a procrastination of near a century, 
the business was taken up, it proceeded in the 
most public manner, by the ordinary stages, and 
as slowlv as a law, so evidently right as to be 
resisted by none, would naturally advance. Had 
it been read three times in one day, we should 
have shown only a becoming readiness to recog- 
nize by protection the undoubted dutiful behavior 
of those whom we had but too long punished for 
offenses of presumption or conjecture. But for 
what end was that bill to linger beyond the usual 
period of an unopposed measure ? Was it to be 
delayed until a rabble in Edinburgh should dic- 
tate to the Church of England what measure of 
persecution was fitting for her safety ?'^''' Was it 
to be adjourned until a fanatical force could be 
collected in London, sufficient to frighten us out 
of all our ideas of policy and justice ? Were 
we to wait for the profound lectures on the rea- 
son of state, ecclesiastical and political, which 
the Protestant Association have since conde- 
scended to read to us? Or were we. seven hund- 
red peers and commoners, the only persons ig- 
norant of the ribald invectives which occupy the 
place of argument in those remonstrances, which 
every man of common observation had heard a 
thousand times over, and a thousand times over 
had despised ? AH men had before heard what 
they have to say ; and all men at this day know 
what they dare to do ; and I trust, all honest 
men are equally influenced by the one and by 
the other. 

Bat they tell us, that those our fellow-citi- 
zens, whose chains w^e have a little 

(b) That theRo- ,1 • * ri ^ i 

man Catholics rclaxcd, are cuemics to liberty and 
go^Jermne!rt!an'r our free constitutiou — not enemies, 
down ^° ^^ ''''''^ ^ presume, to their own liberty ; and 
as to the constitution, until we give 
them some share in it, I do not know on what 
pretense we can examine into their opinions about 
a business in which they have no interest or 
concern. But after all, are w^e equally sure that 
they are adverse to our constitution, as that our 
statutes are hostile and destructive to them ? 
For my part, I have reason to believe their opin- 
ions and inclinations in that respect are various, 
exactly like those of other men ; and if they lean 
more to the Crown than I, and than many of you 
think we ought, we must remember that he wiio 
aims at another's life is not to be surprised if 
he flies into any sanctuary that will receive him. 

23 The Protestant Association ori^nated at Ed- 
inburgh. 



The tenderness of the executive power is the 
natural asylum of those upon whom the laws 
have declared war; and to complain that men 
are inclined to favor the means of their own 
safety, is so absurd that one forgets the injustice 
in the ridicule. 

I must fairly tell you, that, so far as my prin- 
ciples are concerned (principles that pernicious dis- 
I hope will only depart with my last I"" lorrit"^"?" 
breath), I have no idea of a liberty osiers, 
unconnected with honesty and justice. Nor do 
I believe that any good constitutions of govei'n- 
ment or of freedom, can find it necessary for 
their security to doom any part of the people to 
a permanent slavery. Such a constitution of 
freedom, if such can be, is in effect no more than 
another name for the tyranny of the strongest fac- 
tion ; and factions in republics have been, and 
are, full as capable as monarchs, of the most 
cruel oppression and injustice. It is but too ti'ue 
that the love, and even the very idea, of genuine 
liberty is extremely rare. It is but too true that 
there are many wiiose whole scheme of freedom 
is made up of pride, perverseness, and insolence. 
They feel themselves in a state of thraldom ; 
they imagine that their souls are cooped and 
cabined in, unless they have some man, or some 
body of men, dependent on their mercy. This 
desire of having some one below them descends 
to those who are the very lowest of all — and a 
Protestant cobbler, debased by his poverty, but 
exalted by his share of the ruling Church, feels 
a pride in knowing it is by his generosity alone 
that the peei', whose footman's instep he meas- 
ures, is able to keep his chaplain from a jail. 
This disposition is the true source of the passion 
which many men in very humble life have taken 
to the American war. Our subjects in America ! 
our colonies ! our dependants ! This lust of par- 
ty power is the liberty they hunger and thirst 
for, and this siren song of ambition has charmed 
ears that one would have thought were never 
organized to that sort of music.-'* 

This way o{ proscribing the citizens by denom- 
inations and general descriptions. dk\2- . . 

•c J 1 *l c c\ T Proscnption of 

nined by the name ot reason ot state, men by classes 
and security for constitutions and '^^^^ ^ "nj^st. 
commonw^ealths, is nothing better at bottom than 
the miserable invention of an ungenerous ambi- 
tion, which would fain hold the sacred trust of 
power without any of the virtues, or any of the 
energies, that give a title to it ; a receipt of 
policy made up of a detestable compound of mal- 
ice, cowardice, and sloth. They would govern 
men against their w^ill ; but in that government 
they would be discharged from the exercise of 
vigilance, providence, and fortitude ; and there- 
fore, that they may sleep on their watch, they 
consent to take some one division of the society 

2* No man ever touched with such force that proud 
and cruel spirit which actuates a people who hold 
others in subjection. It was just the spirit of the 
Athenian mob toward their colonies, and of every 
Roman toward the provinces of the empire ; audit 
was no doubt one principal cause of the American 
war. 



1780.] 



THE BRISTOL ELECTION. 



30 y 



into partnership of the tyranny over the rest. 
But let government, in what form it may be, 
comprehend the whole in its justice, and restrain 
the suspicious by its vigilance ; let it keep watch 
and ward ; let it discover by its sagacity, and 
punish by its firmness, all delinquency against 
its power, whenever delinquency exists in the 
overt acts : and then it will be as safe as ever 
God and nature intended it should be. Crimes 
are the acts of individuals, and not of denomina- 
tions ; and, therefoi-e, arbitrarily to class men un- 
der general descriptions, in order to proscribe 
and punish them in the lump for a presumed de- 
linquency, of which perhaps but a part, perhaps 
none at all, are guilty, is indeed a compendious 
method, and saves a world of trouble about 
proof; but such a method, instead of being law, 
is an act of unnatural rebellion against the legal 
dominion of reason and justice ; and this vice, in 
any constitution that entertains it, at one time or 
other will certainly bring on its ruin. 

We are told that this is not a religious perse- 
cution, and its abettors are loud in disclaiming 
all severities on account of conscience. Very 
fine, indeed ! Then let it be so. They are not 
persecutors ; they are only tyrants. With all my 
heart. I am perfectly indifferent concerning the 
pretexts upon which we torment one another ; 
or whether it be for the constitution of the Church 
of England, or for the constitution of the state 
of England, that people choose to make their 
fellow-creatures wretched. When we were sent 
into a place of authority, you that sent us had 
yourselves but one commission to give. You 
could give us none to wi-ong or oppress, or even 
to suffer any kind of oppression or wrong, on any 
grounds whatsoever ; not on political, as in the 
affairs of America; not on commercial, as in 
those of Ireland ; not in civil, as in the laws for 
debt; not in religious, as in the statutes against 
Protestant or Catholic dissenters. The divers- 
ified but connected fabric of universal justice 
is well cramped and bolted together in all its 
parts ; and, depend upon it, I never have em- 
ployed, and I never shall employ, any engine of 
power which may come into my hands to wrench 
it asunder. All shall stand if I can help it, and 
all shall stand connected. After all, to complete 
this work, much remains to be done ; much in 
the east, much in the west. But great as the 
work is, if our will be ready, our powers are not 
deficient. 

Since you have suffered me to trouble you so 
(c.)Tiiatthe ™uch On this subject, permit me, gen- 
orti,X*p"e?i tlemen, to detain you a little longer, 
had been un- I am, indeed, most solicitous to cfive 

fortunate. p . „ . tot 

you perlect satisfaction. I find there 
are some of a better and softer nature than the 
persons with whom I have supposed myself in de- 
bate, who neither think ill of the act oi' relief, nor 
by any means desire the repeal ; not accusing but 
lamenting what was done, on account of the con- 
sequences, have frequently expressed their wish 
that the late Act had never been made. Some 
of this description, and persons of worth, I have 
met with in this city. They conceive that the 



prejudices, whatever they might be, of a large part 
of the people, ought not to have been shocked ; 
that their opinions ought to have been previously 
taken, and much attended to ; and that thereby the 
late horrid scenes might have been prevented. 

I confess my notions are widely different ; and 
I never was less sorry for any action of my life. 
I like the bill the better on account of the events 
of all kinds that followed it. It relieved the real 
sufferers ; it strengthened the state ; and by the 
disorders that ensued, we had clear evidence that 
there lurked a temper somewhere, which ought 
not to be fostered by the laws. No ill conse- 
quences whatever could be attributed to the Aet 
itself. We knew beforehand, or we were poor- 
ly instructed, that toleration is odious to the in- 
tolerant ; freedom to oppressors ; property to rob- 
bers ; and all kinds and degrees of prosperity to 
the envious. We knew that all these kinds of 
men would gladly gratify their evil dispositions 
under the sanction of law and religion, if they 
could ; if they could not, yet, to make way to 
their objects, they would do their utmost to sub- 
vert all religion and all law. This we certainly 
knew ; but knowing this, is there any reason be- 
cause thieves break in and steal, and thus bring 
detriment to you and draw ruin on themselves, 
that I am to be sorry that you are in possession 
of shops, and of warehouses, and of wholesome 
laws to protect them? Are you to build no 
houses because desperate men may pull them 
down upon their own heads ? Or, if a malignant 
wretch will cut his own throat because he sees 
you give alms to the necessitous and deserving, 
shall his destruction be attributed to your char- 
ity, and not to his own deplorable madness ? If 
we repent of our good actions, what, I pray you, 
is left for our faults and follies ? It is not the 
beneficence of the laws, it is the unnatural tem- 
per which beneficence can fret and sour, that is 
to be lamented. It is this temper which, by all 
rational means, ought to be sweetened and cor- 
rected. If froward men should refuse this cure, 
can they vitiate any thing but themselves ? Does 
evil so react upon good, as not only to retard its 
motion, but to change its nature ? If it can so 
operate, then good men will always be in the 
power of the bad ; and virtue, by a dreadful re- 
verse of order, must lie under perpetual subjec- 
tion and bondage to vice. 

As to the opinion of the people, which some 
think, in such cases, is to be implicitly obeyed ; 
near two years' tranquillity, which followed the 
Act, and its instant imitation in Ireland, proved 
abundantly that the late horrible spirit was, in a 
great measure, the effect of insidious art, and 
perverse industry, and gross misrepresentation. 
But suppose that the dislike had been much more 
deliberate, and much more general than I am 
persuaded it was. When we know that the 
opinions of even the greatest multitudes are the 
standard of rectitude, I shall think myself obliged 
to make those opinions the masters of my con- 
science. But if it may be doubted whether om- 
nipotence itself is competent to alter the essen- 
tial constitution of right and wrong, sure I am 



310 



MR. BURKE ON DECLINING THE ELECTION AT BRISTOL. 



[1780. 



that such things as they and I are possessed of 
no such power. No man carries farther than I 
do the policy of making government pleasing to 
the people ; but the widest range of this politic 
complaisance is confined within the limits of jus- 
tice. I would not only consult the interests of 
the people, but I would cheerfully gratify their 
humors. We are all a sort of children that must 
be soothed and managed. I think I am not aus- 
tere or formal in my nature. I would bear — I 
would even myself play my part in any innocent 
buffooneries to divert them ; but I never will act 
the tyrant for their amusement. If they will mix 
malice in their sports, I shall never consent to 
throw them any living, sentient creature what- 
soever : no, not so much as a kitling, to torment. 
'' But if I profess all this impolitic stubborn- 
if such views "ess, I may chance never to be elect- 
must exclude gd iiito Parliament." It is certainly 

the si)eaker . / 

from Parha- not plcasuig to be put out ot the public 

merit, he is . t-P t • i >. i u f 

willing to re- scrvicc. But I wish to bc a mem ber ot 
main out. Parliament, to have my share of doing 
good, and resisting evil. It would therefore be 
absurd to renounce my objects in order to obtain 
my seat. I deceive myself, indeed, most grossly, 
if I had not much rather pass the remainder of 
my life hidden in the recesses of the deepest ob- 
scurity, feeding my mind even with the visions 
and imaginations of such things, than to be placed 
on the most splendid throne of the universe, tan- 
talized with the denial of the practice of all which 
can make the greatest situation any other than 
the greatest curse. Gentlemen, I have had my 
day. I can never sufficiently express my grat- 
itude to you for having set me in a place where- 
in I could lend the slightest help to great and 
laudable designs. If 1 have had my share in any 
measure giving quiet to private property, and 
private conscience ; if, by my vote, I have aided 
in securing to families the best possession, peace ; 
if I have joined in reconciling kings to their 
subjects, and subjects to their prince ; if I have 
assisted to loosen the foreign holdings of the cit- 
izen, and taught him to look for his protection 
to the laws of his country, and for his comfort to 



the good-will of his countrymen ; if I have thus 
taken my part with the best of men in the best 
of their actions, I can shut the book. I might 
wish to read a page or two more ; but this is 
enough for my measure. I have not lived in vain. 

And now, gentlemen, on this serious day, when 
I come, as it were, to make up my account with 
you, let me take to myself some degree of honest 
pride on the nature of the charges that are against 
me. I do not here stand before you accused of 
venality, or of neglect of duty. It is not said 
that, in the long period of my service, I have, in 
a single instance, sacrificed the slightest of your 
interests to my ambition, or to my fortune. It 
is not alleged that, to gratify any anger, or re- 
venge of my own, or of my party, I have had a 
share in wronging or oppressing any description 
of men, or any one man in any description. No ! 
The charges against me are all of one kind, 
that I have pushed the principles of general jus- 
tice and benevolence too far ; farther than a cau- 
tious policy would warrant, and farther than the 
opinions of many would go along with me. In 
every accident which may happen through life 
— in pain, in sorrow, in depression, and distress 
— I wall call to mind this accusation, and be 
comforted. 

Gentlemen, I submit the whole to your judg- 
ment. Mr. Mayor, I thank you for the trouble 
you have taken on this occasion. In your state 
of health, it is particularly obliging. If this com- 
pany should think it advisable for me to with- 
draw, I shall respectfully retire. If you think 
otherwise, I shall go directly to the council- 
house and to the 'change, and, without a mo- 
ment's delay, begin my canvass. 



At the close of this speech Mr. Burke was en- 
couraged by his friends to proceed with the can- 
vass ; but it was soon apparent that the oppo- 
sition he had to encounter could not be concil- 
iated or resisted. He therefore, on the second 
day of the election, declined the poll in the speech 
which follows : 



SPEECH 

OF MR. BURKE ON DECLINING THE ELECTION AT BRISTOL, DELIVERED SEPTEMBER 9, 1780 
Gentlemen, — I decline the election. It has 



ever been my rule through life to observe a pro- ; 
portion between my efforts and my objects. I 
have never been remarkable for a bold, active, j 
and sanguine pursuit of advantages that are per- j 
sonal to myself. ' 

I have not canvassed the whole of this city in 
form ; but I have taken such a view of it as sat- 
isfies my own mind that your choice will not ul- 
timately fall upon me. Your city, gentlemen, 
is in a state of miserable distraction ; and I am 
resolved to withdraw whatever share my preten- I 
sions may have had in its unhappy divisions. I j 
have not been in haste. I have tried all prudent j 
means. I have waited for the effect of all con- I 
tingencies. If I were fond of a contest, by the 
partiality of my numerous friends (whom you | 



know to be among the most weighty and re- 
spectable people of the city) I have the means 
of a sharp one in my hands ; but I thought it far 
better, with my strength unspent, and my I'cpu- 
tation unimpaired, to do earl}'^ and from fore- 
sight that which I might be obliged to do from 
necessity at last. 

I am not in the least surprised, nor in the least 
angry at this view of things. I have read the 
book of life for a long time, and I have read 
other books a little. Nothing has happened to 
me but what has happened to men much better 
than me, and in times and in nations full as good 
as the age and country that we live in. To say 
that I am no way concerned would bc neither 
decent nor true. The representation of Bristol 
was an object on many accounts dear to me, and 



1783.] 



MR. BURKE ON THE EAST INDIA BILL OF MR. FOX. 



311 



I certainly should very far prefer it to any other 
in the kingdom. My habits are made to it ; and 
it is in general more unpleasant to be rejected 
after a long trial than not to be chosen at all. 

But, gentlemen, I will see nothing except 
your former kindness, and I will give way to no 
other sentiments than those of gratitude. From 
the bottom of my heart I thank you for what you 
have done for me. You have given me a long- 
term, which is now expired. I have performed 
the conditions, and enjoyed all the profits to the 
full ; and I now surrender your estate into your 
hands without being in a single tile or a single 
stone impaired or wasted by my use. I have 
served the public for fifteen years. I have 
served you, in particular, for six. What is past 
is well stored. It is safe, and out of the power 
of fortune. What is to come is in wiser hands 
than ours, and He in whose hands it is, best 
knows whether it is best for you and me that I 
should be in Parliament, or even in the world. 

Gentlemen, the melancholy event of yesterday 
reads to us an awful lesson against being too 
much troubled about any of the objects of ordi- 
nary ambition. The worthy gentleman who has 



been snatched from us at the moment of the elec- 
tion, and ia the middle of the contest, while his 
desires were as w-arm and his hopes as eager as 
ours, has feelingly told us what shadows we are, 
and what shadows we pursue.^ 

It has been usual for a candidate who declines, 
to take his leave by a letter to the sheriffs ; but 
I received your trust in the face of day, and in 
the face of day I accept your dismission. I am 
not — I am not at all ashamed to look upon you, 
nor can my presence discompose the order of bu- 
siness here. I humbly and respectfully take my 
leave of the sheriffs, the candidates, and the elect- 
ors, wishing heartily that the choice may be for 
the best at a time which calls, if ever time did 
call, for service that is not nominal. It is no 
plaything you are about. I tremble when I con- 
sider the trust I have presumed to ask. I con- 
fided perhaps too much in my intentions. They 
were really fair and upright ; and I am bold to 
say that I ask no ill thing for you when, on part- 
ing from this place, I pray that whomever you 
choose to succeed me, he may resemble me ex- 
actly in all things except in my abilities to serve 
and my fortune to please you. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. BURKE ON THE EAST INDIA BILL OF MR. FOX, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 

DECEMBER 1, 1783. 



INTRODUCTION. 

So enormous were the abases of the British power in India, that men of all parties demanded strong 
measures to secure an effectual remedy. Those embraced in the East India bill of Mr. Fox, as matured 
between him and Mr. Burke, were certainly of this character. All the concerns of the Company were 
taken into the hands of the English government. Seven commissioners, to be appointed for four years by 
Parliament, were intrusted with the civil and military government of the country ; while the commercial 
concerns of the Company were committed to the hands of nine assistant directors, to be chosen out of the 
proprietors of East India stock. A second bill provided for the correction of numerous abuses in the ad- 
ministration of Indian affairs. 

The first bill was brought into the House of Commons by Mr. Fox, on the 18th of November, 1783, and 
was strenuously opposed at every stage of its progress. The principal objections were, that it set aside 
the charter of the East India Company, threw too much patronage into the hands of the ministry, and might 
operate injuriously to the national credit. Mr. Fox's coalition with Lord North, which had brotiglit the 
ministry into power, was also a subject of the severest animadversion. When the question came up, on 
the 1st of December, for going into a committee on the bill, Mr. Powys, a former friend and adherent of Mr. 
Fox, opposed it with all his strength. He had great authority in the House, as a country gentleman rep- 
resenting an extensive county, and sustained by a reputation for strong sense and unimpeachable integ- 
rity. He denounced the measure in the strongest terms, as a violation of chartered rights, and as designed 
to make Mr. Fox minister for life, by giving him an amount of patronage which would render it impossible 
for the King to remove him. 

Mr. Wraxall, who was then a member of the House, and who was equally opposed with Mr. Powys to 
the passing of the bill, observes, in his Historical Memoirs, vol. iv., p. 566, " Burke, unable longer to ob- 
serve silence after such reflections, then rose ; and, in a dissertation rather than a speech, which lasted 
more than three hours, exhausted all the powers of his mighty mind in the justification of his friend's 
measure. The most ignorant member of the House, who had attended to the mass of information, his- 
torical, political, and financial, which fell from the lips of Burke on that occasion, must have departed rich 
in knowledge of Hindostan. It seemed impossible to crowd a greater variety of matter applicable to the 
t subject into a smaller compass ; and those who differed most widely from him in opinion did not render 
the less justice to his gigantic range of ideas, his lucid exposition of events, and the harmonic flow of his 

^ Mr. Burke here refers to Mr. Coombe, one of his exhaustion of the contest, had died suddenly the 
competitors, who, overcome by the excitement and | evening before. 



312 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1783. 



periods. There were portions of his harangue in which he appeared to be animated by feelings and con- 
siderations the most benign, as well as elevated ; and the classic language in which he made Fox's pane- 
gyric, for having dared to venture on a measure so beset with dangers, but so pregnant, as he asserted, 
with benefits to mankind, could not be exceeded in beauty." 

In giving this speech, those parts are omitted which contain minute details of the abuses of power on 
the part of the Company's servants in India. Though essential to the argument as originally stated, they 
would only be tedious at the present day, and, indeed, can hardly be understood without an intimate ac- 
quaintance with the concerns of the East India Company. 

SPEECH, &c. 



Mr. Speaker, — I thank you for pointing to 
me ; I really wished much to engage your at- 
tention in an early stage of the debate. I have 
been long very deeply, though perhaps ineffect- 
ually, engaged in the preliminary inquiries which 
have continued without intermission for some 
years. Though I have felt, with some degree 
of sensibility, the natural and inevitable impres- 
sions of the several matters of fact, as they have 
been successively disclosed, I have not at any 
time attempted to trouble you on the merits of 
the subject, and very little on any of the points 
which incidentally arose in the course of our pro- 
ceedings. But I should be sorry to be found to- 
tally silent upon this day. Our inquiries are now 
come to their final issue. It is now to be determ- 
ined whether the three years of laborious par- 
liamentary research,^ whether the twenty years 
of patient Indian suffering, are to produce a sub- 
stantial reform in oitr Eastern administration ; 
or, whether our knowledge of the grievances has 
abated our zeal for the correction of them, and 
our very inquiry into the evil was only a pretext 
to elude the remedy which is demanded from us 
by humanity, by justice, and by every principle 
of true policy. Depend upon it, this business can 
not be indifferent to our fame. It will turn out 
a matter of great disgrace or great glory to the 
whole British nation. We are on a conspicuous 
stage, and the world marks our demeanor. 

I am therefore a little concerned to perceive 
„ , . , . ^ the spirit and temper in which the 

Mode m which , , , , n i 

the bill was op- debate has been all along pursued 
^°^^ ■ upon one side of the House. The 

declamation of the gentlemen who oppose the bill 
has been abundant and vehement ; but they have 
been reserved, and even silent about the fitness 
or unfitness of the plan to attain the direct object 
it has in view. By some gentlemen it is taken 
up (by way of exercise, I presume) as a point of 
law on a question of private property and corpo- 
rate franchise ; by others it is regarded as the 
petty intrigue of a faction at court, and argued 
merely as it tends to set this man a little high- 
er, or that a little lower in situation and power. 
All the void has been filled up with invectives 
against coalition ; with allusions to the loss of 
America ; with the activity and inactivity of min- 
isters. The total silence of these gentlemen 
concerning the interest and well-being of the 
people of India, and concerning the intei-cst 
which this nation has in the commerce and rev- 



' Mr. Burke had taken a very active part in these 
researches as a member of a committee of the House. 



enues of that country, is a strong indication of 
the value which they set upon these objects. 

It has been a little painful to me to observe 
the intrusion into this important debate of such 
company as quo warranto, and mandamus, and 
certiorari ^ as if we were on a trial about may- 
ors and aldermen, and capital burgesses ; or en- 
gaged in a suit concerning the borough of Pen- 
ryn, or Saltash, or St. Ives, or St. Maw^es. Gen- 
tlemen have argued with as much heat and pas- 
sion, as if the first things in the world wei-e at 
stake ; and their topics are such as belong only 
to matter of the lowest and meanest litigation. 
It is not right, it is not worthy of us, in this man- 
ner to depreciate the value, to degrade the majes- 
ty of this grave deliberation of policy and empire. 

For my part, I have thought myself bound, 
when a matter of this extraordinaiy weight came 
before me, not to consider (as some gentlemen 
are so fond of doing) whether the bill originated 
from a Secretary of State for the Home Depart- 
ment, or from a secretary for the foreign ; from 
a minister of influence or a minister of the peo- 
ple ; from Jacob or from Esau.^ I asked my- 
self, and I asked myself nothing else, what part 
it was fit for a member of Parliament, who has 
supplied a mediocrity of talents by the extreme 
of diligence, and who has thought himself oblig- 
ed, by the research of years, to wind hinnseif 
into the inmost recesses and labyrinths of the 
Indian detail, what part, I sa}'', it became such a 
member of Parliament to take, when a minister 
of state, in conformity to a recommendation from 
the Throne, has brought before us a system for 
the better government of the territory and com- 
merce of the East. In this light, and in this 
only, I will trouble you with my sentiments. 

It is not only agreed but demanded, by the 
right honorable gentleman [Mr. Pitt], Measure 
and by those who act with him, that a ''""^'^ ''°''' 
whole system ought to be produced ; that it 
ought not to be a half measure ; that it ought 
to be no palliative ; but a legislative provision, 
vigorous, substantial, and effective. I believe 
that no man who understands the subject can 
doubt for a moment that those must be the con- 
ditions of any thing deserving the name of a re- 
form in the Indian government; that any thing 
short of them would not only be delusive, but, 
in this matter, which admits no medium, noxious 

in the extreme. 

. _ _ i 

2 Mr. Powys, who retained a lingering alFection 
for Mr. Fox, had ascribed the bill to the influence 
of Lord North, saying, " the voice is Jacob's, but 
the hands are the hands of Esau." 



1783.] 



EAST INDIA BILL OF MR. FOX. 



313 



To all the conditions pi'oposed by his adversa- 
ries the mover of the bill perfectly agrees ; and 
on his performance of them he rests his cause. 
On the other hand, not the least objection has 
been taken with regard to the efficiency, the 
vigor, or the completeness of the scheme. I 
am, therefore, warranted to assume, as a thing 
admitted, that the bills accomplish what both 
sides of the House demand as essential. The 
end is completely answered, so far as the direct 
and immediate object is concerned. 

But though there are no direct, yet there are 
various collateral objections made; objections 
from the effects which this plan of reform for In- 
dian administration may have on the privileges 
of great public bodies in England ; from its px'ob- 
able influence on the constitutional rights, or on 
the freedom and integrity of the several branch- 
es of the Legislature. 

Before I answer these objections, I must beg 
Answer to Icave to obscrvc, that if we are not able 
objections, ^q contrivc somc method of governing In- 
dia well, which will not of necessity become the 
means of governing Great Britain ill, a ground is 
laid for their eternal separation ; but none for 
sacrificing the people of that countiy to our con- 
stitution. I am, however, far from being per- 
suaded that any such incompatibility of interest 
does at all exist. On the contrary, I am certain 
that every means effectual to preserve India from 
oppression is a guard to preserve the British Con- 
stitution from its worst corruption. To show 
this, I will consider the objections, which I think 
are four : 

1st. That the bill is an attack on the charter- 
ed rights of men. 

2d]y. That it increases the influence of the 
Crown, 

3dly. That it does not increase, but diminishes 
the influence of the Crowm, in order to promote 
the interests of certain ministers and their party. 

4thly. That it deeply affects the national credit. 

I. As to the finst of these objections, I must 
Violation of o^scrvc that the phrase of " the char- 
thecompa- tcred rights of men''' is full of affecta- 

ny's Charter. . i i • i t 

tion, and very unusual m the discus- 
sion of privileges conferred by charters of the 
present description. But it is not difficult to dis- 
cover what end that ambiguous mode of expres- 
sion, so often reiterated, is meant to answer. 

The rights of men, that is to say, the natural 
rights of mankind, are indeed sacred things ; and 
if any public measure is proved mischievously to 
affect them, the objection ought to be fatal to 
that measure, even if no charter at all could be 
set up against it. If these natural rights are 
farther affirmed and declared by express cove- 
nants, if they are clearly defined and secured 
against chicane, against power, and authority, by 
written instruments and positive engagements, 
they are in a still better condition ; they partake 
not only of the sanctity of the object so secured, 
but of that solemn public faith itself, which se- 
cures an object of such importance. Indeed, 
this formal recognition, by the sovereign power, 
of an original right in the subject, can never be 



subverted but by rooting up the holding radical 
principles of government, and even of society 
itself. The charters which we call, by distinc- 
tion, "great," are public instruments of this na- 
ture ; I mean the charters of King John and 
King Henry the Third. The things secured by 
these instruments may, without any deceitful am- 
biguity, be very fitly called the chartered rights 
of men? 

These charters have made the very name of 
a charter dear to the heart of every Englishman. 
But, sir, there may be, and there ai'e charters, 
not only different in nature, but formed on princi- 
ples the very reverse of those of the great char- 
ter. Of this kind is the charter of the East In- 
dia Company. Magna Cliarta is a charter to 
restrain power, and to destroy monopoly. The 
East India charter is a charter to establish mo- 
nopoly, and to create power. Political power 
and commercial monopoly are not the rights of 
men ; and the rights to them derived from char- 
ters, it is fallacious and sophistical to call " the 
chartered rights of men." These chartered 
rights (to speak of such charters and of their 
effects in terms of the greatest possible modera- 
tion) do at least suspend the natural rights of 
mankind at large, and in their very frame and 
constitution are liable to fall into a direct viola- 
tion of them. 

It is a charter of this latter description (that is 
to say, a charter of power and monopoly) which 
is affected hy the bill before you. The bill, sir, 
does, without question, affect it ; it does affect it 
essentially and substantially ; but, having stated 
to you of what description the chartered rights 
are which this bill touches, I feel no difficulty at 
all in acknowledging the existence of those char- 
tered rights in their fullest extent. They belong 
to the Company in the surest manner, and they 
are secured to that body by every sort of public 
sanction. They are stamped by the faith of the 
King ; they are stamped by the faith of Parlia- 
ment ; they have been bought for money, for 
money honestly and fairly paid ; they have been 
bought for valuable consideration, over and over 
again. 

I therefore freely admit to the East India 
Company their claim to exclude their fellow- 
subjects from the commerce of half the globe. 
I admit their claim to administer an annual ter- 
ritorial revenue of seven millions sterling, to com- 
mand an army of sixty thousand men, and to dis- 
pose (under the control of a sovereign imperial 
discretion, and with the due observance of the 
natural and local law) of the lives and fortunes 
of thirty millions of their fellow-creatui-es. All . 
this they possess by charter and by acts of Par- 
liament (in my opiinion) without a shadow of con- 
troversy. 

Those who carry the rights and claims of the 
Company the farthest do not contend for more 
than this, and all tUis I freely grant ; but, grant- 

^ This opening of the subject with a distinction 
thus clearly drawn and illustrated, is highly charac- 
teristic of Mr. Burke, and lays the foundation of his 
entire argument. 



314 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1783. 



ing all this, they must grant to me in my turn that 
That charter all political power which is set over 
thebe^'nt'^f men, and that all privilege claimed or 
the public, exercised in exclusion of them, being 
wholly artificial, and for so much a derogation 
from the natural equality of mankind at large, 
ought to be some way or other exercised ulti- 
mately for their benefit. If this is true with re- 
gard to every species of political dominion and 
every description of commercial privilege, none 
of which can be original, self-derived rights, or 
grants for the mere private benefit of the hold- 
ers, then such rights, or privileges, or whatever 
else you choose to call them, are all in the strict- 
est sense a tt-ust ; and it is of the very essence 
of every trust to be rendered accountable, and 
even totally to cease, when it substantially varies 
from the purposes for which alone it could have 
a lawful existence. 

This I conceive, sir, to be true of trusts of 
power vested in the highest hands, and of such 
as seem to hold of no human creature ;^ but 
about the application of this principle to subor- 
dinate derivative trusts, I do not see how a con- 
trover.sy can be maintained. To whom, then, 
would I make the East India Company account- 
able ■? why, to Parliament, to be sure ; to Par- 
liament, from whom their trust was derived ; to 
Parliament, which alone is capable of compre- 
hending the magnitude of its object and its abuse, 
and alone capable of an effectual legislative rem- 
edy. The very charter which is held out to ex- 
clude Parliament from correcting malversation 
with regard to the high trust vested in the Com- 
pany is the very thing which at once sives a title 
and imposes a duty on us to interfere with effect 
wherever power and authority originating from 
ourselves are perverted from their purposes, and 
become instruments of wrong and violence. 

If Parliament, sir, had nothing to do with this 
charter, we might have some sort of Epicurean 
excuse to stand aloof, indifferent spectators of 
what passes in the Company's name in India and 
in London ; but if we are the very cause of the 
evil, we are in a special manner engaged to the 
redress ; and for us passively to bear with op- 
pressions committed under the sanction of our 
own authority is, in truth and reason, for this 
House to be an active accomplice in the abuse. 

That the power notoriously, grossly abused 
has been bought from us, is very certain ; but 
this circumstance, which is urged against the 
bill, becomes an additional motive for our inter- 
ference, lest we .should be thought to have sold 
the blood of millions of men for the base consid- 
eration of money. We sold, I admit, all that wc 
had to sell, that is our authority, not our control. 
We had not a right to make a market of our du- 
ties. 

I ground myself, therefore, on this principle, 
that if the abuse is proved, the contract is broken, 

* Mr. Burke here alludes to regal authority, and 
hints at tlie ar2:uinent drawn Irom the exclusion of 
James II. at the Revolution of 1688, on which Mr. 
Fox insisted so powerfully in his speech the same 
evenin.ir. 



and we re-enter into all our rights, that is, into 
the exercise of all our duties. Our own is liable to 
authority is indeed as much a trust orig- jfthrtruat 
inally as the Company's authority is a be abused. 
trust derivatively ; and it is the use we make 
of the resumed power that must justify or con- 
demn us in the resumption of it. When we 
have perfected the plan laid before us by the 
right honorable mover, the world will then see 
what it is we destroy, and what it is we create. 
By that test we stand or fall, and by that test I 
trust that it will be found in the issue, that we 
are going to supersede a charter abused to the 
full extent of all the powers which it could 
abuse, and exei'cised in the plenitude of despot- 
ism, tyranny, and corruption ; and that, in one 
and the same plan, we provide a real chartered 
security for the rights of men cruelly violated 
under that charter. 

This bill, and those connected with it, are in- 
tended to form the Magna Charta of Hindostan.^ 
Whatever the treaty of Westphalia is to the lib- 
erty of the princes and free cities of the empirCj 
and to the three religions there professed ; what- 
ever the great charter, the statute of tallage, the 
petition of right, and the declaration of right, are 
to Great Britain, these bills are to the people of 
India. Of this benefit, I am certain, their con- 
dition is capable, and when I know that they are 
capable of more, my vote shall most assuredly be 
for our giving to the full extent of their capacity 
of receiving, and no charter of dominion shall 
stand as a bar in my way to their charter of 
safety and protection. 

The strong admission I have made of the 
Company's rights (I am conscious of it) binds 
me to do a great deal. I do not presume to 
condemn those who argue a priori against the 
propriety of leaving such extensive political pow- 
ers in the hands of a company of merchants. I 
know much is, and much more may be said 
against such a system ; but with my particular 
ideas and sentiments, I can not go that way to 
work.*^ I feel an insuperable reluctance in giv- 
ing my hand to destroy any established institu- 
tion of government upon a theory, however plau- 
sible it may be. My experience in life teaches 
me nothing clear upon the subject. I have 
known merchants with the sentiments and the 
abilities of great statesmen, and I have seen per- 
sons in the rank of statesmen, with the concep- 
tion and character of peddlers. Indeed, my ob- 
servation has furnished me with nothing that is 
to be found in any habits of life or education, 



5 This is an instance of Mr. Burke's habit of rising 
from the particular case before Iiira, and connecting 
it with a higher range of collateral thought. It is in 
this way that he adds great dignity to his subject, 
and often enriches it with venerable associations. 

6 We have here an instance of Mr. Burke's utter 
repugnance to argue any question on the ground of 
mere abstract right. Some might deny the binding 
force of a charter which gave such ample powers ; 
but his habits of mind led him to abide by all estab- 
lished institutions until driven from them by the 
most obvious necessity. 



1783.] 



EAST INDIA BILL OF MR. FOX. 



315 



which tends wholly to disqualify men for the 
functions of government, but that by which the 
power of exercising those functions is very fre- 
quently obtained, I mean a spirit and habits of 
low cabal and intrigue, which I have never, in 
one instance, seen united with a capacity for 
sound and manly policy. 

To justify us in taking the administration of 
their affairs out of the hands of the East 
justifies a India Company, on my principles, I 
revocation, ^ust scc scveral conditiotts. 1st. The 
object afi'ected by the abuse should be gi^eat and 
important. 2d. The abuse affecting this great 
object ought to be a great abuse. 3d. It .ought 
to be habitual, and not accidental. 4th. It ought 
to be utterly incurable in the body as it now 
stands constituted. All this ought to be made 
as visible to me as the light of the sun, before I 
should strike off an atom of their charter. A 
right honorable gentleman [Mr. Pitt] has said, 
and said, I think, but once, and that very slightly 
(whatever his original demand for a plan might 
seem to require), that "there are abuses in the 
Company's government." If that were all, the 
scheme of the mover of this bill, the scheme of 
his learned friend, and his own scheme of refor- 
mation (if he has any), are all equally needless. 
There are, and must be, abuses in all govern- 
ments. It amounts to no more than a nugatory 
proposition. But before I consider of what na- 
ture these abuses are of which the gentleman 
speaks so very lightly, permit me to i-ecall to 
your recollection the map of the country which 
this abased chartered right affects. This I shall 
do, that you may judge whether in that map I 
can discover any thing like the first of my con- 
ditions, that is, whether the object affected by 
the abuse of the East India Company's power 
be of importance sufficiently to justify the meas- 
ure and means of reform applied to it in this 
bill. 

(1.) With very few, and those inconsiderable 
„ . , ^ intervals, the British dominion, either 

Magnitude of . , J. . 

the ob eit ef ui the Company s name, or m the 
names of princes absolutely dependent 
upon the Company, extends from the mountains 
that separate India from Tartary to Cape Como- 
rin, that is, one-and-twenty degrees of latitude ! 

In the northern parts it is a solid mass of land, 
about eight hundred miles in length, and 
four or five hundred broad. As you go 
southward, it becomes narrower for a space. It 
afterward dilates ; but, narrower or broader, you 
possess the whole eastern and northeastern coast 
of that vast country, quite from the borders of 
Pegu. Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, with Benares 
(now unfoi-tunately in our immediate possession), 
measure 1 61,978 square English miles ; a terri- 
tory considerably larger than the whole kingdom 
of France.''' Oude, with its dependent provin- 
ces, is 53,286 square miles, not a great deal less 
than England. The Carnatic, with Tanjore and 
the Circars, is 65,948 square miles, very con- 

■^ France has since been materially enlarged, its 
extent being at present two hundred and four thou- 
sand square miles. 



siderably larger than England ; and the whole of 
the Com]pany's dominions, comprehending Bom- 
bay and Salsette, amounts to 281,412 square 
miles, which forms a territory larger than any 
European dominion, Russia and Turkey except- 
ed. Through all that vast extent of country there 
is not a man who eats a mouthful of rice but by 
permission of the East India Company. 

So far with regard to the extent. The popu- 
lation of this great empire is not easy „ , ,. 

1 1 -ITT. 1 • Population. 

to be calculated. VVhen the countries 
of which it is composed came into our posses- 
sion, they were all eminently peopled and emi- 
nently productive, though at that time consid- 
erably declined from their ancient prosperity. 
But since they are come into our hands — ! 
However, if we take the period of our estimate 
immediately before the utter desolation of the 
Carnatic, and if we allow for the havoc which 
our government had even then made in these re- 
gions, we can not, in my opinion, rate the popu- 
lation at much less than thirty millions of souls ;* 
more than four times the number of persons in 
the island of Great Britain. 

My next inquiry to that of the number is the 
quality and description of the inhabit- character of 
ants. This multitude of men does not ^''« i'^^p'^- 
consist of an abject and barbarous populace, much 
less of gangs of savages, like the Guaranies and 
Chiquitos, who wander on the waste borders of 
the River of Amazon or the Plate, but a people 
for ages civilized and cultivated ; cultivated by 
all the arts of polished life, while we were yet in 
the woods. There have been (and still the skele- 
tons remain) princes once of great dignity, author- 
ity, and opulence. There are to be found the chiefs 
of tribes and nations. There is to be found an 
ancient and venerable priesthood, the depository 
of their laws, learning, and history, the guides of 
the people while living, and their consolation in 
death ; a nobility of great antiquity and renown ; 
a multitude of cities not exceeded in population 
and trade by those of the first class in Europe ; 
merchants and bankers, individual houses of whom 
have once vied in capital with the Bank of Eng- 
land, whose credit had often supported a totter- 
ing state, and preserved their governments in the 
midst of war and desolation ; millions of inge- 
nious manufacturers and mechanics ; millions of 
the most diligent, and not the least inteliigent, 
tillers of the earth. Here are to be found almost 
all the religions professed by men ; the Bramin- 
ical, the Mussulmen, the Eastern and the West- 
ern Christians. 

If I were to take the whole aggregate of our 
possessions there, I should compare it, as the 
nearest parallel I can find, with the empire of 
Germany. Our immediate possessions I should 
compare with the Austrian dominions, and they 
would not suffer in the comparison. The Nabob 
of Oude might stand for the King of Prussia ; the 
Nabob of Arcot I would compare, as superior in 
territory and equal in revenue, to the Elector 

^ Now one hundred and fifty millions, great addi- 
tions having been made to the territory. 



316 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1783. 



of Saxony, Cheyte Sing, the Rajah of Benares, 
might well rank with the Prince of Hesse, at 
least ; and the Rajah of Tanjore (though hardly 
equal in extent of dominion, superior in revenue) 
to the Elector of Bavaria. The Polygars, and the 
northern Zemindars, and other great chiefs, might 
well class with the rest of the princes, dukes, 
counts, mai-quesses, and bishops in the empire, 
all of whom I mention to honor, and surely with- 
out disparagement to any or all of those most 
respectable princes and grandees.^ 

All this vast mass, composed of so many or- 
ders and classes of men, is again infinitely divers- 
ified by manners, by religion, by hereditary em- 
ployment, through all their possible combinations. 
This renders the handling of India a matter in a 
high degree critical and delicate. But oh ! it has 
been handled rudely indeed. Even some of the 
reformers seem to have forgot that they had any 
thing to do but to regulate the tenants of a manor, 
or the shop-keepers of the next county town. 

It is an empire of this extent, of this compli- 
cated nature, of this dignity and importance, that 
I have compared to Germany and the German 
government ; not for an exact resemblance, but 
as a sort of a middle term, by which India might 
be approximated to our undei'standings, and, if 
possible, to our feelings, in order to awaken 
something of sympathy for the unfortunate na- 
tives, of which I am afraid we are not perfectly 
susceptible while we look at this very remote ob- 
ject through a false and cloudy medium. 

(2.) IMy second condition, necessary to justify 
Greatness of Hie in touching the charter, is, whether 
the abuse. ^j^g Company's abuse of their trust, with 
regard to this great object, be an abuse of great 
atrocity. I shall beg your permission to consid- 
er their conduct in two lights : first, the political, 
and then the commei'cial. Their political conduct 
(for distinctness) I divide again into two heads : 
the external, in which I mean to comprehend 
their conduct in their federal capacity, as it re- 
lates to powers and states independent, or that 
not long since were such ; the other internal, 
namely, their conduct to the countries either im- 
mediately subject to the Company, or to those 
who, under the apparent government of native 
sovereigns, are in a state much lower, and much 
more miserable, than common subjection. 

The attention, sir, which I wish to preserve 
to method will not be considered as unnecessary 
or affected. ^° Nothing else can help me to selec- 



^ This attempt to illustrate the relation of the 
states of India, by comparing them with those of 
Germany, is highly characteristic of Mr. Burke, 
whose mind was ever full of correspondences; but 
there is something rather fanciful in it, especially 
when carried out to so great a length. Indeed, Mr. 
Burke himself seems to have felt that the compari- 
son might appear a little ludicrous, for he adds, with 
a slight sneer at the counts, marquesses, and bish- 
ops, " all of whom I mention to honor.'' 

1° This apology for the exactness of his method 
reminds us of the extraordinary care bestowed by 
Mr. Burke on the orderly arrangement of his ideas. 
He sometimes takes pains to conceal it, lest Ins 
speeches should seem too formal ; but every where 



tion, out of the infinite niass of materials which 
have passed under my eye, or can keep my mind 
steady to the great leading points I have in view. 

With regard, therefoi-e, to the abuse of the 
external federal trust, I engage m3-self to pouticai 
you to make good these three positions, at^u.es. 
First, I say, that from INIount Imaus (or what- 
ever else you call that large range of mountains 
that walls the northern frontier of India), where 
it touches us in the latitude of twenty-nine, to 
Cape Comorin, in the latitude of eight, there is 
not a single prince, state, or potentate, great or 
small, in India, with whom they have come into 
contact, whom they have not sold. I say sold.^ 
though sometimes they have not been able to 
deliver according to their bargain. Secondly, I 
say, that there is not a single treaty they have 
ever made which they have not broken. Third- 
ly, I say, that there is not a single prince or 
state, who ever put any trust in the Company, 
who is not utterly ruined ; and that none are in 
any degree secure or flourishing, but in the exact 
proportion to their settled distrust and irrecon- 
cilable enmity to this nation. 

These assertions are universal. I say, in the 
full sense, universal. They regard the external 
and political trust only ; but I shall produce others 
fully equivalent in the internal. For the present, 
I shall content myself with explaining my mean- 
ing ; and if I am called on for proof while these 
bills are depending (which I believe I shall not), 
I will put my finger on the appendices to the I'e- 
ports, or on papers of record in the House, or the 
committees, which I have distinctly present to 
my memory, and which I think I can lay before 
you at half an hom-'s warning. 

The first potentate sold by the Company for 
money was the Great Mogul, the de- saie of princes 
scendant of Tamerlane. This high *'«* ^^^'^e*- 
personage, as high as human veneration can look 
at, is, by every account, amiable in his manners, 
respectable for his piety according to his mode, 
and accomplished in all the Oriental literature. 

All this, and the title derived under his charter 
to all that we hold in India, could not save him 
from the general sale. Money is coined in his 
name ; in his name justice is administered ; he 
is prayed for in every temple through the coun- 
tries we possess — but he was sold ! 

It is impossible, Mr. Speaker, not to pause 
here for a moment, to reflect on the inconstancy 
of human greatness, and the stupendous revolu- 
tions that have happened in our age of wonders. 
Could it be believed, when I entered into exist- 
ence, or when you, a younger man, were born, 
that on this day, in this House, we should be cm- 
ployed in discussing the conduct of those British 
subjects who had disposed of the power and per- 
son of the Grand Mogul? This is no idle spec- 
ulation. Awful lessons are taught by it, and by 
other events, of which it is not yet too late to 
profit. , [Mr. Burke here goes on to state the 
terms on which the Great Mogul was bctraved 



we see traces of elaborate forecast in the disposition 
of his materials. 



1783.] 



EAST INDIA BILL OF MR. FOX. 



317 



into the hands of his chief minister Sujah Dow- 
lah, and adds :] The descendant of Tamerlane 
now stands in need ahnost of the common nec- 
essaries of life, and in this situation we do not al- 
low him, as bounty, the smallest portion of what 
we owe him in justice. 

The next sale was that of the whole nation of 
the Rohillas, which the grand salesman, without 
a pretense of quarrel, and contrary to his own 
declared sense of duty and rectitude, sold to the 
same Sujah ul Dowlah. Ho sold the people to 
utter extirpation for the sum of four hundred 
thousand pounds. Faithfully was the bargain 
performed on our side. Hafiz Rhamet, the most 
eminent of their chiefs, one of the bravest men 
of his time, and as famous throughout the East 
for the elegance of his literature, and the spirit of 
his poetical compositions (by which he supported 
the name of Hafiz), as for his courage, was in- 
vaded with an army of a hundred thousand men 
and an English brigade. This man, at the head 
of inferior forces, was slain, valiantly fighting for 
his country. His head was cut off", and deliv- 
ered, for money, to a barbarian. His wife and 
children, persons of that rank, were seen begging 
a handful of rice through the English camp. The 
whole nation, Mnth inconsiderable exceptions, was 
slaughtered or banished. The country was laid 
waste with fire and sword ; and that land, dis- 
tinguished above most others by the cheerful 
face of paternal government and protected la- 
bor, the chosen seat of cultivation and plenty, is 
now almost throughout a dreary desert, covered 
with rushes and briers, and jungles full of wild 
beasts. * * * * 

[Mr. Bm'ke next speaks of numerous other in- 
stances in which chiefs and countries had been 
sold by the Company's agents, and adds :] 

All these bargains and sales were regularly 
attended with the waste and havoc of the coun- 
try, always by the buyer, and sometimes by the 
object of the sale. This was explained to you 
by the honorable mover when he stated the 
mode of paying debts due from the country pow- 
ers to the Company. An honorable gentleman, 
who is not now in his place, objected to his jump- 
ing near two thousand miles for an example ; but 
the southern example is perfectly applicable to 
the northern claim, as the northern is to the 
southern ; for, throughout the whole space of 
these two thousand miles, take your stand where 
you will, the proceeding is perfectly uniform, 
and what is done in one part will apply exactly 
to the other. 

My second assertion is, that the Company 
Violation ncvcr has made a treaty which they 
oftreaties. j^g^yg jjoj- broken. This position is so 
connected with that of the sales of provinces and 
kingdoms, with the negotiation of universal dis- 
traction in every part of India, that a very mi- 
nute detail may well be spared on this point. 
[The details given by Mr. Burke under this 
head abundantly support his position, but are 
here omitted, as of no present interest to the 
reader.] 

My third assertion, relative to the abuse made 



of the right of war and peace, is, that ah who connd- 
there are none who have ever confid- ptj"ilave*be^n 
ed in us who have not been utterly ru- ruined. 
ined. There is proof more than enough in the 
condition of the Mogul ; in the slavery and indi- 
gence of the Nabob of Oude ; the exile of the Ra- 
jah of Benares ; the beggary of the Nabob of Ben- 
gal ; the undone and captive condition of the Ra- 
jah and kingdom of Tanjore; the destruction of 
the Polygars; and, lastly, in the destruction of 
the Nabob of Arcot himself, who, when his domin- 
ions were invaded, was found entirely destitute 
of troops, provisions, stores, and (as he asserts) 
money, being a million in debt to the Company, 
and four millions to others ; the many millions 
which he had extorted from so many extirpated 
princes and their desolated countries having, as 
he has frequently hinted, been expended for the 
ground-rent of his mansion-house in an alley in 
the suburbs of Madras. Compare the condition 
of all these princes with the power and authority 
of all the Mahratta states ; with the independence 
and dignity of the Soubah [Prince] of the Dec- 
can ; and the mighty strength, the resources, and 
the manly struggle of Hyder Ali ; and then the 
House will discover the effects, on every power 
in India, of an easy confidence, or of a rooted 
distrust in the faith of the Company. 

These are some of my reasons, grounded on 
the abuse of the external political trust of that 
bod}', for thinking myself not only justified, but 
bound to declare against those chartered rights 
which produce so many wrongs. I should deem 
myself the wickedest of men if any vote of mine 
could contribute to the continuance of so great 
an evil. 

Now, sir, according to the plan I proposed, I 
shall take notice of the Company's in- Abuse^inthe 
ternal government, as it is exercised internal gov. 

- , T \ . 1 eminent 

first on the dependent provmces, and 
then as it affects those under the direct and im- 
mediate authority of that body. And here, sir, 
before I enter into the spirit of their interior 
government, permit me to observe to you upon 
a few of the many lines of difference which are 
to be found between the vices of the Company's 
government, and those of the conquerors who 
preceded us in India, that we may be enabled a 
little the better to see our way in an attempt to 
the necessary reformation. 

The several irruptions of Arabs, Tartars, and 
Persians into India were, for the Eariy invaders 
greater part, ferocious, bloody, and iJ"^] wituThe 
wasteful in the extreme. ■^^ Our en- ^"s''*''- 
trance into the dominion of that country was, as 
generally, with small comparative eirusion of 
blood, being introduced by various frauds and 
delusions, and by taking advantage of the incu- 
rable, blind, and senseless animosity which the 
several country powers bear toward each other, 
rather than by open force. But the difllerence 
in favor of the first conquerors is this : the 

^' This comparisou is in Mr. Burke's finest style, 
exhibiting not only admirable powers of description, 
but of philosophical observation as to the sources of 
national prosperity. 



318 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1783. 



Asiatic conquerors very soon abated of their fe- 
rocity, because they made the conquered coun- 
try their own. They rose or fell with the rise 
or fall of the territory they lived in. Fathers 
there deposited the hopes of their posterity ; and 
children there beheld the monuments of their 
fathers. Here their lot was finally cast ; and it 
is the natural wish of all that their lot should 
not be cast in a bad land. Poverty, sterility, 
and desolation are not a recreating prospect to 
the eye of man ; and there are very few who 
can bear to grow old among the curses of a 
whole people. If their passion or their avarice 
drove the Tartar hordes to acts of rapacity or 
tyranny, there was time enough, even in the short 
life of man, to bring round the ill effects of an 
abuse of power upon the power itself. If hoards 
were made by violence and tyranny, they were 
still domestic hoards ; and domestic profusion, 
or the rapine of a more powerful and prodigal 
hand, restored them to the people. With many 
disorders, and with few political checks upon 
power, nature had still fair play, the sources of 
acquisition were not dried up ; and therefore the 
trade, the manufactures, and the commerce of 
the country flourished. Even avarice and usury 
itself operated, both for the preservation and the 
employment of national weath. The husband- 
man and manufacturer paid heavy interest, but 
then they augmented the fund from whence they 
were again to borrow. Their resources were 
dearly bought, but they were sure : and the gen- 
eral stock of the community grew by the gener- 
al effort. 

But, under the English government, all this 
order is reversed. The Tartar invasion was 
mischievous, but it is our protection that destroys 
India. It was their enmity, but it is our friend- 
ship. Our conquest there, after twenty years, 
is as crude as it was the first day. The natives 
scarcely know w^hat it is to see the gray head 
of an Englishman. Young men (boys almost) 
govern there, without society, and without sym- 
path}'^ with the natives. They have no more 
social habits with the people than if they still 
resided in England, nor, indeed, any species of 
intercourse but that which is necessary to mak- 
ing a sudden fortune, with a view to a remote 
settlement. Animated with all the avarice of 
age, and all the impetuosity of youth, they roll 
in one after another, wave after wave ; and there 
is nothing before the eyes of the natives but an 
endless, hopeless prospect of new flights of birds 
of prey and passage, with appetites continually 
renewing for a food that is continually wasting.'- 



12 There is here a mixture of incongruous images, 
which is not common with Mr. Burke. The English 
adventurers are in the same sentence waves of the 
sea, and yet birds of prey ! But, passing by this, 
we have at the close of the sentence a fault into 
which Mr. Burke does very often fall, that of running 
out his images into too many particulars. "New 
flights of birds of prey" was a striking metaphor 
to represent the successive arrivals of English ad- 
venturers. The extension of the idea to birds of 
"passage" was perhaps unfortunate, because it 



Every rupee of profit made by an Englishman is 
lost forever to India. With us are no retributo- 
ry superstitions, by which a foundation of charity 
compensates, through ages, to the poor, for the 
rapine and injustice of a day. With us, no pride 
erects stately monuments which repair the mis- 
chiefs which pride had produced, and which 
adorn a country out of its own spoils. England 
has erected no churches, no hospitals,^^ no pala- 
ces, no schools ; England has built no bridges, 
made no high-roads, cut no navigations, dug out 
no reservoirs. Every other conqueror of every 
other description has left some monument, either 
of state or beneficence, behind him. Were we 
to be driven out of India this day, nothing would 
remain to tell that it had been possessed, during 
the inglorious period of our dominion, by any 
thing better than the orang-outang or the tiger. 
There is nothing in the boys we send to India 
worse than the boys whom we are whipping at 
school, or that we see trailing a pike or bending 
over a desk at home. But as English youth in 
India drink the intoxicating draught of authority 
and dominion before their heads are able to bear 
it, and as they are full grown in fortune long be- 
fore they are ripe in principle, neither nature nor 
reason have any opportunity to exert themselves 
for remedy of the excesses of their premature 
power. The consequences of their conduct, 
which in good minds (and many of theirs are 
probably such) might produce penitence or 
amendment, are unable to pursue the rapidity 
of their flight. Their prey is lodged in En- 
gland ; and the cries of India are given to seas 
and winds, to be blown about, in every breaking 
up of the monsoon, over a remote and unhearing 
ocean. In India, all the vices operate by which 
sudden fortune is acquii-ed; in England are often 
displayed, by the same persons, the virtues which 
dispense hereditary wealth. Arrived in infi„pnce 
England, the destroyers of the nobility f>i. Kngiand. 
and gentry of a whole kingdom will find the 
best company of this nation at a board of ele- 
gance and hospitality. Here the manufacturer 
and husbandman will bless the just and punctual 
hand that in India has torn the cloth from the 
loom, or wrested the scanty portion of rice and 
salt from the peasant of Bengal, or wrung from 
him the very opium in which he forgot his op- 
pressions and his oppressor. They marry into 
your families ; they enter into your senate ; they 
ease your estates by loans ; they raise their value 



draws off the mind from the main object, to mark 
the difference between the two classes of birds. 
But Mr. Burke goes much farther. He introduces 
the image by speaking of " an endless, hopeless pros- 
pect'' of these flights; and then represents them as 
having "appelilcs" — these arc "continually rencv:- 
itiir" — the "food" of these "appetites" is next re- 
ferred to, and this food is then described as "con- 
tinually wasting.'' By these details, the mind is 
drawn off from the principal object to a mere pic- 
ture. Such images may dazzle, but they do not 
illustrate or enforce the leading thought, which is 
the appropriate object of figurative language. 

'^ The paltry foundation at Calcutta is scarcely 
worth naming as an exception. 



1783.] 



EAST INDIA BILL OF MR. FOX. 



319 



b}' demand ; they cherish and protect your rela- 
tions which lie heavy on your patronage ; and 
there is scarcely a house in the kingdom that 
does not feel some concern and interest that 
makes all reform of our Eastern government ap- 
pear officious and disgusting, and, on the whole, 
a most discouraging attempt. In such an at- 
tempt, you hurt those who are able to return 
kindness or to resent injury. If you succeed, 
you save those who can not so much as give you 
thanks. All these things show the difficulty of 
the work we have on hand, but they show its 
necessity too. Our Indian government is, in its 
best state, a grievance. It is necessary that the 
correctives should be uncommonly vigorous, and 
the work of men sanguine, warm, and even im- 
passioned in the cause. But it is an arduous 
thing to plead against abuses of a power which 
originates from your own country, and affects 
those whom we are used to consider as strangers. 

I shall certainly endeavor to modulate myself 
to this temper, though I am sensible that a cold 
style of desci'ibing actions which appear to me 
in a very affecting light, is equally contrary to 
the justice due to the people, and to all genuine 
human feelings about them. I ask pardon of 
truth and nature for this compliance ; but I 
shall be very sparing of epithets either to per- 
sons or things. It has been said (and, with re- 
gard to one of them, with truth) that Tacitus 
and Machiavel, by their cold way of relating 
enormous crimes, have in some sort appeared 
not to disapprove them : that they seem a sort 
uf professors of the art of tyranny, and that they 
corrupt the minds of their readers by not ex- 
pressing the detestation and horror that natu- 
rally belong to horrible and detestable proceed- 
ings. But we are in general, sir, so little ac- 
quainted with Indian details ; the instruments 
of oppression under which the people suffer are 
so hard to be understood : and even the very 
names of the sufferers are so uncouth and 
strange to our ears, that it is very difficult for 
our sympathy to fix upon these objects. I am 
sure that some of us have come down stairs 
from the committee-room with impressions on 
our minds which to us were the inevitable re- 
sults of our discoveries ; yet, if we should ven- 
ture to express ourselves in the proper language 
of our sentiments to other gentlemen not at all 
prepared to enter into the cause of them, noth- 
ing could appear more harsh and dissonant, more 
violent and unaccountable, than our language 
and behavior. All these circumstances ai'e not, 
I confess, very favorable to the idea of our at- 
tempting to govern India at all ; but there we 
are ; there we are placed by the Sovereign Dis- 
poser ; and we must do the best we can in our 
situation. The situation of man is the preceptor 
of his duty. | 

ITpon the plan which I laid down, and to which } 
I beg leave to return, I was considering the con- ] 
duct of the Company to those nations which are 
indirectly subject to their authority. [Mr. Burke ! 
here goes into very ample details of the injuries 
inflicted on states and monarchs connected with 1 



the East India Company. Some of these will 
come up again in his speech on the Nabob of 
Arcot's debts, and in ]\Ir. Sheridan's speech on 
the treatment of the Begums or Princesses of 
Oude. Having made out his case by the enu- 
meration of these atrocities, he proceeds to his 
conclusion as follows :] 

As the Company has made this use of their 
trust, I should ill discharge mine if I refused to 
give my most cheerful vote for the redress of 
these abuses, by putting the affairs of so large 
and valuable a part of the intei'ests of this na- 
tion, and of mankind, into some steady hands, 
possessing the confidence and assured of the 
support of this House, until they can be restored 
to regularity, order, and consistency. 

I have touched the heads of some of the griev- 
ances of the people and the abuses of govern- 
ment, but I hope and trust you will give me 
credit when I faithfully assure you that I have 
not mentioned one fourth part of what has come 
to my knowledge in your committee ; and, far- 
ther, I have full reason to believe that not one 
fourth part of the abuses are come to my knowl- 
edge, by that or by any other means. Pray 
consider what I have said only as an index to 
direct you in your inquiries. 

If this, then, sir, has been the use made of the 
trust of political powers, internal and commercial 
external, given by you in the charter, oAire^cw' 
the next thing to be seen is the con- p^''^'- 
duct of the Company with regard to the com- 
mercial trust. And here I will make a fair 
offer : If it can be proved that they have acted 
wisely, prudently, and frugally, as merchants, I 
shall pass by the whole mass of their enormities 
as statesmen. That they have not done this, 
their present condition is proof sufficient. Their 
distresses are said to be owing to their wars. 
This is not wholly true ; but if it were, is not 
that readiness to engage in war which distin- 
guishes them, and for which the Committee of 
Secrecy has so branded their politics, founded on 
the falsest principles of mercantile speculation? 

The principle of buying cheap and selling dear 
is the first, the great foundation of mer- ^ 

•1 1 ,• ij TT 1 Tests of good 

cantile dealing.^"* Have they ever at- mercantile 
tended to this principle ? Nay, for ""^"^s*""®" ■ 
years have they not actually authorized in their 
servants a total indifference as to the prices they 
were to pay ? 

A great deal of strictness in driving bargains 
for whatever we contract is another of the prin- 
ciples of mercantile policy. Try the Company 
by that test ! Look at the contracts that are 

^* There is great ingenuity in throwing the argu- 
ment to show the commercial incompetency and 
mismanagement of the Company into this form. 
The idea of tests was calculated to arrest attention. 
Those selected commend themselves to the good 
sense of all, as indispensable requisites in a good 
merchant. Curiosity is excited as Mr. Burke, in 
stating each test, goes on to apply it to the conduct 
of the Company. The inference is irresistible, theT/ 
are not Jit to he intrusted with such vast commercial 
interests. 



320 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1783. 



made for them. Is the Company so much as a 
good commissary for their own armies? I en- 
gage to select for you, out of the innumerable 
mass of their dealings, all conducted veiy nearly 
alike, one contract only, the excessive profits on 
which, during a short term, would pay the whole 
of their year's dividend. I shall undertake to 
show that, upon two others, the inordinate prof- 
its given, with the losses incurred in order to 
secure those profits, would pay a year's divi- 
dend more. 

It is a third property of trading men to see 
that the clerks do not divert the dealings of the 
master to their own benefit. It was the other 
day, only, when their governor and council taxed 
the Company's investment with a sum of fifty 
thousand pounds, as an inducement to persuade 
only seven members of their Board of Trade to 
give their honor that they would abstain from 
such profits upon that investment as must have 
violated their oaths if they had made at all ! 

It is a fourth quality of a mei'chant to be ex- 
act in his accounts. What will be thought when 
you have fully before you the mode of accounting 
made use of in the treasury of Bengal ? I hope 
you will have it soon. With regard to one of 
their agencies, when it came to the material 
part, the prime cost of the goods on which a 
commission of fifteen per cent, was allowed, to 
the astonishment of the factory to whom the 
commodities were sent, the accountant general 
reports that he did not think himself authorized 
to call for vouchers relative to this and other 
particulars, because the agent was upon his 
honor with regard to them ! A new principle 
of account upon honor seems to be regularly 
established in their dealings and their treasury, 
which in reality amounts to an entire annihila- 
tion of the principle of all accounts. 

It is a fifth property of a merchant who does 
not meditate a fraudulent bankruptcy to calcu- 
late his probable profits upon the money he takes 
up to vest in business. Did the Company, when 
they bought goods on bonds bearing eight per 
cent, interest, at ten and even twenty per cent, 
discount, even ask themselves a question con- 
cerning the possibility of advantage from deal- 
ing on these terms ? 

The last quality of a merchant I shall advert 
to is the taking care to be properly prepared, in 
cash or goods, in the ordinary course of sale, for 
the bills which are drawn on them. Now I ask 
whether they have ever calculated the clear 
produce of any given sales, to make them tally 
with the four millions of bills which are come 
and coming upon them, so as at the proper peri- 
ods to enable the one to liquidate the other ? 
No, they have not. They are now obliged to 
borrow money of their own servants to purchase 
their investment. The servants stipulate five 
per cent, on the capital they advance if their 
bills should UQt be paid at the time when they 
become due ; and the value of the rupee on 
which they charge this interest is taken at two 
shillings and a penny. Has the Company ever 
troubled themselves to inquire whether their j 



sales can bear the payment of that interest, and 
at that rate of exchange ? Have they once con- 
sidered the dilemma in which they are placed — 
the ruin of their credit in the East Indies if they 
refuse the bills — the ruin of their credit and ex- 
istence in England if they accept them ? In- 
deed, no trace of equitable government is found 
in their politics ; not one trace of commercial 
principle in their mercantile dealing ; and hence 
is the deepest and maturest wisdom of Parlia- 
ment demanded, and the best resources of this 
kingdom must be strained to restore them : that 
is, to restore the countries destroyed by the mis- 
conduct of the Company, and to restore the Com- 
pany itself, ruined by the consequences of their 
plans for destroying w^hat they were bound to 
preserve. 

(3.) I required, if you remember, at my out- 
set, a proof that these abuses were ha- jhe abuses 
bitual ; but surely this is not necessary ''^bituai, 
for me to consider as a separate head, because 
I trust I have made it evident beyond a doubt, 
in considering the abuses themselves, that they 
are regular, permanent, and systematical. 

(4.) I now come to my last condition, without 
which, for one, I will never readily lend And incu- 
my hand to the destruction of any estab- '■^'^'®- 
lished government, w^hich is, that in its present 
state the government of the East India Com- 
pany is absolutely incorrigible. 

Of this great truth I think there can be little 
doubt, after all that has appeared in this House. 
It is so very clear, that I must consider the leav- 
ing any power in their hands, and the determined 
resolution to continue and countenance every 
mode and every degree of peculation, oppression, 
and tyranny, to be one and the same thing. I 
look upon that body incorrigible, from the tullest 
consideration both of their uniform conduct, ana 
their present real and virtual constitution. 

If they had not constantly been apprised of all 
the enormities committed in India under Tiie abuses 
their authority ; if this state of things tSt "r 
had been as much a discovery to them dressed. 
as it was to many of us, we might flatter our- 
selves that the detection of the abuses would lead 
to their reformation. I will go farther : if the 
court of directors had not uniformly condemned 
every act which this House or any of its commit- 
tees had condemned ; if the language in which 
they expressed their disapprobation against enor- 
mities and their authors had not been much more 
vehement and indignant than any ever used in 
this House, I should entertain some hopes. If 
they had not, on the other hand, as uniformly 
commended all their servants who had done their 
duty and obeyed their orders, as they had heavily 
censured those who rebelled, I might say these 
people have been in error, and when they are 
sensible of it they will mend. But when I reflect 
on the uniformity of their support to the objects 
of their uniform censure, and the state of insig- 
nificance and disgrace to which all of those have 
been reduced whom they approved, and that even 
utter ruin and premature death have been among 
the fruits of their favor, I must be convinced that. 



1783,] 



EAST INDIA BILL OF MR. FOX. 



321 



in this case as in all others, h3'pocrisy is the only 
vice that never can be cured. 

Attend, I pray you, to the situation and pros- 
perity of Benfield,'"'' Hastin<Ts, and others of that 
sort. The last of these had been treated by the 
Company with an asperity of reprehension that 
has no parallel. They lament " that the pow- 
er of disposing of their property for perpetuity 
should fall into such hands." Yet for fourteen 
years, with little interruption, he has governed 
all their affairs, of every description, with an ab- 
solute sway. He has had himself the means of 
heaping up immense wealth ; and during that 
whole period, the fortunes of hundreds have de- 
pended on his smiles and frowns. He himself 
tells you he is encumbered with two hundred and 
fifty young gentlemen, some of them of the best 
families in England, all of whom aim at return- 
ing with vast fortunes to Europe in the prime of 
life. He has, then, two hundred and fifty of your 
children as his hostages for )'^our good behavior ;^^ 
and loaded for years, as he has been, with the 
execrations of the natives, with the censures of 
the court of Directors, and struck and blasted 
with the resolutions of this House, he still main- 
tains the most despotic power ever known in 
India. He domineers with an overbearing sway 
in the assemblies of his pretended masters ; and 
it is thought in a degree rash to venture to name 
his offenses in this House, even as grounds of a 
legislative remedy. 

On the other hand, consider the fate of those 
who have met with the applauses of the Direct- 
ors. Colonel Monson, one of the best of men, 
had his days shortened by the applauses, desti- 
tute of the support of the Company. General 
Clavering, whose panegyric was made in every 
dispatch from England, whose hearse was be- 
dewed with the tears and hung round with the 
eulogies of the court of Directors, burst an honest 
and indignant heart at the treachery of those 
who ruined him by their praises. Uncommon 
patience and temper supported Mr. Francis a 
while longer under the baneful influence of the 
commendation of the court of Directors. His 
health, however, gave way at length, and in 
utter despair he returned to Europe. At his re- 
turn the doors of the India House were shut to 
this man, who had been the object of their con- 
stant admiration. He has indeed escaped with 
life, but he has forfeited all expectation of credit, 
consequence, party, and following. He may well 



15 The reader will enter fully into the character 
of Paul Benfield when he comes to the speech on 
the Nabob of Arcot's debts. He was originally a 
servant of the Company in a low situation, with an 
income of only a few hundred pounds a year. He 
afterward became a banker at Madras, and so in- 
gratiated himself with the Nabob of Arcot as to ob- 
tain at last the complete control of his actions, and 
to run up pretended debts against him to the amount 
of millions. 

^^ Mr. Burke here refers to the writers in the 
East India Company, who belonged generally to 
6ome of the best families in England, and who were 
wholly dependent on the governor general. 

X 



say, " Me nemo rainistro fur erit, atque ideo nulli 
comes exeo."^^ This man, whose deep reach of 
thought, whose large legislative conceptions, and 
whose grand plans of policy make the most shin- 
ing part of our reports, from whence we have 
all learned our lessons, if we have learned any 
good ones ; this man, from whose materials those 
gentlemen who have least acknowledged it have 
yet spoken as from a brief; this man, driven 
from his employment, discountenanced by the 
Directors, has had no other reward and no other 
distinction but that inward "sunshine of the 
soul" which a good conscience can always be- 
stow upon itself. He has not yet had so much 
as a good word, but from a person too insignifi- 
cant to make any other return for the means with 
which he has been furnished for performing his 
share of a duty which is equally urgent on us all.^^ 

Add to this, that from the highest in place to 
the lowest, every British subject who, in obedi- 
ence to the Company's orders, has been active 
in the discovery of peculations, has been ruined. 
They have been driven from India. When they 
made their appearance at home, they were not 
heard ; when they attempted to return, they were 
stopped. No artifice of fraud, no violence of 
power, has been omitted to destroy them in char- 
acter as well as in fortune. 

Worse, far worse, has been the fate of the 
poor creatures, the natives of India, whom the 
hypocrisy of the Company has betrayed into com- 
plaint of oppression and discovery of peculation. 
The first women in Bengal, the Ranny [Princess] 
of Rajeshahi, the Ranny of Burdwan, the Ranny 
of Amboa, by their weak and thoughtless trust 
in the Company's honor and protection, are ut- 
terly ruined. The first of these women, a per- 
son of princely rank and once of correspondent 
fortune, who paid above two hundred thousand a 
year quit-rent to the state, is, according to very 
credible information, so completely beggared as 
to stand in need of the relief of alms. Ma- 
homed Reza Khan, the second Mussulman in 
Bengal, for having been distinguished by the ill- 
omened honor of the countenance and protection 
of the court of Directors, was, without the pre- 
tense of any inquiry whatsoever into his con- 
duct, stripped of all his employments, and re- 
duced to the lowest condition. His ancient rival 
for power, the Rajah Nuncomar, was, by an in- 
sult on every thing which India holds respect- 
able and sacred, hanged in the face of all his na- 
tion by the judges you sent to protect that peo- 
ple ; hanged for a pretended crime, upon an ex 
post facto British act of Parliament, in the midst 
of his evidence against Mr. Hastings. The ac- 
cuser they saw Jianged. The culprit, without 
acquittal or inquiry, triumphs on the ground of 
that murder — a murder not of Nuncomar only, 



1'' No one shall plunder through my instrument- 
alitj-, and therefore I go out as the companion of no 
one. 

1^ Did Mr. Burke, when he delivered this glowing 
eulogy on Sir Philip Francis, suspect that he was 
the man on whom he had previously bestowed bis 
praises under the name o^ Junius 1 



322 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1783. 



but of all living testimony, and even of evidence 
yet unborn. From that time not a complaint has 
been heard from the natives against their gov- 
ernors. All the grievances of India have found 
a complete remedy. ^^ 

Men will not look to acts of Parliament, to 
regulations, to declarations, to votes, and resolu- 
tions. No, they are not such fools. They will ask, 
What is the road to power, credit, wealth, and 
honors? They will ask. What conduct ends in 
neglect, disgrace, poverty, exile, prison, and the 
gibbet ? These will teach them the course which 
they are to follow. It is your distribution of these 
that will give the character and tone to your 
government. All the rest is miserable grimace. 

When I accuse the court of Directors of this 
A part of the habitual treachery in the use of re- 
Mncern^nn*^ Ward and punishment, I do not mean 
these abuses, to include all the individuals in that 
court. There have been, sir, very frequently, 
men of the greatest integrity and virtue among 
them, and the contrariety in the declarations and 
conduct of that court has arisen, I take it, from 
this : that the honest Directors have, by the force 
of matter of fact on the records, carried the rep- 
robation of the evil measures of the servants in 
India. This could not be prevented while these 
records stared them in the face ; nor were the 
delinquents, either here or there, very solicitous 
about their reputation, as long as they were able 
to secure their power. The agreement of their 
partisans to censure them, blunted for a while 
the edge of a severe proceeding. It obtained 
for them a character of impartiality, which en- 
abled them to recommend, with some sort of 
grace, what will always carry a plausible ap- 
pearance, those treacherous expedients called 
raodex-ate measures. While these were under 
discussion, new matter of complaint came over, 
which seemed to antiquate the first. The same 
circle was here trod round once more ; and thus, 
through years, they proceeded in a compromise 
of censure for punishment, until, by shame and 
despair, one after another, almost every man 
who preferred his duty to the Compan}^ to the 



" The case was this. Nuncomar was a Hindoo 
of the highest rank, who accused Mr. Hastings to the 
council at Calcutta (falsely, it is now believed) of 
putting up offices for sale, and receiving bribes. 
"While the matter was in progress, Nuncomar was 
himself arrested on a charge of having forged a bond 
five years before; and though his accuser was a 
native, no one doubts that Mr. Hastings caused the 
accusation to be made. Forgery is a very common 
offense among the Hindoos, and was punished but 
slightly by their laws. But Mr. Hastings had Nun- 
comar prosecuted in an Engluh court at Calcutta, 
and thus made him amenable to English laws, under 
which the crime is punished with death. Nunco- 
mar was condemned and actually executed in the 
face of the whole native population of Calcutta, who 
looked on with astonishment and horror. Never 
was there a more flagrant act of injustice. The En- 
glish law respecting forgery was not made with ref- 
erence to the natives of India; they knew nothing 
of it; and the whole proceeding was little, if at all, 
short of deliberate murder under the forms of law. 



interest of their servants, has been driven from 
that court. 

This, sir, has been their conduct ; and it has 
been the result of the alteration which 

., , , . , . . Change in the 

was msensibly made m then- constitu- consnuition of 
tion. The change was made insen- ^''^ Company 
sibly, but it is now strong and adult, and as pub- 
lic and declared as it is fixed beyond all power 
of reformation ; so that there is none who hears 
me that is not as certain as I am that the Com- 
{)an3', in the sense in which it was formerly un- 
derstood, has no existence. The question is not, 
what injury you may do to the proprietors of 
India stock, for there are no such men to be 
injured. If the active, ruling part of the Com- 
pany, who form the general court, who fill the 
offices, and direct the measures (the rest tell for 
nothing), were persons who held their stock as a 
means of their subsistence ; who, in the part they 
took, were only concerned in the government of 
India for the rise or fall of their dividend, it would 
be indeed a defective plan of policy. The inter- 
est of the people who are governed b}^ them would 
not be their primary object — perhaps a very small 
part of their consideration at all ; but then they 
might well be depended on, and perhaps more 
than persons in other respects preferable, for pre- 
venting the peculations of their servants to their 
own prejudice. Such a body would not easily 
have left their trade as a spoil to the avarice of 
those who received their wages. But now" things 
are totally reversed. The stock is of no value, 
whether it be the qualification of a Director or 
Proprietor; and it is impossible that it should. 
A Director's qualification may be worth about 
two thousand five hundred pounds, and the in- 
terest, at eight per cent., is about one hundred 
and sixty pounds a year. Of what value is that, 
whether it rise to ten, or fall to six, or to nothing, 
to him whose son, before he is in Bengal two 
months, and before he descends the steps of the 
council chamber, sells the grant of a single con- 
tract for forty thousand pounds ? Accordingly, 
the stock is bought up in qualifications. The 
vote is not to protect the stock, but the stock is 
bought to acquire the vote ; and the end of the 
vote is to cover and support, against justice, 
some man of power who has made an obnoxious 
fortune in India, or to maintain in power those 
who are actually employing it in the acquisition 
of such a fortune, and to avail themselves in re- 
turn of his patronage, that he may shower the 
spoils of the East, "barbaric pearl and gold,"-*^ 
on them, their families, and dependents ; so that 
all the relations of the Company are not only 
changed, but inverted. The servants in India 
arc not appointed by the Directors, but the Di- 
rectors are chosen by them. The trade is car- 
ried on with their capitals. To them the rev- 
enues of the country are mortgaged. The seat of 
the supi'eme power is in Calcutta. The house in 
Leadenhall Street is nothing more than a 'change 
for their agents, factors, and deputies to meet in, 
20 "Or where the gorgeous East with richest baud, 
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold." 
Milton's Par. Lost, ii., 4. 



1783.] 



EAST INDIA BILL OF MR. FOX. 



23 



to take care of their affairs and support their in- 
terests ; and this so avowedly, that we see the 
known agents of the delinquent servants mar- 
shaling and disciplining their forces, and the 
prime spokesmen in all their assemblies. 

Every thing has followed in this order, and ac- 
^ , ^ cording to the natural train of events. 

Farts confirm- y .,, *, , t i i 

ins iiiese state- 1 Will closc what 1 havc to Say On the 
incorrigible condition of the Company 
by stating to you a few facts that will leave no 
doubt of the obstinacy of that corporation, and of 
their strength too, in resisting the reformation of 
their servants. By these facts you will be ena- 
bled to discover the sole grounds upon which 
they are tenacious of their charter. It is now 
more than two years that, upon account of the 
gross abuses and ruinous situation of the Com- 
pany's affairs (which occasioned the cry of the 
whole world long before it was taken up here), 
that we instituted two committees to inquire 
into the mismanagements by which the Com- 
pany's affairs had been brought to the brink of 
ruin. These inquiries had been pursued with 
unremitting diligence; and a great body of facts 
was collected and printed for general informa- 
tion. In the result of those inquiries, although 
the committees consisted of very different de- 
scriptions, they were unanimous. They joined 
in censuring the conduct of the Indian adminis- 
tration, and enforcing the responsibility upon two 
men,2^ whom this House, in consequence of these 
reports, declared it to be the duty of the Direct- 
ors to remove from their stations, and recall to 
Great Britain, " because they had acted in a man- 
ner repugnant to the honor and policy of this na- 
tion^ and thereby brought great calamities on In- 
dia, and enormous expenses on the East India 
Company.''' 

Here was no attempt on the charter. Here 
The Company ^^^^ "^ question of thcir privileges. 

forbade llie Di- To viudicatC their own honor, to sup- 
rectors to carry . . 5 r 

out tue resoiu- port their own interests, to enforce 
obedience to their own orders — these 
were the sole object of the monitory resolution 
of this House. But as soon as the General Court 
could assemble, they assembled to demonstrate 
\vho they really were. Regardless of the pro- 
ceedings of this House, they ordered the Direct- 
ors not to carry into efTect any resolution they 
might come to for the removal of Mr. Hastings 
and Mr. Hornby. The Directors, still retaining 
some shadow of respect to this House, instituted 
an inquiry themselves, which lasted from June 
to October ; and, after an attentive perusal and 
full consideration of papers, resolved to take 
steps for removing the persons who had been 
the objects of our resolution, but not without a 
violent struggle against evidence. Seven Di- 
rectors went so far as to enter a protest against 
the vote of their court. Upon this the General 
Court takes the alarm ; it reassembles ; it orders 
the Directors to rescind their resolution, that is, 
not to recall Mr. Hastings and Mr. Hornby, and 



'^''- Mr. Hastings, the Governor General, and Mr. 
Hornby, President of Bombay. 



to despi.se the resolution of the House of Com- 
mons. Without so much as the pretense of 
looking into a single paper, without the formal- 
ity of inquiry, they superseded all the labors of 
their own Directors and of this House. 

It will naturally occur to ask how it was pos- 
sible that they should not attempt some sort of 
examination into facts as a color for their resist- 
ance to a public authority, proceeding so very 
deliberately, and exerted, apparently at least, in 
favor of their own. The answer, and the only 
answer which can be given, is, that they were 
afraid that their true relations should be mistak- 
en. They were afraid that their patrons and 
masters in India should attribute their support 
of them to an opinion of their cause, and not to an 
attachment to their power. They were afraid it 
should be su.spected that they did not mean blind- 
ly to support them in the use they made of that 
power. They determined to show that they, at 
least, were set against reformation ; that they 
were firmly resolved to bring the territories, the 
trade, and the stock of the Company to ruin, 
rather than be wanting in fidelity to their nom- 
inal servants and real masters in the ways they 
took to their private fortunes. 

Even since the beginning of this session, the 
same act of audacity was repeated, with the 
same circumstances of contempt of all the deco- 
rum of inquiry on their part, and of all the pro- 
ceedings of this House. They again made it a 
request to their favorite [Mr. Hastings] and your 
culprit to keep his post, and thanked and applaud- 
ed him, without calling for a paper which could 
afford light into the merit or demerit of the trans- 
action, and without giving themselves a moment's 
time to consider, or even to understand, the arti- 
cles of the Mahratta peace. The fact is, that 
for a long time there was a struggle, a faint one 
indeed, between the Company and their servants ; 
but it is a struggle no longer. For some time 
the superiority has been decided. The interests 
abroad are become the settled preponderating 
weight both in the court of Proprietors and the 
court of Directors. Even the attempt you have 
made to inquire into their practices and to re- 
form abuses has raised and piqued them to a far 
more regular and steady support. The Com- 
pany has made a common cause and identified 
themselves with the destroyers of India. They 
have taken on themselves all that mass of enor- 
mity ; they are supporting w^hat you have repro- 
bated ; those you condemn they applaud ; those 
you order home to answer for their conduct, they 
request to stay, and thereby encourage to pro- 
ceed in their practices. Thus the servants of 
the East India Company triumph, and the repre- 
sentatives of the people of Great Britain are de- 
feated. 

I therefore conclude, what you all conclude, 
that this body, being totally perverted from the 
purposes of its institution, is utterly incorrigible ; 
and because they are incorrigible, both in con- 
duct and constitution, power ought to be taken 
out of their hands, just on the same principles 
on which have been made all the just changes 



324 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1783. 



and revolutions of government that have taken 
plaee since the beginning of the world. 

I will now say a few words to the general 
„ , principle of the plan which is set up 

Scheme op- r _ i i • , . 11 

posed to Mr. ajjainst that of my rifjht honorable 

Fox's bU!. r.° J T. • X "•* *1 

friend. It is to re-commit the govern- 
ment of India to the court of Directors. Those 
who would commit the reformation of India to 
the destroyers of it, are the enemies to that ref- 
ormation. They would make a distinction be- 
tween Directors and Proprietors, which, in the 
present state of things, does not, can not exist. 
But a I'ight honorable gentleman says he would 
keep the present government of India in the 
court of Directors, and w^ould, to curb them, 
provide salutary regulations. Wonderful! That 
is, he w^ould appoint the old offenders to correct 
the old offenses, and he would render the vicious 
and the foolish wnse and virtuous by salutary 
regulations! He would appoint the wolf as 
guardian of the sheep; but he has invented a 
curious muzzle, by which this protecting wolf 
shall not be able to open his jaws above an inch 
or two at the utmost. Thus his work is finish- 
ed. But I tell the right honorable gentleman 
that controlled depravity is not innocence, and 
that it is not the labor of delinquency in chains 
that will correct abuses. Will these gentlemen 
of the direction animadvert on the partners of 
their own guilt? Never did a serious plan of 
amending of any old tyrannical establishment 
propose the authors and abettors of the abuses 
as the reformers of them. If the undone people 
of India see their old oppressors in confirmed 
povrer, even by the reformation, they will expect 
nothing but what they will certainly feel — a con- 
tinuance, or rather an aggravation, of all their 
former sufferings. They look to the seat of 
power, and to the persons who fill it ; and they 
despise those gentlemen's regulations as much 
as the gentlemen do who talk of them. 

But there is a cure for every thing. Take 
away, say they, the court of Proprietors, and the 
court of Directors w^ill do their duty. Yes, as 
they have done it hitherto ! That the evils in 
India have solely arisen from the court of Pro- 
prietors, is grossly false. In many of them, the 
Directors were heartily concurring ; in most of 
them, they were encouraging, and sometimes 
commanding ; in all, they were conniving. 

But who are to choose this well-regulated 
and reforming court of Directors? Why, the 
very proprietoi-s who are excluded from all man- 
agement for the abuse of their power. They 
will choose, undoubtedly, out of themselves, men 
like themselves ; and those who are most for- 
ward in resisting your authority, those who are 
rao-st' engaged in faction or interest with the de- 
linquents abroad, will be the objects of their 
selection. But gentlemen say that when this 
choice is made the Proprietors are not to inter- 
fere in the measures of the Directors, while 
those Directors are busy in the control of their 
common patrons and masters in India. No, in- 
deed, I believe they will not desire to interfere. 
They will choose those whom they know may 



be trusted, safely trusted, to act in strict con- 
formity to their common principles, manners, 
measures, interests, and connections. They will 
want neither monitor nor control. It is not easy 
to choose men to act in conformity to a public 
interest against their private, but a sure depend- 
ence may be had on those who ai'e chosen to 
forward their private interest at the expense of 
the public. But if the Directors should slip, and 
deviate into rectitude, the punishment is in the 
hands of the General Court, and it wall surely 
be remembered to them at their next election. 

If the government of India wants no reforma- 
tion, but gentlemen are amusing themselves with 
a theory, conceiving a more democratic or aris- 
tocratic mode of government for these depend- 
encies, or if they are in a dispute only about pat- 
ronage, the dispute is with me of so little con- 
cern, that I should not take the pains to utter an 
affirmative or negative to any proposition in it. 
If it be only for a theoretical amusement that 
they are to propose a bill, the thing is at best 
frivolous and unnecessary. But if the Compa- 
ny's government is not only full of abuse, but is 
one of the most corrupt and destructive tyran- 
nies that probably ever existed in the w^orld (as 
I am sure it is), w^hat a cruel mockery would it 
be in me, ana in those who think like me, to pro- 
pose this kind of remedy for this kind of evil ! 

II. I now come to the second objection : That 
this bill will increase the influence of tne second 
Crown. An honorable gentleman has o'^J^ction. 
demanded of me whether I was in earnest when 
I proposed to this House a plan for the reduction 
of that influence.^^ Indeed, sir, I was much, 
very much in earnest. My heart was deeply 
concerned in it, and I hope the public has not 
lost the effect of it. How far my judgment was 
right for what concerned personal favor and 
consequence to m3'self, I shall not presume to 
determine, nor is its effect iipon me of any mo- 
ment. But as to this bill, whether it increases 
the influence of the Crown or not, is a question 
I should be ashamed to ask. If I am not able 
to correct a system of oppression and tyranny, 
that goes to the utter ruin of thirty millions of 
my fellow-creatures and fellow-subjects, but by 
some increase to the influence of the Crown, I 
am ready here to declare that I, w^ho have been 
active to reduce it, shall be at least as active 
and strenuous to restore it again. I am no lover 
of names ; I contend for the substance of good 
and protecting government, let it come from 
what quarter it will. 

But I am not obliged to have recourse to this 
expedient. Much, very much the con- j^^ gvidenca 
trarv. I am sure that the influence of f'.at the bni 

1 "r^ -111 ■ 1 £■ ^'" '""ease 

the Crown wul b}'^ no means aid a ret- the influence 

~ ^, . , • 1 , . 1 . of the Crown. 

ormation of this kind, which can nei- 
ther be originated nor supported but by the un- 
corrupt public virtue of the representatives of 
the people of England. Let it once get into the 
ordinary course of administration, and to me all 

22 Refen-ing to Mr. Burke's plan of economical 
reform. 



1783.] 



EAST INDIA BILL OF MR. FOX. 



325 



hopes of reformation are gone. I am far from 
knowing or believing that this bill will increase 
the influence of the Crown. Vv''e all know that 
the Crown has ever had some influence in the 
court of Directors, and that it has been extreme- 
ly increased by the acts of 1773 and 1780. The 
gentlemen (Mr. Dundas, &c.) who, as part of 
their reformation, propose " a more active con- 
trol on the part of the Crown," which is to put 
the Directors under a Secretary of State spe- 
cially named for that purpose, must know that 
their project will increase it farther. But that 
old influence has had, and the new will have, 
incurable inconveniences, which can not happen 
under the parliamentary establishment proposed 
in this bill. An honorable gentleman (Governor 
Johnstone) not now in his place, but who is well 
acquainted with the India Company, and by no 
means a friend to this bill, has told you that a 
ministerial influence has always been predomi- 
nant in that body ; and that to make the Direct- 
ors pliant to their purposes, ministers generally 
caused persons meanlj' qualified to be chosen 
Directors. According to his idea, to secure sub- 
serviency they submitted the Company's affairs 
to the direction of incapacity. This was to ruin 
the Company in order to govern it. This was 
certainly influence in the very worst form in 
which it could appear. At best it was clandes- 
tine and irresponsible. Whether this was done 
so much upon system as that gentleman suppos- 
es, I greatly doubt. But such, in elFect, the op- 
eration of government on that court unquestion- 
ably was, and such, under a similar constitu- 
tion, it will be forever. Ministers must be whol- 
ly removed from the management of the affairs 
of India, or they will have an influence in its pat- 
ronage. The thing is inevitable. Their scheme 
of a new Secretary of State, "with a more vig- 
orous control," is not much better than a repeti- 
tion of the measure w^hich wc know by experi- 
ence will not do. Since the year 1773 and the 
year 1780, the Company has been under the 
control of the Secretary of State's office, and we 
had then three Secretaries of State. If more 
than this is done, then they annihilate the direc- 
tion which they pretend to support, and they 
augment the influence of the Crown, of whose 
growth they afl^ect so great a horror. But, in 
truth, this scheme of reconciling a direction real- 
ly and truly deliberative, with an office really 
and substantially controlling, is a sort of machin- 
ery that can be kept in order but a very short 
time. Either the Directors will dwindle into 
clerks, or the Secretary of State, as hitherto has 
been the course, will leave every thing to them, 
often through design, often through neglect. If 
both should affect activity, collision, procrastina- 
tion, delay, and, in the end, utter confusion, must 
ensue. / 

But, sir, there is one kind of influence far 
A worse kind grcatcr than that of the nomination to 
of influence, q^^qq^ This. gentlemen in opposition 
have totally overlooked, although it now exists 
in its full vigor ; and it will do so, upon their 
scheme, in at least as nmch force as it does now. 



That influence this bill cuts up by the roots ; I 
mean the injtuencc of protection. I shall explain 
myself: The office given to a young man going 
to India is of trifling consequence ; but he that 
goes out an insignificant boy, in a few years re- 
turns a great nabob. Mr. Hastings says he has 
two hundred and fifty of that kind of raw mate- 
rials, who expect to be speedily manufactured 
into the merchantable quality I mention. One 
of these gentlemen, suppose, returns hither, load- 
ed with odium and with riches. When he comes 
to England, he comes as to a prison or as to a 
sanctuary, and either is ready for him, according 
to his demeanor. What is the influence in the 
grant of any place in India, to that which is ac- 
quired by the protection or compromise with such 
guilt, and with the command of such riches, un- 
der the dominion of the hopes and fears which 
power is able to hold out to every man in that 
condition? That man's whole fortune — half a 
million, perhaps — becomes an instrument of influ- 
ence, without a shilling of charge to the civil 
list ; and the influx of fortunes which stand in 
need of this protection is continual. It w^orks 
both ways ; it influences the delinquent, and it 
may corrupt the minister. Compare the influ- 
ence acquired by appointing, for instance, even 
a Governor' General, and that obtained by pro- 
tecting him. I shall push this no farther ; but 
I wish gentlemen to roll it a little in their own 
minds. 

The bill before you cuts ofl^ this source of in- 
fluence. Its design and main scope is to regu- 
late the administration of India upon the princi- 
ples of a court of judicature, and to exclude, as 
far as human prudence can exclude, all possi- 
bility of a corrupt partiality, in appointing to 
office, or supporting in office, or covering from 
inquiry and punishment, any person who has 
abused or shall abuse his authority. At the 
board, as appointed and regulated by this bill, 
reward and punishment can not be shifted and 
reversed by a whisper. That commission be- 
comes fatal to cabal, to intrigue, and to secret 
representation, those instruments of the ruin of 
India. He that cuts off the means of premature 
fortune, and the power of protecting it when ac- 
quired, strikes a deadly blow at the great fund, 
the bank, the capital stock of Indian influence, 
which can not be vested any where, or in any 
hands, without the most dangerous consequences 
to the public. 

III. The third contradictory objection is, that 
this bill does not inci'ease the influence of Third ob- 
the Crown ; on the contrary, that the just J^*^''""- 
power of the Crown will be lessened and trans- 
ferred to the use of a party, by giving the patron- 
age of India to a commission nominated by Par- 
liament and independent of the Crown. The con- 
tradiction is glaring, and it has been too well ex- 
posed to make it necessary for me to insist upon 
it ; but, passing the contradiction, and taking it 
without any relation, of all objections, that is the 
most extraordinary. Do not gentlemen know 
that the Crown has not at present the grant of 
a single office under the Company, civil or mill- 



326 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1783. 



tary, at home or abroad ? So far as the Crown 

is concerned, it is certainly rather a gainer, for 

the vacant offices are to be filled up by the King. 

It is argued, as a part of the bill derogatory 

to the prerogatives of the Crown, that 

Thetenure , ^ ' . °. i • .u u -ii 

for four years the Commissioners named in the bill 
defended. ^^,^ ^^ coutiuue for a short term of 
years (too short, in my opinion), and because, 
during that time, they are not at the mercy of 
every predominant faction of the Court. Does 
not this objection lie against the present Direct- 
ors, none of whom are named by the Crown, and 
a proportion of whom hold for this very term of 
four years ? Did it not lie against the Governor 
General and council named in the act of 1773, 
who were invested by name, as the present Com- 
missioners are to be appointed in the body of the 
act of Parliament, who were to hold their places 
for a term of years, and were not removable at 
the discretion of the Crown '? Did it not lie 
against the reappointment, in the year 1780, 
upon the very same terms ? Yet at none of these 
times, whatever other objections the scheme 
might be liable to, was it supposed to be a dero- 
gation to the just prerogative of the Crown, that a 
commission created by act of Parliament should 
have its members named by the authority which 
called it into existence? This is not the dis- 
posal by Parliament of any office derived from 
the authority of the Crown, or now disposable 
by that authority. It is so far from being any 
thing new, violent, or alarming, that I do not rec- 
ollect, in any parliamentary commission, down to 
the commissioners of the land tax. that it has ever 
been otherwise. 

The objection of the tenure for four years is an 
objection to all places that are not held during 
pleasure ; but in that objection I pronounce the 
gentlemen, from my knowledge of their complex- 
ion and of their principles, to be perfectly in earn- 
est. The party (.say these gentlemen) of the min- 
ister who proposes this scheme will be rendered 
Answer to the powcrful by it, for he will name his 
the minister'' party fricuds to the commission. This 
bis'fnends'L objcotion agalnst party is a party ob- 
Commisbioners. jection ; and in this, too, these gen- 
tlemen are perfectly serious. They see that if, 
by any intrigue, they should succeed to office, 
they will lose the clandestine patronage, the true 
instrument of clandestine influence, enjoyed in the 
name of subservient Directors, and of wealthy, 
trembling Indian delinquents. But as often as 
they are beaten oil" this ground, they return to it 
again. The minister will name his Iriends, and 
persons of his own party. Who should he name ? 
Should he name those whom he can not trust ? 
Should he name those to execute his plans who 
are the declared enemies to the principles of his 
reform ? His character is here at stake. If he 
proposes for his own ends (but he never will pro- 
pose) such names as, from their want of rank, foi-- 
tune, character, ability, or knowledge, are likely 
to betray or to fall short of their trust, he is in an 
independent House of Commons ; in a House of 
Commons which has, by its own virtue, destroyed 
the instruments of parliamentary subservience. 



This House of Commons would not endure the 
sound of such names. He would perish by the 
means which he is supposed to pursue for the 
security of his power. The first pledge he must 
give of his sincerity in this great reform will be 
in the confidence which ought to be reposed in 
those names. 

For my part, sir, in this business I put all in- 
direct questions wholly out of my mind. My 
sole question, on each clause of the bill, amounts 
to this : Is the measure proposed required by the 
necessities of India? I can not consent totally 
to lose sight of the real wants of the people who 
are the objects of it, and to hunt after every mat- 
ter of party squabble that may be started on the 
several provisions. On the question of the dura- 
tion of the commission I am clear and decided. 
Can I, can any one who has taken the smallest 
trouble to be informed concerning the affliir.s of 
India, amuse himself with so strange an imaoina- 
tion as that the habitual despotism and oppres- 
sion, that the monopolies, the peculations, the 
universal destruction of all the legal authority 
of this kingdom, which have been for twenty 
years maturing to their present enormity, com- 
bined with the distance of the scene, the bold- 
ness and artifice of delinquents, their combina- 
tion, their excessive wealth, and the faction they 
have made in England, can be fully corrected 
in a shorter term than four years ? None has 
hazarded such an assertion ; none who has a re- 
gard for his reputation will hazard it. 

Sir, the gentlemen, whoever the}' are, who 
shall be appointed to this commission, xheCommis- 
have an undertaking of magnitude on a g"elt work 
their hands, and their stability must to perform. 
not only be, but it must be thought, real ; and 
who is it will believe that any thing short of an 
establishment made, supported, and fixed in its 
duration with all the authority of Parliament, 
can be thought secure of a reasonable stability? 
The plan of my honorable friend is the reverse 
of that of reforming by the authors of the abuse. 
The best we could expect from them is, that 
they should not continue their ancient pernicious 
activity. To those we could think of nothing 
but applying control, as we are sure that even a 
regard to their reputation (if any such thing 
exists in them) would oblige them to cover, to 
conceal, to suppress, and consequently to pre- 
vent, all cure of the grievances of India. For 
what can be discovered which is not to their 
disgrace ? Every attempt to correct an abuse 
would be a satire on their former administration. 
Every man they should pretend to call to an ac- 
count would be found their instrument or their 
accomplice. They can never see a beneficial 
regulation but with a view to defeat it. The 
shorter the tenure of such persons, the better 
would be the chance of some amendment. 

But the system of the bill is different. It calls 
in persons nowise concerned with any act cen- 
sured by Parliament ; persons generated with, and 
for the reform of which they are themselves the 
most essential part. To these the chief regula- 
tions in the bill are helps, not fetters ; they are 



1783.] 



EAST INDIA BILL OF MR. FOX. 



327 



Answer to ol 

jectioii as to 
party gain. 



authorities to support, not reo^ulations to restrain 
them. From these we look for much more than 
innocence. From these we expect zeal, firm- 
ness, and unremitted activity. Their duty, their 
character, binds them to proceedings of vigor ; 
and they ought to have a tenure in their office 
which precludes all fear, while they are acting 
up to the purposes of their trust ; a tenure with- 
out which none will undertake plans that re- 
quire a series and system of acts. When they 
know that they can not be whispered out of 
their duty, that their public conduct can not be 
censured without a public discussion, that the 
schemes which they have begun will not be com- 
mitted to those who will have an interest and 
credit in defeating and disgracing them, then 
we may entertain hopes. The tenure is for four 
years, or during their good behavior. That good 
behavior is as long as they are true to the prin- 
ciples of the bill; and the judgment is in either 
house of Parliament. This is the tenure of your 
judges ; and the 'aluable principle of the bill is, 
to make a judicial administration for India. It 
is to give confidence in the execution of a duty 
which requires as much perseverance and forti- 
tude as can fall to the lot of any that is born of 
woman. 

As to the gain by party from the right honor- 
able gentleman's bill, let it be shown 
that this supposed party advantage is 
pernicious to its object, and the object- 
tion is of weight ; but until this is done, and this 
has not been attempted, I shall consider the sole 
objection, from its tendency to promote the inter- 
est of a party, as altogether contemptible. The 
kingdom is divided into parties, and it ever has 
been so divided, and it ever will be so divided ; 
and if no system for relieving the subjects of this 
kingdom from oppression, and snatching its af- 
fairs from ruin, can be adopted until it is demon- 
strated that no party can derive an advantage 
from it, no good can ever be done in this coun- 
try. If party is to derive an advantage from the 
reform of India (which is more than I know or 
believe), it ought to be that party which alone 
in this kingdom has its reputation, nay, its very 
being, pledged to the protection and preser- 
vation of that part of the empire. Great fear 
is expressed that the Commissioners named in 
this bill will show some regard to a minister out 
of place [Lord North]. To men like the object- 
ors, this must appear criminal. Let it, however, 
be remembered by others, that if the Commis- 
sioners should be his friends, they can not be his 
slaves. But dependents are not in a condition 
to adhere to friends, nor to principles, nor to any 
uniform line of conduct. They may begin cen- 
sors, and be obliged to end accomplices. They 
may be even put under the direction of those 
whom they were appointed to punish. 

IV. The fourth and last objection is, that 
yourth the bill will hurt public credit. I do not 
objection. 1^,-10^7 whether this requires an answer; 
but if it does, look to your foundations. The 
sinking fund is the pillar of credit in this coun- 
try ; and let it not be forgot, that the distresses, 



owing to the mismanagement of the East India 
Company, have ah'eady taken a million from that 
fund by the non-payment of duties. The bills 
drawn upon the Company, which are about four 
millions, can not be accepted without the con- 
sent of the treasury. The treasury, acting un- 
der a parliamentary trust and authority, pledges 
the public for these millions. If they pledge the 
public, the public must have a security in its 
hands for the management of this interest, or 
the national credit is gone ; for otherwise it is 
not only the East India Company, which is a 
great interest, that is undone, but, clinging to 
the security of all your funds, it drags down the 
rest, and the whole fabric perishes in one ruin. 
If this bill does not provide a direction of integ- 
rity and of ability competent to that trust, the ob- 
jection is fatal. If it does, public credit must 
depend on the support of the bill. 

It has been said, if you violate this charter, 
what security has the charter of the Bank, in 
which public credit is so deeply concerned, and 
even the charter of London, in which the rights 
of so many subjects are involved ? I answer, in 
the like case they have no security at all — no — 
no security at all. If the Bank should, by every 
species of mismanagement, fall into a state sim- 
ilar to that of the East India Company ; if it 
should be oppressed with demands it could not 
answer, engagements which it could not pei'- 
form, and with bills for which it could not pro- 
cure payment, no charter should protect the mis- 
management from correction, and such j)ublic 
grievances from redress. If the city of London 
had the means and will of destroying an empire, 
and of cruell}^ oppressing and tyrannizing over 
millions of men as good as themselves, the char- 
ter of the city of London should prove no sanc- 
tion to such tyranny and such oppression. Char- 
ters are kept when their purposes ai'e maintained ; 
they are violated when the privilege is supported 
against its aim and object. 

Now, sir, I have finished all I proposed to say; 
as my reasons for giving my vote to this „ 

1 -11 Tf T . . p Peroration. 

bill. If I am wrong; it is not lor want 
of pains to know what is right. This pledge, at 
least, of my rectitude, I have given to my country. 
And now, having done my duty to the bill, let 
me say a word to the author. I should K„iogiam 
leave him to his own noble sentiments, °" ^^'^- ^°^- 
if the unworthy and illiberal language with which 
he has been treated, beyond all example of par- 
liamentary liberty, did not make a few words 
necessary, not so much in justice to him as to 
my own feelings. I must say, then, that it will 
be a distinction honorable to the age, that the 
rescue of the greatest number of the human race 
that ever were so grievously oppressed, from the 
greatest tyranny that was ever exercised, has 
fallen to the lot of abilities and dispositions equal 
to the task ; that it has fallen to one who has 
the enlargement to comprehend, the spirit to un- 
dertake, and the eloquence to support so great a 
measure of hazardous benevolence. His spirit is 
not owing to his ignorance of the state of men 
and thinirs ; he well knows what snares are 



MR. BURKE ON THE EAST INDIA BILL OF MR. FOX. 



[1783. 



spread about his path, from personal animosity, 
from court intrigues, and possibly from popular 
delusion. But he has put to hazard his ease, 
his security, his interest, his power, even his dar- 
ling- popularit}"^, for the benefit of a people whom 
he has never seen. This is the road that all he- 
roes have trod before him. He is traduced and 
abused for his supposed motives. He will remem- 
ber that obloquy is a necessary ingredient in the 
composition of all true glory ; he will remem- 
ber that it was not only in the Roman customs, 
but it is in the nature and constitution of things, 
that calumny and abuse ai-e essential parts of a 
triumph.^^ These thoughts will support a mind, 
which only exists for honor, under the burden of 
temporary reproach. He is doing, indeed, a 
great good, such as rarely falls to the lot, and al- 
most as rarely coincides with the desires of an}- 
man. Let him use his time. Let him give the 
whole length of the reins to his benevolence.'^- 
He is now on a great eminence, where the eyes 
of mankind are turned to him. He may live 
long : he may do much. But here is the summit. 
He never can exceed what he does this day. 

He has faults, but they are faults that, though 
they may in a small degree tarnish the luster 
and sometimes impede the march of his abilities, 
have nothing in them to extinguish the fire of 
great virtues. In those Aiults there is no mix- 
ture of deceit, of hypocrisy, of piide, of ferocity, 
of complexional despotism, or want of feeling 
for the distresses of mankind. His are faults 
which might exist in a descendant of Henry the 
Fourth of France, as they did exist in that father 
of his country. Henry the Fourth wished that 
he might live to see a fowl in the pot of every 
peasant of his kingdom. That sentiment of 
homely benevolence was worth all the splendid 
sayings that are recorded of kings ; but he 
wished, perhaps, for more than could be obtain- 
ed, and the goodness of the man exceeded the 
power of the king. But this gentleman, a sub- 
ject, may this day say this, at least, wiih truth, 
that he secures the rice in his pot to every man 
in India. A poet of antiquity thought it one of 
the first distinctions to a prince whom he meant 
to celebrate, that, through a long succession of 
generations, he had been the progenitor of an 
able and virtuous citizen [Cicero], who, by force 
of the arts of peace, had corrected governments 
of oppression and suppressed wars of rapine. 

Indole proh quanta juvenis, quaiituraque daturus 

Ausoniae populis, ventura in saecula civem. 

Hie super Gaugem, super exauditus et Indos, 

^' During the procession in a Roman triumph, the 
soldiers and spectators proclaimed the praises of the 
conqueror, or indulged in keen sarcasms and coarse 
ribaldry at his expense, the most perfect freedom of 
speech being exercised on this occasion. — Smith's 
Dictionaiy of Antiquities, p. 1018. 

2^ Mr. Burke seems to have been partial to this 
image. Elsewhere he speaks of " pouring out all 
the length of the reins," &c., using the image in va- 
rious forms a number of times. It is derived from 
the " laxas habenas," " effundere habenas" of Virgil, 
in speaking of the management of steeds in chariot 
races, &.c. 



Implebit terras voce ; et furialia bella 
Fulmine compescet linguse.^^ 

This was what was said of the predecessor of 
the only person to whose eloquence it does not 
wrong that of the mover of this bill to be com- 
pared. But the Ganges and the Indus are the 
patrimony of the fame of my honorable friend, 
and not of Cicero. I confess I anticipate with 
joy the reward of those whose whole conse- 
quence, power, and authority exist only for the 
benefit of mankind ; and I carry my mind to all 
the people, and all the names and descriptions 
that, relieved by this bill, will bless the labors 
of this Parliament and the confidence which the 
best House of Commons has given to him who 
the best deserves it. The little cavils of party 
will not be heard where freedom and happiness 
will be felt. There is not a tongue, a nation, or 
religion in India which will not bless the pre- 
siding care and manly beneficence of this House, 
and of him who proposes to you this great work. 
Your names will never be separated before the 
throne of the Divine Goodness, in whatever lan- 
guage, or with whatever rites pardon is asked 
for sin, and reward for those who imitate the 
Godhead in his universal bounty to his creatures. 
These honors you deserve, and they will surely 
be paid, when all the jargon of influence, and 
party, and patronage are swept into oblivion. 

I have spoken what I think and v»-hat I feel 
of the mover of this bill. An honorable friend 
of mine, spea:king of his merits, was charged 
wuth having made a studied panegyric. I don't 
know what his was. Mine, I am sure, is a 
studied panegyric ; the fruit of much medita- 
tion ; the result of the observation of near twen- 
ty years. For my own part, I am happy that I 
have lived to see this day. I feel myself over- 
paid for the labors of eighteen years, when, at 
this late period, I am able to take my share, by 
one humble vote, in destroying a tyranny that 
exists to the disgrace of this nation and the de- 
struction of so large a part of the human species. 



The bill passed the House of Commons by a 
very large majority, but was defeated in the 
House of Lords by a resort to means which are 
fully explained in the sketch of Mr. Fox's life. 

In connection with this defeat, Mr. Fox w^as 
dismissed, and Mr. William Pitt placed at the 
head of affairs. Mr. Burke went out of office 
with his friend, and was engaged for some years 
in a most active opposition to Mr. Pitt, whom 
he attacked with great force in the speech which 
immediately follows. 



2' The poet here addresses TuUus Attius, one of 
the early kings of the Volsci, who, according to some 
accounts, was the progenitor of Cicero, and congrat- 
ulates him, in this character, on the greatness of his 
future descendant. 

Rich in the gifts of nature, favored youth ! 
Thou to the Italian race shall give the Man 
In ages far remote their city's pride ; [streams, 
Whose voice sublime shall ring o'er Ganges' 
Through both the Indies, to Earth's utmost bound, 
And still, with lightning-force, the rage of war. 



1785.1 MR. BURKE ON THE NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS. 329 



SPEECH 

OF MR. BURKE ON THE NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 

FEBRUARY 29, 1785. 

INTRODUCTION. 

The design of this speech was to convict Mr. Pitt of a scandalous abase of power. It charges him 
with allowing the claims of a set of unprincipled speculators in India to the amount o^ four viillions of 
pounds, in direct defiance of an act of Parliament drawn up by Mr. Pitt himself. 

Men of all parties had agreed that these claims were of a highly suspicious character, and ought never 
to be paid until they were severely scrutinized. Mr. Pitt, in his East ludia Bill, had therefore provided, 
that "whereas large sums of money are claimed to be due to British subjects by the Nabob of Arcot, the 
Court of Directors, as soon as may be, shall take into consideration the origin and justice of these de- 
mands." And yet, one of the first acts of the Board of Control created by that bill, was to take the whole 
matter out of the hands of the Directors just as they had commenced the investigation ! This was done 
by Mr. Henry Dundas, President of the Board of Control, and it is, therefore, against him more immedi- 
ately that the force of this speech is directed, though Mr. Pitt, as prime minister, was justly held respons- 
ible. A mandate was issued for paying all these claims without farther iuquirj-, and the Directors of 
the East India Company, notwithstanding their most earnest remonstrances, were compelled to sign an 
order for disbursing what proved to be nearly five millions of pounds sterling (interest included) on account 
of these debts. — Mill's British India, v., 26. ' 

A few words only will be necessary to explain their origin. Mohammed Ali, Nabob of the Carnatic, or, 
as he was more commonly called, Nabob of Arcot, from the town where he held his court, was a man of 
weak judgment but strong passions, who was established in his dominions, to the prejudice of an elder 
brother, by the policy and arms of the Presidency of Madras. At an early period, he fell under the influ- 
ence of Paul Benfield and a few other English residents, who played upon his* passions, encouraged his 
schemes of conquest, and ruled him with absolute authority. They no doubt lent him money to some 
extent; but, as their means were limited, the amount could not have been very great. Every thing 
which they did lend, however, was put upon extravagant interest; and when he failed to pay, the amount 
was sometimes doubled or tripled in taking new securities. There is also reason to believe, that, in order 
to obtain their favor, he gave them acknowledgments of debts to an immense amount, which were un- 
derstood by both parties to be purely fictitious. Thus, from time to time, enormous sums were put upon 
interest, at the rate of twenty or thirty per cent, a year, until the annual proceeds of the debts thus ac- 
cumulated were equal, as Mr. Burke remarks, to "the revenue of a respectable kingdom." The Direct- 
ors of the Company, in the mean time, bad no knowledge of these proceedings, which were studiously 
concealed from all but the immediate agents in this system of usury and peculation. The Nabob at last 
became wholly unable to protect the dominions over which he had been placed, and the Company were 
compelled, in self-defense, and for the accomplishment of their designs, to take the military operations 
of the country into their own hands. In doing this, they received from the Nabob an assignment of bis 
revenues, for the purpose of defraying the expense. But it now came out that these very revenues, to 
a great extent, had been pi-eviously assigned to Benfield and his friends, to secure the interest on their 
claims. Hence it was important for the Company to inquire how far these claims had any real founda- 
tion. Under Mr. Pitt's East India Bill, this inquiry became equally important to the whole British na- 
tion, because the civil and military concerns of India had now passed into the hands of the government 
at home. Whatever allowance was made to Benfield and his associates on the score of these debts, was 
so much money deducted from the resources provided for the government of India. Any deficit that oc- 
curred was of course to be supplied out of the general treasury of the empire ; and the question was, 
therefore, truly stated by Mr. Burke to be this, "Whether the Board of Control could transfer the public 
revenue to the private emolument of certain servants of the East India Company, without the inquiry 
into the origin and justice of their claims, prescribed by an act of Parlian:ent." 

Mr. Fox brought the subject before the House in a call for papers, supported by a powerful speech, on 
^ the evening of the 28th of February, 1785. Mr. Dundas repUed at great length, and was followed by Sir 
Thomas Rumbold, formerly President of Madras, who condemned the decision of the Board in brief but 
energetic terms. It was now late, and the cry of "duestion!" "Cluestion!" was heard from every 
quarter. At this moment Mr. Burke rose and commenced the speech before us, which lasted^ie hmirs! 
Never did a man speak under such adverse circumstances. The Honse was completely wearied out 
by the preceding discussion; and the majority, besides being prejudiced against Mr. Burke on other 
grounds, were so vexed at the unfortunate timing and length of his speech, that the more be dilated on 
the subject, the more firmly they were resolved to vote him down. In fact., no one that night seems to 



330 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1785 



have had any conception of the real charactei* of the speech which was delivered in their hearing. Lord 
Grenville was asked by Mr. Pitt, toward the close, whether it was best to reply, and instantly said, 
"No! not the slightest impression has been made. The speech may with perfect safety be passed nver 
in silence." And yet, if Lord Grenville had been called upon, at a subsequent period of his life, to name 
the most remarkable speech in our language for its triumph over the difficulties of the subject, for the 
union of brilliancy and force, of comprehensive survey and minute detail, of vivid description and impas- 
sioned eloquence, he would at once, probably, have mentioned the speech on the Nabob of Arcot's debts. 
It does not, however, contain as much fine philosophy, or profound remark, as some of Mr. Burke's earlier 
speeches. Nor is it faultless in style, though it is generally distinguished by an elastic energy of ex- 
pression admirably suited to the subject. Still, there are passages which mark a transition into greater 
profluence of imagery on the one hand, and greater coarseness of language on the other, arising from the 
excited state of Mr. Burke's mind. Never had his feelings been so completely roused. In none of his 
speeches do we find so much of cutting sarcasm. In none, except that against Warren Hastings, has he 
poured out his whole soul in such fervid declamation. His description of Hyder Ali, sweeping over the 
Carnatic with fire and sword, is the most eloquent passage which he ever produced. Lord Brougham 
has pronounced this speech "by far the first of all Mr. Burke's orations." 

SPEECH, &c. 



The times we live in, ]\[r. Speaker, have been 
distinjiui-shed by extraordinar)- events. Habitu- 
ated, however, as we are, to uncommon combina- 
tions of men and of afTairs, I believe nobody rec- 
ollects any thing more surpri-sinfr than the spec- 
ie r-Ie of this day. The right honorable gentle- 
ni;in [Mr. Dundas], whose conduct is now in ques- 
tion, formerly stood forth in this House the pros- 
ecutor of the worthy baronet [Sir Thomas Rum- 
bold] who spoke after him. He charged him 
with several grievous acts of malversation in 
office ; with abuses of a public trust of a great 
and heinous nature. In less than two years we 
see the situation of parties reversed, and a singu- 
lar revolution puts the worthy baronet in a fair 
way of returning the prosecution in a recrimina- 
tory bill of pains and penalties, grounded on a 
breach of public trust, relative to the govern- 
ment of the very same part of India. If he 
should undertake a bill of that kind, he will find 
no dilficulty in conducting it with a degree of 
skill and vigor fully equal to all that have been 
exerted against him.' 

But the change of relation between these two 
gentlemen is not so striking as the total differ- 
ence of their deportment under the same unhap- 
py circumstances. Whatever the merits of the 
worthy baronet's defense might have been, he did 
not shrink from the charge. He met it with man- 
liness of spirit and decency of behavior. What 
would have been thought of him if he had held 
the present language of his old accuser? When 
articles were exhibited against him by that right 
honorable gentleman, he did not think proper to 
tell the House that we ought to institute no in- 
quiry, to inspect no paper, to examine no wit- 
ness. He did not tell us (what at that time he 
might have told us with some show of reason) 



^ It requires a minute knowledge of the times to 
understand this reference. Mr. Dundas, in 178-2, had 
brought in a bill of pains and penalties against Sir 
Thomas llumbold for high crimes and misdemeanors 
as Governor of Madras ; but he managed it so badly, 
that he was at last compelled to give it up in disgrace. 
Hence Mr. Burke's reference to his "skill and ener- 
gy" was a cutting sarcasm which Mr. Dundas could 
not but feel most keenly. 



that our concerns in India were matters of deli- 
cacy : that to divulge any thing relative to them 
would be mischievous to the state. He did not 
tell us that those who would inquire into his 
proceedings were disposed to dismember the 
empire. He had not the presumption to say 
that, for his part, having obtained, in his Indian 
presidency, the ultimate object of his ambition, 
his honor was concerned in executing with integ- 
rity the trust which had been legally committed 
to his charge ; that others, not having been so for- 
tunate, could not be so disinterested, and therefore 
their accusations could spring from no other source 
than faction, and envy to his fortune. 

Had he been frontless enough to hold such 
vain, vaporing language, in the face of a grave, 
a detailed, a specified matter of accusation, while 
he violently resisted every thing which could bring 
the merits of his cause to the test ; had he been 
wild enough to anticipate the absurdities of this 
day ; that is, had he inferred, as his late accuser 
has thought proper to do, that he could not have 
been guilty of malversation in office, for this sole 
and curious reason, that he had been in office ; 
had he argued the impossibility of his abusing 
his power on this sole principle, that he had 
power to abuse, he would have left but one im- 
pression on the mind of every man who heard 
him, and who believed him in his senses — that, 
in the utmost extent, he was guilty of the charge.^ 

2 This is the best of Mr. Burke's exordiums ; it 
I would be difficult, indeed, to find a better in any ora- 
I tion. ancient or modern, except that of Demosthenes 
for the Crown. It springs directly out of a turn in the 
j debate, and has therefore all the freshness and inter- 
] est belonging to a real transaction which has just ta- 
ken place before the audience. It turns upon a strik- 
ing circumstance, the sudden and remarkable change 
in the relative i)ositiou of the two parties ; and puts 
I Mr. Dundas in the wrong from the very outset. Be- 
I fore a syllable is said touching the merits of the case, 
I it presents hinrin the worst possible attitude — that 
I of shuffling and e/ading, instead of "meeting the 
charge," like his old antagonist, " with manliness of 
spirit and decency of behavior." There is great in- 
genuity in selecting the various points of contrast 
between the deportment of Mr. Dundas and of Sir 
Thomas llumbold in the two cases. The attack is 



1785] 



NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS. 



331 



But, sir, leaving these two gentlemen to altern- 
ate, as criminal and accuser, upon what princi- 
ples they think expedient, it is for us to consider 
whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer [Mr. 
Pitt] and the Treasurer of the Navy [Mr. Dundas], 
acting as a Board of Control, arc justified, by law 
or policy, in suspending the legal arrangements 
made by the court of Directors, in order to trans- 
fer the public revenues to the private emolument 
of certain servants of the East India Company, 
without the inquiry into the origin and justice 
of their claims prescribed by an act of Parlia- 
ment. 

I. It is not contended that the act of Parlia- 
„ ,. . ment did not expressly ordain an in- 

Preliminary . . ^ •' i • • 

discussion quiry. It IS not asserted that this m- 

of the law. • , . ■ , • • f 

quiry was not, with equal precision oi 
terms, specially committed, under particular reg- 
ulations, to the court of Directors. I conceive, 
therefore, the Board of Control had no right 
whatsoever to intermeddle in that business*" (1.) 
There is nothing certain in the principles of ju- 
risprudence, if this be not undeniably true, that 
when a special authority is given to any persons 
by name, to do some particular act, no others, by 
virtue of general powers, can obtain a legal title 
to intrude themselves into that trust, and to ex- 
ercise those special functions in their place. I 
therefore consider the intermeddling of ministers 
in this affair as a downright usurpation. But if 
the strained construction by which they have 
forced themselves into a suspicious office (which 
every man. delicate with regard to character, 
would rather have sought constructions to avoid) 
were perfectly sound and perfectly legal, of this 
I am certain, (2.) That they can not be justified 
in declining the inquiry which had been pre- 
scribed to the court of Directors. If the Board 
of Control did lawfully possess the right of exe- 
cuting the special trust given to that court, they 
must take it as they found it, subject to the very 
same regulations which bound the court of Di- 
rectors. It will be allowed that the court of Di- 
rectors had no authority to dispense with either 
the substance or the mode of inquiry prescribed 
by the act of Parliament. If they had not, where, 
in the act, did the Board of Control acquire that 
capacity ? Indeed, it was impossible they should 
acquire it. What must we think of the fabric and 
texture of an act of Parliament which should find 
it necessary to prescribe a strict inquisition ; that 
should descend into minute regulations for the 
conduct of that inquisition ; that should commit 
this trust to a particular description of men, and 
in the very same breath should enable another 
body, at their own pleasure, to supersede all 
the provisions the Legislature had made, and 
to defeat the whole purpose, end, and object of 

infinitely more severe from the indirect form which 
it assumes — showing what Sir Thomas Rumbold did 
not do, and turning each of these negatives into a 
cutting reflection upon Mr. Dundas. as having " left 
but one impression on the mind of every man who 
heard him, and who believed him in his senses — 
that, in the ntmost extent, he teas guilty of the 
charsre.' 



the law? This can not be supposed even of an 
act of Parliament conceived by the ministers 
themselves, and brought forth during the deliri- 
um of the last session.^ 

II. My honorable friend [Mr. Fox] has told 
you in the speech which introduced sui.ject-veUs 
his motion, that, fortunately, this '/^J'/.i.^'jj'^.t'*^"'' 
question is not a great deal involv- v.ivp.i inany pe- 

^, . . , , . , rr ^■ 1 . -1 culiar 111} stery. 

ed in the labyrinths oi Indian detail. 
Certainly not: but if it were, I beg leave to a.s- 
sure you that there is nothing in the Indian de- 
tail which is more difficult than the detail of any 
other business. I admit, because I have some 
experience of the fact, that, for the interior reg- 
ulation of India, a minute knowledge of India is 
requisite ; but, on any specific matter of delin- 
quency in its government, you are as capable of 
judging as if the same thing were done at your 
door. Fraud, injustice, oppression, peculation, 
engendered in India, are crimes of the same blood, 
family, and cast with those that are born and bred 
in England. To go no farther than the case be- 
fore us : you are just as competent to judge 
whether the sum of four millions sterling ought, 
or ought not, to be passed from the public treas- 
ury into a private pocket, without any title ex- 
cept the claim of the parties, when the issue of 
fact is laid in Madras, as when it is laid in West- 
minster. Terms of art, indeed, are different in 
different places, but they are generally under- 
stood in none. The technical style of an Indian 
treasury is not one jot more remote than the jar- 
gon of our own exchequer, from the train of our 
ordinary ideas, or the idiom of our common lan- 
guage. The diflTerence, therefore, in the two 
cases is not in the comparative difficulty or facil- 
ity of the two subjects, but in our attention to 
the one and our total neglect of the other. Had 
this attention and neglect been regulated by the 
value of the several objects, there would be noth- 
ing to complain of. But the reverse of that sup- 
position is true. The scene of the Indian abuse 
is distant, indeed ; but we must not inter that 
the value of our interest in it is decreased in 
proportion as it recedes from our view. In our 
politics, as in our common conduct, we shall be 
worse than infants, if we do not put our senses 
under the tuition of our judgment, and effectu- 
ally cure ourselves of that optical illusion which 



^ That session was one of which we could not ex- 
pect Mr. Burke to speak in any other terms than 
those of bitter disappointment and the keenest as- 
perity. It was the first meeting of Parliament aft- 
1 er the elections of 1784, which had anniiiilaled the 
power of Mr. Fox, and put his young rival in com- 
plete possession of the House, as prime minister. 
One of its most important acts was the passing 
of Mr. Pitt's East India Bill, which dexterously 
adopted the most valuable features of Mr. Fox's 
bill. We may easily conceive of Mr. Burke's mor- 
tification at seeing the results of his labors thus 
turned to the advantage of one by whom he was 
driven from power. Early in this session the well- 
known case of the "Westminster election came up, 
in respect to which Mr. Fox was certainly treated 
with arrogance and injustice by Mr. Pitt. To this, 
undoubtedly, Mr. Burke here alludes in part. 



332 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1785. 



makes a brier at our nose, of greater magnitude 
than an oak at five hundred yards' distance. 
V- I think I can trace all the calamities of this 

Narrowness of country to tlic siuglc source of our not 
roirthe'^great having had steadily before our eyes a 
iTmity to^he general, comprehensive, well-connect- 
erapire. ed, and well-proportioned view of the 

whole of our dominions, and a just sense of their 
true bearings and relations. After all its re- 
ductions, the British empire is still vast and va- 
rious. After all the i-eductions of the House 
of Commons (stripped as we are of our bright- 
est ornaments and of our most important privi- 
leges),^ enough are yet left to furnish us, if we 
please, ^vith means of showing to the world that 
we deserve the superintendence of as large an 
empire as this kingdom ever held, and the con- 
tinuance of as ample privileges as the House of 
Commons, in the plenitude of its power, had 
been habituated to assert. But if we make our- 
selves too little for the sphere of our duty ; if, on 
the contrary, we do not stretch and expand our 
minds to the compass of their object, be well 
assured that every thing about us will dwindle 
by degrees, until at length our concerns are 
shrunk to the dimensions of our minds. It is not 
a predilection to mean, sordid, home-bred cares, 
that will avert the consequences of a false esti- 
mation of our interest, or pi-event the shameful 
dilapidation into which a great empire must fall, 
by mean reparations upon mighty ruins.^ 

I confess I feel a degree of disgust, almost 

* Mr. Burke, in speaking of the loss of socae of 
"our brightest ornaments," refers no doubt to a 
number of very able men of the Whig party, about 
one hundred and sixty of whom lost their election, 
in 1784, through their adherence to Mr. Fox and his 
East India Bill. The " privileges" here refened to 
were those denied to Mr. Fox in respect to the 
Westminster election. 

5 In this paragraph we have one of those fine 
generah^ations which give so much richness and 
force to the eloquence of Mr. Burke. In the pre- 
ceding paragraph he exposes one of the most com- 
mon errors among men, that of allowing their inter- 
est in an object to decrease as it recedes from vieic ; 
and this en-or he places in the strongest light, by his 
image of the brier and the oak when seen at differ- 
ent distances. Here most orators would have stop- 
ped; not so Mr. Burke ; hi^ observation had taught 
him that this was peculiarly the error of English 
politicians. In his first great speech, that on Amer- 
ican taxation, he had, eleven years before, pointed 
out a similar error, as the leading characteristic of 
Lord North. He dwelt on the "mischief of not hav- 
ing large and liberal ideas in the management of 
great affairs." "Never," says he, "have the serv- 
ants of the state looked at the whole of your com- 
plicated interests in one view. They have taken 
things by bits and scraps, some at one time and one 
pretense, and some at another, just as they arc 
pressed, without any sort of regard to their relations 
and dependencies." It was thus that America was 
lost to England through the folly of Lord North ; and 
it was b}' the same naiTowness of view, " the same 
predilection to mean, sordid, home-bred cares," that 
Parliament, under the guidance of Mr. Pitt, were 
sacrificing the highest interests of the empire by 
their neglect of Indian affairs, and seeking to sustain 



leading to despair, at the manner in which we 
are acting in the great exigencies of i,„3,^,„„,,„^ 
our country. There is now a bill two biiis before 
in this House appointing a rigid in- 
quisition into the minutest detail of our offices 
at home. The collection of sixteen millions an- 
nually, a collection on which the pub- (i.i xhatonUie 
lie greatness, safety, and credit have S^e^pftfe ac°^ 
their reliance ; the whole order of counts. 
ci'iminal jurisprudence, which holds together so- 
ciety itself, have at no time obliged us to call 
forth such powers ; no, nor any thing like them. 
There is not a principle of the law and constitu- 
tion of this country that is not subverted to favor 
the execution of that project. And for what is 
all this apparatus of bustle and terror ? Is it 
because any thing substantial is expected from 
it ? No : the stir and bustle itself is the end 
proposed ! The eye-servants of a short-sighted 
master will employ themselves, not on what is 
most ^sential to his affairs, but on w^hat is near- 
est to his ken. Great difficulties have given a 
just value to economy ; and our minister of the 
day must be an economist, whatever it may cost 
us. But \vhere is he to exert his talents ? At 
home, to be sure ; for where else can he obtain a 
profitable credit for their exertion ? It is nothing 
to him whether the object on which he works 
under our eye be promising or not. If he does 
not obtain any public benefit, he may make reg- 
ulations without end. Those are sure to pay in 
present expectation, while the effect is at a dis- 
tance, and may be the concern of other times 
and other men. On these principles he chooses 
to suppose (for he does not pretend more than 
to suppose) a naked possibility, that he shall 
draw" some resource out of crumbs dropped from 
the trenchers of penury ; that something shall be 
laid in store from the short allowance of revenue 
officers overloaded with duty and famished for 
want of bread ; by a reduction from officers who 
are at this very hour ready to batter the treasu- 
ry with what breaks through stone walls for an 
increase of their appointments. From the mar- 
rowless bones of these skeleton establishments, 
by the use of every sort of cutting, and of every 
sort of fretting tool, he flatters himself that he 
may chip and rasp an empirical alimentary pow- 
der, to diet into some similitude of health and 
substance the languishing chimeras of fraudulent 
reformation. 

While he is thus employed according to his 
policy and to his taste, he has not leisure to in- 
quire into those abuses in India that are draw- 
ing off money by millions from the treasures of 
this country, which are exhausting the vital 
juices from members of the state, where the 
public inanition is far more sorely felt than in the 
local exchequer of England. Not content wuth 
j winking at these abuses, while he attempts to 
I squeeze the laborious, ill-paid drudges of En- 
I glish revenue, he lavishes in one act of corrupt 
I prodigaUty, upon those who never served the 

, the fabric of government "by mean reparations upon 
j mighty ruins." 



1785.] 



NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS. 



333 



public in any honest occupation at all, an annual 
income equal to two thirds of the whole collec- 
tion of the revenues of this kingdom. 

Actuated by the same principle of choice, he 
(2.) Thatoncorn- has uow on the anvil another scheme, 
mercial inter- f^ll Qf ditHcultv and desperate haz- 

course between _ J i 

Great Britain and ard, which totallv altcrs the com- 

Ireland. . , , . •' „ , . , 

mercial relation of two kingdoms ; 
and what end soever it shall have, may bequeath 
a legacy of heart-burning and discontent to one 
of the countries, perhaps to both, to be perpetu- 
ated to the latest posterity. This project is also 
undertaken on the hope of profit. It is provid- 
ed, that out of some (I know not what) remains 
of the Irish hereditary revenue, a fund at some 
time, and of some sort, should be applied to the 
protection of the Irish trade. Here we are com- 
manded again to tax our faith, and to persuade 
ourselves, that out of the surplus of deficiency, 
out of the savings of habitual and systematic 
prodigality, the minister of wonders will provide 
support for this nation, sinking under the mount- 
ainous load of two hundred and thirty millions 
of debt. But while we look with pain at his des- 
perate and laborious trifling — while we are ap- 
prehensive that he will break his back in stoop- 
ing to pick up chafT and straws, he recovers him- 
self at an elastic bound, and with a broad-cast 
.swing of his arms, he squanders over his Indian 
field a sum far greater than the clear produce 
of the whole hereditary revenue of the kingdom 
of Ireland.^ 

6 The reader can not but notice the rhetorical 
skill with which these two instances, taken from 
measures then before the House, and therefore the 
more striking, are brought forward by Mr. Burke to 
illustrate his general principle, as stated above. 
They are both put, especially the former one, with 
great power of language and thought. They add 
all the liveliness and pungency of individual appli- 
cation to the weight and authority of a general 
truth. But they do more — and here is part of the 
skill — they reach forward as well as backward. 
They not only illustrate the past, but prepare for 
the future. They lay the foundation of another at- 
tack. They furnish the ground of the fine contrast 
here drawn between Mr. Pitt's penuriousness at 
home and prodigality abroad. They open the way 
for the keen philosophy of the next paragraph, 
which shows how "the economy of injustice" is 
made to " furnish resources for the fund of corrup- 
tion." Thus they lead on to the next great portion 
of the speech, which insists on '' an economy of quite 
another order," and demands the strictest inquiiy 
into grants thus lavishly made to a baud of Indian 
peculators. 

This fine adjustment of the several parts of an 
oration, mutually to support or prepare the way for 
each other, is one of the most striking characteris- 
tics of the great orators of antiquity, and especially 
of Demosthenes. Most readers overlook it, and are 
wholly unconscious that there is any art in the case. 
The orator seems so completely to "speak right on," 
that they are not in the least aware of the skill with 
which he has selected and arranged his materials 
with a view to bring every thing forward in its 
proper place, and to give every thing the appear- 
ance of an unpremeditated and spontaneous effusion 
of thought. 



Strange as this scheme of conduct in ministry 
is, and inconsistent with all just policy, it is still 
true to itself, and faithful to its own perverted 
order. Those who are bountiful to crimes will 
be rigid to merit and penurious to service. Their 
penury is even held out as a blind and cover to 
their prodigality. The economy of injustice is 
to furnish resources for the fund of corruption. 
Then they pay off their protection to great crimes 
and great criminals, by being inexorable to the 
paltry frailties of little men ; and these modern 
Flagellants are sure, with a rigid fidelity, to 
whip their own enormities on the vicarious back 
of every small offender.'' 

It is to draw your attention to economy of 
quite another order — it is to animad- ^i,g moneyed, 
vert on ofTenses of a far different de- concerns of 

1 , , 1 /• • 1 India more 

scription, that my honorable friend worthy of at- 
[Mr. Fox] has brought before you the ''"''°"' 
motion of this day. It is to perpetuate the abuses 
which are subverting the fabric of your empire, 
that the motion is opposed. It is therefore with 
reason (and, if he has power to carry himself 
through, I commend his prudence) that the right 
honorable gentleman [Mr. Dundas] makes his 
stand at the very outset, and boldly refuses all 
parliamentary information. Let him admit but 
one step toward inquiry, and he is undone. You 
must be ignorant, or he can not be safe. But, 
before his curtain is let down, and the shades of 
eternal night shall vail our Eastern dominions 
from our view, permit me, sir, to avail myself of 
the means which were furnished in anxious and 
inquisitive times, to demonstrate out of this sin- 
gle act of the present minister what advantages 
you are to derive from permitting the greatest 
concern of this nation to be separated from the 
cognizance, and exempted even out of the com- 
petence, of Parliament. The greatest body of 
your revenue, your most numerous armies, your 
most important commerce, the richest sources of 
your public credit (contrary to every idea of the 
known settled policy of England), are on the 
point of being converted into a mystery of state. 
You are going to have one half of the globe hid 
even from the common liberal curiosity of an 
English gentleman. Here a grand revolution 
commences.^ Mark the period, and mark the 



'' The Flagellants were a sect of the thirteenth 
century, who sought to expiate their crimes bj' the 
discipline of the scourge. They traversed Europe, 
whipping themselves through the principal cities 
and at the doors of churches, and creating great 
commotion wherever they appeared. 

^ This prediction proved true. The establishment 
of the Board of Control, under Mr. Pitt's bill, merged 
the civil and poUtical concerns of India in those of 
the British government. "The President of the 
Board of Control," says Mill, in his British India, 
" is essentially a new Secretary of State, a Secre- 
tary for the Indian Department. * * * The other five 
members of the Board are seldom called to deliber- 
ate, or, even for form's sake, to assemble. * * * Of 
this pretended Board, and real Secretary, the sphere 
of action extends to the whole of the civil and mili- 
tary government exercised by the Company, but 
not to their commercial transactions." — iv., 487. 



^ 



334 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1785. 



circumstances. In most of the capital changes 
that are recorded in the principles and .system 
of any government, a public benefit of some kind 
or other has been pretended. The revolution 
commenced in something plausible, in something 
which carried the appearance at least of punish- 
ment of delinquency, or correction of abuse. 
But here, in the very moment of the conversion 
of a department of British government into an 
Indian mystery, and in the very act in which the 
change commences, a corrupt private interest is 
set up in direct opposition to the necessities of 
the nation. A diversion is made of millions of 
the public money from the public treasury to a 
private purse. It is not into secret negotiations 
for war, peace, or alliance, that the House of 
Commons is forbidden to inquire. It is a matter 
of account ; it is a pecuniary transaction ; it is 
the demand of a suspected steward upon ruined 
tenants and an embarrassed master, that the 
Commons of Great Britain are commanded not 
to inspect. The whole tenor of the right hon- 
orable gentleman's argument is consonant to the 
nature of his policy. The system of conceal- 
ment is fostered by a system of falsehood. False 
facts, false colors, false names of persons and 
things, are its whole support. 

Sir, I mean to follow the right honorable gen- 
tleman over that field of deception, clearing what 
he has purposely obscured, and fairly stating what 
it was necessary for him to misrepresent. For 
this pm-pose, it is necessary you should know, 
w^ith some degree of distinctness, a little of the 
locality, the nature, the circumstances, the mag- 
nitude of the pretended debts on which this mar- 
velous donation is founded, as well as of the per- 
sons from whom and by whom it is claimed. 

III. Madras, with its dependencies, is the sec- 
History of ond (but with a long interval, the see- 
the debts. Qj^(jj member of the British empire in the 
East. The trade of that city and of the adjacent 
territory was, not very long ago, among the most 
flourishing in Asia. But since the establishment 
of the British power, it has wasted away under 
a uniform, gradual decline, insomuch that in the 
year 1779 not one merchant of eminence was 
to be found in the whole country. During this 
period of decav, about six hundred thousand 
sterling pounds a year have been drawn off by 
English gentlemen, on their private account, by 
the way of China alone. If we add four hundred 
thousand as probably remitted through other 
channels and in other mediums, that is, in jew- 
els, gold, and silver, directly brought to Europe, 
and in bills upon the British and foreign compa- 
nies, you will scarcely think the matter over- 
rated. If we fix the commencement of this ex- 
traction of money from the Carnatic at a period 
no earlier than the year 1760, and close it in the 
year 1780, it probably will not amount to a great 
deal less than twenty millions of money. 

During the deep, silent flow of this steady 
stream of wealth, which set from India into Eu- 
rope, it generally passed on with no adequate 
observation ; but happening at some periods to 
meet rifts of rocks that checked its course, it 



grew more noisy, and attracted more notice.^ 
The pecuniary discussions caused by an accu- 
mulation of part of the fortunes of their servants 
in a debt from the Nabob of Arcot, was the first 
thing which very particularly called for, and long 
engaged, the attention of the court of Directors 
This debt amounted to eight hundred and eighty 
thousand pounds sterling, and was claimed, for 
the greater part, by English gentlemen residing 
at Madras. This grand capital, settled at length 
by order a*- ten per cent., afforded an annuity of 
eighty-eight thousand pounds. 

While the Directors were digesting their as- 
tonishment at this information, a memorial was 
presented to them from three gentlemen, inform- 
ing them that their friends had lent likewise to 
merchants of Canton, in China, a sum of not more 
than one million sterling. In this memorial they 
called upon the Company for their assistance and 
interposition with the Chinese government for 
the recovery of the debt. This sum, lent to Chi- 
nese merchants, was at twenty-four per cent., 
which would yield, if paid, an annuity of two 
hundred and forty thousand pounds. '° 

Perplexed as the Directors were with these 
demands, you may conceive, sir, that they did 
not find themselves very much disembarrassed 
by being made acquainted that they must again 
exert their influence for a new reserve of the 
happy parsimony of their servants, collected into 
a second debt from the Nabob of Arcot, amount- 
ing to two millions four hundred thousand pounds, 
settled at an interest of twelve per cent. This 
is known by the name of the Consolidation of 
1777, as the former of the Nabob's debts was 
by the title of the Consolidation of 1767. To 
this was added, in a separate parcel, a little re- 
serve called the Cavalry debt, of one hundred 
and sixty thousand pounds, at the same interest. 
The whole of these four capitals, amounting to 
four millions four hundred and forty thousand 
pounds, produced, at their several rates, annui- 
ties amounting to six hundred and twenty three 
thousand pounds a year ; a good deal more than 
one third of the clear land tax of England at 
four shillings in the pound ; a good deal more 
than double the whole annual dividend of the 
East India Company, the nominal masters to the 
proprietors in these funds. Of this interest, three 
hundred and eighty three thousand two hundred 

9 It may be doubted whether this image is not 
run out too far, so as to turn off the attention 
from the idea to be enforced to the picture here pre- 
sented. 

10 These claims on China merchants are not men- 
tioned as having any direct connection with the 
debts of the Nabob of Ai'cot ; they are enumerated 
merely as part of the twenty millions abstracted 
from the Carnatic by English residents, and as hav- 
ing been urged upon the East India Company for 
aid in their collection. In this view alone are they 
brought into the sum total of £4,440,000 mentioned 
below. The China debts are then deducted, leaving, 
as will be seen at the close of the statement, the 
debts of the Nabob of Arcot with " an interest of 
X383,200 a year, chargeable on the public revenues 
of the Carnatic." 



1785] 



NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS. 



335 



pounds a year st.ood chargeable on the public 
revenues of the Carnatic. 

Sir, at this moment, it will not be necessary to 
Ti.p«e debts consider the various operations which 
6'jspicious the capital and interest of this debt 
magnitude havc succcssivcly undcrgonc. I shall 
*""*■ speak to these operations when I come 

particularly to answer the right honorable gen- 
tleman on each of the heads, as he has thought 
proper to divide them. But this was the exact 
view in which these debts first appeared to 
the court of Directors and to the world. It va- 
ried afterward ; but it never appeared in any 
other than a most questionable shape. When 
this gigantic phantom of debt first appeared 
before a young minister, it naturally would have 
justified some degree of doubt and apprehen- 
sion. Such a prodigy would have filled any 
common man with superstitious fears. He 
would exorcise that shapeless, nameless form, 
and by every thing sacred would have adjured 
it to tell by what means a small number of slight 
individuals, of no consequence or situation, pos- 
sessed of no lucrative offices, without the com- 
mand of armies, or the known administration of 
revenues, without profession of any kind, with- 
out any sort of trade sufficient to employ a ped- 
dler, could have, in a few years (as to some even 
in a few months), amassed treasures equal to the 
revenues of a respectable kingdom. Was it not 
enough to put these gentlemen, in the novitiate 
of their administration, on their guard, and to call 
upon them for a strict inquiry (if not to justify 
them in a reprobation of those demands without 
any inquiry at all), that when all England, Scot- 
land, and Ireland had for years been witness to 
the immense sums laid out by the servants of the 
Company in stocks of all denominations, in the 
purchase of lands, in the buying and building of 
houses, in the securing quiet seats in Parliament, 
or in the tumultuous riot of contested elections, 
in wandering throughout the whole range of 
those variegated m.odes of inventive prodigality, 
which sometimes have excited our wonder, some- 
times roused our indignation, that after all India 
was four millions still in debt to them ? India in 
debt to i/iem / For what? Every debt for which 
an equivalent of some kind or other is not given, 
is, on the face of it, a fraud. What is the equiva- 
lent they have given ? What equivalent had they 
to give ? What are the articles of comm.erce or 
the branches of manufacture which those gentle- 



hav( 



"ied hence to 



:'h Indi 



What 



are the sciences they beamed out to enlighten 
it ? What are the arts they introduced to cheer 
and to adorn it ? What are the religious, what 
the moral institutions they have taught among 
that people as a guide to life, or as a consolation 
when life is to be no more, that there is an eter- 
nal debt — a debt " still paying, still to owe," 
which must be bound on the present generation 
in India, and entailed on their mortgaged poster- 
ity forever ?^^ A debt of millions, in favor of a 

11 The debt immense of endless gratitude ; 
still paying, still to owe. — Milfon. 



set of men whose names, with few- exceptions, 
are either buried in the obscurity of their origin 
and talents, or dragged into light by the enor- 
mity of their crimes. ''^ 

In my opinion, the courage of the minister 
was the most wonderful part of the These suspicions 
transaction, especially as he must K'L^;!f^irco!'3 
have read, or rather the right hon- declarations. 
orable gentleman says he has read for him, whole 
volumes upon the subject. The volumes, by-the- 
way, are not one tenth part so numerous as the 
right honorable gentleman has thought proper 
to pretend, in order to frighten you from inquiry ; 
but in these volumes, such as they are, the min- 
ister must have found a full authority for a sus- 
picion (at the very least) of every thing relative 
to the great fortunes made at Madras. What is 
that authority ? Why, no other than the stand- 
ing authority for all the claims which the minis- 
try has thought fit to provide for — the grand 
debtor — the Nabob ofArcot himself. Hear that 
prince, in the letter written to the court of Di- 
rectors, at the precise period while the main body 
of these debts were contracting. In his letter 
he states himself to be, what undoubtedly he is, 
a most competent witness to this point. After 
speaking of the war with Hyder Ali in 1768 
and 1769, and of other measures which he cen- 
sures (whether right or wrong, it signifies noth- 
ing), and into which he says he had been led 
by the Company's servants, he proceeds in this 
manner: " If all these things were against the 
real interests of the Company, they are ten thou- 
sand times more against mine, and against the 
prosperity of my country, and the happiness of 
my people, for your interests and mine are the 
same. What were they ownng to, then? To 
the private views of a few individuals, who have 
enriched themselves at the expense of your in- 
fluence and of my country ; for your servants 
have no trade in this country ; neither do you 
pay them high wages, yet in a few years they 
return to England with many lacs of pagodas. 
How can you or I account for such immense 
fortunes, acquired in so short a time, without any 
visible means of getting them ?" 

When he asked this question, which involves 
its answ^er, it is extraordinary that curiosity did 
not prompt the Chancellor of the Exchequer to 
that inquir}', which might come in vain recom- 
mended to him by his own act of Parliament. 
Does not the Nabob of Arcot tell us, in so many 
words, that there was no fair way of making the 
enormous sums sent by the Company's servants 
to England ? And do you imagine that there 
was or could be moi'e honesty and good faith in 



12 It is unnecessary to remark on the beauty of 
this amplification, which has all the force of the se- 
verest logic, since it enumerates the only proper 
and legitimate means by which such a debt could 
have been entailed upon a people. The passage is 
peculiarly characteristic of Mr. Burke's genius. It 
was dictated by that penetrating philosophy of his 
which was always searching into the causes of 
things, and thus furnishing the materials of profound 
remark and exuberant illustration. 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1785. 



the demands for what remained behind in India ? 
Of what nature were the transactions with him- 
self? If you follow the train of his information, 
3'ou must see that, if these great sums were at 
all lent, it was not property, but spoil that was 
lent ; if not lent, the transaction was not a con- 
tract, but a fraud. Either way, if light enough 
could not be furnished to authorize a full con- 
demnation of these demands, they ought to have 
been left to the parties who best knew and un- 
derstood each other's proceedings. It is not nec- 
essary that the authority of government should 
interpose in favor of claims whose very founda- 
tion was a defiance of that authorit}^, and whose 
object and end was its entire subversion. 

It may be said that this letter was written by 
the Nabob of Arcot in a moody humor, under the 
influence of some chagrin. Certainly it was ; 
but it is in such humors that truth comes out ; 
and when he tells you, from his own knowledge, 
what every one must presume, from the extreme 
probability of the thing, whether he told it or not, 
one such testimony is worth a thousand that con- 
tradict that probability, when the parties have a 
better understanding with each other, and when 
they have a point to carry that may unite them 
in a common deceit. 

If this body of private claims of debt, real or 
devised, were a question, as it is false- 
cot to be paid ly pretended, between the Nabob of 
by the Nabob. ^^^^^ ^g ^g^^^j.^ ^^^ p^^j Benfield 

and his associates as creditors, I am sure I should 
give myself but little trouble about it. If the 
hoards of oppression were the fund for satisfying 
the claims of bribery and peculation, who would 
wish to interfere between such litigants ? If the 
demands were confined to what might be drawn 
from the treasures which the Company's records 
uniformly assert that the Nabob is in possession 
of, or if ho had mines of gold, or silver, or dia- 
monds (as we know that he has none), these gen- 
tlemen might break open his hoards, or dig in his 
mines, without any disturbance from me. But 
the gentlemen on the other side of the House 
know as well as I do, and they dare not contra- 
dict me, that the Nabob of Arcot and his cred- 
itors are not adversaries, but collusive parties, 
and that the whole ti-ansaction is under a false 
color and false names. The litigation is not, 
nor ever has been, between their rapacity and 
his hoarded riches. No ! It is between him 
and them combining and confederating on one 
side, and the public revenues and the miserable 
inhabitants of a ruined country on the other. 
These are the real plaintiffs and the real defend- 
ants in the suit. Refusing a shilling from his 
hoards for the satisfaction of any demand, the 
Nabob of Arcot is always ready — nay, he earn- 
estly, and with eagerness and passion, contends 
for delivering up to these pretended creditors 
his territory and his subjects. It is, therefore, 
not from treasuries and mines, but from the 
food of your unpaid armies, from the blood with- 
held from the veins and whipped out of the 
backs of the most miserable of men, that we 
are to pamper extortion, usury, and peculation, 



under the false names of debtors and creditors 
of state. ^^ 

IV. The great patron of these creditors (to 
whose honor they ought to erect stat- Examination 
ues), the right honorable gentleman "f the debts. 
[Mr. Dundas], in stating the merits which rec- 
ommended them to his favor, has ranked them 
under three grand divisions — the first, the cred- 
itors of 1767; then the creditors of the cavalry 
loan ; and, lastly, the creditcrrs of the loan in 
1777. Let us examine them, one by one, as 
they pass in review before us. 

("^1.) The first of these loans, that of 1767, he 
insists, had an indisputable claim upon consoiida- 
the public justice. The creditors, he t'^no^i^eT. 
affirms, lent their money publicly; they ad- 
vanced it with the express knowledge and ap- 
probation of the Company ; and it was contract- 
ed at the moderate interest of ten per cent. In 
this loan the demand is, according to him, not 
only just, but meritorious in a very high degree ; 
and one would be inclined to believe he thought 
so, because he has put it last in the provision he 
has made for these claims ! 

I readily admit this debt to stand the fairest 
of the whole ; for, whatever may be my suspi- 
cions concerning a part of it, I can convict it of 
nothing worse than the most enormous usury. 
But I can convict, upon the spot, the right honor- 
able gentleman of the most daring misrepresent- 
ation in every one fact, without any exception, 
that he has alleged in defense of this loan, and 
of his own conduct with regard to it. I will 
show you that this debt was never contracted 
with the knowledge of the Company; that it had 
not their approbation ; that they received the 
first intelligence of it with the utmost possible 
surprise, indignation, and alarm. 

So far from being previously apprised of the 
transaction from its origin, it was two „ 

If I r- TA- 1 Concealed 

years belore the court oi Directors ob- from the 
tained any ofllicial intelligence of it. ^°™P"°y- 
" The dealings of the servants with the Nabob 
were concealed, from the first, until they were 
found out" (says Mr. Sayer, the Company's 
counsel) "by the report of the country." The 
presidency, however, at last thought proper to 
send an official account. On this the Directors 
tell them, " To your great reproach, it has been 
concealed from us. We can not but suspect this 
debt to have had its weight in your proposed ag- 
grandizement of Mohammed Ali [the Nabob of 
Arcot] ; but whether it has or has not, certain 
it is, you are guilty of a high breach of duty in 
concealing it from us." 



13 The ascendency gained by Mr. Benfield over the 
Nabob of Arcot was represented, by a select com- 
mittee at Madras in 1783, to have been of the most 
absolute kind. They say that, to secure the perma- 
nency of his power and profit, be kept the Nabob 
an entire stranger to the state of his own affairs ; 
that he kept the accounts and correspondence in 
the English language, which neither the Nabob nor 
his son could read; that he had surrounded the Na- 
bob on every side, " making him believe wkat was 
not true, and subscribe to tckai he did not binder- 
stand." 



1785.] 



NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS. 



337 



These expressions concerning the ground of 
the transaction, its effect, and its clandestine na- 
ture, are in the letters bearing date March 17, 
1769. After receiving a more full account on 
the 23d of March, 1770, they state that '• Messrs. 
John Pybus, John Call, and James Bourchier, as 
trustees for themselves and others of the Nabob's 
private creditors, had proved a deed of assign- 
ment upon the Nabob and his son o[ fifteen dis- 
tricts of the Nabob's country, the revenues of 
"which yielded, in time of peace, eight lacs of 
pagodas (.^320,000 sterling) annually ; and like- 
wise an assignment of the yearly tribute paid 
the Nabob from the Rajah of Tanjore, amount- 
ing to four lacs of rupees (c£40,000)." The ter- 
ritorial revenue at that time possessed by these 
gentlemen, without the knowledge or consent 
of their masters, amounted to three hundred and 
sixty thousand pounds sterling annually. They 
were making rapid strides to the entire posses- 
sion of the country, when the Directors, whom 
the right honorable gentleman states as having 
authorized these proceedings, were kept in such 
profound ignorance of this royal acquisition of 
territorial revenue by their servants, that in the 
same letter they say, " This assignment was ob- 
tained by three of the members of your board 
in January, 1767, yet we do not find the least 
trace of it upon your consultations until August, 
1768, nor do any of your letters to us afford any 
information relative to such transactions till the 
1st of November, 1768. By your last letters of 
the 8th of May, 1769, you bring the whole pro- 
ceedings to light in one view." 

As to the previous knowledge of the Com- 
pany, and its sanction to the debts, you 
fied by the scc that this asscrtiou of that knowledge 
Directors. -^ ^^^^^j^ unfounded. But did the Di- 
rectors approve of it, and ratify the transaction 
when it was known ? The very reverse. On 
the same third of March the Directors declare, 
" Upon an impartial examination of the whole 
conduct of our late governor and council of Fort 
George [Madras], and on the fullest considera- 
tion, that the said governor and council have, in 
notorious violation of the trust reposed in them, 
manifestly preferred the interest of private indi- 
viduals to that of the Company^ in permitting 
the assignment of the revenues of certain valua- 
ble districts, to a very large amount, from the 
Nabob to individuals" — and then highly aggra- 
vating their crimes, they add : " We order and 
direct that you do examine, in the most impar- 
tial manner, all the above-mentioned transactions, 
and that you punish^ by suspension, degradation, 
dismission, or otherwise, as to you shall seem 
meet, all and every such servant or servants of 
the Company who may by you be found guilty 
of any of the above offenses." "We had (say 
the Directors) the mortification to find that the 
servants of the Company, who had been raised, 
supported, and owed their present opulence to the 
advantages gained in such service, have in this 
instance most unfaithfully betrayed their trust, 
abandoned the Company's interest, and prostitu- 
ted its influence to accomplish i\it purposes ofin- 
Y 



dividuals, while the interest of the Company is al- 
most wholly neglected, and payment to us ren- 
dered extremely precarious." Here, then, is 
the rock of approbation of the court of Direct- 
ors, on which the right honorable gentleman 
says this debt was founded. Any member, Mr. 
Speaker, v^-ho should come into the House, on 
my reading this sentence of condemnation of the 
court of Directors against their unfaithful serv- 
ants, might well imagine that he had heard a 
harsh, severe, unqualified invective against the 
present ministerial Board of Control. So exact- 
ly do the proceedings of the patrons of this abuse 
tally with those of the actors in it, that the ex- 
pressions used in the condemnation of the one 
may serve for the reprobation of the other, with- 
out the change of a word. 

To read you all the expressions of wrath and 
indi<Tnation fulminated in this dispatch against the 
meritorious creditors of the right honorable gen- 
tleman, who, according to him, have been so fully 
approved by the Company, would be to read the 
whole. 

The right honorable gentleman, with an ad- 
dress peculiar to himself, every now Action of the 
and then slides in the " Presidency of EtTar/ 
Madras," as synonymous to the Com- Cerent thing. 
pany. That the presidency did approve the 
debt is certain. But the right honorable gen- 
tleman, as prudent in suppressing as skillful in 
bringing forward his matter, has not chosen to 
tell you that the presidency were the very per- 
sons guilty of contracting this loan ; creditors 
themselves, and agents and trustees for all the 
other creditors. For this, the court of Direct- 
ors accuse them of breach of trust ; and for this, 
the right honorable gentleman considers them 
as perfectly good authority for those claims. It 
is pleasant to hear a gentleman of the law quote 
the approbation of creditors as an authority for 
their own debt ! 

How they came to contract the debt to them- 
selves ; how they came to act as agents for. 
those whom they ought to have controlled, is for 
your inquiry. The policy of this debt was an- 
nounced to the court of Directors by the very 
persons concerned in creating it. " Till very 
lately" (say the presidency), "the Nabob placed 
his dependence on the Company. Now he has 
been taught by ill advisers that an interest out 
of doors may stand him in good stead. He has 
been made to believe that his private creditors 
have power and interest to overrule the court of 
Directors.'''' The Nabob was not misinformed. 
The private creditors [Benfield, &c.] instantly 
qualified a vast number of votes ; and having 
made themselves masters of the court The Directors 
of Proprietors, as well as extending ule^buiuus 
a powerful cabal in other places as sa^f-ti^^ed. 
important, they so completely overturned the au- 
thority of the court of Directors at home and 
abroad, that this poor, bafHed government was 
soon obliged to lower its tone. It was glad to 
be admitted into partnership with its own serv- 
ants. The court of Directors, establishing the 
debt which they had reprobated as a breach of 



338 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1785. 



trust, and which was planned for the subversion 
of their authority, settled its payments on a par 
with those of the public ; and even so, were not 
able to obtain peace, or even equality in their 
demands. All the consequences lay in a reou- 
lar and irresistible train. By employing their 
influence for the recovery of this debt, their or- 
ders, issued in the same breath, against creating 
new debts, only animated the strong desires of 
their servants to this prohibited prolific sport, 
and it soon produced a swarm of sons and daugh- 
ters not in the least degenerated from the virtue 
of their parents. 

From that moment the authority of the court 
of Directors expired in the Carnatic, and every 
where else. "Every man," says the presiden- 
cy, " who opposes the government and its meas- 
ures, finds an immediate countenance from the 
Nabob ; even our discarded ofiicers, however un- 
worthy, are received into the Nabob's service. 
It was, indeed, a matter of no wonderful sagacity 
to determine whether the court of Directors, 
with their miserable salaries to their servants of 
four or five hundred pounds a year, or the dis- 
tributor of millions, was most likely to be obeyed. 
It was an invention beyond the imagination of 
all the speculatists of our speculating age, to see 
a government quietly settled in one and the 
same town, composed of two distinct members ; 
one to pay scantily for obedience, and the other 
to bribe high for rebellion and revolt.^* 

The next thing which recommends this par- 
ticular debt to the right honorable 

The debt rus xip . . ^ , 

by enormous ic gentleman IS, It seems, the moder- 
^''^^^' ate interest of ten per cent. It 

would be lost labor to observe on this assertion. 
The Nabob, in a long apologetic letter for the 
transaction between him and the body of the 
creditors, states the fact as I shall state it to 
you. In the accumulation of this debt, the first 
interest paid was from thirty to thirty-six per 
cent. ; it was then brought down to twenty -five 
per cent. ; at length it was reduced to twenty ; 



1* Soon after the concessions thus forcibly extorted 
from the Directors, Lord Pigot was sent out as Gov- 
ernor to Madras, with instructions to restore the au- 
thority of the Company. He was immediately met 
with new demands from Mr. Benfield to an enor- 
mous amount. He hesitated to admit them ; and 
immediately a majority of the council, who were in 
Mr. Benfield's interest, turned against Lord Pigot. 
He endeavored to maintain his power by impeach- 
ing two of the majoritj', and thus excluding them 
from the council. This produced a breach in the 
council, as stated by Mr. Burke, one part adhering 
to Lord Pigot. and the other (being the majority) de- 
nying and resisting his power. The latter determ- 
ined at last to proceed to extremities. Having 
met and declared themselves vested with the gov- 
ernment, they actually arrested their own governor 
in 1776, held him in close confinement, and assumed 
supreme authority. This outrage awakened great 
indignation in Great Britain. Orders were imme- 
diately sent out for his release and return to En- 
gland, that the facts might be investigated ; but be- 
fore these orders could reach India he was dead. He 
sunk under the effect of anxiety and prolonged im- 
prisonment. 



and there it found its rest. During the whole 
process, as often as any of these monstrous in- 
terests fell into an arrear (into which they were 
continually falling), the arrear, formed into a 
new capital, was added to the old, and the same 
interest of twenty per cent, accrued upon both. 
The Company, having got some scent of the 
enormous usury which prevailed at Madras, 
thought it necessary to interfere, and to order all 
interests to be lowered to ten per cent. This 
order, which contained no exception, though it 
by no means pointed particularly to this class 
of debts, came like a thunder-clap on the Nabob. 
He considered his political credit as ruined ; but, 
to find a remedy to this unexpected evil, he 
again added to the old principal twenty per 
cent, interest accruing for the last year. Thus 
a new fund was formed ; and it was on that ac- 
cumulation of various principals, and interests 
heaped upon interests, not on the sum originally 
lent, as the right honorable gentleman would 
make you believe, that ten per cent, was settled 
on the whole. 

When you consider the enormity of the inter- 
est at which these debts were contracted, and 
the several interests added to the principal I 
believe you will not think me so skeptical if I 
should doubt whether for this debt of oe880,000 
the Nabob ever saw £100,000 in real money, 
The right honorable gentleman, suspecting, with 
all his absolute dominion over fact, that he never 
will be able to defend even this venerable patri- 
archal job, though .sanctified by its numerous is- 
sue, and hoary with prescriptive years, has re- 
course to recrimination, the last resource of guilt. 
He says that this loan of 1767 was provided for in 
Mr. Fox's India Bill; and, judging of others by 
his own nature and principles, he more than insin- 
uates that this provision was made, not from any 
sense of merit in the claim, but from partiality 
to General Smith, a proprietor, and an agent for 
that debt. If partiality could have had any 
weight against justice and policy with the then 
ministers and their friends. General Smith had 
titles to it. But the right honorable gentleman 
knows as well as I do that General Smith was 
very far from looking on himself as partially 
treated in the arrangements of that time ; in- 
deed, what man dared to hope for private par- 
tiality in that sacred plan for relief to nations ? 

It is not necessary that the right honorable 
gentleman should sarcastically call that time 
[Mr. Fox's East India Bill] to our recollection 
Well do I remember every circumstance of that 
memorable period. God forbid I should forget 
it. 0, illustrious disgrace ! O, victorious defeat ! 
May your memorial be fresh and new to the 
latest generations ! May the day of that gen- 
erous conflict be stamped in characters never to 
be canceled or worn out from the records of 
time ! Let no man hear of us who shall not 
hear that, in a struggle against the intrigues of 
courts, and the perfidious levity of the multitude, 
M-e fell in the cause of honor, in the cause of 
our country, in the cause of human nature it- 
self! But if fortune should be as powerful over 



1785.J 



NABOB OF ARGOTS DEBTS. 



339 



fame, as she has been prevalent over virtue, at 
least our conscience is beyond her jurisdiction. 
My poor share in the support of that great meas- 
ure no man shall ravish from me. It shall be 
safely lodged in the sanctuary of my heart, nev- 
er, never to be torn from thence but with those 
holds that grapple it to life ! 

I say, I well remember that bill, and every 
^, . . ^ one of its honest and its wise provi- 

This debt not . , • i , 

protected by sions. It IS not truc that this debt was 

Mr. Fox's bill. ^ ^ j i- i 

ever protected or entorced, or any rev- 
enue whatsoever set apart for it. It was left in 
that bill just where it stood, to be paid or not 
to be paid out of the Nabob's private treasures, 
according to his own discretion. The Company 
had actually given it their sanction, though al- 
ways relying for its validity on the sole security 
of the faith of him who, without their knowledge 
or consent, entered into the original obligation. 
It had no other sanction ; it ought to have had 
no other. So far was Mr. Fox's bill from provid- 
ing funds for it, as this ministry have wickedly 
done for this, and for ten times worse transac- 
tions, out of the public estate, that an express 
clause immediately preceded positively forbid- 
ding any British subject from receiving assign- 
ments upon any part of the territorial revenue, 
on any pretense whatsoever.'^ 

You recollect, Mr. Speaker, that the Chancel- 
lor of the Exchequer [Mr. Pitt] strongly pro- 
fessed to retain every part of Mr. Fox's bill 
which was intended to prevent abuse ; but in his 
India bill, which (let me do justice) is as able 
and skillful a performance for its own purposes 
as ever issued from the wit of man, premeditat- 
ing this iniquity — " hoc ipsum ut strueretTrojam- 
que aperiret Achivis'"'' expunged this essential 
clause, broke down the fence which was raised 
to cover the public property against the rapacity 
of his partisans, and thus leveling every obstruc- 
tion, he made a firm, broad highway for " Sin 
and Death," for usury and oppression, to renew 

^^ The following were the words of Mr. Fox's bill. 
"And be it further enacted by the authority afore- 
said, that the Nabob of Arcot, the Rajah of Tanjore, 
or any other protected prince of India, shall not as- 
si£?n, mortgage, or pledge any territory or land what- 
soever, or the revenue or produce thereof to any 
British subject whatsoever; nor shall it be lawful 
for any British subject whatsoever to take or re- 
ceive any such assignment, mortgage, or pledge ; 
and the same are hereby declared null and void. 
And all payments, or deliveries of produce or rev- 
enue under any such assignment, sliall and may be 
recovered back by such native prince paying or 
delivering the same from the person or persons re- 
ceiving the same, or from his or their representa- 
tives." 

16 The passage is taken from Virgil's ^neid, 
book il., line 60, and relates to Sinon, the Greek 
spy, when brought in by the shepherds. 

— qui se ignotum venientibus ultro. 
Hoc ipsum ut strueret Trojamqiie aperiret Achivis, 
Obtulerat. 

He offered himself unknown to them approachin"', 
This very end to gain, and open Troy 
To the Greeks. 



their ravages throughout the devoted revenues 
of the Carnatic.'^ 

(2.) The tenor, the policy, and the conse- 
quences of this debt of 1767, are, in „ , 

\ „ , . . ' ,, ' Cavalry Debt, 

the eyes of the ministry, so excellent, 
that its merits are irresistible ; and it takes the 
lead to give credit and countenance to all the 
rest. Along with this chosen body of heavy- 
armed infantry, and to support it in the line, 
the right honorable gentleman has stationed his 
corps of black cavahy. If there be any advant- 
age bet.ween this debt and that of 1769, accord- 
ing to him the Cavalry Debt has it. It is not a 
subject of defense ; it is a theme of panegyric. 
Listen to the right honorable gentleman, and 
you will find it was contracted to save the coun- 
try ; to prevent mutiny in armies ; to introduce 
economy in revenues ; and for all these honor- 
able purposes, it originated at the express de- 
sire, and by the representative authority of the 
Company is-^elf 

First, let me say a word to the authority. 
This debt was contracted, not by Not authorizea by 
the authority of the Company, not KYSn^i'ch 
by its representatives (as the riofht i'«J "s^rpeJ tj^e 

-' i ^ P) government at 

honorable gentleman has the un- M^Jras. 
paralleled confidence to assert), but in the ever 
memorable period of 1777, by the usurped pow- 
er of those who rebelliously, in conjunction with 
the Nabob of Arcot, had overturned the lawful 
government of Madras.'*^ For that rebellion, 
this House unanimously directed a public pros- 
ecution. The delinquents, after they had sub- 
verted the government in order to make them- 
selves a party to support them in their power, 
are universally known to have dealt jobs about 
to the right and to the left, and to any who were 
willing to receive them. This usurpation, which 
the right honorable gentleman well knows was 
brought about by and for the great mass of these 
pretended debts, is the authority which is set up 
by him to represent the Company ; to represent 
that Company which, from the first moment of 
their hearing of this corrupt and fraudulent 
transaction to this hour, have uniformly dis- 
owned and disavowed it ! 

So much for the authority. As to the facts, 
partly true and partly colorable, as they Reaiongin 
stand recorded, they are in substance of'i'ede'bt. 
these. The Nabob of Arcot, as soon as he had 
thrown off the superiority of this country by 
means of these creditors, kept up a great army, 
which he never paid. Of course, his soldiers 
were generally in a state of mutiny. The usurp- 
ing council say that they labored hard with their 
master, the Nabob, to persuade him to reduce 
these mutinous and useless troops. He consent- 

1'' The allusion here is to Satan's first passage to 
this earth, as described by Milton in his Paradise 
Lost, near the close of the second Book. 

Sin and Death amain 
Following his track (such was the will of Heaven), 
Paved after him a broad and beaten way 
Over the dark abyss. 

'^ The circumstances of this usurpation have been 
already detailed in note 14, page 338. 



340 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1785 



cd ; but, as usual, pleaded inability to pay them 
their arrears. Here was a difficulty : the Nabob 
had no money ; the Company had no money ; 
every public supply was empty. But there was 
one resource which no season has ever yet dried 
up in that climate. The soucars [money lenders] 
were at hand ; that is, private English money- 
jobbers ofl'ered their assistance. Messrs. Tay- 
lor, Majendie, and Call proposed to advance the 
small sum of ci*160,000, to pay off the Nabob's 
black cavalry, provided the Company's authority 
was given for their loan. This was the great 
point of policy always aimed at and pursued 
through a hundred devices by the servants at 
Madras. The presidency, who themselves had 
no authority for the functions they presumed to 
exercise,^^ very readily gave the sanction of the 
Company to those servants who knew that the 
Company (whose sanction was demanded) had 
positively prohibited all such transactions. 

However, so far as the reality of the dealing 
goes, all is hitherto fair and plausible ; and here 
the right honorable gentleman concludes, with 
commendable prudence, his account of the busi- 
ness. But here it is I shall beg leave to com- 
mence my supplement, for the gentleman's dis- 
creet modesty has led him to cut the thread of 
the story somewhat abruptly. One of the most 
essential parties is quite forgotten. Why should 
the episode of the poor Nabob be omitted ? When 
that prince chooses it, nobody can tell his story 
better. Excuse me if I apply again to ray book, 
and give it you from the first hand — from the 
Nabob himself. 

"Mr. Stratton [one of the members of the 
Document- council at Madras] became acquainted 
ary proofs. ^^^^ ^^As, and got Mr. Taylor and oth- 
ers to lend me four lacs of pagodas toward dis- 
charging the arrears of pay of my troops. Upon 
this, I wrote a letter of thanks to Mr. Stratton ; 
and, upon the faith of this money being paid im- 
mediately, I ordered many of my troops to be 
discharged by a certain day, and lessened the 
number of my servants. Mr. Taylor, &c., some 
time after acquainted me that they had no ready 
money, but they would grant tccps [notes of 
hand], payable in four months. This astonished 
me ; for I did not know what might happen when 
the sepoys were dismissed from my service. I 
begged of Mr. Taylor and the others to pay this 
sum to the officers of my regiments at the time 
they mentioned ; and desired the officei's, at the 
same time, to pacify and persuade the men be- 
longing to them that their pay would be given 
to them at the end of four months ; and that till 
those arrears were discharged their pay should 
be continued to them. Two years are nearly 
expired since that time, but Mr. Taylor has not 
yet entirely discharged the arrears of those troops, 
and I am obliged to continue their pay from that 
time till this. I hoped to have been able, by this 
expedient, to have lessened the number of my 
troops, and discharged the arrears due to them, 



'^ The acting presidency were the usurping ones 
who had imprisoned Lord Pigot. 



considering the trifle of interest to Mr. Taylor 
and the others as of no great matter ; but instead 
of this, / am oppressed u-ith the burden of pay 
due to those troops, and the interest which is go- 
ing on to Mr. Taylor from the day the teeps were 
granted to him.^^ What I have read to you is 
an extract of a letter from the Nabob of the Car- 
natic to Governor Rumbold, dated the 22d, and 
received the 24th of March, 1779. 

Suppose his Highness not to be well broken 
in to things of this kind, it must, indeed, surprise 
so known and established a bond vender as the 
Nabob of Arcot, one who keeps himself the 
largest bond warehouse in the world, to find that 
he was now to receive in kind ; not to take mon- 
ey for his obligations, but to give his bond in 
exchange for the bond of Messrs. Taylor, Majen- 
die, and Call, and to pay, beside, a good smart 
interest, legally 12 per cent, [in reality perhaps 
twenty or twenty-four per cent.], for this ex- 
change of paper. But his troops were not to 
be so paid or so disbanded ; they wanted bread, 
and could not live by cutting and shuffling of 
bonds. The Nabob still kept the troops in 
service, and was obliged to continue, as you 
have seen, the whole expense ; to exonerate 
himself from which, he became indebted to the 
soucars. 

Had it stood here, the transaction would have 
been of the most audacious strain of fraud and 
usury perhaps ever before discovered, whatever 
might have been practiced and concealed. But 
the same authority (I mean the Nabob's) brings 
before you something, if possible, more striking. 
He states that, for this their paper, he immedi- 
ately handed over to these gentlemen something 
very different from paper; that is, the receipt 
of a territorial revenue, of w4iich it seems they 
continued as long in possession as the Nabob 
himself continued in possession of any thing. 
Their payments, therefore, not being to com- 
mence before the end of four months, and not 
being completed in two years, it must be pre- 
sumed (unless they proved the contrary) that 
their payments to the Nabob were made out of 
the revenues they had received from his assign- 
ment. Thus they condescended to accumulate 
a debt of c£l60,000, v/ith an interest of 12 per 
cent., in compensation for a lingering payment 
to the Nabob of ^£1 60,000 of his own money ! 

Still we have not the whole. About two years 
after the assignment of those territorial revenues 
to these gentlemen, the Nabob receives a remon- 
strance from his chief manager, in a principal 
province, of which this is the tenor : " The en- 
tire revenue of those districts is by your High- 
ness's order set apart to discharge the tunkaivs 
[assignments] granted to the Europeans. The 
gomastnhs [agents] of Mr. Taylor, to Mr. De 
Fries, are there in order to collect those tun- 
kaivs; and as they receive all the revenue that 
is collected, your Highness's troops have seven 
or eight months' pay due which they can not re- 
ceive, and are thereby reduced to the greatest 
distress. In such times, it is highly necessary to 
provide for the sustenance of the troops, that they 



ii 



1785.] 



NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS. 



341 



may be ready to exert themselves in the service 
of your Highness." 

Here, sir, you see how these causes and effects 
act upon one another. One body of troops mu- 
tinies for want of pay ; a debt is contracted to 
pay them, and they still remain unpaid. A ter- 
ritory destined to pay other troops is assigned 
for this debt, and these other troops fall into the 
same state of indigence and mutiny with the first. 
Bond is paid by bond ; arrear is turned into new 
arrear ; usury engenders new usury ; mutiny 
suspended in one quarter, starts up in another ; 
until all the revenues and all the establishments 
are entangled into one inextricable knot of con- 
fusion, from which they are only disengaged by 
being entirely destroyed. In that state of con- 
fusion, in a very few months after the date of the 
memorial I have just read to you, things were 
found, when the Nabob's troops, famished to feed 
English soucars, instead of defending the coun- 
try, joined the invaders, and deserted in entire 
bodies to Hyder Ali.^" 

The manner in which this transaction was 
carried on shows that good examples are not 
easily forgot, especially by those who are bred 
in a great school. One of those splendid exam- 
ples give me leave to mention at a somewhat 
more early period, because one fraud furnishes 
light to the discovery of another, and so on, until 
the whole secret of mysterious iniquity bursts 
upon you in a blaze of detection. The paper I 
shall read you is not on record. If you please, 
you may take it on my word. It is a letter 
written from one of undoubted information in 
Madras, to Sir John Clavering, describing the 
practice that prevailed there, while the Compa- 
ny's allies were under sale, during the tim.e of 
Governor Winch's administration. 

" One mode," says Clavering's correspondent, 
"of amassing money at the Nabob's cost is cu- 
rious. He is generally in arrears to the Com- 
pany, Here the Governor, being cash-keeper, 
is generally on good terms with the banker, who 
manages matters thus: The Governor presses 
the Nabob for the balance due from him ; the 
Nabob flies to his banker for relief; the banker 
engages to pay the money, and grants his notes 
accordingly, which he puts in the cash-book as 
ready money ; the Nabob pays him an interest 
for it at two and three per cent, a month, till the 
tunkaios [assignments] he grants on the particu- 
lar districts for it are paid. Matters in the mean 
time are so managed, that there is no call for 
this money for the Company's service, till the 
tunkaws become due. By this means not a cash 
is advanced by the banker, though he receives a 
heavy interest from the Nabob, which is divided 
as lawful spoil." 

Here, Mr. Speaker, you have the whole art 
and mystery, the true Free-mason secret of the 
profession of soucaring ; by which a few inno- 
cent, inexperienced young Englishmen, such as 



2" This took place in 1780, during that terrible 
devastation of the Carnatic by Hyder Ali, which Mr. 
Burke so vividly describes toward the close of this 
speech. 



Mr. Paul Benfield, for instance, without property 
upon which any one would lend to themselves a 
single shilling, are enabled at once to take prov- 
inces in mortgage, to make princes their debt- 
ors, and to become creditors for millions ! 

But it seems the right honorable gentleman's 
favorite soucar cavalry have proved Exposure of the 
the payment before the Mayor's Srhlltdbeen"" 
Court at Madras! Have they so? proved m court. 
Why, then, defraud our anxiety and their char- 
acters of that proof? Is it not enough that the 
charges which I have laid before you have stood 
on record against these poor injured gentlemen 
for eight years ? Is it not enough that they are 
in print by the orders of the East India Compa- 
ny for five years ? After these gentlemen have 
borne all the odium of this publication, and all 
the indignation of the Directors, with such unex- 
ampled equanimity, now that they are at length 
stimulated into feeling, are you to deny them 
their just relief? But will the right honorable 
gentleman be pleased to tell us how they came 
not to give this satisfaction to the court of Di- 
rectors, their lawful masters, during all the eight 
years of this litigated claim ? Were they not 
bound, by every tie that can bind man, to give 
them this satisfaction? This day, for the first 
time, we hear of the proofs. But when were 
these proofs offered ? In what cause ? Who 
were the parties ? Who inspected ? Who con- 
tested this belated account ? Let us see some- 
thing to oppose to the body of record which ap- 
pears against them. The Mayor's Court ! The 
Mayor's Court ? Pleasant ! Does not the hon- 
orable gentleman know that the first corps of 
creditors [the creditors of 1767] stated it as a 
sort of hardship to them, that they could not have 
justice at Madras, from the impossibility of their 
supporting their claims in the Mayor's Court? 
Why ? Because, say they, the members of that 
court were themselves creditors, and therefore 
could not sit as judges ! Are we ripe to say 
that no creditor under similar circumstances was 
a member of the court when the payment which 
is the ground of this cavalry debt was put in 
proof? Nay, are we not in a manner compelled 
to conclude that the court was so constituted, 
when we know there is scarcely a man in Mad- 
ras who has not some participation in these 
transactions? It is a shame to hear such proofs 
mentioned, instead of the honest, vigorous scru- 
tiny which the circumstances of such an affair 
so indispensably call for.^^ 

But his Majesty's ministers, indulgent enough 
to other scrutinies, have not been satisfied with 



21 As to this pretended proof before the Mayor's 
Court at Madras, the fact turned out to be just as 
Mr. Burke supposed. It was wholly collusive. It 
consisted merely of an affidavit of the money-lend- 
ers themselves, who swore (what no one ever doubt- 
ed) that they had eniroged, and agreed to pay (not 
that they had actually paid), the sum of £160,000 
to the Nabob of Arcot. This affidavit was made 
two years after the transaction, before George Proc- 
tor, mayor, who was also agent for some of the 
creditors. 



343 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1785. 



authorizing the payment of this demand without 
such inquiry as the act has prescribed ; but they 
have added the arrear ol" twelve per cent, inter- 
est, from the year 1777 to the year 1784, to 
make a new capital, raising thereby c£ 160,000 to 
c£294,000. Then they charge a new twelve 
per cent, on the whole from that period, for a 
transaction in which it will be a miracle if a 
single penny will be ever found really advanced 
from the private stock of the pretended creditors. 

(3.) In this manner, and at such an interest, 
the ministers have thought proper to dispose of 
c£294,000 of the public revenues, for what is 
called the Cavalry Loan. After dispatching this, 
consoii.iation the right honorable gentleman leads to 
°' ^^"' battle his last grand division, the con- 

solidated debt of 1777. But having exhausted 
all his panegyric on the two first, he has nothing 
at all to say in favor of the last. On the con- 
Authorized trary, he admits that it was contracted 
by no one. j^ defiance of the Company's orders, 
without even the pretended sanction of any pre- 
tended representatives. Nobody, indeed, has yet 
been found hardy enough to stand forth avowed- 
ly in its defense. But it is little to the credit of 
the age, that what has not plausibility enough to 
find an advocate, has influence enough to obtain 
a protector. Could any man expect to find that 
protector any where ? But what must every 
man think, when he finds that protector in the 
chairman of the Committee of Secrecy [Mr. Dun- 
das], who had published to the House, and to the 
world, the facts that condemn these debts — the 
orders that forbid the incurring of them — the 
dreadful consequences which attended them. 
Even in his official letter, when he tramples on 
his parliamentary report, yet his general lan- 
guage is the same. Read the preface to this 
part of the ministerial arrangement, and you 
would imagine that this debt was to be crushed, 
with all the weight of indignation which could 
fall from a vigilant guardian of the public treas- 
ury, upon those who attempted to rob it. What 
must be felt by every man who has feeling, when, 
after such a thundering preamble of condemna- 
tion, this debt is ordered to be paid without any 
sort of inquiry into its authenticity ? without a 
single step taken to settle even the amount of 
the demand ? without an attempt so much as to 
ascertain the real persons claiming a sum, which 
rises in the accounts from one million three hund- 
red thousand pounds sterling to two millions 
four hundred thousand pounds principal money ? 
without an attempt made to ascertain the pro- 
prietors, of whom no list has ever yet been laid 
before the court of Directors ; of proprietors 
who are known to be in a collusive shuffle, by 
which they never appear to be the same in any 
two lists, handed about for their own particular 
purposes ? 

My honorable friend [Mr. Fox] who made 
Abandoned. Y^^ ^^c motion has sufficiently ex- 
toagreate'x poscd thc nature of this debt. He 

tent, by the | . 

claimants has Stated to you that its own agents, 

in the year 1781, in the arrangement 

they proposed to make at Calcutta, were satisfied 



to have twenty-five per cent at once struck ofl!" 
from the capital of a great part of this debt, and 
praj-ed to have a provision made for this reduced 
principal, without any interest at all ! This was 
an arrangement of their own — an arrangement 
made by those who best knew the true constitu- 
tion of their own debt ; who knew how little fa- 
vor it merited, and how little hopes they had to 
find any persons in authority abandoned enough 
to support it as it stood. 

But what corrupt men, in the fond imagina- 
tions of a sanguine avarice, had not the Yet aiiow- 
confidence to propose, they have found a ^'^ '"'^""" 
Chancellor of the Exchequer in England hardy 
enough to undertake for them. He has cheered 
their drooping spirits. He has thanked the pec- 
ulators for not despairing of their common- 
wealth.'^^ He has told them they were too mod- 
est. He has replaced the twenty-five per cent. 
w^hich, in order to lighten themselves, they had 
abandoned in their conscious terror. Instead of 
cutting off" the interest, as they had themselves 
consented to do, with one fourth of the capital, 
he has added the whole growth of four years' 
usury of twelve per cent, to the first overgrown 
principal, and has again grafted on this meliora- 
ted stock a perpetual annuity of six per cent., to 
take place from the year 1781. Let no man 
hereafter talk of the decaying energies of na- , 
ture. All the acts and monuments in the rec- 
ords of peculation ; the consolidated corruption 
of ages, the patterns of exemplary plunder in the 
heroic times of Roman iniquity, never equaled the 
gigantic corruption of this single act. Never did 
Nero, in all the insolent prodigalit}' of despotism, 
deal out to his Pretorian guards a donation fit to 
be named with the largess showered down by the 
bounty of our Chancellor of the Exchequer on 
the faithful band of his Indian Sepoys. 

The right honorable gentleman [Mr. Dundas] 
lets you freely and voluntarily into the whole 
transaction. So perfectly has his conduct con- 
founded his understanding, that he fairly tells you 
that through the course of the whole business he 
has never conferred with any but the agents of 
the pretended creditors ! After this, do you want 
more to establish a secret understanding with 
the parties ? to fix, beyond a doubt, their collu- 
sion and participation in a common fraud ? 

If this were not enough, he has furnished you 
with other presumptions that are not contradi- tory 
to be shaken. It is one of the known TdT^aiSg 
indications of guilt to stagger and pre- *'^^"'- 
varicate in a story, and to vary in the motives 
that are assigned to conduct. Try these minis- 
ters by this rule. In their official dispatch, they 
tell the presidency of Madras that they have es- 
tablished the debt for two reasons ; first, be- 
cause the Nabob (the party indebted) does not 
dispute it ; secondly, because it is mischievous 
to keep it longer afloat, and that the payment 
of the European creditors will promote circula- 
tion in the country. These two motives (for the 
plainest reasons in the world) the right honora- 



-ne de republica desperandum sit. 



1785.] 



NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS. 



343 



ble gentleman has this day thought fit totally to 
abandon. In the first place, he rejects the au- 
thority of the Nabob of Arcot. It would indeed 
be pleasant to see him adhere to this exploded 
testimony. He next, upon grounds equally solid, 
abandons the benefits of that circulation, which 
was to be produced by drawing out all the juices 
of the body. Laying aside, or forgetting these 
pretenses of his dispatch, he has just now as- 
sumed a principle totally different, but to the 
full as extraordinary. He proceeds upon a sup- 
position that many of the claims may be fictitious. 
He then finds that, in a case where many valid 
and many fraudulent claims are blended togeth- 
er, the best course for their discrimination is in- 
discriminately to establish them all ! He trusts 
(I suppose), as there may not be a fund suflacient 
for every description of creditors, that the best 
warranted claimants will exert themselves in 
bringing to light those debts which will not 
bear an inquiry. What he will not do himself, 
he is persuaded will be done by others ; and for 
this purpose he leaves to any person a general 
power of excepting to the debt. This total 
change of language and prevarication in princi- 
ple is enough, if it stood alone, to fix the pre- 
sumption of unfair dealing. His dispatch as- 
signs motives of policy, concord, trade, and cir- 
culation. His speech proclaims discord and lit- 
igations, and proposes, as the ultimate end, detec- 
tion. 

But he may shift his reasons, and wind and 
turn as he will, confusion waits him at all his 
doubles. Who will undertake this detection ? 
Will the Nabob ? But the right honorable gen- 
tleman has himself this moment told us that no 
prince of the country can by any motive be 
prevailed upon to discover any fraud that is 
practiced upon him by the Company's servants. 
He says what (with the exception of the com- 
plaint against the cavalry loan) all the world 
knows to be true ; and without that prince's 
concurrence, what evidence can be had of the 
fraud of any, the smallest of these demands ? 
The ministers never authorized any person to 
enter into his exchequer and to search his rec- 
ords. Why, then, this shameful and insulting 
mockery of a pretended contest? Already con- 
tests for a preference have arisen among these 
rival bond creditors. Has not the Company it- 
self struggled for a preference for years, without 
any attempt at detection of the nature of those 
debts with which they contended ? Well is the 
Nabob of Arcot attended to in the only specific 
complaint he has ever made. He complained 
of unfair dealing in the cavalry loan. It is fixed 
upon him with interest on interest, and this loan 
is excepted from all power of litigation. 

This day, and not before, the right honorable 
genlleman thinks that the general establishment 
of all claims is the surest way of laying open the 
fraud of some of them. In India this is a reach 
of deep policy ; but what would be thought of 
this mode of acting on a demand upon the treas- 
ury in England? Instead of all this cunning, is 
there not one plain way open, that is, to put the 



bui"den of the proof on those who make the de- 
mand ? Ought not ministry to have said to the 
creditors, " The person who admits your debt 
stands excepted as to evidence ; he stands charg- 
ed as a collusive party, to hand over the public 
revenues to you for sinister purposes ? You say 
you have a demand of some millions on the In- 
dian treasury. Prove that you have acted by 
lawful authority ; prove, at least, that your mon- 
ey has been bona fide advanced ; entitle yourself 
to my protection by the fairness and fullness of the 
communications you make." Did an honest cred- 
itor ever refuse that reasonable and honest test ? 
There is little doubt that several individuals 
have been seduced by the purveyors , ^ „ 

^ A , • Undoubtedly 

to the Nabob ot Arcot to put theu* some honest 
money (perhaps the whole of honest 
and laborious earnings) into their hands, and that 
such high interest, as. being condemned at law, 
leaves them at the mercy of the great managers 
whom they trusted. These seduced creditors 
are probably persons of no power or interest, ei- 
ther in England or India, and may be just ob- 
jects of compassion. By taking, in this ar- 
rangement, no measures for discrimination and 
discovery, the fraudulent and the fair are, in the 
first instance, confounded in one mass. The 
subsequent selection and distribution is left to 
the Nabob ! With him the agents and instru- 
ments of his corruption, whom he sees to be om- 
nipotent in England, and who may serve him in 
future, as they have done in times past, will 
have precedence, if not an exclusive preference. 
These leading interests domineer, and have al- 
ways domineered, over the whole. By this ar- 
rangement the persons seduced are made de- 
pendent on their seducers : honesty (compara- 
tive honesty, at least) must become of the party 
of fraud, and must quit its proper character and 
its just claims, to entitle itself to the alms of brib- 
ery and peculation. 

But be these English creditors what they 
may, the creditors most certainly not 
fraudulent are the natives, who are uu- ly natives 
merous and wretched indeed : by ex- 
hausting the whole revenues of the Carnatic, 
nothing is left for them. They lent bona fide ; 
in all probability, they were even forced to lend, 
or to give goods and service for the Nabob's ob- 
ligations. They had no trust to carry to his 
market. They had no faith of alliances to sell. 
They had no nations to betray to robbery and 
ruin. They had no lawful government sedi- 
tiously to overturn ; nor had they a governor, to 
whom it is owning that you exist in India, to de- 
liver over to captivity and to death in a shameful 
prison. ^^ 

These were the merits of the principal part of 
the debt of 1777, and the universally conceived 
cause of its growth ; and thus the unhappy na- 
tives are deprived of every hope of payment for 
their real debts, to make provision for the arrears 
of unsatisfied bribery and treason. You see in 

23 For the circumstances attending the imprison- 
ment and death of Lord Pigot, Governor of Madras, 
see note 14, page 338. 



I* 



344 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1785. 



this instance that the presumption of guilt is not 
only no exception to the demands on the public 
treasury, but, with these ministers, it is a neces- 
sary condition to their support. But that you 
may not think this preference solely owing to 
their known contempt of the natives, who ought, 
with every generous mind, to claim their first 
charities, you will find the same rule religiously 
observed with Europeans too. Attend, sir, to 
this decisive case. Since the beginning of the 
war, besides arrears of every kind, a bond debt 
has been contracted at Madras, uncertain in its 
amount, but represented from four hundred thou- 
sand pounds to a million sterling. It stands only 
at the low interest of eight per cent. Of the le- 
gal authority on which this debt was contracted, 
of its purposes for the very being of the state, of 
its publicity and fairness, no doubt has been en- 
tertained for a moment. For this debt, no sort 
of provision w^hatever has been made ! It is re- 
jected as an outcast, while the whole undissipa- 
ted attention of the minister has been employed 
for the discharge of claims entitled to his favor 
by the merits we have seen ! 

I have endeavored to find out, if possible, the 
Impossible to amount of the whole of those demands, 
aiMunroV'^ in order to see how much, supposing 
these debts. ^\^q country in a condition to furnish 
the fund, may remain to satisfy the public debt 
and the necessary establishments ; but I have 
been foiled in my attempt. About one fourth, 
that is, about c£220,000 of the loan of 1767, re- 
mains unpaid. How much interest is in arrear 
I could never discover ; seven or eight years, at 
least, which would make the whole of that debt 
about c£396,000. This stock, which the min- 
isters, in their instructions to the Governor of 
Madras, state as the least exceptionable, they 
have thought proper to distinguish by a marked 
severity, leaving it the only one on which the in- 
terest is not added to the principal, to beget a 
new interest. 

The cavalry loan, by the operation of the same 
authority, is made up to c£294,000, and this 
c£294,000, made up of principal and interest, is 
crowned with a new interest of twelve per cent. 

What the grand loan, the bribery loan of 1777, 
may be, is among the deepest mysteries of state. 
It is probably the first debt ever assuming the 
title of consolidation that did not express what 
the amount of the sum consolidated was. It is 
little less than a contradiction in terms. In the 
debt of the year 1767 the sum was stated in the 
act of consolidation, and made to amount to 
c£880,000 capital. When this consolidation of 
1777 was first announced at the Durbar [Court], 
it was represented authentically at c£2,400,000. 
In that, or rather in a higher state, Sir Thomas 
Rumbold found and condemned it. It afterward 
fell into such a terror as to sweat away a million 
of its weight at once; and it sunk to <£l, 400, 000. 
However, it never was without a resource for re- 
cruiting it to its old plumpness. There was a 
sort of floating debt of about four or five hund- 
red thousand pounds more, ready to be added as 
occasion should require. 



In short, when you pressed this sensitive plant, 
it always contracted its dimensions. When the 
rude hand of inquiry was withdrawn, it expand- 
ed in all the luxuriant vigor of its original vege- 
tation. In the treaty of 1781, the whole of the 
Nabob's debt to private Europeans is, by Mr. 
Sullivan, agent to the Nabob and the creditors, 
stated at 6£2,800,000, which (if the cavalry loan 
and the remains of the debt of 1767 be subtract- 
ed) leaves it nearly at the amount originally de- 
clared at the Durbar in 1777 ; but then there is 
a private instruction to Mr. Sullivan, w^hich, it 
seems, will reduce it again to the lower stand- 
ard of c£l,400,000. Failing in all my attempts, 
by a direct account, to ascertain the extent of 
the capital claimed (where, in all probability, 
no capital was ever advanced), I endeavored, if 
possible, to discover it by the interest which was 
to be paid. For that purpose, I looked to the 
several agreements for assigning the territories 
of the Carnatic to secure the principal and in- 
terest of this debt. In one of them I found a 
sort of postscript, by way of an additional re- 
mark (not in the body of the obligation), the 
debt represented at c£l,400,000; but when 1 
computed the sums to be paid for interest by in- 
stallments in another paper, I found they produced 
the interest of two millions, at twelve per cent., 
and the assignment supposed that if these in- 
stallments might exceed, they might also fall 
short of the real provision for that interest. 

Another installment bond was afterward grant- 
ed. In that bond the interest exactly tallies with 
a capital of c£l, 400,000. But, pursuing this 
capital through the correspondence, I lost sight 
of it again, and it was asserted that this install- 
ment bond was considerably short of the interest 
that ought to be computed to the time mentioned. 
Here are, therefore, two statements of equal au- 
thority, difl^ering at least a million from each oth- 
er ; and as neither persons claiming, nor any 
special sum as belonging to each particular 
claimant is ascertained in the instruments of 
consolidation or in the installment bonds, a large 
scope was left to throw in any sums for any per- 
sons, as their merits in advancing the interest of 
that loan might require ; a powder was also left for 
reduction, in case a harder hand or more scanty 
funds might be found to require it. Stronger 
grounds for a presumption of fraud never ap- 
peared in any transaction. But the ministers, 
faithful to the plan of the interested persons, 
whom alone they thought fit to confer with on 
this occasion, have ordered the payment of the 
whole mass of these unknown, unliquidated 
sums, without an attempt to ascertain them. 
On this conduct, sir, I leave you to make your 
own reflections. 

It is impossible (at least I have found it im- 
possible) to fix on the real amount of the pre- 
tended debts with which your ministers have 
thought proper to load the Carnatic. They are 
obscure ; they shun inquiry ; they are enormous. 
That is all you know of them. 

That you may judge what chance any honor- 
able and useful end of government has for a pro- 



1785.] 



NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS. 



345 



vision that comes in for the leavings of these glut- 
tonous demands, 1 must take it on my- 
sources of the Sell to bring belore you the i-eal con- 
carnatic. jj^j^^^ of that abused, insulted, racked, 
and ruined country ; though in truth my mind re- 
volts from it ; though you will hear it with hor- 
ror ; and I confess I tremble when I think on 
these awful and confounding dispensations of 
Providence. I shall first trouble you with a few 
words as to the cause. 

The great fortunes made in India in the be- 
introductory ginnings of conqucst naturally excited 
remarks on an emulation in all the parts, and 

the mode of • r i 

pkindering through the whole succession ot the 
le country. (^Qj^p.^j^y^g se^viee ; but in the Com- 
pany it gave rise to other sentiments. They did 
not find the new channels of acquisition flow 
with equal riches to them. On the contrary, 
the high flood-tide of private emolument was 
generally in the lowest ebb of their aflairs. 
They began also to fear that the fortune of war 
might take away w^hat the fortune of war had 
given. Wars were accordingly discouraged by 
repeated injunctions and menaces ; and, that the 
servants might not be bribed into them by the 
native princes, they were strictly forbidden to 
take any money whatsoever from their hands. 
But vehement passion is ingenious in resources. 
The Company's servants were not only stimu- 
lated, but better instructed by the prohibition. 
They soon fell upon a contrivance which an- 
swered their purposes far better tha.n the meth- 
ods which were forbidden, though in this also 
they violated an ancient, but, they thought, an 
abrogated order. They reversed their proceed- 
ings. Instead of receiving presents, theymade 
loans. Instead of carrying on wars in their own 
name, they contrived an authority, at once irre- 
sistible and irresponsible, in v.'hose name they 
might ravage at pleasure ; and, being thus freed 
from all restraint, they indulged themselves in 
the most extravagant speculations of plunder. 
The cabal of creditors who have been the ob- 
ject of the late bountiful grant from his Majes- 
ty's ministers, in order to possess themselves, un- 
der the name of creditors and assignees, of every 
country in India, as foKSt as it should be con- 
quered, inspired into the mind of the Nabob of 
Arcot (then a dependent on the Company of the 
humblest order) a scheme of the most wild and des- 
perate ambition that, I believe, ever was admit- 
ted into the thoughts of a man so situated. First 
they persuaded him to consider himself as a prin- 
cipal member in the political system of Europe. 
In the next place they held out to him, and be 
readily imbibed the idea, of the general empire 
of Hindostan. As a preliminary to this under- 
taking, they prevailed on him to propose a tri- 
partite division of that vast country — one part to 
the Company, another to the JNIahrattas, and the 
third to himself. To himself he reserved all the 
southern part of the great peninsula, compre- 
hended under the general name of the Deccan. 

On this scheme of their servants, the Company 
was to appear in the Carnatic in no other light 
than as contractor for the provision of armies. 



and the hire of mercenaries for his use and un- 
der his direction. This disposition w^as to be se- 
cured by the Nabob's putting himself under the 
guarantee of France, and, by the means of that 
rival nation, preventing the English forever from 
assuming an equality, much less a superiority, in 
the Carnatic. In pursuance of this treasonable 
project (treasonable on the part of the English), 
they extinguished the Company as a sovereign 
power in that part of India ; they withdrew the 
Company's garrisons out of all the forts and 
strong-holds of the Carnatic ; they declined to re- 
ceive the embassadors from foreign courts, and 
remitted them to the Nabob of Arcot ^ they fell 
upon and totally destroyed the oldest ally of the 
Company, the King of Tanjore, and plundered the 
country to the amount of near five millions ster- 
ling ; one after another, in the Nabob's name, but 
with English force, they brought into a miserable 
servitude all the princes and great independent 
nobility of a vast country. In proportion to these 
treasons and violences, which ruined the people, 
the fund of the Nabob's debt grew and flourished. 
Among the victims to this magnificent plan 
of universal plunder, worthy of the heroic Hyjer 
avarice of the projectors, you have all heard ^''• 
(and he has made himself to be well remember- 
ed) of an Indian chief called Hyder Ali Khan. 
This man possessed the western [Mysore], as 
the Company, under the name of the Nabob of 
Arcot, does the eastern division of the Carnatic. 
It was among the leading measures in the design 
of this cabal (according to their own emphatic 
language) to extirpate this Hyder Ali. They 
declared the Nabob of Arcot to be his sover- 
eign, and himself to be a rebel, and publicly in- 
vested their instrument with the sovereignty of 
the kingdom of Mysore. But their victim was 
not of the passive kind. They w-ere soon obliged 
to conclude a treaty of peace and close alliance 
with this rebel at the gates of Madras.^'* Both 
before and since that treaty, every principle of 
policy pointed out this power as a natural alli- 
ance, and on his part it was courted by every 
sort of amicable office. But the cabinet council 
of English creditors would not suffer their Nabob 
of Arcot to sign the treaty, nor even to give to 
a prince, at least his equal, the ordinaiy titles of 
respect and courtesy. From that time forward 
a continued plot was carried on within the divan, 
black and white, of the Nabob of Arcot, for the 
destruction of Hyder Ali. As to the outward 
members of the double, or rather treble govern- 
ment of Madras, w^hich had signed the treaty,^^ 



2* This took place in 1769, when Hyder Ali art- 
fully drew off the British array to a great distance 
from Madras, and then suddenly, by a forced march 
of one hundred and twenty miles in three days, sur- 
prised the city in a defenseless state. No resist- 
ance could be offered, and the Council of Madras 
was compelled to conclude a treaty, which provided 
for a restitution of its conquests, and a co-operation 
with Hyder .A.li for their mutual benefit. 

-^ This triple government seems to have been the 
Nabob of Arcot, the nominal sovereign, and the two 
factions into which the Council was divided. 



346 



MR. Bl/RKE ON THE 



[1785. 



they were always prevented by some overruling 
influence (which they do not describe, but which 
can not be misunderstood) from performing what 
justice and interest combined so evidently to en- 
force. 

When at length Hyder All found that he had 
to do with men who either would sign 

His invasion . , , 

of tiie Car- no convcntion, or whom no treaty and 
nat.ci.ii7so. ^^^ signature could bind, and who were 
the determined enemies of human intercourse it- 
self, he decreed to make the country possessed 
by these incorrigible and predestinated criminals 
a memorable example to mankind. He resolved, 
in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of 
such things, to leave the whole Carnatic an ever- 
lasting monument of vengeance, and to put per- 
petual desolation as a barrier between him and 
those against whom the faith which holds the 
moral elements of the world together was no 
protection. He became at length so confident 
of his force, so collected in his might, that he 
made no secret whatsoever of his dreadful reso- 
lution. Having terminated his disputes with 
every enemy and every rival, who buried their 
mutual animosities in their common detestation 
against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he 
drew from every quarter whatever a savage fe- 
rocity could add to his new rudiments in the arts 
of destruction ; and compounding all the male- 
rials of fury, havoc, and desolation into one black 
cloud, he hung for a while on the declivities of 
the mountains. While the authors of all these 
evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this men- 
acing meteor, which blackened all their horizon, 
it suddenly burst, and poured down the whole 
of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic. 
Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which 
no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and which 
no tongue can adequately tell. All the hoiTors 
of war before known or heard of were mercy to 
that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blast- 
ed every field, consumed every house, destroyed 
every temple. The miserable inhabitants, flying 
from their flaming villages, in part were slaugh- 
tered 5 others, without regard to sex, to age, to 
the respect of rank, or sacredness of function ; 
fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, 
enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and, amid 
the goading spears of drivers and the trampling 
of pursuing horses, were swept into captivit}', in 
an unknown and hostile land. Those who were 
able to evade this tempest fled to the walled 
cities, but, escaping from fire, sword, and exile, 
they fell into the jaws of famine.^ 

26 The reader will find it interesting to compare 
this passage with the most eloquent one in Mr. 
Fox's speeches, beginning "And all this without an 
intelligible motive," page 549; and also with De- 
mosthenes' description (about the middle of his Ora- 
tion for the Crown) of the terror and confusion at 
Athens, when the news arrived that Elateia had 
been seized by PhiUp. 

Mr. Fox does not attempt to describe ; he simply 
shows us a man on a field of battle, asking ichy it 
is fought; and, as the inquiry goes on, we catch 
glimpses of the scene around, while Mr. Fox (after 



The alms of the settlement [Madras], in this 
dreadful exigency, were certainly liberal, and all 



his usual manner) turns the whole into argument, 
mingled with the severest irony and sarcasm. 

Demosthenes gives us a picture of the scene by a 
few distinct characteristic touches — the Presidents 
starting from their seats in the midst of supper — 
rushing into the market-place — tearing down the 
booths around it — burning up the hurdles even, 
though the space would not be wanted till the next 
day — sending for the generals — crying out for the 
trumpeter: The Council meeting on the morrow at 
break of day — the people (usually so reluctant to 
attend) pouring along to the assembly before the 
Council had found a moment's opportunity to inquire 
or agree on measures — the entering of the Council 
into the assembly — their announcing the news — 
their bringing forward the messenger to tell his 
story: And then the proclamation of the herald, 
•' Who will speak V — the silence of all — the voice 
of their common country crying out again through 
the herald, "Who will speak for our deliverance?" 
— all remaining silent — when Demosthenes arose, 
and suggested measures which caused all these dan- 
gers to pass away uairep veipog, like a cloud ! 

Mr. Burke had no individual scene of this kind to 
depict ; his description was of necessity a general 
one, embracing those elements of terror and destruc- 
tion which attend the progress of an invading army. 
There are three central points around which the 
description gathers as it advances. First, the forces 
of Hyder Ali (like those of Fabius at the approach 
of Hannibal), hanging in "one black cloud on the 
declivities of the mountains." Secondly, " the sfor7n 
of tfniversol fire!' which did in fact lay waste the 
Carnatic from one extremity to the other. Thirdly, 
the " ivhirlwind of cavalry" — how apt an image of 
Hyder All's terrible band of Abyssinian horsemen, 
which swept the whole country around, and hurried 
tens of thousands "into captivity in an unknown 
and hostile land !" Lord Brougham, in a criticism 
on this passage, pointedly remarks, that some of 
the secondary touches which fill up the picture, 
such as "'blackening of all the horizon," "the men- 
acing meteor," the "goading spears of drivers," and 
"the trampling of pursuing horses," rather diminish 
than increase the eifect. He mentions, also, "the 
storm of unnsiial fire" — an expression flat enough 
certainly, if Mr. Burke had used it, to merit all his 
censures. But if his Lordship had recalled the cir- 
cumstances of Hyder Ali's march, he would have 
seen that j^re was one of his chief instmments of 
destniction ; and therefore that the "storm of uni- 
versal fire," no less than the black cloud and the 
whirlwind of cavalry, should occupy a prominent 
place in the picture. 

Without wishing, however, to criticise so admira- 
ble a passage too closely, or agreeing with Lord 
Brougham in all his remarks, the Editor would sug- 
gest that the first two sentences of this paragraph 
are too much clogged with qualifying thoughts. In 
a passage leading to so animated a description, the 
ideas should be few and simple ; there should be 
nothing to occupy or detain the mind ; every thing 
should bear it forward to one point. But instead of 
this, Mr. Burke, when he had spoken of men who 
would sign no convention, goes on to describe them 
as those "whom no treaty and no signature could 
bind, and who were the determined enemies of hu- 
man intercourse itself;" he then represents them 
as "incorrigible and predestinated criminals," and in 
the next sentence speaks of them as those "against 



1785] 



NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS. 



347 



was done by charity that private charity could 
do ; but it was a people in beggary ; it was a 
nation which stretched out its hands for food. 
For months together these creatures of suffer- 
ance, whose very excess and luxury in their most 
plenteous days had fallen short of the allowance 
of our austerest fasts, silent, patient, resigned, 
without sedition or disturbance, almost without 
complaint, perished by a hundred a day in the 
streets of Madras ; every day seventy at least 
laid their bodies in the streets, or on the glacis 
of Tanjore, and expired of famine in the granary 
of India. I was going to awake your justice 
toward this unhappy part of our fellow-citizens, 
by bringing before you some of the circumstan- 
ces of this plague of hunger. Of all the calami- 
ties which beset and waylay the life of man, this 
comes the nearest to our heart, and is that where- 
in the proudest of us all feels himself to be noth- 
ing more than he is. But I find myself unable 
to manage it with decorum. These details are 
of a species of horror so nauseous and disgust- 
ing ; they are so degrading to the sufferers and 
to the hearers ; they are so humiliating to hu- 
man nature itself, that, on better thoughts, I find 
it more advisable to throw a pall over this hide- 
ous object, and to leave it to your general con- 
ceptions. 

For eighteen months, without intermission, 
this destruction raged from the gates of Madras 
to the gates of Tanjore ; and so completely did 
these masters in their art, Hyder Ali, and his 
more ferocious son [Tippoo Saib], absolve them- 
selves of their impious vow, that when the Brit- 
ish armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic, 
for hundreds of miles in all directions, through 
the whole line of their march they did not see 
one man — not one woman — not one child — not 
one four-footed beast of any description whatev- 
er ! One dead, uniform silence reigned over the 
whole region. With the inconsiderable excep- 
tions of the narrow vicinage of some few forts, I 
wish to be understood as .speaking literally. I 
mean to produce to you more than three wit- 
nesses, above all exception, who will support 
this assertion in its full extent. That hurricane 
of war passed through every part of the central 
provinces of the Carnatic. Six or seven districts 
to the north and to the south (and these not whol- 
ly untouched) escaped the general ravage. 

The Carnatic is a country not much inferior 
Extent of the in cxteut to England. Figure to your- 
carnatic. g^jf^ ^^ Speaker, the land in whose 
representative chair you sit ; figure to yourself 
the form and fashion of your sweet and cheerful 
country from Thames to Trent, north and south, 
whom the faith which holds the moral elements of 
the world to2::ether was no protection." All this, or 
nearly all, were better omitted in such a place, and 
perhaps, also, his description of Hyder All's confed- 
erates as those "who buried their mutual animosi- 
ties in their common detestation of the creditors of 
the Nabob of Arcot." Every one must feel, espe- 
cially in reading these sentences aloud, that there 
is a heaviness about them which is any thint^ but 
fitted to introduce a description like that which fol- 
lows. 



and from the Irish to the German Sea, east and 
west, emptied and emboweled (may God avert 
the omen of our crimes !) by so accomplished a 
desolation. Extend your imagination a little 
farther, and then suppose your ministers taking 
a survey of this scene of waste and desolation ! 
What would be your thoughts if you should be 
informed that they were computing how much 
had been the amount of the excises, how much 
the customs, how much the land and malt tax, 
in order that they should charge (take it in the 
most favorable light) for public service upon the 
relics of the satiated vengeance of relentless en- 
emies the lohole of what England had yielded in 
the most exuberant seasons of peace and abund- 
ance ? What would you call it ? To call it 
tyranny, sublimed into madness, would be too 
faint an image. Yet this very madness is the 
principle upon which the ministers at 3"our right 
hand have proceeded in their estimate of the rev- 
enues of the Carnatic, when they were providing, 
not supply for the establishments of its protec- 
tion, but rewards for the authors of its ruin. 

Every day you are fatigued and disgusted 
with this cant, "The Carnatic is a Not easily re- 
country that will soon recover, and ^''^'"^"^^'^■ 
become instantly as prosperous as ever." They 
think they are talking to innocents, who will be- 
lieve that, by sowing of dragons' teeth, men may 
come up ready grown and ready armed. -^ They 
who will give themselves the trouble of consid- 
ering (for it requires no great reach of thought, 
no very profound knowledge) the manner in 
which mankind are increased and countries cul- 
tivated, will regard all this raving as it ought to 
be regarded. In order that the people, after a 
long period of vexation and plunder, may be in 
a condition to maintain government, government 
must begin by maintaining them. Here the road 
to economy lies, not through receipt, but through 
expense ; and in that country nature has given 
no short cut to your object. Men must propa- 
gate, like other animals, by the mouth. Never 
did oppression light the nuptial torch — never did 
extortion and usury spread out the genial bed. 
Does any of you think that England, so wasted, 
would, under such a nursing attendance, so rap- 
idly and cheaply recover ? But he is meanly 
acquainted with either England or India, who 
does not know that England would a thousand 
times sooner resume population, fertility, and 
what ought to be the ultimate secreiion from 
both, revenue, than such a country as the Car- 
natic. 

The Carnatic is not by the bounty of nature a 
fertile soil. The general size of its Requ 



luires con- 



at great ex- 

otherwise. It is some days since I P"^"^^- 
moved that a curious and interesting map, kept 
in the India House, should be laid before you.'^* 

-^ Cadmus, having slain a dragon which guarded 

the fountain of Mars, sowed its teeth by command 

i of Minerva, and in.stantly full-grown men sprang up, 

armed, from the ground. 
I 2b j^ii- Barnard's map of the Jaghire. By Ja^- 
I hire is here meant a tract of country whose reve- 



348 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1785. 



The India House is not yet in readiness to send 
it ; I have therefore brought down my own copy, 
and there it lies for the use of any gentleman 
who may think such a matter worthy of his at- 
tention. It is, indeed, a noble map, and of no- 
ble things ; but it is decisive against the golden 
dreams and sanguine speculations of avarice run 
mad. In addition to what you know must be 
the case in every part of the world (the neces- 
sity of a previous provision of habitation, seed, 
stock, capital), that map will show you that the 
use of the influences of Heaven itself are in that 
country a work of art. The Carnatic is refresh- 
ed by few or no living brooks or running streams, 
and it has rain only at a season ; but its product 
of rice exacts the use of water subject to per- 
petual command. This is the national bank of 
the Carnatic, on which it must have a perpetual 
credit, or it perishes irretrievably. For that rea- 
son, in the happier times of India, a number al- 
most incredible of reservoirs have been made in 
chosen places throughout the whole country. 
They are formed for the greater part of mounds 
of earth and stones, with sluices of solid mason- 
ry ; the whole constructed with admirable skill 
and labor, and maintained at a mighty charge. 
In the territory contained in that map alone, I 
have been at the trouble of reckoning the reser- 
voirs, and they amount to upward of eleven 
hundred, from the extent of two or three acres 
to five miles in circuit. From these reservoirs 
currents are occasionally drawn over the fields, 
and these water-courses again call for a consid- 
erable expense to keep them properly scoured 
and duly leveled. Taking the district in that 
map as a measure, there can not be in the Car- 
natic and Tanjore fewer than ten thousand of 
these reservoirs of the larger and middling di- 
mensions, to say nothing of those for domestic 
services and the use of religious purifications. 
These are not the enterprises of your power, 
nor in a style of magnificence suited to the taste 
of your minister. These are the monuments of 
real kings, who were the fathers of their people ; 
testators to a posterity which they embraced as 
their own. These are the grand sepulchers 
built by ambition ; but by the ambition of an in- 
satiable benevolence, which, not contented with 
reigning in the dispensation of happiness during 
the contracted term of human life, had strained, 
with all the reachings and graspings of a viva- 
cious mind, to extend the dominion of their boun- 
ty beyond the limits of nature, and to perpetuate 
themselves through generations of generations, 
the guardians, the protectors, the nourishers of 
mankind ! 

Long before the late invasion, the persons who 
The reservoirs are objccts of thc grant of public mon- 
needirrepa'^ra- ^J "^^^'' t)«^ore you had SO divcrtcd the 
tion. supply of the pious funds of culture 



nues are permanently assigned to some individual 
or company for a specific purpose. The Jaghire re- 
ferred to in this case was an extensive district in 
the neighborhood of Madras, which had been grant- 
ed by the Nabob to the East India Company for 
military service. 



and population, that every where the reservoirs 
were fallen into a miserable decay. But after 
those domestic enemies had provolfed the entry 
of a cruel and foreign foe into the country, he 
did not leave it until his revenge had completed 
the destruction begun by their avarice. Few, 
very few indeed, of these magazines of water that 
are not either totally destroyed, or cut through 
with such gaps as to require a serious attention, 
and much cost to re-establish them as the means 
of present subsistence to the people, and of future 
revenue to the state. 

What, sir, would a virtuous and enlightened 
ministry do on the view of the ruins • . a- a i 
of such works before them ? on the by the ministry 
view of such a chasm of desolation °'^ ^ "^ purpose. 
as that which yawned in the midst of those coun- 
tries, to the north and south, which still bore some 
vestiges of cultivation ? They would have re- 
duced all their most necessary establishments ; 
they would have suspended the justest payments ; 
they would have employed every shilling derived 
from the producing to reanimate the powers of the 
unproductive parts. While they were perform- 
ing this fundamental duty — w^hile they were cele- 
brating these mysteries of justice and humanity, 
they would have told the corps of fictitious cred- 
itors, whose crimes were their claims, that they 
must keep an awful distance ; that they must si- 
lence their inauspicious tongues ; that they must 
hold oflT their profane and unhallowed paws from 
this holy work. They would have proclaimed, 
with a voice that should make itself heard, that 
in every country the first creditor is the plow; 
that this original, indefeasible claim supersedes 
every other demand. 

This is what a wise and virtuous ministry 
would have done and said. This, therefore, is 
what our minister could never think of saying 
or doing. A ministry of another kind would 
have first improved the country, and have thus 
laid a solid foundation for future opulence and 
future force. But on this grand point of the res- 
toration of the country there is not one syllable 
to be found in the correspondence of our minis- 
ters, from the first to the last. They felt noth- 
ing for a land desolated by fire, sword, and fam- 
ine ; their sympathies took another direction. 
They were touched w^ith pity for bribery, so 
long tormented with a fruitless itching of its 
palms f"^ their bowels yearned for usury, that 
had long missed the harvest of its returning 
months j'^*^ they felt for peculation, which had 
been for so many jj'ears raking in the dust of an 
empty treasury ; they were melted into compas- 
sion for rapine and oppression, licking their dry, 
parched, unbloody jaws. These were the ob- 
jects of their solicitude ! These were the neces- 
sities for which they were studious to provide ! 

To state the country and its revenues in their 
real condition, and to provide for those fictitious 
claims, consistently with the support of an army 

2' "Yet let me tell you, Cassius,you yourself 
Are much condemned to have an itching 
palm." Julius Cesar. 

~° Interest is rated by the month in India. 



1785.] NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS 

and a civil establishment, would have been im- 
Revenues of possiblc ; therefore the ministers are 



349 



thecarnatic: silent on that head, and rest them- 
esti'mated by selves On the authority of Lord Ma- 
the ministry, ^j^^tj^gy^ ^,j^o^ [^ ^ letter to the court 

of Directors, written in the year 1781, speculat- 
ing on what might be the result of a wise manage- 
ment of the countries assigned by the Nabob of 
Arcot, rates the revenue as in time of peace at 
twelve hundred thousand pounds a year, as he 
does those of the King of Tanjore (which had not 
been assigned) at four hundred and fifty .^^ On 
this Lord Macartney grounds his calculations, and 
on this they choose to ground theirs. It was on 
this calculation that the ministry, in direct oppo- 
sition to the remonstrances of the court of Direct- 
ors, have compelled that miserable, enslaved body 
to put their hands to an order for appropriating the 
enormous sum of =£480,000 annually as a fund for 
paying to their rebellious servants a debt contract- 
ed in defiance of their clearest and most positive 
injunctions. 

The authority and information of Lord Ma- 
Lord Macart- cartney is held high on this occasion, 
ney's estimate thouffh it is totally rejected in every 

r-iade in a d if- ° . c ^ • i • t 

ferent state of Other particular 01 this business. 1 
e country, jjgjieyg J jj^ve the honor of being al- 
most as old an acquaintance as any Lord Ma- 
cartney has. A constant and unbroken friend- 
ship has subsisted between us from a very early 
period ; and I trust he thinks that, as I respect 
his character, and in general admire his conduct, 
I am one of those who feel no common interest 
in his reputation ; yet I do not hesitate wholly 
to disallow the calculation of 1781, without an}-- 
apprehension that I shall appear to distrust his 
veracity or his judgment. This peace estimate 
of revenue was not grounded on the state of the 
Carnatic as it then, or as it had recently stood. 
It was a statement of former and better times. 
There is no doubt that a period did exist, when 
the large portion of the Carnatic held by the Na- 
bob of Arcot might be fairly held to produce a 
revenue to that, or to a greater amount ; but the 
whole had so melted away by the slow and silent 
hostility of oppression and mismanagement, that 
the revenues, sinking with the prosperity of the 
country, had fallen to about t£800,000 a year, 
even before an enemy's horse had imprinted his 
hoof on the soil of the Carnatic.^^ From that 
view, and independently of the decisive effects of 
the war which ensued. Sir Eyre Coote conceived 
that years must pass before the country could be 
restored to its former prosperity and production. 
It was that state of revenue (namely, the actual 
state before the war) which the Directors have 
opposed to Lord Macartney's speculation. They 
The estimate of I'cfused to take the revenues for more 
the Directors, ^j^^n c£800,000. In this they are 



'^ Lord Macartney was at that time Governor of 
Madras. 

^^ The manner in which Mr. Burke here individu- 
alizes, by mentioning the horse's hoof, is peculiarly 
appropriate and beautiful, after the description giv- 
en above of the "whirlwind oi cavalry" wliich had 
swept over the Carnatic. 



justified by Lord Macartney himself, who, in a 
subsequent letter, informs the court that his 
sketch is a matter of speculation ; it supposes 
the country restored to its ancient prosperity, 
and the revenue to be in a course of effective 
and honest collection. If, therefore, the minis- 
ters have gone wrong, they were not deceived 
by Lord Macartney ; they were deceived by no 
man. The estimate of the Directors is nearly 
the very estimate furnished by the right honor- 
able gentleman himself [Mr. Dundas], and pub- 
lished to the world in one of the printed reports 
of his own committee ; but as soon as he ob- 
tained his power, he chose to abandon his ac- 
count. No part of his official conduct can be 
defended on the ground of his parliamentary in- 
formation. 

In this clashing of accounts and estimates, 
ought not the ministry, if they wished ^ue ministry 
to preserve even appearances, to have ougi't, in these 
waited for information of the actual to Lve^ delay- 
result of these speculations, befoi'e * ^ ecision. 
they laid a charge, and such a charge, not con- 
ditionally and eventually, but positively and au- 
thoritatively, upon a country which they all 
knew, and which one of them had registered on 
the records of this House, to be wasted beyond 
all example, by every oppression of an abusive 
government, and every ravage of a desolating 
war. But that you may discern in what man- 
ner they use the correspondence of office, and 
that thereby you may enter into the true spirit 
of the ministerial Board of Control, I desire you, 
Mr. Speaker, to remark, that through their whole 
controversy with the court of Directors, they do 
not so much as hint at their ever having seen 
any other paper from Lord Macartney, or any 
other estimate of revenue, than this of 1 781 . To 
this they hold. Here they take post ; here they 
intrench themselves. 

When I first read this curious controversy be- 
tween the ministerial board and the But they sup- 
court of Directors,'^ common candor most^rtiiaWe 
obliged me to attribute their tenacious ofu™''MkdrM 
adherence to the estimate of 1781 to committee. 
a total ignorance of what had appeared upon the 
records. But the right honorable gentleman has 
chosen to come forward with an uncalled-for dec- 
laration ; he boastingly tells you that he has seen, 
read, digested, compared every thing, and that, if 
he has sinned, he has sinned with his eyes broad 
open. Since, then, the ministers will obstinately 
" shut the gates of mercy" on themselves, let them 
add to their crimes what aggravations they please. 
They have, then (since it must be so), willfully 
and corruptly suppressed the information which 
they ought to have produced, and, for the support 
of peculation, have made themselves guilty of 
spoliation and suppression of evidence. The pa- 
per I hold in my hand, which totally overturns 
(for the present, at least) the estimate of 1781, 
they have no more taken notice of in their con- 
troversy with the court of Directors than if it had 

^^ This controversy arose out of the resistance 
made by the Directors to the order of the Board of 
Control for the payment of these debts. 



350 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1785. 



no existence. It is the report made by a com- 
mittee appointed at Madras to manage the whole 
of the six countries assigned to the Company by 
the Nabob of Arcot. This committee was wise- 
ly instituted by Lord JNIacartney, to remove from 
himself the suspicion of all improper manage- 
ment in so invidious a trust, and it seems to have 
been well chosen. This committee has made a 
comparative estimate of the only six districts 
which were in a condition to be let to farm. In 
one set of columns they state the gross and net 
produce of the districts as let by the Nabob. To 
that statement they oppose the terms on which 
the same districts were rented for five years un- 
der their authority. Under the Nabob, the gross 
farm was so high as c£570,000 sterling. What 
was the clear produce ? Why, no more than 
about c£250,000 ; and this w^as the whole profit 
to the Nabob's treasury, under his own manage- 
ment, of all the districts which were in a condi- 
tion to be let to farm on the 27th of May, 1782. 
Lord Macartney's leases stipulated a gross prod- 
uce of no more than about c£530,000, but then 
the estimated net amount was nearly double 
the Nabob's. It, however, did not then exceed 
c£480,000; and Lord Macartney's commission- 
ers take credit for an annual revenue amounting 
to this clear sum. Here is no speculation ; here 
is no inaccurate account clandestinely obtained 
from those who might wish, and were enabled 
to deceive. It is the authorized, recorded state 
of a real recent transaction. Here is not twelve 
hundred thousand pounds — not eight hundred. 
The whole revenue of the Carnatic yielded no 
more in May, 1782, than four hundred and 
eighty thousand pounds ; nearly the very pre- 
cise sum which your minister, who is so careful 
of the public security, has carried from all de- 
scriptions of establishment, to form a fund for 
the private emolument of his creatures.^* 

In this estimate we see, as I have just observed, 
the Nabob's farms rated so high as c£570,000. 
Hitherto all is well ; but follow on to the effect- 
ive net revenue — there the illusion vanishes ; and 
you will not find nearly so much as half the prod- 
uce. It is with reason, therefore, Lord Macart- 
ney invariably, throughout the whole correspond- 
ence, qualifies all his views and expectations of 
revenue, and all his plans for its application, 
with this indispensable condition, that the man- 
agement is not in the hands of the Nabob of 
Arcot. Should that fatal measure take place, 
he has over and over again told you that he has 
no prospect of realizing any thing whatsoever 
for any public purpose. With these weiirhty 
declarations, confirmed by such a state of indis- 



^* The Company were, of course, unable to pay 
the Nabob's debts at once, and the Board of Control 
therefore exacted from the Directors a paper setting 
apart for this purpose twelve lars of pagodas, or 
about £'180,000 a year. It appears, from the above 
computation, that the entire revenue of the Carnatic 
would be absorbed by this assignment. Nothing re- 
mained for its government and defense. This was 
left to come out of the other means of the Company, 
and if these failed, from the public treasury at home. 



I put able fact before them, w^hat has been done by 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer and his accom- 
plices ? Shall I be believed '? They have de- 
livered over those very territories, on the keep- 
ing of which in the hands of the committee the 
defense of our dominions, and, what was more 
dear to them, possibly, their own job, depended ; 
they have delivered back again, without condi- 
tion, without arrangement, without stipulation 
of any sort for the natives of any rank, the whole 
of those vast countries, to many of which he had 
no just claim, into the ruinous mismanagement 
of the Nabob of Arcot ! To crown all, accord- 
ing to their miserable practice whenever they do 
any thing transcendently absurd, they preface 
this their abdication of their trust by a solemn 
declaration, that they were not obliged to it by 
any principle of policy, or any demand of justice 
whatsoever. 

I have stated to you the estimated produce of 
the territories of the Carnatic, in a con- subsequent 
dition to be farmed in 1782, according ^^^'"'^tes. 
to the different managements into which they 
fall, and this estimate the ministers have thought 
proper to suppress. Since that, two other ac- 
counts have been received. The first informs 
us that there has been a recovery of what is 
called arrear, as well as of an improvement of 
the revenue of one of the six provinces [Tinne- 
velly] which were let in 1782. It was brought 
about by making a new war. After some sharp 
actions, by the resolution and skill of Colonel 
Fullarton, several of the petty princes of the 
most southerly of the unwasted provinces were 
compelled to pay very heavy rents and tributes, 
who for a long time before had not paid any ac- 
knowledgment. After this reduction, by the care 
of Mr. Irwin, one of the committee, that province 
was divided into twelve farms. This operation 
raised the income of that particular province ; 
the others remain as they were first farmed. So 
that, instead of producing only their original rent 
of c€480,000, they netted, in about two years and 
a quarter, c£ 1,3 20, 000 sterling, which would 
be about c£660,000 a year if the recovered ar- 
rear was not included. What deduction is to be 
made on account of that arrear I can not de- 
termine, but certainly what would reduce the 
annual income considerably below the rate I have 
allowed. 

The second account received is the letting of 
the wasted provinces of the Carnatic. This, I 
understand, is at a growing rent, which may or 
may not realize what it promises ; but if it should 
answer, it will raise the whole, at some future 
time, to c£l, 200,000. 

You must here remark, Mr. Speaker, that this 
I revenue is the produce of all the Nabob's domin- 
I ions. During the assignment the Nabob paid 
I nothing, because the Company had all. Sup- 
posing the whole of the lately-assirrned territory 
to yield up to the most sanguine expectations 
of the right honorable gentleman; and suppose 
661,200,000 to be annually realized (of which 
we actually know of no more than the realizing 
of six hundred thousand), out of this you must 



1785 ] 



NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS. 



351 



deduct the subsidy and rent which the Nabob 
paid before the assignment, namely, d6340,000 
a year. This I'educes back the revenue, appU- 
cable to the new distribution made by his Majes- 
ty's ministers, to about c€800,000. Of that sum, 
five eighths are by them surrendered to the 
debts. The remaining three are the only fund 
left for all the purposes so magnificently dis- 
played in the letter of the Board of Control ; that 
is, for the new-cast peace establishment ; a new 
fund for ordnance and fortifications ; and a large 
allowance for what they call '"the splendor of 
the Durbar" [Court of the Nabob]. 

You have heard the account of these terri- 
tories as they stood in 1782. You have seen the 
actual receipt since the assignment in 1781, of 
which I reckon about two years and a quarter 
productive. I have stated to you the expecta- 
tion from the wasted part. For realizing all 
this, you may value yourselves on the vigor and 
diligence of a governor and committee that have 
done so much. If these hopes from the commit- 
tee are rational, remember that the committee 
is no more. Your ministers, who have formed 
their fund for these debts on the presumed efiect 
of the committee's management, have put a com- 
plete end to that committee. Their acts are 
rescinded ; their leases are broken ; their rent- 
ers are dispersed. Your ministers knew, w^ien 
they signed the death-warrant of the Carnatic, 
that the Nabob would not only turn all these un- 
fortunate farmers of revenue out of employment, 
but that he has denounced his severest vengeance 
against them for acting under British authority. 
With a knowledge of this disposition, a British 
Chancellor of the Exchequer and Treasurer of 
the Navy, incited by no public advantage, im- 
pelled by no public necessity, in a strain of the 
most wanton perfidy which has ever stained the 
annals of mankind, have delivered over to plun- 
der, imprisonment, exile, and death itself, accord- 
ing to the mercy of such execrable tyrants as 
Amir ul Omra and Paul Benfield, the unhappy 
and deluded souls who, untaught by uniform ex- 
ample, were still weak enough to put their trust 
in English faith.^^ They have gone farther ; they 
have thought proper to mock and outrage their 
misery by ordering them protection and com- 
pensation. From what power is this protection 
to be derived ? And from what fund is this com- 
pensation to arise ? The revenues are delivered 
over to their oppressor; the territorial jurisdic- 
tion, from whence that revenue is to arise, and 
under which they live, is surrendered to the same 
iron hands ; and that they shall be deprived of 
all refuge and all hope, the minister has made a 
solemn, voluntary declaration that he never will 
interfere with the Nabob's internal government. 

VI. The last thing considered by the Board 
TheCompsi- of Control, among the debts of the Car- 
ny's Debt, jj^tic, was that arising to the East In- 

^^ The favorite son of the Nabob, Amir ul Orara, 
was so vicious and cruel, that, although destined to 
succeed his father, the Company set him aside on 
the death of the Nabob in 1795, and gave the gov- 
ernment to his brother. 



dia Company, which, after the provision for the 
cavalry and the consolidation of 1777, was to 
divide the residue of the fund of o£480,000 a 
year with the lenders of 1767. This debt the 
worthy chairman, who sits opposite to me, con- 
tends to be three millions sterling. Lord Ma- 
cartney's account of 1781 states it to be, at that 
period, c£l, 200,000. The fir.st account of the 
court of Directors makes it c^EQOO.OOO. This, 
like the private debt, being without any solid 
existence, is incapable of any distinct limits. 
Whatever its amount or its validity may be, one 
thing is clear ; it is of the nature and quality of 
a public debt. In that light, nothing is provided 
for it but an eventual surplus to be divided with 
one class of the private demands, after satisfying 
the two first classes. Never was a more shame- 
ful postponing a public demand, which, by the 
reason of the thing, and the uniform practice of 
all nations, supersedes every private claim.^^ 

Those who gave this preference to private 
claims consider the Company's as a lawful de- 
mand ; else, why did they pretend to provide for 
it? On their own principles they are condemned. 

But I, sir, who profess to speak to your under- 
standing and to your conscience, and xhisdebtought 
to brush awav from this business all ""t to be char- 

.' ed on the reve- 

false colors, all false appellations, as nuesofthecar- 
well as false facts, do positively deny 
that the Carnatic owes a shilling to the Compa- 
ny, whatever the Company may be indebted to 
that undone country. It owes nothing to the 
Company, for this plain and simple reason : The 
territory charged with the debt is their own ! To 
say that their revenues fall short, and owe them 
money, is to say they are in debt to themselves, 
which is only talking nonsense. The fact is, 
that by the invasion of an enemy, and the ruin 
of the country, the Company, either in its own 
name or in the names of the Nabob of Arcot and 
Rajah of Tanjore, has lost for several years w^hat 
it might have looked to receive from its own es- 
tate. If men were allowed to credit themselves, 
upon such principles any one might soon grow 
rich by this mode of accounting. A flood comes 
down upon a man's estate in the Bedford level 
of a thousand pounds a year, and drowns his 
rents for ten years. The chancellor would put 
that man into the hands of a trustee, who would 
gravely make up his books, and for this loss credit 



^^ The civil and mihtary government of India, and 
the charge of its revenues, had been taken from the 
Company by Mr. Pitt's bill, and placed in the hands 
of the British government. All debts due to the 
Company had, therefore, become 'public debts ; and 
if brought into the account at all. ought, on estab- 
lished principles, to have taken the precedence of 
every other. Instead of this, they had been put 
after most of the others ! Mr. Burke, however, con- 
tends that they ought not to be brought into the 
account at all. The Company were now masters of 
the country; and whatever suras they had expend- 
ed in thus adding to their dominions ought to be 
carried to the account of " profit and loss."' They 
ought not to be brought in as dcbtx, to squeeze more 
revenue out of the natives, or to be saddled on the 
public, if that revenue should fail. 



352 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1785. 



himself in his account for a debt due to him of 
cfl 0,000. It is, however, on this principle the 
Company makes up its demands on the Carnatic. 
In peace they go the full length, and indeed more 
than the full length, of what the people can bear 
for current establishments ; then they are absurd 
enough to consolidate all the calamities of war 
into debts ; to metamorphose the devastations of 
the country into demands upon its future produc- 
tion. What is this but to avow a resolution ut- 
terly to destroy their own country, and to force 
the people to pay for their sufferings, to a gov- 
ernment which has proved unable to protect ei- 
ther the share of the husbandman or their own ? 
In every lease of a farm, the invasion of an ene- 
my, instead of forming a demand for arrear, is a 
release of rent ; nor for that release is it at all nec- 
essary to show that the invasion has left nothing 
to the occupier of the soil, though in the present 
case it would be too easy to prove that melan- 
choly fact. I therefore applaud my right hon- 
orable friend, who, when he canvassed the Com- 
pany's accounts, as a preliminary to a bill that 
ought not to stand on falsehood of any kind, fixed 
his discerning eye and his deciding hand on these 
debts of the Company, from the Nabob of Arcot 
and Rajah of Tanjore, and at one stroke ex- 
punged them all, as utterly irrecoverable ; he 
might have added, as utterly unfounded. 

On these grounds I do not blame the arrange- 
ment this day in question, as a preference given 
to the debt of individuals over the Company's 
debt. In my eye, it is no more than the prefer- 
ence of a fiction over a chimera ; but I blame 
the preference given to those fictitious private 
debts over the standing defense and the standing 
government. It is there the public is robbed. 
It is robbed in its army ; it is robbed in its civil 
administration ; it is robbed in its credit ; it is 
robbed in its investment, which forms the com- 
mercial connection between that country and 
Europe. There is the robber^ . 

But my principal objection lies a good deal 
TUs debt made deeper. That debt to the Company 
othe^I^f the"" is ^^^^ pretext under which all the 
mostunjustifia- Other dcbts lurk and cover them- 

ble nature. , rni 

selves. Ihat debt forms the foul, 
putrid mucus, in which are engendered the 
whole brood of creeping ascarides, all the end- 
less involutions, the eternal knot, added to a knot 
of those inexpugnable tape-worms which devour 
the nutriment, and eat up the bowels of India. 
It is necessary, sir, you should recollect two 
things : first, that the Nabob's debt to the Com- 
pany carries no interest. In the next place you 
will observe, that whenever the Company has 
occasion to borrow, she has always commanded 
whatever she thought fit at eight per cent. Car- 
rying in your mind these two facts, attend to the 
process with regard to the public and private 
debt, and with what little appearance of decency 
they play into each other's hands a game of utter 
perdition to the unhappy natives of India. The 
Nabob foHs into an arrear to the Company, The 
presidenf'y presses for ])ayment. The Nabob's 
answer rs. I have no money. Good ! But there 



are soucars who will supply you on the mortgage 
of your territories. Then steps forward some 
Paul Benfield, and from his grateful compassion 
to the Nabob, and his filial regard to the Com- 
pany, he unlocks the treasures of his virtuous 
industry, and for a consideration of twenty-four 
or thirty-six per cent, on a mortgage of the ter- 
ritorial revienue, becomes security to the Compa- 
ny for the Nabob's arrear. 

All this intermediate usury thus becomes sanc- 
tified by the ultimate view to the Company's 
payment. In this case, would not a plain man 
ask this plain question of the Company : If you 
know that the Nabob must annually mortgage 
his territories to your servants to pay his annual 
arrear to you, why is not the assignment or mort- 
gage made directly to the Company itself? By 
this simple, obvious operation, the Company 
would be relieved and the debt paid, without 
the charge of a shilling interest to that prince. 
But if that course should be thought too indulg- 
ent, why do they not take that assignment with 
such interest to themselves as they pay to oth- 
ers ; that is, eight per cent. ? Or, if it were 
thought more advisable (why it should I know 
not) that he must borrow, why do not the Com- 
pany lend their own credit to the Nabob for their 
own payment? That credit would not be weak- 
ened by the collateral security of his territorial 
mortgage. The money might still be had at 
eight per cent. Instead of any of these honest 
and obvious methods, the Company has for years 
kept up a show of disinterestedness and modera- 
tion, by suffering a debt to accumulate to them 
from the country powers, without any interest at 
all ; and at the same time have seen before their 
eyes, on a pretext of borrowing to pay that debt, 
the revenues of the country charged with a usu- 
ry of twenty, twenty-four, thirty-six, and even 
eight-and-foi-ty per cent., with compound inter- 
est, for the benefit of their servants ! All this 
time they know that by having a debt subsisting 
without any interest, which is to be paid by con- 
tracting a debt on the highest interest, they man- 
ifestly render it necessary to the Nabob of Arcot 
to give the private demand a preference to the 
public ; and, by binding him and their servants 
together in a common cause, they enable him to 
form a party to the utter ruin of their own au- 
thority and their own affairs. Thus their false 
moderation and their affected purity, by the nat- 
ural operation of every thing false and every 
thing affected, becomes pander and bawd to the 
unbridled debauchery and licentious lewdness of 
usury and extortion. 

In consequence of this double game, all the 
territorial revenues have, at one time Extreme oj- 
or other, been covered by those locusts, [,[e',^Xres 
the English soucars. Not one single tiienecessa- 
foot of the Carnatic has escaped them ; 
a territory as large England ! During these op- 
erations, what a scene has that country present- 
ed ! The usurious European assignee supersedes 
the Nabob's native farmer of the revenue ; the 
farmer flies to the Nabob's presence to claim his 
bargain ; while his servants murmur for wages, 



1785.] 



NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS. 



353 



and his soldiers mutiny for pay.^^ The mortgage 
to the European assignee is then resumed, and 
the native farmer replaced ; replaced, again to 
be removed on the new clamor of the European 
assignee. Every man of rank and landed for- 
tune being long since extinguished, the remain- 
ing miserable last cultivator, who grows to the 
soil, after having his back scored by the farmer, 
has it again flayed by the whip of the assignee, 
and is thus, by a ravenous, because a short-lived 
succession of claimants, lashed from oppressor to 
oppressor, while a single drop of blood is left as 
the means of extorting a single grain of corn. 
Do not think I paint. Far, very far from it ; I 
do not reach the fact, nor approach to it. Men 
of respectable condition, men equal to your sub- 
stantial English yeomen, ai-e daily tied up and 
scourged to answer the multiplied demands of 
various contending and contradictory titles, all 
issuing from one and the same source. Tyran- 
nous exaction brings on servile concealment, and 
that, again, calls forth tyrannous coercion. They 
move in a circle, mutually producing and pro- 
duced ; till at length nothing of humanity is left 
in the government, no trace of integi'ity, spirit, 
or manliness in the people, who drag out a pre- 
carious and degraded existence under this sys- 
tem of outrage upon human nature. Such is 
the effect of the establishment of a debt to the 
Company, as it has hitherto been managed, and 
as it ever will remain, until ideas are adopted 
totally different from those which prevail at this 
time. 

Your worthy ministers, supporting what they 
are obliged to condemn, have thought fit to re- 
new the Company's old order against contract- 
ing private debts in future. They begin by re- 
warding the violation of the ancient lav/ ; and 
then they gravely re-enact provisions, of which 
they have given bounties for the breach. This 
inconsistency has been well exposed by Mr. Fox. 
But what will you say to their having gone the 
length of giving positive directions for contract- 
ing the debt which they positively forbid ? 

I will explain myself. They order the Nabob, 
The orders of the out of the revcnucs of the Carnatic, 
new^debtl'^neces- to allot four huudrcd and eighty 
m^sMfe^ol-m^' thousaud pouuds a year as a fund 
terest. foi' the dcbts before us. For the 

punctual payment of this annuity, they order him 
to give soucar security. When a soucar, that is, 
a money-dealer, becomes security for any na- 
tive prince, the course is, for the native prince 
to counter-secure the money-dealer by making 
over to him in mortgage a portion of his terri- 
tory equal to the sum annually to be paid, with 
an interest of at least twenty-four per cent. The 
point fit for the House to know is, who are these 
soucars to whom this security on the revenues 
in favor of the Nabob's creditors is to be given ? 
The majority of the House, unaccustomed to these 
transactions, will hear with astonishment that 



3" The books of the Company, in 1781, show that 
the Nabob's farmers of revenue rarely continued in 
office three months. What must have been the state 
of the country under such a system of exaction ! 
Z 



these soiccais are no other than the creditors 
themselves. The minister, not content with au- 
thorizing these transactions in a manner and to 
an extent unhoped for by the rapacious expecta- 
tions of usury itself, load;? the broken back of the 
Indian revenues, in favor of his worthy friends 
the soucars^ with an additional twenty-four per 
cent, for being security to themselves for their 
own claims ; for condescending to take the coun- 
try in mortgage to pay to themselves the fruits 
of their extortions ! 

The interest to be paid for this security, ac- 
cording to the most moderate strain of soucar 
demand, comes to one hundred and eighteen 
thousand pounds a year, which, added to the 
c£480,000 on which it is to accrue, will make 
the whole charge on account of these debts on 
the Carnatic revenues amount to 66598,000 a 
year, as much as even a long peace will enable 
those revenues to produce. Can any one reflect 
for a moment on all those claims of debt, which 
the minister exhausts himself in contrivances to 
augment with new usuries, without lifting up his 
hands and eyes in astonishment of the impu- 
dence both of the claim and of the adjudication? 
Services of some kind or other these servants of 
the Compan)^ must have done, so great and emi- 
nent, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer can 
not think that all they have brought home is 
half enough. He halloos after them, " Gentle- 
men, you have forgot a large packet behind you, 
in your hurry ; you have not sufficiently recov- 
ered yourselves ; you ought to have, and you 
shall have, interest upon interest, upon a prohib- 
ited debt that is made up of interest upon inter- 
est. Even this is too little ; I have thought of 
another chai'acter for you, by which you may 
add something to your gains ; you shall be se- 
curity to yourselves ; and hence will arise a new 
usury, which shall eflface the memory of all the 
usuries suggested to you by your own dull in- 
ventions." 

Vn. I have done with the arrangement rela- 
tive to the Carnatic. After thi?, it is to Treatment 
little purpose to observe on what the "''Tanjore. 
ministers have done to Tanjore. Your minis- 
ters have not observed even fona and ceremony 
in their outrageous and insulting robbery of that 
country, whose only crime has been its early and 
constant adherence to the power of this, and the 
suffering of a uniform pillage in consequence of 
it. The debt of the Company from the Rajah 
of Tanjore is just of the same stufT with that of 
the Nabob of Arcot.^^ 



^^ Tanjore was a small kingdom on the soutlieast- 
eni coast of India, bordering on the Carnatic. Hy- 
der Ali was eager to bring it into subjection to him- 
self; and the presidency at Madras (then under the 
control of Benfield and his associates) united in the 
design, and sent an army for this purpo&e. At a 
later period they changed their policy, and sent an- 
other army to seize and hold it for the Company. 
"Never," says Mill, "was the resolation taken to 
make war upon a lawful sovereign with a view of 
stripping him of his dominions, and either putting 
him and his family to death, or making them prison- 
ers for life, on a more accommodating principle. "We 



354 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1785. 



The subsidy from Tanjore, on the arrcar of 
TheTanjore "^'^ich this pretended debt (if any there 
debt of be) has accrued to the Company, is not, 

terij without hke that paid by the Nabob ot Arcot, 
a compensation for vast countries ob- 
tained, augmented, and preserved for him ; not 
the price of pillaged treasuries, ransacked houses, 
and plundered territories. It is a large grant 
from a small kingdom not obtained by our arms ; 
robbed, not protected by our power ; a grant for 
which no equivalent was ever given, or pretend- 
ed to be given. The right honorable gentle- 
man [Mr. Dundas], however, bears witness in 
his reports to the punctuality of the payments 
of this grant of bounty, or, if you please, of fear. 
It amounts to one hundred and sixty thousand 
pounds sterling net annual subsidy. He bears 
witness to a farther grant of a town and port, 
with an annexed district of thirty thousand pounds 
a year, surrendered to the Company since the 
first donation. He has not borne witness, but the 
fact is (he will not deny it), that, in the midst of 
war, and during the ruin and desolation of a con- 
siderable part of his territories, this prince made 
many very large payments. Notwithstanding 
these merits and services, the first i-egulation of 
ministry is to force from him a territory of an 
extent which they have not yet thought proper 
to ascertain for a military peace establishment, 
the particulars of which they have not yet been 
pleased to settle. 

The next part of their arrangement is with 
Pennity against regard to War. As confessedly this 
the Rajah if en- princc had no share in stirring up any 
of the former wars, so all future wars 
are completely out of his power ; for he has no 
troops whatever, and is under a stipulation not 
so much as to correspond with any foreign state, 
excepf through the Company. Yet, in case the 
Company's servants should be again involved in 
war, or should think proper again to provoke any 
enemy, as in times past they have wantonly pror 



have done the Rajah great injui-y ; we have no in- 
tention of doing him right. This constitutes a full 
and sufficient reason for going on to his destruction." 
Such was the doctrine! As Tanjore was thus seized 
without any authority from the Directors at London, 
the presidency at Madras was ordered to restore it; 
and Lord Pigot was sent out to carry the restora- 
tion into effect. A statement has already been giv- 
en of the violence which ensued, and the imprison- 
ment of Lord Pigot by the majority of the Council, 
who were in the interest of Benfield and his parti- 
sans. When the restoration was at last effected, 
it was only partial; some of the territory was with- 
held J and no part of the goods, money, or revenues, 
so unjustly taken from the Rajah, were restored. 
The Directors of the East India Company were or- 
dered, in Mr. Pitt's East India Bill, to examine into 
the subject, and came to the conclusion that cer- 
tain portions of territory should be restored to tlic 
Rajah. The Board of Control overruled this de- 
cision, and, though Tanjore had been repeatedly 
plundered, and reduced to a state of extreme desti- 
tution, levied upon the country about .£400,000 as 
a pretended debt for arrearage of tribute. Other 
wrongs inflicted on Tanjore are enumerated by Mr. 
Burke. 



voked all India, he is to be subjected to a new 
penalty. To what penalty ? Why, to no less 
than the confiscation of all his revenues. But 
this is to end with the war, and they are to be 
faithfully returned? Oh, no; nothing like it. 
The country is to remain under confiscation un- 
til all the debt which the Company shall think 
fit to incur in such war shall be discharged ; that 
is to say, forever. His sole comfort is to find 
his old enemy, the Nabob of Arcot, placed in 
the very same condition. 

The revenues of that miserable country were, 
before the invasion of Hyder, reduced to Revenues 
a gross annual receipt of three hundred "^ Tanjore. 
and sixty thousand pounds. From this receipt 
the subsidy I have just stated is taken. This 
again, by payments in advance, by extorting de- 
posits of additional sums to a vast amount for 
the benefit of their soucars, and by an endless va- 
riety of other extortions, public and private, is 
loaded with a debt, the amount of which I never 
could ascertain, but which is large undoubtedly, 
generating a usury the most completely ruinous 
that probably was ever heard of: that is, forty- 
eight per cent., payable monthly, with compound 
interest ! 

Such is the state to which the Company's 
servants have reduced that country. Tanjore com- 
Now come the reformers, restorers, an'IrnnMPtnb- 
and comforters of India. What have '^'^XUfhT 
they done? In addition to all these of Arcot. 
tyrannous exactions, with all these ruinous debts 
in their train, looking to one side of an agreement 
while they willfully shut their eyes to the other, 
they withdraw from Tanjore all the benefits of 
the treaty of 1762, and they subject that nation 
to a perpetual tribute of forty thousand a year to 
the Nabob of Arcot — a tribute never due, or pre- 
tended to be due to him, even when he appeared 
to be something — a tribute, as things now stand, 
not to a real potentate, but to a shadow, a dream, 
an incubus of oppression. After the Company 
has accepted in subsidy, in grant of territory, in 
remission of rent, as a compensation for their own 
protection, at least two hundred thousand pounds 
a year, without discounting a shilling for that re- 
ceipt, the ministers condemn this harassed na- 
tion to be tributary to a person [the Nabob of Ar- 
cot] who is himself, by their own arrangement, 
deprived of the right of war or peace ; deprived 
of the power of the sword ; forbid to keep up a 
single regiment of soldiers ; and is, thei-efore, 
wholly disabled from all protection of the coun- 
try which is the object of the pretended tiibutc. 
Tribute hangs on the sword. It is an incident 
inseparable from real sovereign power. In the 
present case, to suppose its existence is as absurd 
as it is cruel and oppressive. And here, Mr. 
Speaker, you have a clear exemplification of the 
use of those fal.se names and false colors which 
the gentlemen who have lately taken possession 
of India choose to lay on for the purpose of dis- 
guising their plan of oppression. The Nabob of 
Arcot and Rajah of Tanjore have, in truth and 
substance, no more than a merely civil authority, 
held in the most entire dependence on the Cor»- 



1785.] 



NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS. 



355 



pany. The Nabob, without miUtary, without fed- 
eral capacity, is extinguished as a potentate ; but 
then he is carefully kept alive as an independent 
and sovereign power, for the purpose of rapine and 
extortion ; for the purpose of pex-petuating the old 
intrigues, animosities, usuries, and corruptions. 

It was not enough that this mockery of tribute 
was to be continued without the correspondent 
protection, or any of the stipulated equivalents, but 
ten years of arrear, to the amount of c£400,000 
sterling, is added to all the debts to the Company 
and to individuals, in order to create a new debt, 
to be paid (if at all possible, to be paid in wiiole 
or in part) only by new usuries; and all this for 
the Nabob of Arcot, or, rather, for Mr. Benfield 
and the corps of the Nabob's creditors and their 
soucars. Thus these miserable Indian princes 
are continued in their seats, for no other pur- 
pose than to render them, in the first instance, 
objects of every species of extortion, and, in the 
second, to force them to become, for the sake of 
a momentary shadow of reduced authority, a sort 
of subordinate tyrants, the ruin and calamity, not 
the fathers and cherishers of their people. 

But take this tribute only as a mere charge 
cniei arrange- (without title, causc, or equivalent) 
ment respec^t- on this pcoplc ; what One step has 

ing the means i /■ • 

of irrigating becu takcH to fumish grounds for a 
anjore. j^^^^ calculation and estimate of the 

proportion of the burden and the ability ? None ; 
not an attempt at it. They do not adapt the bur- 
den to the strength, but they estimate the strength 
of the bearers by the burden they impose. Then 
what care is taken to leave a fund sufficient to 
the future reproduction of the revenues that are 
to bear all these loads? Every one but toler- 
ably conversant in Indian affairs must know that 
the existence of this little kingdom depends on its 
control over the River Cavery.^^ The benefits of 
Heaven to any community ought never to be con- 
nected with political arrangements, or made to 
depend on the personal conduct of princes, in 
W'hich the mistake, or error, or neglect, or dis- 
tress, or passion of a moment on either side may 
bring famine on millions, and ruin an innocent 
nation perhaps for ages. The means of the sub- 
sistence of mankind should be as immutable as 
the laws of nature, let power and dominion take 
what course they may. Observe what has been 
done with regard to this important concern. The 
use of this river is indeed at length given to the { 
Rajah, and a power provided for its enjoyment at 
his own charge ; but the means of furnishing that 
charge (and a mighty one it is) are wholly cut ! 
off. This use of the water, which ought to have ' 
no more connection than clouds, and rains, and 
sunshine, with the politics of the Rajah, the Na- 
bob, or the Company, is expressly contrived as 
a means of enforcing demands and arrears of 



39 This river rises in a chain of mountains called 
the Ghauts, near the Malibar coast, and, after a 
course of four hundred and fifty miles, flows into 
the sea throug-h Tanjore. The vast rice plains of 
that country are dependent for their products on the 
waters of this river, which are turned upon the fields 
bv means of embankments and canals. 



tribute.''" This horrid and unnatural instrument 
of extortion had been a distinguishing feature in 
the enormities of the Carnatic politics that loud- 
ly called for reformation. But the food of a whole 
people is by the reformers of India conditioned on 
payments from its prince at a moment that he is 
overpowered with a swarm of their demands, 
without regard to the ability of either prince or 
people. In fine, by opening an avenue to the 
irruption of the Nabob of Arcot's creditors and 
soucars, whom every man who did not fall in 
love with oppression and corruption, on an ex- 
perience of the calamities they produced, would 
have raised wall before wall, and mound before 
mound, to keep from a possibility of entrance, a 
more destructive enemy than Hyder Ali is intro- 
duced into that kingdom. By this part of their 
arrangement, in which they establish a debt to 
the Nabob of Arcot, in effect and substance they 
deliver over Tanjore, bound hand and foot, to 
Paul Benfield, the old betrayer, insulter, oppress- 
or, and scourge of a country which has for years 
been an object of an unremitted, but, unhappil}-, 
an unequal struggle, between the bounties of 
Providence to renovate and the wickedness of 
mankind to destroy. 

The right honorable gentleman talks of his 
fairness in determining the territo- injustice of ivir. 
rial dispute between the Nabob of h?gLtweenthe 
Arcot and the prince of that coun- ^ritn'/tue Na- 
try, when he superseded the determ- ''"^ of Arcot. 
ination of the Directors, in whom the law had 
vested the decision of that controversy. He is 
in this just as feeble as he is in every other part. 
But it is not necessary to say a word in refuta- 
tion of any part of his argument. The mode of 
the proceeding .sufficiently speaks the spirit of it. 
It is enough to fix his character as a judge, that 
he never heard the Directors in defense of their 
adjudication, nor either of the parties in support 
of their respective claims. It is sufficient for me 
that he takes from the Rajah of Tanjore by this 
pretended adjudication, or, rather, from his un- 
happy subjects, c£40,000 a year of his and their 
revenue, and leaves upon his and their shoulders 
all the charges that can be made on the part of 
the Nabob, on the part of his creditors, and on the 
part of the Company, without so much as hear- 
ing him as to right or to ability. But what prin- 
cipally induces me to leave the affair of the ter- 
ritorial dispute between the Nabob and the Rajah 
to another day is this, that both the parties being 
stripped of their all, it little signifies under which 
of their names the unhappy, undone people are 
delivered over to the merciless soticars, the allies 
of that right honorable gentleman and the Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer. In them ends the ac- 
count of this long dispute of the Nabob of Arcot 
and the Rajah of Tanjore. 

The right honorable gentleman is of opinion 

*o This refers to the instructions of the Board of 
Control, which expressly provide that the use of 
water from the Cavery for the irrigation of his ter- 
ritory shall be enjoyed by the Rajah "only while he 
shall be punctual in paying; his annual tribute to the 
Nabob." 



356 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1785. 



that his judgment in this case can be censured by 
Attack on Mr. "°^® ^^^ those who seem to act as if 
Dundas in reply thcv vverc paid aj^ents to one of the 

to bis insinua- •' . ,, ttti i i .1 ■ i n ■ 

tions againatMr. parties."*^ U hat 0068 he think ot nis 
^""''^ court of Directors ? If they are paid 

by either the parties, by which of them does he 
think they are paid ? He knows that their de- 
cision has been directly contrary to his. Shall 
I believe that it does not enter into his heart to 
conceive that any person can steadily and active- 
ly interest himself in the protection of the injured 
and oppressed without being well paid for his 
service? I have taken notice of this sort of 
discourse some days ago, so far as it may be 
supposed to relate to me. I then contented 
myself, as I shall now do, with giving it a cold, 
though a very direct contradiction. Thus much 
I do from respect to truth. If I did more, it might 
be supposed, by my anxiety to clear myself, that 
I had imbibed the ideas which, for obvious rea- 
sons, the right honorable gentleman wishes to 
have received concerning all attempts to plead 
the cause of the natives of India, as if it were a 
disreputable employment. If he had not forgot, 
in his present occupation, every principle which 
ought to have guided him, and, I hope, did guide 
him, in his late profession [the law], he would 
have known that he who takes a fee for plead- 
ing the cause of distress against power, and 
manfully performs the duty he has assumed, re- 
ceives an honorable recompense for a virtuous 
service. But if the right honorable gentleman 
will have no regard to fact in his insinuations or 
to reason in his opinions, I wish him at least to 
consider that if taking an earnest part with re- 
gard to the oppressions exercised in India, and 
with regard to this most oppressive case of Tan- 
jore in particular, can ground a presumption of 
interested motives, he is himself the most mer- 
cenary man I know. Kis conduct, indeed, is 
such that he is on all occasions the standing 
testimony against himself. He it w^as that first 
called to that case the attention of the House. 
The reports of his own committee are ample and 
atlecting upon that subject ; and as many of us 
as have escaped his massacre must remember 
the very pathetic picture he made of the suffer- 
ings of the Tanjore country on the day when he 
moved the unwieldy code of his Indian resolu- 
tions.^^ Has he not stated over and over again, 



*i This refers to an insinuation thrown out by Mr. 
Dundas, some days previous, that Mr. Burke was a 
paid agent of the Rajah of Tanjore. Nothing could 
be more false, and the only pretense for it was that 
William Burke, brother of Edmund, was in the Ra- 
jah's service. At that time, Mr. Burke simply re- 
pelled the insinuation. He now turns back Mr. 
Dundas' attack upon himself. 

" Mr. Dundas was chainnan of the Committee of 
Secrecy on Indian Affairs. In 1782 he made a num- 
ber of voluminous reports on the subject, and intro- 
duced nearly a hundred resolutions to carry out his 
views. The " massacre" to which Mr. Burke sport- 
ively alludes, seems to have been the defeat of the 
Coalition Ministry in respect to their East India Bill, 
in accomplishing which Mr. Dundas bore a very act- 
ive part. 



in his reports, the ill treatment of the Rajah of 
Tanjore (a branch of the royal house of the Mah- 
rattas, every injury to whom the Mahrattas felt 
as offered to themselves) as a main cause of the 
alienation of that people from the British power ? 
And does he now think that, to betray his prin- 
ciples, to contradict his declarations, and to be- 
come himself an active instrument in those op- 
pressions which he had so tragically lamented, 
is the way to clear himself of having been actu- 
ated by a pecuniary interest at the time when he 
chose to appear full of tenderness to that ruined 
nation ? 

VIII. The right honorable gentleman is fond 
of parading on the motives of others, Motives wi.icu 
and on his own. As to himself, he ^^t^"Juut!r 
despises the imputations of those who ^^'^'^■ 
suppose that any thing corrupt could influence 
him in this his unexampled liberality of the pub- 
lic treasure. I do not know that I am obliged to 
speak to the motives of the ministry in the ar- 
rangements they have made of the pretended 
debts of Arcot and Tanjore. If I prove fraud 
and collusion with regard to public money on 
those right honorable gentlemen, I am not obliged 
to assign their motives, because no good motives 
can be pleaded in favor of their conduct. Upon 
that case I stand ; we are at issue, and I desire 
to go to trial. This, I am sure, is not loose 
railing or mean insinuation, according to their 
low and degenerate fashion when they make at- 
tacks on the measures of their adversai'ies. It 
is a regular and juridical course and, unless I 
choose it, nothing can compel me to go farther. 

But since these unhappy gentlemen have 
dared to hold a lofty tone about their motives, 
and affect to despise suspicion, instead of being 
careful not to give cause for it, I shall beg leave 
to lay before you some general observations on 
what I conceive was their duty in so delicate a 
business. 

If I w^ere worthy to suggest any line of pru- 
dence to that riofht honorable gentle- ,„ , 

T 111?,. , , Way for mm- 

man, I would tell him that the way to isters to avoid 
avoid suspicion in the settlement of ""^i"*^'""- 
pecuniary transactions, in which great frauds 
have been very strongly presumed, is to attend 
to these few plain principles : First, to hear all 
parties equally, and not the managers for the 
suspected claimants only ; not to proceed in the 
dark, but to act with as much publicity as pos- 
sible ; not to precipitate decision ; to be religious 
in following the rules prescribed in the commis- 
sion under which we act ; and lastly, and above 
all, not to be fond of straining constructions to 
force a jurisdiction, and to draw to ourselves the 
management of a trust in its nature invidious and 
obnoxious to suspicion, where the plainest letter 
of the law does not compel it. If these few plain 
rules are observed, no corruption ought to be sus- 
pected ; if any of them are violated, suspicion will 
attach in proportion. If all of them are violated, 
a corrupt motive of some kind or other will not 
only be suspected, but must be violently pre- 
sumed. 

The persons in whose favor all these rules 



1785.] 



NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS. 



357 



have been violated, and the conduct of ministers 
The payment of toward them, will naturally call for 
to"the/aritament° JOUY Consideration, and will serve to 
vL\"tS:L lead you through a series and com- 
principai creditor, biuation of facts and characters, if 
I do not mistake, into the very inmost recesses 
of this mysterious business. You will then be 
in possession of all the materials on which the 
principles of sound jurisprudence will found, or 
will reject the presumption of corrupt motives ; 
or, if such motives are indicated, will point out to 
you of what particular nature the corruption is. 
Our wonderful minister [Mr. Pitt], as you all 
know, formed a new plan, a plan insigne, recens, 
alio indicium orc,'^^ a plan for supporting the 
freedom of our Constitution by court intrigues, 
and for removing its corruptions by Indian de- 
linquency !^ To carry that bold paradoxical 
design into execution, sufficient funds and apt 
instruments became necessary. You are per- 
fectly sensible that a parliamentary reform occu- 
pies his thoughts day and night, as an essential 
member of this extraordinary project. In his 
anxious researches upon this subject, natural in- 
stinct, as well as sound policy, w^ould direct his 
'eyes, and settle his choice on Paul Benfield. 
Paul Benfield is the grand parliamentary reform- 
61", the reformer to whom the whole choir of 
reformers bow", and to whom even the right hon- 
orable gentleman himself must yield the palm ; 
for what region in the empire, w^hat city, what 
borough, what county, what tribunal, in this 
kingdom, is not full of his labors 'P"*'^ Others have 
been only speculators ; he is the grand practical 
reformer ; and while the Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer pledges in vain the man and the minis- 
ter to increase the provincial members, Mr. Ben- 
field has auspiciously and practically begun it. 
Leaving far behind him even Lord Camelford's 



*^ Extraordinary and new, uttered by no other 
mouth. 

** There is great keenness in this attack on Mr. 
Pitt as a parliamentary reformer. His "supporting 
the freedom of our Constitution by court intrigues" 
refers to his defeating Mr. Fox's East India Bill in 
the House of Lords by appealing secretly to the 
King, through Lord Temple, and obtaining a decla- 
ration that "whoever voted for the India Bill were 
not only not his friends [the King's], but that he 
should consider them his enemies." "This use of the 
powerful influence of the sovereign to overrule the 
decisions of Parliament was considered by Mr. 
Burke and his friends as a direct blow at the "free- 
dom of the Constitution." It was also a mode of 
"removing its corruptions by Indian delinquency," 
because Mr. Pitt was united with Paul Benfield 
and other Indian deUnquents in opposing Mr. Fox's 
bill, and these men operated chiefly through the 
purchase of rotten boroughs, which Mr. Pitt had 
always treated as the great source of corruption to 
the Constitution. It was known that Mr. Pitt, out of 
an avowed regard to his former principles, intended 
to bring forward some plan of parliamentary reform 
this session. This called forth the terrible irony 
and sarcasm of this passage. After his failure in 
that plan, Mr. Pitt never again attempted parlia- 
mentary reform. 

*^ dua) regie in terris nostri non plena laboris ? 



generous design of bestow^ing Old Sarum on the 
Bank of England, Mr. Benfield has thrown in 
the borough of Cricklade to re-enforce the coun- 
ty representation ! Not content with this, in 
order to station a steady phalanx for all future 
reforms, this public-spirited usurer, amid his 
charitable toils for the relief of India, did not 
forget the poor, rotten Constitution of his native 
country. For her, he did not disdain to stoop 
to the trade of a wholesale upholsterer for this 
House, to furnish it, not with the faded tapestry 
figures of antiquated merit, such as decorate, 
and may reproach some other houses, but wuth 
real, .solid, living patterns of true modern virtue. 
Paul Benfield made (reckoning himself) no few- 
er than eight members in the last Parliament. 
What copious streams of pure blood must he not 
have transfused into the veins of the present ! 

But what is even more striking than the real 
services of this new-imported patriot senfieUdidnot 
is his modesty. As soon as he had ptnia^'entbut 
conferred this benefit on the Consti- wentto Madras, 
tution, he withdrew himself from our applause. 
He conceived that the duties of a member of 
Parliament (which, wath the elect faithful, the 
true believers, the Islam of pai'liaraentary reform, 
are of little or no merit, perhaps not much bet- 
ter than specious sins) might be as well attend- 
ed to in India as in England, and the means of 
reformation to Parliament itself be far better 
provided. Mr. Benfield was, therefore, no soon- 
er elected, than he set off' for Madras, and de- 
frauded the longing eyes of Parliament. We 
have never enjoyed in this House the luxury of 
beholding that minion of the human race, and 
contemplating that visage, which has so long re- 
flected the happiness of nations. 

It was, therefore, not possible for the minister 
to consult personally with this great man. What, 
then, was he to do ? Through a sagacity that 
never failed him in these pursuits, he found out 
in Mr. Benfield's representative his exact re- 
semblance. A specific attraction, by which he 
gravitates toward all such characters, soon 
brought our minister into a close connection 
with JNIr. Benfield's agent and attorney, that is, 
with the grand contractor (whom I name to 
honor^), Mr. Richard Atkinson; a name that 
will be well remembered as long as the records 
of this House, as long as the records of the Brit- 
ish treasury, as long as the monumental debt of 
England shall endure. 

This gentleman, sir, acts as attorney for Mr. 
Paul Benfield. Every one who hears Mr. Atkinson, 
me is well acquainted with the sa- fSiS!" 
cred friendship, and the steady, mu- Pitfs indIa Bin. 
tual attachment, that subsists between him and 
the pi'csent minister. As many members as 
chose to attend in the first session of this Parlia- 
ment can best tell their own feelings at the 
scenes which were then acted. How much that 
honorable gentleman was consulted in the orio-. 
inal frame and fabric of the bill, commonly called 
Mr. Pitt's India Bill, is matter only of conjec- 

*« doem gratia honoris nomino. 



358 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1785. 



ture, though by no means difficult to divine. 
But the public was an indignant witness of the 
ostentation with which that measure was made 
his own, and the authority with which he brought 
up clause after clause, to stuff and fatten the 
rankness of that corrupt act. As fast as the 
clauses were brought up to the table, they were 
accepted. No hesitation — no discussion. They 
were received by the new minister, not with ap- 
probation, but with implicit submission. The 
reformation may be estimated by seeing who 
was the reformer. Paul Benfield's associate and 
agent was held up to the world as legislator of 
Hindostan ! But it was necessary to authenti- 
cate the coalition between the men of intrigue 
in India and the minister of intrigue in England, 
by a studied display of the power of this their 
connecting link. Evei-y trust, every honor, every 
distinction was to be heaped upon him. He was 
at once made a director of the India Company ; 
made an alderman of London ; and to be made, 
if ministry could prevail (and I am sorry to say 
how near, how very near they w^ere prevailing), 
representative of the capital of this kingdom. 
But, to secure his services against all risk, he 
was brought in for a ministerial borough. On 
his part, he was not w^anting in zeal for the com- 
mon cause. His advertisements show his mo- 
tives, and the merits upon which he stood. For 
your minister, this worn-out veteran submitted 
to enter into the dusty field of the London con- 
test; and you all remember, that in the same 
virtuous cause he submitted to keep a sort of 
public office or counting-house, w^here the whole 
business of the last general election was man- 
Ti- ,• > • aged. It was openly managed by the 

His activity m p t J n .' 

Mr. Pitt's favor dircct agcut aud attorney of Benfield. 

during the elec- " t t • • 

tionori7S4,and it was managed upon Indian prmci- 
ples, and for an Indian interest. This 
was the golden cup of abominations ; this the 
chalice of fornications of rapine, usury, and op- 
pression, which was held out by the gorgeous 
Eastern harlot ; which so many of the people, 
so many of the nobles of this land, had drained 
to the very dregs. Do you think that no reck- 
oning was to follow this lewd debauch ? that no 
payment was to be demanded for this riot of 
public drunkenness and national prostitution? 
Here ! you have it here before you. The prin- 
cipal of the grand election manager must be in- 
demnified ; accordingly, the claims of Benfield 
and his crew must be put above all inquiry ! 

For several years, Benfield appeared as the 
chief proprietor, as well as the chief agent, di- 
rector, and controller of this system of debt. 
The worthy chairman of the Compa- 

Amnuntof Ben- •' . c ^ • • ^ 

field's interest in ny has Stated the claims oi this single 
gentleman on the Nabob of Arcot 
as amounting to five hundred thousand pounds. 
Possibly, at the time of the chairman's statement, 
they might have been as high. Eight hundred 
thousand pounds had been mentioned some time 
before ; and, according to the practice of shifting 
the names of creditors in these transactions, and 
reducing or raising the debt itself at pleasure, I 
think it not impcssible that at one period the 



name of Benfield might have stood before those 
frightful figures. But my best information goes 
to fix his share no higher than four hundred 
thousand pounds. By the scheme of the pres- 
ent ministry for adding to the principal twelve 
per cent, from the year 1777 to the year 1781, 
four hundred thousand pounds, that smallest of 
the sums ever mentioned for Mr. Benfield, will 
form a capital of c£592,000 at six per cent. 
Thus, besides the arrears of three years, amount- 
ing to c£ 106,500 (which, as fast as received, may 
be legally lent out at twelve per cent.), Benfield 
has received, by the ministerial grant before you, 
an annuity of 6^3 5, 520 a year, charged on the 
public revenues. 

Our mirror of ministers of finance did not think 
this enough for the services of such a friend as 
Benfield. He found that Lord Macartney, in or- 
der to frighten the court of Directors from the 
object of obliging the Nabob to give soucar se- 
curity for his debt, assured them that, if they 
should take that step, Benfield would infallibly 
be the soucar, and would thereby become the 
entire master of the Carnatic:' What Lord Ma- 
cartney thought sufficient to deter the very 
agents and partakers with Benfield in his iniqui- 
ties was the inducement to the two right hon- 
orable gentlemen to order this very soucar se- 
curity to be given, and to recall Benfield to the 
city of Madras, from the sort of decent exile into 
which he had been releijated by Lord Macart- 
ney. You must, therefore, consider Benfield as 
soucar security for c£480,000 a year, which, at 
twenty-four per cent, (supposing him contented 
with that profit), will, with the interest of his old 
debt, produce an annual income of d6l49,520 a 
year. 

Hei'e is a specimen of the ne^v and pure aris- 
tocracy created by the right honorable gentle- 
man [Mr. Pitt], as the support of the Crown and 
Constitution, against the old, corrupt, refractory, 
natural interests of this kingdom ; and this is 
the grand counterpoise against all odious coali- 
tions of these interests.^^ A single Benfield out- 
weighs them all. A criminal, who long since 
ought to have fattened the region kites with his 
offal, is, by his Majesty's ministers, enthroned 
in the government of a great kingdom, and en- 
feoffed with an estate which, in the comparison, 
effaces the splendor of all the nobility of Europe. 
To bring a little more distinctly into view the 
true secret of this dark transaction, I beg you 
particularly to advert to the circumstances which 
I am going to place before you. 

The general corps of creditors, as well as Mr. 

Benfield himself, not looking well Temporary with- 

into futurity, nor presaging the min- Jrawaiof Ben- 

.' ' r , • field's name trora 

ister of this day, thought it not ex- the list of credit- 
pedient for their common interest 
that such a name as his should stand at the bead 
of their list. It was therefore agreed among 
them that Mr. Benfield should disappear by mak- 
ing over his debt to Messrs. Taylor, Majendie, 



*^ This sneer refers to the attacks made by Mr. 
Pitt on Mr. Fox's coalition with Lord North. 



1785] 



NABOB OF ARGOT'S DEBTS. 



359 



and Call, and should, in return, be secured by 
their bond. 

The debt thus exonerated of so great a weight 
of its odium, and otherwise reduced from its 
alarming bulk, the agents thought they might 
venture to print a list of the creditors. This was 
done for the first time in the year 1783, during 
the Duke of Portland's administration. In this 
list the name of Benfield was not to be seen. To 
this strong negative testimony was added the 
farther testimony of the Nabob of Arcot. That 
prince (or, rather, Mr. Benfield for him) writes 
to the court of Directors a letter full of com- 
plaints and accusations against Lord Macartney, 
conveyed in such terms as were natural for one 
of Mr. Benfield's habits and education to employ. 
Among the rest, he is made to complain of his 
Lordship's endeavoring to prevent an intercoui'se 
of politeness and sentiment between him [the 
Nabob] and Mr. Benfield ; and, to aggravate the 
affront, he expressly declares Mr. Benfield's vis- 
its to be only on account of respect and of grat- 
itude, as no pecu7iiary transactions subsisted be- 
tween them ! 

Such, for a considerable space of time, was the 
Suit of Benfield outward form of the loan of 1777, in 
;i,e my'ster^'lo which lix. Bcnficld had no sort of 
•'o''^ concern. At length intelligence ar- 

rived at INIadras that this debt, which had always 
been renounced by the court of Directors, was 
rather like to become the subject of something 
more like a criminal inquiry than of any patron- 
age or sanction from Parliament. Every ship 
brought accounts, one stronger than the other, 
of the prevalence of the determined enemies of 
the Indian system. The public revenues be- 
came an object desperate to the hopes of Mr. 
Benfield ; he therefore resolved to fall upon his 
associates, and, in violation of that faith which 
subsists among those who have abandoned all 
other, commences a suit in the Mayor's Court 
against Taylor, Majendie, and Call for the bond 
given to him, when he agreed to disappear for 
his own benefit as well as that of the common 
concern. The assignees of his debt, who little 
expected the springing of this mine even from 
such an engineer as Mr. Benfield, after recov- 
ering their first alarm, thought it best to take 
ground on the real state of the transaction. 
They divulged the whole mystery, and were 
prepared to plead that they had never received 
from Mr. Benfield any other consideration for 
the bond than a transfer, in trust for himself, of 
his demand on the Nabob of Arcot. A univers- 
al indignation arose against the perfidy of Mr. 
Benfield's proceedings. The event of the suit 
was looked upon as so certain, that Benfield was 
compelled to retreat as precipitately as he had 
advanced boldly ; he gave up his bond, and was 
reinstated in his original demand, to wait the for- 
tune of other claimants. At that time, and at 
Madras, this hope was dull indeed ; but at home 
another scene was preparing. 

It was long before any public account of this 
discovery at Madras had arrived in England that 
the present minister and his Board of Control 



thought fit to determine on the debt of 1777. 
The recorded proceedings at this „ . ,, 

* " Benfield permit- 

time knew nothing of any debt to '"d to return to 

Benfield. There was his own testi- 
mony ; there was the testimony of the list ; there 
was the testimony of the Nabob of Arcot against 
it; yet such was the ministers' feeling of the true 
secret of this transaction, that they thought prop- 
er, in the teeth of all these testimonies, to give 
him license to return to Madras ! Here the min- 
isters were under some embarrassment. Con- 
founded between their resolution of rewarding the 
good services of Benfield's friends and associates 
in England, and the shame of sending that notori- 
ous incendiary to the court of the Nabob of Ar- 
cot, to renew his intrigues against the British 
government, at the time they authorize his re- 
turn, they forbid him, under the severest penal- 
ties, from any conversation with the Nabob or 
his ministei-s ; that is, they forbid his communi- 
cation w^ith the very person on account of his 
dealings with whom they permit his return to 
that city ! To overtop this contradiction, there 
is not a word restraining him from the freest in- 
tercourse with the Nabob's second son, the real 
author of all that is done in the Nabob's name, 
who, in conjunction with this very Benfield, has 
acquired an absolute dominion over that unhappy 
man, is able to persuade him to put his signature 
to whatever paper they please, and often without 
any communication of the contents. This man- 
agement was detailed to them at full length by 
Lord Macartney, and they can not pretend igno- 
rance of it. 

I believe, after this exposure of facts, no man 
can entertain a doubt of the collusion Tids proves 
of ministers with the corrupt interest tercour^e'be- 
of the delinquents in India. When- ^^^I^Vy'Ld 
ever those in authority provide for the Benfield. 
interest of any person, on the I'cal but concealed 
state of his affairs, w'ithout regard to his avowed, 
public, and ostensible pretenses, it must be pre- 
sumed that they are in confederacy with him, 
because they act for him on the same fraudulent 
principles on which he acts for himself. It is 
plain that the ministers were fully apprised of 
Benfield's real situation, which he had used 
means to conceal while concealment answered 
his purposes. They wei-e, or the person on 
whom they relied was, of the cabinet council of 
Benfield, in the very depth of all his mysteries. 
An honest magistrate compels men to abide by 
one story. An equitable judge would not hear 
of the claim of a man who had himself thought 
proper to renounce it. With such a judge his 
shuffling and prevarication would have damned 
his claims ; such a judge never would have 
known, but in oi'der to animadvert upon, pro- 
ceedings of that character. 

I have thus laid before you, Mr. Speaker, I 
think with sufficient clearness, the connection of 
the ministers with Mr. Atkinson at the general 
election ; I have laid open to you the connection 
of Atkinson with Benfield ; I have shown Ben- 
field's employment of his wealth, in creating a 
parliamentary interest, to procure a ministerial 



360 



MR. BURKE ON THE 



[1785. 



protection ; I have set before your eyes his 
large concern in the debt, his practices to hide 
that concern from the pubHc eye, and the lib- 
eral protection which he has received from the 
minister. If this chain of circumstances do not 
lead you necessarily to conclude that the minis- 
inference from ter has paid to the avarice of Ben- 
«"mote"for field thc scrvices done by Benfiekl's 
the payment of connectious to his ambition, I do not 

the Nabob of , . , r> i c 

Arcot's debts, know any thmg short oi the conies- 
sion of the party that can satisfy you of his guilt. 
Clandestine and collusive practice can only be 
traced by combination and comparison of cir- 
cumstances. To reject such combination and 
comparison is to reject the only means of de- 
tecting fraud ; it is, indeed, to give it a patent 
and free license to cheat with impunity. 

I confine myself to the connection of ministers, 
mediately or immediately, with only two persons 
concerned in this debt. How many others, who 
support their power and greatness within and 
without doors, are concerned originally, or by 
transfers of these debts, must be left to general 
opinion. I refer to the reports of the select com- 
mittee for the proceedings of some of the agents 
in these affairs, and their attempts, at least, to 
furnish ministers with the means of buying Gen- 
eral Courts, and even whole Parliaments, in the 
gross. 

I know that the ministers will think it little 
Ministers not Icss than acquittal, that they are not 
actinf from^ charged with having taken to thera- 
tives"but tTie selves somc part of the money of which 
love of power, they havc made so liberal a donation 
to their partisans, though the charge may be in- 
disputably fixed upon the corruption of their pol- 
itics. For my part, I follow their crimes to that 
point to which legal presumptions and natural in- 
dications lead me, without considering what spe- 
cies of evil motive tends most to aggravate or to 
extenuate the guilt of their conduct ; but if I am 
to speak my private sentiments, I think that in a 
thousand cases for one it would be far less mis- 
chievous to the public, and full as little dishon- 
orable to themselves, to be polluted with direct 
bribery, than thus to become a standing auxiliary 
to the oppression, usury, and peculation of mul- 
titudes, in order to obtain a corrupt support to 
their power. It is by bribing, not so often by 
being bribed, that wicked politicians bring ruin 
on mankind. Avarice is a rival to the pursuits 
of many. It finds a multitude of checks, and 
many opposers, in every walk of life. But the 
objects of ambition are for the few; and every 
person who aims at indirect profit, and therefore 
wants other protection than innocence and law, 
instead of its rival, becomes its instrument. 
There is a natural allegiance and fealty due to 
this domineering, paramount evil, from all the 
vassal vices, which acknowledge its superiority, 
and readily militate under its banners ; and it is 
under that discipline alone that avarice is able 
to spread, to any considerable extent, or to ren- 
der itself a general public mischief. It is, there- 
fore, no apology for ministers that they have not 
"been bought by the East India delinquents, but 



that they have only formed an alliance with them 
for screening each other from justice, according 
to the exigence of their several necessities. That 
thc}^ have done so is evident ; and the junction of 
the power of office in England with the abuse of 
authority in the East has not only prevented even 
the appearance of redress to the grievances of 
India, but I wish it may not be found to have 
dulled, if not extinguished, the honor, the candor, 
the generosity, the good nature, which used for- 
merly to characterize the people of England. I 
confess I wish that some more feeling than I 
have yet observed for the sufferings of our fel- 
low-creatures and fellow-subjects in that op- 
pressed part of the world had manifested itself 
in any one quarter of the kingdom, or in any 
one large description of men. 

That these oppressions exist is a fact no more 
denied, than it is resented as it ought „ ., 

' . S3 _ Hence the op- 

to be. Much evil has been done in pressionsofthe 
India under the British authority. iooked°and neg- 
What has been done to redress it? '^*^'*'^' 
We are no longer surprised at an)'' thing. We 
are above the unlearned and vulgar passion of 
admiration.^^ But it will astonish posterity when 
they read our opinions in our actions, that, after 
years of inquiry, we have found out that the sole 
grievance of India consisted in this, that the 
servants of the Company there had not profited 
enough of their opportunities, nor drained it suf- 
ficiently of its treasures ; when they shall hear 
that the very first and only important act of a 
commission, specially named by act of Parlia- 
ment, is to charge upon an undone country, in 
favor of a handful of men in the humblest ranks 
of the public service, the enormous sum of per- 
haps four millions of sterling money ! 

It is difficult for the most wise and upright 
government to correct the abuses of remote del- 
egated power, productive of unmeasured wealth, 
and protected by the boldness and strength of 
the same ill-got riches. These abuses, full of 
their own wild native vigor, will grow and flour- 
ish under mere neglect. But where the supreme 
authority, not content with winking at the ra- 
pacity of its inferior instruments, is so shameless 
and corrupt, as openly to give bounties and pre- 
miums for disobedience to its laws ; when it will 
not trust to the activity of avarice in the pursuit 
of its own gains ; when it secures public robbery 
by all the careful jealousy and attention with 
which it ought to protect property from such 
violence ; the commonwealth then is become to- 
tally perverted from its purposes; neither God 
nor man will long endure it ; nor will it long 
endure itself. In that case, there is an unnat- 
ural infection, a pestilential taint fermenting in 
the constitution of society, which fever and con- 
vulsions of some kind or other must throw off; 
or in which the vital powers, worsted in an un- 



*^ Nil admirari prope res est una, Namici, 
Sola qua possit facere at servare beatum. 

Horace, Epist. vi. 
Not to admire is all the art I know, 
To make men happy, and to keep them so. 



1785.] 



NABOB OF ARCOT-S DEBTS. 



361 



equal struggle, are pushed back upon them- 
selves, and, by a reversal of their whole func- 
tions, fester to gangrene — to death ; and instead 
of what was but just now the delight and boast 
of the creation, there will be oast out in the face 
of the sun a bloated, putrid, noisome carcass, full 
of stench and poison, an offense, a horror, a les- 
son to the world. 

In my opinion, we ought not to wait for the 
fruitless instruction of calamity to inquire into 
the abuses which bring upon us ruin in the worst 
of its forms, in the loss of our fame and virtue. 
Mr. Dundas' ^^^^ ^^^® right lionorablo gentleman 
pretense that \^li-, Duudasl savs, in auswcr to all 

the subject IS "■ p i c i 

toodchcaceto the powcrlul arguments oi my honor- 
be taken up. ^^^j^ ^^,.^^j ^^j^ ^^^-j^ u ^j^^^ ^j^j^ ^^^^^^■^_ 

ry is of a delicate nature, and that the state will 
suffer detriment by the exposure of this transac- 
tion." But it is exposed. It is perfectly known 
in every member, in every particle, and in every 
way, except that which may lead to a remedy. 
He knows that the papers of correspondence are 
printed, and that they are in every hand. 

He and delicacy are a rare and singular coa- 
lition. He thinks that to divulge our Indian poli- 
tics may be highly dangerous. He ! the mov- 
er ! the chairman ! the reporter of the Commit- 
tee of Secrecy ! he that brought forth in the ut- 
most detail, in several vast, printed folios, the 
most recondite parts of the politics, the military, 
the revenues of the British empire in India ! 
With six great chopping bastards [Reports of 
the Committee of Secrecy], each as lusty as an 
infant Hercules, this delicate creature blushes at 
the sight of his new bridegroom, assumes a vir- 
gin delicacy ; or, to use a more fit, as well as a 
more poetic comparison, the person so squeam- 
ish, so timid, so trembling, lest the winds of 
heaven should visit too roughly, is expanded to 
broad sunshine, exposed like the sow of imperial 
augury, lying in the mud with all the prodigies 
of her fertility about her, as evidence of her deli- 
cate amours : 

Triginta capitura fcEtus enixa jacebit, 

Alba, solo recubans, albi circum ubera nati.*' 



*^ Mr. Burke here accommodates to his purpose a 
passage of Virgil's .ffineid, book iii., p. 391, in which 
the prophet Helenas gives a sign to iEneas indica- 
tive of the spot where he should build a city, and 
cease from his labors. 

Cum tibi soUcito secretb ad fluminis undam.. 
Littoreis ingens inventa sub ilicibus sus 
Trigcnia capitum fcetus enixa jacebit, 
Alba, solo recubaiLS, albi circum nbcra nati ; 
Is locus urbis erit, requies ea certa laborum. 
Dryden has rendered the lines somewhat loosely, 
in the following manner : 

When in the shady shelter of a wood. 
And near the margin of a gentle flood, 
Thou shalt behold a sow upon the ground. 
With thirty sucking young encompass' d round, 
The dam and offspring white as fallen snow, \ 
These on thy city shall their name bestow, > 
And there shall end thy labor and thy woe. J 
No one will dispute the ingenuity of Mr. Burke 
in turning these lines to his purpose ; but it will be 
a wonder to most men, that he, who wrote the de- 



concerns of 
however 



While discovery of the misgovernment of oth- 
ers led to his own power, it was wise to inquire ; 
it was safe to publish ; there was then no deli- 
cacy ; there was then no danger. But when 
his object is obtained, and in his imitation he has 
outdone the crimes that he had reprobated in 
volumes of reports, and in sheets of bills of pains 
and penalties, then concealment becomes pru- 
dence, and it concerns the safety of the state that 
we should not know, in a mode of parliamentary 
cognizance, what all the world knows but too 
well ; that is, in what manner he chooses to dis- 
pose of the public revenues to the creatures 
of his politics. 

The debate has been long, and as much so 
on my part, at least, as on the part perorat 
of those who have spoken before mc. j',Jj^^' 
But long as it is, the more material perplexed or re- 

u IP r 1 1 • 1 1 11 I pulsive,cannev- 

naii OI the subject has hardly been er cease to in- 
touched on; that is, the corrupt and andsaSoft^e 
destructive system to which this debt '''"P"'^- 
has been rendered subservient, and which seems 
to be pursued with at least as much vigor and 
regularity as ever. If I considered your ease or 
my own, rather than the weight and importance 
of this question, I ought to make some apology 
to you, perhaps some apology to myself, for hav- 
ing detained your attention so long. I know on 
what ground I tread. This subject, at one time 
taken up with so much fervor and zeal, is no 
longer a favorite in this House. The House it- 
self has undergone a great and signal revolution. 
To some the subject is strange and uncouth ; to 
several harsh and distasteful ; to the relics of the 
last Parliament it is a matter of fear and appre- 
hension. It is natural for those who have seen 
their friends sink in the tornado which raged 
during the late .shift of the monsoon, and have 
hardly escaped on the planks of the general 
wreck, it is but too natural for them, as soon as 
they make the rocks and quicksands of their 
former disasters, to put about their new-built 
barks, and, as much as possible, to keep aloof 
from this perilous lee-shore. 

But let us do what we please to put India 
from our thoughts, we can do nothing to sepa- 
rate it from our public interest and our national 
reputation. Our attempts to banish this importu- 
nate duty will only make it return upon us again 
and again, and every time in a shape more un- 
pleasant than the former. A government has 
been fabricated for that great province ; the right 
honoral)le gentleman says, that therefore you 
ought not to examine into its conduct. Heavens ! 
what an argument is this ! We are not to ex- 
amine into the conduct of the direction, because 
it is an old government ; we are not to examine 
into this Board of Control, because it is a new 
one ; then we are only to examine into the con- 
duct of those who have no conduct to account 
for. Unfortunately, the basis of this new gov- 
ernment has been laid on old, condemned delin- 
quents, and its superstructure is raised out of 
scription of the dueen of France, could ever have 
soiled his pages with such a passage as the one 
above. 



362 



MR. BURKE. 



[1785. 



prosecutors turned into protectors. The event 
has been such as might be expected. But if 
it had been otherwise constituted ; had it been 
constituted even as I M'ished, and as the mover 
of this question had planned, the better part of 
the proposed establishment was in the publicity 
of its proceedings ; in its perpetual responsibility 
to Parliament. Without this check, what is our 
government at home ; even awed, as every Eu- 
ropean government is, by an audience formed of 
the other states of Europe, by the applause or 
condemnation of the discerning and critical com- 
pany before which it acts ? But if the scene 
on the other side of the globe, which tempts, in- 
vites, almost compels to tyranny and rapine, be 
not inspected with the eye of a severe and unre- 
mitting vigilance, shame and destruction must 
ensue. For one, the w^orst event of this day, 
though it may deject, shall not break or subdue 
me. The call upon us is authoritative. Let 
who will shrink back, I shall be found at my 
post. Baffled, discountenanced, subdued, discred- 
ited, as the cause of justice and humanity is, it 
will be only the dearer to me. Whoever, there- 
fore, shall at any time bring before you any 
thing toward the relief of our distressed fellow- 
citizens in India, and toward a subversion of the 
present most corrupt and oppressive system for 
its government, in me shall find a weak, I am 
afraid, but a steady, earnest, and faithful assistant. 



The motion for inquiry was voted down. Mr. 
Pitt was now at the height of his popularity, and 
had an overwhelmmg majority at his command, 
ready to sustain him in all his measures. The 
consequences were very serious to the finances 
of the country. Many years were necessarily 
occupied in paying so large a debt. In 1814 
Mr. Hume publicly stated that, according to the 
best information he could obtain, the amount paid 
(interest included) was nearly five millions of 
pounds; nor was this all. Mr. Hume adds, 
" the knowledge of the fact that Mr. Dundas 
had in that manner admitted, without any kind 
of inquiry, the whole claims of the Consolidated 
Debt of 1777, served as a strong inducement to 
others to get from the Nabob obligations or bonds 
of any description, in hopes that some future good- 
natured president of the Board of Control would 
do the same for them. We accordingly find that 
an enormous debt of near thirty millions sterling 
was very -soon formed after that act of Mr. Dun- 
das, and urgent applications were soon again 
made to have the claims paid in the same man- 
ner." It now became necessary to make a thor- 



ough inquiry. A Board of Commissioners was ap- 
pointed to examine into these new claims. After 
an investigation of many years, only c£ 1,346,796 
were allowed as good, thus showing that less than 
one part in twenty of all these claims could be 
regarded as true and lawful debts. It is the 
opinion of w^ell-informed men that the claims of 
Benfield and his associates, if fairly investigated, 
would have been reduced in very near the same 
proportion. 

But has Mr. Burke made out his case as to the 
motives of Mr. Pitt ? Has he proved that these 
claims were allowed without inquiry, as a " rec- 
ompense" to Benfield and the other creditors for 
their parliamentary influence ? This question 
will be differently answered by diflferent persons, 
according to their estimate of Mr. Pitt's charac- 
ter. Mill, in his British India, speaking of Mr. 
Burke's charge, says, " In support of it, he ad- 
duces as great a body of proof as it is almost 
ever possible to bring to a fact of such a de- 
scription." He goes on to examine Mr. Dun- 
das' defense, that the Nabob and others were al- 
low^ed "to object" to these claims, and adds, 
" That this was a blind is . abundantly clear, 
though it is possible that it stood as much be- 
tween his ow^n e3'es and the light, as he was 
desirous of putting it between the light and 
eyes of other people." There was also another 
" blind," mentioned by Wraxall, viz., that these 
claims had, to some extent, changed hands, and 
that the innocent would suffer with the guilty, 
if any of them were disallowed. It is easy to 
see how strongly Mr. Pitt was tempted, at this 
critical moment of his life, to attach undue im- 
portance to such considerations. It was impos- 
sible to go back and lay bare all the frauds and 
crimes of the English residents in India. To 
prevent them hereafter was the great object. 
Once firmly seated in power, he was resolved 
to do it : and when he was brought off in tri- 
umph at the polls through the agency (to a con- 
siderable extent) of men like Benfield, in con- 
nection with the immense East India interest 
throughout the country, it was natural for him 
to feel that he must not be too scrupulous in re- 
spect to the past, but must rather aim in future 
at the prevention of all such evils. It is thus 
that the eri'ors of political men spring from min- 
gled motives ; and while we can not doubt that 
Mr. Pitt was more or less influenced in this 
case, as in that of Mr. Hastings' impeachment, 
by his "avarice of power," we should be slow 
to admit that his conduct implies that dereliction 
of principle imputed to him by Mr. Burke. 



EXTRACTS. 



Peroration of the Opening Speech at the 
Trial of Warren Hastings. 

In the name of the Commons of England, I 
charge all this villainy upon Warren Hastings. 
in this last moment of my application to you. 



My Lords, what is it that we want here to a 
great act of national justice ? Do we want a 
cause, my Lords ? You have the cause of op- 
pres.sed princes, of undone women of the first 
rank, of desolated provinces, and of wasted king- 
doms. 



EXTRACTS. 



Do you want a criminal, my Lords ? When 
was there so much iniquity ever laid to the 
charge of any one ? No, my Lords, you must 
not look to punish any other such delinquent 
from India. Warren Hastings has not left sub- 
stance enough in India to nourish such another 
delinquent. 

My Lords, is it a prosecutor you want ? You 
have before you the Commons of Great Britain 
as prosecutors ; and I believe, my Lords, that 
the sun, in his beneficent progress round the 
world, does not behold a more glorious sight 
than that of men, separated from a remote peo- 
ple by the material bounds and barriers of na- 
ture, united by the bond of a social and moral 
community — all the Commons of England re- 
senting, as their own, the indignities and cruel- 
ties that are offered to all the people of India. 

Do we want a tribunal ? My Lords, no ex- 
ample of antiquity, nothing in the modern world, 
nothing in the range of human imagination, can 
supply us with a tribunal like this. My Lords, 
here we see virtually, in the mind's eye, that sa- 
cred majesty of the Crown, under whose author- 
ity you sit, and whose power you exercise. We 
see in that invisible authority, what we all feel 
in reality and life, the beneficent powers and pro- 
tecting justice of his Majesty. We have here the 
heir-apparent to the Crown, such as the fond wish- 
es of the people of England wish an heir-apparent 
of the Crown to be. We have here all the branch- 
es of the royal family, in a situation between maj- 
esty and subjection, between the Sovereign and 
the subject — offering a pledge, in that situation, 
for the support of the rights of the Crown and the 
liberties of the people, both which extremities 
they touch. My Lords, we have a great hered- 
itary peerage here ; those who have their own 
honor, the honor of their ancestors, and of their 
posterity, to guard, and who will justify, as they 
have always justified, that provision in the Con- 
stitution by which justice is made an hereditary 
office. My Lords, we have here a new nobility, 
who have risen, and exalted themselves, by va- 
rious merits, by great military services, which 
have extended the fame of this country from the 
rising to the setting sun. We have those, who, 
by various civil merits and various civil talents, 
have been exalted to a situation which they well 
deserve, and in which they will justify the favor 
of their Sovereign and the good opinion of their 
fellow-subjects, and make them rejoice to see 
those virtuous characters, that were the other 
day upon a level with them, now exalted above 
them in rank, but feeling with them in sympathy 
what they felt in common with them before. We 
have persons exalted from the practice of the 
law, from the place in which they administered 
high, though subordinate justice, to a seat here, to 
enlighten with their knowledge, and to strength- 
en with their votes, those principles which have 
distinguished the courts in which they have pre- 
sided. 

My Lords, you have here, also, the lights of our 
religion; you have the bishops of England. My 
Lords, you have that true image of the primitive 



Church in its ancient form, in its ancient ordi- 
nances, purified from the superstitions and the 
vices which a long succession of ages will bring 
upon the best institutions. You have the repre- 
sentatives of that religion which says that their 
God is love, that the very vital spirit of their in- 
stitution is charity — a religion which so much 
hates oppression, that when the God whom we 
adore appeared in human form, he did not appear 
in a form of greatness and majesty, but in sym- 
pathy with the lowest of the people, and thereby 
made it a firm and ruling principle that their 
welfare was the object of all government, since 
the person, who was the Master of Nature, chose 
to appear himself in a subordinate situation. 
These are the considerations which influence 
them, which animate them, and will animate 
them, against all oppression ; knowing that He 
who is called first among them, and first among 
us all, both of the flock that is fed and of those 
who feed it, made himself " the servant of all." 

My Lords, these are the securities which we 
have in all the constituent parts of the body of 
this House. We know them, we reckon, we 
rest upon them, and commit safely the interests 
of India and of humanity into your hands. There- 
fore, it is with confidence, that, ordered by the 
Commons, 

I impeach Warren Hastings, Esquire, of high 
crimes and misdemeanors. 

I impeach him in the name of the Commons of 
Great Britain, in Parliament assembled, whose 
parliamentary trust he has betrayed. 

I impeach him in the name of all the Commons 
of Great Britain, whose national character he has 
dishonored. 

I impeach him in the name of the people of 
India, whose laws, rights, and liberties he has 
subvei-ted, whose property he has destroyed, 
whose country he has laid waste and desolate. 

I impeach him in the name, and by virtue, of 
those eternal laws of justice which he has vio- 
lated. 

I impeach him in the name of human nature 
itself, which he has cruelly outraged, injured, 
and oppressed, in both sexes, in every age, rank, 
situation, and condition of life. 



French Revolution : Errors at its Coi\i- 



MENCEMENT. 



You began ill, because you began by despising 
every thing that belonged to you. You set up 
your trade without a capital. If the last gener- 
ations of your country appeared without much 
luster in your eyes, you might have passed them 
by, and derived your claims from a more early 
race of ancestors. Under a pious predilection 
for those ancestors, your imaginations would 
have realized in them a standard of virtue and 
wisdom, beyond the vulgar practice of the hour, 
and you would have risen with the example to 

1 The extracts which follow under this head are 
taken from Mr. Burke's Reflections on the Revo- 
lution in France, and his Letters on the Regicide 
Peace. 



364 



MR. BURKE. 



whose imitation you aspired. Respecting your 
forefatliers, you would have been taught to re- 
spect yourselves. You would not have chosen 
to consider the French as a people of yesterday, 
as a nation of low-born, servile wretches, until 
the emancipating year of 1789. In order to 
furnish, at the expense of your honor, an excuse 
to your apologists here for several enormities of 
yours, you would not have been content to be rep- 
resented as a gang of Maroon slaves, suddenly 
broke loose from the house of bondage, and there- 
fore to be pavdoned for your abuse of the liberty 
to which you were not accustomed, and were ill 
fitted. Would it not, my worthy friend, have 
been wiser to have you thought, what I, for one, 
always thought you, a generous and gallant na- 
tion, long misled, to your disadvantage, by your 
high and romantic sentiments of fidelity, honor, 
and loyalty ; that events had been unfavorable 
to you, but that you were not enslaved through 
any illiberal or servile disposition ; that, in your 
most devoted submission, you were actuated by 
a principle of public spirit, and that it was your 
country you worshiped, in the person of your 
king ? Had you made it to be understood that, 
in the delusion of this amiable error, you had 
gone farther than your wise ancestors ; that you 
were resolved to resume your ancient privileges, 
while you preserved the spirit of your ancient and 
your recent loyalty and honor ; oi-, if diffident of 
yourselves, and not clearly discerning the almost 
obliterated Constitution of your ancestors, you 
had looked to your neighbors in this land, who 
had kept alive the ancient principles and models 
of the old common law" of Europe, meliorated and 
adapted to its present state — by following wise 
examples you would have given new examples of 
wisdom to the world. You would have rendered 
the cause of liberty venerable in the eyes of every 
worthy mind in every nation. You would have 
shamed despotism from the earth, by showing that 
freedom was not only reconcilable, but as, when 
well disciplined, it is, auxiliary to law. You 
would have had an unoppressive, but a product- 
ive revenue. You would have had a flourishing 
commerce to feed it. You would have had a free 
Constitution, a potent monarchy, a disciplined ar- 
my, a reformed and venerated clergy, a mitigated, 
but spirited nobility, to lead your virtue, not to 
overlay it ; you would have had a liberal order 
of commons, to emulate and to recruit that no- 
bility ; you would have had a protected, satisfied, 
laborious, and obedient people, taught to seek and 
to recognize the happiness that is to be found by 
virtue in all conditions ; in which consists the true 
moral equality of mankind, and not in that mon- 
strous fiction, which, by inspiring false ideas and 
vain expectations into men destined to travel in 
the obscure walk of laborious life, serves only to 
aggravate and imbitter that real inequality which 
it never can remove, and which the order of civil 
life establishes as much for the benefit of those 
whom it must leave in a humble state, as those 
whom it is able to exalt to a condition more 
splendid, but not more happy. You had a smooth 
and easy career of felicity and glory laid open to 



you, beyond any thing recorded in the history of 
the world ; but you have shown that difficulty is 
good for man. 

Compute your gains ; see what is got by 
those extravagant and presumptuous specula- 
tions which have taught your leaders to despise 
all their predecessors, and all their contempora- 
ries, and even to despise themselves, until the 
moment in which they became truly despicable. 
By following those false lights, France has bought 
undisguised calamities at a higher price than any 
nation has purchased the most unequivocal bless- 
ings ! France has bought poverty by crime ! 
France has not sacrificed her virtue to her in- 
terest, but she has abandoned her interest, that 
she might prostitute her virtue. All other na- 
tions have begun the fabric of a new govern- 
ment, or the reformation of an old, by establish- 
ing originally, or by enforcing with greater ex- 
actness, some rites or other of religion. All 
other people have laid the foundations of civil 
freedom in severer manners, and a system of a 
more austere and masculine morality. France, 
when she let loose the reins of regal authority, 
doubled the license of a ferocious dissoluteness 
in manners, and of an insolent irreligion in opin- 
ions and practices, and has extended through all 
ranks of life, as if she were communicating some 
privilege, or laying open some secluded benefit, 
all the unhappy corruptions that usually were 
the disease of wealth and power. This is one 
of the new principles of equality in France. 

France, by the perfidy of her leaders, has ut- 
terly disgraced the tone of lenient council in the 
cabinets of princes, and disarmed it of its most 
potent topics. She has sanctified the dark, sus- 
picious maxims of tyrannous distrust, and taught 
kings to tremble at (what will hereafter be called) 
the delusive plausibilities of moral politicians. 
Sovereigns will consider those who advise them 
to place an unlimited confidence in their people, 
as subverters of their thrones ; as traitors who 
aim at their destruction, by leading their easy 
good nature, under specious pretenses, to admit 
combinations of bold and faithless men into a 
participation of their power. This alone (if 
there were nothing else) is an irreparable ca- 
lamity to you and to mankind. Remember 
that your Parliament of Paris told your king 
that, in calling the states together, he had noth- 
ing to fear but the pi'odigal excess of their zeal 
in providing for the support of the throne. It is 
right that these men should hide their heads. It 
is right that they should bear their part in the 
ruin which their counsel has brought on their 
Sovereign and their country. Such sanguine 
declarations tend to lull authority asleep ; to 
encourage it rashly to engage in perilous ad- 
ventures of untried policy, to neglect those pro- 
visions, preparations, and precautions which dis- 
1 tinguish benevolence from imbecility, and with- 
out which no man can answer for the salutary 
efTcet of any abstract plan of government or of 
freedom. For want of these, they have seen the 
medicine of the state corrupted into its poison. 
They have seen the French rebel against a mild 



EXTRACTS. 



365 



and lawful monarch, with more fury, outrage, 
and insult, than ever any people has been known 
to rise against the most illegal usurper or the 
most sanguinary tyrant. Their resistance was 
made to concession ; their revolt was from pro- 
tection ; their blow was aimed at a hand holding 
out graces, favors, and immunities. 

This was unnatural. The rest is in order. 
They have found their punishment in their suc- 
cess. Laws overturned ; tribunals subverted ; 
industry without vigor ; commerce expiring ; 
the revenue unpaid, yet the people impover- 
ished ; a church pillaged, and a state not re- 
lieved ; civil and military anarchy made the 
constitution of the kingdom ; every thing human 
and divine sacrificed to the idol of public credit, 
and national bankruptcy the consequence ; and, 
to crown all, the paper securities of new, preca- 
rious, tottering power, the discredited paper se- 
curities of impoverished fraud, and beggared 
rapine, held out as a currency for the support 
of an empire, in lieu of the two great recognized 
species that represent the lasting conventional 
credit of mankind, which disappeared and hid 
themselves in the earth from v.'hence they came, 
when the principle of property, whose creatures 
and representatives they are, was systematically 
subverted. 

Were all these dreadful things necessary ? 
Were they the inevitable results of the despe- 
rate struggle of determined patriots, compelled 
to wade thi'ough blood and tumult to the quiet 
shore of a tranquil and prosperous liberty ? No ! 
nothing like it. The fresh ruins of France, which 
shock our feelings wherever we can turn our eyes, 
are not the devastation of civil war ; they are the 
sad but instructive monuments of rash and igno- 
rant counsel in time of pi'ofound peace. They are 
the display of inconsiderate and presumptuous, be- 
cause unresisted and irresistible authority. The 
persons who have thus squandered away the pre- 
cious treasure of their crimes, the persons who 
have made this prodigal and wild waste of pub- 
lic evils (the last stake reserved for the ultimate 
ransom of the state), have met in their progress 
with little, or rather with no opposition at all. 
Their whole march was more like a triumphal 
procession than the progress of a w^ar. Their 
pioneers have gone before them, and demolished 
and laid every thing level at their feet. Not one 
drop of their blood have they shed in the cause 
of the country they have ruined. They have 
made no sacrifice to their projects of greater 
consequence than their shoe-buckles, w^hile they 
were imprisoning their king, murdering their fel- 
low-citizens, and bathing in tears, and plunging 
in poverty and distress, thousands of worthy men 
and worthy families. Their cruelty has not even 
been the base result of fear. It has been the ef- 
fect of their sense of perfect safety in authorizing 
treasons, robberies, rapes, assassinations, slaugh- 
ters, and burnings, throughout their harassed 
land ; but the cause of all was plain from the 
beginning. 



Seizure of the King and Queen of France. 

History will record, that on the morning of 
the 6th of October, 1789, the King and Queen 
of France, after a day of confusion, alarm, dis- 
may, and slaughter, lay down, under the pledged 
security of public faith, to indulge nature in a 
few hours of respite and troubled melancholy 
repose. From this sleep the Queen was first 
startled by the voice of the sentinel at her door, 
who cried out to her to save herself by flight — 
that this was the last proof of fidelity he could 
give — that they were upon him, and he was 
dead. Instantly he was cut down. A band of 
cruel ruffians and assassins, reeking with his 
blood, rushed into the chamber of the Queen, 
and pierced, with a hundred strokes of bayonets 
and poniai'ds, the bed from whence this perse- 
cuted woman had but just time to fly almost na- 
ked, and, through ways unknown to the murder- 
ers, had escaped to seek refuge at the feet of a 
King and husband not secure of his own life for 
a moment. 

This King, to say no more of him, and this 
Queen, and their infant children (who once would 
have been the pride and hope of a great and 
generous people) were then forced to abandon 
the sanctuary of the most splendid palace in the 
world, which they left swimming in blood, pol- 
luted by massacre, and strewed with scattered 
limbs and mutilated carcases. Thence they 
were conducted into the capital of their king- 
dom. Two had been selected from the unpro- 
voked, unresisted, promiscuous slaughter, which 
was made of the gentlemen of birth and family 
who composed the King's body-guard. These 
two gentlemen, wath all the parade of an execu- 
tion of justice, were cinielly and publicly dragged 
to the block, and beheaded in the great court 
of the palace. Their heads were stuck upon 
spears, and led the procession ; while the royal 
captives who followed in the train were slowly 
moved along, amid the horrid yells, and thrilling 
screams, and frantic dances, and infamous con- 
tumelies, and all the unutterable abominations 
of the furies of hell, in the abused shape of the 
vilest of women. After they had been made to 
taste, drop by drop, more than the bitterness of 
death, in the slow torture of a journey of twelve 
miles, protracted to six houi's, they were, under 
a guard composed of those very soldiers who 
had thus conducted them through this famous 
triumph, lodged in one of the old palaces of 
Paris, now converted into a Bastiie for kings. 



The Queen of France and the Spirit of 
Chivalry. 

I hear, and I rejoice to hear, that the great 
lady, the other object of the triumph, has borne 
that day (one is interested that beings made for 
suffering should suffer well), and that she bears 
all the succeeding days — that she bears the im- 
prisonment of her husband, and her own captiv- 
ity, and the exile of her friends, and the insult- 
ing adulation of addresses, and the whole weiuhl 



366 



MR. BURKE. 



of her accumulated wrongs, with a serene pa- 
tience, in a manner suited to her rank and race, 
and becoming the oflspring of a sovereign dis- 
tinguished for her piety and her courage ; that, 
like her, she has lofty sentiments ; that she feels 
with the dignity of a Roman matron ; that in the 
last extremity she will save herself from the 
last disgrace ; and that, if she must fall, she will 
fall b}^ no ignoble hand. 

It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I 
saw the Queen of France, then the dauphiness, 
at Versailles ; and surely never lighted on this 
orb. which she hardly seemed to touch, a more 
delightful vision. 1 saw her just above the 
horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated 
sphere she just began to move in, glittering like 
the morning star, full of life, and splendor, and 
joy. Oh ! what a i-evolution ! and what a heart 
must I have, to contemplate, without motion, 
that elevation and that fall ! Little did I dream, 
when she added titles of veneration to those 
of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she 
should ever be obliged to carry the sharp anti- 
dote against disgrace concealed in that bosom ;^ 
little did I dream that I should have lived to see 
such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gal- 
lant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cav- 
aliers. I thought ten thousand swords must 
have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even 
a look that threatened her w^ith insult.^ But the 
age of chivalry is gone ; that of sophisters, econ- 
omists, and calculators has succeeded ; and the 
glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Nev- 
er, never more shall we behold that generous 
loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, 
that dignified obedience, that subordination of 
the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude it- 
self, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The un- 
bought grace of life, the cheap defense of na- 
tions, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic 
enterprise is gone ! It is gone, that sensibility 
of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a 
stain like a wound, w^hich inspired courage while 
it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever 
it touched, and under which vice itself lost half 
its evil by losing all its grossness."* 



2 The "sharp antidote against disgrace" here 
mentioned Avas a das:ger, which, it was then re- 
ported, the duecn carried in her bosom, with a view 
to end her life if any indignities should be offered 
her. See London Chris. Obs., vol. vi., p. 67. The 
report, however, proved to be incorrect. 

^ This image may have been suggested by the fol- 
lowing lines of Milton's Paradise Lost, book i., line 
GG4, which are correspondent in thought, though not 
coincident in expression : 
He spake ; and, to confirm his words, out flew 
MillloHfi ofjlnming swords, drawn from the thighs 
Of mighty cherubim. 

* It is hardly necessary to i-emark on the wide 
extent of reading and reflection involved in these 
three sentences. The whole history of the Middle 
Ages must have flashed across the mind of Mr. 
Burke as he wrote — the division of Europe into 
feudal dependencies, creating a "cheap defense of 
nations," in bodies of armed inon always ready at 
a moment's call, without expense to the sovereign 



This mixed S3-stem of opinion and sentiment 
had its origin in the ancient chivalry ; and the 
principle, though varied in its appearance by the 
varying state of human affairs, subsisted and in- 
fluenced through a long succession of genera- 
tions, even to the time we live in. If it should 
ever be totally extinguished, the loss, I fear, will 
be great. It is this which has given its charac- 
ter to modern Europe. It is this which has dis- 
tinguished it under all its forms of government, 
and distinguished it to its advantage from the 
states of Asia, and, possibly, from those states 
which flourished in the most brilliant periods of 
the antique world. It was this which, without 
confounding ranks, had produced a noble equal- 
ity, and handed it down through all the grada- 
tions of social life. It was this opinion which 
mitigated kings into companions, and raised pri- 
vate n>en to be fellows with kings. Without 
force or opposition, it subdued the fierceness of 
pride and power ; it obliged sovereigns to sub- 



— the various orders of knights devoted to the serv- 
ice of the Monarch, and the honor and protection of 
the Fair, producing " that generous loyalty to rank 
and sex. that proud submission, that dignified obe- 
dience," which formed so peculiarly the spirit of 
chivalry. Individual instances would, no doubt, be 
present to his imagination, of men like Bayard, and 
hundreds of others, whose whole life was made up 
of "high thoughts seated in a heart of courtesy." 
It is here that we find the true type of Mr. Burke's 
genius, rather than in the brilliant imagery with 
which the paragraph commences. 

When Mr. Burke speaks of vice as having "lost 
half its evil by losing all its grossness," he obvious- 
ly refers not to the personal guilt of the man, but to 
the injurious effects he produces on society. Even in 
this sense, he would hardl}' have laid down so sweep- 
ing a proposition, except from the influence of one-sid- 
ed views in a moment of excited feeling and imagin- 
ation. Vice, in the higher classes, when connected 
with grace and refinement of manners, is certainly 
less offensive to taste, but it is more insidious and se- 
ductive. It is, in addition to this, a mere system of 
hypocrisy, for vice is degrading in its nature ; and 
the covering of polish and refinement thrown over 
it is intended simply to deceive. Genuine faith and 
moral princii)le must die out under such a system; 
and we see how it was that French society became 
reduced to that terrible condition described by Mr. 
Gouverneur Morris, in a passage already quoted for 
another purpose. " There is one fatal principle 
which pervades all ranks ; it is a perfect indiffer- 
ence to the violation of engagements. Inconstancy 
is so mingled in the blood, marrow, and very es- 
sence of this people, that, when a man of high rank 
and importance laughs to-day at what he seriously 
asserted yesterday, it is considered the natural or- 
der of things." How could it be otherwise, among 
a people who had taken it as a maxim that " man- 
ners are morals ?" Such a maxim Mr. Burke would 
have rejected with horror ; but his own remark is 
capable of being so understood, or, at least, so ap- 
plied, as to give a seeming countenance to this cor- 
rupt sentiment. History, on which he so much re- 
lied, aftbrds the completest testimony, that the ruin 
of states which have attained to a liigh degree of 
civilization has almost uniformly resulted from the 
polished corruption of the higher classes, and not 
from the "grossness" of the lower. 



EXTRACTS. 



367 



mit to the soft collar of social esteem ; compelled 
stera authorit}' to submit to elegance ; and gave 
a domination vanquisher of laws, to be subdued 
by manners. 



Political Influence of Established Opin- 
ions. 

When ancient opinions and rules of life are 
taken away, the loss can not possibly be esti- 
mated. From that moment we have no com- 
pass to govern us ; nor can we know distinctly 
to what port we steer. Europe, undoubtedly, 
taken in a mass, was in a flourishing condition 
the day on which your revolution was complet- 
ed. How much of that prosperous state was 
owing to the spirit of our old manners and opin- 
ions is not easy to say ; but as such causes can 
not be indifferent in their operation, we must 
presume that, on the whole, their operation was 
beneficial. 

We are but too apt to consider things in the 
state in which w^e find them, without sufficiently 
adverting to the causes by which they have been 
produced, and, possibly, may be upheld. Noth- 
ing is more certain, than that our manners, our 
civilization, and all the good things which are 
connected with manners and with civilization, 
have, in this European world of ours, depended 
for ages upon two principles, and were indeed 
the result of both combined ; I mean the spirit 
of a gentleman, and the spirit of religion. The 
nobility and the clergy, the one by profession, 
the other by patronage, kept learning in exist- 
ence even in the midst of arms and confusions, 
and while governments were rather in their 
causes than formed. Learning paid back what 
it received to nobility and to priesthood ; and paid 
it with usury, by enlarging their ideas, and by 
furnishing their, minds. Happy if they had all 
continued to know their indissoluble union, and 
their proper place ! Happy if learning, not de- 
bauched by ambition, had been satisfied to con- 
tinue the instructor, and not aspired to be the 
master ! Along wnth its natural protectors and 
guardians, learning will be cast into the mire, 
and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish 
multitude.'' 

If, as I suspect, modern letters owe more than 
they are always willing to own to ancient man- 
ners, so do other interests which we value fully 
as much as they are worth. Even commerce, 
and trade, and manufacture, the gods of our 



^ See the fate of Bailly and Condorcet, supposed 
to be here particularly alluded to. Compare the 
circumstances of the trial and execution of the for- 
mer with this prediction. 

Mr. Burke has been accused, without the slight- 
est reason, of here applying the phrase "swinish 
multitude" to the lower class of society in general, 
as a distinctive appellation. The language was ob- 
viously suggested by the scriptural direction, " Cast 
not you pearls before swine." Bailly and Condor- 
cet did this, and experienced the natural consequen- 
ces ; and Mr. Burke says that such will always be 
the case, that "learning will be trodden under the 
hoofs of a (not the) swinish multitude." 



economical politicians, are themselves, perhaps, 
but creatures ; are themselves but effects, which, 
as first causes, we choose to worship. They cer- 
tainly grew under the same shade in which 
learning flourished. They too may decay with 
their natural protecting principles. With you, 
for the present at least, they all threaten to dis- 
appear together. Where trade and manufac- 
tures ai-e wanting to a people, and the spirit of 
nobility and religion remains, sentiment supplies, 
and not always ill-supplies their place : but if 
commerce and, the arts should be lost in an ex- 
periment to try how well a state may stand with- 
out the.se old fundamental principles, what sort 
of a thing must be a nation of gross, stupid, fe- 
rocious, and, at the same time, poor and sordid 
barbarians, destitute of religion, honor, or manly 
pride, possessing nothing at present, and hoping 
for nothing hereafter ? 



Views of the English Nation. 

When I assert any thing as concerning the 
people of England I speak from observation, not 
from authority ; but I speak from the experience 
I have had in a pretty extensive and mixed com- 
munication with the inhabitants of this kingdom, 
of all descriptions and ranks, and after a course 
of attentive observation, begun in early life, and 
continued for near forty years. I have often been 
astonished, considering that w^e are divided from 
you but by a slender dike of about twenty-four 
miles, and that the mutual intercourse between 
the two countries has lately been very great, to 
find how little you seem to know of us. I sus- 
pect that this is owing to your forming a judg- 
ment of this nation from certain publications, 
which do very erroneously, if they do at all, rep- 
resent the opinions and dispositions generally 
prevalent in England. The vanity, restlessness, 
petulence, and spirit of intrigue of several petty 
cabals, who attempt to hide their total want of 
consequence in bustle, and noise, and puffing, 
and mutual quotation of each other, makes you 
imagine that our contemptuous neglect of their 
abilities is a general mark of acquiescence in 
their opinions. No such thing, I assure you. 
Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern 
make the field ring \x\i\\ their importunate chink, 
while thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath 
the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and 
are silent, pray do not imagine that those who 
make the noise are the only inhabitants of the 
field ; that, of course, they are many in number • 
or that, after all, they are other than the little, 
shriveled, meager, hopping, though loud and 
troublesome insects of the hour. 

I almost venture to affirm, that not one in a 
hundred among us participates in the "triumph" 
of the revolution society. If the King and Queen 
of France and their children were to fall into our 
hands by the chance of war, in the most acrimo- 
nious of all hostilities (I deprecate such an event, 
I deprecate such hostility), they would be treat- 
ed with another sort of triumphal entry into Lon 
don. We formerly have had a king of Franco 



MR. BURKE. 



in that situation ; you have read how he was 
treated by the victor in the field ; and in what 
manner he was afterward received in England. 
Four hundred years have gone over us ; but I 
believe we are not materially changed since that 
period. Thanks to our sullen resistance to inno- 
vation : thanks to the cold sluggishness of our 
national character, we still bear the stamp of 
our forefathers. We have not (as I conceive) 
lost the generosity and dignity of thinking of the 
fourteenth century ; nor, as yet, have we subtil- 
ized ourselves into savages. We are not the 
converts of Rousseau ; we are not the disciples 
of Voltaire ; Helvetius has made no progress 
among us. Atheists are not our preachers ; mad- 
men are not our lawgivers. We knov>^ that we 
have made no discoveries ; and we think that no 
discoveries are to be made in morality ; nor 
many in the great principles of government, nor 
in the ideas of liberty, which were understood 
long before we were born, altogether as well 
as they will be after the grave has heaped its 
mold upon our presumption, and the silent tomb 
shall have imposed its law on our pert loquacity. 
In England we have not yet been completely 
emboweled of our natural entrails ; we still feel 
within us, and we cherish and cultivate those 
inbred sentiments which are the faithful guard- 
ians, the active monitors of our duty, the true 
supporters of all liberal and manly morals. We 
have not been drawn and trussed in order that 
we may be filled, like stuffed birds in a museum, 
with chaff", and rags, and paltry blurred shreds 
of paper about the rights of man. We preserve 
the whole of our feelings, still native and entire, 
unsophisticated by pedantry and infidelity. We 
have real hearts of flesh and blood beating in 
our bosoms. We fear God ; we look up with 
awe to kings ; with affection to Parliaments ; 
with duty to magistrates ; with reverence to 
priests ; and with respect to nobility. Why ? 
Because, wiien such ideas are brought before 
our minds, it is natural to be so affected ; be- 
cause all other feelings are false and spurious, 
and tend to corrupt our minds, to vitiate our pri- 
mary morals, to render us unfit for rat:onal lib- 
erty ; and by teaching us a servile, licentious, 
and abandoned insolence, to be our low sport for 
a few holidays, to make us perfectly fit for, and 
justly deserving of slavery through the whole 
course of our lives. 

You see, sir, that in this enlightened age I am 
bold enough to confess that we are generally 
men of untaught feelings ; that instead of cast- 
ing away all our old prejudices, we cheri.sh them 
to a very considerable degree, and, to take more 
shame to ourselves, we cherish them because 
they are prejudices ; and the longer they have 
lasted, and the more generally they have pre- 
vailed, the more we cherish them. We are 
afraid to put men to live and trade each on his 
own private stock of reason ; because we sus- 
pect that the stock in each man is small, and 
that the individuals would do better to avail 
themselves of the general bank and capital of 
nations and of ages. Many of our men of spec- 



ulation, instead of exploding general prejudices, 
employ their sagacity to discover the latent wis- 
dom which prevails in them. If they find what 
they seek, and they seldom fail, they think it 
more wise to continue the prejudice, with the 
reason involved, than to cast away the coat of 
prejudice, and to leave nothing but the naked 
reason ; because prejudice, with its reason, has 
a motive to give action to that reason, and an 
affection which will give it permanence. Preju- 
dice is of ready application in the emergency ; it 
previously engages the mind in a steady course 
of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the 
man, hesitating in the moment of decision, skep- 
tical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice ren- 
ders a man's virtue his habit, and not a series 
of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice^ 
his duty becomes a part of his nature. 



Theory of the English Constitution. 

You will observe that, from Magna Charta to 
the Declaration of Right, it has been the uniform 
policy of our Constitution to claim and assert 
our liberties, as an entailed inheritance derived 
to us from our forefathers, and to be transmitted 
to our posterity, as an estate specially belonging 
to the people of this kingdom, without any refer- 
ence whatever to any other more general or prior 
right. By this means our Constitution preserves 
a unity in so great a diversity of its parts. We 
have an inheritable Crown, an inheritable peer- 
age, and a House of Commons and a people in- 
heriting privileges, franchises, and liberties, from 
a long line of ancestors. 

The policy appears to me to be the result of 
profound reflection, or, rather, the happy effect 
of following nature, which is wisdom without 
reflection, and above it. A spirit of innovation 
is generally the result of a selfish temper and 
confined views. People will not look forward 
to posterity, who never look backward to their 
ancestors. Besides, the people of England well 
know that the idea of inheritance furnishes a 
sure principle of conservation, and a sure prin- 
ciple of ti-ansmission, without at all excluding a 
principle of improvement. It leaves acquisition 
free ; but it secures what it acquires. What- 
ever advantages are obtained by a state pro- 
ceeding on these maxims are locked fast as in a 
sort of family settlement ; grasped as in a kind 
of mortmain, forever. By a constitutional poli- 
cy, working after the pattern of nature, we re- 
ceive, we hold, we transmit, our government and 
our privileges, in the same manner in which we 
enjoy and transmit our property and our lives. 
The institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, 
the gifts of Providence, are handed down, to us 
and from us, in the same course and order. Our 
political system is placed in a just correspond- 
ence and symmetry with the order of the world, 
and with the mode of existence decreed to a per- 
manent body composed of transitory parts, where- 
in, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, 
molding together the great mysterious incorpo- 
ration of the human race, the whole, at one time. 



EXTRACTS. 



is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but, in a 
condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on 
through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, 
renovation, and progression. Thus, by preserv- 
ing the method of nature in the conduct of the 
state, in what we improve, we are never wholly 
new ; in what we retain, we are never wholly 
obsolete. By adhering in this manner, and on 
those principles, to our forefathers, we are guid- 
ed not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by 
the spirit of philosophic analogy. In this choice 
of inheritance we have given to our frame of pol- 
ity the image of a relation in blood ; binding up 
the Constitution of our country with our dearest 
domestic ties ; adopting our fundamental laws 
into the bosom of our family afTections ; keeping 
inseparable, and cherishing with the warmth of 
all their combined and mutually reflected chari- 
ties, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and 
our altars. 

Through the same plan of a conformity to na- 
ture in our artificial institutions, and by calling 
in the aid of her unerring and powerful instincts, 
to fortify the fallible and feeble contrivances of 
our reason, we have derived several other, and 
those no small benefits, from considering our lib- 
erties in the light of an inheritance. Always 
acting as if in the presence of canonized fore- 
fathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to 
misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful 
gravity. This idea of a liberal descent inspires 
us with a sense of habitual, native dignity, which 
prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably 
adhering to and disgracing those who are the first 
acquirers of any distinction. By this means our 
liberty becomes a noble freedom. It carries an 
imposing and majestic aspect. It has a pedigree 
and illustrating ancestors. It has its bearings and 
its ensigns armorial. It has its gallery of por- 
traits, its monumental inscriptions, its records, 
evidences, and titles. We procure reverence to 
our civil institutions, on the principle upon which 
nature teaches us to revere individual men ; on 
account of their age, and on account of those 
from whom they are descended. All your soph- 
isters can not produce any thing better adapted 
to presei've a rational and manly freedom than 
the course that we have pursued, who have 
chosen our nature rather than cur speculations, 
our breasts rather than our inventions, for the 
great conservatories and magazines of our rights 
and privileges. 



Degrading Influence of Low Views in 
Politics. 

When men of rank sacrifice all ideas of dig- 
nity to an ambition without a distinct object, 
and work with low instruments and for low ends, 
the whole composition becomes low and base. 
Does not something like this now appear in 
France? Does it not produce something igno- 
ble and inglorious ? a kind of meanness in all the 
prevalent policy ? a tendency in all that is done 
to lower, along with individuals, all the dignity 
and importance of the state ? Other revolutions 

A A 



have been conducted by persons, who, while they 
attempted or effected changes in the common- 
wealth, sanctified their ambition by advancing 
the dignity of the people whose peace they 
troubled. They had long views. They aimed 
at the rule, not at the destruction of their coun- 
try. They were men of great civil and great 
military talents, and if the terror, the ornament 
of their age. They were not like Jew brokers 
contending with each other who could best rem- 
edy with fraudulent circulation and depreciated 
paper the wretchedness and ruin brought on their 
country by their degenerate councils. The com- 
pliment made to one of the great bad men of the 
old stamp (Cromwell) by his kinsman, a favorite 
poet of that time, shows what it was he proposed, 
and what, indeed, to a great degree, he accom- 
plished in the success of his ambition. 
"Still as you rise, the state exalted too, 

Finds no distemper while 'tis changed by you ; 

Changed like the world's great scene, when, with- 
out noise, 

The rising sun night's vulgar lights destroys." 
These disturbers were not so much like men 
usurping power, as asserting their natural place 
in society. Their rising was to illuminate and 
beautify the world. Their conquest over their 
competitors was by outshining them. The hand 
that, like a destroying angel, smote the country, 
communicated to it the force and energy under 
which it suffered. I do not say (God forbid) 1 
do not say that the virtues of such men were to 
be taken as a balance to their crimes, but they 
were some corrective to their effects. Such 
was, as I said, our Cromwell. Such were your 
whole race of Guises, Condes, and Colignis. 
Such the Richelieus, who in more quiet times 
acted in the spirit of a civil war. Such, as bet- 
ter men, and in a less dubious cause, were your 
Henry the Fourth and your Sully, though nursed 
in civil confusions, and not wholly without some 
of their taint. It is a thing to be wondered at 
to see how very soon France, when she had 
a moment to respire, recovered and emerged 
from the longest and most dreadful civil war 
that ever was known in any nation. Why ? be- 
cause, among all their massacres, they had not 
slain the mind in their country. A conscious 
dignity, a noble pride, a generous sense of glory 
and emulation, was not extinguished. On the 
contrary, it was kindled and inflamed. The ox-- 
gans, also, of the state, however shattered, exist- 
ed. All the prizes of honor and virtue, all the 
rewards, all the distinctions remained. But your 
present confusion, like a palsy, has attacked the 
fountain of life itself. Every person in your 
country, in a situation to be actuated by a prin- 
ciple of honor, is disgraced and degraded, and 
can entertain no sensation of life except in a 
mortified and humiliated indignation. 



True Theory of the Rights of Man. 

Far am I from denying in theory ; full as far 
is my heart from withholding in practice (if I 
were of power to give or to withhold) the rea. 



370 



MR. BURKE. 



rights of men. In denying their false claims of 
right, I do not mean to injure those which are 
real, and are such as their pretended rights 
would totally destroy. If civil society be made 
for the advantage of man, all the advantages for 
which it is made become his right. It is an in- 
stitution of beneficence ; and law itself is only 
beneficence acting by a rule. Men have a right 
to live by that rule ; they have a right to do jus- 
tice, as between their fellows, whether their fel- 
lows are in politic function or in ordinary oc- 
cupation. They have a right to the fruits of 
their industry, and to the means of making their 
industry fruitful. They have a right to the ac- 
quisitions of their parents ; to the nourishment 
and improvement of their offspring ; to instruc- 
tion in life, and to consolation in death. What- 
ever each man can separately do, without tres- 
passing upon others, he has a right to do for 
himself; and he has a right to a fair portion 
of all which society, with all its combinations of 
skill and force, can do in his favor. In this part- 
nership all men have equal rights, but not to 
equal things. He that has but live shillings in 
the partnership has as good a right to it as he 
that has five hundred pounds has to his larger 
proportion ; but he has not a right to an equal 
dividend in the product of the joint stock : and 
as to the share of power, authority, and direc- 
tion which each individual ought to have in the 
management of the state, that I must deny to 
be among the direct, original rights of man in 
civil society ; for I have in my contemplation 
the civil, social man, and no other. It is a thing 
to be settled by convention. 

If civil society be the offspring of convention, 
that convention must be its law. That conven- 
tion must limit and modify all the descriptions 
of constitution which are formed under it. Ev- 
ery sort of legislative, judicial, or executory 
power, are its creatures. They can have no 
being in any other state of things ; and how can 
any man claim, under the conventions of civil 
society, rights which do not so much as suppose 
its existence ? rights which are absolutely re- 
pugnant to it? One of the first motives to civil 
society, and which becomes one of its funda- 
mental rules, is, that no man should be judge in 
his own cause. By this each person has at once 
divested himself of the first fundamental riirht of 
uncovenanted man ; that is, to judge for himself, 
and to assert his own cause. He abdicates all 
right to be his own governor. He inclusively, 
in a great measure, abandons the right of self- 
defense, the first law of nature. Men can not 
enjoy the rights of an uncivil and of a civil state 
together. That he may obtain ju.stice, he gives 
up his right of determining what it is in points 
the most essential to him. That he may secure 
some liberty, he makes a surrender in trust of 
the whole of it. 

Government is not made in virtue of natural 
rights, which may and do exist in total inde- 
pendence of it, and exist in much greater clear- 
ness, and in a much greater degree of abstract 
perfection ; but their abstract perfection is their 



practical defect. By having a right to every 
thing they want every thing. Government is a 
contrivance of human wisdom to provide for hu- 
man wants. Men have a right that these wants 
should be provided for by this wisdom. Among 
these wants is to be reckoned the want, out of 
civil society, of a sufficient restraint upon their 
passions. Society requires not only that the 
passions of individuals should be subjected, but 
that even in the mass and body, as well as in 
the individuals, the inclinations of men should 
frequently be thwarted, their will controlled, and 
their passions brought into subjection. This 
can only be done by a power out of themselves, 
and not, in the exercise of its function, subject 
to that will and to those passions which it is its 
office to bridle and subdue. In this sense, the 
restraints on men, as well as their liberties, are 
to be reckoned among their rights: but as the 
liberties and the restrictions vary with times and 
circumstances, and admit of infinite modifica- 
tions, they can not be settled upon any abstract 
rule, and nothing is so foolish as to discuss them 
upon that principle. 

The moment you abate any thing from the full 
rights of men each to govern himself and suffer 
any artificial, positive limitation upon those rights, 
from that moment the whole organization of gov- 
ernment becomes a consideration of convenience. 
This it is which makes the Constitution of a state, 
and the due distribution of its powers, a matter of 
the most delicate and complicated skill. It re- 
quires a deep knowledge of human nature and 
human necessities, and of the things which fa- 
cilitate or obstruct the various ends which are 
to be pursued by the mechanism of civil insti- 
tutions. The state is to have recruits to its 
strength, and remedies to its distempers. What 
is the use of discussing a man's abstract right 
to food or medicine? The question is upon the 
method of procuring and administering them. 
In that deliberation I shall always advise to <-all 
in the aid of the former and the physician rather 
than the professor of metaphysics. 

The science of constructing a cotrmionwonlih. 
or renovating it, or reforming it, is. like every 
other experimental science, not to be taught n 
priori. Nor is it a short experience thiit can 
instruct us in that practical science, because the 
real effects of moral causes are not aKvay>= im- 
mediate, but that which in the first instance is 
prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter oper- 
ation, and its excellence may arise even from 
the ill effects it produces in the beginning. The 
reverse also happens; and very plausible schemes, 
with very pleasing commencements, have nften 
shameful and lamentable conclusions. In states 
there are often some obscure and almost latent 
causes, things which appear at first view of little 
moment, on which a very great part of its pros- 
perity or adversity may most essentially depend. 
The science of government being, therefore, so 
practical in itself, and intended for such pracftical 
purposes — a matter which requires experience, 
and even more experience than any person can 
gain in his whole life, however sagacious and 



EXTRACTS. 



371 



observing he may be — it is with infinite caution 
that any man oiinht to venture upon pulling 
down an edifice which has answered in any tol- 
erable degree, for ages, the common purposes of 
society, or on building it up again, without hav- 
ing models and patterns of approved utility be- 
fore his eyes. 



True Statesmanship. 

The true lawgiver ought to have a heart full 
of sensibility. He ought to love and respect his 
kind, and to fear himself. It may be allowed to 
his temperament to catch his ultimate object 
wnth an intuitive glance, but his movements to- 
ward it ought to be deliberate. Political ar- 
rangement, as it is a work for social ends, is to 
be only wrought by social means. There mind 
must conspire with mind. Time is required to 
produce that union of minds which alone can 
produce all the good we aim at. Our patience 
will achieve more than our force. If I might 
ventui-e to appeal to what is so much out of 
fashion in Paris, I mean to experience, I should 
teil you that in ray course I have known, and, 
according to m}'' measure, have co-operated 
with great men ; and I have never yet seen 
any plan which has not been mended by the 
observations of those who were much inferior 
in understanding to the person who took the lead 
in the business. By a slow but w-ell-sustained 
progress the effect of each step is watched ; the 
good or ill success of the first gives light to us in 
the second ; and so, from light to light, we are 
conducted with safety through the whole series. 
We see that the parts of the system do not clash. 
The evils latent in the most promising contriv- 
ances are provided for as the}' arise. One ad- 
vantage is as little as possible sacrificed to anoth- 
er. We compensate, we reconcile, we balance. 
We are enabled to unite into a consistent whole 
the various anomalies and contending principles 
that are found in the minds and affiiirs of men. 
From hence arises not an excellence in simplic- 
ity, but one far superior, an excellence in com- 
position. Where the great interests of mankind 
are concerned through a long succession of gen- 
erations, that succession ought to be admitted 
into some share in the councils which are so 
deeply to affect them. If justice requires this, 
the work itself requires the aid of more minds 
than one age can furnish. It is from this view 
of things that the best legislators have been often 
satisfied with the establishment of some sure, 
solid, and ruling principle in government ; a 
power like that which some of the philosophers 
have called a plastic nature ; and having fixed 
the pi-inciple, they have left it afterward to its 
own operation. 

The State consecrated in the Hearts of 
THE People. 

To avoid, therefore, the evils of inconstancy 
and versatility, ten thousand times w-orse than 
those of obstinacy and the blindest prejudice, we 



have consecrated the state, that no man should 
approach to look into its defects or corru]itions 
but with due caution ; that he should never 
dream of beginning its reformation by its sub- 
version ; that he should approach to the faults 
of the state as to the wounds of a father, with 
pious awe and trembling solicitude. By this 
wise prejudice we are taught to look with hor- 
ror on those children of their country who are 
prompt rashly to hack that aged parent in 
pieces, and put him into the kettle of magicians, 
in hopes that, by their poisonous weeds and wild 
incantations, they may regenerate the paternal 
constitution, and renovate their lather's life. 

Society is, indeed, a contract. Subordinate 
contracts for objects of mere occasional interest 
may be dissolved at pleasure ; but the state ought 
not to be considered as nothing better than a jiart- 
nership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, 
calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, 
to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and 
to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is 
to be looked on with other reverence, because it 
is not a partnership in things subservient only 
to the gross animal existence of a temporary and 
perishable nature. It is a partnership in all sci- 
ence ; a partnership in all art ; a partnership in 
every virtue, and in all perfection. As the end.s 
of such a partnership can not be obtained in 
many generations, it becomes a partnership not 
only between those who are living, but between 
those who are living, those who are dead, and 
those who are to be born. Each contract of 
each particular state is but a clause in the great 
primeval contract of eternal society, linking the 
lower with the higher natures, connecting the 
visible and invisible world, according to a fixed 
compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which 
holds all physical and all moral natures each in 
their appointed place. This law is not subject 
to the will of those who, by an obligation above 
them, and infinitely superior, are bound to sub- 
mit their will to that law. The municipal cor- 
porations of that universal kingdom are not mor- 
ally at liberty at their pleasure, and on their spec- 
ulations of a contingent improvement, wholly to 
separate and tear asunder the bands of their sub- 
ordinate community, and to dissolve it into an un- 
social, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elemonlary 
principles. It is the first and supreme necessity 
only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses 5 
a necessity paramount to deliberation, that ad- 
mits no discussion and demands no evidence, 
which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. 
This necessity is no exception to the rule, be- 
cause this necessity itself is a part, too, of that 
moral and physical disposition of things to which 
man must i)e obedient by consent of force ; but 
if that which is only submission to necessity 
should be made the olyect of choice, the law is 
broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious 
are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled from this 
world of reason, and order, and peace, and vir- 
tue, and fruitful penitence, into the emtagonist 
world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and 
unavailinjr sorrow. 



372 



MR. BURKE. 



These, my dear sir, are, were, and I think long 
will be, the sentiments of not the least learned 
and reflecting part of this kingdom. They who 
are included in this description form their opin- 
ions on such grounds as such persons ought to 
form them. The less inquiring receive them 
from an authority which those whom Providence 
dooms to live on trust need not be ashamed to 
rely on. These two sorts of men move in the 
same direction, though in a different place. 
They both move with the order of the universe. 
They all know or feel this great ancient truth : 
" Quod illi principi et prsepotenti Deo qui om- 
nem hunc mundum regit, nihil eorum quae qui- 
dem fiant in terris acceptius quam concilia et 
caetus hominum jure sociati quae civitates appel- 
lantur."^ They take this tenet of the head and 
heart not from the great name which it imme- 
diately bears, nor from the greater from whence 
it is derived, but from that which alone can give 
true weight and sanction to any learned opinion, 
the common nature and common relation of men. 
Persuaded that all things ought to be done with 
reference, and referring all to the point of refer- 
ence to which all should be directed, they think 
themselves bound, not only as individuals, in the 
sanctuary of the heart, or as congregated in that 
personal capacity, to renew the memory of their 
high origin and cast, but also in their corporate 
character, to perform their national homage to 
the Institutor, and Author and Protector of civil 
society ; without which civil society man could 
not by any possibility arrive at the perfection of 
which his nature is capable, nor even make a re- 
mote and faint approach to it. They conceive 
that He who gave our nature to be perfected by 
our virtue, willed also the necessary means of its 
perfection. He willed, therefore, the state. He 
willed its connection with the source and orig- 
inal archetype of all perfection. They who are 
convinced of this His will, which is the law of 
laws, and the sovereign of sovereigns, can not 
think it reprehensible that this our corporate 
fealty and homage, that this our recognition of 
a seigniory paramount, I had almost said this ob- 
lation of the state itself, as a worthy offering on 
the high altar of universal praise, should be per- 
formed as all public solemn acts are performed, 
in buildings, in music, in decorations, in speech, 
in the dignity of persons, according to the cus- 
toms of mankind, taught by their nature ! that 
is, with modest splendor, with unassuming state, 
with mild majesty, and sober pomp. For those 
purposes they think some part of the wealth of 
the country is as usefully employed as it can be 
in fomenting the luxury of individuals. It is the 
public ornament. It is the public consolation. 
It nourishes the public hope. The poorest man 
finds his own importance and dignity in it, while 
the wealth and pride of individuals at every mo- 
ment makes the man of humble rank and fortune 
sensible of his inferiority, and degrades and vili- 

* That nothing is more acceptable to the All-pow- 
erful Being who rules the world than those councils 
of men under the authority of law, which bear the 
name of states. — Somnium Scipionis, sect. iii. 



fies his condition. It is for the man in humble 
life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in 
mind of a state in which the privileges of opu- 
lence will cease, when he will be equal by na- 
ture, and may be more than equal by virtue, 
that this portion of the general wealth of his 
country is employed and sanctified. 

The English people are also satisfied that to 
the great the consolations of religion are as nec- 
essary as its instructions. They, too, are among 
the unhappy. They feel personal pain and do- 
mestic sorrow. In these they have no privi- 
lege, but are subject to pay their full contingent 
to the contributions levied on mortality. They 
want this sovereign balm under their gnawing 
cares and anxieties, which, being less conversant 
about the limited wants of animal life, range with- 
out limit, and are diversified by infinite combina- 
tions in the wild and unbounded regions of im- 
agination. Some charitable dole is wanting to 
these, our often very unhappy brethren, to fill the 
gloomy void that reigns in minds which have 
nothing on earth to hope or fear ; something to 
relieve in the killing languor and over-labored 
lassitude of those who have nothing to do; 
something to excite an appetite to existence in 
the palled satiety which attends on all pleasures 
which may be bought, where nature is not left 
to her own process, where even desire is antici- 
pated, and even fruition defeated by meditated 
schemes and contrivances of delight, and no in- 
terval, no obstacle is interposed between the 
wish and the accomplishment. 



The Revolutionary Government of France. 

Out of the tomb of the murdered monarchy in 
France has arisen a vast, tremendous, unformed 
specter, in a far more terrific guise than any 
which ever yet have overpowered the imagina- 
tion and subdued the fortitude of man. Going 
straightforward to its end, unappalled by peril, 
unchecked by remorse, despising all common 
maxims and all common means, that hideous 
phantom overpowered those who could not be- 
lieve it was possible she could at all exist. * ^ 

The republic of regicide, with an annihilated 
revenue, with defaced manufactures, with a ru- 
ined commerce, with an uncultivated and half- 
depopulated country, with a discontented, dis- 
tressed, enslaved, and famished people, passing 
with a rapid, eccentric, incalculable course, 
from the wildest anarchy to the sternest despot- 
ism, has actually conquered the finest parts of 
Europe, has distressed, disunited, deranged, and 
broke to pieces all the rest. 

What now stands as government in France is 
struck at a heat. The design is wicked, im- 
moral, impious, oppressive, but it is spirited and 
daring ; it is sy.stematic ; it is simple in its prin- 
ciple ; it has vmity and consistency in perfection. 
In that country, entirely to cut off a branch of 
commerce, to extinguish a manufacture, to de- 
stroy the circulation of money, to violate credit, 
to suspend the course of agriculture, even to 
burn a city or to lay waste a province of their 



EXTRACTS. 



373 



\ own, does not cost them a moment's anxiet}-. 
To them, the will, the wish, the want, the lib- 
erty, the toil, the blood of individuals is as noth- 
ing. Individuality is left out of their scheme of 
government. The state is all in all. Every 
thing is referred to the production of force ; aft- 
erward, every thing is trusted to the use of it. 
It is military in its principle, in its maxims, in 
its spirit, and in all its movements. The state 
has dominion and conquest for its sole objects ; 
dominion over minds by proselytism, over bodies 
by arms. 

Thus constituted, with an immense body of nat- 
ural means, which are lessened in their amount 
only to be increased in their efTect, France has, 
since the accomplishment of the revolution, a 
complete unity in its direction. It has destroyed 
every resource of the state which depends upon 
opinion and the good wnll of individuals. The 
riches of convention disappear. The advant- 
ages of nature in some measure remain ; even 
these, I admit, are astonishingly lessened ; the 
command over what remains is complete and 
absolute. They have found the short cut to 
the productions of nature, w^hile others in pur- 
suit of them are obliged to wnnd through the 
labyrinth of a very intricate state of society. 
They seize upon the fruit of the labor ; they 
seize upon the laborer himself. Were France but 
half of what it is in population, in compactness, 
in applicability of its force, situated as it is, and 
being what it is, it would be too strong for most 
of the states of Europe, constituted as they are, 
and proceeding as they proceed. Would it be 
wnse to estimate what the world of Europe, as 
well as the world of Asia, had to dread from 
Genghis Khan, upon a contemplation of the re- 
sources of the cold and barren spot in the remot- 
est Tartary from whence first issued that scourge 
of the human race ? Ought we to judge from 
the excise and stamp duties of the rocks, or from 
the paper circulation of the sands of Arabia, the 
power by which Mohammed and his tribes laid 
hold at once on the two most powerful empires 
of the world, beat one of them totally to the 
ground, broke to pieces the other, and, in not 
much longer space of time than I have lived, 
overturned governments, laws, manners, relig- 
ion, and extended an empire from the Indus to 
the Pyrenees ? 

Material resources never have supplied, nor 
ever can supply the w^ant of unity in design and 
constancy in pursuit ; but unity in design, and 

* perseverance and boldness in pursuit, have nev- 
er wanted resources, and never will. We have 
not considered as we ought the dreadful energy 
of a state in which the property has nothing to 
do with the government. Reflect, again and 
again, on a government in which the property 
is in complete subjection, and where nothing 
rules but the mind of desperate men. The con- 
dition of a commonwealth not governed by its 
property was a combination of things which the 
learned and ingenious speculator Harrington, 
who has tossed about society into all forms, 
never could imagine to be possible. We have 



seen it ; and if the world will shut their eyes 
to this state of things they will feel it more. 
The rulers there have found their resources in 
crimes. The discovery is dreadful ; the mine 
cxhaustless. They have every thing to gain, 
and they have nothing to lose. They have a 
boundless inheritance in hope ; and there is no 
medium for them between the highest elevation 
and death wuth infamy. 



Their Treatment of Embassadors from For- 
eign Powers. 

To those who do not love to contemplate the 
fall of human greatness, I do not know a more 
mortifying spectacle than to see the assembled 
majesty of the crowned heads of Europe w^aiting 
as patient suitors in the ante-chamber of regi- 
cide. They wait, it seems, until the sanguinary 
tyrant Carnot shall have snorted away the fumes 
of the indigested blood of his sovereign. Then, 
when sunk on the down of usurped pomp, he 
shall have sufficiently indulged his meditation 
w^ith what monarch he shall next glut his raven- 
ing maw, he may condescend to signify that it 
is his pleasure to be awake ; and that he is at 
leisure to receive the proposals of his high and 
mighty clients for the terms on which he may 
respite the execution of the sentence he has pass- 
ed upon them. At the opening of those doors, 
what a sight it mu.st be to behold the plenipo- 
tentiaries of royal impotence, in the precedency 
which they will intrigue to obtain, and which will 
be granted to them according to the seniority 
of their degradation, sneaking into the regicide 
presence, and with the relics of the smile, w^hich 
they had dressed up for the levee of their mas- 
ters, still flickering on their curled lips, present- 
ing the faded remains of their courtly graces to 
meet the scornful, ferocious, sardonic grin of a 
bloody rufiian, who, w^hile he is receiving their 
homage, is measuring them with his eye, and fit- 
ting to their size the slider of his guillotine ! 



Illustration from a Case supposed in En- 
gland. 

To illustrate my opinions on this subject, let 
us suppose a case, which, after what has happen- 
ed, w^e can not think absolutely impossible, though 
the augury is to be abominated, and the event 
deprecated with our most ardent prayers. Let 
us suppose, then, that our gracious Sovereign 
was sacrilegiously murdered ; his exemplary 
Queen, at the head of the matronage of this land, 
murdered in the same manner ; that those prin- 
cesses, whose beauty and modest elegance are 
the ornaments of the country, and who are the 
leaders and patterns of the ingenuous youth of 
their sex, were put to a cruel and ignominious 
death, with hundreds of others, mothers and 
daughters, ladies of the first distinction ; that 
the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, prin- 
ces the hope and pride of the nation, with all 
their brethren, were forced to fly from the knives 
of assassins — that the whole body of our excel- 



374 



Mil. BURKE. 



lent clerjiy were cither ma.ssacred or robbed of 
all, and transported — the Christian religion, in 
all its denominations, forbidden and persecuted 
— the law, totally, fundamentally, and in all its 
parts, destroyed — the judges put to death by rev- 
olutiuiiary tribunals — the peers and commons 
robbed to the last acre of their estates ; mas- 
sa< red if they stayed, or obliged to seek life in 
flight, in exile, and in beggary — that the whole 
Luided property should share the very same fate 
— that every military and naval officer of honor 
and rank, almost to a man, should be placed in 
tlie same description of confiscation and exile — 
that the principal merchants and bankers should 
be drawn out, as from a hen-coop, for slaughter j 
— that the citizens of oar greatest and most Nour- 
ishing cities, when the hand and the machinery 
of the hangman were not found sufficient, should 
have been collected in the public squares, and 
massacred by thousands with cannon ; if three 
hundred thousand others should have been doom- 
ed to a situation worse than death in noisome 
and pestilential prisons — in such a case, is it in 
the faction of robbers I am to look for my coun- 
try ? Would this be the England that you and 
I, and even strangers admired, honored, loved, 
and cherished ? VVould not the exiles of England 
alone be my government and my fellow-citizens'? 
Would not their places of refuge be my tempo- 
rary country ? Would not all my duties and all 
my affections be there, and there only ? Should 
I consider myself as a traitor to my country, and 
deserving of death, if I knocked at the door and 
heart of every potentate in Christendom to suc- 
cor my friends, and to avenge them on their en- 
emies ? Could I, in any way, show myself more 
a patriot ? What should I think of those poten- 
tates who insulted their suffering brethren ; who 
treated them as vagrants, or, at least, as mendi- 
cants ; and could find no allies, no friends, but in 
regicide murderers and robbers? What ought 
I to think and feel if, being geographers instead 
of kings, they recognized the desolated cities, the 
wasted fields, and the rivers polluted with blood, 
of this geometrical measurement, as the honora- 
ble member of Europe called England ? In that 
condition, what should we think of Sweden, Den- 
mark, or Holland, or whatever power afforded 
us a churlish and treacherous hospitality, if they 
should invite us to join the standard of our King, 
our laws, and our religion ; if they should give 
us a direct promise of protection ; if, after all 
thi.s, taking advantage of our deplorable situation, 
which left us no choice, they were to treat us as 
the lowest and vilest of all mercenaries ? If they 
were to send us far from the aid of our King and 
our suffering country, to scpiandcr us away in 
the most pestilential climates for a venal enlarge- 
ment of their own territories, for the purpose of 
trucking them, when obtained, with those very 
robbers and murderers they had called upon us 
to oppose with our blood ? What would be our 
sentiments, if, in that miserable service, we were 
not to be considered either as English, or as 
Swcde-s, Dutch, Danes, but as outcasts of the hu- 
man race ? While we were fighting those bat- 



tles of their interest, and as their soldiers, how 
should we feel if we were to be excluded from 
all their cartels ? How must we feel if the pride 
and flower of the English nobilitj' and acntrv, 
who might escape the pestilential clime and the 
devouring sword, should, if taken prisoners, be 
delivered over as rebel subjects, to be condemned 
as rebels, as traitors, as the vilest of all crimin- 
als, by tribunals formed of Maroon negro slaves, 
covered over with the blood of their masters, 
who were made free, and organized into judges 
for their robberies and murders ? What should 
we feel \mder this inhuman, insulting, and bar- 
barous protection of Muscovites, Swedes, or Hol- 
landers ? Should we not obtest Heaven, and 
whatever justice there is yet on earth ? Op- 
pression makes wise men mad: but the distem- 
per is still the madness of the wise, which is bet- 
ter than the sobriety of fools. Their cry is the 
voice of sacred misery, exalted, not into vvild 
raving, but into the sanctified frenzy of proph- 
ecy and inspiration — in that bitterness of .soul, 
in that indignation of suffering virtue, in that ex- 
altation of despair, would not persecuted En- 
glish loyalty cry out with an awful warning 
voice, and denounce the destruction that wai*,s 
on monarchs, who consider fidelity to them as 
the most degrading of all vices ; who suflfer 
it to be punished as the most abominable of all 
crimes; and who have no respect but for reb- 
els, traitors, regicides, and furious negro slaves, 
whose crimes have broke their chains? Would 
not this warm language of high indignation have 
more of sound reason in it, more of real affection, 
more of true attachment, than all the lullabies 
of flatterers, who would hush monarchs to sleep 
in the arms of death ? 



Conduct ExrECXED from Mr. Pjtt when 
THE French broke off Negotiations for 
Peace in 1797. 

After such an elaborate display had been made 
of the injustice and insolence of an enemy, who 
seems to have been irritated by every one of iho 
means which had been commonly used with ef- 
fect to soothe the rage of intemperate power, the 
natural result would be, that the scabbard, in 
which we in vain attempted to plunge our sword, 
should have been thrown away with scorn. It 
would have been natural, that, rising in the full- 
ness of their might, insulted majesty, despised 
dignity, violated justice, rejected supplication, 
patience goaded into fury, would have poured 
out all the length of the reins upon all the wrath 
which they had so long restrained.''' It might 

^ This passage was probably suggested by Vir- 
gil's description of Neptune, as seated in bis chariot, 
and controlling bis impatient steeds (book v., line 
818), till willing at last to give full course to their 
swiftness, 

manibusque omnes efFundit habenas. 

He pours forth all the reins from out his hands. 

In like manner, the attributes here personified, 
"insulted majesty," "despised dignity," &c., '-pour 
out all the length of the reins upon all the wrath 



EXTRACTS. 



375 



have been expected, that, emulous of the glory 
of the j'outhful hero [the Austrian Archduke 
Charles] in alliance with him, touched by the 
example of what one man, well formed and well 
placed, may do in the most desperate state of 
atliiirs, convinced there is a courage of the cab- 
inet full as powerful, and far less vulgar than that 
of the field, our minister would have changed the 
whole line of that unprosperous prudence, which 
hitherto had produced all the efiects of the blind- 
est temerity. If he found his situation full of 
danger (and I do not deny that it is perilous in 
the extreme), he must feel that it is also full of 
glory ; and that he is placed on a stage, than 
which no muse of fire that had ascended the 
highest heaven of invention could imagine any 
thing more awful and august.^ It was hoped 
that, in the swelling .scene in which he moved, 
with some of the first potentates of Europe for 
his fellow-actors, and with so many of the rest 
for the anxious spectators of a part, which, as 
he plays it, determines forever their destiny and 
his own, like Ulysses, in the unraveling point of 
the epic story, he would have thrown oif his pa- 
tience and his rags together ; and, stripped of 
unworthy di-sguises, he would have stood forth 
in the form and in the attitude of a hero.^ On 
that day, it was thought he would have assumed 
the port of Mars ; that he would bid to be brought 



which they had so long restrained." We have few 
iinag-es in our language of equal force and beauty. 

^ See the prologue to Shakspeare's Henry V.: 
Oh for a Muse of Fire that would ascend 
The highest heaven of invention ! 

' The scene referred to is that near the close of 
the twenty-first book of the Odyssey, where Ulysses, 
who had appeared disguised as a beggar among the 
suitors of Penelope, finding that none of them could 
bend his bow, takes it in hand himself amid the 
jeers of all, strings it with the ease of a lyre, and 
sends the arrow whizzing through the rings which 
had been suspended as a mark. 

But when the wary hero wise 

Had made his hand familiar with the bow, 
Poising it, and examining — at once — 
As when, in harp and song adept, a bard 
Strings a new lyre, extending, first, the chords, 
He knits them to the frame, at either end, 
"With promptest ease ; with such Ulysses strung 
His own huge bow, and with his right hand trill'd 
The nerve, which, in its quick vibration, sang 
As with a swallow's voice. Then anguish turn'd 
The suitors pale ; and in that moment Jove 
Gave him his rolling thunder for a sign. 
Such most propitious notice from the son 
Of wily Saturn, bearing with delight, 
He seized a shaft which at the table side 
Lay ready drawn ; but in his quiver's womb 
The rest yet slept, though destined soon to steep 
Their points in Grecian blood. He lodged the reed 
Full on the bow-string, drew the parted head 
Home to his breast, and aiming as he sat. 
At once dismissed it. Through the num'rous rings 
Swift flew the gliding steel, and, issuing, sped 
Beyond them. — Coicpcr. 

He then pours out the arrows at his feet, and 
turns bis bow on the suitors till they are all de- 
stroyed. 



forth from their hideous kennel (where his scru- 
pulous tenderness had too long immured them) 
those impatient dogs of war, whose fierce re- 
gards afi'right even the minister of vengeance 
that feeds them ; that he would let them loose, 
in famine, fever, plagues, and death upon a 
guilty race, to whose frame, and to all whose 
habit, order, peace, religion, and virtue are alien 
and abhorrent. '° It was expected that he would 
at last have thought of active and eflfectual war .; 
that he would no longer amuse the British lion 
in the chase of mice and rats ; that he would no 
longer employ the whole naval power of Great 
Britain, once the terror of the world, to prey 
upon the miserable remains of a peddling com- 
merce, which the enemy did not regard, and 
from which none could profit. It was expected 
that he would have reasserted whatever remained 
to him of his allies, and endeavored to recover 
those whom their fears had .'ed astray ; that he 
would have rekindled the martial ardor of his 
citizens ; that he would have held out to them 
the example of their ancestry, the assertor of 
Europe, and the scourge of French ambition; 
that he would have reminded them of a posterity 
which, if this nefarious robbery, under the fraud- 
ulent name and false color of a government, 
should in full power be seated in the heart of 
Europe, must forever be consigned to vice, im- 
piety, barbarism, and the most ignominious slav- 
ery of body and mind. In so holy a cause it 
was presumed that he would (as in the begin- 
ning of the war he did) have opened all the tem- 
ples ; and with prayer, with fasting, and with 
supplication (better directed than to the grim 
Moloch of regicide in France), have called upon 
us to raise that united cry, which has so often 
stormed Heaven, and with a pious violence 
forced down blessings upon a repentant people. 
It was hoped that, when he had invoked upon 
his endeavors the favorable regard of the Pro- 
tector of the human race, it would be seen that 
his menaces to the enemy and his pi-ayers to 
the Almighty were not followed, but accompa- 
nied, with correspondent action. It was hoped 
that his shrilling trumpet should be heard, not 
to announce a show, but to sound a charge. 



Duties of the Higher Cla.sses in carrying 
ON THE War. 

In the nature of things it is not with their per- 
sons that the higher classes principally pay their 
contingent to the demands of war. There is an- 
other and not less important part which rests with 
almost exclusive weight upon them. They fur- 
nish the means 

" How war may best upheld, 
Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, 
In all her equipage." — Milton's Par. Lost. 

Not that they are exempt from contributino-, 



Then should the warlike Harry like himself, 
Assume the port of Mars, and at his heels, 
Leasht in like hounds should /awme, sword, and 
Crouch for employment. ^ [fire, 



376 



MR. BURKE. 



also, by their personal service in the fleets and 
armies of their country. They do contribute, 
and in their full and fair proportion, according 
to the relative proportion of their numbers in 
the community. They contribute all the mind 
that actuates the whole machine. The forti- 
tude required of them is ver}'^ different from the 
unthinking alacrity of the common soldier, or 
common sailor, in the face of danger and death ; 
it is not a passion, it is not an impulse, it is not 
a sentiment ; it is a cool, steady, deliberate prin- 
ciple, always present, always equable; having 
no connection with anger; tempering honor 
with prudence ; incited, invigorated, and sus- 
tained by a generous love of fame ; informed, 
moderated, and directed by an enlarged knowl- 
edge of its own great public ends ; flowing in 
one blended stream from the opposite sources 
of the heart and the head ; carrying in itself its 
own commission, and proving its title to every 
other command, by the first and most difficult 
command, that of the bosom in which it resides ; 
it is a fortitude which unites with the courage 
of the field the more exalted and refined courage 
of the council ; which knows as well to retreat 
as to advance ; which can conquer as well by 
delay as by the rapidity of a march or the im- 
petuosity of an attack ; which can be, with Fa- 
bius, the black cloud that lowers on the tops of 
the mountains, or with Scipio, the thunderbolt 
of war ; which, undismayed by false shame, can 
patiently endure the severest ti'ial that a gallant 
spirit can undergo, in the taunts and provocations 
of the enemy, the suspicions, the cold respect, and 
"mouth honor" of those from whom it should 
meet a cheerful obedience ; which, undisturbed 
by false humanity, can calmly assume that most 
awful moral responsibility of deciding when vic- 
tory may be too dearly purchased by the loss of 
a single life, and when the safety and glory of 



their country may demand the certain sacrifice 
of thousands. 



Sentiments beco:ming the Crisis. 

Nor ai-e sentiments of elevation in themselves 
turgid and unnatural. Nature is never more 
truly herself than in her grandest form. The 
Apollo of Belvidere (if the universal robber has 
3'et left him at Belvidere) is as much in nature 
as any figure from the pencil of Rembrandt, or 
any clown in the rustic revels of Teniers. In- 
deed, it is when a great nation is in great diffi- 
culties that minds must exalt themselves to the 
occasion, or all is lost. Strong passion, under 
the direction of a feeble reason, feeds a low fe- 
ver, which serves only to destroy the body that 
entertains it. But vehement passion does not 
always indicate an infirm judgment. It often 
accompanies, and actuates, and is even auxiliary 
to a powerful understanding ; and when they 
both conspii-e and act harmoniously, their force 
is great to destroy disorder w^ithin, and to repel 
injury from abroad. If ever there was a time 
that calls on us for no vulgar conception of things, 
and for exertions in no vulgar strain, it is the 
awful hour that Providence has now appointed 
to this nation. Every little measui-e is a great 
error ; and every great error will bring on no 
small ruin. Nothing can be directed above the 
mark that we must aim at ; every thing below 
it is absolutely thrown away. 

tP TV -3v" •'v T? 

Who knows whether indignation may not suc- 
ceed to terror, and the revival of high sentiment, 
spurning away the delusion of a safety purchased 
at the expense of glory, may not yet drive us to 
that generous despair, which has often subdued 
distempers in the state, for which no remedy 
could be found in the wisest councils ? 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



William III. forming the Grand Alliance 
against Louis XIV. 

The steps which were taken to compose, to 
reconcile, to unite, and to discipline all Europe 
against the growth of France, certainly furnish 
to a statesman the finest and most interesting 
part in the history of that great period. It form- 
ed the master-piece of King William's policy, 
dexterity, and perseverance. Full of the idea 
of preserving, not only a local civil liberty unit- 
ed with order, to our country, but to embody it 
in the political liberty, the order, and the inde- 
pendence of nations united under a natural head, 
the King called upon his Parliament to put itself 
into a posture "fo preserve to England the weight 
and influence it at present had on the councils 
and affairs abroad. It will be requisite Eu- 
rope should see you will not be wanting to your- 
selves." 

Baffled as that monarch was, and almost heart- 
broken at the disappointment he met with in the 
mode he first proposed for that great end, he 



held on his course. He was faithful to his ob- 
ject ; and in councils, as in arms, over and over 
again repulsed, over and over again he returned 
to the charge. All the mortifications he had 
suflfered from the last Parliament, and the great- 
er he had to apprehend from that newly chosen, 
were not capable of relaxing the vigor of his 
mind. He was in Holland when he combined 
the vast plan of his foreign negotiations. When 
he came to open his design to his ministers in 
England, even the sober firmness of Somers, the 
undaunted resolution of Shrewsbury, and the ad- 
venturous spirit of Montague and Orford, were 
staggered. They were not yet mounted to the 
elevation of the King. The cabinet (then the 
regency) met on the subject at Tunbridge Wells 
the 28th of August, 1698; and there, Lord Som- 
ers holding the pen, after expressing doubts on 
the state of the continent, w^hich they ultimately 
refer to the King, as best informed, they give 
him a most discouraging portrait of the spirit of 
this nation. "So far as relates to England," 
say these ministers, "it would be want of duty 



EXTRACTS. 



377 



not to give your majesty this clear account, that 
there is a deadness and want of spirit in the na- 
tion universally, so as not to be at all disposed 
to entering into a new war. That they seem 
to be tired out with taxes to a degree beyond 
what was discerned, till it appeared upon occa- 
sion of the late elections. This is the truth of 
the fact upon which your majesty will determine 
what resolution ought to be taken." 

His majesty did determine, and did take and 
pursue his resolution. In all the tottering imbe- 
cility of a new government, and with Parliament 
totally unmanageable, he persevered. He per- 
severed to expel the fears of his people by his 
fortitude — to steady their fickleness by his con- 
stancy — to expand their narrow prudence by his 
enlarged wisdom — to sink their factious temper 
in his public spirit. In spite of his people, he 
resolved to make them great and glorious ; to 
make England, inclined to shrink into her narrow 
self, the arbitress of Europe, the tutelary angel 
of the human race. In spite of the ministers, 
who staggered under the weight that his mind 
imposed upon theirs, unsupported as they felt 
themselves by the popular spirit, he infused into 
them his own soul ; he renewed in them their 
ancient heart; he rallied them in the same cause. 

It required some time to accomplish this work. 
The people were first gained, and through them 
their distracted representatives. Under the in- 
fluence of King William, Holland had rejected 
the allurements of every seduction, and had re- 
sisted the terrors of every menace. With Han- 
nibal at her gates, she had nobly and magnani- 
mously refused all separate treaty, or any thing 
which might for a moment appear to divide her 
affection or her interest, or even to distinguish 
her in identity from England. 

The English House of Commons was more 
reserved. The principle of the Grand Alliance 
was not directly recognized in the resolution of 
the Commons, nor the war announced, though 
\ they were well aware the alliance was formed 
for the war. However, compelled by the return- 
ing sense of the people, they went so far as to 
fix the three great immovable pillars of the 
safety and greatness of England, as they were 
then, as they are now, and as they must ever be 
to the end of time. They asserted in general 
terms the necessity of supporting Holland ; of 
keeping united with our allies ; and maintaining 
the liberty of Europe ; though they restricted 
their vote to the succors stipulated by actual 
treaty. But now they were fairly embarked, 
they were obliged to go with the course of the 
vessel ; and the whole nation, split before into an 
hundred adverse factions, with a king at its head 
, evidently declining to his tomb, the whole nation 
— Lords, Commons, and people — proceeded as 
one body, informed by one soul. Under the Brit- 
ish union, the union of Europe was consolidated ; 
and it long held together with a degree of cohe- 
sion, firmness, and fidelity, not known before or 
since in any political combination of that extent. 

Just as the last hand was given to this im- 
mense and complicated machine, the master- 



workman died ; but the work was formed on 
true mechanical principles ; and it was as truly 
wrought. It went by the impulse it had receiv- 
ed from the first mover. The man was dead 5 
but the Grand Alliance survived, in which King 
William lived and reigned. That heartless and 
dispirited people, whom Lord Somers had repre- 
sented, about two years before, as dead in ener- 
gy and operation, continued that war, to which it 
was supposed they were unequal in mind and in 
means, for near thirteen years. 



The Duke of Bedford's hold on his Prop- 
erty.^ 

The Crown has considered me after long serv- 
ice, the Crown has paid the Duke of Bedford 
by advance. He has had a long credit for any 
services which he may perform hereafter. He 
is secure, and long may he be secure, in his ad- 
vance, whether he performs any services or not. 
But let him take care how he endangers the 
safety of that Constitution which secures his own 
utility or his own insignificance ; or how he dis- 
courages those who take up even puny arms to 
defend an order of things, which, like the sun of 
heaven, shines alike on the useful and the worth- 
less. His grants are ingrafted on the public 
law of Europe, covered with the awful hoar of 
innumerable ages. They are guarded by the 
sacred rules of prescription, found in that full 
treasury of jurisprudence from which the jejune- 
ness and penury of our municipal law has, by 
degrees, been enriched and strengthened. This 
prescription I had my share (a very full share) in 
bringing to its perfection.^ The Duke of Bed- 
ford will stand as long as prescriptive law en- 
dures ; as long as the great stable laws of prop- 
erty, common to us with all civilized nations^ 
are kept in their integrity, and without the small- 
est intermixture of laws, maxims, principles, or 
precedents of the grand revolution. They are 
secure against all changes but one. The whole 
revolutionary system, institutes, digest, code, 
novels, text, gloss, comment, are not only not 
the same, but they are the very reverse, and the 
reverse, fundamentally, of all the laws on which 
civil life has hitherto been upheld in all the gov- 
ernments of the world. The learned pi-ofessors 
of the rights of man regarded prescription, not 
as a title to bar all claim, set up against all 
possession — but they look on prescription as it- 
self a bar against the possessor and proprietor. 
They hold an immemorial possession to be no 
more than a long-continued, and therefore an ag- 
gravated injustice. 

Such are their ideas, such their religion; and 
such their law. But as to our country and our 
race, as long as the well-compacted structure of 
our church and state, the sanctuary, the holy of 



^ This passage is taken from a letter to a Noble 
Lord, which was called forth by an insulting attack 
from the Duke of Bedford when Mr. Burke receiv- 
ed his pension. 

2 Sir George Savile's Act, called the Nullum Tern, 
pits Act. 



378 



MR. BURKE. 



holies of that ancient law, defended by reverence, 
defended by power, a fortress at once and a tem- 
ple,^ .shall stand inviolate on the brow of the 
British Sion — as loner as the British monarchy, 
not more limited than fenced by the orders of 
the state, shall, like the proud Keep of Windsor, 
rising- in the majesty of proportion, and girt with 
the doable belt of its kindred and coeval towers, 
as long as this awful structure shall oversee and 
guard the subjected land — so long the mounds 
and dikes of the low, fat, Bedford level will have 
nothing to fear from the pick-axes of all the lev- 
elers of France. As long as our sovereign lord 
the King, and his faithful subjects, the lords and 
commons of this realm — the triple cord, which 
no man can break; the solemn, sworn, constitu- 
tional frank-pledge of this nation ; the firm guar- 
antees of each other's being and each other's 
rights ; the joint and several .securities, each in 
its place and order, for every kind and every 
quality of property and of dignity. As long as 
these endure, so long the Duke of Bedford is 
safe ; and we are all safe together — the high 
from the blights of envy and the spoliations of 
rapacity ; the low from the iron hand of oppres- 
sion and the insolent spurn of contempt. Amen ! 
and so be it, and so it will be, 

Dum domiis ^neae Capitoli immobile saxum 
Accolet; imperiumque pater Romauus habebit.* 



Mr. Burke ox the Death of his Son. 

Had it pleased God to continue to me the 
hopes of succession, I should have been, accord- 
ing to my mediocrity, and the mediocrity of the 
age I live in, a sort of founder of a family ; 1 
should have left a son, who, in all the points in 
which personal merit can be viewed, in science, 
in erudition, in genius, in taste, in honor, in gen- 
erosity, in humanity, in every liberal sentiment, 
and every liberal accomplishment, would not 
have shown himself inferior to the Duke of Bed- 
ford, or to any of those whom he traces in his 
line. His grace very soon would have v^^anted 
all plausibility in his attack upon that provision 
which belonged more to mine than to me. He 
would soon have supplied every deficiency, and 
symmetrized every disproportion. It would not 
have been for that successor to resort to any 
stagnant wasting reservoir of merit in me, or in 
any ancestry. He had in himself a salient, liv- 
ing spring of generous and manly action. Ev- 
ery day he lived he would have repurchased the 
bounty of the Crown, and ten times more, if ten 
times more he had received. He was inadc a 
public creature, and had no enjoyment whatever 
but in the performance of some duty. At this 
exigent moment, the loss of a finished man is not 
easily supplied. 

But a Dispo.ser whose power we are little able 



to resist, and whose wisdom it behooves us not 
at all to dispute, has ordained it in another man- 
ner, and (whatever my querulous weakness 
might suggest) a far better. The storm has 
gone over me, and I lie like one of those old 
oaks which the late hurricane has scattered 
about me. I am stripped of all my honors ; I 
am torn up by the roots, and lie prostrate on the 
earth ! There, and prostrate there, I most un- 
feignedly recognize the divine justice, and in 
some degree submit to it. 



^ Tcmpliim in modum arcis. Tacitus of the tem- 
ple of Jerusalem. 

* While on tlie Capitol's unshaken rock, 
The ^iieau race shall dwell, and Father Jove 
Kule o'er the Empire. 

Virgil's jEneid, book ix., lino 448. 

i 



Character of Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

Last night (February 23, 1792), in the sixty- 
ninth year of his age, died, at his house in Lei- 
cester Fields, Sir Joshua Reynolds. 

His illness was long, but borne with a mild 
and cheerful fortitude, without the least mixture 
of any thing irritable or querulous, agreeably to 
the placid and even tenor of his whole life. He 
had from the beginning of his malady a distinct 
view of his dissolution, which he contemplated 
with that entire composure, that nothing but the 
innocence, integrity, and usefulness of his life, 
and an unaffected submission to the will of Prov- 
idence, could bestow. In this situation he had 
every consolation from family tenderness, which 
his own kindness to his family had indeed well 
deserved. 

Sir Joshua Reynolds was, on very many ac- 
counts, one of the most memorable men of his 
time. He was the fii'st Englishman who added 
the praise of the elegant arts to the other glories 
of his country. In taste, in grace, in facility, in 
happy invention, and in the richness and harmo- 
ny of coloring, he was equal to the greatest mas- 
ters of the most renowned ages. In portrait he 
went beyond them ; for he communicated to 
that description of the art, in which English art- 
ists are the most engaged, a variety, a fancy, 
and a dignity derived from the higher branches, 
which even those who profes.sed them in a supe- 
rior manner did not always preserve when they 
delineated individual nature. His portraits re- 
mind the spectator of the invention of historj' 
and the amenity of landscape. In painting por- 
traits, he appeared not to be raised upon that 
platform, but to descend upon it from a higher 
sphere. His paintings illustrate his lessons, and 
his lessons seem to be derived from his paintings. 
He possessed the theory as perfectly as the 
practice of his art. To be such a painter, he 
was a profound and penetrating philosopher. 

In full happiness of foreign and domestic fame, 
admired by the expert in art and by the learned 
in science, courted by the great, caressed by 
sovereign powers, and celebrated by distinguish- 
ed poets, his native humility, modest}', and can- 
dor never forsook him, even on surprise or prov- 
ocation ; nor was the least degree of arrogance 
or assumption visible to the most scrutinizing 
eye, in any part of his conduct or discourse. 

His talents of every kind — powerful from na- 
ture, and not meanly cultivated by letters — his 
socii\l virtues in all the relations and all the hab- 



EXTRACTS. 



379 



itudes of life, rendered him the center of a very 
great and unparalleled variety of agreeable so- 
cieties, which will be dissipated by his death. 
He had too much merit not to excite some jeal- 



ousy, too much innocence to provoke any enmi- 
ty. The loss of no man of his time can be felt 
with more sincere, general, and unmixed sorrow. 
Hail and Farewell ! 



DETACHED SENTIMENTS AND MAXIMS. 



Never was there a jar or discord between gen- 
uine sentiment and sound policy. Never, no, 
never, did nature say one thing and wisdom say 
another. 

The meditations of the closet have infected 
senates with a subtle frenzy, and inflamed arm- 
ies with the brands of the furies. 

We are alarmed into reflection ; our minds 
are purified by terror and pity ; our weak, un- 
thinking pride is humbled under the dispensa- 
tions of a mysterious wisdom. 

The road to eminence and powtr, from obscure 
condition, ought not to be made too easy, nor a 
thing too much of course. The temple of honor 
ought to be seated on an eminence. If it be 
opened through virtue, let it be remembered that 
virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and 
some struggle. 

Public virtue, being of a nature magnificent 
and splendid, instituted for great things, and con- 
versant about great concerns, requires abundant 
scope and room, and can not spread and grow 
under confinement, and in circumstances strait- 
ened, narrow, and sordid. 

All persons possessing any portion of power 
ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with 
an idea that they act in trust, and that they are 
to account for their conduct in that trust to the 
one great master, author, and founder of society. 

They who administer in the government of 
men, in which they stand in the person of God 
himself, should have high and worthy notions of 
their function and destination. Their hope should 
be full of immortality. 

It is with the greatest difficulty that I attempt 
to separate policy from justice. Justice is itself 
the great standing policy of civil society^ and any 
eminent departure from it, under any circum- 
stances, lies under the suspicion of being no poli- 
cy at all. 

In all mutations (if mutations must be), the 
circumstance which will serve most to blunt the 
edge of their mischief, and to promote what good 
may be in them, is, that they should find us with 
our minds tenacious of justice., and tender of 
property. 

A man, full of warm, speculative benevolence, 
may wish society otherwise constituted than he 
finds it ; but a good patriot, and a true politician, 
always considers how he shall make the most of 



^ A few of these sentences have been very slight- 
ly modified or abridged, in order to give them the 
character of distinct propositions, bat in no way af- 
fectins: the sense. 



the existing materials of his country. A dispo- 
sition io preserve., and an ability to improve., taken 
togetHer, would be my standard of a statesman. 
Every thing else is vulgar in the conception, 
perilous in the execution. 

It is one of the excellencies of a method, in 
which time is among the assistants, that its op- 
eration is slow, and, in some cases, almost im- 
perceptible. 

It can not be too often repeated, line upon 
line, precept upon precept, until it comes into 
the currency of a proverb, to innovate is not to 
reform. 

It is the degenerate fondness for taking short 
cuts^ and little fallacious facilities, that has in so 
many parts of the world created governments 
with arbitrary powers. 

Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half 
an hour, than prudence, deliberation, and fore- 
sight can build up in a hundred years. 

I shall always consider that liberty as very 
equivocal in her appearance, wdiich has not wis- 
dom and justice for her companions, and does 
not lead prosperity and plenty in her train. 

What is liberty without wisdom and without 
virtue ? It is the greatest of all possible evils ; 
for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition 
or restraint. 

The strong struggle in every individual tu pre- 
serve possession of what he has found to belong 
to him and to distinguish him, is one of the secu- 
rities against injustice and despotism implanted 
in our nature. It operates as an instinct to se- 
cure property, and to preserve communities in a 
settled state. What is there to shock in this ? 
Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. 
It is the Corinthian capital of polished society. 

It is a sour, malignant, envious disposition, 
without taste for the reality, or for any image or 
representation of virtue, that sees with joy the 
unmerited fall of what had long flourished in 
splendor and in honor. 

The perennial existence of bodies corporate 
and their fortunes, are things particularly suited 
to a man who has long views ; who meditates 
designs that require time in fashioning, and which 
propose duration when they are accomplished. 

None can aspire to act greatly, but those who 
are of force greatly to suffer. 

Strong instances of self-denial operate power- 
fully on our minds; and a man who has no wants 
has obtained great freedom and firmness, and 
even dignitv. — 



380 



MR. BURKE. 



Difficulty is a severe insti-uctor, set over us by 
the supreme ordinance of a parental guardian 
and legislator, who knows us better than we 
know ourselves, as he loves us better too. 
Pater ipse colendi 
Haud facilem esse viam voluit.2 

He that wrestles with us strengthens our 
nerves and sharpens our skill. 

It has been the glory of the great masters in 
all the arts to confront and to overcome ; and 
when they have overcome the first difficulty, to 
turn it into an instrument for new conquests over 
new difficulties. 

Hypocrisy delights in the most sublime specu- 
lations ; for, never intending to go beyond spec- 
ulation, it costs nothing to have it magnificent. 

Men who are too much confined to profes- 
sional and faculty habits, and, as it were, invet- 
erate in the recurrent emploj^ment of that nar- 
row circle, are rather disabled than qualified for 
whatever depends on the knowledge of mankind, 
on experience in mixed affairs, on a comprehen- 
sive, connected view of the various complicated 
external and internal interests which go to the 
formation of that multifarious thing called a 
state. ^ 

Turbulent, discontented men of quality, in 
proportion as they are puflTed up with personal 
pride and arrogance, generally despise their own 
order. 

The great must submit to the dominion of 
prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit 
to the dominion of the great. 

Living law, full of reason, and of equity and 
justice (as it is, or it should not exist), ought to 
be severe and awful too ; or the words of men- 
ace, whether written on the parchment roll of 
England, or cut into the brazen tablet of Rome, 
will excite nothing but contempt. 

Men and states, to be secure, must be respect- 
ed. Power, and eminence, and consideration, 
are things not to be begged. They must be 
commanded ; and those who supplicate for mercy 
from others, can never hope for justice through 
themselves. 

The blood of man should never be shed but 
to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for 
our family, for our friends, for our God, for our 
country, for our kind. The rest is vanity; the 
rest is crime. 

In a conflict between nations, that state which 
is resolved to hazard its existence rather than to 
abandon its objects, must have an infinite advant- 
age over that which is resolved to yield rather 
than to carry its resistance beyond a certain 
point. 



2 The Father of our race himself decrees 
That culture shall be hard. 

Virgil's Georgics, i., 121. 

3 See, also, on this subject, the sketch of Mr. 
George Grenville's character, page 251. 



It is often impossible, in political inquiries, to 
find any proportion between the apparent force 
of any moral causes we may assign, and their 
known operation. Some states, at the very mo- 
ment when they seemed plunged in unfathoma- 
ble abysses of disgrace and disaster, have sudden- 
ly emerged ; they have begun a new course and 
opened a new reckoning ; and even in the depths 
of their calamity, and on the very ruins of the 
country, have laid the foundations of a towering 
and durable greatness. 

There is a courageous wisdom : there is also a 
false, reptile prudence, the result, not of caution, 
but of fear. The eye of the mind is dazzled and 
vanquished. An abject distrust of ourselves, an 
extravagant admiration of the enemy, present us 
with no hope but in a compromise with his pride, 
by a submission to his will. 

Parsimony is not economy. Expense, and 
great expense, may be an essential part in true 
economy, which is a distributive virtue, and con- 
sists not in saving, but in selection. Parsimony 
requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers 
of combination, no comparison, no judgment. 
Mere instinct, and that not an instinct of the 
noblest kind, may produce this false economy in 
perfection. The other economy has larger views. 
It demands a discriminating judgment, and a 
firm, sagacious mind. 

If wealth is the obedient and laborious slave 
of virtue and of public honor, then wealth is in 
its place, and has its use. If we command our 
wealth, we shall be rich and free ; if our wealth 
commands us, we are poor indeed. 

No sound ought to be heard in the church but 
the healing voice of Christian charity. Those 
who quit their proper character to assume what 
does not belong to them, are, for the greater 
part, ignorant both of the character they leave 
and of the character they assume. They have 
nothing of politics but the passions they excite. 
Surely the church is a place where one day's 
truce ought to be allowed to the dissensions and 
animosities of mankind. 

Steady, independent minds, when they have an 
object of so serious a concern to mankind as gov- 
ernment under their contemplation, will disdain 
to assume the part of satirists and declaimers. 

Those persons who creep into the hearts of 
most people, who are chosen as the companions 
of their softer hour's, and their reliefs from care 
and anxiety, are never persons of shining quali- 
ties or strong virtues. It is rather the soft green 
of the soul on which we rest our eyes that are 
fatigued with beholding more glaring objects. 

When pleasure is over, we relapse into indif- 
ference, or, rather, we fall into a soft tranquillity, 
which is tinged with the agreeable color of the for- 
mer sensation. 

Nothing tends so much to the corruption of sci- 
ence as to suflfer it to stagnate : these loaters must 
he troubled bfore they can exert their virtues. 



EXTRACTS. 



381 



It is better to cherish virtue and humanity by 
leaving much to free will, even vv^ith some loss 
to the object, than to attempt to make men mere 
machines and instruments of a political benevo- 
lence. The world, on the whole, will gain by 
a liberty without which virtue can not exist. 

The dignity of every occupation wholly de- 
pends upon the quantity and the kind of virtue 
that may be exerted in it 

The degree of estimation in which any pro- 
fession is held becomes the standard of the esti- 
mation in which the professors hold themselves. 

It is generally in the season of prosperity 
that men discover their real temper, principles, 
and designs. 

Nothing but the possession of some power 
can, with any certainty, discover what at the bot- 
tom is the true character of any man. 

All men that are ruined, are ruined on the 
side of their natural propensities. 

Good men do not suspect that their destruc- 
tion is attempted through their virtues. 

True humility is the low, but deep and firm 
foundation of all real virtue. 

While shame keeps its watch, virtue is not 
wholly extinguished in the heart, nor will mod- 
eration be utterly exiled from the minds of ty- 
rants. 

The punishment of real tyrants is a noble and 
awful act of justice ; and it has with truth been 
said to be consolatory to the human mind. 

The arguments of tyranny are as contempti- 
ble as its force is dreadful. 

Wisdom is not the most severe corrector of 
folly. 

The love of lucre, though sometimes carried 
to a ridiculous, sometimes to a vicious excess, is 
the grand cause of prosperity to all states. 

Good order is the foundation of all good things. 



Whoever uses instruments, in finding helps, 
finds also impediments. 

It is ordained, in the eternal constitution of 
things, that men of intemperate minds can not 
be free. Their passions forge their fetters. 

Some persons, by hating vices too much, come 
to love men too little. 

There are some follies which baffle argument, 
which go beyond ridicule, and which excite no 
feeling in us but disgust. 

Men are as much blinded by the extremes of 
misery as by the extremes of prosperity. Des- 
perate situations produce desperate councils and 
desperate measures. 

They who always labor can have no true 
judgment. They never give themselves time 
to cool. They can never plan the future by the 
past. 

Men who have an interest to pursue are ex- 
tremely sagacious in discovering the true seat 
of power. 

In all bodies, those who will lead must also, 
in a considerable degree, follow. 

The virtues and vices of men in large towns 
are sociable ; they are always in garrison ; and 
they come embodied and half disciplined into 
the hands of those who mean to form them for 
civil or military action. 

The elevation of mind, to be derived from fear, 
will never make a nation glorious. 

The vice of the ancient democracies, and one 
cause of their ruin, was, that they ruled by occa- 
sional decrees (psephismata), which broke in 
upon the tenor and consistency of the laws. 

Those who execute public pecuniary trusts, 
ought, of all men, to be the most strictly held to 
their duty. 

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and un- 
just as a feeble government. 



HENRY GRATTAN. 

Henry Grattan was born at Dublin on the third day of July, 1746. His father 
was an eminent barrister, and acted for many years as recorder of that city, which 
he also represented for a time in the Parliament of Ireland. 

In the year 1763, young Grattan entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he was 
distinguished for the brilliancy of his imagination and the impetuosity of his feelings. 
Having graduated in 1767, with an honorable reputation, he repaired to London, and 
became a member of the Middle Temple. His mind, however, was at first too exclu- 
sively occupied with literary pursuits to allow of his devoting much time to the study 
of the law. Politics next engaged his attention. The eloquence of Lord Chatham 
drew him as an eager listener to the debates in Parliament, and acted with such fas- 
cination upon his mind as seemed completely to form his destiny. Every thing was 
forgotten in the one great object of cultivating his powers as a public speaker. To 
emulate and express, though in the peculiar forms of his own genius, the lofty concep- 
tions of the great English orator, was from this time the object of his continual study 
and most fervent aspirations. 

In 1772 he returned to Ireland, where he Avas admitted to the bar ; and in 1775 
he became a member of the Irish Parliament, under the auspices of Lord Charlemont. 
He, of course, joined the ranks of Opposition, and united at once with Mr. Flood and 
the leading patriots of the day, in their endeavors to extort from the English minister 
the grant of free trade for Ireland. The peculiar circumstances of the country fa- 
vored their design. The corps of Irish Volunteers had sprung into existence upon 
the alarm of invasion from France, and was marshaled throughout the country, to 
the number of nearly fifty thousand, for the defense of the island. With a semblance 
of some connection with the government, it was really an army unauthorized by the 
laws, and commanded by officers of their own choosing. Such a force could obvi- 
ously be turned, at any moment, against the English ; and, seizing on the advantage 
thus gained, Mr. Grattan, in 1779, made a motion, which was afterward changed 
into a direct resolution, that " nothing but a free trade could save the country from 
ruin." It was passed with enthusiasm by the great body of the House ; and the 
nation, with arms in their hands, echoed the resolution as the watch-Avord of their 
liberties. Lord North and his government were at once terrified into submission. 
They had tampered with the subject, exciting hopes and expectations only to disap- 
point them, until a rebellion in Ireland was about to be added to a rebellion in 
America. In the emphatic words of Mr. Burke, " a sudden light broke in upon us 
all. It broke in, not through well-contrived and \\x41-disposed windows, but through 
flaws and breaches — through the yawning cliasms of our ruin." Every thing they 
asked was freely granted ; and Ireland, as the English minister imagined, was pro- 
pitiated. 

But Mr. Grattan had already fixed his eye on a higher object — the complete inde- 
pendence of the Irish Parliament. By an act of the sixth year of George the First, 
it was declared that Ireland was a subordinate and dependent kingdom ; that the 
Kings, Lords, and Commons of England had power to make laws to bind Ireland ; 
that tlie Irish House of Lords had no jurisdiction, and that all proceedings before that 
court were void. This arbitrary act Mr. Grattan now determined to set aside. He 



HENRY GRATTAN. 383 

availed himself of tlie enthusiasm which pervaded the nation, and, reminding- them 
that the concessions just made might be recalled at any moment, if England contin- 
ued to bind Ireland by her enactments, he urged them to a Declaration of Right, 
denying the claim of the British Parliament to make laws for Ireland. His friends 
endeavored to dissuade him from bringing the subject before the Irish Parliament ; 
but the voice of the nation was with him, and on the 19th of April, 1780, he made 
his memorable motion for a Declaration of Irish Right. His speech on that occasion, 
which is the first in this selection, " was the most splendid piece of eloquence that 
had ever been heard in Ireland." As a specimen of condensed and fervent argu- 
mentation, it indicates a high order of talent ; while in brilliancy of style, pungency 
of application, and impassioned vehemence of spirit, it has rarely, if ever, been sur- 
passed. The conclusion, especially, is one of the most magnificent passages in our 
eloquence. 

Mr. Grattan's motion did not then pass, but he was hailed throughout Ireland as 
the destined deliverer of his country. No Irishman had ever enjoyed such unbounded 
popularity. He animated his countrymen with the hope of ultimate success ; he in- 
spired them with his own imaginative and romantic spirit, and awakened among 
them a feeling of nationality such as had never before existed. He taught them to 
cherish Irish affections, Irish manners, Irish art, Irish literature ; and endeavored, 
in short, to make them a distinct people from the English in every respect but one, 
that of being governed by the same sovereign. Nothing could be more gratifying 
to the enthusiastic spirit of that ardent and impulsive race ; and though it was im- 
possible that such a plan should succeed, he certainly stamped his own character, 
in no ordinary degree, on the mind of the nation. That peculiar kind of eloquence, 
especially, which prevails among his countrymen, though springing, undoubtedly, 
from the peculiarities of national temperament, was rendered doubly popular by the 
brilliant success of Mr. Grattan, who presents the moist perfect exhibition of the 
highly-colored and impassioned style of speaking in which the Irish delight, with 
but few of its faults, or, rather, for the most part, with faults in the opposite direction. 

With this ascendency over the minds of the people, Mr. Grattan spent nearly two 
years in preparing for the next decisive step. The Volunteers held their famous meet- 
ing at Dungannon in February, 1782, and passed unanimously a resolution drawn 
up by Mr. Grattan, that " a claim of any body of men, other than the Khig, Lords, 
and CoriuTions of Ireland, to make laws to bind this kingdom, is unconstitutional, 
illegal, and a grievance." This resolution was virtually a declaration of Mar in case 
the act of Parliament complained of, was not repealed. It was adopted throughout 
the country, not merely by shouting thousands at mass meetings, but by armed reg- 
iments of citizens and owners of the soil, and by grand juries at judicial assizes. 
The administration of Lord North was now tottering to its fall. The avowed fi-iends 
of Ireland, Lord Rockingham, Lord Sbelburne, and Mr. Fox, took his place in March, 
1782 ; and Mr. Grattan determined at once to try the sincerity of their feelings. He 
therefore gave notice that, on the 16th of the ensuing April, he should repeat his 
motion, in the Irish House of Commons, for a Declaration of Irish Right. It was a 
trying moment for the new Whig administration. To concede at such a time, when 
the Irish stood with arms in their hands, was to lay England at their feet. Mr. 
Fox, therefore, seconded by Burke, Sheridan, Sir Philip Francis, Colonel Barre, and 
other distinguished Irishmen, pleaded for delay. Lord Charlemont brought the 
message to the bedside of Mr. Grattan, who was confined by a severe illness, and 
received for reply, " No time ! No time ! The Irish leaders are pledged to the 
people ; they can not postpone the question ; it is 'pvhlic iiroiierty'' When the day 
arrived, Mr. Grattan, to the surprise of all who knew his debilitated state, made his 
appearance in the House, and delivered a speech, the second one in these extracts, 



384 HENRY GRATTAN. 

which won universal admiration for its boldness, sublimity, and compass of thought. 
Lord Charlemont remarked afterward, in speaking of this eflbrt, and of Mr. Grattan's 
weakness of health when he came forward, that " if ever spirit could be said to act 
independent of body, it was on that occasion." It was in vain for the friends of the 
minister to resist. The resolutions were carried almost by acclamation. Mr. Fox, 
when he heard the result, decided instantly to yield, declaring that he would rather 
see Ireland wholly separated from the crown of England than held in subjection by 
force. He, therefore, soon after brought in a bill for repealing the act of the sixth 
of George First. 

As an expression of their gratitude for these services, the Parliament of Ireland 
voted the sum of £100,000 to purchase Mr. G rattan an estate. His feelings led 
him, at first, to decline the grant ; but, as his patrimony was inadequate to his sup- 
port in the new position he occupied, he was induced, by the interposition of his 
friends, to accept one half the amount. 

Mr. Flood had been greatly chagrined at the ascendency gained by Mr. Grattan, 
and he now endeavored to depreciate his efforts by contending that the " simple re- 
peal" of the act of the sixth of George First was of no real avail ; that the English 
Parliament must pass a distinct act, renouncing all claim to make law for Ireland. 
Every one now sees that the pretense was a ridiculous one ; but he succeeded in 
confusing and agitating the minds of the people on this point, until he robbed Mr. 
Grattan, to a considerable extent, of the honor of his victory. He came out, at last, 
into open hostility, stigmatizing him as " a mendicant ■^Oiixioi, subsisting on the public 
accounts — who, bought by his country for a sum of money, had sold his country for 
prompt payment." Mr. Grattan instantly replied in a withering piece of invective, 
to be found below, depicting the character and political life of his opponent, and 
ingeniously darkening every shade that rested on his reputation. 

As most of the extracts in this selection are taken from the early speeches of Mr. 
Grattan, it will be unnecessary any farther to trace his history. Suffice it to say, 
that, although he lost his popularity at times, through the influence of circumstances 
or the arts of his enemies, he devoted himself throughout life to the defense of his 
country's interests. He was vehemently opposed to the union with England ; but 
his countrymen were so much divided that it was impossible for any one to prevent it. 
At a later period (1805), he became a member of the Parliament of Great Britain, 
where he uniformly maintained those principles of toleration and popular government 
which he had supported in Ireland. He was an ardent champion of Catholic Eman- 
cipation, and may be said to have died in the cause. He had undertaken, in 1820, 
to present the Catholic Petition, and support it in Parliament, notwithstanding the 
remonstrances of his medical attendants, who declared it would be at the hazard 
of his life. "I should be happy," said he, "to die in the discharge of my duty." 
Exhausted by the journey, he did die almost immediately after his arrival in Lon- 
don, May 14th, 1820, at the age of seventy, and was buried, with the hfghest honors 
of the nation, in Westminster Abbey. His character was irreproachable ; and Sir 
James Mackintosh remarked, in speaking of his death in the House of Commons, 
" He was as eminent in his observance of all the duties of private life, as he was 
heroic in the discharge of his public ones." " I never knew a man," said Wilberforce, 
" whose patriotism and love for his country seemed so completely to extinguish all 
private interests, and to induce him to look invariably and exclusively to the public 
good." 

The personal appearance and delivery of Mr. Grattan are brought vividly before 
us in one of the lively sketches of Charles Philhps. " He was short in stature, and 
unprepossessing in appearance. His arms were disproportionately long. His walk 
was a stride. "With a person swinging like a pendulum, and an abstracted air, he 



HENRY GRATTAN. 385 

seemed always in thought, and each thought provoked an attendant gesticulation. 
How strange it is, that a mind so replete with grace, and symmetry, and power, and 
splendor, should have been allotted such a dwelling for its residence ! Yet so it was ; 
and so, also, was it one of his highest attributes that his genius, by its ' excessive light,' 
blinded his hearers to his physical imperfections. It was the victory of mind over 
matter." " The chief difficulty in this great speaker's way was the first five minutes. 
During his exordium laughter was imminent. He bent his body almost to the ground, 
swung his arms over his head, up, and down, and around him, and added to the gro- 
tesqueness of his manner a hesitating tone and drawling emphasis. Still, there was 
an earnestness about him that at first besought, and, as he warmed, enforced, nay, 
commanded attention." 

The speeches of Mr. Grattan afford unequivocal proof, not only of a powerful 
intellect, but of high and original genius. There was nothing commonplace in his 
thoughts, his images, or his sentiments. Every thing came fresh from his mind, 
with the vividness of a new creation. His most striking characteristic was, con- 
densation' and rapidity of thought. " Semper instans sibi," pressing continually 
upon himself, he never dwelt upon an idea, however important ; he rarely presented 
it under more than one aspect ; he hardly cA'er stopped to fill out the intermediate 
steps of his argument. His forte was reasoning, but it was " logic on fire ;" and he 
seemed ever to delight in flashing his ideas on the mind with a sudden, startling- 
abruptness. Hence, a distinguished writer has spoken of his eloquence as a " com- 
bination oi cloud, tvhirUvhid, and^ame" — a striking representation of the occasional 
obscurity and the rapid force and brilliancy of his style. But his incessant effort to 
be strong made him sometimes unnatural. He seems to be continually straining 
after effect. He wanted that calmness and self-possession which mark the highest 
order of minds, and show their consciousness of great strength. "Wlien he had mas- 
tered his subject, his subject mastered him. His great efforts have too much the 
air of harangues. They sound more like the battle speeches of Tacitus than the 
orations of Demosthenes. 

His style was elaborated with great care. It abounds in metaphors, which are 
always striking, and often grand. It is full of antithesis and epigrammatic turns, 
which give it uncommon point and brilliancy, but have too often an appearance of 
labor and affectation. His language is select. His periods are easy and fluent — 
made up of short clauses, with but few or brief qualifications, all uniting in the expres- 
sion of some one leading thought. His rhythmus is often uncommonly fine. In the 
peroration of liis great speech of April 19th, 17S0, we have one of the best specimens 
in our language of that admirable adaptation of the sound to the sense which distin- 
guished the ancient orators. 

Though Mr. Grattan is not a safe model in every respect, there are certain pur- 
poses for which his speeches may be studied with great advantage. Nothing can 
be better suited to break up a dull monotony of style — to give raciness and point — 
to teach a young speaker the value of that terse and expressive language which is, 
to the orator especially, the finest instrument of thought. 

Bb 



SPEECH 



OF MR. GRATTAN IN THE IRISH HOUSE OF CO.ALMONS IN MOVING A DECLARATION OF IRISH 
RIGHT, DELIVERED APRIL 19, 1780. 



INTRODUCTION. 
Ireland had been treated by the English, for three centuries, like a conquered nation. A Parliament 
had indeed been granted her, but a well-known statute, called Poynings' Act, had so abridged the rights 
of that Parliament, as to render it almost entirely dependent on the English Crown. By the provisions 
of this act, which was passed in 1494, through the agency of Sir Edward Poynings, then Lord Deputy of 
Ireland, no session of the Irish Parliament could be held without a license previously obtained from the 
King of England in council, on the recommendation of the Deputy and his council in Ireland. Thus, the 
EngHsh government had power to prevent the Irish Parliament from ever assembling, except for pur- 
poses which the King saw reason to approve. At a later period, there was indeed a relaxation of the 
severity of this act, but the restraints still imposed were borne reluctantly by the Irish, and gave rise at 
times to violent struggles. Under such an administration, the commercial and manufacturing interests of 
Ireland were wholly sacrificed to those of the English; the exportation of woolen goods, and of most 
other articles of English manufacture, and also the direct import of foreign articles, being denied the 
Irish. These restrictions had been removed in part, as already stated, on the ground of "expediency," 
by an act of the British Parliament, passed December 13, 1779, under the terror of the Irish Volunteers; 
and Mr. Grattan, with the same instrument of compulsion in his hands, now moved the Irish Parliament 
to a Declaration of Right, which should deny the authority of England to make laws for Ireland — an au- 
thority asserted by an act of the British Parliament, passed in the sixth year of George I. 

SPEECH, &c. 



I have entreated an attendance on this day. 
that you might, in the most public manner, deny 
the claim of the British Parliament to make law 
for Ireland, and with one voice lift up your hands 
against it. 

If I had lived when the ninth of William took 
Duty of resist- away the woolen manufacture, or 
i"f moment""" whcn the sixth of George the First 
possible. took away your Constitution, I should 

have made a covenant with my own conscience, 
to seize the first reasonable moment of rescuing 
my country from the ignominy of such acts of 
power ; or, if I had a son, I should have admin- 
istered to him an oath that he would consider 
himself as a person separate and set apart for 
the discharge of so important a duty. 

Upon the same principle am I now come to 
move a Declaration of Right, the first moment 
occurring in my time, in which such a declara- 
tion could be made with any chance of success, 
and without an aggravation of oppression. 

Sir, it must appear to every person that, not- 
The commer- withstanding the import of sugar, and 
eionriToTsat- cxport of woolcns,* thc pcoplc of this 
iBfactory. country are not satisfied ; something 
remains — the greater work is behind — the pub- 
lic heart is not well at ease. To promulgate our 
satisfaction, to stop the throats of millions with 
the votes of Parliament, to preach homilies to the 
Volunteers, to utter invectives against the peo- 
ple under the pretense of afiectionate advice, is 
an attempt, weak, suspicious and inflammatory. 



^ These were a part of the concession made by 
Lord North. 



You can not dictate to those whose sense you 
are instructed to represent. 

Your ancestors, who sat within these walls, 

lost to Ireland trade and liberty. You, by the 

assistance of the people, have recovered trade. 

You owe the kingdom a constitution ; she calls 

I upon you to restore it. 

I The ground of public discontent seems to be, 
i "We have gotten commerce, but not freedom." 
j The same power which took away the export 
j of woolen and the export of glass, may take them 
I away again. The repeal is partial, and the 
ground of repeal is a principle of expediency. 

Sir, expedient is a word of appropriated and 
tyrannical import — expedient is a word case of ire- 
selected to express the reservation of 'f"^ '*"'' °^ 
authority, while the exercise is mitigat- compared. 
od — expedient is the ill-omened expression in 
the repeal of the American Stamp Act. En- 
gland thought it " expedient" to repeal that law. 
Happy had it been for mankind if, when she 
withdrew the exercise, she had not reserved the 
right. To that reservation she owes the loss of 
her American empire, at the expense of millions; 
and America the seeking of liberty through a 
scene of bloodshed. The repeal of the Woolen 
Act, similarly circumstanced, pointed against the 
principle of our liberty, may be a subject for il- 
luminations to a populace, or a preten.se for apos- 
tacy to a courtier, but can not be a subject of 
settled satisfaction to a free born, an intelligent 
and an injured community. 

It is, therefore, they [the people of Ireland] 
consider the free trade as a trade de facto, not 
de jure — a license to trade under the Parliament 



1780.] MR. GRATTAN ON MOVING A DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHT. 387 



of England, not a free trade under the charter of 
Ireland — a tribute to her strength, to 



Free trade not _ _ . 

granted to Ire- maintain which she must continue m 

land as a right. n ^ • i i 

a State ot armed preparation, dread- 
ing the approach of a general peace, and attrib- 
uting all she holds dear to the calamitous condi- 
tion of the British interest in every quarter of 
the globe. This dissatisfaction, founded upon a 
consideration of the liberty we have lost, is in- 
creased when they consider the opportunity they 
are losing ; for, if this nation, after the death- 
wound given to her freedom, had fallen on her 
knees in anguish, and besought the Almighty to 
frame an occasion in which a weak and injured 
people might recover their rights, prayer could 
not have asked, nor God have formed, a moment 
more opportune for the restoration of liberty, than 
this in which I have the honor to address you. 

England now smarts under the lesson of the 
The situation American war. The doctrine of im- 
of England en- perial lefjislaturc she feels to be per- 

ablesthe Irish ^. . ° , , ^ 

todeniand nicious — the rcvcnucs and monopo- 
eir rig ts. jj^^ anncxcd to it she found to be un- 
tenable. Her enemies are a host pouring upon 
her from all quarters of the earth — her armies 
are dispersed — the sea is not her's — she has no 
minister, no ally, no admiral, none in whom she 
long confides, and no general whom she has not 
disgraced. The balance of her fate is in the 
hands of Ireland. You are not only her last 
connection — you are the only nation in Europe 
that is not her enemy. Besides, there does, of 
late, a certain damp and supineness overcast her 
arms and councils, miraculous as that vigor which 
has lately inspirited yours. With you every thing 
is the reverse. Never was there a Parliament 
in Ireland so possessed of the confidence of the 
people. You are now the greatest political as- 
sembly in the world. You are at the head of 
an immense army ; nor do we only possess an 
unconquerable force, but a certain unquenchable 
fire, which has touched all ranks of men like a 
visitation. Turn to the growth and spring of 
your country, and behold and admire it ! 

Where do you find a nation who, upon what- 
spiritofthe ever concerns the rights of mankind, 
Irish nation, gxprcsscs hcrsclf with more truth or 
force, perspicuity or justice — not in the set 
phrases of the scholiast ; not the tame unreality 
of the courtier ; not the vulgar raving of the rab- 
ble ; but the genuine speech of liberty, and the 
unsophisticated oratory of a free nation. See 
her military ardor, expressed not in forty thou- 
sand men conducted by instinct, as they were 
raised by inspiration, but manifested in the zeal 
and promptitude of every young member of the 
growing community. Let corruption tremble ! 
Let the enemy, foreign or domestic, tremble ! 
but let the friends of liberty rejoice at these 
means of safety and this hour of redemption — an 
enlightened sense of public right, a young ap- 
petite for freedom, a solid strength, and a rapid 
fire, which not only put a Declaration of Right 
within your power, but put it out of your power 
to decline one ! Eighteen counties are at your 
bar. There they stand, with the compact of 



Henry, with the charter of John, and with all 
the passions of the people ! " Our lives are at 
your service ; but our liberties — we received 
them from God, we will not resign them to 
man!" Speaking to you thus, if you repulse 
these petitioners, you abdicate the oflace of Par- 
liament, you forfeit the rights of the kingdom, 
you repudiate the instructions of your constitu- 
ent, you belie the sense of your country, you 
palsy the enthusiasm of the people, and you re- 
ject that good which not a minister — not a 
Lord North — not a Lord Buckinghamshire — not 
a Lord Hillsborough, but a certain providential 
conjuncture, or, rather, the hand of God, seems 
to extend to you. 

I read Lord North's propositions, and I wish 
to be .satisfied, but I am controlled by a paper 
(for I will not call it a law) ; it is the sixth of 
George First. [Here the clerk, at Mr. Grat- 
tan's i-equest, read from the Act of the sixth of 
George I., " that the kingdom of Ireland hath 
been, is, and of I'ight ought to be, subordinate 
to and dependent upon the Imperial Crown of 
Great Britain, as being inseparably united to and 
annexed thereunto ; and that the King's Majes- 
ty, by and with the consent of the Lords spirit- 
ual and temporal, and the Commons of Great 
Britain in Parliament assembled, hath, and of 
right ought to have, full power and authority to 
make laws and statutes of sufficient force and 
validity to bind the kingdom and the people of 
Ireland.] 

I will ask the gentlemen of the long robe, is 
this the law ? I ask them whether it is This act is 
not the practice ? I appeal to the judges «"f°'^«d. 
of the land, whether they are not in a course of 
declaring that the Parliament of England nam- 
ing Ireland, binds her ? I appeal to the magis- 
trates of Ireland whether they do not, from time 
to time, execute certain acts of the British Par- 
liament ? I appeal to the officers of the army, 
whether they do not confine and execute their 
fellow-subjects by virtue of the Mutiny Act of 
England ? And I appeal to this House whether 
a country so circumstanced is free ? Where is 
the freedom of trade ? Where is the security 
of property ? Where the liberty of the people '? 
I here, in this Declaratory Act, see my country 
proclaimed a slave ! I see every man in this 
House enrolled a bondsman ! I see the judges 
of the realm, the oracles of the law, borne down 
by an unauthorized power ! I see the magis- 
trates prostrate ; and I see Parliament witness 
to these infringements, and silent ! I therefore 
say, with the voice of three millions of people, 
that, notwithstanding the import of sugar, and 
export of woolen and kerseys, beetle-wood and 
prunellas, nothing is safe, satisfactory, or honor- 
able ; nothing, except a Declaration of Right ! 
What ! Are you, with three millions ^^^ Dedara- 
of men at your back, with charters in tion therefore 
one hand and arms in the other, afraid 
to say, We are a free people ? Are you — the 
greatest House of Commons that ever sat in Ire- 
land, that want but this one act to equal that 
English House of Commons which passed the 



388 



MR. GRATTAN ON MOVING 



[1780. 



Petition of Right, or that other, which passed 
the Declaration — are you, are you afraid to tell 
the British Parliament that you are a free peo- 
ple ? Are the cities and the instructing coun- 
ties, who have breathed a spirit that would have 
done honor to old Rome, when Rome did honor 
to mankind — are they to be free by connivance ? 
Are the militaiy associations — those bodies 
whose origin, progress, and deportment have 
transcended, equaled, at least, any thing in mod- 
ern or ancient story, in the vast line of North- 
ern array — are they to be free by connivance ? 
What man will settle among you ? Who will 
leave a land of liberty and a settled government 
for a kingdom, controlled by the Parliament of 
another country ; whose liberty is a thing by 
stealth ; whose trade a thing by permission ; 
whose judges deny her charters ; whose Parlia- 
ment leaves every thing at random ; where the 
hope of freedom depends on the chance that the 
jury shall despise the judge stating a British 
act, or a rabble stop the magistrate in the exe- 
cution of it, rescue your abdicated privileges by 
anarchy and confusion, and save the Constitu- 
tion by trampling on the government ? 

But I shall be told that these are groundless 
Notiiin less jealousics, and that the principal cities, 
can satisfy and morc than one half the counties of 
le peop e. ^^^ kingdom, are misguided men, rais- 
ing those groundless jealousies. Sir, they may 
say so, and they may hope to dazzle with illu- 
minations, and they may sicken with addresses, 
but the public imagination will never rest, nor 
will her heart be well at ease ; never, so long 
as the Parliament of England claims or exer- 
cises legislation over this country. So long as 
this shall be the case that very free trade (oth- 
erwise a perpetual attachment) will be the cause 
of new discontent. It will create a pride and 
wealth, to make you feel your indignities ; it will 
furnish you with strength to bite your chain ; the 
liberty withheld poisons the good communicated. 
The British minister mistakes the Irish charac- 
ter. Had he intended to make Ireland a slave, 
he should have kept her a beggar. There is no 
middle policy. Win her heart by a restoration 
of her right, or cut off the nation's right hand ; 
greatly emancipate, or fundamentally destroy ! 
We may talk plausibly to England ; but so long 
as she exercises a power to bind this country, 
so long are the nations in a state of war. The 
claims of the one go against the liberty of the 
other, and the sentiments of the latter go to op- 
pose those claims to the last drop of her blood. 

The English Opposition, therefore, are right; 
mere trade will not .satisfy Ireland. They judge 
of us by other great nations ; by the English 
nation, whose whole political life has ])ecn a 
struggle for liberty. They judge of us with a 
true knowledge and just deference for our char- 
acter, that a country enlightened as Ireland, 
armed as Ireland, and injured as Ireland, will 
be satisfied with nothing less than liberty. I ad- 
mire that public-spirited merchant^ who spread 

3 Alderman Horan, who offered goods for entry at 



consternation at the Custom-house, and, despis- 
ing the example which great men afforded, ten- 
dered for entry prohibited manufactures, and 
sought, at his private risk, the liberty of his 
country. With him, I am convinced, it is nec- 
essary to agitate the question of right. In vain 
will you endeavor to keep it back ; the passion 
is too natural, the sentiment too irresistible ; the 
question comes on of its own vitality. You 
must reinstate the laws. 

There is no objection to this resolution except 
fears. I have examined your fears ; , 
I pronounce them to be frivolous. If fear for conse- 
England is a tyrant, it is you have 'i"^"'^®*- 
made her so. It is the slave that makes the ty- 
rant, and then murmurs at the master wiiom he 
himself has constituted. I do allow, on the sub- 
ject of commerce, England was jealous in the 
extreme ; and I do say, it was commercial jeal- 
ousy ; it was the spirit of monopoly. The wool- 
en trade and the Act of Navigation had made her 
tenacious of a comprehensive legislative author- 
ity, and, having now ceded that monopoly, there 
is nothing in the way of our liberty except our 
own corruption and pusillanimity. Nothing can 
prevent your being free, except yourselves ; it is 
not in the disposition of England, it is not in the 
interest of England, it is not in her force. What ! 
can eight millions of Englishmen, opposed to 
twenty millions of French, seven millions of 
Spanish, to three millions of Americans, reject 
the alliance of three millions in Ireland ? Can 
eight millions of British men, thus outnumbered 
by foes, take upon their shoulders the expense 
of an expedition to enslave Ireland ? Will 
Great Britain, a wise and magnanimous country, 
thus tutored by experience and wasted by war, 
the French navy riding her channel, send an army 
to Ireland to levy no tax, to enforce no law, to an- 
swer no end whatever, except to spoliate the char- 
ters of Ireland, and enforce a barren oppression ? 

What ! has England lost thirteen provinces ? 
has she reconciled herself to this England offered 
loss, and will she not be reconciled ^"^e'^'ngto''' 
to the liberty of Ireland ? Take no- America, 
tice, that the very Constitution which I move 
you to declare. Great Britain herself offered to 
America : it is a very instructive proceeding in 
the British history. In 1778 a commission went 
out with powers to cede to the thirteen prov- 
inces of America totally and radically the legis- 
lative authority claimed over her by the British 
Parliament ;'' and the commissioners, pursuant 
to their powers, did offer to all, or any of the 
American states, the total surrender of the leg- 
islative authority of the British Parliament. I 
will read you their letter to the Congress. 
[Here the letter was read, surrendering the 
power, as aforesaid]. What! has England of- 

the Irish Custom-hoii.se, which had been prohibited 
by an English act of ParHament, for the purpose of 
trying the validity of the Act of the sixth of George 
the First. 

* This is the commission referred to in such se- 
vere terms by Mr. Burke in a speech delivered at 
Bristol. See page 297. 



1780.] 



A DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHT. 



389 



fered this to the resistance of America, and will 
she refuse this to the loyalty of Ireland ? But, 
though you do not hazard disturbance by agree- 
ing to this resolution, you do most exceedingly 
hazard tranquillity by rejecting it. Do not im- 
agine that the question will be over when this 
motion shall be negatived. No ! it will recur in 
a vast variety of shapes and diversity of places. 
Your constituents have instructed you, in great 
numbers, with a powerful uniformity of senti- 
ment, and in a style not the less awful because 
full of respect. They will find resources in their 
own virtue, if they have found none in yours. 
Public pride and conscious liberty, wounded by 
repulse, will find ways and means of vindication. 
You are in that situation in which every man, 
every hour of the day, may shake the pillars of 
the state. Every court may swarm with ques- 
tions of right, every quay and wharf with pro- 
hibited geods. What shall the judges, what the 
commissioners, do upon such occasion ? Shall 
they comply with the laws of Ireland against the 
claims of England, and stand firm where you have 
trembled? Shall they, on the other hand, not 
comply ; and shall they persist to act against the 
law ? Will you punish them, will you proceed 
against them, for not showing a spirit superior 
to your own ? On the other hand, will you not 
punish them ? Will you leave your liberties to 
be trampled on by those men? Will you bring 
them and yourselves, all constituted orders, ex- 
ecutive power, judicial power, parliamentary au- 
thority, into a state of odium, impotence, and con- 
tempt ; transferring the task of defending public 
right into the hands of the populace, and leaving 
it to the judges to break the laws, and to the 
people to assert them ? Such would be the con- 
sequence of false moderation, of irritating timid- 
ity, of inflammatory palliations, of the weak and 
corrupt hope of compromising with the court be- 
fore you have emancipated the country. 

I have answered the only semblance of a solid 
reason aijainst the motion. I will now 

Less import- ^ 

ant objection try to rcmovc some lesser pretenses, 
some minor impediments ; for instance : 
first, that we have a resolution of the same kind 
already in our jom-nals. But how often was the 
Great Charter confirmed ? Not more frequently 
than your rights have been violated. Is one sol- 
itary resolution, declaratory of your rights, suf- 
ficient for a country, whose history, from the be- 
ginning unto the end, has been a course of vio- 
lation ? 

The fact is, every new breach is a reason for 
a new repair; every new infringement should 
be a new declaration, lest charters should be 
overwhelmed by precedents, and a nation's rights 
lost in oblivion, and the people themselves lose 
the memory of their own freedom. 

I shall hear of ingratitude, and name the ar- 
gument to despise it. I know the men who use 
it are not grateful. They arc insatiate ; they 
are public extortioners, who would stop the tide 
of public prosperity, and turn it to the channel 
of their own wretched emolument. I know of 
no species of gratitude which should prevent 



my country from being free ; no gratitude which 
should oblige Ireland to be the slave of England. 
In cases of robbery or usurpation, nothing is an 
object of gratitude, except the thing stolen, the 
charter spoliated. A nation's liberty can not. 
like her money, be rated and parceled out in 
gratitude. No man can be grateful or liberal 
of his conscience, nor woman of her honor, nor 
nation of her liberty. There are certain inim- 
partable, inherent, invaluable properties not to 
be alienated from the person, whether body pol- 
itic or body natural. With the same contempt 
do I treat that charge which says that Ireland 
is insatiable ; seeing that Ireland asks nothing 
but that which Great Britain has robbed her of 
— her rights and privileges. To say that Ire- 
land is not to be satisfied vrith liberty, because 
she is not satisfied with slavery, is folly. 

I laugh at that man who supposes that Ireland 
will not be content with a free trade and a free 
Constitution ; and would any man advise her to 
be content with less ? 

I shall be told that we hazard the modification 
of the law of Poynings, and the Judges Bill, and 
the Habeas Corpus Bill, and the Nullum Tem- 
pus Bill ; but I ask, have you been for years beg- 
ging for these little things, and have you not yet 
been able to obtain them ? And have you been 
contending against a little body of eighty men, 
in Privy Council assembled, convocating them- 
selves into the image of a Pai'liament, and min- 
istering your high office ; and have you been 
contending against one man, an humble individ- 
ual, to you a leviathan — the English Attorney 
General, exercising Irish legislation in his own 
person, and making your parliamentary deliber- 
ations a blank, by altering your bills or suppress- 
ing them ; have you not been able to quell this 
little monster ? Do you wish to know the rea- 
son ? I will tell you ; because you have not 
been a Parliament, nor your country a people. 
Do you wish to know the remedy ? Be a. Par- 
liament, become a nation, and those things will 
follow^ in the train of your consequence. 

I shall be told that tithes are shaken, being 
vested by force of English acts. But in answer 
to that, I observe, time may be a title, but an 
English Act of Parliament certainly can not. It 
is an authority which, if a judge would charge, 
no jury would find, and which all the electors 
of Ireland have already disclaimed — disclaimed 
unequivocally, cordially, and universally. 

Sir, this is a good argument for an act of title, 
but no argument against a Declaration of Right. 
My friend, who sits above me, has a bill of con- 
firmation.'' We do not come unprepared to Par- 
liament. I am not come to shake property, but 
to confirm property, and to restore freedom. The 
nation begins to foi'm — we are moldering into a 
people ; freedom asserted, property secured, and 
the army, a mercenary band, likely to be de- 
pendent on your Parliament, restrained by law. 

° A bill to be immediately introduced on passing 
the Declaration, by which all laws of the English 
Parliament affecting property were to be confirmed 
by the Irish Parliament. 



390 



MR. GRATTAN ON MOVING A DECLARATION, ETC 



[1780. 



Never was such a revolution accomplished in so 
short a time, jxid with such public tranquillity. In 
what situation would those men, who call them- 
selves friends of constitution and of government, 
have left you ? They would have left you with- 
out a title (as they stole it) to your estates, with- 
out an assertion of your Constitution, or a law 
for your army ; and this state of private and pub- 
lic insecurity, this anarchy, raging in the king- 
dom for eighteen months, these mock-moderators 
would have had the presumption to call peace. 

The King has no other title to his Crown than 
Appeaitothe that which you have to your liberty. 
uie'ilevoru- ^°^^^ ^'"® fo^nt^ed, the throne and your 
tioiiofiesa fi-eedom, upon the right vested in the 
subject to resist by arms, notwithstanding their 
oaths of allegiance, any authority attempting to 
impose acts of power as laws ; whether that au- 
thority be one man or a host, the second James 
or the British Parliament, every argument for 
the house of Hanover is equally an argument 
for the liberties of Ireland. The Act of Settle- 
ment^ is an act of rebellion, or the sixth of George 
the First an act of usurpation. I do not refer to 
doubtful history, but to living record, to common 
charters, to the interpretation England has put 
on those charters (an interpretation made, not 
b)' words onl}', but crowned by arms), to the rev- 
olution she has formed upon them, to the King 
she has established, and, above all, to the oath 
of allegiance solemnly plighted to the house of 
Stuart, and afterward set aside in the instance 
of a grave and moral people, absolved by virtue 
of those very charters ; and as any thing less 
than liberty is inadequate to Ireland, so is it dan- 
gerous to Great Britain. We are too near the 
British nation ; we are too conversant with her 
history ; we are too much fired by her example 
to be any thing less than equals ; any thing less, 
we should be her bitterest enemies. An enemy 
to that power which smote us with her mace, 
and to that Constitution from whose blessings we 
were excluded, to be ground, as we have been, 
by the British nation, bound by her Parliament, 
plundered by her Crown, threatened by her ene- 
mies, and insulted with her protection, while we 
returned thanks for her condescension, is a sys- 
tem of meanness and misery which has expired 
in our determination and in her magnanimity. 

That there are precedents against us, I allow ; 
_ . . acts of power I would call them, not 

Precedents '^ ' 

notofbind- precedents: and I answer the English 

mg force. *^, ,. ' , , , ,, " 

pleadmg such precedents, as they an- 
swered their Kings when they urged precedents 
against the liberty of England. Such things are 
the tyranny of one side, the weakness of the oth- 
er, and the law of neither. We will not be bound 
by them ; or rather, in the words of the Decla- 
ration of Right, no doing, judgment, or proceed- 
ing to the contrary shall be brought into prece- 
dent or example. Do not, then, tolerate a pow- 
er, the power of the British government, over 



^ This was an act of the British Parliament set- 
tling the line of succession to the British Crown on 
the descendants of the Princess Sophia of Hanover, 
to the exclusion of the Stuarts. 



this land, which has no foundation in necessity, 
or utility, or empire, or the laws of England, or 
the laws of Ireland, or the laws of nature, or the 
laws of God. Do not suffer that power, which 
banished your manufacturers, dishonored your 
peerage, and stopped the growth of your people. 
Do not, I say, be bribed by an export of woolen, 
or an import of sugar, and suffer that power, 
which has thus withered the land, to have exist- 
ence in your pusillanimity. Do not send the 
people to their own resolves for liberty, passing 
by the tribunals of justice, and the high court of 
Parliament ; neither imagine that, by any forma- 
tion of apology, you can palliate such a commis- 
sion to your hearts, still less to your children, 
who will sting you in your grave for interposing 
between them and their Maker, and robbing 
them of an immense occasion, and losing an op- 
portunity which you did not create and can nev- 
er restore. 

Hereafter, when these things shall be his- 
tory, your age of thraldom, your sud- 

, •" -^ ==. .' V , Peroration. 

den resurrection, commercial redress, 
and miraculous armament,'^ shall the historian 
stop at liberty, and observe, that here the prin- 
cipal men among us were found wanting, were 
awed by a weak ministry, bribed by an empty 
treasury ; and when liberty was within their 
grasp, and her temple opened its folding doors, 
fell down, and were prostituted at the threshold V 
I might, as a constituent, come to your bar 
and demand my liberty. I do call upon you by 
the laws of the land, and their violation ; by the 
instructions of eighteen counties ; by the arms, 
inspiration, and providence of the present mo- 
ment — tell us the rule by which we shall go : 
assert the law of Ireland ; declare the liberty of 
the land ! I will not be answered by a public 
lie, in the shape of an amendment : nor, speak- 
ing for the subjects' freedom, am I to hear of 
faction. I wish for nothing but to breathe in 
this our island, in common with my fellow-sub- 
jects, the air of liberty. I have no ambition, un- 
less it be to break your chain and contemplate 
your glory. I never will be satisfied so long as 
the meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the 
British chain clanking to his rags. He may be 
naked, he shall not be in irons. And I do see 
the time at hand ; the spirit is gone forth ; the 
Declaration of Right is planted ; and though 
great men should fall off, yet the cause shall 
live; and though he who utters this should die, 
yet the immortal fire shall outlast the humble 
organ who conveys it, and the breath of liberty, 
like the word of the holy man, will not die with 
the prophet, but survive him.^ 



'' Referring to the rapid formation of the volun- 
teer corps. 

8 The reader will be interested to observe the 
rhythmua of the last three paragraphs ; so slow and 
dignified in its movement; so weighty as it fulls on 
the ear; so perfectly adapted to the sentiments ex- 
pressed in tliis magnificent passage. The etl'ect 
will be heightened by comparing it with tlie rapid 
and iambic movement of the passage containing Mr. 
Erskine's description of the Indian chief, page (596. 



1782.] 



MR. GRATTAN'S SECOND MOTION, ETC. 



391 



Mr. Grattan then moved the Declaration of 
Right; but the power of the English govern- 
ment was too great in the Irish House of Com- 



mons, and he was voted down. He renewed 
the motion two years after, in connection with 
the speech which follows. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. GRATTAN IN THE IRISH HOUSE OF COMMONS ON MAKING HIS SECOND MOTION FOR A 
DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHT, DELIVERED APRIL 16, 1782. 

INTHODUCTION. 
During the two years which had elapsed since the preceding speech, great changes had taken place, 
both in England and in Ireland, which made the passing of the Declaration certain, if strongly insisted upon 
by the people. Mr. Grattan, therefore, in moving it a second time, uses not so much the language of argu- 
ment or persuasion, as of assured triumph. He speaks of it in his first sentence as if already carried. 



I am now to address a free people. Ages 
have passed away, and this is the first 

The object ^ . , . / i j i_ j- ^• 

already se- momcut m which jou could DC distin- 
'="'^'^- guished by that appellation. I have 
spoken on the subject of your liberty so often, 
that I have nothing to add, and have only to ad- 
mire by what Heaven-directed steps you have 
proceeded, until the whole faculty of the nation 
is braced up to the act of her own deliverance. 
I found Ireland on her knees. I watched over 
her with an eternal solicitude, and have traced 
her progress from injuries to arms, and from 
arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift — spirit of Moi- 
yneux^ — your genius has prevailed — Ireland is 
now a nation — in that new character I hail her ; 
and, bowing to her august presence, I say, Eato 
perpetua !^ 

She is no longer a wretched colony, returning 
Comparison thauks to her Governor for his rapine, 
wuhofte'l and to her King for his oppression; 
countries. j,qj. jg gj^g ^q^ g, frctful, Squabbling 
sectary, perplexing her little wits, and firing her 
furious statutes with bigotry, sophistry, disabili- 
ties, and death, to transmit to posterity insignifi- 
cance and war. Look to the rest of Europe. 
Holland lives on the memory of past achieve- 
ments. Sweden has lost her liberty. England 
has sullied her great name by an attempt to en- 
slave her colonies ! You are the only people — 
you, of the nations in Europe, are now the only 
people — who excite admiration ; and in your 
present conduct, you not only exceed the present 
generation, but you equal the past. I am not 
afraid to turn back and look antiquity in the face. 
The Revolution, that great event — whether you 
call it ancient or modern, I know not — was tar- 
nished with bigotry. The great deliverer — for 
such I must ever call the Prince of Nassau — 
was blemished by oppression. He assented to — 

^ This speech and the preceding are from a copy 
corrected by Mr. Grattan, and published in 1821. 

2 William Molyneux, the mathematician and as- 
tronomer, was originally bred to the law, and, being 
deeply interested for his countrymen, he wrote his 
celebrated work on the rights of the Irish Parlia- 
ment, the first and ablest work ever produced on 
the subject. He was born in 1656, and died in 1698. 

3 Let her endure forever. 



SPEECH/ &c. 

he was forced to assent to acts which deprived 
the Catholics of religious, and all the Irish of 
civil and commercial rights, though the Irish 
were the only subjects in these islands who had 
fought in his defense. But you have sought 
liberty on her own principles. See the Presby- 
terians of Bangor petition for the Catholics of 
the South ! You, with difficulties innumerable, 
with dangers not a few, have done what your 
ancestors wished, but could not accomplish ; and 
what your posterity may preserve, but will never 
equal. You have molded the jarring elements 
of your country into a nation, and have rivaled 
those great and ancient states whom you were 
taught to admire, and among whom you are now 
to be recorded. 

In this proceeding you had not the advantages 
which were common to other great Her inferior 
countries — no monuments, no trophies, advantages. 
none of those outward and visible signs of great- 
ness, such as inspire mankind, and connect the 
ambition of the age which is coming on with 
the example of that which is going off, and 
forms the descent and concatenation of glory. 
No ! You have not had any great act recorded 
among all your misfortunes ; nor have you one 
public tomb to assemble the crowd, and speak 
to the living the language of integrity and free- 
dom. Your historians did not supply the want 
of monuments. On the contrary, those narrators 
of your misfortunes w^ho should have felt for your 
wrongs, and have punished your oppressors with 
oppression's natural scourge, the moral indigna- 
tion of history, compromised with public villainy, 
and trembled ; they recited your violence, they 
suppressed your provocation, and wrote in the 
chain that entrammeled their country. I am 
come to break that chain ; and I congratulate 
my country, who, without any of the advantages 
I .speak of, going forth, as it were, with nothing 
but a stone and a sling, and what oppression 
could not take away, the favor of Heaven, ac- 
complished her own redemption, and left you 
nothing to add, and every thing to admire. You 
want no trophy now — the records of Parliament 
are the evidence of your glory. 

I beg to observe, that the deliverance of Ire- 
land has proceeded from her own right hand 



392 



MR. GRATTAN'S SECOND MOTION 



[1782. 



I rejoice at it; for, had the great acquisition 
„ , ,. of your freedom proceeded from the 

Her deliver- •' ,> t-. , i . 

ance achieved bounty of England, that great work 
^ '^^^ ' would have been defective — would 
have been defective both in renown and secu- 
rity. It was necessary that the soul of the 
country should have been exalted by the act of 
her own redemption, and that England should 
withdraw her claim by operation of treaty, and 
not of mere grace and condescension. A gratu- 
itous act of Parliament, however express, would 
have been revocable ; but the repeal of her 
claim, under operation of treaty, is not. In that 
case, the Legislature is put in covenant, and 
bound by the law of nations, the only law that 
can legally bind Parliament. Never did this 
country stand so high. England and Ireland 
treat ex cequo. Ireland transmits to the King 
her claim of right, and requires of the Parlia- 
ment of England the repeal of her claim of 
power, which repeal the English Parliament is 
to make under the force of a treaty, which de- 
pends on the law of nations — a law which can 
not be repealed by the Parliament of England. 
I rejoice that the people are a party to this 
treaty, because they are bound to preserve it. 
There is not a man of forty shillings freehold 
that is not associated in this our claim of right, 
and bound to die in its defense — cities, coun- 
ties, associations, Protestants, and Catholics. It 
seems as if the people had joined in one great 
sacrament. A flame has descended from heav- 
en on the intellect of Ireland, and plays round 
her head with a concentrated glory. 

There are some who think, and a few who 
Defense of dcclare, that the associations to which 
teer a"'"o"" I ^cfer are illegal. Come, then, let us 
ciations. tj-y the charge. And first, I ask, what 
were the grievances ? An army imposed on us 
by another country — that army rendered perpet- 
ual — the Privy Council of both countries made a 
part of our Legislature — our Legislature depriv- 
ed of its originating and propounding power — 
another country exercising over us supreme leo-- 
islative authority — that country disposing of our 
property by its judgments, and prohibiting our 
ti-ade by its statutes ! These were not grievanc- 
es, but spoliations ; they left you nothing. When 
you contended against them, you contended for 
the whole of your condition. When the minis- 
ter asks by what right, we refer him to our 
Maker. We sought our privileges by the right 
which we have to defend our property against a 
robber, our life against a murderer, our country 
against an invader, whether coming with civil 
or military force, a foreign army, or a foreign 
Legislature. This is a case that wants no prec- 
edent. The revolution wanted no precedent ; 
for such things arrive to reform a course of bad 
precedents, and, instead of being founded on 
precedent, become such. The gazing world, 
whom they came to save, begins by doubt and 
concludes by worship. Let other nations be 
deceived by the sophistry of courts — Ireland 
has studied politics in the lair of oppression : 
and, taught by suffering, comprehends the right 



of subjects and the duty of kings. Let other 
nations imagine that subjects are made for the 
3Ionarch; but we conceive that kings, and Par- 
liaments like kings, ai'e made for the subject. 
The House of Commons, honoAble and right 
honorable as it may be ; the Lords, noble and 
illustrious as we pronounce them, are not origin- 
al, but derivative. Session after session they 
move their periodical orbit about the source of 
their being — the nation. Even the King — ]Maj- 
esty — must fulfill her due and tributary course 
round that great luminary; and, created by its 
beam and upheld by its attraction, must incline 
to that light or go out of the system. 

Ministers — we mean the ministers who have 
been dismissed ;^ I rely on the good in- ^rsument r^ 
tentions of the present — former minis- ^oned on the 

r . opposers of 

ters, I say, have put questions to us. the ceciara- 
We beg to put questions to them. 
They desired to know by what authority this 
nation had acted. This nation desires to know 
by what authority they acted. By what author- 
ity did government enforce the articles of war ? 
By what authority does government establish the 
post-office? By what authority are our mer- 
chants bound by the East India Company's 
charter? By what authority has Ireland one 
hundred years been deprived of her export 
trade ? By what authority are her peers de- 
prived of their judicature ? By what authority 
has that judicature been transferred to the peers 
of Great Britain, and our property, in its last re- 
sort, referred to the decision of a non-resident, 
unauthorized, illegal, and unconstitutional tribu- 
nal? Will ministers say it was the authority 
of the British Parliament? On what ground, 
then, do they place the question between the 
government on one side, and the people on the 
other? The government, according to their 
own statement, has been occupied to supersede 
the lawgiver of the country, and the people to 
restore him. His Majesty's late ministers thought 
they had quelled the country when they bought 
the newspapers, and they represented us as wild 
men, and our cause as visionary ; and they pen- 
sioned a set of wretches to abuse both ; but we 
took little account of them or their proceedings, 
and we waited, and we watched, and we moved, 
as it were, on our native hills, with the minor 
remains of our parliamentary army, until that 
minority became Ireland ! Let those ministers 
now go home, and congratulate their king on 
the delivei-ance of his people. Did you imagine 
that those little parties, whom, three years ago, 
you beheld in awkward squads parading the 
streets, would arrive to such distinction and ef- 
fect? What was the cause? For it was not 
the sword of the volunteer, nor his muster, nor 
his spirit, nor his promptitude to put down acci- 
dental disturbance, public discord, nor his own 
unblamed and distinguished deportment : this 
was much; but there was more than this. The 



* Lord North and his associates are here referred to. 
The "present" ministers were Lord Rockingham, 
Lord Shelbnrne, Mr. Fox, &c., composing the Whig 
administration, wliich followed that of Lord North. 



1782.1 



ON A DECLARATION OF IRISH RIGHT. 



393 



upper orders, the property and the abilities of 
the country, formed with the Volunteer ; and the 
volunteer had sense enough to obey them. This 
united the Protestant with the Catholic, and the 
landed proprietor with the people. There was 
still more than this — there was a continence 
which confined the corps to limited and legiti- 
mate objects. There was a principle which 
preserved the corps from adultery with French 
politics. There was a good taste which guard- 
ed the corps from the affectation of such folly. 
This, all this, made them bold ; for it kept them 
innocent, it kept them rational. No vulgar rant 
against England, no mysterious admiration of 
France, no crime to conceal, no folly to blush 
for, they were what they professed to be ; and 
that was nothing less than society asserting her 
liberty according to the frame of the British 
Constitution — her inheritance to be enjoyed in 
perpetual connection with the British empire. 
I do not mean to say that there were not divers 
violent and unseemly resolutions. The immensi- 
ty of the means was inseparable from the ex- 
cess. Such are the great works of nature — such 
is the sea ; but, like the sea, the waste and ex- 
cess were lost in the immensity of its blessings, 
benefits, and advantage ; and now, having given 
a Parliament to the people, the Volunteers will, 
I doubt not, leave the people to Parliament, and 
thus close, pacifically and majestically, a great 
work, which will place them above censure and 
above panegyric. Those associations, like other 
institutions, will perish ; they will perish with the 
occasion that gave them being •, and the gratitude 
of their country will write their epitaph : 

"This phenomenon, the departed Volunteer, 
justified by the occasion, with some alloy of 
public evil, did more public good to Ireland than 
all her institutions. He restored the liberties of 
his country ; and thus, from his grave, he an- 
swers his enemies." 

Connected by freedom, as well as by allegi- 
Engiandand ^"^^6, the two uatious, Great Britain 

irefaiid now and Ireland, form a constitutional con- 
confederate. - , ' . 

lederacy as well as an empire. The 

Crown is one link, the Constitution another; and, 
in my mind, the latter link is the most powerful. 
You can get a king any where ; but England is 
the only country with whom you can get and 
participate a free Constitution. This makes En- 
gland your natural connection, and her king your 
natural as well as your legal sovereign. This 
is a connection, not as Lord Coke has idly said, 
not as Judge Blackstone has foolishly said, not 
as other judges have ignorantly said, by con- 
quests ; but, as Molyneux has said, and as I now 
say, by compact — that compact is a free Consti- 
Essentiai prin- ^^^^'ow. Suffer mc uow to State some 
^cipiesofthe of the things essential to that free 
Constitution. They are as follows : 
The independency of the Irish Parliament — the 
exclusion of the British Parliament from any 
authority in this realm — the restoration of the 
Irish judicature, and the exclusion of that of 
Great Britain. As to the perpetual Mutiny Bill, 
it must be more than limited — it must be effaced. 



That bill must fall, or the Constitution can not 
stand. That bill was originally limited by this 
House to two years, and it returned from En- 
gland without the clause of limitation. What ! 
a bill making the army independent of Parlia- 
ment, and perpetual ? I protested against it 
then ; I have struggled with it since ; and I am 
now come to destroy this great enemy of my 
country. The perpetual Mutiny Bill must van- 
ish out of the statute book. The excellent tract 
of Molyneux was burned — it was not answered, 
and its flame illumined posterity. This evil 
paper shall be burned ; but burned like a felon, 
that its execution may be a peace-offering to the 
people, and that a Declaration of Right may be 
planted on its guilty ashes. A new Mutiny Bill 
must be formed, after the manner of England, 
and a Declaration of Right flaming in its pre- 
amble. As to the legislative powers of the Pri- 
vy Council, I conceive them to be utterly inad- 
missible, against the Constitution, against the 
privileges of Parliament, and against the dignity 
of the realm. Do not imagine such power to 
be a theoretical evil ; it is, in a very high de- 
gree, a practical evil. I have here an inventory 
of bills, altered and injured by the interference 
of the Privy Councils — Money Bills originated 
by them — Protests by the Crown, in support of 
those Money Bills — prorogation following those 
Protests. I have a Mutiny Bill of 1780, altered 
by the Council and made perpetual — a bill in 
1778, where the Council struck out the clause 
repealing the Test Act — a Militia Bill, where 
the Council struck out the compulsory clause, 
requiring the Crown to proceed to form a mili- 
tia, and left it optional to his majesty's ministers 
whether there should be a militia in Ireland. I 
have the Money Bill of 1775, when the Council 
struck out the clause enabling his majesty to 
take a part of our troops for general service, 
and left it to the minister to withdraw the forces 
against act of Parliament. I have to state the 
altered Money Bill of 1771 ; the altered Money 
Bill of 1775; the altered Money Bill of 1780. 
The day would expire before I could recount 
their ill doings. I will never consent to have 
men — God knows whom — ecclesiastics, &c., &c.; 
men unknown to the constitution of Parliament, 
and only known to the minister who has breath- 
ed into their nostrils an unconstitutional exist- 
ence — steal to their dark divan, which they call 
the Council, to do mischief, and make nonsense of 
bills which their Lordships, the House of Lords, 
or we, the House of Commons, have thought 
good and meet for the people. No ! These men 
have no legislative qualifications ; they shall have 
no legislative power. 1st. The repeal of the 
perpetual Mutiny Bill, and the dependency of 
the Irish army on the Irish Parliament; 2d. The 
abolition of the legislative power of the Council; 
3d. The abrogation of the claim of England to 
make law for Ireland ; the exclusion of the En- 
glish House of Peers, and of the English King's 
Bench from any judicial authority in this realm ; 
the restoration ©f the Irish Peers to their final 
judicature ; the independency of the Irish Par- 



394 



MR. GRATTAN'S INVECTIVE 



[1783. 



liament in its sole and exclusive Legislature- 
these are my terms. 



Mr. Grattan now moved the Declaration of 
Right, which was carried almost without a dis- 
senting voice ; and a bill soon after passed the 
British Parliament, ratifying the decision by re- 
pealing the obnoxious act of George I. 

The Parliament of Ireland was at last inde- 
pendent ; but the beneficial results, so glowingly 
depicted by Mr. Grattan, were never realized ; 
all were sacrificed and lost through a spirit of 
selfishness and faction. The Protestants of Ire- 
land were divided into two parties, the Aristoc- 
racy and the Patriots. The former were exclu- 
sive, selfish, and arrogant ; the latter were eager 
for reform, but too violent and reckless in the 
measures they employed to obtain it. The Par- 
liament of Ireland was a borough Parliament, 
the members of the House of Commons being, 
in no proper sense, representatives of the people, 
but put in their places by a comparatively small 
number of individuals belonging to the higher 
classes. These classes, while they were among 
the foremost to demand that " England should 
not give law to Ireland,'' were equally determ- 
ined that the Irish Parliament, in making laws, 
should do it for the peculiar benefit of the Aris- 
tocracy, and the support of their hereditary in- 
fluence. The Patriots, on the other hand, de- 
manded Parliamentary Reform, and clamored for 
universal suffi-age. To enforce their claims, they 
assembled a Convention of the Volunteers at 
Dublin in 1783, with a view to influence, and 
perhaps overawe the Parliament. Their suc- 
cess would have been certain if they had gone 



one step farther, and proposed to impart the 
privileges they enjoyed to the Roman Catholics, 
by making them voters. But this the Protest- 
ants of neither party were willing to do. The 
Romanists comprised three quarters of the pop- 
ulation ; very few of them could read or write ; 
and both parties — the Patriots as well as the 
Aristocracy — equally shrunk from the experi- 
ment of universal suflrage among this class of 
their fellow-citizens. Under these circumstan- 
ces, the call for Parliamentary Reform was very 
faintly echoed by the great body of the people. 
The Convention of Volunteers had none of that 
power which they had previously exerted on the 
question of Parliamentary Independence. A bill 
was brought into the House of Commons by Mr. 
Flood for extending the right of suffrage, but it 
was voted down in the most decisive manner. 
The bitterest animosities now prevailed, and 
new subjects of contention arose from time to 
time. Associations were formed, at a later pe- 
riod, under the name of United Irishmen, de- 
signed to promote the cause of liberty. Rash 
men, in many instances, gained the ascendency : 
an insurrection was planned, and in part com- 
menced ; and measures of great severity were 
resorted to by the British government to restore 
order. The more sober part of the community 
became weary of these contentions, and some 
began to look to a union with England as the 
only safeguard of their persons and property. 
The British ministry had the strongest motives 
to urge on this measure in order to prevent fu- 
ture troubles; and in the year 1800, to a great 
extent by the use of bribes, the union was ef- 
fected, and from this time the Parliament of Ire- 
land became extinct. 



INVECTIVE 

OF MR. GRATTAN AGAINST MR. FLOOD, DELIVERED OCTOBER 28, 1783. 



It has been said by Mr. Flood, that " the pen 
would fall from the hand, and the fetus of the 
mind would die unborn,"' if men had not a privi- 
lege to maintain a right in the Parliament of En- 
gland to make law for Ireland. The affectation 
of zeal, and a burst of forced and metaphorical 
conceits, aided by the arts of the press, gave an 
alarm which, I hope, was momentary, and which 
only exposed the artifice of those who were wick- 
ed, and the haste of those who were deceived. 

But it is not the slander of an evil tongue that 
can defame me. I maintain my reputation in 
public and in private life. No man who has not 
a bad character can ever say that I deceived ; 
no country can call me cheat. But I will sup- 
pose such a public character. I will suppose 
such a man to have existence. I will begin 
with his character in its political cradle, and I 
will follow him to the last state of political dis- 
solution. 

I will suppose him, in the first stage of his 
life, to have been intemperate ; in the second, to 



have been corrupt ; and in the last, seditious ; 
that after an envenomed attack on the persons 
and measures of a succession of viceroys, and 
after much declamation against their illegal- 
ities and their profusion, he took office, and be- 
came a supporter of government when the pro- 
fusion of ministers had greatly increased, and 
their crimes multiplied beyond example ; when 
your money bills were altered without reserve 
by the Council ; when an embargo was laid on 
your export trade, and a war declared against 
the liberties of America. At such a critical 
moment, I will suppose this gentleman to be 
corrupted by a great sinecure office to muzzle 
his declamation, to swallow his invectives, to 
give his assent and vote to the ministers, and to 
become a supporter of government, its measures, 
its embargo, and its American war. I will sup. 
pose that he was suspected by the government 
that had bought him, and in consequence there- 
of, that he thought proper to resort to the acts of 
a trimmer, the last sad refuge of disappointed am- 



1783.] 



AGAINST MR. FLOOD. 



395 



bition ; that, with respect to the Constitution of 
his country, that part, for instance, which regard- 
ed the Mutiny Bill, when a clause of reference 
was introduced, whereby the articles of war, 
which were, or hereafter might be, passed in 
England, should be current in Ireland without 
the interference of her Parliament — when such 
a clause was in view, I will suppose this gentle- 
man to have absconded. Again, when the bill 
was made perpetual, I will suppose him again 
to have absconded ; but a year and a half after 
the bill had passed, then I will suppose this gen- 
tleman to have come forward, and to say that 
your Constitution had been destroyed by the Per- 
petual Bill. With regard to that part of the Con- 
stitution that i-elates to the law of Poynings, I will 
suppose the gentleman to have made many a long, 
very long disquisition before he took office, but, 
after he received office, to have been as silent on 
that subject as before he had been loquacious. 
That, when money bills, under color of that law, 
were altered, year after year, as in 1775 and 
1776, and when the bills so altered were re- 
sumed and passed, I will suppose that gentleman 
to have absconded or acquiesced, and to have sup- 
ported the minister who made the alteration ; but 
when he was dismissed from office, and a mem- 
ber introduced a bill to remedy this evil, I will ; 
suppose that this gentleman inveighed against t 
the mischief, against the remedy, and against 
the person of the introducer, who did that duty , 
which he himself for seven years had abandoned, i 
With respect to that part of the Constitution 
which is connected with the repeal of the 6th 
of George the First, when the inadequacy of the 
repeal was debating in the House, I will sup- 
pose this gentleman to make no kind of objec- 
tion : that he never named, at that time, the 
word renunciation ; and that, on the division on 
that subject, he absconded ; but when the office 
he had lost was given to another man, that he 
came forward, and exclaimed against the meas- 
ure ; nay, that he went into the public streets to 
canvass for sedition ; that he became a rambling 
incendiary, and endeavored to excite a mutiny in 
the Volunteers against an adjustment between 
Great Britain and Ireland, of liberty and repose, 
wiiich he had not the virtue to make, and against 
an administration who had the virtue to free the 
country without buying the members. 

With respect to commerce, I will suppose this 
gentleman to have supported an embargo which 
lay on the country for three years, and almost 
destroyed it ; and when an address in 1 778, to j 
open her trade, was propounded, to remain silent 1 
and inactive. And WMth respect to that other I 
part of her trade, wHiich regarded the duty on 
sugar, when the merchants were examined in j 
1778, on the inadequate protecting duty, when j 
the inadequate duty was voted, when the act 
was recommitted, when another duty w^as pro- 
posed, when the bill returned with the inade- I 
quate duty substituted, when the altered bill was ' 
adopted, on every one of tho.sc questions I will 
suppose the gentleman to abscond ; but a year 
and a half after the mischief was done, he out 



of office, I will suppose him to come forth, and 
to tell his country that her trade had been de- 
stroyed by an inadequate duty on English sugar, 
as her Constitution had been ruined by a Per- 
petual Mutiny Bill ! In relation to three fourths 
of our fellow-subjects, the Catholics, when a bill 
was introduced to grant them rights of property 
and religion, I will suppose this gentleman to 
have come forth to give his negative to their 
pretensions. In the same manner, I will sup- 
pose him to have opposed the institution of the 
Volunteers, to which we ow^e so much, and that 
he went to a meeting in his own county to pre- 
vent their establishment ; that he himself kept 
out of their associations ; that he was almost 
the only man in this House that was not in uni- 
form, and that he never w^as a Volunteer until he 
ceased to be a placeman, and until he became 
an incendiary. 

With regard to the liberties of America, which 
were inseparable from ours, I will suppose this 
gentleman to have been an enemy, decided and 
unreserved ; that he voted against her liberty, and 
voted, moreover, for an address to send four thou- 
sand Irish troops to cut the throats of the Amer- 
icans ; that he called these butchers " armed 
negotiators," and stood w^ith a metaphor in his 
mouth, and a bribe in his pocket, a champion 
against the rights of America, the only hope of 
Ireland, and the only refuge of the liberties of 
mankind. Thus defective in every relationship, 
whether to Constitution, commerce, or toleration, 
I will suppose this man to have added much pri- 
vate improbity to public crimes ; that his prob- 
ity was like his patriotism, and his honor on a 
level with his oath. He loves to deliver pane- 
gyrics on himself. I will interrupt him, and 
say, " Sir, you are much mistaken if you think 
that your talents have been as great as your 
life has been reprehensible. You began your 
parliamentary career with an acrimony and per- 
sonality which could have been justified only by 
a supposition of virtue. After a rank and clam- 
orous opposition you became, on a sudden, silent; 
you w'ere silent for seven years ; you were silent 
on the greatest questions ; and you were silent 



for 



money 



In 1773, while a negotiation w^as 



pending to sell your talents and your turbulence, 
you absconded from your duty in Parliament ; 
you forsook your law of Poynings ; you forsook 
the questions of economy, and abandoned all the 
old themes of your former declamation. You 
were not at that period to be found in the House. 
You were seen, like a guilty spirit, haunting the 
lobby of the House of Commons, watching the mo- 
ment in which the question should be put, that you 
might vanish. You were descried with a crim- 
inal anxiety, retiring from the scenes of your past 
glory; or you were perceived coasting the upper 
benches of this House like a bird of prey, with 
an evil aspect and a sepulchral note, meditating 
to pounce on its quarry. These w^ays — they 
were not the ways of honor — you practiced 
pending a negotiation which was to end either 
in your sale or your sedition. The former tak- 
ing place, you supported the rankest measures 



396 



MR. GRATTAN'S INVECTIVE 



[1800. 



that ever came before Parliament ; the embargo 
of 1776, for instance. '0, fatal embargo, that 
breach of law, and ruin of commerce !' You sup- 
ported the unparalleled profusion and jobbing of 
Lord Harcourt's scandalous ministry — the ad- 
dress to support the American war — the other 
address to send four thousand men, which you 
had yourself declai'cd to be necessary for the de- 
fense of Ireland, to fight against the liberties of 
America, to which you had declared yourself a 
friend. You, sir, who delight to utter execra- 
tions against the American commissioners of 
1778, on account of their hostility to America — 
you, sir, who manufacture stage thunder against 
Mr. Eden for his anti-American principles — 
you, sir, whom it pleases to chant a hymn to the 
immortal Hampden — you, sir, approved of the 
tyranny exercised against America; and you, 
sir, voted four thousand Irish troops to cut the 
throats of the Americans fighting for their free- 
dom, fighting for your freedom, fighting for the 
great principle, liberty ! But you found, at 
last (and this should be an eternal lesson to men 
of your craft and cunning), that the King had 
only dishonored you ; the court had bought, but 
would not trust you ; and, having voted for the 
w^orst measures, you remained, for seven years, 
the creature oi salary^ without the confidence of 
government. Mortified at the discovery, and 
stung by disappointment, you betake yourself to 
the sad expedients of duplicity. You try the 



sorry game of a trimmer in your progress to 
the acts of an incendiary. You give no honest 
support either to the government or the people. 
You, at the most critical period of their exist- 
ence, take no part; you sign no non-consump- 
tion agreement ; you are no Volunteer ; you op- 
pose no Perpetual Mutiny Bill ; no altered Sugar 
Bill ; you declare that you lament that the Dec- 
laration of Right should have been brought for- 
ward ; and obsei'viMg, with regard to both prince 
and people, the most impartial treachery and de- 
sertion, you justify the suspicion of your Sover- 
eign, by betraying the government, as you had 
sold the people, until, at last, by this hollow con- 
duct, and for some other steps, the result of mor- 
tified ambition, being dismissed, and another per- 
son put in your place, you fly to the ranks of the 
Volunteers and canvass for mutiny : you announce 
that the country was ruined by other men during 
that period in which she had been sold by you. 
Your logic is, that the repeal of a declaratory law 
is not the repeal of a law at all, and the effect of 
that logic is, an English act affecting to eman- 
cipate Ireland, by exercising over her the legis- 
lative authority of the British Parliament. Such 
has been your conduct ; and at such conduct 
every order of your fellow-subjects have a right 
to exclaim ! The merchant may say to you—' 
the constitutionalist may say to you — the Amer- 
ican may say to you — and I, / now say, and say 
to your beard, sir — you are not an honest man /" 



INVECTIVE 



OF MR. GRATTAN AGAINST MR. CORRY, DELIVERED DURING THE DEBATE ON THE UNION OF 
IRELAND TO ENGLAND, FEBRUARY 14, 1800. 



Has the gentleman done ? Has he completely 
done ? He was unparliamentary from the begin- 
ning to the end of his speech. Thei-e was scarce 
a word that he uttered that was not a violation of 
the privileges of the House ; but I did not call him 
to order. Why? Because the limited talents of 
some men render it impossible for them to be se- 
vere without being unparliamentary ; but before 
I sit down I shall show him how to be severe and 
parliamentary at the same time. On any other 
occasion I should think myself justifiable in treat- 
ing with silent contempt any thing which might 
fall from that honorable member ; but there are 
times when the insignificance of the accuser is 
lost in the magnitude of the accusation. I know 
the difficulty the honorable gentleman labored 
under when he attacked me, conscious that, on 
a comparative view of our characters, public 
and private, there is nothing he could say which 
would injure me. The public would not believe 
the charge. I despise the falsehood. If such 
a charge were made by an honest man, I would 
answer it in the manner I shall do before I sit 
down. But I shall first reply to it when not 
made by an honest man. 

The right honorable gentleman has called 
me "an unimpeached traitor." I ask, why not 



"traitor," unqualified by any epithet? I will 
tell him ; it was because he dare not. It was 
the act of a coward, who raises his arm to 
strike, but has not courage to give the blow. I 
will not call him a villain, because it would be 
unparliamentary, and he is a privy counselor, 
I will not call him fool, because he happens 
to be Chancellor of the Exchequer ; but I say 
he is one who has abused the privilege of Par- 
liament and the freedom of debate, to the utter- 
ing language which, if spoken out of the House, 
I should answer only with a blow. I care not how 
high his situation, how low his character, how 
contemptible his speech ; whether a privy coun- 
selor or a parasite, my answer would be a blow. 
He has charged me with being connected with 
the rebels. The charge is utterly, totally, and 
meanly false. Docs the honorable gentleman 
rely on the report of the House of Lords for the 
foundation of his assertion ? If he does, I can 
prove to the committee there was a physical im- 
possibility of that report being true ; but I scorn 
to answer any man for my conduct, whether he 
be a political coxcomb, or whether he brought 
himself into power by a false glare of courage 
or not. I scorn to answer any wizard of the 
Castle, throwing himself into fantastical airs ; 



1800.] 



AGAINST MR. CORRY. 



397 



but if an honoi*able and independent man were 
to make a charge against me, I wQuld say, " You 
charge me with having an intercourse with reb- 
els, and you found your charge upon what is said 
to have appeared before a committee of the Lords. 
Sir, the report of that committee is totally and 
egregiously irregular." I will read a letter 
from Mr. Nelson, who had been examined before 
that committee ; it states that what the report 
represents him as having spoken is not what he 
said. [Mr. Grattan hei-e read the letter from 
Mr. Nelson, denying that he had any connection 
with Mr. Grattan, as charged in the report ; and 
concluded by saying, '■^ never was misrepresenta- 
tion more vile than that put into my mouth by the 
report. ^^] 

From the situation that I held, and from the 
connections I had in the city of Dublin, it was 
necessary for me to hold intercourse with vari- 
ous descriptions of persons. The right honora- 
ble member might as well have been charged 
with a participation in the guilt of those traitors ; 
for he had communicated with some of those very 
persons on the subject of parliamentary reform. 
The Irish government, too, were in communica- 
tion with some of them. 

The right honorable member has told me I de- 
serted a profession where wealth and station were 
the reward of industry and talent. If I mistake 
not, that gentleman endeavored to obtain those 
rewards by the same means ; but he soon desert- 
ed the occupation of a barrister for those of a par- 
asite and pander. He fled from the labor of study 
to flatter at the table of the great. He found the 
Lords' parlor abetter sphere for his exertions than 
the hall of the Four Courts ; the house of a great 
man a more convenient way to power and to 
place ; and that it was easier for a statesman of 
middling talents to sell his friends than a lawyer 
of no talents to sell his clients. 

For myself, whatever corporate or other bod- 
ies have said or done to me, I, from the bottom of 
my heart, forgive them. I feel I have done too 
much for my country to be vexed at them. 1 
would rather that they should not feel or ac- 
knowledge what I have done for them, and call 
me traitor, than have reason to say I sold them. 
I will always defend myself against the assassin ; 
hut with large bodies it is diflerent. To the 
people I will bow ; they may be my enemy — I 
never shall be theirs. 

At the emancipation of Ireland, in 1782, I 
took a leading part in the foundation of that 
Constitution which is now endeavored to be de- 
stroyed. Of that Constitution I was the author ; 
in that Constitution I glory ; and for it the hon- 
orable gentleman should bestow praise, not in- 
vent calumny. Notwithstanding my weak state 
of body, I come to give my last testimony against 
this Union, so fatal to the liberties and interest 
of my country. I come to make common cause 
with these honorable and virtuous gentlemen 
around me ; to try and save the Constitution ; 
or if not save the Constitution, at least to save 
cur characters, and remove from our graves the 
foul disgrace of standing apart while a deadly 



blow is aimed at the independence of our coun- 
try. 

The right honorable gentleman says I fled 
from the country, after exciting rebellion; and 
that I have returned to raise another. No such 
thing. The charge is false. The civil war had 
not commenced when I left the kingdom ; and J 
could not have returned without taking a part. 
On the one side thei-e was the camp of the rebel ; 
on the other, the camp of the minister, a greater 
traitor than that rebel. The strong-hold of the 
Constitution was nowhere to be found. I agree 
that the rebel who rises against the government 
should have suffered ; but I missed on the scaf- 
fold the right honorable gentleman. Two des- 
perate parties were in arms against the Consti- 
tution. The right honorable gentleman be- 
longed to one of those parties, and deserved 
death. I could not join the rebel — I could not 
join the government. I could not join torture — 
I could not join half-hanging — I could not join 
free quarter. I could take part with neither. I 
was, therefore, absent from a scene where I could 
not be active without self-reproach, nor indiffer- 
ent with safety. 

Many honorable gentlemen thought differently 
from me, I respect their opinions ; but I keep 
my own ; and I think now, as I thought than, that 
the treason of the minister against the liberties of 
the people was infinitely worse than the rebellion 
of the people against the minister. 

I have returned, not, as the right honorable 
member has said, to raise another storm — I have 
returned to discharge an honorable debt of grat- 
itude to my country, that conferred a great re- 
ward for past services, which, I am proud to say, 
was not greater than my desert. I have re- 
turned to protect that Constitution of which I 
was the parent and the founder, from the assas- 
sination of such men as the honorable gentleman 
and his unworthy associates. They are cor- 
rupt — they are seditious — and they, at this very 
moment, are in a conspiracy against their coun- 
try. I have returned to refute a libel, as false 
as it is malicious, given to the public under the 
appellation of a report of the committee of the 
Lords. Here I stand, ready for impeachment or 
k'ial : I dare accusation. I defy the honorable 
gentleman ; I defy the government ; I defy the 
whole phalanx. Let them come forth. I tell 
the ministers I will neither give them quarter 
nor take it. I am here to lay the shattered re- 
mains of my constitution on the floor of this 
House, in defense of the liberties of my country. 
# * ^ # # # 

My guilt or innocence have little to do with 
the question here. I rose with the rising for- 
tunes of my country — I am willing to die with 
her expiring liberties. To the voice of the peo- 
ple I will bow, but never shall I submit to the 
calumnies of an individual hired to betray them 
and slander me. The indisposition of my body 
has left me, perhaps, no means but that of lying 
down with fallen Ireland, and recording upon her 
tomb my dying testimony against the flagitious 
corruption that has murdered her independence. 



398 



MR. GRATTAN ON THE CHARACTER OF LORD CHATHAM. 



The right honorable gentleman has said that this 
was not my place — that, instead of having a voice 
iu the councils of my country, I should now stand 
a culprit at her bar — at the bar of a court of 
criminal judicature, to answer for my treasons. 
The Irish people have not so read my history ; 
but let that pass ; if I am what he said I am, the 
people ax-e not therefore to forfeit their Constitu- 
tion. In point of argument, therefore, the attack 
is bad — in point of taste or feeling, if he had 
either, it is worse — in point of fact, it is false, 
utterly and absolutely false — as rancorous a 
falsehood as the most malignant motives could 
suggest to the prompt sympathy of a shameless 
and a venal defense. The right honorable gen- 
tleman has suggested examples which I should 
have shunned, and examples which I should have 
followed. I shall never follow his, and I have 
ever avoided it. I shall never be ambitious to 



purchase public scorn by private infamy — the 
lighter characters of the model have as little 
chance of weaning me from the habits of a life 
spent, if not exhausted, in the cause of my na- 
tive land. Am I to renounce those habits now 
forever, and at the beck of whom ? I should 
rather say of what — half a minister — half a mon- 
key — a 'prentice politician, and a master cox- 
comb. He has told you that what he said of me 
here, he would say any where. I believe he 
would say thus of me in any place where he 
thought himself safe in saying it. Nothing can 
limit his calumnies but his fears — in Parliament 
he has calumniated me to-night, in the King's 
courts he would calumniate me to-morrow ; but 
had he said or dared to insinuate one half as 
much elsewhere, the indignant spirit of an hon- 
est man would have answered the vile and venal 
slanderer with — a blow. 



CHAEACTER OF LORD CHATHAM. 



The Secretary stood alone. Modern degen- 
eracy had not reached him. Original and unac- 
commodating, the features of his character had 
the hardihood of antiquity. His august mind 
overawed Majesty ; and one of his Sovereigns 
[George III.] thought royalty so impaired in his 
presence, that he conspired to remove him, in 
order to be relieved from his superiority.^ No 
state chicanery, no narrow system of vicious 
politics, no idle contest for ministerial victories, 
sunk him to the vulgar level of the great ; but, 
overbearing, pei'suasive, and impracticable, his 
object was England — his ambition was fame. 
Without dividing, he destroyed party ; without 
corrupting, he made a venal age unanimous. 
France sunk beneath him ; with one hand he 
smote the house of Bourbon, and wielded in the 
other the democracy of England. The sight of 
his mind was infinite, and his schemes were to 
afTect, not England, not the present age only, 
but Europe and posterity. Wonderful were the 
means by which these schemes were accom- 
plished, always seasonable, always adequate, the 
suggestions of an understanding animated by ar- 
dor, and enlightened by prophecy. 

The ordinary feelings which make life amiable 
and indolent — those sensations which soften and 
allure, and vulgarize, were unknown to him. No 
domestic difficulties, no domestic weakness, 
reached him ; but, aloof from the sordid occur- 
rences of life, and unsullied by its intercourse, 
he came occasionally into our system to counsel 
and decide. 



See page 63. 



A character so exalted, so strenuous, so vari- 
ous, so authoritative, astonished a corrupt age, 
and the Treasury trembled at the name of Pitt 
through all her classes of venality. Corruption 
imagined, indeed, that she found defects in this 
statesman, and talked much of the inconsistency 
of his glory, and much of the ruin of his victo- 
ries — but the history of his country and the ca- 
lamities of the enemy answered and refuted her. 

Nor were his political abilities his only talents ; 
his eloquence was an era in the Senate. Pecul- 
iar and spontaneous, familiarly expressing gigan- 
tic sentiments and instinctive wisdom — not like 
the torrent of Demosthenes, or the splendid con- 
flagration of Tully, it resembled, sometimes the 
thunder, and sometimes the music of the spheres. 
Like Murray [Lord Mansfield], he did not con- 
duct the understanding through the painful sub- 
tilty of argumentation ; nor was he, like Town- 
send,"^ forever on the rack of exertion, but rather 
lightened upon the subject, and reached the point 
by the flashings of his mind, which, like those of 
his eye, were felt, but could not be followed. 

Upon the whole, there was in this man some- 
thing that could create, subvert, or reform ; an 
understanding, a spirit, and an eloquence to sum- 
mon mankind to society, or to break the bonds of 
slavery asunder, and rule the wildness of free 
minds with unbounded authority ; something 
that could establish or overwhelm empire, and 
strike a blow in the world that should resound 
through its history. 



2 Mr. Charles Townsend. See his character in 
Burke's speech on American Taxation. 



MR. SHERIDAN. 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan was born at Dublin in September, 1751. His fa- 
ther, Thomas Sheridan, author of the first attempt at a Pronouncing Dictionary of 
our language, was a distinguished teacher of elocution, and during most of his life 
was connected with the stage. This fact very naturally turned the attention of young 
Sheridan, even from his boyhood, to theatrical composition ; and, being driven to 
strenuous exertion in consequence of an early marriage, he became a dramatic writer 
at the age of twenty-four. His first production was The Rivals, which, by the live- 
liness of its plot and the exquisite humor of its dialogue, placed him at once in the 
first rank of comic writers. His next work was the opera of The Duenna, which 
was performed seventy-five times during the season in which it was first produced, 
and yielded him a very large profit. In the year 1776, in conjunction with two 
friends, he purchased Garrick's half of the Drury Lane Theater ; and becoming pro- 
prietor of the other half at the end of two years, he gave his father the appointment 
of manager. He now produced his School for Scandal, which has been regarded by 
many as the best comedy in our language. This was followed by The Critic, which 
was equally admirable as a farce ; and here ended, in 1779, his "legitimate offerings 
on the shrine of the Dramatic Muse." He still, however, retained his proprietorship 
in Drury Lane, which would have furnished an ample support for any one but a person 
of his expensive and reckless habits. 

Mr. Sheridan had cherished from early life a very lively interest in politics ; and 
now that his thirst for dramatic fame was satiated, his ambition rose higher, and led 
him to seek for new distinction in the fields of oratory. He had already made the 
acquaintance of Lord John Townsend, Mr. Windham, and other distinguished mem- 
ber's of the Whig party, and was desirous of forming a political connection with Mr. 
Fox. To promote this object, Townsend made a dinner-party early in 1780, at 
which he brought them together. Speaking of the subject afterward, he said, " I 
told Fox that all the notions he might have conceived of Sheridan's talents and 
genius from the ' Rivals,' &c., would fall infinitely short of the admiration of his 
astonishing powers which I was sure he would entertain at the first intervicAV. Fox 
told me, after breaking up from dinner, that he had always thought Hare, after my 
uncle, Charles Townsend, the wittiest man he had ever met with, but that Sheridan 
surpassed them both, infinitely." Sheridan, on his side, formed the strongest attach- 
ment for Mr. Fox as a man and a political leader, and was soon after placed on terms 
of equal intimacy with Mr. Burke. He was admitted to Brooks's Club-house, the 
head-quarters of the Whigs, ^ and soon after became a member for Stafibrd, at an 
expense of £2000. 

Mr. Sheridan's maiden speech was delivered on the 20th of November, 1760. The 
House listened to him with marked attention, but his appearance did not entirely 
satisfy the expectations of his friends. Woodfall, the reporter, used to relate that 

^ The following lines of Tick ell give the character of Brooks: 

And know, I've bought the best Champagne from Brooks ; 

From liberal Brooks, whose speculative skill 

Is hasty credit and a distant bill ; 

Who, nursed in clubs, disdains a vulgar trade, 

Exults to trust, and blushes to be paid. 
Nothing could be more convenient for a man of Sheridan's habits than so indulgent a creditor. 



400 MR. SHERIDAN. 

Sheridan came up to him in the gallery, when the speech was ended, and asked him, 
with much anxiety, what he thought of his first attempt. " I am sorry to say," 
replied Woodfall, " that I don't think this is your line — you had better have stuck to 
your former pursuits." Sheridan rested his head on his hand for some minutes, and 
then exclaimed, with vehemence, " It is in me, and it shall come out of me!'' He 
now devoted himself with the utmost assiduity, quickened by a sense of shame, to 
the cultivation of his powers as a speaker ; and having great ingenuity, ready wit, 
perfect self-possession, and a boldness amounting almost to effrontery, he made him- 
self at last a most dexterous and effective debater. 

During the short administration of the Marquess of Rockingham, in 1782, Mr. 
Sheridan came into office as Under Secretary of State ; but on the decease of Rock- 
ingham, he resigned in common with Fox, Burke, and others, when Lord Shelburne 
was made prime minister in preference to Mr. Fox. Mr. William Pitt now came 
into the ministry, at the age of twenty-three, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and 
undertook, soon after, to put down Mr. Sheridan by a contemptuous allusion to his 
theatrical pursuits. " No man," said he " admires more than I do the abilities of 
that right honorable gentleman — the elegant sallies of his thought, the gay effusions 
of his fancy, his dramatic turns, and his epigrammatic point. If they were reserved 
for the iwoi^er stage, they would no doubt receive the plaudits of the audience ; and 
it would be the fortmie of the right honorable gentleman, " sui plausu gaudere the- 
atri."'^ Mr. Sheridan replied to this insolent language, with admirable adroitness, 
in the following words : "On the particular sort of personality which the right hon- 
orable gentleman has thought proper to make use of, I need not comment. The pro- 
priety, the taste, and the gentlemanly point of it must be obvious to this House. 
But let me assure the right honorable gentleman that I do now, and will, at any time 
he chooses to repeat this sort of allusion, meet it with the most perfect good humor. 
Nay, I will say more. Flattered and encouraged by the right honorable gentleman's 
panegyric on my talents, if I ever engage again in the composition he alludes to, I 
may be tempted to an act of presumption, and attempt an improvement on one of Ben 
Jonson's best characters, that of the Angry Boy, in the Alchymist." The effect was 
irresistible. The House was convulsed with laughter ; and Mr. Pitt came veiy near 
having the title of the Angry Boy fastened on him for the remainder of his life. 

When the administration of Lord Shelburne gave way to the Coalition Ministry 
of Mr. Fox and Lord North, in 1783, Sheridan was again brought into office as Sec- 
retary of the Treasury. The defeat of Mr. Fox's East India Bill threw him out of 
power at the close of the same year ; and from that time, for more than twenty-two 
years, he was a strenuous and active opponent of Mr. Pitt. 

In the year 1767, Mr. Burke, who had devoted ten years to the investigation of 
English atrocities in India, called forth the entire strength of the Whig party for the 
impeachment of WaiTcn Hastings. To Mr. Sheridan he assigned the management 
of the charge relating to the Begums or princesses of Oude. It was a subject pecul- 
iarly suited to his genius ; and, aided by an intimate knowledge of the facts, which 
was supplied him by the researches of Burke, he brought forward the charge in the 
House of Commons, on the 7th of February, 1787. His speech on this occasion was 
so imperfectly reported that it may be said to be wholly lost. It was, however, 
according to the representation of all who heard it, an astonishing exhibition of elo- 
quence. The whole assembly, at the conclusion, broke forth into expressions of tu- 
multuous applause. Men of all parties vied with each other in their encomiums ; 
and Mr. Pitt concluded his remarks by saying that " an abler speech was perhaps 
never delivered" A motion was made to adjourn, that the House might have time 
to recover their calmness and " collect their reason," after the excitement they had 
2 To exuU in the applause of his oxen theater. 



MR. SHERIDAN. 401 

undergone ; and Mr. Stanhope, in seconding the motion, declared that he had come 
to the House prepossessed in favor of Mr. Hastings, but that nothing less than a mir- 
acle could now prevent him from voting for his impeachment. Twenty years after, 
Mr. Fox and Mr. Windham, two of the severest judges in England, spoke of this 
speech with undiminished admiration. The former declared it to be the best speech 
ever made in the House of Commons. The latter said that " the speech deserved all 
its fame, and was, in spite of some faults of taste, such as were seldom wanting in 
the literary or in the parliamentary performances of Sheridan, the greatest that had 
been delivered within the memory of man. "^ 

When the Commons voted to impeach Mr. Hastings, Sheridan was chosen one of 
the managers, and had assigned to him the charge relating to the Begums of Oude. 
He was thus called upon to reproduce, as far as possible, his splendid oration of the 
preceding year, in presence of an assembly still more dignified and august, and under 
circumstances calculated to inflame all his ambition as an orator and a man. The 
expectation of the public was wrought up to the highest pitch. During the four 
days on which he spoke, the hall was crowded to suifocation ; and such was the 
eagerness to obtain seats, that fifty guineas were in some instances paid for a single 
ticket. These circumstances, undoubtedly, operated to the injury of Mr. Sheridan. 
They aggravated those " faults of taste" which were spoken of by Mr. Windham. 
They led him into many extravagances of language and sentiment ; and though all 
who heard it agreed in pronouncing it a speech of astonishing power, it must have 
been far inferior in true eloquence to his great original effort in the House of Com- 
mons. His success in these two speeches was celebrated by Byron in the following 
lines, which are, however, much more applicable to Burke than to Sheridan : 

When the loud ciy of trampled Hiudostaii 

Arose to Heaven, in her appeal to man, 

His was the thunder — his the avenging rod— 

The wrath — the delegated voice of God, 

Which shook the nations through his lips, and blazed, 

Till vanquished senates trembled as they praised. 

Contrary to what might have been expected, Mr. Sheridan never attempted, in 
after life, that lofty strain of eloquence which gained him such rapturous applause 
on this occasion. " Good sense and wit were the great weapons of his oratory — 
shrewdness in detecting the weak points of an adversary, and infinite powers of rail- 
lery in exposing them." This is exactly the kind of speaking which has always been 

^ It was natural, in respect to such a speech, that some erroneous or exaggerated statements 
should have been given to the public. There is an anecdote related by Bissett, in his Reign of 
George HI., which must be regarded in this light, Bissett says, " The late Mr. Logan, well known 
for his literary efforts, and author of a masterly defense of Mr. Hastings, went that day to the House, 
prepossessed for the accused and against the accuser. At the expiration of the first hour, he said 
to a friend, ' All this is declamatory assertion without proof;' when the second was finished, ' This 
is a wonderful oration ;' at the close of the third, ' Mr. Hastings has acted unjustifiably ;' the fourth, 
* Mr. Hastings is a most atrocious criminal;' and at last, ' Of all monsters of iniquity, the most 
enormous is Warren Hastings !' " 

Now the natural and almost necessary impression made by this stoiy is, that Mr. Logan, previous 
to hearing this speech, had written his "masterly defense of Mr. Hastings;" and that, being thus 
"prepossessed" and committed in favor of the accused, he experienced the remarkable change of 
views and feelings here described. But the fact is, his defense of Hastings was written after the 
speech in question was delivered ; and Mr. Logan therein charged the Commons with having acted, 
in their impeachment of Hastings, " from motives of personal animosity — not from regard to public 
justice." It is incredible that a man of Mr. Logan's character — a distinguished clergyman of the 
Church of Scotland— should have written such a pamphlet, or brought such a charge, only a few 
months after he had expressed the views of Mr. Hastings ascribed to him above. This anecdote 
must, therefore, have related to some other person who was confounded with Mr. Logan, and may 
be numbered with the many uncertainties which are current under the name of Literaiy Histoiy.' 

C C 



402 MR. SHERIDAN. 

most popular in the House of Commons. It made Mr. Sheridan much more formida- 
ble to Mr. Pitt, during his long and difficult administration, than many in the Oppo- 
sition ranks of far greater information and reasoning ahihties. Notwithstanding his 
habitual indolence, and the round of conviviality in which he was constantly en- 
gaged, Sheridan contrived to pick up enough knowledge of the leading topics in de- 
bate to make him a severe critic on the measures of Mr. Pitt. If authorities or re- 
search were necessary, he would frankly say to his friends who desired his aid, " You 
know I am an ignoramus — here I am — instruct me, and I'll do my best." And 
such was the quickness and penetration of his intellect, that he was able, with sur- 
prising facility, to make himself master of the information thus collected for his use, 
and to pour it out with a freshness and vivacity which were so much the greater 
because his mind was left free and unencumbered by the effort to obtain it. A 
curious instance is mentioned of his boldness on such occasions, when his materials 
happened to fail him. In 1794, when he came to reply to the argument of Mr. 
Hastings' counsel on the Begum charge, his friend, Mr. Michael Angelo Taylor, un- 
dertook to read for him any papers which it might be necessary to bring forward in 
the course of his speech. One morning, when a certain paper was called for, Mr. 
Taylor asked him for the bag containing his documents. Sheridan rephed, in a 
whisper, that he had neither bag nor papers — that they must contrive, by dexterity 
and boldness, to get on without them. The Lord Chancellor, in a few moments, 
called again for the minutes of evidence. Taylor pretended to send for the bag, 
and Sheridan proceeded with the utmost confidence, as if nothing had happened. 
"Within a few minutes the " jj<2j;ers" were again demanded, when Mr. Fox ran up to 
Taylor, and inquired anxiously for the bag. " The man has no bag," says Taylor, 
in a whisper, to the utter discomfiture of Mr. Fox. Sheridan, in the mean time, 
went on — taking the facts for granted — in his boldest strain. When stopped by the 
court, and reproved for his negligence in not bringing forward the evidence, he as- 
sumed an indignant tone, and told the Chancellor that, " as a manager of the im- 
peachment in behalf of the Commons, he should conduct the case as he thought fit , 
that it was his most ardent desire to be perfectly correct in what he stated ; and that, 
should he fall into error, the printed ^minutes of the evidence would correct him !" 

With all this apparent negligence, however, the papers of Mr. Sheridan, after his 
death, disclosed one remarkable fact, that his ipit was most of it studied out before- 
hand. His commonplace book was found to be full of humorous thoughts and sport- 
ive turns, put down usually in a crude state just as they occurred to his mind, and 
afterward wrought into form for future use. To this collection we may trace a large 
part of those playful allusions, keen retorts, sly insinuations, and brilliant sallies — 
the jest, the frolic, and the fun — which flash out upon us in his speeches in a man- 
ner so easy, natural, and yet unexpected, that no one could suspect them of being any 
thing but the spontaneous suggestions of the moment. His biographer has truly said 
that, in this respect, " It was the fate of Mr. Sheridan throughout life — and in a great 
degree, perhaps his policy — to gain credit for excessive indolence and carelessness, 
while few persons, with so much natural brilliancy of talents, ever employed more 
art and circumspection in their display." 

Mr. Sheridan usually took part in every important debate in Parliament, and gained 
much applause, in 1803, by a speech of uncommon eloquence, in which he endeav- 
ored to unite all parties for the defense of the country, when threatened with inva- 
sion by France. In the course of this speech, he turned the ridicule of the House 
upon Mr. Addington, the prime minister, in a way which was not soon forgotten. 
Mr. Addington was one of those " respectable" half-way men with whom it is diffi- 
cult to find fault, and yet whom nobody confides in or loves. He was the son of an 
eminent physician, and there was something in his air and manner which savored 



MR. SHERIDAN. 403 

of tlie profession, and had given him, to a limited extent, the appellation of " The 
Doctor." Mr. Sheridan, in the course of his speech, adverting to the personal dislike 
of many to Mr. Addington, quoted the lines of Martial : 

Nou amo te, Sabine, nee possum dicere quare ; 

Hoc tautum possum dicere, non amo te; 

and added the English parody : 

I do not like you, Doctor Fell ; 
The reason why I can not tell ; 
But this, I'm sure, I know full well, 
I do not like you, Doctor Fell. 

His waggish emphasis on the word doctor, and his suhsequent repetition of it in the 
course of his speech, called forth peals of laughter ; and thenceforth the minister 
was generally known by the name of the Doctor} The Opposition papers took up 
the title, and twisted and tortured it into every form of attack, till Mr. Addington 
was borne down and driven from office by mere ridicule— ^a Vv^eapon which is often 
more fatal than argument to men of moderate abilities in high political stations.) 

Mr. Sheridan had always lived beyond his means, and was utterly ruined in 1809, 
by the burning of the Drury Lane Theater, which comprised all his property. He was 
also betrayed by his convivial habits into gross intemperance. Wine being no longer 
of sufficient strength to quicken his faculties for conversation or debate, stronger 
liquors were substituted. A person sitting one evening in a cofiee-house, near St. 
Stephen's Chapel, saw, to his surprise, a gentleman with papers before him, after 
taking tea, pour the contents of a decanter of brandy into a tumbler, and drink it off 
without dilution. He then gathered up his papers and went out. Shortly after, the 
spectator, on entering the gallery of the House of Commons, heard the brandy-drink- 
er, to his astonishment, deliver a long and brilliant speech. It was Mr. Sheridan I 
The natural consequences of such a life were not slow in overtaking him : he soon 
became bankrupt in character and health, as well as in fortune. The relief which 
he occasionally obtained from his friends served only to protract his misery. He 
was harassed with Avrits and executions, at the moment when he was sinking under 
disease ; and a sheriff's oificer, but for the intervention of his physician, would have 
carried him in his blanket to prison. A powerful writer in the Morning Post now 
called the attention of the public to his wretched condition. '* Oh I delay not to 
draw aside the curtain within which that proud spirit hides its sufferings. Prefer 
ministering in the chambers of sickness to mustering at ' the splendid sorrows which 
adorn the hearse' — I say, life and succor against Westminster Abbey and a funeral I" 
Men of all ranks were roused. His chamber was crowded with sympathizing friends, 
but it was too late. He died on the 7th of July, 1816, at the age of sixty-four, a 
melancholy example of brilliant talents sacrificed to a love of display and convivial 
indulgence. He was buried with great pomp in the only spot of the Poet's Corner 
which remained unoccupied. His pall was borne by royal and noble dukes, by earls 
and marquesses, and his funeral procession was composed of the most distinguished 
nobility and gentry of the kingdom.^ 

* The Scottish members having deserted Mr. Addington in some debate about this time, Mr. 
Sheridan convulsed the House by suddenly exclaiming, in the words of the messenger to Mac- 
beth, Doctor, "the Thanes fly from thee!" 

5 Mr. Moore, in the following lines, gave vent to his feelings at the conduct of those who deserted 
Sheridan in his poverty, but crowded around his death-bed and flocked to his funeral with all the 
tokens of their early respect and affection : 

How proud they can press to the funeral array 

Of him whom they shunn'd in his sickness and sorrow — 
How bailiffs may seize his last blanket to-day, 

Whose pall shall be held up by nobles to-morrow ! 



404 MR. SHERIDAN. 

Wraxall, in his Posthumous Memoirs, vol. i., 36-8, gives the following description 
of Mr. Sheridan's person and manner of speaking in his best days, before intemper- 
ance had begun its ravages on his body or mind. " His countenance and features 
had in them something peculiarly pleasing, indicative at once of intellect, humor, 
and gayety. All these characteristics played about his lips when speaking, and oper- 
ated with inconceivable attraction ; for they anticipated, as it were, to the eye the 
eltect produced by his oratory on the ear ; thus opening for him a sure way to the 
heart or the understanding. Even the tones of his voice, which were singularly 
mellifluous, aided the general eflect of his eloquence ; nor was it accompanied by 
Burke's unpleasant Irish accent. Pitt's enunciation was unquestionably more impos- 
ing, dignified, and sonorous ; Fox displayed more argument, as well as vehemence ; 
Burke possessed more fancy and enthusiasm ; but Sheridan won his way by a sort 
of fascination." 

"He "possessed a ductility and versatility of talents which no public man in our 
time has equaled ; and these intellectual endowments were sustained by a suavity 
of temper that seemed to set at defiance all attempts to ruffle or discompose it. 
Playing with his irritable or angry antagonist, Sheridan exposed him by sallies of wit, 
or attacked him with classic elegance of satire ; performing this arduous task in the 
face of a crowded assembly, without losing for an instant either his presence of mind, 
his facility of expression, or his good humor. He wounded deepest, indeed, when he 
smiled, and convulsed his hearers with laughter while the object of his ridicule or 
animadversion was twisting under the lash. Pitt and Dundas, who presented the 
fairest marks for his attack, found, by experience, that though they might repel, they 
could not confound, and still less could they silence or vanquish him. In every 
attempt that they made, by introducing personalities, or illiberal reflections on his 
private life and literary or dramatic occupations, to disconcert him, he turned their 
weapons on themselves. Nor did he, while thus chastising his adversary, alter a 
muscle of his own countenance ; which, as well as his gestures, seemed to partici- 
pate, and display the unalterable serenity of his intellectual formation. Uarely did 
he elevate his voice, and never except in subservience to the dictates of his judgment, 
Avith the view to produce a corresponding eflect on his audience. Yet he was always 
heard, generally listened to with eagerness, and could obtain a hearing at almost any 
hour. Burke, who wanted Sheridan's nice tact and his amenity of manner, was 
continually coughed doAvn, and on those occasions he lost his temper. Even Fox 
often tired the House by the repetitions which he introduced into his speeches. Sher- 
idan never abused their patience. "Whenever he rose, they anticipated a rich repast 
of wit without acrimony, seasoned by allusions and citations the most delicate, yet 
obvious in their application." 

Still, it should be remembered that such desertion is the inevitable fate of degrading vice, and 
especially of the beastly intemperance to which Sheridan had so long been abandoned. Large con- 
tributions had previously been made for his relief, but his improvidence knew no bounds; and he 
had for some time reduced himself to such a state that few of his old acquaintances could visit him 
without pain, or (it may be added) without the deepest mortification to himself, though they might 
wish, after his death, to do honor to his memory as a man of genius. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. SHERIDAN ON SUMMING UP THE EVIDENCE ON THE SECOND, OR BEGUM CHARGE AGAINST 
WARREN HASTINGS, DELIVERED BEFORE THE HOUSE OF LORDS, SITTING AS A HIGH COURT OF 
PARLIAMENT, JUNE, 1788. 

INTRODUCTION. 

The Begums, or pi-incexses referred to in this speech, were the mother and widow of the celebrated 
Sujah Dowlah, Nabob of Oude, a kingdom on the upper waters of the Ganges. At his death, he be- 
queathed for their support large yearly revenues from the government lands, caWedjagkires,^ in addition 
to the treasures he had accumulated during his reign. He left his throne to Asoph Dowlah, a son by the 
younger Begum, who proved to be a man of weak intellect and debauched habits, and who soon became 
a mere vassal of the East India Company, under the government of Mr. Hastings. To secure his subjec- 
tion, and guard against invasion from the neighboring states, Mr. Hastings compelled him to take large 
numbers of British troops into his pay, thus relieving the Company of enormous expense, and subjecting 
the natives to the severest exactions from men ostensibly placed among them for their protection. Single 
officers of the British army were known to have accumulated fortunes of several hundred thousand 
pounds during a few years service in Oude. Nearly the whole kingdom was thus reduced from a state 
of the highest prosperity, to beggary and ruin. The young Nabob was unable to make his regular pay- 
ments of tribute, until, at the close of 1780, a debt of =£1,400,000 stood against him on the Company's books. 

Mr. Hastings was, at this time, in the most pressing want of money. He had powerful enemies at Cal- 
cutta; his continuance in office depended on his being able to relieve the Company at once from its finan 
cial difficulties ; and to do this effectually was the object of his memorable journey into upper India, in 
July, 1780. He looked to two sources of supply, Benares and Oude ; and from one or both of these, ho 
was detenniued to extort the means of relief from all his embarrassments. In respect to Benares, Mr. 
Mill states, in his British India, that Cheyte Sing, the Rajah of that kingdom, had paid his tribute " with 
an exactness rarely exemplified in the history of the tributary princes of Hindostan." But the same 
system had been adopted with him, as with the Nabob of Oude; and when he at last declared his inabil- 
ity to pay, Mr. Hastings threw him into prison dui'ing the journey mentioned above, deprived him of his 
throne, and stripped him of all his treasures. They proved, however, to be only £200,000, a sum far short 
of what Mr. Hastings expected, for he had always supposed the Rajah to be possessed of immense hoards 
of wealth. 

Disappointed in his first object, the Governor General now turned his attention to Oude. He knew 
the young Nabob would be ready, on almost any tenns, to purchase deliverance from the troops which 
were quartered on his kingdom. He accordingly appointed a meeting with him at Chunar, a fortress of 
Benares, September 19th, 1781. Here the Nabob secretly offered him a bribe of £100,000. Mr. Hastings 
took it ; whether with the intention to keep it as his own or pay it over to the Company, does not cer- 
tainly appear. The transaction, however, soon became public, and the money was finally paid over, but 
not without a letter from Mr. Hastings to the Board of Directors, intimating in the most significant terms 
his anxiety to retain the money. On this point, Mr. Sheridan touches with great force in the progress 
of his speech. But Asoph Dowlah was not to escape so easily. A much larger sura than £100,000 was 
needed, and he was at length driven to an arrangement by which it was agreed, in the words of Mr. Mill, 
"that his Highness should be relieved from the expense, which he was unable to bear, of the English 
troops and gentleinen; and he, on his part, engaged to strip the Begums of both their treasures and their 
jaghires, delivering to the Governor General the proceeds." — Brit. India, iv., 375. In other words, he 
was to rob his mother and his grandmother, not only of all their property, but of the yearly income left 
by his father for their support. 

But it was easier for the Nabob to promise than to perform. Such were the struggles of nature and 
reUgion in his breast, that for three months he hesitated and delayed, while Mr. Hastings, who was in the 
utmost need of money, was urging him to the performance. Finally, Mr. Middletou, the Resident at 
Oude, was ordered to cut the matter short — "to supersede the authority of the Nabob, and perform the 
necessary measures by the operation of English troops," if there was any further delay. Under this 
threat, Asoph resumed the jaghires; but declared, in so doing, that it was "an act of compulsion." • The 
treasures were next to be seized. They were stored in the Zenana or Harem at Fyzabad, where the 
princesses resided; a sacred inclosure, guarded with superstitious veneration by the religion of the Hin- 
doos, against access of all except its own inmates. A body of English troops, under the guidance of Mr. 
Middleton, marched to Fyzabad, on the 8th of January, 1782, and demanded the treasures. They were 



The lands thus farmed were also called jaghires, and those who farmed them jaghiredars. 



406 MR. SHERIDAN AGAINST [1788. 

refused, and the town and castie were immediately taken by storm. The Zenana was now in the power 
of the English ; but Mr. Middletou shrmik from an act of profanation which would probably have created 
a general revolt throughout Oude, and endeavored to break the spirit of the Begums by other means. 
He threw into prison their two ministers of state, aged men of the highest distinction ; abridged them 
of their food, till they were on the borders of starvation ; tortured them with the lash ; deprived the in- 
mates of the Zenana of their ordinary supply of provisions, till they were on the point of perishing of 
want; and thus succeeded in extorting property to the amount of £600,000, leaving these wretched worn 
eu nothing for their support or comfort, not even their common household utensils. 

Such was the charge which Mr. Sheridan was now to lay before the House of Lords, on the fourteenth 
day of the trial, Mr. Fox having previously submitted that which related to the treatment of Cheyte Sing. 
The facts in this case were not denied by Mr. Hastings as to any of the important particulars. His de- 
fense was this: (1.) That the property did not belong to the Begums. (2.) That their plunder was de- 
manded by state necessity. (3.) That they had rebelled against him by attempting to assist Cheyte Sing, 
when deposed; by inducing the jaghiredars, or farmers of t\\Q jagliires, to resist their I'esumption ; and 
by promoting insurrections in Oude. To get affidavits on these points, Mr. Hastings had sent his friend, 
Sir Elijah Impey, Chief Justice of Bengal, some hundreds of miles into Oude. (4.) That he was not re- 
sponsible for the cruelties practiced on the Begums and their ministers, because he had given no direct 
order on that subject. Such was Mr. Hastings' defense before the House of Commons ; and hence Mr. 
Sheridan shaped his speech before the House of Lords to meet these points. 

After disclaiming, in his exordium, those vindictive feelings so loudly charged upon the managers by 
Mr. Hastings' friends : 

I. He proves by the testimony of Lord Comwallis the wretched condition to which Oude was reduced; 
charges all its calamities on the misgovernment and violence of Mr. Hastings ; and shows that it was 
nevertheless extremely difficult, at such a distance, to produce the full evidence which might be desired 
of what every one knew to be the fact. 

IL He then dwells at large on the evidence. (1.) That affiarded by Mr. Hastings himself, in the con- 
tradictory nature of his various defenses before the House of Commons. (2.) That which went to show 
the character and station of the Begums, and their perfect right to the property they held. The latter 
is proved by the explicit decision of the Council at Calcutta, sanctioned by Mr. Hastings himself, after 
deliberate inquiry ; and also by the guarantees of the Company, founded on that decision. 

IIL He briefly touches on the plea of State Necessity, and rejects it with indignation, as wholly in- 
applicable to a case like this. 

IV. He takes up the treaty at Chunar for plundering the Begums, and the pretexts by which it had 
been justified. Here he comments with great severity on the conduct of Impey in taking the affidavits, 
and his appearance before the Lords as a witness — goes at great length in an examination of the affi- 
davits — shows by a comparison of dates and by other circumstances, that the whole of this defense VTas 
an after-thought, resorted to by Mr. Hastings, subsequent to the treaty, to excuse his conduct — and that 
there were causes enough for the commotions in Oude, arising out of the oppression of the English, with- 
out any intervention of the Begums. 

V. He describes the scenes connected with the resumption of the jaghircs, and the cruelties inflicted 
upon the Begums and their ministers to extort the treasures. 

VI. He charges all these crimes and cruelties upon Mr. Hastings, as committed by his authorized 
agents, and rendered necessary by his express instructions. 

This speech, considered as a comment on evidence, is one of great ability, notwithstanding the imperfect 
manner in which it is reported. It was a task for which Mr. Sheridan's mind was pecuharly fitted. His 
keen sagacity, ready wit, and thorough knowledge of the human heart, had here the widest scope for 
their exercise. He shows uncommon tact in sifting testimony, detecting motives, and exposing the sub- 
terfuges, contradictions, and falsehoods of Mr. Hastings and his friends. Intermingled with the examin- 
ation of the evidence, there is a great deal of keen satire and bitter sarcasm, which must have told pow- 
erfully on the audieuce, especially when set off by that easy, pointed, and humorous style of delivery, in 
which Mr. Sheridan so greatly excelled. When he rises into a higher strain, as in examining Mr. Hast- 
ings' plea of "state necessity," or describing the desperation of the natives, throwing themselves on the 
swords of the soldiery, under the cruel exactions of Major Hanney, he is truly and powerfully eloquent. 
His attempts to be pathetic or sentimental, as in his famous description of Filial Piety, are an utter fail- 
ure. It is this passage, in connection with his constant tendency to strain after eflect, which has led 
some, at the present day, to underrate the talents of Mr. Sheridan, and treat him as a mere ranter. His 
biographer, Mr. Moore, suggests that many of the blemishes in his printed speeches may be ascribed to 
the bad taste of his reporter, who makes even Mr. Fox talk, at times, in very lofty and extravagant lan- 
guage. Tins may to a certain extent be true, but we can not doubt that the "faults of taste" spoken of 
by Mr. Windham lay in this direction. Sheridan looked upon the audience in Westminster Hall with 
the eye of an actor. He saw the admirable opportunity which it afforded him for scenic effect ; and he 
obviously resorted to clap-trap in many passages, which he contrived to make most of his audience feel 
were his best ones, when they were really his worst. Still, these form only a small part of the speech, 
and there are many passages to which we can not deny the praise of high and genuine eloquence. 



1788.] 



WARREN HASTINGS ON THE BEGUM CHARGE. 



407 



SPEECH, &c. 



My Lords, — I shall not waste your Lordships" 
tirae nor my own, by any preliminary observa- 
tions on the importance of the subject before 
you, or on the propriety of our bringing it in this 
solemn manner to a final decision. My honor- 
able friend [Mr. Burke], the principal mover of 
the impeachment, has already executed the task 
in a way the most masterly and impressive. He, 
whose indignant and enterprising genius, roused 
by the calls of public justice, has, with unprece- 
dented labor, perseverance, and eloquence, excit- 
ed one branch of the Legislature to the vindica- 
tion of our national character, and through whose 
means the House of Commons now makes this 
embodied stand in favor of man against man's 
iniquity, need hardly be followed on the general 
grounds of the prosecution. 

Confiding in the dignity, the liberality, and in- 
The prosecu- telligencc of the tribunal before which 
tecTb^viniiict" I "o\v have the honor to appear in my 
ive feelings, delegated capacity of a manager, I do 
not, indeed, conceive it necessary to engage your 
Lordships' attention for a single moment with 
any introductory animadversions. But there is 
one point which here presents itself that it be- 
comes me not to overlook. Insinuations have 
been thrown out that my honorable colleagues 
and myself" are actuated by motives of malignity 
against the unfortunate prisoner at the bar. An 
imputation of so serious a nature can not be per- 
mitted to pass altogether without comment ; 
though it comes in so loose a shape, in such 
whispers and oblique hints as to prove to a 
certainty that it was made in the consciousness, 
and, therefore, with the circumspection of false- 
hood. 

I can, my Lords, most confidently aver, that a 
prosecution more disinterested in all its motives 
and ends ; more free from personal malice or 
personal interest ; more perfectly public, and 
more purely animated by the simple and un- 
mixed spirit of justice, never was brought in 
any counti'y, at any time, by any body of men, 
against any individual. What possible resent- 
ment can we entertain against the unfortunate 
prisoner ? What possible interest can we have 
in his conviction ? What possible object of a 
personal nature can we accomplish by his ruin ? 
For myself, my Lords, I make this solemn assev- 
eration, that I discharge my breast of all malice, 
hatred, and ill will against the prisoner, if at any 
time indignation at his crimes has planted in it 
these passions ; and I believe, ray Lords, that I 
may with equal truth answer for every one of 
my colleagues. 

We are, my Lords, anxious, in stating the 
crimes with which he is charged, to keep out of 
recollection the person of the unfortunate pris- 
oner. In prosecuting him to conviction, we are 
impelled only by a sincere abhorrence of his 
guilt, and a sanguine hope of remedying future 
delinquency. We can have no private incentive 
to the part we have taken. We are actuated 
singly by the zeal we feel for the public welfare, 



and by an honest solicitude for the honor of our 
country, and the happiness of those who are un- 
der its dominion and protection. 

With such views, we really, my Lords, lose 
sight of Mr. Hastings, who, however great in 
some other respects, is too insignificant to be 
blended with these important circumstances. 
The unfortunate prisoner is, at best, to my mind, 
no mighty object. Amid the series of mischiefs 
and enormities to my sense seeming to surround 
him, what is he but a petty nucleus, involved 
in its lamincB^ scarcely' seen or heard of? 

This prosecution, my Lords, was not, as is al- 
leged, " begot in prejudice, and nursed in error." 
It originated in the clearest conviction of the 
wrongs which the natives of Hindostan have en- 
dured by the maladministration of those in whose 
hands this country had placed extensive powers ; 
which ought to have been exercised for the ben- 
efit of the governed, but which was used by the 
prisoner for the shameful purpose of oppression. 
I repeat with emphasis, my Lords, that nothing 
personal or malicious has induced us to institute 
this prosecution. It is absurd to suppose it. 
We come to your Lordships' bar as the repre- 
sentatives of the Commons of England ; and, as 
acting in this public capacity, it might as truly 
be said that the Commons, in whose name the 
impeachment is brought before your Lordships, 
were actuated by enmity to the prisoner, as that 
we, their deputed organs, have any private spleen 
to gratify in discharging the duty imposed upon 
us by our principals. 

Your Lordships will also recollect and dis- 
criminate between impeachment for Does not en- 
capital offenses and impeachment for ganger Mr. 

, .-', . 1 • 1 T Ha.stings'ljfe. 

high crmies and misdemeanors. In 
an impeachment of the former kind, when the 
life of an individual is to be forfeited on convic- 
tion, if malignity be indulged in giving a strong 
tincture and coloring to facts, the tenderness of 
man's nature will revolt at it ; for, however 
strongly indignant we may be at the perpetra- 
tion of offenses of a gross quality, there is a feel- 
ing that will protect an accused person from the 
influence of malignity in such a situation ; but 
where no traces of this malice are discoverable, 
wiiere no thirst for blood is seen, where, seeking 
for exemplary more than sanguinary justice, an 
impeachment is brought for high crimes and 
misdemeanors, malice will not be imputed to the 
prosecutors if, in illustration of the crimes al- 
leged, they should adduce every possible circum- 
stance in support of their allegations. Why 
will it not ? Because their ends have ntong 
abhorrent to human tenderness. Because, in 
such a case as the present, for instance, ajl that 
is aimed at in convicting the prisoner is a tem- 
porary seclusion fi'om the society of his coun- 
trymen, whose name he has tarnished by his 
crimes, and a deduction from the enormous 
spoils which he has accumulated by his greedy 
rapacity. ^. _ '-- ' 

I. The only matter which I shall, ijjftliis stage 



,^'1 



408 



MR. SHERIDAN AGAINST 



[17S8. 



of my inquiiy, lay before your Lordships, in order 
Wretched con- ^o givc you ail imprcssioH of the in- 
ditioii ofoude, fluence of the crimes on the prisoner 

and Mr. Hast- . , • , , 

ings' responsi- ovcr the country in which they were 
bihty therefor, committed, is to refer to some pas- 
sages in a letter of the Earl of Cornwallis.^ 

You see, my Lords, that the British govern- 
ment, which ought to have been a blessing to 
the powers in India connected with it, has 
proved a scourge to the natives, and the cause 
of desolation to their most flourishing provinces. 

Behold, my Lords, this frightful picture of the 
consequences of a government of violence and 
oppression ! Surely the condition of wretched- 
ness to which this once happy and independent 
prince is reduced by our cruelty, and the ruin 
which in some way has been brought upon his 
country, call loudly upon your Lordships to in- 
terpose, and to rescue the national honor and 
reputation from the infamy to which both will 
be exposed, if no investigation be made into the 
cau.ses of their calamities, and no punishment in- 
flicted on the authors of them. By policy as 
well as justice, you are vehemently urged to 
vindicate the English character in the East; 
for, my Lords, it is manifest that the native 
powers have so little reliance on our faith, that 
the preservation of our possessions in that division 
of the world can only be effected by convincing 
the princes that a religious adherence to its en- 
gagements with them shall hereafter distinguish 
our India orovernment.^ 



1 Here Mr. Sheridan read the letter of Lord Corn- 
wallis, then Governor General of India, which stated 
that he had been received by the Nabob Vizier 
[Asoph Dowlah] with every mark of friendship and 
respect ; but that the attentions of the court of Luck- 
now [the capital of Oude] did not prevent his seeing 
the desolation that overspread the face of the coun- 
try, the sight of which had shocked his very soul ; that 
he spoke to tlie Nabob on the subject, and earnestly 
recommended to him to adopt some system of gov- 
ernment which miglit restore the prosperity of his 
kingdom and make his people happy ; that the de- 
graded prince replied to his Lordship, " that as long 
as the demands of the English government upon the 
revenue of Oude should remain unlimited, he, the 
Nabob, could have no interest in establishing econ- 
omy, and that, while they continued to interfere in 
the internal regulations of the country, it would be 
in vain for him to attempt any salutary reform ; for 
that his subjects knew he was only a cipher in his 
own dominions, and therefore laughed at and de- 
spised liis authority aud that of his subjects. 

The reveitue of Oude, before its connection with 
the English, exceeded three millions of pounds ster- 
ling a year, and was levied without any deterioration 
of the country. Within a very few years the coun- 
try was reduced, by the exactions of the Company 
and its agents, in connection with the misgovern- 
ment of the Nabob, to the condition described above 
by Lord Cornwallis. 

2 To prove the necessity of bringing such a con- 
viction to the mind of every native prince, Mr. Sher- 
idan read a letter to Lord Cornwallis from Captain 
Kirkpatrick, who was resident at the court of the 
great Mahratta chief, Madajee Scindia. This .let- 
ter stated that the new system of moderation intro- 
duced by his Lordship was certainly the only one 



To these letters what answer shall we return ? 
Let it not, my Lords, be by words, Nothing but the 
which will not find credit with the [Tgumrc?/ 
natives, who have been so often de- fije,"pe o'rthe" 
ceived by our professions, but by natives. 
deeds which will assure them that we are at 
length truly in earnest. It is only by punishing 
those who have been guilty of the delinquencies 
which have ruined the country, and by showing 
that future criminals will not be encouraged or 
countenanced by the ruling powers at home, that 
we can possibly gain confidence with the people 
of India. This alone will revive their respect 
for us, and secure our authority over them. 
This alone will restore to us the alienated at- 
tachment of the much-injured Nabob, silence his 
clamors, heal his grievances, and remove his dis- 
trust. This alone will make him feel that he 
may cherish his people, cultivate his lands, and 
extend the mild hand of parental care over a fer- 
tile and industrious kingdom, without dreading 
that prosperity will entail upon him new rapine 
and extortion. This alone will inspire the Na- 
bob with confidence in the English government, 
and the subjects of Oude with confidence in the 
Nabob. This alone will give to the soil of that 
delightful country the advantages which it de- 
rived from a beneficent Providence, and make it 
again w^hat it was w^hen invaded by an English 
spoiler, the garden of India. 

It is in the hope, my Lords, of accomplishing 
these salutary ends, of restoring character to En- 
gland and happiness to India, that we have come 
to the bar of this exalted tribunal. 

In looking round for an object fit to be held 
out to an oppressed people, and to the ^^ Hastin-s 
world as an example of national just- t'le real crim- 
ice, we are forced to fix our eyes on 
Mr. Hastings. It is he, my Lords, who has de- 
graded our fame, and blasted our fortunes in the 
East, It is he who has tyrannized with relent- 
less sevei'ity over the devoted natives of those re- 
gions. It is he who must atone, as a victim, for 
the multiplied calamities he has produced ! 

But though, my Lords, I designate the pris- 
oner as a proper subject of exemplary Not to he con 
punishment, let it not be presumed ^mTJam^T 
that I wish to turn the sword of just- evidence. 
ice against him merely because some example 
is required. Such a wish is as remote from my 
heart as it is from equity and law. Were I not 
persuaded that it is impossible I should fail to 
render the evidence of his crimes as conclusive 
as the effects of his conduct are confessedly afflict- 
ing, I should blush at having selected him as an 



to give stability to the British empire in India ; but 
also observed that, as the princes of that country 
bad so frequently had cause to lament the infidelity 
of engagements, it would require time, and repeated 
proofs of good faith, to convince them of the honesty 
of the professions thus held out to them ; that ambi- 
tion, or a desire of conquest, should no longer be en- 
couraged by British councils, and that a most scru- 
pulous adherence to all treaties and engagements 
should bo the basis of our future political transac- 
tion.?. 



1788] 



WARREN HASTINGS ON THE BEGUM CHARGE. 



409 



object of retributive justice. If I invoke this 
heavy penalty on Mr. Hastings, it is because I 
honestly believe him to be a flagitious delinquent, 
and by far the most so of all those who have con- 
tributed to ruin the natives of India and disgrace 
the inhabitants of Britain. But while I call for 
justice upon the prisoner, I sincerely desire to 
render him justice. It would indeed distress me, 
could I imagine that the weight and consequence 
of the House of Commons, who are a party in 
this prosecution, could operate in the slightest 
degree to his prejudice ; but I entertain no such 
solicitude or apprehension. It is the glory of 
the Constitution under which we live, that no 
man can be punished without guilt, and this 
guilt must be publicl}^ demonstrated by a series 
of clear, legal, manifest evidence, so that noth- 
ing dark, nothing oblique, nothing authoritative, 
nothing insidious, shall work to the detriment of 
the subject. It is not the peering suspicion of 
apprehended guilt. It is not any popular ab- 
horrence of its wide-spread consequences. It is 
not the secret consciousness in the bosom of the 
judge which can excite the vengeance of the law, 
and authorize its infliction ! No ! In this good 
land, as high as it is happy, because as just as it 
is free, all is definite, equitable, and exact. The 
law^s must be satisfied before they are incurred 5 
and ere a hair of the head can be plucked to the 
ground, legal guilt must be established by legal 
proof. 

But this cautious, circumspect, and guarded 
Peculiar diffi- pnociplc of English jurisprudence, 
cuity of Ob- which we all so much value and re- 
taining evi- T r 1 ^ ^ • 1 
dence in this vcrc, 1 Iccl at prcscnt m some degree 

*^*^^' inconvenient, as it may prove an im- 

pediment to public justice ; for the managers of 
this impeachment labor under difficulties with 
regard to evidence that can scarcely occur in 
any oilrer prosecution. What ! my Lords, it 
may perhaps be asked, have none of the consid- 
erable persons who are sufferers by his crimes 
arrived to offer at your Lordships' bar their test- 
imony, mixed with their execrations against the 



prisoner 



N( 



-there are none. These suffer- 



ers are persons whose manners and prejudices 
keep them separate from all the world, and 
whose religion will not permit them to appear 
before 3'our Lordships. But are there no wit- 
nesses, unprejudiced spectators of these enormi- 
ties, x'cady to come forward, from the simple love 
of justice, and to give a faithful narrative of the 
transactions that passed under their eyes ? No — 
there are none. The witnesses whom we have 
been compelled to summon are, for the most part, 
the emissaries and agents employed, and involved 
in these transactions ; the wily accomplices of 
the prisoner's guilt, and the supple instruments 
of his oppressions. But are there collected no 
written documents or authentic papers, contain- 
ing a true and perfect account of his crimes ? 
No — there are none.^ The only papers we have 



^ This is finely and truly put. The managers had 
the severest difficulties to encounter in respect to ev- 
idence. It would naturally be expected that some. 



procured are written by the party himself, or the 
participators in his proceedings, who studied, as 
it was their interest, though contrary to their 
dut}^, to conceal the criminality of their conduct, 
and, consequently, to disguise the truth. 

But though, my Lords, I dwell on the difficul- 
ties which the managers have to encounter with 
respect to the evidence in this impeachment, I 
do not solicit indulgence, or even mean to hint, 
that wiiat w^e have adduced is in any material 
degree defective. Weak no doubt it is in some 
parts, and deplorable, as undistinguished by any 
compunctious visitings of repenting accomplices. 
But there is enough, and enough in sure validity, 
notwithstanding every disadvantage and impedi- 
ment, to abash the front of guilt no longer hid, 
and to flash those convictions on the minds of 
your Lordships, which should be produced. 

II. I now proceed, my Lords, to re- Examination 
view the evidence. of evidence. 

(1.) The first article which I shall notice 
must, I think, be considered pretty Mr. Hastings' 
strong. It is the defense, or i-ather 'ni""=*istency 
the defenses^ of the prisoner before the House 
of Commons : for he has already made four : 
three of which he has since abandoned and en- 
deavored to discredit. I believe it is .a novelty 
in the history of criminal jurispi'udence, that a 
person accused should first set up a defense, and 
afterward strive to invalidate it. But this, cer- 
tainly, has been the course adapted by the pi'is- 
oner ; and I am the more surprised at it, as he 
has had the full benefit of the ablest counsel. 
Rescued from his own devious guidance, I could 
hardly have imagined that he would have acted 
so unwisely or indecently, as to evince his con- 
tempt of one House of Parliament by confessing 
the impositions w^hich he had practiced on the 
other. But by this exti-aordinary proceeding, 
he has given, unwarily, to your Lordships a 
pledge of his past truth, in the acknowledged 
falsehood of his present conduct. 

In every court of law in England, the confes- 
sion of a criminal, when not obtained by any 



at least, of the victims of Mr. Hastings' policy would 
appear in person to convict him of his crimes. Mr. 
Erskine, on the trial of Stockdale, refers to this fact 
in a passage of extraordinary dexterity and force. 
He contrasts the present case with that of Verres, 
in which hundreds flocked from Sicily to Rome, as 
witnesses against their oppressor ; but the princes 
of Hindostan, though suffering a thousandfold great- 
er oppressions, could not, for reasons hinted at by 
Mr. Sheridan, be brought from the other side of the 
globe to confront the author of their ruin. Nearly 
all the English residents in India sided with Hast- 
ings, either because they had shared in the robbery 
of India, or because they believed that his extor- 
tions and cruelties were the only means by which 
the British power could have been maintained in 
that country. These residents could not, therefore, 
be expected to come forward as witnesses against 
him. It was only, as Mr. Sheridan states, from his 
own papers, and the testimony of those who partic- 
ipated in his crimes, that evidence could be obtained ; 
and it was proper that the court should be apprised 
at the outset of the extreme difficulty under which 
the Managers labored in regard to evidence. 



410 



MR. SHERIDAN AGAINST 



[1788. 



promise of favor or lenity, or by violent threats, 
is always admitted as conclusive evidence against 
himself. And if such confession were made be- 
fore a grave and respectable assembly of per- 
sons competent to take cognizance of crimes, 
there is no doubt but that it would have due 
weight, because it is fair to presume that it must 
be voluntary, and not procured by any undue or 
improper means. The prisoner has, in his de- 
fense, admitted many facts ; and it is the inten- 
tion of the managers, accordingly, to urge in sup- 
port of the charges his admission of them. For, 
when he did it, he was speaking the language 
not of inconsiderate rashness and haste, but of 
deliberate consideration and reflection, as will 
appear to your Lordships by a passage which I 
shall cite from the introduction to the defense 
read by Mr. Hastings himself at the bar of the 
House of Commons. He employs the following- 
words : " Of the discouragement to which I al- 
lude, I shall mention but two points, and these 
it is incumbent upon me to mention, because 
they relate to effects which the justice of this 
honorable House may, and I trust will, avert. 
The first is an obligation to my being at all com- 
mitted in my defense ; since, in so wide a field 
for discussion, it would be impossible not to ad- 
mit some things of which an advantage might be 
taken to turn them into evidence against myself, 
whereas another might as well use as I could, 
or better, the same materials of my defense, 
without involving me in the same consequences. 
But I am sure the honorable House will yield 
me its protection against the cavils of unwar- 
ranted inference, and if truth can tend to convict 
me, I am content to be myself the channel to 
convey it. The other objection lies in my own 
breast. It was not till Monday last that I form- 
ed the resolution, and I knew not then whether 
I might not, in consequence, be laid under the 
obligation of preparing and completing in five 
days (and in effect so it proved) the refutation 
of charges which it has been the labor of my 
accuser, armed with all the powers of Parlia- 
ment, to compile during as many years of almost 
undisturbed leisure." 

Here, then, my Lords, the prisoner has, upon 
deliberation, committed his defense to paper ; and 
after having five days to consider whether he 
should present it or not, he actually delivers it 
himself to the House of Commons as one founded 
in truth, and triumphantly remarks, that " if truth 
could tend to convict him, he was willing to be 
himself the channel to convey it." 

But what is his language now that he has the 
advice of counsel?^ Why, that there is not a 
word of truth in what he delivered to the House 



* Mr. Hastings' counsel told him that he had com- 
mitted himself imprudently in some parts of the de- 
fense which he delivered in at the bar of the House 
of Commons. He, therefore, introduced his friend, 
Major Scott, to prove that the paper had been drawn 
up by Mr. Middlcton, Mr. Shore, and others— that 
Mr. Hastings had not even read it through, and 
ought not, therefore, to be held responsible for its 
contents. 



of Commons as truth ! He did not, it seems, 
himself prepare the defense which he read as 
his own before that body. He employed others 
to draw it up. Major Scott comes to your bar, 
and represents Mr. Hastings, as it were, con- 
tracting for a character, to be made ready to his 
hands. Knowing, no doubt, that the accusation 
of the Commons had been drawn up b}^ a com- 
mittee, he thought it necessary, as a point of 
punctilio, to answer it by a committee also. For 
himself, he had no knowledge of the facts! no 
recollection of the circumstances ! He commits 
his defense wholly to his friends ! He puts his 
m-emory in trust, and duly nominates and appoints 
commissioners to take charge of it ! One fur- 
nishes the raw material of fact, the second spins 
the argument, and the third twines up the con- 
clusion ; while Mr. Hastings, with a master's eye, 
is cheering them on, and overlooking the loom. 
To Major Scott he says, "you have my good 
faith in your hands — take care of my consisten- 
cy — manage yc\j veracity to the best advantage !" 
'"Mr. Middleton, you have my memory in com- 
mission!" "Mr. Shore, make me out a good 
fnancier!" "Remember, Mr. Impey, you have 
my humanity in your hands !"^ When this prod- 
uct of their skill was done, he brings it to the 
House of Commons, and says, " I was equal to 
the task. I knew^ the difficulties, but I scorned 
them : here is the truth, and if the truth tends 
to convict me, I am content myself to be the 
channel of it." His friends hold up their heads 
and say, "What noble magnanimity ! This must 
be the effect of real innocence!" 

But this journeyman's work, after all, is found 
to be defective. It is good enough for the House 
of Commons, but not for your Lordships. The 
prisoner now presents himself at your bar, and 
his only apprehension seems to arise from what 
had been thus done for him. He exclaims, " I am 
careless of what the managers say or do. Some 
of them have high passions, and others have bit- 
ter w^ords, but these I heed not. Save me from 
the peril of my own panegyric ; snatch me from 
my own friends. Do not believe a syllable of 
what I said before ! I can not submit now to be 
tried, as I imprudently challenged, by the ac- 
count which I have myself given of my own 
transactions!" Such is the language of the 
prisoner, by which it appears that truth is not 
natural to him, but that falsehood comes at his 
beck. Truth, indeed, it is said, lies deep, and 
requires time and labor to gain ; but falsehood J 
swims on the surface, and is always at hand. / 

It is in this way, my Lords, that the prisoner 
shows you how he sports with the dignity and 
feelings of the House by asserting that to be 
false, and not entitled *o credit this day, which, 
on a former, he had averred to be truth itself. 
Indeed, from this avowal and disavowal of de- 

* The keenness of this satire can be understood 
only by one who has entered fully into the charac- 
ter of the men here brought forward — the conven- 
ient elasticity of memory in Middleton, the aban- 
donment of Impey to every excess of cruelt}' which 
would promote the designs of Hastings, &c. 



1788.] 



WARREN HASTINGS ON THE BEGUM CHARGE. 



411 



fenses, and from the present defense differing 
from all the former which have been delivei-ed 
to your Lordships, it does seem that Mr. Hast- 
ings thinks he may pursue this course just as far 
as best suits his convenience or advantage. It 
is not at all improbable, if he should deem it 
expedient, that he will hei-eafter abandon the 
one now submitted to you, and excuse himself 
by saying, "It was not made by me, but by my 
counsel, and I hope, therefore, your Lordships 
will give no credit to it." But if he will abide 
by this, his last revised and amended defense, I 
will join issue with him upon it, and prove it to 
be in numerous places void of truth, and almost 
every part of it unfounded in argument as well 
as fact. 

(2.) I am now to advert more particularly to 
Character of the the evidcncc in support of the alle- 
t^idr'rT4.Ttothe gations of the charge on which the 
property. prisoucr is arraigned. We have al- 

ready shown, most satisfactorily, that the Be- 
gums of Oude were of high birth and distin- 
guished rank ; the elder, or grandmother of the 
reigning prince being the daughter of a person 
of ancient and illustrious lineage, and the youn- 
ger, or prince's mother, of descent scarcely less 
noble. We have also shown, with equal clear- 
ness, by the testimony of several witnesses, how 
sacred is the residence of women in India. To 
menace, therefore, the dwelling of these prin- 
cesses with violation, as the prisoner did, was a 
species of torture, the cruelty of which can only 
be conceived by those who are conversant with 
the peculiar customs and notions of the inhabit- 
ants of Hindostan. 

We have nothing in Europe, my Lords, which 
can sive us an idea of the manners of 



paid to the the East. Your Lord.ships can not 

highpr cl?""- 



Reverence 

laid 

es of females evcn Icam thc right nature of the peo- 
111 India. Yt]e^s feelings and prejudices from any 
history of other jNIohammedan countries — not 
even from that of the Turks ; for they ai'e a 
mean and degraded race in comparison with 
many of these great families, who, inheriting 
from their Persian ancestors, pi'eserve a purer 
style of prejudice and a loftier superstition. 
Women there are not as in Turkey — they nei- 
ther go to the mosque nor to the bath. It is 
not the thin vail alone that hides them ; but, in 
the inmost recesses of their Zenana, they are 
kept from public view by those reverenced and 
protected walls, which, as Mr. Hastings and Sir 
Elijah Impey admit, are held sacred even by the 
ruffian hand of warfare, or the more uncourteous 
hand of the law. But, in this situation, they are 
not confined from a mean and selfish policy of 
man, or from a coarse and sensual jealousy. En- 
shrined, rather than immured, their habitation and 
retreat is a sanctuary, not a prison — their jeal- 
ousy is their own — a jealousy of their own hon- 
or, that leads them to regard liberty as a degra- 
dation, and the gaze of even admiring eyes as 
inexpiable pollution to the purity of their fame 
and the sanctity of iheir honor. 

Such being the general opinion (or prejudices, 
let them be called) of this country, your Lord- 



ships will find that whatever treasures were 
given or lodged in a Zenana of this description 
must, upon the evidence of the thing itself, be 
placed beyond the reach of resumption. To 
dispute with the counsel about the original right 
to those treasures — to talk of a title to them by 
the Mohammedan law ! Their title to them is 
the title of a saint to the relics upon an altar, 
placed there by Piety, guarded by holy Super- 
stition, and to be snatched from thence only by 
Sacrilege.'^ 

What, now, my Lords, do you think of the 
tyranny and savage apathy of a man who could 
act in open defiance of those prejudices which 
are so interwoven wtth the very existence of the 
females of the East, that they can be removed 
only by death ? What do your Lordships think 
of the atrocity of a man who could threaten to 
profane and violate the sanctuary of the prin- 
cesses of Oude, by declaring that he would storm 
it with his troops, and expel the inhabitants from 
it by force? There is, my Lords, displa3'ed in 
the whole of this black transaction a wantonness 
of cruelty and ruffian-like ferocity that, happily, 
are not often incident even to the most depraved 
and obdurate of our species.'' 

Had there been in the composition of the pris- 
oner's heart one generous propensity, or lenient 
disposition even slumbering and torpid, it must 
have been awakened and animated into kindness 
and mercy toward these singularly interesting 
females. Their character, and situation at the 
time, presented every circumstance to disarm 
hostility, and to kindle the glow of manly sym- 
pathy ; but no tender impression could be made 
on his soul, which is as hard as adamant, and as 
black as sin. Stable as the everlasting hills in 
its schemes and purposes of villainy, it has never 
once been shaken by the cries of affliction, the 
claims of charity, or the complaints of injustice. 
With steady and undeviating step he marches on 
to the consummation of the abominable projects 
of wickedness which ai'e engendered and con- 
trived in its gloonty recesses. What his soul 
prepares his hands are ever ready to execute. 

It is true, my Lords, that the prisoner is con- 
spicuously gifted with the energy of vice, and 

^ Mr. Law, one of tlie counsel for Mr. Hastings, en- 
deavored, in liis reply, to throw ridicule on this met- 
aphor, by asking how the Begum could be considered 
a "saint," or how the camels, which formed part of 
the treasure, could be placed on an "altar." This 
called forth one of Mr. Sheridan's keen retorts. 
"This is the tirst time in my life," said he, " in 
which I ever heard of' special pleading' on a meta- 
phor, or a ' bill of indictment' against a trope ; but 
such is the turn of the learned counsel's mind, that; 
when he attempts to be luimorous, no jest can be 
found, and when serious, no fact is visible." 

'' Middleton, the instrument of Hastings in these 
cruelties, shows, in a letter of excuse to his master, 
how sacred the Zenana, or Harem, was considered 
among the Hindoos. " No man," he says, " can en- 
ter the walls of the Zenana — scarcely in the case of 
acting against an open enemy." It will be seen 
hereafter, how this threat was executed, and how 
Middleton himself shrunk from its literal perform- 
ance. 



412 



Mil. SHERIDAN AGAINST 



[1788. 



the firmness of indurated scnsibiiit}'. These are 
the qualities which he assiduously cultivates, and 
of which his friends vauntingly exult. They have, 
indeed, procured him his triumphs and his glories. 
Truly, my Lords, they have spread his fame, and 
erected the sombre pyramids of his renown. 

That the treasures, my Lords, of the Zenana, 
the object of the prisoner's rapacity, and the in- 
centive to his sacrilegious violation of this hal- 
lowed abode of the princesses of Oude, were 
their private j}yopcrli/, justly acquired, and legally 
secured, and not the money of the state, as is al- 
leged, has been clearly and incontestabl}' demon- 
strated. It must be recollected how conclusive 
was the testimony, both positive and circum- 
stantial, which we brought to support this point. 
Believing that it must have pressed itself upon 
your memories, I shall avoid here the tediousness 
of a detailed recapitulation. Permit me, how- 
ever, to call your attention to a very brief sum- 
mary of it. 

It is in complete evidence before you that Su- 
Pr<.ofti,at the J^H ul Dowlah, the husband of the 
treasures were elder [voungerl Bcgum, entertained^ 

the private , '■•' ° V ^ V i • •/■ 

property of the thc wamicst aliection lor his wile, 
egums. ^^^ ^y^^ liveliest solicitude for her 

happiness. Endeared to him by the double 
ties of conjugal attachment, and the grateful re- 
membrance of her exemplary conduct toward 
him in the season of his severest misfortunes and 
accumulated distress, he seems, indeed, to have 
viewed her with an extravagance of fondness 
bordering on enthusiasm. You know, my Lords, 
that when the Nabob [Sujah Dowlah] was re- 
duced, by the disastrous defeat which he sus- 
tained at Buxar, to the utmost extremity of ad- 
verse fortune, she, regardless of the danger and 
difficulties of the enterprise, fled to him, for the 
purpose of administering to his misery the solace 
of tenderness ; and, prompted by the noblest sen- 
timent, took along with her, for his relief, the 
jewels with which he had enriched her in his 
happier and more prosperous days. By the sale 
of these he raised a large sum of money, and re- 
trieved his fortunes. After this generous and 
truly exemplary conduct on her part, the devo- 
tion of the husband to the wife knew no bounds. 
Can any farther proof be required of it than the 
appointment of his son, by her [Asoph Dowlah, 
the reigning Nabob], as the successor to his 
throne ? With these dispositions, then, toward 
his wife, and from the manifest ascendency which 
she had acquired over him, is it, my Lords, I ask, 
an unwarrantable presumption that he did devise 
to her the treasures which she claimed ? On the 
question of the legal right which the Nabob had 
to make such a bequest I shall not now dwell ; 
it having been already shown, beyond disputa- 
tion, by the learned manager [Mr. Adam] who 
opened the charge, that, according to the theory 

^ Mr. Sheridan here inadvertently puts " elder" 
for " younger," as is obvious from his subsequent 
statement. The elder Begum was Sujah Dowlah's 
mother, and grandmother of the reigning Nabob, 
Asoph Dowlah, as stated by Mr. Sheridan on a pre- 
ceding page. 



as well as the practice of the Mohammedan law, 
the reigning prince may alienate and dispose of 
either real or personal property. And it farther 
appears, my Lords, from the testimony which has 
been laid before you, that the younger Bcgum, or 
the Nabob's [Asoph Dowlah] mother, lent mon- 
ey to her son, amounting to twenty-six lacs of 
rupees, for which she received, as a pledge, his 
bonds. Here is the evidcntia rci that the money 
so lent was acknowledged to be hers ; for no one 
borrows his own money and binds himself to re- 
pay it ! 

But, my Lords, let ns look into the origin of 
this pretended claim to the Begum's origin of the 
treasures. We hear nothing of it w^^e public*'''' 
till the Nabob [Asoph] became em- f^p^ty- 
barrassed by the enormous expense of maintain- 
ing the militaiy establishments to which he was 
compelled by the prisoner. Then, as a dernier 
resort, the title to the treasures was set up, as 
the property of the Crown, which could not be 
willed away. This, truly, was the dawn of the 
claim. Not long afterward, we detect the open 
interference of Mr. Hastings in this fraudulent 
transaction. It was, indeed, hardl}- to be ex- 
pected that he would permit so favorable an oc- 
casion to escape of indulging his greedy rapac- 
ity. We find, accordingly, that Mr. Bristow, 
the resident at the court of Lucknow [the capital 
of Oude], duly received instructions to support, 
with all possible dexterity and intrigue, the pre- 
tensions of the Nabob. The result of the nego- 
tiation which in consequence took place, was, 
that the mother, as well to relieve the distresses 
of her son, as to secure a portion of her property, 
agreed finally to cancel his bond for the twenty- 
six lacs of rupees already lent, and to pay him 
thirty additional lacs, or c£ 300, 000, making in 
the whole c£ 560, 000 sterling. Part of this sum 
it was stipulated should be paid in goods con- 
tained in the Zenana, which, as they consisted 
of arms and other implements of war, the Nabob 
alleged to be the property of the state, and re- 
fused to receive in payment. The point, how- 
ever, being referred to the Board at Calcutta, 
Mr. Hastings then, it is important to remark, 
vindicated the right of the Begums to all the 
goods of the Zenana, and brought Decided by Mr. 
over a majority of the council to his "nl ufuie'El- 
opinion. The matter in dispute be- s""!^. 
ing thus adjusted, a treaty between the mother 
and son was formally entered into, and to which 
the English became parties, guaranteeing its 
faithful execution. In consideration of the money 
paid to him by the mother, the son agreed to re- 
lea.se all claim to the landed and remaining parts 
of the personal estate, left by his father ^^^ ronfirm- 
Sujah ul Dowlah to the princess his edtothemby 
widow. Whatever, therefore, might 
have been her title to this property before, her 
right, under this treaty and the guarantee, be- 
came as legal, as strong, and obligatory, as the 
laws of India, and the laws of nations, could pos- 
sibly make it. 

But, my Lords, notwithstanding the opinion 
which Mr. Hastings so strenuously supported in 



i 



WARREN HASTINGS ON THE BEGUM CHARGE. 



413 



ouncil at Calcutta of the absolute right of 
Hastings' the princBss to all the property in the 
]Ti\'eV(^ Zenana, yet when it became conven- 
^unient. jgnt to his ncfarious purposes to dis- 

n\v- it, he, with an effrontery which has no ex- 
ample, declared that this recorded decision be- 
longed not to him, but to the majority of the 
council ! That, in short, being reduced to an in- 
efficient minority in the council, he did not con- 
sider himself as responsible for any of their acts, 
either of those he opposed or those he approved. 
My Lords, you are well acquainted with the na- 
ture of majorities and minorities ; but how shall 
I instance this new doctrine ? It is as if Mr. 
Burke, the great leader of this prosecution, 
should, some ten years hence, revile the mana- 
gers, and commend Mr. Hastings ! What, sir, 
might one of us exclaim to him, do you, who 
instigated the inquiry, who brought the charge 
against him, who impeached him, who convinced 
me, by your arguments, of his guilt, speak of Mr. 
Hastings in this plausive style ? Oh ! but sir, 
replies Mr. Burke, this was done in the House 
of Commons, where, at the time, I was one of an 
inefficient minority, and, consequently. I am not 
responsible for any measure, either those I op- 
posed or approved ! 

If, my Lords, at any future period, my honor- 
able friend should become so lost to truth, to 
honor, and consistenc}'', as to speak in this man- 
ner, what must be the public estimation of his 
character? Just such was the conduct of the 
prisoner in avowing that he did not consider 
himself responsible for the measures which he 
approved while controlled in the council by Gen- 
eral Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Fran- 
cis, the only halcyon season that India saw dur- 
ing his administration. 

But, my Lords, let it be observed that the 

claims of the Nabob to the treasures 

tense for thl of the Bejjums were, at this time, the 

wa.^*at'fimr only plea alleged for the seizure. 

passage of the These wcrc founded on a passafje of 

Koran. , Tr i • i • n 

the Koran, which is perpetually quot- 
ed, but never proved. Not a word was then 
mentioned of the strange rebellion which was 
afterwai-d conjured up, and of which the exist- 
ence and the notoriety w^ere equally a secret ! 
a disaffection which was at its height at the 
very moment when the Begums were dispens- 
ing their liberality to the Nabob, and exercising 
the greatest generosity to the English in dis- 
tress 1 a disturbance without its parallel in his- 
tory, which was raised by two women, carried 
on by eunuchs, and finally suppressed by an affi- 
davit / !^ 

No one, my Lords, can contemplate the seiz- 
Crueityofoom- urc of this treasure, with the attend- 
l'ob'"o°seize^the ^ut circumstanccs of aggravation, 
treasures. without being struck with horror at 



^ The force of this sarcasm upon Mr. Impey and 
his affidavits will be better understood when the 
reader comes to Mr. Sheridan's examination of 
Hastings' second pretense for seizing the treasures, 
namely, that the Begums and their ministers had 
fomented a rebellion against the Nabob. 



the complicated wickedness of the transaction 
We have already seen the noblest heroism and 
magnanimity displayed by the mother Begum. 
It was she, my Lords, you will recollect, who 
extricated, by the most generous interposition, 
her husband Sujah Dowlah from the rigors of 
his fortune after the fatal battle of Buxar. She 
even saved her son, the reigning Nabob, from 
death, at the imminent hazard of her own life. 
She, also, as you know, gave to her son his 
throne. A son so preserved, and so befriended, 
Mr. Hastings did arm against his benefactress, 
and his mother. He invaded the rights of that 
prince, that he might compel him to violate the 
laws of nature, and the obligations of gratitude, 
by plundering his parent. Yes, my Lords, it 
was the prisoner who cruelly instigated the son 
against the mother. That mother, who had 
twice given life to her son, who had added to it 
a throne, was (incredible as it may appear), by 
the compulsion of that man at your bar, to whose 
guardianship she was bequeathed by a dying 
husband — by that man, who is wholly insensible 
to every obligation which sets bounds to his ra- 
pacity and his oppression, was she pillaged and 
undone ! But the son was not without his ex- 
cuse. In the moment of anguish, when bewail- 
ing his hapless condition, he exclaimed that it 
was the English who had driven him to the per- 
petration of such enormities. " It is they who 
have reduced me. They have converted me to 
their use. They have made me a slave, to com- 
pel me to become a monster." 

Let us now, my Lords, turn to the negotia- 
tions of Mr. Middleton with the Be- xi. .,„„,„»»» 

The guarantee 

gums in 1778, when the "discon- given to the 
tents of the superior Begum would estabiishlsher 
have induced her to leave the coun- '^'°'"' 
try, unless her authority was sanctioned and her 
property secured by the guarantee of the Com- 



pany. 



This guarantee the counsel of Mr. 



Hastings have thought it necessary to deny ; 
knowing that if the agreements with the elder 
Begum were proved, it would affix to their cli- 
ent the guilt of all the sufferings of the women 
of the Khord Mahal [dwelling of the female rela- 



10 Early in 1778, the elder Begum became so much 
dissatisfied with her grandson's urgency for money, 
under the pressure of Mr. Hastings, that she medi- 
tated a withdrawal from his dominions, and a pil- 
grimage to Mecca. The English resident at Oude, 
Mr. Middleton, in common with the Nabob, was op- 
posed to her departure. She demanded, as the con- 
dition of remaining, that the Board at Calcutta should 
guarantee her property against the exactions of her 
grandson. This property, consisting chiefly of cer- 
tain ^'a^-Zu're.?, or grants of revenue, was given her by 
her son Sujah Dowlah, not merely for her own sup- 
port, but that of his numerous female relations, " the 
women of the Khord Mahal," spoken of below. Mr. 
Middleton represented to the Board at Calcutta that 
her claims were just. Whether a formal guarantee 
was given (as Mr. Sheridan attempts to show), is 
doubtful ; still, it is certain, as he proves, that the 
property of the Begum in her jaghircs was exempt 
ed from taxation by the Board, which was the fuU 
est admission of her riirhts. 



414 



MR. SHERIDAN AGAINST 



lives of the Nabob], the revenues for whose sup- 
port were secured by the same engagement. 
In treating this part of the subject, the principal 
difficulty arises from the uncertain evidence of 
Mr. Middleton, who, though concerned in the 
negotiation of four treaties, could not recollect 
affixing his signature to three out of that number ! 
It can, however, be shown, even by his evidence, 
that a treaty was signed in October, 1778, where- 
in the rights of the elder Begum were fully rec- 
ognized ; a provision secured for the women and 
children of the late Vizier in the Khord Mahal; 
and that these engagements received the fullest 
sanction of Mr. Hastings. These facts are, more- 
over, confirmed by the evidence of Mr. Purling, 
a gentleman who delivered himself fairly, and as 
having no foul secrets to conceal. Mr. Purling 
swears he transmitted copies of these engage- 
ments, in 1780, to Mr. Hastings at Calcutta; the 
answer returned w^as, "that, in arranging the 
taxes of the other districts, he should pass over 
the jaghires of the Begums." No notice was 
then taken of any impropriety in the transac- 
tions in 1778, nor any notice given of an intend- 
ed revocation of those engagements. 

In June, 1781, however, when General Clav- 
Meeting of Hast- cring and Colonel Monson were no 
bTalcimnt^''" ^ore, aud Mr. Francis had return- 
oV'liooooo wif ^^ ^° Europe, all the hoard and ar- 
made. ' year of coUcctcd evil burst out with- 

out restraint, and Mr. Hastings determined on 
his journey to the Upper Provinces. It was then, 
that, without adverting to intermediate transac- 
tions, he met with the Nabob A soph Dowlah at 
Chunar, and received from him the mysterious 
present of c€l 00,000. To form a proper idea 
of this transaction, it is only necessary to consid- 
er the respective situations of him who gave and 
of him who received this present. It was not 
given by the Nabob from the superflux of his 
w^ealth, nor in the abundance of his esteem for 
the man to whom it was presented. It was, on 
the contrary, a prodigal bounty, drawn from a 
country depopulated by the natural progress of 
British rapacity. It w^as after the country had 
felt still other calamities — it was after the angr}^ 
dispensations of Providence had, with a progress- 
ive severity of chastisement, visited the land w^ith 
a famine one year, and wuth a Colonel Hanney 
the next — it was after he, this Hanney, had re- 
turned to retrace the steps of his former ravages 
— it was after he and his voracious crew had 
come to plunder ruins which himself had made, 
and to glean from desolation the little that fam- 
ine had spared, or rapine overlooked ; then it was 
that this miserable bankrupt prince, marching 
through his country, besieged by the clamors of 
his starving subjects, who cried to him for pi'o- 
tection through their cages — meeting the curses 
of some of his subjects, and the prayers of oth- 
ers — with famine at his heels, and reproach fol- 
lowing him — then it was that this prince is rep- 
resented as exercising this act of prodigal boun- 
ty to the'^'crv man whom he here reproaches — 
to the very man whose policy had extinguished 
his power, and whose creatures had desolated 



his country. To talk of a fre«. ^ 
audacious and ridiculous to nan. 
tion. It was not a free-will gift, 
then ? Was it a bribe ? Or was it ^ 
I shall prove it was both — it was an act 
bribery and of rank extortion. The &. 
which marked this transaction is not the sm. 
est proof of its criminality. When Benaruu 
Pundit had, a short time before, made a present 
to the Company of a lac of rupees, Mr. Hast- 
ings, in his own language, deemed it " worthy 
the praise of being recorded." But in this in- 
stance, when ten times that sum was given, nei- 
ther Mr. Middleton nor the council were ac- 
quainted with the transaction, until Mr. Hast- 
ings, four months afterward, felt himself compell- 
ed to write an account of it to England ; and the 
intelligence returned thus circuitously to his 
friends in India ! It is peculiarly observable in 
this transaction, how much the distresses of the 
different parties were at variance. The first 
thing Mr. Hastings does is to leave Calcutta in 
order to go to the relief of the distressed Nabob. 
The second thing is to take one hundred thou- 
sand pounds fro7n that distressed Nabob, on ac- 
count of the distressed Company. The third 
thing is, to ask of the distressed Company this 
very same hundred thousand pounds on account 
of the distresses of Mr. Hastings ! There never 
were three distresses that seemed so little recon- 
cilable w4th one another. This money, the pris- 
oner alleges, w^as appropriated to the payment 
of the army. But here he is unguardedly con- 
tradicted by the testimony of his friend, Major 
Scott, who shows it was employed for no such 
purpose. My Lords, through all these windings 
of mysterious hypocrisy, and of artificial con- 
cealment, is it not easy to discern the sense of 
hidden guilt ?^^ 

III. Driven from every other hold, the prison- 
er is obliged to resort, as a justifica- piea of state 
tion of his enormities, to the stale pre- Necessity. 
text of State Necessity ! Of this last disguise, 
it is my duty to strip him. I will venture to 
say, my Lords, that no one instance of real ne 
cessity can be adduced. The necessity which 
the prisoner alleges listens to whispers for the 
purpose of crimination, and deals in rumor to 
prove its own existence. His a State Necessity ! 
No, my Lords, that imperial tyrant, State Ncces- 



11 The officers of the East India Company were 
forbidden by its laws to receive presents ; but Mr. 
Hastings did accept the offered gift from Asoph 
Dowlah. " The Nabob," says Mr. Mill, " was totally 
unprovided with the money ; the gift could be ten- 
dered only in bills, which were drawn on one of the 
great bankers of the country. As the intention of 
concealing the transaction should not be imputed to 
Mr. Hastings unless as far as evidence appears, so 
in this case the disclosure can not be imputed as a 
virtue, since no prudent man would have risked the 
chance of discovery which the publicity of a bank- 
er's transactions implied. Mr. Hastings informed 
the Directors of what he had received, in a letter 
dated January 20, 1782, ayid in very 'plain terms re- 
quested their permission to make the money his otvn." 
— British India., iv., 409. 



1788.] 



WARREN HASTINGS ON THE BEGUM CHARGE. 



415 



sity, is yet a generous de.spot — bold in his de- 
meanor, rapid in his decisions, though terrible in 
his grasp. What he does, my Lords, he dares 
avow ; and avowing, scorns any other justifica- 
tion, than the high motives that placed the iron 
scepter in his hand. Even where its rigors are 
suffered, its apology is also known ; and men 
learn to consider it in its true light, as a power 
which turns occasionally aside from just govern- 
ment, when its exercise is calculated to prevent 
greater evils than it occasions. But a quibbling, 
prevaricating necessity, which tries to steal a 
pitiful justification from whispered accusations 
and fabricated rumors — no, my Lords, that is 710 
State Necessity ! Tear off the mask, and you 
see coarse, vulgar avarice lurking under the dis- 
guise. The State Necessity of JNIr. Hastings is 
a juggle. It is a being that prowls in the dark. 
It is to be traced in the ravages which it com- 
mits, but never in benefits conferred or evils pre- 
vented. I can conceive justifiable occasions for 
the exercise even of outrage, where high public 
interests demand the sacrifice of private right. 
If any great man, in bearing the arms of his 
country — if an}^ admii'al, carrying the vengeance 
and the glory of Britain to distant coasts, should 
be driven to some rash acts of violence, in order, 
perhaps, to give food to those who are shedding 
their blood for their country — there is a State 
Necessity in such a case, gi-and, magnanimous, 
and all-commanding, which goes hand in hand 
with honor, if not with use ! If any great gen- 
eral, defending some fortress, barren, perhaps, 
itself, but a pledge of the pride and power of 
Britain — if such a man, fixed like an imperial 
eagle on the summit of his rock, should strip its 
sides of the verdure and foliage with which it 
might be clothed, while covered on the top with 
that cloud from which he was pouring down his 
thunders on the foe — would he be brought by 
the House of Commons to your bar?^-^ No, my 
Lords, never would his grateful and admiring 
countrymen think of questioning actions which, 
though accompanied by private wrong, yet were 
warranted by real neces.sity. But is the State 
Necessity which is pleaded by the prisoner, in 
defense of his conduct, of this description? I 
challenge him to produce a single instance in 
which any of his private acts were productive 
of public advantage, or averted impending evil. 
IV. We come now to the treaty of Chunar, 
Treaty of chu- which prcccdcd the acceptance of the 
ber/of life Be: bribe to which wc havc already allud- 
gums. ed. This transaction, my Lords, had 

its beginning in corruption, its continuance in 
fraud, and its end in violence. The first proposi- 
tion of the Nabob was, that our army should be 
removed and all the English be recalled from his 
dominions. He declared, to use his own lan- 
guage, that " the English are the bane and ruin 
of my affairs. Leave my country to myself, and 
all w^ill yet be I'ecovered." He was aware, my 

^- This glowing picture was no doubt suggested 
by Sir Gilbert Elliot's noble defense of the Ilock of 
Gibraltar a few years before. 



Lords, that though their predecessors had ex- 
hausted his revenue ; though they had shaken 
the tree till nothing remained upon its leafless 
branches, yet that a new flight was upon the 
wing to watch the first buddings of its prosperi- 
ty, and to nip every promise of future luxuriance. 
To the demands of the Nabob, Mr. Hastings 
finally acceded. The bribe was the price of his 
acquiescence. But with the usual per- Bad faith of 
fidy of the prisoner, this condition of ^^'- Hastings, 
the treaty never was performed. You will rec- 
ollect, my Lords, that ]Mr. ]\Iiddleton was asked 
whether the orders which were pretended to be 
given for the removal of the English were, in 
any instance, carried into effect? To this ques- 
tion he refused at fir-st to answer, as tending to 
criminate himself. But when his objection was 
overruled, and it was decided that he should an- 
swer, so much was he agitated that he lost all 
memory. It turned out, however, by an amend- 
ed recollection, that he never received any direct 
order from Mr. Hastings. But, my Lords, who 
can believe that a direct order is necessary when 
Mr. Hastings wants the services of Mr. Middle- 
ton ? Rely upon it, a hint is sufllcient to this 
servile dependent and obsequious parasite. Mr. 
Hastings has only to turn his eije toward him — 
that eye at whose scowl princes turn pale — and 
his wishes are obeyed. 

But, my Lords, this is not the only instance 
in which the Nabob was duped by the bad faith 
of the prisoner. In the agreement relative to 
the resumption of the jaghircs, the prince had 
demanded and obtained leave to resume those of 
certain individuals ; but ]Mr. Hastings, knowing 
that there were some favorites of the Nabob 
whom he could not be brought to dispossess, 
defeated the pei-mission, without the least regard 
to the existing stipulations to the contrary, by 
making the order general. 

Such, my Lords, is the conduct of which Mr. 
Hastings is capable, not in the moment of cold 
or crafty policy, but in the hour of confidence, 
and during the effervescence of his gratitude 
for a favor received ! Thus did he betray the 
man to whose liberality he stood indebted. 
Even the gratitude, my Lords, of the prisoner 
seems perilous ; for we behold here the danger 
which actually awaited the return he made to 
an effusion of generosity ! 

The fact is, my Lords, as appears from the 
clearest evidence, that when Mr. Hast- „^. ,]^(^n<3s it 
ings left Calcutta he had two resources H- prf-endiag 
m view, Benares and Oude. The first gums had re- 
having failed him, in consequence of 
the unexpected insurrection which terminated, 
unhappily for him, in the capture of Bcdjigar, he 
turned his attention to Oude, previously, however, 
desolating the former pi'ovince, which he was un- 
able to pillage, destroying and cutting otfthe very 
sources of life. Thus frustrated in his original 
design, the genius of the prisoner, ever fertile in 
expedients, fixed itself on the treasures of Jjhe 
Begums, and now devised, as an apolog^fifcr the 
signal act of cruelty and rapacity which he was 
meditatinir, the memorable rebellion ; and, to 



416 



MR. SHERIDAN AGAINST 



[1788 



substantiate the participation of these unfortu- 
nate princesses in it, he dispatched the Chief 
Justice of India to collect materials. ^^ 

The conduct of Sir Elijah Impey in this busi- 
„ , , . ness, with all deference to the pro- 

Mr. Impey Ins ' ^ . 

agent for collect- test which he has entered against 
ing evidence. ^^.^^ spokcn of in a place where 
he can not have the privilege of replying, I do 
not think ought to be passed over without ani- 
madversion. Not that I mean to say any thing 
harsh of this elevated character, who was select- 
ed to bear forth and to administer to India the 
blessings of English jurisprudence. I w^ill not 
question either his feebleness of memory, or dis- 
pute in any respect the convenient doctrine 
which he has set up in his vindication, "that 
what he ought to have done it is likely he actu- 
ally did perform." I have always thought, my 
Lords, that the appointment of the Chief Justice 
to so low and nefarious an office as that in which 
he was employed is one of the strongest aggra- 
vations of Mr. Hastings' guilt. That an officer, 
the purity and luster of whose character should 
be maintained even in the most domestic retire- 
ment; that he, who, if consulting the dignity of 
British justice, ought to have continued as sta- 
tionary as his court at Calcutta ; that such an 
exalted character, I repeat, as the Chief Justice 
of India, should have been forced on a circuit of 
five hundred miles for the purpose of transacting 
such a business, was a degradation without ex- 
ample, and a deviation from propriety which has 
no apology. But, my Lords, this is, in some de- 
gree, a question which is to be abstracted for the 
consideration of those who adorn and illumine 
the seats of justice in Britain, and the rectitude 
of whose deportment precludes the necessity of 
any farther observation on so opposite a conduct. 
The manner, my Lords, in which Sir Elijah 
His appearance If"pey delivered his evidence de- 

as witness be- sCrVCS, alsO, VOUr attention. He ad- 
fore the Lords. . ' ' •' ... 

mitted, you will recollect, that, m giv- 
ing it, he never answered without looking equally 
to the probability and the fact in question. Some- 
times he allowed cii'cumstances of which he said 

^3 In regard to this pretended rebellion in favor of 
Cheyte Sing of Benares, Mr. Mill has the following re- 
marks as the result of subsequent impartial investi- 
gation. "The insurrection at Benares happened on 
the 16th of August, and the treaty was signed at Chu- 
nar on the 19th of September. The Begums, who 
had first to hear of the insurrection at Benares [some 
hundred miles off], and then spread disaffection 
throughout a great kingdom, had, therefore, little 
time for the contraction of guilt. And what was the 
proof upon the strength of which the Begums were 
selected for a singular and aggravated punishment ? 
No direct proof whatever. Hardly an attempt is 
made to prove any thing except a rumor. Mr. 
Hastings' friends are produced in great numbers to 
say that they heard a rmnor ! But before a just 
judgment can be pronounced, the party accused 
should be heard in defense. Was this justice af- 
forded to the Begums ? Not a tittle. Mr. Hastings 
pronoiu^ed judgment, and sent his instrument, the 
Nabolj^o inflict punishment, in the first place. Some 
time after this was done, he proceeded to collect ev- 
idence!" — British India, iv., 381-2. 



he had no recollection beyond the mere "probabil- 
ity" that they had taken place. By consulting in 
this manner what was " probable" and the contra- 
ry, he may certainly have corrected his memory at 
times. I am, at all events, content to accept of 
this mode of giving his testimony, provided that 
the converse of the proposition has also a place ; 
and that where a circumstance is improbable., a 
similar degree of credit may be subtracted from, 
the testimony of the witness. Five times in the 
House of Commons, and twice in this court, for 
instance, has Sir Elijah Impey borne testimony 
that a rebellion was raging at Fyzabad [the 
abode of the Begums], at the period of his jour- 
ney to Lucknow [the residence of the Nabob]. 
Yet, on the eighth examination, he contradicted 
all the former, and declared that what he meant 
was, that the rebellion had been raging, and the 
country was then in some degree restored to 
quiet. The reasons he assigned for the former 
errors were, that he had forgotten a letter re- 
ceived from Mr. Hastings, informing him that 
the rebellion was quelled, and that he had also 
forgotten his own proposition of traveling through 
Fyzabad to Lucknow ! With respect to the let- 
ter, nothing can be said, as it is not in evidence ; 
but the other observation can scarcely be admit- 
ted when it is recollected that, in the House of 
Commons, Sir Elijah Impey declared that it was 
his proposal to travel through Fyzabad, which 
had originally brought forth the intelligence that 
the way was obstructed by the rebellion, and that 
in consequence of it he altered his route and went 
by the way of lUahabad. But what is yet more 
singular is, that on his return he again would 
have come by the way of Fyzabad, if he had not 
been once more informed of the danger ; so that, 
had it not been for these friendly informations, 
the Chief Justice would have run plump into the 
very focus of the rebellion ! 

These, my Lords, are the pretexts by which 
the fiction of a rebellion was endeavored to be 
forced on the public credulity ; but the trick is 
now discovered, and the conti'iver and the exec- 
uter are alike exposed to the scorn and derision 
of the world. 

There are two circumstances here which are 
worthy of remark. The first is, that x^probabii- 
Sir Elijah Impey, when charged with 'ties in his 

■^ t J ^ _ _ » testimony. 

SO dangerous a commission as that of 
procuring evidence to prove that the Begums 
had meditated the expulsion of the Nabob from 
the throne, and the English from Bengal, twice 
intended to pass through the city of their resi- 
dence. But, my Lords, this giddy chief justice 
disregards business. He wants to sec the coun- 
try ! Like some innocent school-boy, he takes 
the primrose path, and amuses himself as he goes ! 
He thinks not that his errand is in danger and 
death, and that his party of pleasure ends in load- 
ing others with irons. When at Lucknow, he 
never mentions the affidavits to the Nabob. No ! 
He is too polite. Nor, from the same courtesy, 
to Mr. Hastings. He is, indeed, a master of 
ceremonies in justice ! 

When examined, the witness sarcastically re- 



1788.] 



WARREN HASTINGS ON THE BEGUM CHARGE. 



417 



marked " that there must have been a sworn in- 
terpreter, from the looks of the manager." How 
I looked, Heaven knows ! but such a physiogno- 
mist there is no escaping. He sees a sworn in- 
terpreter in my looks ! He sees the manner of 
taking an oath in my looks ! He sees the Basin 
of the Ganges in ray looks ! As for himself, he 
looks only at the tops and bottoms of affidavits ! 
In seven years he takes care never to look at 
these swearings ; but when he does examine 
them, he knoivs less than before !'•* 

The other circumstance, my Lords, to which 
I have alluded, is, that it is fair to presume that 
Sir Elijah Impey was dissuaded by Mr. Hast- 
ings and Middleton from passing by the way of 
Fyzabad, as they well knew that if he approached 
the Begums he would be convinced by their re- 
ception of him as the friend of the Governor Gen- 
eral, that nothing could be more foreign fi'cm the 
truth than their suspected disaffection. Neither 
should it escape your notice, my Lords, that 
while he was taking evidence at Lucknow in 
the face of day, in support of the charge cf re- 
bellion against the princesses, the Chief Justice 
heard not a word either from the Nabob or his 
minister, though he frequently conversed with 
both, of an}' treasonable machinations or plot- 
tings ! Equally unaccountable does it appear, 
that Sir Elijah Impey, who advised the taking 
of these affidavits for the safety of the prisoner 
at your bar, did not read them at the time to see 
whether or not they were adequate to this pur- 
pose ! 

At length, it seems, he did read the affidavits, 
but not till after having declared on oath that 
he thought it unnecessary. To this he acknowl- 
edged he was induced " by having been misled 
by one of the managers on the part of the Covn- 
mons, who, by looking at a bock which he held 
in his hand, had entrapped him to own that a 
sworn interpreter was present when he received 
these affidavits, and that he was perfectly satis- 
fied with his conduct on the occasion." 

Now. my Lords, how I, by merely looking into 
a book, could intimate the presence of an inter- 

'* Au examinatiou of the Minutes of Evidence at 
the trial will show that Mr. Sheridan was fully just- 
ified in this severe treatment of Impey. The latter 
acknowledged that he went from Benares, where 
this business was concerted between him and Mr. 
Hastings, to Lucknow, the capital of Oude, for the 
express purpose of taking the affidavits, though his 
jurisdiction did not extend to the province of Oude. 
"What the affidavits contained," he says, "I did 
not know ; nor do I know at present, for I have 
never read them." He adds, that " he did not know 
wlccther the persons who swore to them had ever read 
them." At the time of taking the affidavits of the 
natives, not so much as a sworn interpreter was 
present, as he admitted, though he endeavored to 
turn oiF the matter with a jest on Mr. Sheridan's 
"looks." See Minutes of Evidence, page 622 to 
651. Mr. Mill remarks on this point, " The exam- 
ination of Sir Elijah Impey, upon the subject of affi- 
davits, discloses a curious scene, in which it appears 
that one object alone was in view, namely, that of 
getting support to any allegations which Mr. Hast- 
ings had set up." — British India, iv., 383. 
Dd 



preter, and could also look the satisfaction con- 
ceived by tiie Chief Justice on the occasion, when 
it clearly appears by the evidence that there was 
110 interpreter present, are points which I believe 
he alone can explain ! 

I will concede to the witness, as he seems de- 
sirous it should be done, that he did not strictly 
attend to form when taking these affidavits. I 
will admit that he merely directed the Bible to 
be offered to the whites, and the Koran to the 
blacks, and packed up their depositions in his 
wallet without any examination. Or, I will ad- 
mit that he glanced them over in India, having 
previously cut cff" all communication between his 
eye and his mind, so that nothing was transferred 
from the one to the other. Extraordinary as 
these ciix-umstances certainly are, I will, never- 
theless, admit them all ; or if it be preferred by 
the prisoner, I will admit that the affidavits were 
legally and properly taken ; for, in whatever light 
they may be received, I will prove that they are 
not sufficient to sustain a single allegation of 
criminality against those they were designed to 
inculpate. 

But it is to these documents, my Lords, such 
as they are, that the defense of the prisoner is 
principally confided ; and on the degree of re- 
spect which may be given to them by your Lord- 
ships does the event of this trial materially de- 
pend. 

Considered, therefore, in this view, I shall 
presently solicit your Lordships' atten- Antecedent 
tion, while I examine them at some presumptions 

11 1-1 T-i 1 against the 

length, and with some care. But be- chargesiathe 
fore I enter into the analysis of the 
testimony, permit me to remind the court that 
the charge against the princesses of Oude, to 
substantiate which these affidavits wxre taken, 
consisted originally of two allegations. They 
were accused of a uniform spirit of hostility to 
the British government^ £is well as the overt act 
of rebellion. But, my Lords, the first part of the 
chai-ge the counsel for the prisoner has been 
compelled to abandon, not being able to get one 
fact out of the whole farrago of these depositions 
to support it. 

When the half of an accusation is thus desert- 
ed for the want of proof, is it not natural for us 
to suspect the whole ? I do not say that it ab- 
solutely shows the falsity of it, nor do I mean to 
employ such an argument ; but I maintain that 
it should influence the mind so far as to malce 
it curious and severely inquisitive into the other 
branch of the charge, and to render it distrust- 
ful of its ti-uth. 

But in this particular case the court have an 
additional motive for jealousy and suspicion. It 
will not escape the recollection of your Lord- 
ships, in weighing the validity of the allegation 
which now remains to be considered, namely, 
" that the Begums influenced the jaghiredars,'* 
and excited the discontents in Oude," what were 
the circumstances in which it arose, and by 
, whom it was preferred. You will bear in mind, 

' ^^ Persons holding jaghires. 



418 



Mil. SHERIDAN AGAINST 



[1788 



my Lords, that it ajipcars in evidence that Mr. [ 
Hai>tin<Ts left Calcutta in the year 1781, for the I 
avowed purpo.se of collecting a large sum of mon- 
ey, and that he had only two resources. Failing 
in Benares, as we have already seen, he next 
lays his rapacious hand on the treasui'es of the 
Begums. Here, then, we have in the person of 
the prisoner both the accuser and the judge. 
With much caution, therefore, should this judge 
be heard, who has, apparently at least, a profit 
in the conviction, and an interest in the condem- 
nation of the party to be tried. I say nothing of 
the gross turpitude of such a double character, 
nor of the frontless disregard of all those feel- 
ings which revolt at mixing offices so distinct 
and incompatible. 

The next point which I wish to press on your 
Lordships' consideration, previously to my tak- 
ing up the affidavits, is the infinite improbability 
of the attempt which is alleged to have been 
made by the Begums to dethrone the Nabob 
and exterminate the English. Estimating the 
power of the princesses at the highest standard, 
it manifestly was not in their reach to accom- 
plish any overthrow, decisive or even momenta- 
ry, of their sovereign, much less of the English. 
I am not so weak, however, as to argue that, 
because the success of an enterprise seems im- 
possible, and no adequate reason can be assigned 
for undertaking it, that it will therefore never be 
attempted ; or that, because the Begums had no 
interest in exciting a rebellion, or sufficient pros- 
pect of succeeding in it, they are innocent of the 
charge. I can not look at the prisoner without 
knowing, and being compelled to confess that 
there are pei'sons of such a turn of mind as to 
prosecute mischief w^ithout interest ; and that 
there are passions of the human soul which lead, 
without a motive, to the perpetration of crimes. 
I do not, therefore, my Lords, wish it to be 
understood that I am contending that the charge 
is rendered, by the matter I have stated, abso- 
lutely false. All I mean is, that an accusation, 
made under such circumstances, should be re- 
ceived with much doubt and circumspection ; 
and that your Lord.ships, remembering how it is 
preferred, will accompany me through the dis- 
cussion of the affidavits, free and uninfluenced by 
any bias derived from the positive manner in 
which tlie guilt of the Begums has been pro- 
nounced. 

We now come to the examination of this mass 
of evidence which ]Mr. Hastings conceives 

Examina- „ , i • • i 

tionofthe of .SO much conscquence to his acquittal 
affidavits. ^^ ^j^^ present charge. In the defense 
which has been submitted to your Lordships, 
the prisoner complains most bitterly that the 
chief mover of the prosecution treated these af- 
fidavits in his, peadiar manner. What ihc pecul- 
iar manner of my honorable friend [Mr. Burke], 
here alluded to, was, I can not tell. But I will 
say, that if he treated them in any other way 
than as the most rash, irregular, and irrelevant 
testimony which was ever brought before a ju- 
dicial tribunal, he did not do as they deserved. 
The prisoner has had, moreover, the hardihood 



to assert that they were taken for the purpose 
of procuring the best possible information ol' the 
state of the country, and of the circumstances 
of the insurrection ; and being, therefore, merely 
accessary evidence in the present case, were 
entitled to more weight. This I declare, with- 
out hesitation, to be a falsehood. They w^ere 
taken, I aver, for the sole and exclusive purpose 
of vindicating the plunder of the Begums. They 
were taken to justify what was afieiward to be 
done. Disappointed at Benai-es, he turned to the 
remaining resource, the treasures of the prin- 
cesses ; and prepared, as a pretext for his med- 
itated robbery, these documents. 

I shall proceed to examine the affidavits sev- 
erally, as far as they relate to the charge against 
the Begums. ^^ They really contain, my Lords, 
nothing except vague rumor and improbable 
surmise. It is stated, for example, by Merehear- 
one of these deponents, a black officer ^'^^'■ 
in a regiment of sepo^'s, that having a consider- 
able number of persons as hostages in a fort 
where he commanded, who were sent thither by 
Colonel Hannay, the country people surrounded 
the fort and demanded their release ; but instead 
of complying with their demand, he put twenty 
of these hostages to death ; and on a subsequent 
day the heads of eighteen more were struck olT, 
including the head of a great Rajah. In conse- 
quence of this last execution, the populace be- 
came exceedingly exasperated, and among the 
crowd several persons were heard to say, that 
the Begums had offered a reward of a thousand 
rupees for the head of every European ; one 
hundred for the head of every sepoy oflicer, and 
ten for the head of a common sepoy. Now, my 
Lords, it appears pretty clearly that no such re- 
ward was ever offered ; for, when this garrison 
evacuated the fort, the people told Captain Gor- 
don, who then commanded it, that if he would 
deliver up his arms and baggage, they would 
permit him and his men to continue their marcli 
unmolested. So little did the people, indeed, 
think of enriching themselves by this process of 
decapitation, that, when the detachment of Brit- 
ish forces was reduced to ten mcn^ and when of 
course the slaughter of them would have been 
a work of no danger or difficulty, they w^ere still 
permitted to proceed on their route without any 
interruption. 

Captain Gordon himself supposes that the Be- 



16 " We pretend not," says the reporter, "to give 
more than a mere summary, and that a very brief 
one, of this part of Mr. Sheridan's speech. In the 
discussion of these affidavits he was very copious , 
reading, comparing, and commenting on the whole 
with an uncommon degree of force, acutcness, and 
eloquence ; sometimes employing too the severest 
sarcasm, and wit the most pungent and brilliant. 

Speaking of the testimony of one of the officers of 
the army, who had given three affidavits in the same 
day, he observed 'that he had sworn once — then 
again — and made nothing of it ; then comes he with 
another and swears a third time, and in company 
does better. Single-handed, he can do nothing ; 
but succeeds by platoon swearing; and volleys of 
oaths!' " 



17S8.] 



WARREN HASTINGS ON THE BEGUM CHARGE. 



419 



gums encouraged the country people to rise, be- 
cause, when he arrived at the bank of the 

Surmises. -,-, . n i »t i • • i 

River Saunda Nutta, at the opposite side 
of which stands the town ol" Nutta, the Fowzdar, 
or Governor, who commanded there for the Bow 
[younger] Begum, in whose jaghire the town 
lay, did not instantly send boats to carry him 
and his men over the river ; and because the 
Fowzdar [governor] pointed two or three guns 
across the river. Even admitting this statement 
to be true, I can not see how it is to affect the 
Begums. Where is the symptom of hostility ? 
Surely it was the duty of the commanding oiFi- 
cer of the fort not to let any troops pass until he 
ascertained who they were, and for what pur- 
pose they came. To have done otherwise would 
have been unrailitary, and a violation of the most 
sacred duties of his station. But, my Lords, 
after a while Captain Gordon crosses the river, 
and finds himself in a place of safety as soon as 
he enters a town which was under the authority 
of the Begums, where he was treated with kind- 
ness, and afterward sent with a. protecting guard 
to Colonel Hannay. This last circumstance, 
which is mentioned in the first affidavit of Cap- 
tain Gordon, is suppressed in the second, for 
what purpose it is obvious. But let us attend 
to the testimony of Hyder Beg Cawn, who, as 
the minister of the Nabob, was the person, cer- 
tainly, of all others, the best acquainted with 
the transactions then passing in the country. 
Though with every source of intelligence open 
to him, and swearing both to rumor and to fact, 
he does not mention a syllable in proof of the 
pretended rebellion, which was to dethrone his 
sovereign, nor even hint at any thing of the kind. 

Neither, my Lords, is the evidence of the En- 
glish officers more conclusive. That of 
Mr. Middleton, which has been so much 
relied upon, contains but a single passage which 
is at all pertinent, and this is not legal evi- 
dence. He says, "'thei-e was a general report 
that the Begums had given much encourage- 
ment and some aid to the jaghiredars in resisting 
the resumption, and that he had heard there had 
been a good disposition in them toward the Ra- 
jah Cheyte Sing. His evidence is mere hearsay. 
He knows nothing of hmiself. He saw no insur- 
rection. He met with no unfriendly dispositions. 
But on the mere rumors which he had stated 
did this conscientious servant of Mr. Hastings 
with promptitude execute the scheme of plunder 
which his master had devised. 

The testimony of Colonel Hannay is of the 
same description. He simply states that "three 
Zimindars told him that they were credibly in- 
formed that the Begums had a hostile design 
against the Nabob. When asked who these 
Zemindars were, he replied that he was not at 
liberty to disclose their names. They had made 
the communication to him under an express in- 
junction of secrecy, which he could not violate. 

There is also the deposition of a Frenchman, 
which is drawn up quite in the style of magnifi- 
cence and glitter which belongs to his nation. 
He talks of having penetrated immeasurable 



wilds; of having seen tigers and other prowling 
monsters of the forest; of having surveyed 
mountains, and navigated streams ; of havino- 
been entertained in palaces and menaced with 
dungeons ; of having heard a number of rumors, 
but that he never saw any rebellious or hostile 
appearances. 

Such, my Lords, are the contents of these 
memorable depositions, on which the prisoner re- 
lies as a vindication of an act of the most trans- 
cendent rapacity and injustice of which there is 
any record or tradition. 

I know, my Lords, that if I were in a court of 
law, sitting merely to try the question of the va- 
lidity of this testimony, to rise in order to com- 
ment upon it, I should be prevented from pro- 
ceeding. By the bench I should be asked, " What 
do you mean to do? There is nothing in these 
affidavits upon which we can permit you tor a 
minute to occupy the time of the court. There 
is not, from the beginning to the end. one particle 
of legal, substantial, or even defensible proof. 
There is nothing except hearsay and rumor."' 
But though, my Lords, I am persuaded that such 
would be the admonition which I should receive 
from the court, yet, being exceedingly anxious 
to meet every thing at your Lordships' bar on 
which the prisoner can build the smallest degree 
of dependence, I must pray your indulgence 
while I examine separately the points which are 
attempted to be set up by these affidavits. 

They are three in number : 

1. That the Beoums fjave assist- 

fti c- T-> • I f r-. Mr. Ha'lins*' 

ance to Cheyte Sing, Rajah ol Ben- diar^^s Hgainst 

the Bp£1iiiis. 

ares. ^ 

2. That they encouraged and assi.sted the jng. 
hiredars to resist the resumption of the jaghires. 
And, 

3. That they were the principal movers of all 
the commotions in Oude. 

These, my Lords, are the three allegations 
that the affidavits are to sustain, and which are 
accompanied with the general charge that the 
Begums were in rebellion. 

(1.) Of the rebellion here pretended, I can 
not, my Lords, find a trace. With the (i.) ch.-.r;;e 
care and indefatigable industry of an an- "' '^'^''''""'"• 
tiquary, hunting for some precious vestige wlii(;h 
is to decide the truth of his speculations, have I 
searched for the evidence of it. Though we 
have heard it spoken of with as much certainty 
as the one which happened in Scotland in the 
year 1745, not the slightest appearance of it can 
I di.scover. I am unable to ascertain either the 
time when, or the place where it raged. Xn 
army has been seen to collect; no battle to be 
fought: no blood to be spilt. It was a rebellion 
which had for its object the destruction of no 
human creature but those who planned it — it 
was a rebellion which, accordinii to Mr. Middle- 
ton's expression, no man. either horse or foot, 
ever marched to quell ! The Chief Justice was 
the only one who took the field against it. The 
force against wiiich it was raised instantly with- 
dreiv to give it elbow-room ; and evfMi then, it 
was a rebellion which perversely showed it>clf 



420 



MR. SHERIDAN AGAINST 



[1788. 



in acts of hospitaliiy to the Nabob whom it v/as 
to dethrone, and to the English whom it was to 
extirpate ! Beginning in nothings it continued 
without raging, and ended as it originated ! 

If, my Lords, rebellions of this mysterious 
nature can happen, it is time to look about us. 
^Vho can say that one does not now exist which 
menaces our safety ? Perhaps at the very mo- 
ment I am speaking one ravages our city ! Per- 
haps it may be lying ;jcrrfi(e in a neighboring vil- 
lage ! Perhaps, like the ostentatious encamp- 
ment which has given celebrity to Brentford and 
Ealing, it may have fixed its quarters at Ham- 
mersmith or Islington, ready to pour down its 
violence at the approach of night ! 

But, my Lords, let us endeavor to fix the time 
when this horrid rebellion occurred. To the 
first of August, 1781, it is clear there w^as none. 
At this date letters were I'cceived from Colo- 
nel Morgan, the commanding officer of Oude, 
who is silent on the subject. On the 27th of 
Septem-ber, he gives an account of some insur- 
rections at Lucknow^ the seat of the court, but 
of none at Fyzabad, where the Begums resided. 
Nearly of the same date there is a letter from 
Major Hannay, then at the Rajah's court, in 
which the .state of his affairs are described, but 
no suspicion expressed of his being assisted by 
the Begums. 

At this time, therefore, there was certainly no 
rebellion or disaffection displayed. Nay, we find, 
on the contrary, the Nabob going to visit his 
mother, the very princess who is charged with 
revolting against his authority. But, my Lords, 
it is alleged that he was attended by two thou- 
sand horse, and the inference is drawn by the 
counsel of the prisoner that he took this military 
force to quell the insurrection; to confirm which 
they appealed to Mr. Middleton, who, being ask- 
ed whether these ti-oops were well appointed, 
caught in an instant a gleam of martial 7nemo- 
ry,^'^ and answered in the affirmative. Unfor- 
tunately, however, for the martial memory cf ]Mr. 
Middleton, it is stated by Captain Edwards, who 
was with the Nabob as his aid-de-camp, that 
there w^ere not more than five or six hundred 
horse, and these so bad and miserably equipped 
that they were unable to keep up with him, so 
that very few were near his person or within 
the reach of his command. That of these few, 
the most were mutinous from being ill paid, and 
were rather disposed to promote than put down 
any insurrection. But, my Lords, I will concede 
to the prisoner the full amount of military force 
for which he anxiously contends. I will allow 
the whole two thousand cavalry to enter in a 
gallop into the very city of Fyzabad. For, has 
not Captain Edwards proved that they were only 
the usual guard of the Nabob ? Has not, more- 
over, Mr. Middleton himself declared, rather in- 
discreetly, I confess, "that it is the constant 
custom of the princes of India to travel with a 



^' This alludes to Mr. Middleton having declared, 
on a fonncr occasion, that he had no memory for 
military affairs. 



great equipage, and that it would be considered 
an unpardonable disrespect to the person visited 
were they to come unescorted." This, my Lords, 
is really the truth. The Indian princes never 
perform a journey without a splendid retinue. 
The habits of the East r(>quire ostentation and 
parade. They do not, as the princes of Europe 
— who, sometimes from one motive and some- 
times from another, at times from political views 
and at times from curiosity, travel, some to 
France to learn manners, and others to England 
to learn liberty — choose to be relieved from the 
pomps of state and the drudgery of equipage. 
But, my Lords, perhaps, in this instance, the Na- 
bob, wishing to adapt himself to the service on 
which he was going, did dispense with his usual 
style. Hearing of a rebellion without an army, 
he may have thought that it could only, with 
propriety, be attacked by a prince without a 
guard! 

It has also been contended, my Lords, in proof 
of this rebellion, that one thousand Nudgies were 
raised at Fyzabad and sent to the assistance of 
Cheyte Sing. 

It is deemed a matter of no consequence that 
the officer second in command to the Rajah 
[Cheyte Sing], has positively sworn that these 
troops came from Lucknow, and not from Fyza- 
bad.^^ This the prisoner wishes to have con- 
sidered as only the trifling mistake of the name 
of one capital for another. But he has found it 
more difficult to get over the fact which has 
been attested by the same witness, that the 
troops were of a different description from those 
in the service of the Begums, being matchlock^ 
and not swords men. It is, therefore, manifest 
that the troops M^ere not furnished by the prin- 
cesses, and it seems highly probable that they 
did come from Lucknow; not that they were 
sent by the Nabob, but by some of the powerful 
jaghircdars who have uniformly avowed an aver- 
sion to the English. 

It has been more than once mentioned, by some 
of the witnesses, my Lords, that Sabid Ally, the 
younger son of the Bow [younger] Begum, w^as 
deeply and criminally concerned in these trans- 
actions. Why was he, therefore, permitted to 
escape with impunity? To this question Sir 
Elijah Impey gave a very satisfactory answer, 
when he informed us that the young man was 
miserably poor, and a bankrupt. Here is a com- 
plete solution of the enigma. There never en- 
ters into the mind of Mr. Hastings a suspicion 
of treason where there is no treasure ! Sabid 
Ally found, therefore, protection in his poverty, 
and safety in his insolvency. My Lords, the 
political sagacity of Mr. Hastings exhibits the 
converse of the doctrine which the experience 
of history has established. Hitherto it has gen- 
erally been deemed that the possession of prop- 
erty attaches a person to the country which con- 
tains it, and makes him cautious how he hazards 
any enterprise which might be productive of in- 

18 That is, tliey came from the residence of the 
Nabob, not of the Begums. 



178S.J 



WAIUIEN HAyTJNGS ON THE BEGUM CHARGE. 



421 



novation, or draw upon him the suspicion or dis- 
pleasure of government ; and that, on the con- 
trar}^, the needy, having no permanent stake, are 
alwa3^s desperate, and easily seduced into com- 
motions which promise any change ; but, my 
Lords, the prisoner, inverting this doctrine, has, 
in the true spirit of rapacity and speculation 
which belongs to him, never failed to recognize 
loyalty in watit^ and to discern treason in wealth I 

Allow me now, my Lords, to lay before you 
Proofs of some of those proofs which we have 
fideiit^^"™'^ collected of the steady friendship and 
good dispositions of the Begums, to the 
English interests. I have in my hands a letter 
from one of them, which I will read, complain- 
ing of the cruel and unjust suspicions that were 
entertained of her fidelity. ^^ Your Lordships 
must perceive the extraordinary energy which 
the plain and simple language of truth gives to 
her representations. Her complaints are elo- 
quence ; her supplications, persuasion ; her re- 
monstrances, conviction. 

I call, moreover, the attention of the court to 
Case of Cap- the interference of the Bov/ [younger] 
tain Gordon. Beguni in behalf of Captain Gordon, 
b}^ which his life was saved, at a moment when, 



19 The following is the letter: "The disturbances 
of Colonel Haniiay and Mr. Gordon were made a 
pretense for seizing my jaghire. The state of the 
matter is this : When Colonel Hannay was by Mr. 
Hastings ordered to march to Benares, during the 
troubles of Cheyte Sing, the Colonel, zoho had plun- 
dered the whole country, was incapable of proceed- 
ing, from the union of thousands of Zemindars, who 
had seized this favorable opportunity . They har- 
assed Mr. Gordon near Junivard, and the Zemin- 
dars of that place and Acherpore opposed bis march 
from thence, till be arrived near Saunda. As the 
Sauiida Nutta, from its overflowing, was difficult to 
cross without a boat, Mr. Gordon sent to the Fouz- 
dar (Governor) to supply him. He replied, that the 
boats were all in the river, but would assist him, ac- 
cording to orders, as soon as possible. Mr. Gordon's 
situation would not admit of his waiting; he forded 
the Nutta upon his elephant, and was hospitably 
received and entertained by the Fouzdar for six 
days. In the mean time, a letter was received by 
me from Colonel Hannay, desiring me to escort Mr. 
Gordon to Fyzabad. As my friendship for the En- 
glish was always sincere, I readily complied, and 
sent some companies of Nejeebs to escort Mr. Gor- 
don and all his effects to Fyzabad; where, having 
provided for bis entertainment, I effected his junc- 
tion with Colonel Hannay. Tlie letters of thanks re- 
ceived from both these gentlemen, upon this occa- 
sion, are still hi my possession, copies of which I 
gave in charge to Major Gilpin, to be delivered to 
Mr. Middleton, that be might forward them to the 
Governor General. To be brief, those who have 
loaded me with accusations are now clearly con- 
victed of falsehood; but is it not extraordinary that, 
notwithstanding the justness of my cause, nobody 
relieves my misfortunes ! My prayers have been 
constantly offered to Heaven for your arrival. Re- 
port has announced it, for which reason I have taken 
up the pen, and request you will not place implicit 
confidence in my accusers, but, weighing in the scale 
of justice their falsehood and my representations, 
you will exert your influence in putting a period to 
the misfortunes with which I am overwhelmed." 



if the princesses wished to strike a blow against 
the Engli.sh, they might have done it with suc- 
cess. This man, whose life was thus preserved, 
and who, in the first burst of the natural feelings 
of his heart, poured forth his grateful acknov/1- 
edgments of the obligation, afterward became the 
instrument of the destruction of his protectress. 
I will produce the letter wherein he thanks her 
for her interference, and confesses that he owes 
his life to her bounty .^° 

It has been asked, with an air of some tri- 
umph, why Captain Gordon was not called to 
the bar ? Why call him to the bar ? Would 
he not, as he has done in his affidavit, suppress 
the portion of testimony we require ? I trust 
that he may never be brought to swear in this 
case till he becomes sensible of his guilt, and 
feels an ardent, contrite zeal to do justice to his 
benefactress, and to render her the most ample 
atonement for the injuries which she has sus- 
tained by his ingratitude and wickedness. The 
conduct of Captain Gordon, in this instance, is 
so astonishingly depraved, that I confess I am 
in some degree disposed to incredulit3\ I can 
scarcely believe it possible that, after having re- 
peatedly acknowledged that he owed his life and 
liberty to her beneficent hand, he could so far 
forget these obligations as spontaneously, and of 
his own free will, to come forward, and expend 
a part of that breath which she had preserved, in 
an affidavit by which her ruin was to be effected ! 
M}^ knowledge of the human heart will hardly 
permit me to think that any rational being could 
deliberately commit an act of such wanton atroc- 
ity. I must imagine that there has been some 
scandalous deception ; that, led on by Mr. Mid- 
dleton, he made his deposition, ignorant to what 
purpose it would be applied. Every feeling of 
humanity recoils at the transaction viewed in 
any other light. It is incredible, that any intel- 
ligent person could be capable of standing up in 
the presence of God, and of exclaiming, " To yon, 
my benevolent friend, the breath I now draw, 
next to Heaven, I owe to you. My existence is 
an emanation from your bounty. I am indebted 
to you be3^ond all possibility of return, and there- 
fore my gratitude shall be your destruction .'" 

If, my Loi-ds, if I am right in my conjecture, 
that Captain Gordon v/as thus seduced into the 
overthrow of his benefactress, I hope he will pre- 
sent himself at your bar, and, by stating the im- 
position which was practiced upon him, vindicate 
his own character, and that of human nature, from 
this foul imputation. 

20 Mr. Sheridan read the following letter of Colonel 
Gordon : " Begum Saib, of exalted dignity and gen- 
erosity, &c., whom God preserve." 

After presenting the usual compliments of servi- 
tude, &c., in the customary manner, my address is 
presented. " Your gracious letter, in answer to the 
petition of your servant from Goondab, exalted me. 
From the contents 1 became unspeakably impressed 
with the honor it conferred. May the Almighty pro- 
tect that royal purity, and bestow happiness, in- 
crease of wealth, and prosperity. The welfare of 
your servant is entirely owing to your favor and be- 
nevolence, <Si-C., c^^C." 



422 



MR. SHERIDAN AGAINST 



[178S. 



The original letters which passed on this oc- 
casion between Captain Gordon and the Begum 
weic transmitted by her to Mr. Middleton, for 
the purpose of being shown to the Governor 
General. These letters Mr. Middleton endeav- 
ored to conceal. His letter-book, into which they 
were transcribed, is despoiled of those leaves 
which contained them. When questioned about 
them, he said that he had deposited Persian copies 
of the letters in the office at Lucknow, and that 
he did not bring translations of them with him to 
Calcutta, because he left the former city the very 
next day after receiving the originals ; but, my 
Lords, I will boldly assert that this pretext is a 
black and barefaced perjury. It can be proved 
that 3Iiddleton received the letters at least a 
month before he departed from Lucknow. He 
left that city on the 17th of October, and he re- 
ceived them on the 20th of the preceding month. 
Well aware that by these documents the purity 
of the Begum's intentions would be made mani- 
fest ; that, while accused of disaffection, their at- 
tachment was fully displayed, he, as their pun- 
ishment was predetermined, found it necessary to 
suppress the testimonials of their innocence ; but, 
my Lords, these letters, covered as they were by 
every artifice which the vilest ingenuity could de- 
vise to hide them, have been discovered, and are 
now bared to view by the aid of that Power to 
whom all creation must bend — to whom nothing, 
in the whole system of thought or action, is im- 
possible ; who can invigorate the arm of infancy 
with a giant's nerve ; who can bring light out of 
darkness, and good out of evil ; can view the con- 
fines of hidden mischief, and drag forth each min- 
ister of guilt from amid his deeds of darkness and 
disaster, reluctant, alas ! and unrepenting, to ex- 
emplify, at least, if not atone, and to qualify any 
casual sufferings of innocence by the final doom 
of its opposite ; to prove there are the never fail- 
ing corrections of God, to make straight the ob- 
liquity of man ! 

My Lords, the prisoner, in his defense, has as- 
cribed the benevolent interposition of the Begum 
in favor of Captain Gordon to her knowledge of 
the successes of the English. This is an impu- 
tation as ungenerous as it is false. The only 
success which the British troops met with at this 
time was that of Colonel Blair, on the third of 
September ; but he himself acknowledged, that 
another victory gained at such a loss would be 
equal to a defeat. The reports that were cir- 
culated throughout the country, so far from be- 
ing calculated to strike the princesses with awe 
of the English, were entirely the reverse. These 
were, that Mr. Hastings had been slain at Be- 
nares, and that the English had sustained the 
most disastrous defeats.^' 

But, my Lords, to remove every doubt from 
your minds, I will recur to what never fails me 
— the evidence of the prisoner against himself. 



^' This alludes to the reports which went abroad 
after the risinij; of the people of Benares in favor of 
their Rajah Cheyte Sing against Mr. Hastings. He 
wae, as stated in the next paragraph, in a situation 
of extreme hazard for a month after that event. 



In a letter to the council, which is on record, he 
confesses that, from the 22d of August to the 
22d of September, he was confined in a situation 
of the utmost hazard ; that his safety during this 
period was exceedingly precarious, and that the 
affairs of the English were generally thought to 
be unfavorable in the extreme. In his defense, 
however, Mr. Hastings has forgotten entirely 
these admissions. It certainly appears that the 
princesses demonstrated the firmness of their 
attachment to the British ; not in the season of 
prosperity or triumph; not from the impulse of 
iear, nor the prospect of future protection; but 
that they, with a magnanimity almost unexam- 
pled, came forw^ard at a moment when the hoard 
of collected vengeance was about to burst over 
our heads ; when the measure of European guilt 
in India was completely filled by the oppressions 
which had just been exercised on the unfortu- 
nate Cheyte Sing ; and when ofiended Heaven 
seemed, at last, to interfere to change the meek 
dispositions of the natives, to awaken their re- 
sentment, and to inspirit their revenge. 

(2.) On the second allegation, my Lords, name- 
ly, " that the Begums encouraged and (J.)ciiargeof 
aided the jaghiredars,^^ I do not think "^'^,/,'i;"7^,,^[l^ 
it necessary to say much. It is evi- to resist. 
dent, from the letters of Mr. Middleton, that no 
such aid was required to awaken resentments, 
which must, indeed, unavoidably have arisen from 
the nature of an affair in which so many power- 
ful interests were involved. The jaghires de- 
pending were of an immense amount, and as 
their owners, by the resumption of them, would 
be at once reduced to poverty and distres.s, they 
wanted surely no new instigation to resistance. 
It is ridiculous to attempt to impute to the Be- 
gums, without a shadow of proof, the inspiring 
of sentiments which must inevitably have been 
excited in the breast of every jaghiredar by the 
contemplation of the injury and injustice which 
were intended to be done him. Reluctant to 
waste the time of the court, I will dismiss the 
discussion of this charge by appealing to your 
Lordships individually to determine, whether, on 
a proposal being made to confiscate your several 
estates (and the cases are precisely analogous), 
the incitements of any two ladies of this kingdom 
would be at all required to kindle your resent- 
ments and to rouse you to opposition ? 

(3.) The commotions, my Lords, wdiich pre- 
vailed in Oude have also been attrib- ^g^ cuar-e of 
uted to the Begums, and constitute exciting com- 

~ ' . motions m 

the third and remaining allegation ou.ie. These 

, T, . T Y T tlie result of 

agamst them. But these disorders, 1 Engiishrapac 
confidently aver, were, on the contra- ''^' 
r}', the work of the English, which I will show 
by the most incontestible evidence. 

They were produced by their rapacity and 
violence, and not by the "perfidious artifices" of 
these old women. To drain the province of its 
money, every species of cruelty, of extortion, of 
rapine, of stealth was employed by the emis.sa- 
ries of Mr. Hastings. The Nabob perceived 
the growing discontents among the people, and, 
alarmed at the consequences, endeavored, by the 



1788.] 



WARREN HASTINGS ON THE BEGUM CHARGE. 



423 



strongest representations, to rid his devoted coun- 
try oi' the oppressions ol" its invaders, and partic- 
ularly from the vulture grasp of Colonel Han- 
nay ; swearing by Mohammed that if " this tyrant 
were not removed he would quit the province," 
as a residence in it was no longer to be en- 
dured.^"^ Thus this mild people suffered for a 
while in barren anguish and ineflectual bewail- 
ings. At length, however, in their meek bo- 
soms, where injury never before begot resent- 
ment, nor despair aroused to courage, increased 
oppression had its eflect. They determined on 
resi.stance. They collected round their implaca- 
ble foe [Colonel Hannay], and had nearly sacri- 
ficed him. So deeply were thej'^ impressed with 
the sense of their wrongs, that they would not 
even accept of life from their oppressors. They 
threw themselves upon the swords of the sol- 
diery, and sought death as the only termination 
of their sorrows and persecutions. Of a people 
thus injured and thus feeling, it is an audacious 
fallacy to attribute their conduct to any external 
impulse. My Lords, the true cause of it is to 
be traced to the first-born principles of man. It 
grows with his growth ; it sti'engthens with his 
strength. It teaches him to understand; it en- 
ables him to feel. For where there is human 
fate, can there be a penury of human feeling ? 
Where there is injury, will there not be resent- 
ment ■? Is not despair to be followed by cour- 
age ? The God of battles pervades and pene- 
trates the inmost spirit of man, and, rousing him 
to shake off the burden that is grievous, and the 
yoke that is galling, reveals the law written on 
his heart, and the duties and privileges of his 
nature. 

If, my Lords, a sti'anger had at this time en- 
De.soiation tcrcd the proviuce of Oude, ignorant of 
and^ what had happened since the death of 
Sujah Dowlah — that prince who with a 
savage heart had still great lines of character, 
and who, with all his ferocity in w^ar, had, with 
a cultivating hand, preserved to his country the 
wealth which it derived from benignant skies and 
a prolific .soil — if, observing the wide and gen- 
eral devastation of fields unclothed and brown ; 
of vegetation burned up and extinguished ; of 
villages depopulated and in ruin ; of temples un- 
roofed and perishing ; of reservoirs broken down 
and dry, this stranger should ask, " what has 
thus laid waste this beautiful and opulent land ; 
what monstrous madness has ravaged with wide- 
spread war ; what desolating foreign foe ; what 
civil discords ; what disputed succession ; what 
religious zeal ; what fabled monster has stalked 



of Oud 
cau.se3 
ettects. 



22 When Colonel Hannay entered the service of 
the Nabob, being sent there by Hastings with Brit- 
ish troops, he was a man in debt. He was de- 
scribed by one of the witnesses as "involved in 
his circumstances." At the end of three years, 
he was understood to have realized a fortune of 
three hundred thousand pounds sterling ! See Min- 
utes of Evidence, p. 390, 391. It is not wonderful 
that such a man should have awakened the resist- 
ance so eloquently described in this and the next 
paragraph. 



abroad, and, with malice and mortal enmity to 
man, withered by the grasp of death every 
growth of natiu-e and humanity, all means of 
delight, and each original, simj)le principle of 
bare existence?" the answer would have been, 
not one of these causes ! No wars have rav- 
aged these lands and depopulated these villages ! 
No desolating foreign foe ! No domestic broils ! 
No disputed succession ! No religious, super- 
serviceable zeal ! No poisonous monster ! No 
affliction of Providence, which, while it scourged 
us, cut off the sources of resuscitation ! No ! 
This damp of death is the mere effusion of Brit- 
ish amity ! We sink under the pressure of their 
support ! We writhe under their perfidious 
gripe ! They have embraced us with their pro- 
tecting arms, and lo ! these are the fruits of their 
alliance ! 

What then, my Lords, shall we bear to be told 
that, under such circumstances, the exasperated 
feelings of a whole people, thus spurred on to 
clamor and resistance, were excited by the poor 
and feeblj influence of the Begums ? After 
hearing the description given by an eye-witness 
[Colonel Naylor, successor of Hannay]-'* of the 
paroxysm of fever and delirium into which de- 
spair threw the natives when on the banks of 
the polluted Ganges, panting for breath, they 
tore more widely open the lips of their gaping 
wounds, to accelerate their dissolution ; and while 
their blood was issuing, presented their ghastly 
eyes to heaven, breathing their last and fervent 
prayer that the dry earth might not be suffered 
to drink their blood, but that it might rise up to 
the throne of God, and rouse the eternal Provi- 
dence to avenge the wrongs of their country — 
will it be said that all this was brought about by 
the incantations of these Begums in their seclud- 
ed Zenana: or that they could inspire this en- 
thusiasm and this despair into the breasts of a 
people who felt no grievance, and had suffered 
no torture ? What motive, then, could have such 
influence in their bosom? What motive! That 
which nature, the common parent, plants in the 
bosom of man; and which, though it may be less 
active in the Indian than in the Englishman, is 
still congenial with, and makes a part of his be- 
ing. That feeling which tells him that man was 
never made to be the property of man ; but that, 
when in the pride and insolence of power, one hu- 
man creature dai'es to tyrannize over another, it is 
a power usurped, and resistance is a duty. That 
principle which tells him that resistance to pow- 
er usurped is not merely a duty which he owes 
to himself and to his neighbor, but a duty which 
he owes to his God, in asserting and maintain- 
ing the rank wiiich he gave him in his creation. 
That principle which neither the rudeness of ig- 
norance can stifle, nor the enervation of refine- 
ment extinguish ! That principle which makes 
it base for a man to suffer when he ought to act ; 
which, tending to preserve to the species the 

2^ This is the most graphic and powerful descrip- 
tion to be found in the speeches of Mr. Sheridan. It 
is almost entirely free from those "faults of taste" 
which were so common in his most labored passages. 



424 



MR. SHERIDAN AGAINST 



[1788. 



original designations of Providence, ijpunis at the 
arrogant distinctions of man, and indicates the 
independent quahty of his race. 

I trust, now, that your Lordships can feel no 
Mr. Hastings hesitation in acquitting the unfortu- 
uLTegumfto n^<^e princesses of this allegation. But 
be guilty. though the innoccncc of the Begums 
may be confessed, it does not necessarily follow, 
I am ready to allow, that the prisoner must be 
guilty. There is a possibility that he might have 
been deluded by others, and incautiously led into 
a false conclusion. If this be proved, my Lords, 
I will cheerfully abandon the present charge. 
But if, on the other hand, it shall appear, as I am 
confident it will, that in his subsequent conduct 
there was a mysterious concealment denoting 
conscious gixilt ; if all his narrations of the busi- 
ness be found marked with inconsistency and 
contradiction, there can be, I think, a doubt no 
longer entertained of his criminality. 

It will be easy, my Lords, to prove that such 
Proved fay his Concealment was actually practiced. 
anS'^lTpre- F^oni the month of Sepjpmber, in 
texts. which the seizure of the treasures 

took place, till the succeeding January, no inti- 
mation whatever was given of it b}' Mr. Hast- 
ings to the council at Calcutta. But, my Lords, 
look at the mode in which this concealment is 
attempted to be evaded. The first pretext is, 
the want of leisure ! Contemptible falsehood ! 
He could amuse his fancy at this juncture with 
the composition of Eastern tales, but to give an 
account of a rebellion which convulsed an em- 
pire, or of his acquiring so large an amount of 
treasure, he had no time ! 

The second pretext i.s, that all communication 
between Calcutta and Fyzabad was cut off. This 
is no less untrue. By comparing dates, it will 
be seen that letters, now in our possession, pass- 
ed at this period between Mr. Middleton and the 
prisoner. Even Sir Elijah Impey has unguard- 
edly declared that the road leading from the one 
city to the other was as clear from interruption 
as that between London and any of the neigh- 
boring villages. So satisfied am I, indeed, on 
this point, that I am willing to lay aside every 
other topic of criminality against the pri-soner, 
and to rest this prosecution alone on the question 
of the validity of the reasons assigned for the 
concealment we have alleged. Let those, my 
Lord.s, who still retain any doubts on the subject, 
turn to the prisoner's narrative of his journey to 
Benares. They will there detect, amid a mot- 
ley mixture of cant and mystery, of rhapsody and 
enigma, the most studious concealment. 

It may, perhaps, be asked, why did Mr. Hast- 
Theseac- ^"^"^ ^^^sc all thcsc cflorts to vail this 
counted fur. busiucss ? Though it is not strictly in- 
cumbent on me to give an answer to the ques- 
tion, yet I will say that he had obviously a rea- 
son for it. Looking to the natural ellect of deep 
mjurics on the human mind, he thought that op- 
pression must beget resistance. The attempt 
which the Begums might be driven to make in 
their own defense, though really the effect^ he 
was determined to represent as the cause of his 



[ proceedings. He was here onl}' repeating the 
experiment which he so successfully performed 

1 in the case of Cheyte Sing. Even when disap- 
pointed in those views by the natural meekness 
and submission of the princesses, he could not 
relinquish the scheme ; and hence, in his letter 
to the court of Directors January 5th, 1782, he 
represents the subsequent disturbances in Oude 
as the cause of the violent measures he had 
adopted two months previous to the existence of 
the.se disturbances ! He there congratulates his 
masters on the seizure of the treasures which 
he declares, by the law of JMoharamed, w^ere the 
property of Asoph ul Dowlah. 

My Lords, the prisoner more than once as- 
sured the House of Commons that the ^f „ ,• , 

. . Mr. Hastings 

inhabitants of Asia believed him to pretense of a 

1 1 1 • • /- 1 • , special provi- 

be a preternatural bemg, gifted with denceinuis 
good fortune or the peculiar favorite 
of Heaven ; and that Providence never failed to 
take up and carry, b}'^ wise, but hidden means, 
every project of his to its destined end. Thus, 
in his blasphemous and vulgar puritanical jar- 
gon, did Mr. Hastings libel the course of Provi- 
dence. Thus, according to him, when his cor- 
ruptions and briberies were on the eve of expos- 
ure. Providence inspired the heart of Nnncomar 
to commit a low, base crime, in order to save 
him from ruin."* Thus, also, in his attempts on 
Cheyte Sing, and his plunder of the Begums, 
Providence stepped forth, and inspired the one 
with resistance and the other with rebellion, to 
forward his purposes ! Thus, my Lords, did he 
arrogantly represent himself as a man not only 
the favorite of Providence, but as one for whose 
sake Providence departed from the eternal course 
of its own wise dispensations, to assist his ad- 
ministration by the elaboration of all that is del- 
eterious and ill ; heaven-born forgeries — inspired 
treasons— Providential rebellions ! arraigning that 
Pi'cvidence 

" Whose works are goodness, and whose ways are 
risrht." 



s* Nuncomar, as stated on a preceding page, was 
a Hindoo of high rank, who accused Hastings to the 
Council at Calcutta of having put up offices to sale, 
and of receiving bribes for allowing offenders to es- 
cape punisimieut. The accusation was malicious, 
and possibly false ; but a majority of the Council, 
who were unfriendly to Hastings, declared it to be 
full}- sustained. At this moment, Nuncomar was 
charged, through Hastings' instrumentality, with 
having forged a hand. For this offense, which, 
among the natives of India, would liardly be con- 
sidered criminal, Hastings bad him arraigned, not 
before a Hindoo court, but before the Supreme Court 
of Bengal, over which Impey presided as Chief Jus- 
tice. Here, to the astonishment of all, Nuncomar 
was sentenced to die, under the laws of England, 
and not of his own countrjr. Every one expected 
that Impej' would have respited Nuncomar, and 
that Hastings would have been satisfied with his 
conviction, without demanding his blood. The Coun- 
cil interposed for the deliverance of Nuncomar in 
the most energetic manner, but Hastings was in- 
flexible. Impey, the instrument of bis vengeance, 
refused all delay, and Nnncomar was hung like a 
' felon, to the horror of all India. 



WARREN HASTINGS ON THE BEGUM CHARGE. 



1788.] 

It does undoubtedly, my Lords, bear a strange 
Want of con- appcai-ancB, that a man of reputed 
feiisehooa"and ability, like the prisoner, even when 
crimes. acting wrongly, should have recourse 

to so many bungling artifices, and spread so thin 
a vail over his deceptions. But those who are 
really surprised at this circumstance must have 
attended very little to the demeanor of Mr. Hast- 
ings. Through the whole of his defense upon 
this charge, sensible that truth would undo him, 
he rests his hopes on falsehood. Observing this 
rule, he has drawn together a set of falsehoods 
without consistency, and without connection ; not 
knowing, or not remembering, that there is noth- 
ing which requires so much care in the fabrica- 
tion, as a system of lies. The series must be 
regular and unbroken ; but his falsehoods are 
eternally at variance, and demolish one another. 
Indeed, in all his conduct, he seems to be actu- 
ated but by one principle, to do things contrary 
to the established form. This architect militates 
against the first principles of the art. He be- 
gins with the frieze and the capital, and lays the 
base of the column at the top. Thus turning 
his edifice upside down, he plumes himself upon 
the novelty of hi.*; idea, till it comes tumbling 
about his ears. • Rising from these ruins, he is 
soon found rearing a similar structure. He de- 
lights in difficulties, and disdains a plain and se- 
cure foundation. He loves, on the contrary, to 
build on a precipice, and to encamp on a mine. 
Inured to falls, he fears not danger. Frequent 
defeats have given him a hardihood, without im- 
pressing a sense of disgrace. 

It was once, my Lords, a maxim, as much ad- 
mitted in the practice of common life 

Some men may . , , p i i . , 

unite prudence as m the schools 01 philosophy, that 
crime. -vsiicre Heavcu is inclined to destroy, 
it begins with frenzying the intellect. " Quern 
Deus vult perdere prius dementat." This doc- 
trine the right honorable manager (Mr. Burke), 
who opened generally to j'our Lordships the ar- 
ticles of impeachment, still farther extended. He 
declared that the co-existence of vice and pru- 
dence was incompatible ; that the vicious man, 
being deprived of his best energies, and curtailed 
in his proportion of understanding, was left with 
such a short-sighted penetration as could lay no 
claim to prudence. This is the sentiment of my 
noble and exalted friend, whose name I can never 
mention but with respect and admiration due to 
his virtue and talents : whose proud disdain of 
vice can only be equaled by the ability with which 
he exposes and controls it ; to whom I look up 
with homage ; whose genius is commensurate 
with philanthropy : whose memory will stretch 
itself beyond the fleeting objects of any little par- 
tial shuflling — through the whole wide range of 
human knowledge and honorable aspiration after 
good — as large as the system which forms life — 
as lasting as those objects which adorn it ; but in 
this sentiment, so honorable to my friend, I can 
not implicitly agree.^-^ If the true definition of 
-^ The reaJier will at once see the object of Mr. 
Sheridan in thus apparently differing from Mr. 
Burke. It was to arrest attention, by an ingenious 



425 



prudence be the successful management and con- 
duct of a purpose to its end, I can at once bring 
instances into view where this species of prudence 
belonged to minds distinguished by the atrocity 
of their actions. When I survey the history of 
a Philip of JNIaccdon, of a Cesar, of a Cromwell, 
I perceive great guilt successfully conducted, if 
not by legitimate discretion, at least by a consum- 
mate crafty or by an all-commanding sagacity, 
productive of precisely the same effects. These, 
however, I confess, were isolated characters, who 
left the vice they dared to follow either in the state 
of dependent vassalage, or involved it in destruc- 
tion. Such is the perpetual law of nature, that 
virtue, whether placed in a circle more contracted 
or enlarged, moves with sweet concert. There 
is no dissonance to jar ; no asperity to divide ; 
and that harmony which makes its felicity at the 
same time constitutes its protection. Of vice, on 
the contrary, the parts are disunited, and each in 
barbax'ous language clamors for its pre-eminence. 
It is a scene where, though one domineering pas- 
sion may have sway, the others still press for- 
ward with their dissonant claims ; and, in the 
moral world, eflfects waiting on their causes, the 
discord which results, of course, insures defeat. 

In this way, my Lords, I believe the failure of 
Mr. Hastings is to be explained, and Not so with 
such, I trust, will be the fate of all who ^^'- Hastings, 
shall emulate his character or his conduct. The 
doctrine of my friend, from what I have said, can, 
therefore, hold only in those minds which can not 
be satisfied with the indulgence of a single crime ; 
where, instead of one base master passion having 
the complete sway, to which all the faculties are 
subject, and on which alone the mind is bent, there 
is a combustion and rivalry among a number of 
passions yet baser, when pride, vanit}', avarice, 
lust of power, cruelty, all at once actuate the hu- 
man soul and distract its functions,- all of them 
at once filling their several spaces, some in their 
larger, some in their more contracted orbits ; all 
of them struggling for pre-eminence, and each 
counteracting the other. In such a mind, un- 
doubtedly, great crimes can never be accompa- 
nied by prudence. There is a fortunate disabil- 
ity, occasioned by the contention, that rescues the 
human species from the villainy of the intention. 
Such is the original denunciation of nature. Not 
so wnth the nobler passions. In the breast where 
they reside, the harmony is never interrupted by 
the number. A perfect and substantial agree- 
ment gives an accession of vigor to each, and, 
spreading their influence in every direction, like 
the divine intelligence and benignity from which 
they flow, they ascertain it to the individual by 
which they are possessed, and communicate it to 
the society of which he is a member. 

My Lords, I shall now revert again to the 
claims made on the princesses of 
Oude. The counsel for the prisoner 
have labored to impress on the court the idea that 
the Nabob was a prince sovereignly independent, 

turn of thought, and thus to set forth his views in 
stronger relief. 



The Naliob bis 
mere vassal. 



426 



MR. SHERIDAN AGAINST 



[1788. 



and in no degree subject to the control of Mr. 
Hastings ; but, after the numberless proofs we 
have adduced of his being, on the contrary, a 
mere cipher in the hands of the Governor Gen- 
eral, your Lordships will require of them, to cre- 
ate such a conviction on your minds, much more 
conclusive evidence than any which they have 
hitherto presented. I believe, both as regards 
the resumption oi' the jaghires, and especially the 
seizure of the treasures, they will find it very diffi- 
cult to show the independence of the prince.'^ 

It has, my Lords, been strenuously contended 
The seizure of OH our parts, that the measure of 
ti,e treasure not sejzjng the trcasurcs originated with 



first proposed 

by the Nabob. fJ^g prisoner^ and in maintenance of 
the position we have brought forward a chain of 
testimony clear, and, we think, satisfactory ; but 
the counsel for the prisoner, on the other hand, 
assert with equal earnestness, that the proposition 
for seizing the treasures came originally from the 
Nabob. It is therefore incumbent on them to sup- 
port their assertion by proof, as we have done. 
Certainly the best evidence of the fact would be 
the exhibition of the letter of the Nabob to Mr. 
Hastings, in which they allege the proposition 
was made. Why, then, is not this document, 
which must at once settle all disputation on the 
subject, produced? The truth is, there is no 
such letter. I peremptorily deny it, and chal- 
lenge the prisoner and his counsel to produce a 
letter or paper containing any proposition of the 
Kind coming immediately from the prince. 

My Lords, the seizure of the treasures and the 
It was the re- j^ghires was the effect of a dark con- 
suitofacon- spiracu. in which six persons were 

Bpiraoy set on ^ i t^i r ii 

foot by Mr. Concerned. ihree ol the conspu'a- 
^^"'^^- tors were of a higher order. These 
were Mr. Hasting.s, who may be considered as 
the principal and leader in this black affair ; Mr. 
Middleton, the English resident at Lucknow ; and 
Sir Elijah Impey. The three inferior or subor- 
dinate conspirators were, Hyder Beg Khan, the 
nominal minister of the Nabob, but in reality the 
creature of Mr. Hasting.s, Colonel Hannay, and 
Ali Ibrahim Khan. 

Sir Elijah Impey was intrusted by Mr. Hast- 
ings to carry his orders to Mr. Middleton, and 
to concert with him the means of carrying them 
into execution. The Chief Justice, my Lords, 
being a principal actor in the whole of this ini- 
quitous business, it will be necessary to take no- 
tice of some parts of the evidence which he has 
delivered upon oath at your Lord.ships' bar. 

When asked, what became of the Persian affi- 
Exposure.in davit, swom bcforc him, after he had 
impyCsnb. delivered them to Mr. Hastings, he 
terfuges. replied that he really did not know ! 
He was also a.sked, if he had them translated, or 
knew of their having been translated, or had any 
conversation with Mr. Hastings on the subject of 



the affidavits. He replied, " that he knew noth- 
ing at all of their having been translated, and that 
he had no conversation whatever with Mr. Hast- 
ings on the subject of the affidavits after he had 
delivered them to him." He was next asked 
whether he did not think it a little singular that 
he should not have held any conversation with 
the Governor General on a subject of so much 
moment as that of the affidavits which he had 
taken. His answer was, that he did not think it 
singular, because he lelt Chunar the very day aft- 
er he delivered the affidavits to Mr. Hastings. By 
this answer the witness certainly meant it should 
be understood that when he quitted Chunar he left 
the Governor General behind him ; but it appears, 
from letters written by the witness himseli, and 
which we have already laid before the court, that 
he arrived at Chunar on the 1st of December, 
1781 ; that he then began to take the affidavits, 
and, when completed, he and JNIr. Hastings left 
Chunar in company, and set out on the road to 
Benares ; and that, after being together from the 
first to the sixth of the month, the former took 
leave of the latter, and proceeded on his journey 
to Calcutta. Here, then, my Lords, we detect 
a subterfuge artfully contrived to draw you into 
a false conclusion ! There is also another part 
of the witness's evidence which is entitled to as 
little credit. He has sworn that he knew nothing 
of the Persian affidavits having been translated. 
Now, my Lords, we formerly produced a letter 
from Major William Davy, the confidential sec- 
retary and Persian translator to the Governor 
General, in which he states that he made an 
affidavit before Sir Elijah Impey at Buxar, on 
the 12th of December, just six days after Sir 
Elijah parted from Mr. Hastings, swearing that 
the papers annexed to the affidavits were faith- 
ful translations of the Persian affidavits ! What 
shall we say, my Lords, of such testimony ? I 
will make only one remark upon it, which I shall 
borrow from an illustrious man ; " that no one 
could tell where to look for truth, if it could not 
be found on the judgment seat, or know what to 
credit, if the affirmation of ^ judge was not to be 
trusted." 

I have, my Lords, before observed, that the 
Chief Justice was intrusted by the impey sent as 
prisoner to concert with Mr. Mid- 
dleton the means of carrying 



26 This claim is directly in the face of Mr. Hast- 
inirs' own statement, in the Minutes of Consultation, 
where he says that Asoph ul Dowlah, by the treaty 
made upon the death of his father, " became event- 
ually and nece&sarily the vassal of the Company." 
See quotation in Mill, vol. iv., 2G8. 



nu agent to in- 
duce tlie Nabob 
into to propose, as 
/• 1 • 1 1 from/ii»n«//; to 

execution the order ol which he was se.ze the treas- 
the bearer from the Governor Gen- 
eral to the resident. These orders do not ap- 
pear any where in writing, but your Lordships 
are acquainted with their purport. The court 
must recollect that Mr. Middleton was instruct- 
ed by them to persuade the Nabob to propose, as 
from himself to Mr. Hastings, the seizure of the 
Begum's treasures. That this was really so, ap- 
pears undeniably as well from the tenor of Mr. 
Middleton's letter on the subject, as from the 
prisoner's account of the business in his defense. 
Evidently, Mr. Hastings was on this occasion 
hobbled by difficulties which put all his ingenu- 
ity into requisition. He was aware that it must 
seem extraordinary, that at the very moment he 



1788.] 



WARREN HASTINGS ON THE BEGUM CHARGE. 



427 



was confiscating the property of the Begums, on 
the plea of their treasonable machinations, he 
should stipulate that an annual allowance equal 
almost to the produce of that property should be 
secured to them. Though he had accused the 
princesses of rebellion, by which, of course, their 
treasures were forfeited to the state, yet he was 
reluctant to appear as the principal in seizing 
them. 

Do not. my Lords, these embarrassments prove 
Thissi.owsMr. that thc prisoncr was sensible of the 
turJeilure'to* iujusticc of his procccdings ? If the 
be unjust. princcsscs were in rebellion^ there coidd 
be no ground for his demurring to seize their 
property. The consciousness of their innocence 
could alone, therefore, make him timid and irres- 
olute. To get rid at once of his difficulties, he 
resorts to the expedient which I have before stat- 
ed, namely, of giving directions to Sir Elijah 
Impey that Mr. Middleton should urge the Na- 
bob to propo.se, as from himself, the seizure of 
the treasures. My Lords, the unhappy prince, 
without a will of his own, consented to make the 
propo.sal, as an alternative for the resumption 
of the jaghires ; a measure to which he had the 
most unconquerabb reluctance. Mr. Hastings, 
as it were to indulge the Nabob, agreed to the 
proposal ; rejoicing, at the same time, that his 
scheme had proved so far successful ; for he 
thought this proposal, coming from the Nabob, 
would free him from the odium of so unpopular 
a plundering. But the artifice was too shallow ; 
and your Lordships are now able to trace the 
measure to its source. The court will see from 
the evidence that Mr. Hastings suggested it to 
Sir Elijah Impey, that Sir Elijah Impey might 
suggest it to Middleton, that Middleton might 
suggest it to the Nabob, that his Highness might 
suggest it to Mr. Hastings ; and thus the sug- 
gestion returned to the place from which it had 
originally set out ! 

One single passage of a letter, written by 
Confirmation Middleton to Mr. Hastings on the 2d 
from a letter of December, 1781, will make this 

ofMiddleton. . i i tt • z' 

pomt as clear as day. He informs the 
Governor General that " the Nabob, wishing to j 
evade the measure of resuming the jaghires, had j 
sent him a message to the following purport : j 
that if the measure proposed was intended to 
procure the payment of the balance due to the 
Company, he could better and more expeditious- 
ly effect that object by taking from his mother 
the treasures of his father, which he asserted to 
be in her hands, and to which he claimed a 
right, founded on the laws of the Koran ; and 
that it would be sufficient that he [Mr. Hastings] 
w^ould hint his opinion upon it, without giving a 
formal sanction to the measux'e proposed." Mr. 
Middleton added, " the resumption of the jag- 
hires it is necessary to suspend till I have your 
answer to this letter." 

In the first place, it is clear from this letter 
that, though the Nabob consented to make the 
desired proposal for seizing the treasures, it was 
only as an alternative ; for it never entered into 
his head both to seize the treasures and resume 



the jaghires. The former measure he wished 
to substitute in thc room of the latter, and by 
no means to couple them together. But Mr. 
Hastings was too nice a reasoner for the prince. 
He insi.sted that one measure should be carried 
into execution, because the Nabob had proposed 
it ; and thc other, because he himself determin- 
ed upon it. 

It also appears that the Nabob w^as taught to 
plead his right to the treasures, as founded upon 
the laws of the Koran. Not a word was said 
about the guarantee and treaty which had barred 
that right, whatever it might have been ! But, 
my Loi'ds, if all Mr. Hastings would have the 
world believe is true, he [the Nabob] had still a 
much better title — one against which the treaty 
and guarantee could not be raised, and this was 
the treason of the Begum.s, by which they for- 
feited all their property to the state, and every 
claim upon English protection. On this right by 
forfeiture, the Nabob, however, was silent. Be- 
ing a stranger to the rebellion, and to the treason 
of his parents, he was reduced to the necessity 
of reviving a right under the laws of the Koran, 
which the treaty and guarantee had forever ex- 
tinguished. 

This letter, moreover, contains this remarka- 
ble expression, namely, " that it would be suffi- 
cient to hint his [Mr. Hastings'] opinion upon it, 
without giving a formal sanction to the measure 
proposed.''^ Why this caution ? If the Begums 
were guilty of treason, why should he be fear- 
ful of declaring to the world that it was not the 
practice of the English to protect rebellious sub- 
jects, and prevent their injured sovereigns from 
proceeding against them according to law ? — 
that he considered the treaty and guarantee, by 
which the Begums held their property, as no 
longer binding upon the English government, 
who consequently could have no farther right to 
interfere between the Nabob and his rebellious 
parents, but must leave him at liberty to punish 
or forgive them as he should think fit ? But, my 
Lords, instead of holding this language, which 
manliness and conscious integrity would have 
dictated, had he been convinced of the guilt of 
the Begums, Mr. Hastings wished to derive all 
pcssiblc advantage from active measures against 
them, and at the same time so far to save ap- 
pearances, as that he might be thought to be 
passive in the affair. 

My Lords, in another part of the same letter, 
Mr. JNIiddleton informs the Governor Letters and pa- 
General " that he sent him, at the l^m I'Z'^Tt'aA 
•same time, a letter from the Nabob ("'"-d oti'snTooC 
on the subject of seizing the treasures." This 
letter has been suppressed. I challenge the 
counsel for the prisoner to produce it, or to ac- 
count satisfactorily to your Lordships for its not 
having been entered upon the Company's rec- 
ords. Nor is this, my Lord.s, the only suppres- 
sion of which we have reason to complain. The 
affidavit of Goulass Roy, who lived at Fyzabad, 
the residence of the Begums, and who was 
known to be their enemy, is also suppressed. 
No person could be so well informed of their 



428 



MR. SHERIDAN AGAINST 



[1788. 



guilt, if they had been guilty, as Goulass Roy, 
who resided upon the spot where levies were 
said to have been made for Cheyte Sing by their 
order. If, therefore, his testimony had not de- 
stroyed the charge of a rebellion on the part of 
the Begums, there is no doubt but it would have 
been carefully preserved. The information of 
Mr. Scott has, moreover, been withheld from us. 
This gentleman lived unmolested at Taunda, 
where Sumshire Khan commanded for the Be- 
gums, and where he carried on an extensive 
manufacture without the least hinderance from 
this supposed disatTected governor. Mr. Scott 
was at Taunda too when it was said that the 
Governor pointed the guns of the fort upon Cap- 
tain Gordan's party. If this circumstance, my 
Lords, did really happen, Mr. Scott must have 
heard of it, as he was himself at the time un- 
der the protection of those very guns. Why, 
then, is not the examination of this gentleman 
produced ? I believe your Lordships are satis- 
fied that, if it had supported the allegations 
against Sumshire Khan, it would have been can- 
celed. 

It is not clear to me, my Lords, that, as serv- 
Middieton i^G ^ t<^°l ^s ^^^'- ^liddleton was, the | 
fu'nv'co'n'fid" pi'isoner intrusted him with every part , 
ed in by Mr. of his inteutious throughout the busi- | 
as iiigs. ^^^^ ^j, ^j^^ Begums. He certainly mis- ■ 
trusted, or pretended to mistrust him, in his pro- ; 
ceedings relative to the resumption of the jas^- l 
hires. When it began to be rumored abroad \ 
that terms so favorable to the Nabob as he ob- I 
tained in the treaty of Chunai- — by which Mr. I 
Hastings consented to withdraw the temporary 
brigade, and to remove the English gentlemen ] 
from Oude — would never have been granted, if { 
the Nabob had not bribed the parties concerned I 
in the negotiation to betray the interests of the j 
Company, Mr. Hastings confirmed the report by | 
actually charging Mr. Middleton and his assist- ! 
ant i-esident, Mr. Johnson, with having accepted j 
of bribes. They both joined in the most solemn 
assurances of their innocence, and called God 
to witness the truth of their declarations. Mr. 
Hastings, after this, appeared satisfied ; possibly 
the consciousness that he had in his ov\-n pocket 
the only bribe which was given on the occasion, 
the c£ 100,000, might have made him the less 
ea>-nest in prosecuting any farther inquiry into j 
the business. { 

A passage in a letter from Mr. Hastings shows 
The instruc- ^^^^^ ^^^ *^'*^ ""^ think proper to com- 
tions given nijj; to Writing all the orders which 

Iiiin not al- . i -«r t/t- i ii 

ways rominit- hc wishcd Mr. Miuulcton to execute ; 
owning, fg^ |.j^gj.g jyi^. Hastings expresses his 



doubts of the resident's " firmness and activity ; 
and, above all, of his recollection of his instruc- 
tions and their importance ; and said, that if he, 
Mr. Middleton, could not rely on his own pow- 
er, and the means he possessed for performing 
those services, he would/rce him from the charge, 
and proceed to Lucknow and undertake it him- 
self." JNIy Lords, you must presume that the 
instructions here alluded to were verbal ; for had i 
thsy been written, there could be no danger of i 



their being forgot. I call upon the counsel to 
state the nature of those instructions, which were 
deemed of so much importance, that the Govern- 
or was so greatly afraid Mr. Middleton would 
not recollect them, and which, nevertheless, he 
did not dare to commit to writing. 

To make your Lordships understand some oth- 
er expressions in the above passage. This accounted 
I must recall to your memory, that [hat^M^ddie'ton 
it has appeared in evidence that Mr. g^^neThe^r". 
Middleton had a strong objection to ^""''*- 
the resumption o[ the jaghires : which he thought 
a service of so much danger, that hc removed 
Mrs. Middleton and his family when he was 
about to enter upon it ; for he expected resist- 
ance not only from the Begums, but from the 
Nabob's own aumeels [agents] ; who, knowing 
that the prince was a reluctant instrument in the 
hands of the English, thought they would please 
him by opposing a measure to which he had giv- 
en his authority against his ivill. Middleton 
undoubtedly expected the whole countr}'- would 
unanimously rise against him ; and therefore it 
was, my Lords, that he suspended the execution 
of the order of resumption, until he should find 
whether the seizure of the treasures, proposed 
as an alternative, would be accepted as such. 
The prisoner pressed him to execute the order 
for resuming the jaghires, and offered to go him- 
self upon that service if he should decline it. 
Middleton at last, having received a thundering 
letter from Mr. Hastings, by which he left him 
to act under " a di'eadful responsibility," set out 
for Fyzabad. 

My Lords, for all the cruelties and barbarities 
that were executed there, the Governor General 
in his narrative says, he does not hold himself 
answerable, because he commanded Middleton 
to be personal!}'- present during the whole of the 
transaction, until he should complete the seizing 
of the treasures and resuming thejaghires. But 
for what purpose did he order Middleton to be 
present ? I will show, by quoting the orders 
verbatim : " You youi'self must be personally 
present ; you must not allow any negotiation or 
forbearance, but must prosecute both services, 
imtil the Begums are at the entire mercy of the 
Nabob." These peremptory orders, given un- 
der "a dreadful responsibility," were not issued, 
my Lords, as you see, for pui poses onntmanity ; 
not that the presence of the resident nu'ght re- 
strain the violence of the soldier ; but that he 
might be a icatch upon the Nabob, to steel his 
heart against the feelings of returning nature in 
his breast, and prevent the possibility of his re- 
lenting, or granting any terms to his mother and 
grandmother. This, truly, was the abominable 
motive which induced the prisoner to command 
the personal attendance of Middleton, and yet, 
my Lords, he dares to say that he is not respons- 
ible for the horrid scene which ensued. [Hero 
Mr. Sheridan was taken ill, and retired for a while 
to try if in the fresh air he could recover, so as 
that he might conclude all he had to say upon 
the evidence on the second charge. Some time 
after, Mr. Fox informed their Lordships that Mr. 



1788] 



WARREN HASTINGS ON THE BEGUM CHARGE. 



429 



Sheridan was much better, but that he felt he 
was not sudiciently so to be able to do justice 
to the subject he had in hand. The managers 
therefore hoped their Lordships would be pleased 
to appoint a future day, on which Mr. Sheridan 
would finish his observations on the evidence. 

Upon this, their Lordships returned to their 
own House, and adjourned the court.] 

My Lords, permit me to remind you, that 
Middieton's let- ^'^^^^^ ^ ^ad last thc houor of address- 
ters brought to iujr you, I concludcd with submittinof 

hgbt by a breach o j : , , ,. , 

between him to the court the wholc oi the corre- 
al! Hastings, gpondence, as far as it could be ob- 
tained, between the principal and agents in the 
nefarious plot carried on against the Nabob Viz- 
ier and the Begums of Oude. These letters de- 
mand of the court the most grave and delibex'ate 
attention, as containing not only a narrative of 
that foul and unmanly conspiracy, but also a 
detail of the motives and ends for which it was 
formed, and an exposition of the trick and quib- 
ble, the prevarication and the untruth with which 
it was then acted, and is now attempted to be de- 
fended. It will here be naturally inquired, with 
some degree of surprise, hov/ the private corre- 
spondence which thus establishes the guilt of its 
authoi's came to light? This was owing to a 
mutual resentment which broke out about the 
middle of December, 1782, between the parties. 
Mr. Middleton, on the one hand, became jealous 
of the abatement of Mr. Hastings' confidence ; 
and the Governor General was incensed at the 
tardiness with which the resident proceeded. 

From this moment, shyness and suspicion be- 
cause of tween the principal and the agent took 
this breach, pjace. Middlctou hesitated about the 
expediency of resuming the jaghircs, and began 
to doubt whether the advantage would be equal 
to thc risk. Mr. Hastings, whether he appre- 
hended that Middleton was retarded by any re- 
turn of humanity or sentiments of justice, by any 
secret combination with the Begum and her son, 
or a wish to take the liorts share of the plunder 
to himself, was exasperated at the delay. Mid- 
dleton represented the unwillingness of the Na- 
bob to execute the measure — the low state of his 
finances — that his troops were mutinous for want 
of pay — that his life had been in danger from an 
insurrection among them — and that in this mo- 
ment of distress he had offered one hundred thou- 
sand pounds, in addition to a like sum paid be- 
fore, as an equivalent for the resumption which 
was demanded of him. Of this offer, hovrever. it 
now appears, the Nabob knew nothing ! In con- 
ferring an obligation, my Lords, it is sometimes 
contrived, from motives of delicac}', that the 
name of the donor shall be concealed from the 
person obliged ; but here it was reserved for 
Middleton to refine this sentiment of delicacy, so 
as to leave the person giving utterly ignorant of 
the favor he bestowed.' 

But notwithstanding these little differences 
Middleton ^"^ suspicions, Mr. Hastings and Mr. 
accused by Middlctou, on the return of the latter 
Hasting,. ^^ Calcutta in October, 1782, lived in 
the same stj^le of friendly collusion and fraudu- 



lent familiarity as formerly. After, however, an 
intimacy of about six months, the Governor Gen- 
eral very unexpectedly arraigns his friend before 
the board at Calcutta. It was on this occasion 
that the prisoner, rashly for himself, but happily 
for the purposes of justice, produced these letters. 
Whatever, my Lords, was the meaning of this 
proceeding — whether it was a juggle to elude 
inquiry, or whether it was intended to make an 
impression at Fyzabad — whether Mr. Hastings 
drew up the charge, and instructed Mr. Middle- 
ton how to prepare the defense ; or whether the 
accused composed the charge, and the accuser 
the defehse, there is discernible in the transac- 
tion the same habitual collusion in which the par- 
ties lived, and the prosecution ended, as we have 
seen, in a rhapsody, a repartee, and a poetical 
quotation by the prosecutor! 

Thc private letters, my Lords, are the only part 
of the correspondence thus provi- The private let- 
dentially disclosed, which is deserv- toUsbtTnu^re^''* 
ing of attention. They were writ- ^e°nleyan''the' 
ten in the confidence of private com- p'^^''^ ones. 
municalion, without any motives to palliate and 
color facts, or to mislead. The counsel for the 
prisoner have, however, chosen to rely on the 
public correspondence, prepared, as appears on 
the very face of it, for the concealment of fraud 
and the purpose of deception. They, for exam- 
ple, dwciu on a letter from Mr. Middleton, dated 
December, 1781, which intimates some supposed 
contumacy of the Begums ; and this they thought 
countenanced the proceedings which afterward 
took place, and particularly the resumption of 
the jaghires ; but, my Lords, you can not have 
forgotten, that both Sir Elijah Impey and Mr. 
Middleton declared, in their examination at your 
bar, that the letter was totally false. Another 
letter, which mentions " the determination of the 
Nabob to resume the jaghires,^'' was also dwelt 
upon with great emphasis : but it is in evidence 
that the Nabob, on the contrary, could not, by 
any means, be induced to sanction the measure ; 
that it was not, indeed, till Mr. Middleton had 
actually issued his own Pcricannas [warrants] 
for the collection of the rents, that the Prince, 
to avoid a state of the lowest degradation, con- 
sented to give it the appearance of his act. 

In the same letter, the resistance of the Be- 
gums to the seizure of their treasures is noticed 
as an instance o^ female levity, as if their defense 
of the property assigned for their subsistence was 
a matter of censure, or that they merited a re- 
proof for feminine lightness, because they urged 
an objection to being starved ! 

The opposition, in short, my Lords, which teas 
expected from the princesses, was looked to as a 
justification of the proceedings which afterward 
happened. There is not, in the private letters, 
the slightest intimation of the anterior rebellion, 
which by prudent after-thought was so great- 
ly magnified. Thei'e is not a .syllable of those 
dangerous machinations which were to dethrone 
the Nabob, nor of these sanguinary artifices by 
which the English were to be extirpated. It is 
indeed said, that if such measures were rigor- 



430 



MR. SHERIDAN AGAIx\ST 



[1788. 



ously pursued, as had been set on foot, the peo- 
ple might be driven from murnmrs to resistance, 
and rise up in arms ajjainst their oppressors. 

Where, then, my Lords, is the proof of this 
mighty rebelhon ? It is contained ak)ne, where 
it is natural to expect it, in ihe fabricated coitc- 
spondence between JNIiddleton and Hastings, and 
in the aflidavits colleoied by Sir Elijah Inipey ! 

The gravity of the business on which the Chief 
Justice was employed on this occasion, contrast- 
ed with the vivacity, the rapidity, and celerity of 
his movements, is exceedingly curious. At one 
moment he appeared in Oude, at another in Chu- 
nar, at a third in Benares, procuring testimony, 
and in every quarter exclaiming, like Hamlet's 
Ghost, " Swear !" To him might also have been 
applied the words of Hamlet to the Ghost,'" What, 
Truepenny ! are you there ?"^'' But the similitude 
goes no farther. He was never heard to give the 
injunction, 

" Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive 
Against thy mother aught !"28 

V. It is, my Lords, in some degree worthy 
Rp>i.ni tioiiof ^^ 3'°^^'" observation, that not one of 
the ;„_c/"'-«, the private letters of Mr. Hastings 

and seizure of * . i- i i -n< ■" 

the lieguiiis' has at any tmie been disclosed. Even 
treasures. Middlcton, whcn all confidence was 

broken between them by the production of his 
private correspondence at Calcutta, either feel- 
ing for his own safety, or sunk under the fascina- 
ting influence of his master, did not dare attempt 
a retaliation! The letters of Middleton, how- 
ever, are sufficient to prove the situation of the 
Nabob, when pressed to the resumption of the 
jaghires. He is there described as being some- 
Reiuctance timcs lost in sullcu melancholy — at 
of the Nabob, others, agitated beyond expression, ex- 
hibiting every mark of agonized sensibility. 
Even Middleton was moved by his distresses to 
interfere for a temporary respite, in which he 
might become more reconciled to the measure. 
"I am fully of opinion," said he, "that the de- 
spair of the Nabob must impel him to violence. 
I know^, also, that the violence must be fatal to 
himsell"; but yet I think, that with his present 
feelings, he will disregard all consequences." 

Mr. Johnson, the assistant resident, also wrote 
to the same purpose. The words of his letter 
are memorable. "He thought it would require 
a campaign to execute the orders for the resump- 
tion of the jaghires!'''' A campaign against 
whom ? Against the Nabob, our friend and ally, 
who had voluntarihj given the order!! This 
measure, then, which we have heard contended 
was for his good and the good of his country, 
could truly be only enforced by a campaign ! 
Such is British justice! Such is British humani- 

2'' Ghoat (from beneath the stage). Swear! 
Hamlet. Ah ha, boy, say'st thou so? Art thou 

there, Truepenny ? — Shakspeare's Hamlet, Act I., 

scene 5. 

28 This is the instruction of the Ghost to Hamlet : 
But howsoever thou pursuest this act. 
Taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul contrive 
Against thy mother aught. Leave that to Heaven ! 
Hamlet, Act L, scene 5. 



ty ! Mr. Hastings guarantees to the allies of 
the Company their prosperity and his protection. 
The former he secures by sending an army to 
plunder them of their wealth and to desolate 
their soil. The latter produces the misery and 
the ruin of the protected. His is the protection 
which the vulture gives to the lamb, which cov- 
ers while it devours its prey; which, stretching 
its baleful pinions and hovering in mid air, dis- 
perses the kites and lesser birds of prey, and 
saves the innocent and helpless victim from all 
talons but its own. 

It is curious, my Lords, to remark, that in the 
correspondence of these creatures of want ofprinci- 
Mr. Hastings, and in their earnest en- the coTresimnd" 
deavors to dissuade him from the re- Hastiir<^*rand 
sumption of the jaghires, not a word I'is agents, 
is mentioned of the measure being contrary to 
honor — to faith ; derogator}^ to national charac- 
ter ; unmanly or unprincipled. Knowing the 
man to whom they were writing, their only ar- 
guments were, that it was contrary to policy and 
to expediency. Not one word do they mention 
of the just claims which the Nabob had to the 
gratitude and friendship of the English. Not one 
syllable of the treaty by which we were bound 
to protect him. Not one syllable of the relation 
which subsisted between him and the princesses 
they were about to ])lunder. Not one .syllable 
is hinted of justice or mercy. All which they 
addressed to him was the apprehension that the 
mone}'^ to be procured would not be worth the 
danger and labor with which it must be attend- 
ed. There is nothing, my Lords, to be found in 
the history of human turpitude; nothing in the 
nervous delineations and penetrating brevity of 
Tacitus : nothing in the luminous and luxuriant 
pages of Gibbon, or of any other historian, dead 
or living, who, searching into measures and char- 
acters with the rigor of truth, presents to our ab- 
horrence depravity in its blackest shapes, which 
can equal, in the grossncss of the guilt, or in the 
hardness of heart with which it was conducted, 
or in low and groveling motives, the acts and 
character of the prisoner. "^^ It was he who, in 
the base desire of stripping two helpless women, 
could stir the son to rise up in vengeance against 
them ; who, when that son had certain touches j 
of nature in his breast, cei'tain feelings of an 'j 



29 Mr. Gibbon was present when this com[iliment 
was paid to his history, and considered it sufficient- 
ly important to be noticed in his Memoir of himself. 
"Before my departure from England," he says, "I 
was present at the august spectarle of Mr. Hast 
ings' trial, in Westminster Hall. It is not my prov- 
ince to absolve or condemn the Governor of India, 
but Mr. Sheridan's eloquence demanded my ap- 
plause; nor could I bear without emotion the per 
sonal compliment which he paid me in the presence 
of the British nation." 

One of Sheridan's Whig friends, who was scan- 
dalized by this allusion to the Tory historian, ashed 
the orator, when he sat down, how he came to com- 
pliment Gibbon with the epithet "luminous." Slier- 
idan, whose love of fun never deserted him under 
any circumstances, instantly replied, in a half-v.his- 
pcr, " I said t-olumiuous." 



1788.] 



WARREN HASTINGS ON THE BEGUM CHARGE. 



431 



awakened conscience, could accn.sc him of en- 
tertaining peevish objections to the plunder and 
sacritice of his mother ; who, having finally di- 
vested him of ail thought, all reflection, all mem- 
or}', all conscience, all tenderness and duty as a 
son, all dignity as a monarch ; having destroyed 
his character and depopulated his country, at 
length brought him to violate the dearest ties 
of nature, in countenancing the destruction of his 
parent.s. This crime, I say, has no parallel or 
prototype in the Old World or the New, from the 
day of original sin to the present hour. The 
victims of his oppression were confessedly desti- 
tute of all power to resist their oppressors. But 
their debility, which from other bosoms would 
have claimed some compassion, at least with re- 
spect to the mode of suffering, with him only 
excited the ingenuity of torture. Even when 
every feeling of the Nabob was subdued ; when, 
as we have seen, my Lords, nature made a last, 
lingering, feeble stand within his breast ; even 
then, that cold spirit of malignity, with which 
his doom was fixed, returned with double rigor 
and sharper acrimony to its purpose, and com- 
pelled the child to inflict on the parent that de- 
struction of which iie was himself reserved to 
be the final victim. 

Great as is this climax, in which, my Lords, 
His iiypoiritic- I thought the pinnacle of guilt was 
seizureVtile attained, there is yet something still 
jagidvts. more transcendently flagitious. I 

particularly allude to his [Hastings'] infamous 
letter, falsely dated the l5th of February, 1782, 
in which, at the very moment that he had given 
the order for the entire destruction of the Be- 
gums, and for the resumption of the jaghires, 
he expresses to the Nabob the warm and lively 
interest which he took in his welfare ; the sin- 
cerity and ardor of his friendship ; and that, 
though his presence was eminently wanted at 
Calcutta, he could not refrain from coming to his 
assistance, and that in the mean time he had 
sent four regiments to his aid ; so deliberate 
and cool, so hypocritical and insinuating, is the 
villainy of this man! What heart is not exas- 
perated by the malignity of a treachery so bare- 
faced and dispassionate? At length, however, 
the Nabob was on his guard. He could not be 
deceived by this mask. The ofTer of the four 
regiments developed to him the object of Mr. 
Hastings. He perceived the dagger bunglingly 
concealed in the hand, which was treacherously 
extended as if to his assistance. From this mo- 
ment the last faint ray of hope expired in his 
bosom. We accordingly find no further confi- 
dence of the Nabob in the prisoner. Mr. Mid- 
dleton now swayed his iron scepter without con- 
trol. The jaghircs were seized. Every meas- 
ure was carried. The Nabob, mortified, hum- 
bled, and degraded, sunk into insignificance and 
contempt. This letter was sent at the very time 
when the troops surrounded the walls of Fyza- 
bad ; and then began a scene of horrors, which, 
if I wished to inflame your Lordships' feelings, 
[ should only have occasion minutely to describe 
— to state the violence committed on that palace 



which the piety of the kingdom had raised for 
the retreat and seclusion of the objects of us 
pride and veneration ! It was in these shades, 
rendered sacred by superstition, that innocence 
reposed. Here venerable age and helpless in- 
fancy found an asylum ! If we look, my Lords, 
into the whole of this most wicked transaction, 
from the time when this treachery was fit st con- 
ceived, to that when, by a series of artifices the 
most execrable, it was brought to a completion, 
the prisoner will be seen standing aloof, indeed, 
but not inactive. He will be discovered review- 
ing his agents, rebuking at one time the pale 
conscience of Middleton, at another relying on 
the stouter villainy of Hyder Beg Cawn.^° With 
all the calmness of veteran delinquency, his eye 
will be seen ranging through the busy prospect, 
piercing the darkness of subordinate guilt, and 
disciplining with congenial adroitness the agents 
of his crimes and the instruments of his cruelty. 
The feelings, my Lords, of the several parties 
at the time will be most properly judg- EtiectoMthe 
ed of by their respective correspond- ^Jeo"'"*. 
ence. When the Bow [younger] Begum, de- 
spairing of redress from the Nabob, addressed 
herself to Mr. Middleton, and reminded him of 
the guarantee which he had signed, she was in- 
stantly promised that the amount of her jaghire 
should be made good, though he said he could 
not interfere with the sovereign decision of the 
Nabob respecting the lands. The deluded and 
unfortunate woman "thanked God that Mr. Mid- 
dleton was at hand for her relief." At this very 
instant he was directing every efTort to her de- 
struction ; for he had actually written the orders 
which w^ere to take the collection out of the 
hands of her agents ! But let it not be forgot- 
ten, my Lords, when the Begum was undeceived 
— when she found that British faith was no pro- 
tection — when she found that she should leave 
the country, and prayed to the God of nations 
not to grant his peace to those who remained 
behind — there was still no charge of rebellion, 
no recrimination made to all her reproaches for 
the broken foith of the English ; that, when stung 
to madness, she asked " how long would be her 
reign," there was no mention of her disaffection. 
The stress is therefore idle, which the counsel 
for the prisoner have strove to lay on these ex- 
pressions of an injured and enraged woman. 
When at last, irritated beyond bearing, she de- 
nounced infamy on the heads of her op()ressors, 
who is there that will not say that she spoke in 
a prophetic spirit ; and that what she then pre- 
dicted has not, even to its last letter, been ac 
complished ?^' But did Mr. Middleton, even to 



^° This was the Nabob's minister, but a creature 
of Mr. Hastings. 

^' In liis speech before the House of Commons, 
Mr. Sheridan thus remarks on Mr. Hastings' accu- 
sation against the Begums, " that they coaij)laiiied 
of the injustice that was done them." 

" God of heaven ! had they not a right to com- 
plain ? After the violation of a solemn treaty, plun- 
dered of their property, and on the eve of the last 
extremity of misery, were they to be deprived of the 



432 



MR. SHERIDAN AGAINST 



[1788. 



this violence, retort any particle of accusation ? 
No ! he sent a jocose reply, stating that he had 
received such a letter under her seal, but that, 
from its contents, he could not suspect it to come 
from her ; and begged, therefore, that she would 
endeavor to detect the forgery ! Thus did he 
add to foul injuries the vile aggravation of a ferw- 
taljest. Like the tiger, he showed the savage- 
ness of his nature by grinning at his prey, and 
fawning over the last agonies of his unfortunate 
victim ! 

The letters, my Lords, were then inclosed to 
^ ," the Nabob, who, no more than the rest, 

Declared by , ' ' . .^ , . if i 

Midiiietonto made any attempt to justily himseli by 
imputing any criminality to the Be- 
gums. He only sighed a hope that his conduct 
to his parents had drawn no shame upon his 
head ; and declared his intention to punish, not 
any disaffection in the Begums, but some officious 
servants who had dared to foment the misunder- 
standing between them and himself. A letter 
was finally sent to Mr. Hastings, about six days 
before the seizure of the treasures from the Be- 
gums, declaring their innocence ; and referring 
the Governor General, in proof of it, to Captain 
Gordon, whose life they had protected, and whose 
safety should have been their justification. This 
inquiry was never made. It was looked on as 
unnecessary, because the conviction of their in- 
nocence was too deeply impressed already. 

The counsel, my Lords, in recommending an 
His parental attention to the public in reference to 
trasted'wkh the private letters, remarked particu- 

fiiiahHeVi" ^^^^y ^^^^ °"® °^ ^^® ^^"®^* should not 
the Nabob. ^^ taken in evidence, because it was 
evidently and abstractedly private, relating the 
anxieties of Mr. Middleton on account of the ill- 
ness of his son. This is a singular argument 
indeed. The circumstance, however, iindoubt- 
edly merits strict observation, though not in the 
view' in which it was placed by the counsel. It 
goes to show, that some, at least, of the persons 
concerned in these transactions felt the force of 
those ties which their efforts were directed to 
tear asunder ; that those who could ridicule the 
respective attachment of a mother and a son ; 
who could prohibit the reverence of the son to 
the mother ; who could deny to maternal debil- 
ity the protection which filial tenderness should 
afford, were yet sensible of the straining of those 
chords by which they are connected. There is 
something in the present business, with all that 
is horrible to create aversion, so vilely loathsome, 
as to excite disgust. It is, my Lords, surely su- 
perfluous to dwell on the sacredness of the ties 
which those aliens to feeling, those apostates to 
humanity, thus divided. In such an assembly as 
the one before which I speak, there is not an 



ultimate resource of impotent wretchedness, lament- 
ation, and regret? Was it a crime, that they should 
crowd together in fluttering trepidation, like a flock 
of unresisting birds, on seeing the felon kite, who, 
having darted at one devoted bird and missed his 
aim, singled out a new object, and was springing on 
his prey with redoubled vigor in his wing, and keen- 
er vengeance in his eye 1" 



eye but must look reproof to this conduct, not 
a heart but must anticipate its condemnation. 
Filial piety ! It is the primal bond of society. 
It is that instinctive principle which, panting for 
its proper good, soothes, unbidden, each sense 
and sensibility of man. It now quivers on every 
lip. It now beams fi'om every eye. It is that 
gratitude which, softening under the sense of rec- 
ollected good, is eager to own the vast, count- 
less debt it never, alas ! can pay, for .so many 
long years of unceasing solicitudes, honorable 
self-denials, life-preserving cares. It is that part 
of our practice where duty drops its awe, where 
reverence refines into love. It asks no aid of 
memory. It needs not the deductions of reason. 
Pre-existing, paramount over all, whether mor- 
al law or human rule, few arguments can in- 
crease, and none can diminish it. It is the sac- 
rament of our nature ; not only the duty, but the 
indulgence of man. It is his first great privilege. 
It is among his last most endearing delights. 
It causes the bosom to glow with reverberated 
love. It requites the visitations of nature, and 
returns the blessings that have been received. 
It fires emotion into vital principle. It changes 
what was instinct into a master passion ; sways 
all the sweetest energies of man ; hangs over 
each vicissitude of all that must pass aw^ay ; and 
aids the melancholy virtues in their last sad tasks 
of life, to cheer the languors of decrepitude and 
age ; and 
"Explore the thought, explain the aching eye!"'^ 

But, my Lords, I am ashamed to consume so 
much of your Lordships' time in attempting to 
give a cold picture of this sacred impulse, when 
I behold so many breathing testimonies of its in- 
fluence around me ; w^hen eveiy countenance in 
this a.ssembly is beaming, and erecting itself into 
the recognition of this universal pi'inciple ! 

The expressions contained in the letter of Mr. 
Middleton, of tender solicitude for his son, have 
been also mentioned, as a proof of the amiable- 
ness of his affections. I confess that they do not 
tend to raise his character in my estimation. Is 
it not rather an aggravation of his guilt, that he, 
who thus felt the anxieties of a parent, and who, 
consequently, must be sensible of the reciprocal 
feelings of a child, could be brought to tear asun- 
der, and violate in others, all those dear and sa- 
cred bonds ? Does it not enhance the turpitude 
of the transaction, that it was not the result of 
idiotic ignorance or brutal indifference? I aver 
that his guilt is increased and magnified by these 
considerations. His criminality would have been 
less had he been insensible to tenderness — less, 

32 This line occurs in the beautiful passage which 
closes Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthuot. Mr. Sheri- 
dan, in quoting it, inadvertently changed the word 
asking into aching, and thus lessened the finely 
graphic effect of the original. 

Me, let the tender office long engage 

To rock the cradle of reposing age, 

With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, 

Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death , 

Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, 

And keep a while one parent from the sky ! 



1788.] 



WARREN HASTINGS ON THE BEGUM CHARGE. 



433 



if he had not been so thoroughly acquainted with 
the true quality of parental love and filial duty. 

The jaghires being seized, my Lords, the Be- 
seizureof guuis Were left without the smallest 
the treasures, gha^e of that pecuniary compensation 
promised by Mr. Middleton, as an equivalent for 
the resumption. And as tyranny and injustice, 
when they take the field, are always attended by 
their camp followers, paltry pilfering and petty 
insult, so in this instance, the goods taken from 
the princesses were sold at a mock sale at an in- 
ferior value. Even gold and jewels, to use the 
language of the Begums, instantly lost their value 
when it was known that they came from them. 
Their ministers were imprisoned, to extort the de- 
ficiency which this fraud occasioned ; and every 
mean art was employed to justify a continuance 
of cruelty toward them. Yet this was small to 
the frauds of Mr. Hastings. After extorting up- 
ward of c£600,000, he forbade Mr. Middleton 
to come to a conclusive settlement with the prin- 
cesses. He knew that the treasons of our allies 
in India had their origin solely in the wants of 
the Company. He could not, therefore, say that 
the Begums were entirely innocent, until he had 
consulted the General Record of Crimes, the 
Cash Account of Calcutta ! His prudence was 
fully justified by the event ; for there was actu- 
ally found a balance of twenty-six lacs more 
against the Begums, which <£260,000 worth of 
treason had never been dreamed of before. " Talk 
not to us," said the Governor General, " of their 
guilt or innocence, but as it suits the Company's 
credit! We will not try them by the Code of 
Justinian, nor the Institutes of Timur. We will 
not judge them either by British laws, or their 
local customs ! No ! we will try them by the 
Multiplication Table ; we will find the guilty by 
the Rule of Three ; and we will condemn them 
according to the unerring rules of — Cocker's 
Arithmetic !^^ 

My Lords, the prisoner has said in his defense, 
r c , . ,, that the cruelties exercised toward 

Justified by Mr. . r i • i 

Kastings on the the Bcgums wcrc not 01 his order, 
groun o po icy. -g^^^ j^ another part of it he avows, 
"that whatever were their distresses, and who- 
ever was the agent in the measure, it was, in his 
opinion, reconcilable to justice, honor, and sound 
policy." By the testimony of Major Scott, it 
appears, that though the defense of the prisoner 
was not drawn up by himself, yet that this para- 
graph he wrote with his own proper hand. Mid- 
dleton, it seems, had confessed his share in these 
transactions with some degree of compunction, 
and .solicitude as to the consequences. The pris- 
oner observing it, cries out to him, " give me the 
pen, I will defend the measure as just and neces- 
sary. I will take something upon myself. What- 
ever part of the load you can not bear, my unbur- 
dened character shall assume ! Your conduct I 
will crown with my irresistible approbation. Do 
you find memory and I will find character.^ and 
thus twin warriors we will go into the field, each 
in his proper sphere of action, and assault, re- 
pulse, and contumely shall all be set at defiance." 
If I could not prove, mv Lords, that those acts 
E E 



of Mr. Middleton were in reality the acts of Mr. 
Hastings, I should not trouble your Lordships by 
combating them ; but as this part of his crimin- 
ality can be incontestably ascertained, I appeal 
to the assembled legislators of this realm to say 
whether these acts were justifiable on the score 
o{ policy. I appeal to all the august presidents 
in the courts of British justice, and to all the 
learned ornaments of the profession, to decide 
whether these acts were reconcilable to justice. 
I appeal to the reverend assemblage of prelates 
feeling for the general interests of humanity and 
for the honor of the religion to which they be- 
long, to determine whether these acts of Mr. 
Hastings and Mr. Middleton were such as a 
Christian ought to perform, or a man to avow. 

My Lords, with the ministers of the Nabob [Ba- 
har Ally Cawn and Jewar Ally Cawn] cruelties in- 
was confined in the same prison that B'egum"3"rain- 
arch rebel Sumshire Cawn, against '^'^"• 
whom so much criminality has been charged by 
the counsel for the prisoner. We hear, how- 
ever, of no inquiry having been made concerning 
his treason, though so many were held respecting 
the treasures of the others. With all his guilt, 
he was not so far noticed as to be deprived of his 
food, to be complimented with fetters, or even to 
have the satisfaction of being scourged, but was 
cruelly liberated from a dungeon, and ignomin- 
iously let loose on his parole ! 

[Here Mr. Sheridan read the following order 
from Mr. Middleton to Lieutenant Rutledge in 
relation to the Begum's ministers, dated January 
28,1782: 

" Sir, — When this note is delivered to you by 
Hoolas Roy, I have to desire that you order the 
two prisoners to be put in irons, keeping them 
from all food, 8fC., agreeably to my instructions 
of yesterday. Nath. Middleton."] 

The Begums' ministers, on the contrary, to ex- 
tort from them the disclosure of the place which 
concealed the treasures, were, according to the 
evidence of Mr. Holt, after being fettered and 
imprisoned, led out on a scaffold, and this array 
of terrors proving unavailing, the meeA;-tempered 
Middleton, as a dernier resort, menaced them 
with a confinement in the fortress of Churnargar. 
Thus, my Lords, was a British garrison made 
the climax of cruelties ! To English arms, to 
English officers, around whose banners human- 
ity has ever entwined her most glorious wreath, 
how will this sound ? It was in this fort, where 
the British flag was flying, that these helpless 
prisoners were doomed to deeper dungeons, 
heavier chains, and severer punishments. Where 
that flag was displayed which was wont to cheer 
the depressed, and to dilate the subdued heart of 
misery, these venerable but unfortunate men 
were fated to encounter every aggravation of 
horror and distress. It, moreover, appears that 
they were both cruelly flogged, though one was 
above seventy years of age. Being charged with 
disaflTection, they s'indicated their innocence — 
" Tell us where are the remaining treasures," 
was the reply. " It is only treachery to your im- 
mediate sovei-eigns, and you will then be fit as- 



434 



MR. SHERIDAN AGAINST 



[1788. 



sociates for the representatives of British faith 
and British justice in India!" Oh Faith! Oh 
Justice ! I conjure you by your sacred names 
to depart for a moment from this place, though 
it be your peculiar residence ; nor hear your 
names profaned by such a sacrilegious combina- 
tion as that which I am now compelled to re- 
peat — where all the fair forms of nature and art, 
truth and peace, policy and honor, shrink back 
aghast from the deleterious shade — where all ex- 
istences, nefarious and vile, have sway — where, 
amid the black agents on one side and Middle- 
ton with Impey on the other, the great figure of 
the piece — characteristic in his place, aloof and 
independent from the puny profligacy in his train, 
but far from idle and inactive, turning a malig- 
nant eye on all 'mischief that awaits him; the 
multiplied apparatus of temporizing expedients 
and intimidating instruments, now cringing on 
his prey, and fawning on his vengeance — now 
quickening the limping pace of craft, and forcing 
every stand that retiring nature can make to the 
heart ; the attachments and the decorums of life ; 
each emotion of tenderness and honor ; and all the 
distinctions of national pride ; with a long cata- 
logue of crimes and aggravations beyond the 
reach of thought for human malignity to perpe- 
trate or human vengeance to punish ; lower than 
perdition — blacker than despair !^^ 

It might, my Lords, have been hoped, for the 
The Begums honor of the human heart, that the Be- 
treat^d'with gums wcrc themsclvcs exempted from 
great severity, a share in these sufferings, and that 
they had been wounded only through the sides 
of their ministei's. The reverse of this, howev- 
er, is the fact. Their palace was surrounded by 
a guard, which was withdrawn by Major Gilpin 
to avoid the growing resentments of the people, 
and replaced by Mr. Middleton, through his fears 
of that "dreadful responsibility" which was im- 
posed upon him b}'^ Mr. Hastings. The women, 
also, of the Khord Mahal, who were not involved 
in the Begums' supposed crimes ; who had raised 
no sub-rebellion of their own ; and who, it has 
been proved, lived in a distinct dwelling, were 
causelessly implicated, nevertheless, in the same 
punishment. Their residence surrounded with 
guards, they were driven to despair by famine, 
and when they poured forth in sad procession, 
were beaten with bludgeons, and forced back by 
the soldiery to the scene of madness which they 
had quitted. These are acts, my Lords, which. 



^^ This apostrophe to Faith and Justice is finely 
conceived, and, if carried out with tlie simplicity and 
conciseness which a man like Lord Chatham would 
have given it, might have formed one of the most 
magnificent passages in our language. But it was 
the besetting sin of Mr. Sheridan to overdo. He has 
here marred a noble idea by overlaying it with ac- 
cessories — by an accumulation of circumstances and 
of glaring epithets, which divert the attention from 
the leading thought, and thus, to a great extent, de- 
stroy the effect. 

It might be a useful exercise for the student in 
oratory, to write out this i)assage in more simple and 
concise teiTns, such as we may suppose would have 
oeen used by Lord Chatham or Lord Erskine. 



when told, need no comment. I will not offer 
a single syllable to awaken your Lordships' feel- 
ings ; but leave it to the facts which have been 
stated to make their own impression.^* 

VI. The inquiry which now only remains, my 
Lords, is, whether Mr. Hastinofs is to „ „ 

' ' » Mr. Hastings 

be answerable for the crrnies commit- responsible 
ted by his agents? It has been fully duVtofhis 
proved that Mr. Middleton signed the ''^''"''■ 
treaty with the superior Begum in October, 



^* All these statements have been confirmed by 
subsequent investigations ; and Mr. Mill has added 
others connected with them, which are necessary to 
fill out the picture. "The Begums gave up the treas- 
ures ; but the eunuchs were not yet released. More 
money was absolutely required, and new severities 
were employed. The sufterings to which they were 
thus exposed drew from the eunuchs the offer of an 
engagement for the payment of the demanded sum, 
which they undertook to complete within the period 
of one month, from their own credit and effects. The 
engagement was taken, but the confinement of the 
eunuchs was not relaxed ; the mother and grand- 
mother of the Nabob remained under guard; and 
the i-esident was commanded to make with them 
no settlement tchatsoever. The prisoners entreated 
their release, declaring their inability to procure any 
farther sums of money while they remained in con- 
finement. So far from any relaxation of their suf- 
ferings, higher measures of severity were enjoined. 
After they had lain two months in irons, the com- 
manding officer advised a temporary release from 
fetters on account of their health, which was rapidly 
sinking ; but the instructions of the resident com- 
pelled him to refuse the smallest mitigation of their 
torture. They were threatened with being removed 
to Lucknow [to the fortress of Chunargar], where 
they would only be subjected to severer coercion, 
unless they performed, without delay, what they 
averred themselves unable to perform. They were 
accordingly soon after removed to Lucknow, and 
cruelties inflicted upon them, of which the nature 
is not disclosed ; of which the following letter, ad- 
dressed by the assistant resident to the commanding 
officer of the English guai'd, is a disgraceful proof 
' Sir, — The Nabob having determined to inflict cor- 
poreal punishment upon the prisoners under your 
guard, this is to desire that his officers, when they 
come, may have free access to the prisoners, and be 
permitted to do with them as they shall see proper.' 
The women in the Zenana, in the mean while, were, 
at various times, deprived of food, till they were on 
the point of perishing for want. The rigors went on 
increasing till the month of December [that is, for 
nearly a year], when the resident, convinced by 
his own experience, and the representation of the 
officer commanding the guard by which the prin- 
cesses were coerced, that every thing which force 
could accomplish was already performed, removed, 
of his own authority, the guard from the palace of 
the Begums, and set at liberty their ministers." — 
See British India, iv., 392-98. 

Mr. Hastings is referred to by the resident through- 
out, as requiring all these severities. If any thing 
could add to the horror which they awaken, it is 
the fact that he hypocriticafiy pretended to believe 
that the Nabob wished them to be inflicted, and 
taugbt the victims of his cruelty to ascribe their 
final i-elease to his own clemency. Tlie resident 
was directed to inform them that the Governor Gen- 
eral was " the spring from whence they were re- 
stored to their dignity and consequence." 



1788.] 



WARREN HASTINGS ON THE BEGUM CHARGE. 



435 



1778. He also acknowledged signing some oth- 
ers of a different date, but could not recollect the 
authority by which he did it ! These treaties 
were recognized by Mr. Hastings, as appears by 
the evidence of Mr. Purling, in the year 1780. 
In that of October, 1778, the jaghire was se- 
cured, which was allotted for the support of the 
women in the Khord Mahal. But still the pris- 
oner pleads that he is not accountable for the 
cruelties which were exercised. His is the 
plea which tyranny, aided by its prime minister, 
treachery, is always sure to set up. Mr. Mid- 
dleton has attempted to sti-engthen this ground 
by endeavoring to claim the whole infamy in 
those transactions, and to monopolize the guilt ! 
He dared even to aver, that he had been con- 
demned by Mr. Hastings for the ignominious 
part he had acted. He dared to avow this, be- 
cause Mr. Hastings was on his trial, and he 
thought he never would be arraigned ; but in the 
face of this court, and before he left the bar, he 
was compelled to confess that it was for the 
lenience, and not the severity of his proceedings, 
that he had been reproved by the prisoner. 

It will not, I trust, be concluded, that, be- 
No excuse that cause Mr. Hastings has not marked 
ScV°ae"itfe" cvcry passing shade of guilt, and be- 
by name. causc hc has Only given the bold out- 
line of cruelty, he is thei-efore to be acquitted. 
It is laid down by the law of England, that law 
which is the perfection of reason, that a person 
ordering an act to be done by his agent is an- 
swerable for that act with all its consequences, 
" quod facit per alium, facit per se."^^ Mid- 
dleton was appointed, in 1777, the confidential 
agent, the second self of Mr. Hastings. The 
Governor General ordered the measure. Even 
if he never saw, nor heard afterward of its con- 
sequences, he was therefore answerable for ev- 
ery pang that was inflicted, and for all the blood 
that was shed. But he did hear, and that in- 
stantly, of the whole. He wrote to accuse Mid- 
dleton of forbearance and of neglect ! He com- 
manded him to work upon the hopes and fears 
of the princesses, and to leave no means untried, 
until, to speak his own language, which was 
better suited to the banditti of a cavern, " he ob- 
tained possession of the secret hoards of the old 
ladies." He would not allow even of a delay 
of two days to smooth the compelled approaches 
of a son to his mother, on this occasion ! His 
orders were peremptory. After this, my Lords, 
can it be said that the prisoner was ignorant of 
the act.s, or not culpable for their consequences ? 
It is true, he did not direct the guards, the fam- 
ine, and the bludgeons ; he did not weigh the 
fetters, nor number the lashes to be inflicted on 
his victims ; but yet he is just as guilty as if he 
had borne an active and person al share in each 
transaction. It is as if he had commanded that 
the heart should be torn from the bosom, and 
enjoined that no blood should follow. He is in 

^^ This adage, though often quoted thus, is, prop- 
erly, "Qui facit per alium, facit per se." He who 
acts through another does the thing himself. 



the same degree accountable to the law, to his 
country, to his conscience, and to his God ! 

The prisoner has endeavored also to get rid 
of a part of his guilt, by observing „;, „^^^^,^^^ 
that he was but one of the supreme ""t chargeable 

* on the council, 

council, and that all the rest had sane- »ho were de- 
tioned those transactions with their ap- "^^"^ ' 
probation. Even if it were true that others did 
participate in the guilt, it can not tend to diminish 
his criminality. But the fact is, that the council 
erred in nothing so much as in a reprehensible 
credulity given to the declarations of the Gov- 
ernor General. They knew not a word of those 
transactions until they were finally concluded. 
It was not until the January following that they 
saw the mass of falsehood which had been pub- 
lished under the title of " Mr. Hastings' Narra- 
tive." They were, then, unaccountably duped 
to permit a letter to pass, dated the 29th of No- 
vember, intended to seduce the Directors into a 
belief that they had received intelligence at that 
time, which was not the fact. These observa- 
tions, my Lords, are not meant to cast any oblo- 
quy on the council ; they undoubtedly were de- 
ceived ; and the deceit practiced on them is a de- 
cided proof of his consciousness of guilt. When 
tired of corporeal infliction, Mr. Hastings was 
gratified by insulting the understanding. The 
coolness and reflection with which this act was 
managed and concerted raises its enormity and 
blackens its turpitude. It proves the prisoner 
to be that monster in nature, a deliberate and 
reasoning tyrant ! Other tyrants of whom we 
read, such as a Nero, or a Caligula, were urged 
to their crimes by the impetuosity of passion. 
High rank disqualified them from advice, and 
perhaps equally prevented reflection. But in 
the prisoner we have a man born in a state of 
mediocrity ; bred to mercantile life ; used to sys- 
tem ; and accustomed to regularity ; who was 
accountable to his masters, and therefore was 
compelled to think and to deliberate on every 
part of his conduct. It is this cool deliberation, 
I say, which renders his crimes more horrible, 
and his character more atrocious. 

When, my Lords, the Board of Directors re- 
ceived the advices which Mr. Hastings Tiie inquiry 
thought proper to transmit, though un- recated by^ 
furnished with any other materials to i>i'-Has""g8- 
form their judgment, they expressed very strong- 
ly their doubts, and properly ordered an inquiry 
into the circumstances of the alleged disaffection 
of the Begums, declaring it, at the same time, 
to be a debt which was due to the honor and 
justice of the British nation. This inquiry, how- 
ever, Mr. Hastings thought it absolutely neces- 
sary to elude. He stated to the council, in an- 
sw^er, " that it would revive those animosities 
that subsisted between the Begums and the Na- 
bob [Asoph Dowlah], which had then subsided. 
If the former were inclined to appeal to a foreign 
jurisdiction, they were the best judges of their 
own feeling, and should be left to make their 
own complaint." All this, however, my Lords, 
is nothing to the magnificent paragraph which 
concludes this communication. " Besides," says 



436 



MR. SHERIDAN AGAINST WARREN HASTINGS, ETC. 



[17S8 



he, " I hope it will not be a departure from offi- 
His remarks cial language to say, that the Majesty 
BSty^of of Justice ought not to be approached 
jusuce. without solicitation. She ought not to 
descend to inflanae or provoke, but to withhold 
her judgment until she is called on to determ- 
ine." What is still more astonishing, is, that 
Sir John Macpherson, who, though a man of 
sense and honor, is rather Oriental in his imagin- 
ation, and not learned in the sublime and beau- 
tiful from the immortal leader of this prosecu- 
tion, was caught by this bold, bombastic quibble, 
and joined in the same words, " that the majesty 
of justice ought not to be approached without 
solicitation." But, my Lords, do you, the judg- 
es of this land, and the expounders of its rightful 
i laws, do you approve of this mockery, and call 
! it the character of justice, which takes the form 
of right to excite wrong ? No, my Lords, jus- 
tice is not this halt and miserable object ; it is 
I not the ineffective bawble of an Indian pagod ; it 
[ is not the portentous phantom of despair; it is 
I not like any fabled monster, formed in the eclipse 
I of reason, and found in some unhallowed grove 
of superstitious darkness and political dismay ! 
No, my Lords. In the happy reverse of all 
this, I turn from the disgusting caricature to the 
real image ! Justice I have now before me au- 
gust and pure ! The abstract idea of all that 



would be perfect in the spirits and the aspirings 
of men ! — where the mind rises ; whei'e the 
heart expands ; where the countenance is ever 
placid and benign ; where her favorite attitude 
is to stoop to the unfortunate ; to hear their cry 
and to help them ; to rescue and relieve, to suc- 
cor and save ; majestic, from its mercy ; vener- 
able, from its utility ; uplifted, without pride ; 
firm, without obduracy ; beneficent in each pref- 
erence ; lovely, though in her frown ! 

On that Justice I rely : deliberate and sure, 
abstracted from all party purpose and 

,..- ,. ^ 1, Peroration. 

political speculation ; not on words, but 
on facts. You, my Lords, who hear me, I con- 
jure, by those rights which it is your best priv- 
ilege to preserve ; by that fame which it is your 
best pleasure to inherit ; by all those feelings 
which refer to the first term in the series of ex- 
istence, the original compact of our nature, our 
controlling rank in the creation. This is the call 
on all to administer to truth and equity, as they 
would satisfy the laws and satisfy themselves, 
with the most exalted bliss possible or conceiv- 
able for our nature ; the self-approving con- 
sciousness of virtue, when the condemnation we 
look for will be one of the most ample mercies 
accomplished for mankind since the creation of 
the world ! My Lords, I have done. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

Charles James Fox was bom on the 24th of January, 1749, and was the second 
son of Henry Fox (the first Lord Holland), and Lady Georgiana Lennox, daugh- 
ter of the second Duke of Richmond. The father, as heretofore mentioned, was 
the great antagonist of Lord Chatham. He was a man of amiable feelings, but 
dissolute habits ; poor (as the natural consequence) during most of his life, and gov- 
erned in his politics by the master principle of the Walpole school — love of power 
for the sake of money. In 1757, he obtained the appointment of Paymaster of the 
Forces. This office, as then managed, afforded almost boundless opportunities for ac- 
quiring wealth ; and so skillfully did he use his advantages, that within eight years 
he amassed a fortune of several hundred thousand pounds. A part of this money he 
spent in erecting a magnificent house on his estate at Kingsgate, in the Isle of Thanet. 
" Upon a bleak promontory," says one of his contemporaries, " projecting into the Ger- 
man Ocean, he constructed a splendid villa worthy of Lucullus, and adorned it with 
a colonnade in front of the building, such as Ictinus might have raised by order of 
Pericles." Here Charles spent a portion of his early years, and the estate fell to him, 
as a part of his patrimony, after his father's death. 

Lord Holland's oldest son, Stephen, being affected with a nervous disease which 
impaired his faculties, Charles, who gave early proofs of extraordinary talent, became 
the chief object of pride and hope to the family. His father resolved to train him 
up for public life, and to make him what he himself had always endeavored to he, a 
leader in fashionable dissij^ation, and yet an orator and a statesman. He had lived 
in the days of Bolingbroke, and it would almost seem as if he intended to make that 
gifted but profligate adventurer the model of his favorite child. He began by treat- 
ing him with extreme indulgence. His first maxim was, " Let nothing be done to 
break his spirit," and with this view he permitted no one either to contradict or to 
punish the boy. On the contrary, he encouraged him in the wildest whims and ca- 
prices. When about five years old, Charles was standing one day by his father as 
he wound up his Avatch, and said, " I have a great mind to break that watch." " No, 
Charles, that would be foolish." " But indeed I must do it — I must.'' " Nay," re- 
plied the father, *' if you have so violent an inclination, I won't balk it," giving the 
watch to the boy, who instantly dashed it on the floor. Amid all this indulgence, 
however, his studies were not neglected ; he showed surprising quickness in perform- 
ing his tasks, and the same ready and retentive memory for which he was remarkable 
in after life. His father made him, from childhood, his companion and equal, encour- 
aging him to converse freely at table, and to enter into all the questions discussed by 
public men who visited the family. Charles usually acquitted himself to the admi- 
ration of all, and was no doubt indebted to this early habit of thinking and speaking 
with freedom, for that frankness and intrepidity, amounting often to rashness, which 
distinguished him as an orator. Lord Holland, in the mean time, was steadily aiming 
at the object he had in view. He wrought upon his son's pride ; he inflamed him 
with that love of superiority which is usually the most powerful excitement of gen- 
ius ; he continually pointed him to public life, as the great theater of his labors and 
triumphs. 

Under such influences, his progress at a private school of distinction, where he was 



438 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

sent from childhood, was uncommonl)^ rapid ; the severe discipline pursued having 
the effect at once to repress his irregularities, and to turn his passion for superiority 
in the right direction. Here he laid the foundation of that intimate acquaintance 
with the classics, for which he was distinguished beyond most men of his age. He 
can hardly be said to have studied Latin or Greek after he was sixteen years old. So 
thoroughly was he grounded in these languages from boyhood, that he read them 
throughout life much as he read English, and could turn to the great authors of an- 
tiquity at any moment, not as a mental effort, but for the recreation and delight he 
found in their pages. This was especially true of the Greek writers, which were then 
less studied in England than at present. He took up Demosthenes as he did the 
speeches of Lord Chatham, and dwelt with the same zest on the Greek tragedians as 
on the plays of Shakspeare. As an instance of this, Mr. Trotter, who attended him 
at the close of life, mentions, that Mr. Fox once entered the room, just as he was be- 
ginning to read the Alcestis of Euripides. " You will soon find something you like," 
said he ; " tell me when you come to it." Mr. Fox, who had not opened the book for 
many years, watched the reader's countenance till he came to the description of Al- 
cestis, after praying for her children, as she mourned so pathetically over her lot, when 
he broke out with a kind of triumph at the effect produced by the exquisite tender- 
ness of the passage. In the wildest excesses of his life, the classics were still his com- 
panions ; in the midst of public business, he corresponded with Gilbert Wakefield on 
the nicest questions of Greek criticism ; he usually led to the subject in conversation 
with literary men ; and we see in the Memoirs of the poet Campbell what delight 
he expressed at their first interview, in finding how perfectly they agreed on some 
disputed points in Yirgil. As an orator, he was much indel^ted to his study of the 
Greek writers for the simplicity of his taste, his severe abstinence from every thing 
like mere ornament, the terseness of his style, the point and stringency of his reason- 
ings, and the all-pervading cast of^ intellect which distinguishes his speeches, even in 
his most vehement bursts of impassioned feeling. 

Charles was next sent to Eaton, where he joined associates who were less advanced 
than himself in classical literature. This made him a leader in their studies and 
amusements. In every thing that called for eloquence, especially, whether in public 
meetings or private debate, or the contentions of the play-ground, he held an acknowl- 
edged pre-eminence. On such occasions, he always manifested those kind and gen- 
erous feelings for which he was distinguished throughout life ; espousing the cause 
of the weaker party, and exerting all his powers of oratory in behalf of those who 
were injured or neglected through prejudice or partiality for others. Never content 
with mediocrity, he endeavored to surpass his companions in every thing he under- 
took ; and his habits of self-indulgence unfortunately taking a new direction, he now 
became a leader in all the dissipation of the school. To complete the mischief, his 
father took him, at the age of fourteen, on a trip to the Spa in Germany, at that time 
the great center of gambling for Europe ; and, incredible as it may seem, he there 
initiated him in all the mysteries of the gaming-table I At the end of three months, 
Charles returned to Eaton with that fatal passion which so nearly proved his ruin 
for life, and immediately introduced gambling among his companions to an extent 
never before heard of in a public school. Under his influence, one of the boys, it is 
said, contracted debts of honor to the amount of ten thoicsa?id 2^ounds, which he felt 
bound to pay when he arrived at manhood ! 

At the end of four years Charles was removed to Oxford, where he continued two 
years, still maintaining the highest rank as a scholar. Notwithstanding his love of 
pleasure, he must have devoted most of his time at the university to severe study ; 
for his tutor, Dr. Newcombe, remarks, in a letter which Mr. Fox was fond of showing 
in after life, " Application like yours requires some intermission, and you are the only 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 439 

person with whom I have ever had connection, to whom I could say this." His 
studies were confined aknost entirely to the classics and history ; he paid but little 
attention to the mathematics, a neglect which he afterward lamented as injurious 
to his mental training ; and perhaps for this reason he never felt the slightest inter- 
est, at this or any subsequent period, in those abstract inquiries which are designed 
to settle the foundations of moral and political science. Charles Butler having once 
mentioned to him that he had never read Smith's Wealth of Nations, " To tell you 
the truth," said Mr. Fox, '* nor have I either. There is something in all these sub- 
jects which passes my comprehension ; something so wide that I could never em- 
brace them myself, nor find any one that did." This was one of the greatest defects 
in his character as a statesman. His tastes were too exclusively literary. With 
those habits of self-indulgence so unhappily created in childhood, he rarely did any 
thing but what he liked — he read poetry, eloquence, history, and elegant literature, 
because he loved them, and he read but little else. He had never learned to grapple 
with difficulties, except in connection with a subject which deeply interested his 
feelings. To secure some favorite object, he would now and then submit to severe 
drudgery, but he soon reverted to his old habits ; and, with powers which, if rightly 
disciplined, would have enabled him to enter more easily than almost any man of 
his age into the abstrusest inquiries, he never mastered the principles of his own pro- 
fession ; he was not, in the strict sense of the term, a scientijic statesman. He could 
discuss the Greek meters with Person ; and when a friend once insisted that a cer- 
tain line in the Hiad could not be genuine because it contained measures not used 
by Homer, he Avas able, from his early recollections of the poet, instantly to adduce 
nearly twenty examples of the same construction. But he had no such acquaintance 
with the foundations of jurisprudence or the laws of trade ; and at a period when 
the labors of Adam Smith were giving a new science to the world, and establishing 
the principles of political economy, the true source of the wealth of nations, he was 
obliged to say, "it is a subject which passes my comprehension." His deficiency in 
this respect was indeed less seen, because, being in opposition nearly all his life, he 
was rarely called to propose measures of finance ; his chief business was to break 
down, and not to build up ; yet he always felt the want of an early training in sci- 
entific investigation, correspondent to that he received in classical literature. 

Mr. Fox left the University at the age of seventeen, and entered at once upon 
manhood. The light restraints imposed during his education being now removed, he 
became sole master of his own actions ; and the prodigal liberality of his father sup- 
plied him with unbounded means of indulgence. For two years he traveled on the 
Continent, making great proficiency in Italian and French literature, and plunging, 
at the same time, into all the extravagance and vice of the most corrupt capitals of 
Europe. His father had succeeded, even beyond his intentions, in making him a 
' leader in fashionable dissipation ;' and he now began to fear that he had thus de- 
feated his main design, that of training him up to be an ' orator and a statesman.' 
He recalled him from the Continent, and was compelled, in doing so (as afterward 
appeared from his banker's accounts), to pay 07ie liundred thousand iiounds, of debt, 
contracted in two years I To wean him from habits which he had himself engen- 
dered, Lord Holland now resorted to the extraordinary expedient of having his son 
returned as a member of Parliament from Midhurst, a borough under his control, in 
May, 1768, being a year and eight months before he was eligible by law I 

Under this return, Mr. Fox took his seat in the House, at the opening of Parliament 
in November, 1768. His deficiency in age was perhaps unknown ; at all events, no 
one came forward to dispute his right. By education he was a Tory ; he had dis- 
tinguished himself when at Paris by some lively French verses reflecting severely on 
Lord Chatham ; and in all his feelings, habits, and associations, he was opposed to 



440 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

the cause of popular liberty. He now came out a warm supporter of the Duke of 
Grafton, with whom his father was closely allied in politics, just after Junius's first 
attack on the administration of his Grace ; and delivered his maiden speech, April 
15th, 1769, in support of that flagrant outrage on the rights of the people, the seating 
of Colonel Luttrell, as a member of the House, in the place of John Wilkes. Horace 
Walpole speaks of him as distinguished for his " insolence" on this occasion, as well 
as " the infinite superiority of his parts." When Lord North came in as minister, 
in February, 1770, Mr. Fox, through the influence of his father, was appointed a 
junior Lord of the Admiralty, and three years after, one of the Lords of the Treasury. 
His time was now divided between politics and gambling, and he was equally devoted 
to both. In the House, he showed great, though irregular power as an orator, and 
at the gaming-table he often lost from five to ten thousand pounds at a single sitting. 
Though he differed from Lord North on the Royal Marriage Bill and Toleration Act, 
he sustained his Lordship in all his political measures, and even went at times be- 
yond him — declaring that, for his part, he " paid no regard whatever to the voice 
of the people ;" urging the imprisonment of Alderman Oliver and the Lord Mayor 
of London for the steps they took to guard the liberty of the press ; and inveighing 
against Sergeant Glynn's motion respecting the rights of juries in cases of libel, the 
very rights which he himself afterward secured to them by an act of Parliament I 
To these views, derived from his father, and confirmed by all his present associates, 
he might very possibly have adhered through life, except for a breach which now took 
place between him and Lord North : so much do political principles depend on party 
connections and private interest. But his Lordship found Mr. Fox too warm and in- 
dependent in his zeal ; he sometimes broke the ranks and took his place as a leader ; 
and in one instance, when Woodfall was brought to the bar of the House for making 
too free a use of his press, Mr. Fox proposed an amendment to a motion made by his 
Lordship, and actually carried it against him, under which Woodfall was committed 
to Newgate — a measure never contemplated by the ministry, and only calculated to 
injure them by its harshness. Such a violation of party discipline could not be over- 
looked, and it was decided at once to dismiss him. A day or two after (February 
17th, 1774), as he was seated on the Treasury bench conversing with Lord North, 
the following note was handed him by the messenger of the House : 

" Sir, — His Majesty has thought proper to order a new commission of the Treasury to be made 
out, in which I do not perceive your name. (Signed) North." 

The cool contempt of this epistle shows the estimate in which he was held by the 
ministry, who plainly regarded him as a reckless gambler, whose friendship or hatred, 
notwithstanding all his talents, could never be of the least importance to any party. 
There was too much reason for this opinion. His father, after expending an enor- 
mous sum in paying his debts (one statement makes it £140,000 in the year 1773 
alone), died about this time, leaving him an ample fortune, including his splendid es- 
tate in the Isle of Thanet ; but the whole was almost immediately gone, sacrificed to 
the imperious passion which had taken such entire possession of his soul. Paris and 
London were equally witnesses to its power. The celebrated Madame Dufland, in a 
letter written at a somewhat later period, speaks of him and his companion. Colonel 
Fitzpatrick, as objects of curious speculation ; but adds, in another letter — " Je ne sau- 
rais m'interesser a eux : ce sont des tetes absolument derangees et sans esperance de 
retour."^ The whole world, in fact, regarded him in very much the same way as 
Lord North. 

It is probable that nothing but a blow like this, showing him the contempt into 

1 I could not interest myself in them : they are absolutely deranged in their minds, and there is 
no hope of their recovery. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 441 

which he had sunk, rousing all his pride, and driving him into the arms of new as- 
sociates, whose talents commanded his respect, and whose instructions m.olded his 
political principles, could ever have saved Mr. Fox from the ruin in which he was 
involved. As it was, years passed away before he gained a complete mastery over 
this terrible infatuation ; and it may here be stated, by way of anticipation, that his 
friends, at a much later period (1793), finding him involved, from time to time, in 
the most painful embarrassments from this cause, united in a subscription, with which 
they purchased him an annuity of £3000 a year, which could not be alienated, and 
after this testimony of their regard he wholly abstained from gambUng. 

The period at which Mr. Fox now stood was peculiarly favorable to the formation 
of new and more correct political principles. Hitherto he had none that could be 
called his own ; he had never, probably, reflected an hour on the subject ; he had sim- 
ply carried out those high aristocratic feelings with which he was taught from child- 
hood to look down upon the body of the people. But a change in the policy of Lord 
North now made America the great object of political interest. Within a few weeks, 
the Boston Port Bill and its attendant measures were brought forward, designed to 
starve a toAvn of twenty thousand inhabitants, with the adjoining province, into sub- 
mission ; the charter of that province was violently set aside ; a British governor was 
empowered to send persons three thousand miles across the Atlantic, to be tried in 
England for supposed offenses in America ; and British troops were to be employed in 
carrying out these acts of violence and outrage. Mr. Fox was naturally one of the 
most humane of men ; " He possessed," says Lord Erskine, " above all persons I ever 
knew, the most gentle and yet the most ardent spirit ; he was tremblingly alive to 
every kind of private wrong or suffering ; he had an indignant abhorrence of every 
species of cruelty, oppression, and injustice." With these feelings, quickened by the 
resentment which he naturally entertained against Lord North, it could not require 
much argument from Burke, Dunning, Barre, and the other leaders of the Opposition, 
into whose society he was now thrown, to make Mr. Fox enter with his whole soul 
into all their views of these violent, oppressive acts. He came out at once to resist 
them, and was the first man in the House who took the ground of denying the right 
of Parliament to tax the colonies without their consent. He afl^rmed that on this sub- 
ject, " Just as the House of Commons stands to the House of Lords, so stands America 
with Great Britain ;" neither party having authority to overrule or compel the other. 
He declared, " There is not an American but must reject and resist the principle and 
right." He accused Lord North of the most flagrant treachery to his adherents in New 
England. " You boast," said he, " of having friends there ; but, rather than not make 
the ruin of that devoted country complete, even your friends are to be involved in 
one common famine I'' His Lordship soon found that he had raised up a most for- 
midable antagonist where he had least expected. Mr. Fox now entered into debate, 
not occasionally, as before, when the whim struck him, but earnestly and systemat- 
ically, on almost every question that came up ; and his proficiency may be learned 
from a letter of Mr. Gibbon (who was then a member of the House and a supporter 
of the ministry), in which, speaking of a debate on the subject of America (Febru- 
ary, 1775), he says : " The principal men both days were Fox and Wedderburne, on 
opposite sides : the latter displayed his usual talents ; the former, taking the vast 
compass of the question before us, discovered powers for regular debate ivhich neither 
his friends hoped nor his enemies dreaded.'" — Misc. Works, ii., 21. 

Mr. Fox's sentiments respecting the treatment of America, though springing, per- 
haps, at first from humane feelings alone, or opposition to Lord North, involved, as 
their necessary result, an entire change of his political principles. He was now 
brought, for the first time, to look at pubhc measures, not on the side of privilege or 
prerogative, but of the rights and interests of the people. From that moment, all 



442 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

the sympathies of his nature took a new direction, and he went on identifying him- 
self more and more, to the end of hfe, Avith the popular part of the Constitution and 
the cause of free principles throughout the world. It was the test to which he brought 
every measure : it was his object, amid all the conflicts of party and personal inter- 
est, in his own expressive language, " to widen the basis of freedom — to infuse and 
circulate the spirit of liberty." As an orator, especially, he drew from this source 
the most inspiring strains of his eloquence. No English speaker, not even Lord Chat- 
ham himself, dwelt so often on this theme ; no one had his generous sensibilities more 
completely roused ; no one felt more strongly the need of a growing infusion of this 
spirit into the English government, as the great means of its strength and renova- 
tion. He urges this in a beautiful passage in his speech on Parliamentary Reform, 
" because it gives a power of which nothing else in government is capable ; because 
it incorporates every man with the state, and arouses every thing that belongs to the 
soul as well as the body of man ; because it makes every individual feel that he is 
fighting for himself and not for another ; that it is his own cause, his own safety, 
his own concern, his own dignity on the face of the earth, and his own interest in that 
identical soil, which he has to maintain. In this principle we find the key to all the 
wonders which were achieved at Thermopylae : the principle of liberty alone could 
create those sublime and irresistible emotions ; and it is in vain to deny, from the 
striking illustration that our times have given, that the principle is eternal, and that 
it belongs to the heart of man." 

It was happy for Mr. Fox, in coming out so strongly against Lord North at the 
early age of twenty-five, that he enjoyed the friendship of some of the ablest men 
in the empire among the Whigs, on whom he could rely with confidence in forming 
his opinions and conducting his political inquiries. To Mr. Burke he could resort, 
in common with all the associates, of that wonderful man, for every kind of knowl- 
edge on almost every subject ; and he declared, at the time of their separation from 
each other in 1791, that "if he were to put all the political information which he 
had learned from books, all he had gained from science, and all which any knowledge 
of the world and its affairs had taught him, into one scale, and the improvement 
which he had derived from his right honorable friend's instruction and conversation 
were placed in the other, he should be at a loss to decide to which to give the prefer- 
ence." Mr. Dunning (afterward Lord Ashburton) was another leader among the 
Whigs, who, though less generally known as an orator from the imperfection of his 
voice and manner, was one of the keenest opponents in the House of those arbitrary 
acts into which George III. drove the Duke of Grafton and Lord North ; and it can 
hardly be doubted that he had great influence with Mr. Fox at this time (though 
they were separated at a later period) in weaning him from his early predilections 
for the royal prerogative, and inspiring him with those sentiments which the Whigs 
expressed in their celebrated resolution (drawn up by Mr. Dunning himself), that 
" the i7ijlue7ice of the Croivn has increased, is increasi7ig, and ought to be dimin- 



^ The reader will be interested in the following beautiful tribute to the memory of Lord Ash- 
burton as an orator, from the pen of Sir William Jones : " His language was always pure, always 
elegant, and the best words dropped easily from his lips into the best places with a fluency at all 
times astonishing, and, when he had perfect health, really melodious. That faculty, howevex', in 
which no mortal ever surpassed him, and which all found irresistible, was his wit. This relieved 
the weary, calmed the resentful, and animated the drowsy ; this drew smiles even from such as 
were the objects of it, and scattered flowers over a desert, and, like sunbeams sparkling on a lake, 
gave spirit and vivacity to the dullest and least interesting cause. Not that his accomplishments 
as an advocate consisted principally of volubility of speech or liveliness of raillery. He was en- 
dued with an intellect sedate yet penetrating, clear yet profound, subtle yet strong. His knowl- 
edge, too, was equal to his imagination, and his memory to his knowledge." — Works, vol. iv, p. 577. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 443 

The ambition of Mr. Fox was now directed to a single object, that of making 
himself a poicerful debater. A debater, in the distinctive sense of the term, is de- 
scribed by a lively writer, as " one who goes out in all weathers" — one who, instead 
of carrying with him to the House a set speech drawn up beforehand, has that 
knowledge of general principles, that acquaintance with each subject as it comes up, 
that ready use of all his faculties, which enables him to meet every question where 
he finds it, to grapple with his antagonist at a moment's warning, and to avail him- 
self of every advantage which springs from a perfect command of all his powers and 
resources. These qualities are peculiarly necessary in the British House of Com- 
mons, because the most important questions are generally decided at a single sitting ; 
and there is no room for that pernicious custom so prevalent in the American Con- 
gress, of making interminable speeches to constituents under a semblance of address- 
ing the House. In addition to great native quickness and force of mindv long-con- ] 
tinned practice is requisite to make a successful debater. Mr. Fox once remarked to a / 
friend, that he had literally gained his skill " at the expense of the House," for he had i 
sometimes tasked himself, during an entire session, to speak on every question that [ 
came up, whether he was interested in it or not, as a means of exercising and train- i 
ing his faculties. ) He now found it necessary to be intimately acquainted with the J 
history of the Coiistitution and the political relations of the country ; and though he 
continued for some years to be a votary of pleasure, he had such wonderful activity 
of mind and force of memory, that he soon gained an amount of information on these 
topics such as few men in the House possessed, and was able to master every subject 
in debate with surprising facility and completeness. In all this he thought of but 
one thing — not language, not imagery, not even the best disposition and sequence of 
his ideas, but argument : how to put down his antagonist, how to make out his own 
case. His love of argument was, perhaps, the most striking trait in Iris character. 
Even in conversation (as noticed by a distinguished foreigner who was much in liis 
society), he was not satisfied, like most men, to throw out a remark, and leave it to 
make its own way, he must prove it, and subject the remarks of others to the same 
test ; so that discussion formed the staple of all his thoughts, and entered to a great 
extent into all his intercourse with others. With such habits and feelings, he rose, 
says Mr. Burke, " by slow degrees to be the most brilliant and accomplished debater 
the world ever saw." There was certainly nothing of envy or disparagement (though 
charged upon him with great bitterness by Dr. Parr) in Mr. Burke's selecting the 
terai " debater" to express the distinctive character of Mr. Fox. The character is 
one which gives far more weight and authority to a speaker in Parliament, than the 
most fervid oratory when unattended by the qualities mentioned above. It was not 
denied by Mr. Burke, but rather intimated by his use of the word " brilliant," that 
Mr. Fox did superinduce upon those qualities an ardor and an eloquence by which 
(as every one knows) he gave them their highest efiect. It is emphatically true, also, 
notwithstanding Dr. Parr's complaint of the expression, that Mr. Fox did rise " by 
slow degrees" to his eminence as an orator, an eminence of so peculiar a kind that 
no human genius could ever have attained it in any other way ; and it is equally 
true, that whenever the name of Mr. Fox is mentioned, the first idea which strikes 
every mind is the one made thus prominent by Mr. Burke — we instantly think of 
him as " the most brilliant and accomplished debater the world ever saw." So much, 
indeed, was this the absorbing characteristic of his oratory, that nearly all his faults 
lay in this direction. He had made himself so completely an intellectual gladiator, 
that too often he thought of nothing but how to obtain the victory. 

Notwithstanding the irregularities of his private life, to which Mr. Fox still un- 
fortunately clung, he gradually rose as a speaker in Parliament, until, at the end of 
Lord North's administration, he was the acknowledged leader of the Whig party in 



444 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

the House. In many respects, he was peculiarly qualified for such a station. He 
had a fine, genial spirit, characteristic of the family, which drew his political friends 
around him with all the warmth of a personal attachment. " He was a man," said 
Mr. Burke, soon after their separation from each other, " who was made to be loved." 
His feelings were generous, open, and manly ; the gamingtable had not made him, 
as it does most men, callous or morose ; he was remarkably unassuming in his man- 
ners, yet frank and ardent in urging his views ; he was above every thing like trick 
or duplicity, and was governed by the impulses of a humane and magnanimous dis- 
position. These things, in connection with his tact and boldness, qualified him pre- 
eminently to be the leader of a Whig Opposition ; while his rash turn of mind, re- 
sulting from the errors of his early training, would operate less to his injury in such 
a situation, and his very slight regard for political consistency would as yet have no 
opportunity to be developed. 

It was with these characteristics, that, at the end of the long struggle which drove 
Lord North from power, Mr. Fox came into oflice as Secretary of State under Lord 
Rockingham, in March, 1782. This administration was terminated in thirteen 
weeks by the death of his Lordship, and Mr. Fox confidently expected to be made 
prime minister. But he had now to experience the natural consequences of his reck- 
less spirit and disregard of character. The King would not, for a moment, entertain 
the idea of placing at the head of affairs a man who, besides his notorious dissipa- 
tion, had beggared himself by gambling, and was still the slave of this ruinous pas- 
sion. Nor was he alone in his feelings. Reflecting men of the Whig party, who 
were out of the circle of Mr. Fox's immediate influence, had long been scandalized 
by the profligacy of his life. In 1779, Dr. Price, who went beyond him in his devo- 
tion to liberal principles, remarked with great severity on his conduct, in a Fast Ser- 
mon which was widely circulated in print. " Can you imagine," said he, " that a 
spendthrift in his own concerns will make an economist in managing the concerns of 
others ? that a wild gamester will take due care of the state of a kingdom ? Treach- 
ery, vanity, and corruption must be the effects of dissipation, voluptuousness, and im- 
piety. These sap the foundations of virtue ; they render men necessitous and sup- 
ple, ready at any time to fly to a court in order to repair a shattered fortune and 
procure supplies for prodigality." In addition to this, Mr. Fox had made himself 
personally obnoxious to George III., by another exhibition of his rashness. He had 
treated him with great indignity in his speeches on the American war, pointing di- 
rectly to his supposed feelings and determinations in a manner forbidden by the theory 
of the Constitution, and plainly implying that he was governed by passions unbecom- 
ing his station as a King, and disgraceful to his character as a man. It is diflicult to 
understand how Mr. Fox could allow himself in such language (whatever may have 
been his private convictions), if he hoped ever to be made minister ; and it was cer- 
tainly to be expected, for these reasons as well as those mentioned above, that the 
King would never place him at the head of the government while he could find any 
other man who was competent to fill the station. He accordingly made Lord Shel- 
burne prime minister early in July, 1782, and Mr. Fox instantly resigned. 

This step led to another which was the great misfortune of his life. Parties were 
so singularly balanced at the opening of the next Parliament, in December, 1782, that 
neither the minister nor any of his opponents had the command of the House. Ac- 
cording to an estimate made by Gibbon, Lord Shelburne had one hundred and forty 
adherents, Lord North one hundred and twenty, and Mr. Fox ninety, leaving a con- 
siderable number who were unattached. Early in February, 1783, a report crept 
abroad, that a coalition was on the taiiii between Mr. Fox and Lord North. The 
story was at first treated as an idle tale. A coalition of some kind was indeed ex- 
pected, because the government could not be administered without an amalgamation 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 445 

of parties ; but that Mr. Fox could ever unite with Lord North, alter their bitter an- 
imosities and the glaring contrast of their principles on almost every question in pol- 
itics, seemed utterly incredible. There was nothing of a personal nature to prevent 
an arrangement between Lord Shelburne and Lord North ; but Mr. Fox had for years 
assailed his opponent in such language as seemed forever to cut them off from any 
intercourse as men, or any union of their interests as politicians. He had denounced 
him as " the most infamous of mankind," as " the greatest criminal of the state, whose 
blood must expiate the calamities he had brought upon his country;"^ and, as if with 
the express design of making it impossible for him to enter into such an alliance, 
he had, only eleven months before, said of Lord North and his whole ministry in the 
House of Commons : " From the moment I should make any terms with one of them, 
I would rest satisfied to be called the most iyifamoiis of mankind. I could not for 
an instant think of a coalition with men who, in every public and private transaction 
as ministers, have shown themselves void of every principle of honor and honesty : in 
the hands of such men I would not trust my honor even for a minute."^ Still, rumors 
of a coalition became more and more prevalent, until, on the 17th of February, 1783, 
says Mr. Wilberforce, in relating the progress of events, " When I reached the House, 
I inquired, ' Are the intentions of Lord North and Fox sufficiently known to be con- 
demned ?' 'Yes,' said Henry Banks, 'and the more strongly the better.'" The 
debate was on Lord Shelburne's treaty of peace with America ; and every eye was 
turned to the slightest movements of the ex-minister and his old antagonist, until, at 
a late hour of the evening, Lord North came down from the gallery where he had 
been sitting, and took his place by Mr. Fox. His Lordship then arose, and attacked 
the treaty with great dexterity and force, as bringing disgrace upon the country by 
the concessions it made. Mr. Fox followed in the same strain, adding, in reference 
to himself and Lord North, that all causes of difference between them had ceased with 
the American war. The Coalition was now complete I The debate continued until 
nearly eight o'clock the next morning, when Lord Shelburne was defeated by a ma- 
jority of sixteen votes, and was compelled soon after to resign. 

Next came the Coalition Ministry. To this the King submitted with the utmost 
reluctance, after laboring in vain first to persuade Mr. Pitt to undertake the govern- 
ment, and then to obtain, as a personal favor from Lord North, the exclusion of Mr. 
Fox. So strong were the feelings of his Majesty, that he hesitated and delayed for 
six tveeks, until, driven by repeated addresses from the House, he was compelled to 
yield ; and this ill-fated combination came into power on the 2d of April, 1783, with 
the Duke of Portland as its head, and Mr. Fox and Lord North as principal secretaries 
of state. " The occurrence of this coalition," says Mr. Cooke, one of Mr. Fox's warm- 
est admirers, " is greatly to be deplored, as an example to men who, without any of 
the power, may nevertheless feel inclined to imitate the errors of Fox. It is to be de- 
plored as a blot on the character of a great man, as a precedent which strikes at the 
foundation of political morality, and as a weapon in the hands of those who would 
destroy all confidence in the honesty of public men."^ The laxity of principle which 
it shows in Mr. Fox may be traced to the errors of his early education. It M^as the re- 
sult of the pernicious habit in which he was trained of gratifying every desire without 
the least regard to consequences, and the still more pernicious maxims taught him by 
his father — " that brilliant talents would atone for every kind of delinquency, and that 
in politics, especially, any thing would be pardoned to a man of great designs and splen- 
did abilities." Certain it is that Mr. Fox could never understand why he was con- 
demned so severely for his union with Lord North. As an opponent, he had spoken 
of him, indeed, in rash and bitter terms, but never with a malignant spirit, for nothing 

3 Age of Pitt and Fox, vol. i., 145. "* Fox's Speeches, vol. ii., 39. 

5 History of Party, vol. iii., 316. 



446 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

was fartlier from his disposition ; and, knowing the character of the men, we can credit 
the statement of Mr. Gibbon, who was intimate with both, " that in their poUtical con- 
tests these great antagonists had never felt any 'pergonal animosity ; that their recon- 
ciliation was easy and sincere ; and that their friendship had never been clouded by 
the shadow of suspicion and jealousy." Every one now feels that Mr. Fox uttered 
his real sentiments when he said, " It is not in my nature to bear malice or ill will ; 
my friendships are perpetual ; my enmities are not so : amicitia semjnteimce, inim- 
iciticc i^lacabilc?,'''' But he had thus far shown himself to the world only on the worst 
side of his character ; and it is not surprising that most men considered him (what 
in fact he appeared to be on the face of the transaction) as a reckless politician, bent 
on the possession of power at whatever sacrifice of principle or consistency it might 
cost him. Even the warmest Whigs regarded him, to a great extent, in the same 
light. " From the moment this coalition was formed," says Bishop Watson, " I lost 
all confidence in public men." " The gazettes," says Sir Samuel Romilly in a letter 
to a friend, " have proclaimed to you the scandalous alliance between Fox and Lord 
North. It is not Fox alone, but his whole party ; so much so that it is no exagger- 
ation to say, that of all the public characters of this devoted country (Mr. Pitt only 
excepted), there is not a man who has, or deserves, the nation's confidence."^ 

The great measure of the Coalition ministry was Mr. Fox's East India Bill. Per- 
ilous as the subject was to a new administration lying under the jealousy of the peo- 
ple and the hostility of the King, it could not be avoided ; and Mr. Fox met it with 
a fearless resolution, which at least demands our respect. The whole nation called 
for strong measures, and Mr. Fox gave them a measure stronger than any one of them 
had contemplated. He cut the knot which politicians had so long endeavored to un- 
tie. He annulled the charter of the East India Company, and, after providing for 
the payment of their debts, he took all their concerns into the hands of the govern- 
ment at home, placing the civil and military afiairs of India under the control of a 
board of seven commissioners, and putting their commercial interests into the hands 
of a second board, to be managed for the benefit of the shareholders. Never, since 
the Revolution of 1688, has any measure of the government produced such a ferment 
in the nation. Lawyers exclaimed against the bill as a violation of chartered rights ; 
all the corporate bodies of the kingdom saw in it a precedent Avhich might be fatal 
to themselves ; the East India Company considered it as involving the ruin of their 
commercial interests ; and politicians regarded it as a desperate effort of Mr. Fox, 
after forcing his way into office against the wishes of the King, to set himself above 
the King's reach, and, by this vast accession of patronage, to establish his ministry 
for life. Mr. Fox had again to sufier the bitter consequences of his disregard of char- 
acter. These objections were plausible, and some of the provisions of the bill were 
certainly hniwlitic for one situated like Mr. Fox. Yet Mr. Mill, in his British India, 
speaks of the alarm excited as one " for which the ground was extremely scanty, and 
for which, notwithstanding the industry and art with which the advantage was im- 
proved by the opposite party, it is difficult (considering the usual apathy of the pub- 
lic on much more important occasions) entirely to account. "'^ As to the principal 
charge, Lord Campbell observes, in his Lives of the Chancellors, " No one at the 
present day believes that the framers of the famous East India Bill had the intention 
imputed to them of creating a power independent of the Crown."® And as to the 
other objections, it is obvious to remark, that any effectual scheme of Indian reform 
would, of necessity, encroach on the charter of the Company ; that such encroach- 
ments must in any case be liable to abuse as precedents ; and that if (as all agreed 
was necessary) the government at home assumed the civil and military administra- 
tion of India, a large increase of patronage inii^t fall into the hands of ministers, 
6 Memoirs, vol. i., p. 269. ' Vol. iv., p. 475. ^ Vol. v., p. 551. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 447 

which others could abuse as easily as Mr. Fox. But the difficulty was, no one knew 
how far to trust him! His conduct had given boundless scope for jealousy and 
suspicion. He had put into the hands of his enemies the means of utterly ruining 
his character ; and it is undoubtedly true, as stated by a late writer, that he was at 
this period regarded by the great body of the nation " as selfish, vicious, and desti- 
tute of virtue — by thousands he was looked upon as a man with the purposes of a 
Catiline and the manners of a Lovelace."^ 

Under all these difficulties, Mr. Fox placed his reliance on his majority in the 
House, and went forward with an unbroken spirit, trusting to time, and especially to 
the character of the men whom he should name as commissioners, for the removal 
of this wide-spread opposition. He introduced his bill on the 18th of November, 
1783, in a speech explaining its import and design; and at the end of twelve 
days, after one of the hardest-fought battles which ever took place in the House, he 
closed the debate Avith a speech of great ability (to be found below), in reply to his 
numerous opponents, and especially to Mr. Dundas and Mr. Pitt. Believing (as al- 
most every one now does) that Mr. Fox was far from being governed by the base 
motives ascribed to him — that, though ambitious in a high degree, and hoping, no 
doubt, to strengthen his ministry by this measure, his bill was dictated by generous 
and humane feelings, and was no more stringent than he felt the exigency of the 
case to demand — we can not but admire the dignity and manliness with which he 
stood his ground. He had every inducement, when he met this unexpected opposi- 
tion, to shrink back, to modify his plan, to compromise with the East India Compa- 
ny, and to establish his power by uniting his interests with theirs. Even those who 
distrust his motives will therefore do honor to his spirit, and will be ready to say 
with Mr. Moore, ^° "We read his speech on the East India Bill with a sort of breath- 
less anxiety, which no other political discourses, except those, perhaps, of Demos- 
thenes, could produce. The importance of the stake which he risks — the boldness 
of his plan — the gallantry with which he ffings himself into the struggle, and the 
frankness of personal feeling that breathes throughout, all throw around him an in- 
terest like that which encircles a hero of romance ; nor could the most candid auto- 
biography that ever was written exhibit the whole character of a man more trans- 
parently through it." 

The bill passed the Commons by a vote of 217 to 103, but when it came up in 
the House of Lords it met with a new and more powerful resistance. Lord Tem- 
ple, a near relative of Mr. Pitt, had obtained a private audience of the King, and 
represented the subject in such a light, that his Majesty commissioned him to say, 
that " whoever voted for the India Bill were not only not his friends, but that he 
should consider them his enemies.'" At its first reading, Lord Thurlow denounced 
it in the strongest terms ; and turning to the Prince of Wales, who was present as a 
peer with the view to support the bill, he added, with a dark scowl as he looked him 
directly in the face, "I wish to see the Crown great and respectable, but if the pres- 
ent bill should pass, it will be no longer worthy of a man of honor to wear. The 
King may take the diadem from his own head and put it on the head of Mr. Fox." 
An instantaneous change took place among the peerage. The King's message 
through Lord Temple had been secretly but widely circulated among the Lords, es- 
pecially those of the royal household, who had given their proxies to the ministry. 
These proxies were instantly withdrawn. Even Lord Stormont, a member of the 
cabinet, who at first supported the bill, changed sides after two days ; the Prince of 
Wales felt unable to give Mr, Fox his vote; and the bill was rejected by a majority 
of ninety-five to seventy-six. The King hastened to town the moment he learned 
the decision of the Lords ; and at twelve o'clock the same night, a messenger con- 
9 Age of Pitt and Fox, vol. i., p. 177. i° Life of Sheridan, vol. i., 215, Phila. 



448 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

veyed to Mr. Fox and Lord North his Majesty's orders "that they should deliver up 
the seals of their offices, and send them by the under-secretaries, Mr. Frazer and Mr. 
Nepean, as a personal interview on the occasion would be disagreeable to him." 
The other ministers received their dismissal the next day in a note signed " Temple." 
But the battle was not over. Mr. Fox had still an overwhelming majority in the 
House ; and feeling that the interference of the King was an encroachment on the 
rights of the Commons, he resolved to carry his resistance to the utmost extremity. 
Accordingly, two days after, when Mr. Pitt came in as minister, he voted him down 
by so large a majority that a division was not even called for. Again and again he 
voted him down, demanding of him, in each instance, to resign in accordance with 
parliamentary usage, and bringing upon him at last a direct vote, " That after the 
expressed opinion of the House, the continuance of the present minister in office is 
contrary to co?istitutional 'prhici'ple?,, and injurious to the interests of his Majesty 
and the people." Earl Temple was terrified, and threw up his office Avithin a few 
days, but Mr. Pitt stood firm. The contest continued for three months, during which 
Mr. Fox delayed the supplies from time to time, and distinctly intimated that he might 
2,to]p them entirely, and prevent the passing of the Mutiny Bill, if Mr. Pitt did not re- 
sign. ^^ But his impetuosity carried him too far. He was in this case, as in some oth- 
ers, his own worst enemy. The King's interference was certainly a breach of privi- 
lege, and, under other circumstances, the whole country would have rallied round Mr. 
Fox to resist it. But every one now saw that the real difficulty was his exclusion 
from office ; and when he attempted to force his way back by threatening to suspend 
the operations of government, the nation turned against him more strongly than ever. 
They ascribed all that he did to mortified pride or disappointed ambition ; they gave 
him no credit for those better feelings which mingled with these passions, and which 
he seems to have considered (so easily do men deceive themselves) as the only mo- 
tives that impelled him to the violent measures he pursued. ^^ Addresses now poured 
in upon the King from every quarter, entreating him not to yield. At a public meet- 
ing in Westminster Hall, Mr. Fox, who was present with a view to explain his con- 
duct, was put down by cries of " No Great Mogul I" " No India tyrant !" " No 
usurper I" " No turn-coat I" " No dictator I" The city of London, once so strongly 
in his favor, now turned against him. Sir Horace Mann relates, that, going up to 
the King at this time with one of the addresses of the House against Mr. Pitt, he 
met the Lord Mayor of London and others who had just come down from presenting 
one in his favor ; and on Sir Horace remarking, " I see I am among my friends," they 
replied, " We were your friends, but you have joined those who have set up a Lord 
Protector .'" Such demonstrations of public feeling operated powerfully on the House. 

11 The bill for punishing mutiny in the army and navy is passed at each session for only one year. 
The power of withholding this bill and that which provides the annual supplies, gives the House of 
Commons, in tlie last extremity, an absolute control over ministers. 

12 One of the speeches in this selection, that of December 17th, 1784, has been given with a par- 
ticular reference to this point. The reader will be interested to remark how completely the matter 
of this speech is made up of just sentiments and weighty reasonings — contempt of underhand deal- 
ing, scorn of court servility, detestation of that dark engine of secret influence, which had driven 
Lord Chatham and so many others from power. All this is expressed with a spirit and eloquence 
which Chatham alone could have equaled, but coming from Mr. Fox, it availed nothing. He stood 
in so false a position, that he could not even defend the popular part of the Constitution without turn- 
ing the people more completely against him. The city of London, the most democratic part of the 
kingdom, thanked the King for that very interference which Toryism itself will not deny was a di- 
rect breach of the Constitution. But the people were taught to beUeve that Mr. Fox was aiming 
to make himself a " dictator" by the East India Bill, and they justified any measures which the 
King thought necessary for putting such a man down. Hardly any page of English history is more 
instructive than that which records the errors of Mr. Fox, and the pernicious consequences both to 
himself and others. 






CHARLES JAMES FOX. 449 

Mr. Fox's adherents gradually fell off, until, on a division at the end of eleven weeks, 
March 8th, 1784, his majority had sunk from fifty-four to a single vote! A shout 
of triumph now broke forth from the ministerial benches. The contest in the House 
was ended, and the question was carried at once to the whole country by a dissolu- 
tion of Parliament. 

The elections which followed, in April, 1784, went against the friends of Mr. Fox 
in every part of the kingdom ; more than a hundred and sixty having lost their places, 
and become " Fox's Martyrs," in the sportive language of the day. In Westminster, 
which Mr. Fox and Sir Cecil Wray had represented in the preceding Parliament, the 
struggle was the most violent ever known — Wray in opposition to his old associate. 
At the end of eleven days, Mr. Fox was in a minority of three hundred and eighteen, 
and his defeat seemed inevitable, when relief came from a quarter never before heard 
of in a political canvass. Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, a woman of extraordi- 
nary beauty and the highest mental accomplishments, took the field in his behalf 
She literally became the canvasser of Mr. Fox. She went from house to house so- 
liciting votes ; she sent her private carriage to bring mechanics and others of the 
lowest class to the polls ; she appeared at the hustings herself in company with Mr. 
Fox ; and on one occasion, when a young butcher turned the laugh upon her by offer- 
ing his vote for a kiss, in the enthusiasm of the moment she took him at his word, 
and paid him on the spot ! With such an ally, Mr, Fox's fortunes soon began to mend, 
and at the termination of forty days, when the polls were closed, he had a majority over 
Sir Cecil Wray of two hundred and thirty-five votes. This triumph was celebrated 
by a splendid procession of Mr. Fox's friends, most of them bearing/oo: tails, which 
gave rise to one of Mr. Pitt's best sarcasms. Some one having expressed his wonder 
how the people could procure such an immense number of foxes' tails ; " That is by 
no means surprising," said Pitt ; " this has been a good sporting year, and igloxq foxes 
have been destroyed than in any former season. I think, upon an average, there has 
at least one Fox been run down in every borough of the kingdom '" The Prince of 
Wales showed the lively interest he had taken in the contest, by joining the proces- 
sion on horseback in his uniform of a colonel of the Tenth Dragoons. A few days 
after, he celebrated the victory in a fete at Carlton House, attended by more than 
six hundred persons, the gentlemen being dressed in the costume of Mr. Fox, " buff 
and blue," and some even of the ladies wearing the same colors, with the " Fox lau- 
rel" on their heads, and the " Fox medal" suspended from their necks. 

But Mr. Fox was not allowed to enjoy the fruits of his victory. Sir Cecil Wray 
demanded a scrutiny or revision of the poll, involving enormous expense, and a de- 
lay, perhaps, of years, in taking testimony as to disputed votes.. All this time Mr. 
Fox was to be deprived of his seat — the object really aimed at in the whole trans- 
action. The presiding officer lent himself to this design ; he returned Lord Hood 
(the third candidate) as a member ; and made a report to the House, that he had 
granted a scrutiny in relation to Sir Cecil Wray and Mr. Fox. There was no prec- 
edent for a scrutiny in a case like this, where the poll had been continued down to 
the very day before the meeting of Parliament, and the presiding officer was re- 
quired by his writ to return tico members for Westminster on the 18th of May, be- 
ing the next day. If he could avoid this — if he was authorized (instead of doing 
the best he could) to reserve the question, and enter on a scrutiny after the session 
had commenced, it is obvious that the entire representation of the country would 
be in the hands of the returning officers. Any one of them, from party views or 
corrupt motives, might deprive a member of his seat as long as he saw fit, under 
the pretense (as in the present case) of satisfying his " conscience" by a protracted re- 
vision of the polls. The case came up early in the session, and Mr. Fox, being re- 
turned by a friend for the borough of Kirkwall, in the Orkney Isles, was enabled to 

Ff 



450 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

join in the debate. Under any other circumstances Mr. Pitt would never have allow^ed 
his passions to become interested in such an affair ; even if he thought the scrutiny le- 
gal, he would have seen the necessity of putting an end at once to a precedent so ob 
noxious to abuse. But the conflict of the last session seems to have poisoned his mind, 
and he showed none of that magnanimity which we should naturally expect in one 
who had achieved so splendid a victory at the recent elections. He assailed Mr. Fox 
in the language of taunt and ungenerous sarcasm, describing him as a man on whom 
a sentence of banishment had been passed by his country — as " driven by the impulse 
of patriotic indignation an exile from his native clime, to seek refuge on the stormy 
and desolate shores of the Ultima Thule.'''' Nothing could be more admirable than 
the firmness and elasticity of Mr. Fox's spirit under these depressing circumstances, 
stripped as he was of nearly all his former supporters in the House. He seemed, like 
the old Romans, to gather strength and courage from the difficulties that surrounded 
him. On the 8th of June, 1784, he discussed the subject of the Westminster scrutiny 
in one of the clearest and most fervid pieces of reasoning ever delivered in the House of 
Commons ; adding, at the same time, some admonitions for Mr. Pitt and his other op- 
ponents, which effectually secured him against uncivil treatment in all their subse- 
quent contests. Although the vote went against him at that time by a majority of 
117, the House and the country soon became satisfied that the whole proceeding was 
dishonorable and oppressive ; and, at the end of nine months, Mr. Pitt had the mor- 
tification to see his majority, so firm on every other subject, turning against him upon 
this, and, by a vote of 162 to 124, putting an end to the scrutiny and requiring an 
immediate return. Mr. Fox was accordingly returned the next day. The moment 
he took his seat as a member for Westminster, Mr. Fox moved, that all the proceed- 
ings in regard to the scrutiny be expunged from the journals of the House. This mo- 
tion was supported by Mr. Scott, afterward Lord Eldon, who, on this occasion (the only 
one in his life), came out in opposition to Mr. Pitt ; but the majority were unwilling 
to join him in so direct a vote of censure, and the motion was lost.^^ Mr. Fox recov- 
ered two thousand pounds damages from the presiding ofl[icer, the High Bailiff of West- 
minster, and a law was soon after passed providing against any farther abuses of this 
kind. 

Mr. Fox was appointed one of the managers of the impeachment against Warren 
Hastings in 1786, and had assigned to him the second charge, relating to the oppress- 
ive treatment of Cheyte Sing, Rajah of Benares. This duty he performed in a man- 
ner which awakened general admiration, and fully sustained the high character he 
had already gained as a parliamentary orator. 

In the autumn of 1788, while traveling in Italy, Mr. Fox was unexpectedly present- 
ed with the prospect of being called again to the head of affairs. The King became 
suddenly deranged ; and if the malady continued, the Prince of Wales would, of course, 
be Regent, and Mr. Fox his prime minister. A messenger Avith this intelligence found 
him at Bologna, and urged his immediate return, as the session of Parliament was soon 
to commence. He started at once, and never quitted his chaise during the whole jour- 
ney, traveling night and day until he reached London, on the 24th of November. At 
this time no definite anticipations could be formed in respect to the King's recovery. 
Parliament had voted a fortnight's recess, to allow time for deciding on the proper 
steps to be taken, and the political world was full of intrigue and agitation. It was 
the great object of the Prince and his future ministers to come in untrammeled — to 

^2 Lord Eldon. speaking of Uiis subject at a later period, said : " When the legality of the con- 
duct of the High Bailiff of Westminster was before the House, all the lawyers on the ministerial 
side defended his light to grant a scnuiny. I ihonght their law bad, and I told them so. I asked 
Keuyon how he could answer this — that ovejy writ or commission must be returned on the day on 
which it was made returnable. He could not answer it." 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 451 

have his authority as Regent, during his father's illness, established on the same foot- 
ing as if he had succeeded to the throne by the King's death. The existing ministry, 
on the other hand, who believed the King might speedily recover, were desirous to 
impose such restrictions on the Regency as would prevent Mr. Fox and his friends 
from intrenching themselves permanently in power. It is curious to observe how 
completely the two parties changed sides under this new aspect of their political in- 
terests. Mr. Fox became the defender of the prerogative, and Mr. Pitt of the popular 
part of the Constitution. Before Mr. Fox returned from Italy, Lord Loughborough 
[Mr. Wedderburne] had devised a theory to meet the present case. He maintained 
that here (as in the case of natural death) " the administration of the government 
dovolved to him [the Prince of Wales] of right ;" that it belonged to Parliament " not 
to confer, but to declare the right ;" and it is now known that he actually advised the 
Prince, in secret, to assume the royal authority at a meeting of the Privy Council, and 
then to summon Parliament, in his otvri name, for the dispatch of business.^* This 
theory, with one important modification, Mr. Fox took with him into the House. In 
a debate on the 10th of December, 1788, he maintained that during the incapacity 
of the King, the Prince "had as clear and express a right to assume the reins of gov- 
ernment and exercise the power of sovereignty, as in the case of his Majesty's having 
undergone a natural and perfect demise ;" but he added (limiting the theory of Lord 
Loughborough) that " as to this right, the Prince himself was not to judge when he 
was entitled to exercise it, but the two Houses of Parliament, as the organs of the 
nation, were alone qualified to pronounce tvhen the Prince ought to take possession 
of and exercise this right. "^^ Mr. Pitt, the moment he heard this doctrine, exclaimed 
to a friend who sat by him in the House, " Now I'll umvhig that gentleman for the 
rest of his life !" He instantly rose, and declared it to be " little less than treason 
against the Constitution: he pledged himself to prove that the Heir-apparent had 
no more right, in the case in question, to the exercise of the executive authority, than 
any other subject in the kingdom, and that it belonged entirely to the two remaining 
branches of the Legislature, in behalf of the nation at large, to make such a provision 
for supplying the temporary deficiency as they might think proper." Mr. Fox, either 
seeing that he had been misunderstood, or feeling that he had gone too far, explained 
himself, two days after, to have meant, that " from the moment the two Houses of 
Parliament declared the King unable to exercise the royal sovereignty, from that mo- 
ment a right to exercise the royal authority attached to the Prince of Wales" — that 
"he must appeal to the court competent to decide whether it belonged to him or not, 
or must wait till that court itself made such a declaration."^*^ This was apparently 
taking still lower ground ; but even this Mr. Pitt maintained was equally false and un- 
founded. " He denied that the Prince had any right whatever ;" he declared it " sub- 
versive of the principles of the Constitution to admit that the Prince of Wales might 
set himself on the throne during the lifetime of his father ; he denied that Parlia- 
ment were mere judges in this emergency, affirming that they acted for the entire 
body of the people in a case not provided for in the Constitution ;" and affirmed it to 
be " a question of greater magnitude and importance even than the present exigen- 
cy, a question that involved in it the principles of the Constitution, the protection 
and security of our liberties, and the safety of the state." A Regency Bill was now 
framed by the Ministers, making the Prince of Wales Regent, but committing the 
King's person to the care of the Q/Ueen, with the right of appointing the ofhcers of 
the royal household. It provided that the Prince should have no power over the 
personal property of the King, and no authority either to create new peers, or to 
grant any pension, place, or reversion to be held after the King's recovery, except 

1^ See a paper of Lord Loughborough on this subject in Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vol. 
vi.,page 195. >'' Speeches, vol. iii.,page 401. ^'^ Id. ib., page 407. 



452 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

offices made permanent by law. Nearly four months were spent in debating this sub- 
ject, every possible delay being interposed by Mr. Pitt, who was now confident of the 
King's early recovery. Accordingly, at the close of April, his Majesty was declared 
by the physicians to be restored to a sound state of mind ; and Mr. Fox's prospect of 
office became more remote than ever, the King and the people being equally imbit- 
tered against him, as having again endeavored to establish himself in power by the 
use of violent and illegal means. ^' On the question so vehemently discussed at that 
time touching the rights of the Prince of Wales, there has been a diversity of opinion 
down to the present day. All agree in considering Lord Loughborough's theory as 
" a ffimsy speculation ;" but men have differed greatly as to Mr. Fox's doctrine. 
When the Regency question came up again, in 1810, an able writer in favor of the 
Prince remarked in the Edinburgh Review : " Strict legal right, which could be as- 
serted and made good in a court of judicature, he [the Prince] certainly had none. 
It was observed, with more truth than decorum, by Mr, Pitt, that every individual of 
his father's subjects had as good a legal right to the Regency as his Royal Highness 
the Prince of Wales. "^^ Lord Campbell, however, would seem to hold with Mr. Fox, 
when he says : " The next heir to the throne is entitled, during the continuance of 
this [the King's] disability, to carry on the executive government as Regent, with the 
same authority as if the disabled Sovereign were naturally dead ;"^^ unless, indeed, 
he uses the word " entitled" in a looser sense to describe not what is strictly a legal 
right, but what is most accordant with the analogies of the Constitution and the na- 
ture of a hereditary monarchy. If so, he agrees with Lord Brougham, who never- 
theless regarded the restrictions imposed on the Prince Regent as wdse and neces- 
sary. After stating what he considered the argument from analogy, he says, in re- 
spect to this case : " There were reasons of a practical description which overbore 
these obvious considerations, and reconciled men's minds to such an anomalous pro- 
ceeding. It seemed necessary to provide for the safe custody of the King's person, 
and for such a sure restoration of his powers as should instantly replace the scepter 
in his hand the very moment that his capacity to hold it should return. His Vice- 
gerent must plainly have no control over this operation, neither over the royal pa- 
tient's custody, nor over the resumption of his office and the termination of his own. 
But it would not have been very easy to cut off all interference on the Regent's part 
in this most delicate matter, had he been invested with the full powers of the Crown. 
So, in like manner, the object being to preserve things as nearly as possible in their 
present state, if those full powers had been exercised uncontrolled, changes of a na- 
ture quite irreversible might have been effected while the monarch's faculties were 
asleep ; and not only he would have awakened to a new order of things, but the af- 
fairs of the country would have been administered under that novel dispensation by 
one irreconcilably hostile to it, while its author, appointed in the course of nature once 
more to rule as his successor, would have been living and enjoying all the influence 
acquired by his accidental, anticipated, and temporary reign. These considerations, 
and the great unpopularity of the Heir-apparent and his political associates, the Co- 
alition party, enabled Mr. Pitt to carry his proposition of a Regency with restricted 
powers, established by a bill to which the two remaining branches alone of the crip- 

17 George III., throughout his whole life, believed that a conspiracy had been formed to prevent 
his remounting the throne. No explanations could ever relieve his mind from this error, and he 
always looked with abhorrence on those who resisted the limitations of the Regent's authority, and 
the transfer of his person to the custody of the Queen. The feelings of the nation were strongly ex- 
cited in his behalf. Without sharing in his error, they considered him as treated with disrespect, 
and strongly condemned those who objected to the restrictions mentioned above. It was in this 
way, as well as by his East India Bill and Coalition, that Mr. Fox did more than any other man in 
the empire to remove the unpopularity of the King, and to draw his subjects around him in support 
and sympathy. *" Vol. xviii., page 91. ^^ Lives of the Chancellors, vol. vi.,page 187. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 453 

pled Parliament had assented ; instead of their addressing the Heir-apparent, de- 
claring the temporary vacancy of the throne, and desiring him temporarily to fill it " 
When the same question came up again, in 1810, the Prince waived the claim of 
■right, and yielded quietly to the restrictions enumerated above. These two prece- 
dents have settled the constitutional law and usage on this subject. 

Mr. Fox's next conflict with his antagonist related to the Russian Armament, and 
here he carried the whole country with him in opposition to the warlike designs of 
the ministry. The courts of London and Berlin had demanded of the Empress of 
Russia, not only to desist from her war with Turkey, but to restore the numerous 
and important conquests she had made. Unwilling to provoke the resentment of 
these powerful and self-created arbiters, Catharine consented to yield every thing but 
a small station on the Black Sea called Ockzakow, with the dependent territory. Mr. 
Pitt, under a mistaken view of the importance of this fortress, peremptorily insisted 
on its surrender ; the Empress, taking offense at this treatment, as peremptorily re- 
fused ; and the British ministry made the most active preparations for war. When 
the subject came before Parliament, early in 1791, Mr. Fox put forth all his strength 
against this armament. Reflecting men throughout the country condemned Mr. Pitt 
for interfering in the contests of other nations ; and, as the discussion went on in Par- 
liament, ministers found their majority so much reduced, that they promptly and 
wisely gave up the point in dispute. Mr. Fox gained greatly in the public estima- 
tion by his conduct on this, occasion. He appeared in his true character, that of a 
friend of peace ; and was justly considered as having saved the country, probably 
irom a long and bloody war, certainly from much unnecessary expense contemplated 
by the ministry. While this question was under discussion, he sent a friend, Mr. 
Adair, to St. Petersburgh, as it was generally supposed with confidential communi- 
cations for the Empress. Mr. Burke, after his breach with Mr. Fox, spoke of this 
mission as involving, if not treason, at least a breach of the Constitution fraught 
with the most dangerous consequences. It is not easy to understand the ground of 
this severe charge. Mr. Fox w^as not in the secrets of the government, and could 
communicate nothing to the Empress which was not known to the world at large. 
He could only assure her that the English people were averse to war, and might, 
perhaps, exhort her not to lower her terms (though this was never proved) ; but as 
the two nations were still at peace, his communications with Catharine were certain- 
ly less objectionable than Burke's correspondence with Dr. Franklin during the Ameri- 
can war, which he once proposed to read in Parliament, and which caused Lord New 
Haven to exclaim : " Do not my senses deceive me ? Can a member of this Assem- 
bly not only avow his correspondence with a rebel, but dare to read it to us ?"'^° There 
is one decisive fact which shows, that Mr. Adair's mission could not have been regard- 
ed by the King and ministry as it was by Mr. Burke. He was afterward sent as En- 
voy to the courts of Vienna and Constantinople. " The confidence of the Sovereign," 
as Dr. Parr remarks, " completely and visibly refutes the accusations of Mr. Burke." 
After Mr. Pitt was thus beaten oft' from the Russian Armament, Mr. Fox and his 
friends opened upon him one of the severest attacks he ever experienced, by propos- 
ing a vote of censure, on the ground that he had acted the part either of a bully or 
a coward — that he had disgraced the country by disarming, if there was just cause 
of war, and by arming if there was not. Mr. Fox's speech on that occasion will be 
found in this volume ; it was one of his most powerful and characteristic efibrts. 

Mr. Fox likewise distinguished himself at this period by his efforts to defend the 
rights of juries. The law of libel, as laid down by Lord Mansfield in the case of 
Woodfall,^^ restricted the jury to the question oi fact, " Was the accused guilty of pub- 
lishing, and did he point his remarks at the government ?" They were not allowed 
20 Wraxall's Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 277. 21 gge page 199. 



454 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

to inquire into his motives, or the legality of what he said ; and the real issue was, 
therefore, in the hands of the judges, who, being appointed by the Crown, were pecul- 
iarly liable to be swayed by court influences. This made the trial by jury in libel 
cases a mere nullity, and too often turned it into an instrument for crushing the lib- 
erty of the press. Mr. Burke took up the subject at the time of Woodfall's trial, and 
prepared a bill giving juries the right to judge of the law as well as the fact, but it 
was rejected by a large majority. This bill, in all its leading features, Mr. Fox brought 
forward again in the year 1791, after the famous trial of the Dean of St. Asaph, in 
which Mr. Erskine made his masterly argument on the rights of juries. ^^ " When a 
man," said Mr. Fox, in urging his bill, " is accused of murder, a crime consisting of 
law and fact, the jury every day find a verdict of guilty, and this also is the case 
in felony and every criminal indictment. Libels are the only exception, the single 
anomaly. '^ " All will admit that a ivriting may be an overt act of treason ; but 
suppose in this case the Court of King's Bench should charge the jury ; ' Consider 
only whether the criminal ^;wJ/2s/ie<i the papers — do not inquire into the nature of 
it — do not examine whether it corresponds to the definition of treason' — would En- 
glishmen endure that death should be inflicted by the decision of a jury thus tram- 
meled and overruled ?" Mr. Pitt generously seconded Mr. Fox in this effort, and 
even raised Mr. Grenville to the House of Lords for the sake of giving the bill a more 
powerful support in that body, but Lord Thurlow succeeded in defeating it that ses- 
sion. It was passed, however, in 1792, notwithstanding the pertinacious opposition 
of the law Lords, Thurlow, Kenyon, and Bathurst : and Mr. Fox had the satisfaction 
of thus performing one of the most important services ever rendered to the liberty of 
the press. 

The progress of our narrative has led us forward insensibly into the midst of the 
French Revolution. Some one, speaking of this convulsion, remarked to Mr. Burke, 
that it had shaken the whole world. " Yes," replied he, " and it has shaken the 
heart of Mr. Fox out of its place I" Certain it is that every thing Mr. Fox did or 
said on this subject, whether right or wrong, sprung directly from his heart, from the 
warm impulse of his humane and confiding nature. In fact, the leading statesmen 
of that day were all of them governed, in the part they took, far more by tempera- 
ment and previous habits of thought, than by any deep-laid schemes of policy. Mr. 
Burke was naturally cautious. His great principle in government was prescription. 
"With him abstract right was nothing, circumstances were every thing ; so that his 
first inquiry in politics was, not what is true or proper in the nature of things, but 
what is practicable, what is expedient, what is wise and safe in the present posture 
of affairs. Hence, on the question of taxing America, he treated all discussions of 
the abstract right with utter contempt. " I do not enter into these metaphysical 
distinctions," said he, "I hate the sound of them." Mr. Fox, on the contrary, in- 
stantly put the question on the ground oi right ; all the sympathies of his nature 
were on the side of the colonies as injured and insulted. " There is not an Amer- 
ican," said he, " but must reject and resist the principle and the right." With such 
feelings and habits of thought, it might have been foreseen from the beginning that 
Mr. Burke and Mr. Fox would be at utter variance respecting the French Revolu- 
tion, carried on, as it was, upon the principle of the inherent " rights of man." The 
difl?iculty was greater, because each of them, to a certain extent, had the truth on 
his side. The right of self-government in a people, as Mr. Fox truly said, does not 
depend on precedent or the concessions of rulers, but is founded in the nature of 
things. " It is not because they have been free, but because they have a right to be 
free, that men demand their freedom." Mr. Burke, on the other hand, was equally 
correct in maintaining that the question of resistance is far from being a question of 
''^ For this speech, see page 656. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 455 

mere abstract right. Circumstances, to a great extent, enter as an essential element 
into the decision of that question. No one is weak enough to suppose that any na- 
tion, however oppressed, can be justified hi a rebellion which it is plainly impossible 
to carry through ; or that self-government would be any thing but a curse to a people 
who are destitute of moral and political virtue. These are points, however, on which 
it is usually impossible to decide in the early stages of a revolution. A people some- 
times 77iake their destiny by the energy of their own will. The trials and privations 
through which they pass (as in the case of the seven United Provinces) prepare them 
for self-government. It was, therefore, natural for a man of Mr. Fox's sanguine 
temperament, especially with the example of America before him, to have confident 
hopes of the same auspicious results in France. 

The first instance of popular violence that occurred was the attack on the Bastile 
(July 14th, 1789) ; and Mr. Fox, in referring to it in the House, quoted, very hap- 
pily, from Cowper's Task (which had been recently published), the beautiful lines re- 
specting that fortress : 

" Ye horrid towers, th' abode of broken hearts, 

Ye dungeons and ye cages of despair, 

That monarchs have supplied from age to age 

With music such as suits their sovereign ears : 

The sighs and groans of miserable men ! 

There's not an English heart that would not leap 

To hear that ye were fall'n at last." 

So far as this event was concerned, Mr, Burke's sympathies were entirely with Mr. 
Fox. He said it was impossible not to admire the spirit by which the attack was 
dictated ; but the excesses which followed brought him out soon after as an oppo- 
nent of the Revolution, while Mr. Fox, as might be expected from one of his ardent 
feelings, still clung to the cause he had espoused. He lamented those excesses as 
truly as Mr. Burke, but his hopeful spirit led him to believe they would speedily pass 
away. He ascribed them to the feelings naturally created by the preceding despot- 
ism, and thus insensibly became the apologist of the revolutionary leaders, as Mr. 
Burke was of the. court and nobility. 

The false position into which Mr. Fox was thus drawn was the great misfortune 
of his subsequent life. He had no feelings in common with the philosophizing assas- 
sins of France, and from the moment he learned their true character, and saw the 
utter failure of their experiments, it is much to be regretted that he should in any 
way have been led to appear as their advocate. And yet it seemed impossible for 
one of his cast of mind to avoid it. When Austria and Russia invaded France 
(July, 1792), for the avowed purpose of putting back the Bourbons on the throne, he 
felt (as the whole world now feel) that it was not only the worst possible policy, but 
a flagrant violation of national right. He sympathized with the French. He re- 
joiced, and proclaimed his joy in the House of Commons, when they drove out the 
invaders, and seized, in their turn, upon the Austrian Netherlands. So, too, on the 
questions in dispute between England and France, which soon after resulted in war, 
he condemned the course taken by his own government as harsh and insulting. He 
thus far sided with the French, declaring that the English ministry had provoked the 
war, and were justly chargeable with the calamities it produced. And when the 
French, elated by their success in the Netherlands, poured forth their armies on the 
surrounding nations, with the avowed design of carrying out the Revolution by fire 
and sword, Mr. Fox was even then led by his peculiar position to palliate what he 
had no wish to justify. He dwelt on the provocations they had received, and showed 
great ingenuity in proving that the spirit of conquest and treachery which charac- 
terized the Republic, was only the spirit of the Bourbons transfused into the new 
government — that they had taught the nation, and trained it up for ages, to be the 



456 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

plunderers of mankind. It is difficult to conceive, at the present day, how all this 
grated upon the ears of an immense majority of the English people. The world has 
learned many lessons from the French Revolution, and one of the most important is 
that which Mr. Fox was continually inculcating, that nations, however wrong may 
be their conduct, should be left to manage their internal concerns in their own Avay. 
But the doctrines of Mr. Burke had taken complete possession of the higher class of 
minds throughout the country. The French were a set of demons. They had mur- 
dered their king, and cast off religion ; it was, therefore, the duty of surrounding na- 
tions to put them out of the pale of civilized society — to treat them as robbers and 
pirates ; and whatever violence might result from such treatment was to be charged 
on the revolutionary spirit of the French. That spirit was certainly bad enough, 
and would very likely, under any circumstances, have produced war ; but if Mr. Fox's 
advice had been followed, much of the enthusiasm with which the whole French na- 
tion rushed into the contest would have been prevented, and the fire of the Revolu- 
tion might possibly have burned out within their own borders, instead of involving 
all Europe in the conflagration. But the great body of the English people were un- 
prepared for such views, and Mr. Fox was the last man from whom they could hear 
any thing of this kind even with patience. His early mistakes as to the Revolution 
had made him the most unpopular man in the kingdom ; and it must be admitted 
that, while he was right in the great object at which he aimed, the nature of the 
argument and the warmth of his feelings made him seem too often to be the advo- 
cate of the French, even in their worst excesses. It was hardly possible, indeed, to 
oppose the war without appearing to take part with the enemy. Even Mr. Wilber- 
force, when he made his motion against it in 1794, was very generally suspected of 
revolutionary principles. " When I first went to the levee," said he, " after moving 
my amendment, the King cut me." " Your friend Mr. Wilberforce," said Mr. Wind- 
ham to Lady Spencer, " will be very happy any morning to hand your Ladyship to 
the guillotine !" 

The name of Mr. Windham naturally suggests another event connected with Mr. 
Fox's views of the French Revolution. Nearly all his friends deserted him, and be- 
came his most strenuous opponents. Mr. Burke led the way, as already stated in 
the sketch of his life. The Duke of Portland, Lord Loughborough, Mr. Windham, 
and a large number of the leading Whigs, followed at a somewhat later period, leav- 
ing him with only a handful of supporters in the House to maintain the contest with 
Mr. Pitt. Any other man, in such circumstances, would have given up in despair, 
but Mr. Fox's spirit seemed always to rise in exact proportion to the pressure that 
was laid upon him. While he pleaded incessantly for peace with France, he main- 
tained a desperate struggle for the rights of the English people during that memo- 
rable season of agitation and alarm from 1793 to 1797. His remedy for the disaf- 
fection which prevailed so extensively among the middling and lower classes, was 
that of Lord Chatham : " Remove their grievances, that will restore them to peace 
and tranquillity." " It may be asked," said he, " what would I propose to do in times 
of agitation like the present ? I will answer openly. If there is a tendency in the 
Dissenters to discontent, because they conceive themselves to be unjustly suspected 
and cruelly calumniated, what would I do ? I would instantly repeal the Test and 
Corporation Acts, and take from them, by such a step, all cause of complaint. If 
there are any persons tinctured with a republican spirit, because they think that the 
representative government would be more perfect in a republic, I would endeavor to 
amend the representation of the Commons, and to show that the House, though not 
chosen by all, can have no other interest than to prove itself the representative of all. 
If there are men dissatisfied in Scotland, or Ireland, or elsewhere, by reason of dis- 
abilities and exemptions, of unjust prejudices, and of cruel restrictions, I would repeal 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 457 

the penal statutes, which are a disgrace to our law books. If / were to issue a proc- 
lamation [the King had just issued one against seditious writings], this should be my 
proclamation : ' If any man has a grievance, let him bring it to the bar of the Com- 
mons' House of Parhament, with the firm persuasion of having it honestly investi- 
gated.' These are the subsidies that I would grant to government." 

Such were, indeed, the subsidia, the support and strength in the hearts of his peo- 
ple, which the King of England needed. But George III. and his counselors at that 
time looked only to restriction and force. A repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts 
was not to be thought of (though strenuously urged by Mr. Fox), because Dr. Price 
and Dr. Priestley, who were leading Dissenters, had been warm friends of the French 
Revolution. The King would hear nothing of any relief for the Roman Catholics ; 
his coronation oath required him to keep them in perpetual bondage. As to parlia- 
mentary reform, Mr. Fox himself, at an earlier period, saw no plan which he thought 
free from objections ; and hence Mr. Moore, and others of his friends, have been led 
hastily to represent him as a cold, if not a hypocritical advocate of this measure. 
But from a private letter (see article Fox, in the Encyclopedia Britannica), it ap- 
pears that his views at this time experienced a material change. " I think," said 
he, " we ought to go further toward agreeing with the democratic or popular party 
than at any former period." Accordingly, in May, 1797, he supported Mr. Grey's 
motion for reform in a speech (to be found below) of uncommon beauty and force. 
His great struggle, however, for the rights of the people was somewhat earlier, dur- 
ing the period which has been called (though with some exaggeration) the " Reign 
of Terror." Lord Loughborough, and the other Whigs who seceded to Mr. Pitt, had 
urged the ministry, with the proverbial zeal of new converts, into the most violent 
measures for putting down political discussion. The Habeas Corpus Act was sus- 
pended ; the Traitorous Correspondence Bill made it high treason to hold intercourse 
v/ith the French, or supply them with any commodities ; the Treasonable Practice 
Bill was designed to construe into treason a conspiracy to levy war, even without an 
overt act amounting thereto ; and the Seditious Meetings' Bill forbade any assem- 
bly of more than fifty persons to be held for political purposes, without the license 
of a magistrate. The two bills last mentioned were so hostile to the spirit of a free 
government, that even Lord Thurlow opposed them in the most vehement manner. 
It was during the discussion of the latter, that Mr. Fox made his famous declara- 
tion, that " if the bill should pass into a law, contrary to the sense and opinion of a 
great majority of the nation, and if the law, after it was passed, should be executed 
according to the rigorous provisions of the act, resistance would not be a question 
of duty, but of 2'>rude7ice.'"-^ 

It was unfortunate for Mr. Fox that he was so often hurried into rash declarations 
of this kind. Threats are not usually the best mode of defending the cause of free- 
dom. Nor is it true that men, under a representative government, have a right in- 
stantly to resist any law which the Legislature have regularly enacted, unless it be 
one diametrically opposed to the law of God. There is another remedy both in the 
judiciary and in the popular branch of the government. Mr. Fox's doctrine, that 
" a law, contrary to the sense and opinion of the great majority of the nation," may 
be rightfully resisted, is a species of " nullification" hitherto unknown in America. 
Another of his hasty expressions did him great injury about three years after. At 
a dinner of the "Whig club in 1798, he gave as a toast, "The Sovereignty of the 
People of Great Britain." Exactly what he meant by this, it is difficult to say. He 
was a firm friend of the British Constitution, with its three estates of King, Lords, and 
Commons. He always declared himself to be against a republic ; and he could not, 
therefore, have wished that the functions of sovereignty should be taken from the 
23 See Parliamentary History, vol. xxxiii., p. 456. 



458 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

existing head of the government, and conferred on the body of the people or their 
representatives in Parliament. If he only meant that the King and Lords ought to 
yield in all cases to the deliberate and well-ascertained vi^ishes of the people (a doubt- 
ful doctrine, certainly, in a mixed government), he took a very unfortunate node of 
expressing his views. It is not wonderful, at all events, that the King considered it 
as a personal insult, and ordered his name to be struck from the list of Privy Counsel- 
ors, a step never taken in any other case during his long reign, except in that of 
Lord George Germaine when convicted of a dereliction of duty, if not of cowardice, 
at the battle of Minden. 

Mr. Pitt's ascendency in the House was now so complete, that Mr. Fox had no 
motive to continue his attendance in Parliament. He therefore withdrew from pub- 
lic business for some years, devoting himself to literary pursuits and the society of 
his friends. At no time does his character appear in so amiable a point of view. 
He had gradually worn out his vices. His marriage with Mrs. Armstead, which was 
announced at a later period, exerted the happiest influence on his character. This 
was truly, as a friend remarked, the golden season of his life. He devoted much of 
his time to the study of the classics, and especially of the Greek tragedians. At this 
time, also, he commenced his work on the Revolution of 1688, which was published 
after his death. 

From this retirement he was temporarily called forth by an occurrence which led 
to one of the noblest efforts of his eloquence. Li December, 1799, Bonaparte was 
elected First Consul of France for ten years ; and the day after his induction into 
office, he addressed a letter to the King of England in his own hand, making pro- 
posals of peace. Mr. Pitt, however, refused even to treat with him on the subject. 
Upon the third of February, 1800, the question came before the House on a motion 
for approving the course taken by the ministry, and Mr. Fox again appeared in his 
place. Mr. Pitt, who felt the difficulty of his situation, had prepared himself before- 
hand with the utmost care. In a speech of five hours long, he went back to the 
origin of the war, brought up minutely all the atrocities of the Revolution, dwelt on 
the instability of the successive governments which had marked its progress, com- 
mented with terrible severity on the character and crimes of Bonaparte during the 
preceding four years, and justified on these grounds his backwardness to recognize 
the new government or to rely on its offers of peace. When he concluded, at four 
o'clock in the morning, Mr. Fox, who was always most powerful in reply, instantly 
rose and answered him in a speech of nearly the same length, meeting him on all 
the main topics with a force of argument, a dexterity in wresting Mr. Pitt's weapons 
out of his hands and turning them against himself, a keenness of retort, a graphic 
power of description, and an impetuous flow of eloquence, to which we find no par- 
allel in any of his published speeches. Both these great efforts will be found in this 
collection, with all the documents which are necessary to a full understanding of the 
argument. Respecting one topic dwelt upon in these speeches, namely, the justice 
of the war with France, it may be proper to add a few words explanatory of Mr. 
Fox's views, to be followed by similar statements, on a future page, as to the ground 
taken by Mr. Pitt. 

Mr. Fox held that the grievances complained of by the English, viz., the opening 
of the River Scheldt, the French Decree of Fraternity, and the countenance shown 
to disaffected Englishmen (points to be explained hereafter in notes to these speeches), 
ought to have been made the subject of full and candid negotiation. England 
was bound not only to state her wrongs, but to say explicitly what would satisfy her. 
But Mr. Pitt recalled the English embassador from Paris on the tenth of August, 
1792 (when Louis XVI. became virtually a prisoner), before the occurrence of any 
of these events. He suspended the functions of M. Chauvelin, the French embassa- 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 459 

dor at London, from the same date. He began to arm immediately after the alleged 
grievances took place ; and when called upon by the French for an explanation of 
this armament, he declined to acknowledge their agents as having any diplomatic 
character, so that the points in dispute could not be regularly discussed ; and after 
the execution of Louis XYL, he not only refused to accredit any minister from France, 
but sent M. Chauvelin out of the kingdom. Mr. Fox maintained that England, 
under these circumstances, was the aggressor, though the formal declaration of war 
came from France. He who shuts up the channel of negotiation while disputes are 
pending, is the author of the war which follows. No nation is bound to degrade 
herself by submitting to any clandestine modes of communication ; she is entitled to 
that open, avowed, and honorable negotiation commonly employed by nations for the 
pacific adjustment of their disputes. Mr. Fox did not ask the ministry to treat with 
the new French government as having any existence de jure — he expressly waived 
this — but simply de facto ; and as the English government had refused this, he held 
them responsible for the war. Such was his argument, and it was certainly one of 
great force. It may be true, as alleged by the friends of Mr. Pitt, that the French 
government were insincere in their offers and explanations ; it is highly probable 
that the enthusiasm awakened by their triumph over their Austrian and Prussian 
invaders, had filled the nation with a love of conquest which would ultimately have 
led to a war with England. For this very reason, however, the course marked out 
by Mr. Fox ought to have been studiously followed. But Mr. Pitt shared in the 
common delusion of the day. He felt certain that France, split up as she was into 
a thousand factions, could not long endure the contest. " It will be a very short 
war," said he to a friend, " and certainly ended in one or two campaigns." Mr. Wil- 
berforce, who at this time enjoyed his confidence, while he would not admit that the 
English were strictly the assailants, says in his Journal, " I had but too much reason 
to know that the ministry had not taken due pains to prevent its breaking out." As 
might be expected, Mr. Wilberforce united with Mr. Fox in condemning the refusal 
of Mr. Pitt to negotiate with Bonaparte. 

But Mr. Fox's ardent desires for peace, though disappointed at this time, were 
soon after gratified by the treaty of Amiens, at the close of 1801. It proved, how- 
ever, to be a mere truce. War was declared by England in January, 1803. To 
this declaration Mr, Fox was strenuously opposed, and made a speech against it, 
which Lord Brougham refers to as one of his greatest efibrts. It does not so appear 
in any of the reports which have come down to us, and his Lordship perhaps con- 
founded it with the speech of October, 1800, which he does not even mention. 

Mr. Pitt, who had been again placed at the head of affairs, died in January, 1806 ; 
and Mr. Fox, at the end of twenty -two years, was called into the service of his coun- 
try as Secretary of Foreign Affairs, on the 5th of February, 1806, through the instru- 
mentality of Lord Grenville. His office was at that time the most important one un- 
der the government, and he may be considered as virtually minister. One of his first 
official acts was that of moving a resolution for an early abolition of the slave trade, 
which he had from the first united with Mr. Wilberforce in opposing. This resolu- 
tion was carried by a vote of 114 against 15, and was followed up, the next session, 
by efiectual measures for putting an end to this guilty traffic. He soon after entered 
on a negotiation for peace with France, which commenced in a somewhat singular 
manner. A Frenchman made his appearance at the Foreign Office, under the name 
of De la Grevilliere, and requested a private interview with Mr. Fox. He went on 
to say, that " it was necessary for the tranquillity of all crowned heads to put to death 
the ruler of France, and that a house had been hired at Passy for this purpose." On 
hearing these words, Mr. Fox drove him at once from his presence, and dispatched 
a communication to Talleyrand informing him of the facts. " I am not ashamed to 



460 CHARLES JAMES FOX. 

confess to you who know me," said he, " that my confusion was extreme at finding 
myself led into conversation with an avowed assassin. I instantly ordered him to 
leave me. Our laws do not allow me to detain him, but I shall take care to have 
him landed at a sea-port as remote as possible from France." A reply was sent from 
Bonaparte, saying, among other things, " I recognize here the principles, honor, and 
virtue of Mr. Fox. Thank him on my part." In connection with this reply, Tal- 
leyrand stated, that the Emperor was ready to negotiate for a peace, " on the basis 
of the treaty of Amiens." Communications were accordingly opened on the subject, 
but at this important crisis Mr. Fox's health began to fail him. He had been taken 
ill some months before in consequence of exposure at the funeral of Lord Nelson, and 
his physicians now insisted that he should abstain for a time from all public duties. 
In July the disease was found to be dropsy of the chest, and, after lingering for three 
months, he died at the house of the Duke of Devonshire, at Chiswick, on the 13th 
of September, 1806. He was buried with the highest honors of the nation in "West- 
minster Abbey, his grave being directly adjoining the grave of Lord Chatham, and 
close to that of his illustrious rival, William Pitt. 

Mr. Fox was the most completely JE?iglish of all the orators in our language. 
Lord Chatham was formed on the classic model — the express union offeree, majesty, 
and grace. He stood raised above his audience, and launched the bolts of his elo- 
quence like the Apollo Belvidere, with the proud consciousness of irresistible might. 
Mr. Fox stood on the floor of the House like a Norfolkshire farmer in the midst of 
his fellows : short, thick-set, with his broad shoulders and capacious chest, his bushy 
hair and eyebrows, and his dark countenance working with emotion, the very image 
of blunt honesty and strength. 

His zmderstmiding was all English — plain, practical, of prodigious force — always 
directed to definite ends and objects, under the absolute control of sound common 
sense. He had that historical cast of mind by which the great English jurists 
and statesmen have been so generally distinguished. Facts were the staple of his 
thoughts ; all the force of his intellect was exerted on the actual and the positive. 
He was the most practical speaker of the most practical nation on earth. 

His hea7-t was English. There is a depth and tenderness of feeling in the na- 
tional character, which is all the greater in a strong mind, because custom requires 
it to be repressed. In private life no one was more guarded in this respect than 
Mr. Fox ; he was the last man to be concerned in getting up a sce7ie. But when he 
stood before an audience, he poured out his feelings with all the simplicity of a child. 
" I have seen his countenance," says Mr. Godwin, " lighten up with more than mor- 
tal ardor and goodness ; I have been present when his voice was suffocated with 
tears." In all this, his powerful understanding went out the whole length of his 
emotions, so that there was nothing strained or unnatural in his most vehement 
bursts of passion. " His feeling," says Coleridge, "was all intellect, and his intellect 
was all feeling." Never was there a finer summing up ; it shows us at a glance the 
whole secret of his power. To this he added the most perfect sincerity and artless- 
ness of manner. His very faults conspired to heighten the conviction of his honesty. 
His broken sentences, the choking of his voice, his ungainly gestures, his sudden 
starts of passion, the absolute scream with which he delivered his vehement passages, 
all showed him to be deeply moved and in earnest, so that it may be doubted whether 
a more perfect delivery would not have weakened the impression he made. 

Sir James Mackintosh has remarked, that " Fox was the most Demosthenean 
speaker since Demosthenes," while Lord Brougham says, in commenting on this pas- 
sage, " There never was a greater mistake than the fancying a close resemblance be- 
tween his eloquence and that of Demosthenes." When two such men differ on a point 
like this, we may safely say that both are in the right and in the wrong. As to cer- 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 461 

tain qualities, Fox was the very reverse of the great Athenian ; as to others, they 
had much in common. In whatever relates to the forms of oratory — symmetry, dig- 
nity, grace, the working up of thought and language to their most perfect expression 
— Mr. Fox was not only inferior to Demosthenes, but wholly unlike him, having no 
rhetoric and no ideality ; while, at the same time, in the structure of his understand- 
ing, the modes of its operation, the soul and spirit w^hich breathes throughout his elo- 
quence, there was a striking resemblance. This will appear as we dwell for a mo- 
ment on his leading peculiarities. 

(1.) He had a luminous simplicity, which gave his speeches the most absolute unity 
of impression, however irregular might be their arrangement. No man ever kept the 
great points of his case more steadily and vividly before the minds of his audience, 

(2.) He took everything in the concrete. If he discussed principles, it was always 
in direct connection with the subject before him. Usually, however, he did not even 
discuss a subject — he grappled with an antagonist. Nothing gives such life and in- 
terest to a speech, or so delights an audience, as a direct contest of man with man. 

(3.) He struck instantly at the heart of his subject. He was eager to meet his 
opponent at once on the real points at issue ; and the moment of his greatest power 
was when he stated the argument against himself, with more force than his adver- 
sary or any other man could give it, and then seized it with the hand of a giant, tore 
it in pieces, and trampled it under foot. 

(4.) His mode of enforcing a subject on the minds of his audience was to come 
back again and again to the strong points of his case. Mr. Pitt amjMjied when he 
wished to impress, Mr. Fox repeated. Demosthenes also repeated, but he had more 
adroitness in varying the mode of doing it. " Idem baud iisdem verbis." 

(5.) He had rarely any preconceived method or arrangement of his thoughts. This 
was one of his greatest faults, in which he differed most from the Athenian artist. 
If it had not been for the unity of impression and feeling mentioned above, his 
strength would have been wasted in disconnected efforts. 

(6.) Reasoning was his forte and his passion. But he was not a regular reasoner. 
In his eagerness to press forward, he threw away every thing he could part with, and 
compacted the rest into a single mass. Facts, principles, analogies, were all wrought 
together like the strands of a cable, and intermingled with wit, ridicule, or impas- 
sioned feeling. His arguments were usually personal in their nature, ad Itominem, 
&c., and were brought home to his antagonist with stinging severity and force. 

(7.) He abounded in hits — those abrupt and startling turns of thought which rouse 
an audience, and give them more delight than the loftiest strains of eloquence. 

(8.) He was equally distinguished for his side blou'S, for keen and pungent remarks 
flashed out upon his antagonist in passing, as he pressed on with his argument. 

(9.) He was often dramatic, personating the character of his opponents or others, 
and carrying on a dialogue between them, which added greatly to the liveliness and 
force of his oratory. 

(10.) He had astonishing dexterity in evading difficulties, and turning to his own 
advantage every thing that occurred in debate. 

In nearly all these qualities he had a close resemblance to Demosthenes. 

In his language, Mr. Fox studied simplicity, strength, and boldness. " Give me an 
elegant Latin and a homely Saxon word," said he, " and I will always choose the 
latter." Another of his sayings was this : " Did the speech read well when reported ? 
If so, it was a bad one." These two remarks give us the secret of his style as an orator. 

The life of Mr. Fox has this lesson for young men, that early habits of recklessness 
and vice can hardly fail to destroy the influence of the most splendid abilities and 
the most humane and generous dispositions. Though thirty-eight years in public 
life, he was in office only eighteen months. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. FOX ON THE BILL FOR VESTING THE AFFAIRS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY IN THE 
HANDS OF CERTAIN COMMISSIONERS, FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE PROPRIETORS AND THE 
PUBLIC, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, DECEMBER 1, 1783. 

INTRODUCTION. 

The reader is already acquainted with the leading provisions of this bill, which were stated in the 
introduction to Mr. Burke's speech on the same subject. It was intended to place all the concerns of 
the East India Company in the hands of the British government. It abohshed the courts of Directors 
and Proprietors, and divided the duties of the former between two distinct Boards. The first, having 
the entire government of India, civil and military, with the appointment and removal of officers, was to 
consist of seven Commissioners or Directors, to be chosen first by Parliament, and afterward by the 
Crown, and removable only in consequence of an address to the King from one of the Houses of Parlia- 
ment. The other, having the management of the Company's commercial concerns, was to consist of nine 
Assistant Directors, appointed in the first instance by Parliament, and afterward by a major vote of the 
proprietors at an open poll. The bill was to remain in force four years, until after the next general 
election ; and was accompanied by another, containing a variety of excellent regulations for the removal 
of abuses in India. 

The debate was long and vehement. Burke had delivered his splendid speech of four hours in length, 
pouring forth a flood of information on the subject of India, such as no other man in England could have 
communicated. Dundas had attacked the bill with all his acuteness, and his perfect acquaintance with 
Indian affairs. Mr. Pitt had followed, denouncing it as a violation of chartered rights, designed to create 
an " imperium in iraperio," which would place Mr. Fox above the King's control, and promising to bring 
forward another proposal " which would answer all the exigencies of the case without the violence and 
danger of this measure." It was at the end of such a debate, after two o'clock in the morning, that Mr. 
Fox rose to speak ; and probably not a man in the kingdom but himself could have obtained a hearing 
under such circumstances, much less have commanded the fixed attention of the House for nearly three 
hours longer, as he did in this speech. 

As he spoke in reply, his object was not so much to dwell on the positive side of the argument, which 
he had already done at the second reading of the bill, as to obviate objections, to turn back the reasoning 
of his antagonists upon themselves, and especially to relieve his character from the odium which rested 
upon it in consequence of his coalition with Lord North. As a specimen of uncommon dexterity in this 
respect, and of bold, indignant retort upon his antagonists, it has a high order of merit. 



SPEE 

Sir, — The necessity of my saying something 
upon the present occasion is so obvious to the 
House, that no apology will, I hope, be expect- 
ed from me in ti-oubling them even at so late an 
hour.^ I shall not enter much into a detail, or 
minute defense of the particulars of the bill be- 
fore you, because few particular objections have 
been made. The opposition to it consists only 
in general reasonings, some of little application, 
and others totally aside from the point in ques- 
tion. 

The bill has been combated through its past 
stages upon various principles ; but, to the pres- 
ent moment, the House has not heard it canvass- 
ed upon its own intrinsic merits. The debate 
to-night has turned chiefly upon two points, 
namely, violation of charter^ and increase of in- 
fluence ; and upon both these points I shall say 
a few words. 

The honorable gentleman, who opened the de- 
bate [Mr. Powis], first demands my attention ; 

1 Two o'clock in the morning. 



CH, &c. 

not, indeed, for the wisdom of the observations 
which fell from him this night (acute preliminary 
and judicious though he is upon most remarksoniis 
occasions), but from the natural weight with the cause 
of all such characters in this coun- ° ' '^^^^' 
try, the aggregate of whom should, I think, al- 
ways decide upon public measures. His inge- 
nuity, however, was never, in my opinion, ex- 
erted more inelTectually, upon more mistaken 
principles, and more inconsistent with the com- 
mon tenor of his conduct, than in this debate. 

The honorable gentleman charges me with 

abandoning that cause, which, he says in terms 

of flattery, I had once so successfully asserted. 

j I tell him, in reply, that if he were to search the 

history of my life, he would find that the period 

I of it in which I struggled most for the real, sub- 

I stantial cause of liberty is this very moment that 

! I am addressing you. Freedom, according to 

my conception of it, consists in the safe and sa- 

I cred possession of a man's property, governed 

I by laws defined and certain ; with many person- 

I al privileges, natural, civil, and religious, which 



1783.] 



MR. FOX ON THE EAST INDIA BILL. 



463 



he can not surrender without ruin to himself, 
and of which to be deprived by any other power 
is despotism. This bill, instead of subverting, 
is destined to stabilitate these principles; instead 
of narrowing the basis of freedom, it tends to 
enlarge it; instead of suppressing, its object is 
to infuse and circulate the spirit of liberty. 

What is the most odious species of tyranny ? 
Precisely that which this bill is meant to anni- 
hilate. That a handful of men, free themselves, 
should exercise the most base and abominable 
despotism over millions of their fellow-creatures; 
that innocence should be the victim of oppres- 
sion ; that industry should toil for rapine ; that 
the harmless laborer should sweat, not for his 
own benefit, but for the luxury and rapacity 
of tyrannic depredation ; in a word, that thirty 
millions of men, gifted by Providence with the 
ordinary endowments of humanity, should groan 
under a system of despotism, unmatched in all 
the histories of the world ?^ What is the end 
of all government ? Certainly the happiness of 
the governed. Others may hold different opin- 
ions ; but this is mine, and I proclaim it. What, 
then, are we to think of a government, whose 
good fortune is supposed to spring from the ca- 
lamities of its subjects, whose aggrandizement 
gTows out of the miseries of mankind ? This is 
the kind of government exercised under the East 
India Company upon the natives of Hindostan ; 
and the subversion of that infamous government 
is the main object of the bill in question. 
I. But in the progress of accomplishing this end, 
it is objected that the charter of the Com- 
of charter pauy should not be violated; and upon 
justihe . ^j^.^ point, sir, I shall deliver my opinion 
without disguise. A charter is a trust to one 
or more persons for some given benefit. If this 
trust be abused, if the benefit be not obtained, 
and that its failure arises from palpable guilt, 
or (what in this case is full as bad) from palpa- 
ble ignorance or mismanagement, will any man 
gravely say that the trust should not be resumed 
and delivered to other hands ? — more especially 
in the case of the East India Compan}^, whose 
manner of executing this trust, whose laxity and 
languor produced, and tend to produce conse- 
quences diametrically opposite to the ends of 
confiding that trust, and of the institution for 
which it was granted ? I beg of gentlemen to 
be aware of the lengths to which their argu- 
ments upon the intangibility of this charter may 
be carried. Every syllable virtually impeaches 
the establishment by which we sit in this House, 
in the enjoyment of this freedom, and of every 
other blessing of our government. Arguments 
of this kind are batteries against the main pillar 
of the British Constitution. Some men are con- 
sistent with their own private opinions, and dis- 

^ We have here one of Mr. Fox's peculiarities, 
on which much of his force depends, viz., terse and 
rapid enumeration — the crowding of many particu- 
lars into one striking mass of thought. His enumer- 
ations, however, are not made, like those of most 
men, for rhetorical effect ; they are condensed argu- 
ments, as will be seen by analyzing this passage. 



cover the inheritance of family maxims when 
they question the principles of the Revolution ; 
but 1 have no scruple in subscribing to the arti- 
cles of that creed which produced it.^ Sover- 
eigns are sacred, and reverence is due to every 
king ; yet, with all my attachments to the person 
of a first magistrate, had I lived in the reign of 
James the Second. I should most certainly have 
contributed my efforts, and borne part in those 
illustrious struggles which vindicated an empire 
from hereditary servitude, and recorded this val- 
uable doctrine, that trust abused is revocable. 

No man will tell me that a trust to a compa- 
ny of merchants stands upon the solemn and 
sanctified ground by which a trust is committed 
to a monarch ; I am, therefore, at a loss to rec- 
oncile the conduct of men who approve that re- 
sumption of violated trust, which rescued and 
re-established our unparalleled and admirable 
Constitution with, a thousand valuable improve- 
ments and advantages at the Revolution, and 
who, at this moment, rise up the champions of 
the East India Company's charter,^ although the 
incapacity and incompetence of that Company 
to a due and adequate discharge of the tru.st de- 
posited in them by that charter are themes of 
ridicule and contempt to all the world ; and al- 
though, in consequence of their mismanagement, 
connivance, and imbecility, combined with the 
wickedness of their servants, the very name of 
an Englishman is detested, even to a proverb, 
throughout all Asia, and the national character 
is become degraded and dishonored. To rescue 
that name from odium, and redeem this charac- 
ter from disgrace, are some of the objects of 
the present bill ; and gentlemen should, indeed, 
gravely weigh their opposition to a measure, 
which, with a thousand other points not less val- 
uable, aims at the attainment of these objects. 

Those who condemn the present bill as a vio- 
lation of the chartered rights of the East India 
Company, condemn, on the same ground, I say 
again, the Revolution as a violation of the char- 
tered rights of King James 11.-^ He, with as 
much reason, might have claimed the property 

^ Johnson decides the question in the same way 
with Mr. Fox, in his Taxation no Tyranny. "A char- 
ter is a grant of certain powers or privileges giv- 
en to a part of the community for the advantage of 
the whole; and is therefore liable, bj' its nature, to 
change or to revocation. Every act of government 
aims at public good. A charter, which experience 
has shown to be detrimental to the nation, is to be 
repealed ; because general prosperity must always 
be preferred to particular interest. If a charter be 
used to evil purposes, it is forfeited, as the weapon 
is taken away which is injuriously employed." 

* Here is another characteristic of Mr. Fox, that 
of turning defense into attack. The reader of De- 
mosthenes will remember how uniformly the same 
thing is done by the great Athenian orator. 

5 Mr. Fox gives us, thus early, one of those repe- 
titions by which he was so much accustomed to en- 
force his reasonings. The statement, however, is 
finely varied by an expansion of the argument, and 
enlivened by that dramatic mode of presenting the 
thought, in which he so much delighted. 



464 



MR. FOX ON 



[1783. 



of dominion. But what was the language of the 
people? " No, you have no property in domin- 
ion. Dominion was vested in you, as it is in ev- 
ery chief magistrate, for the benefit of the com- 
munity to be governed. It was a sacred trust, 
delegated by compact. You have abused the 
trust ; you have exercised dominion for the pur- 
poses of vexation and tyranny — not of comfort, 
protection, and good order, and we therefore re- 
sume the power which was originally ours. We 
recur to the first principles of all government, 
the will of the many ; and it is our will that 
you shall no longer abuse your dominion." The 
case is the same with the East India Company's 
government over a territory, as it has been said 
by Mr. Burke, of two hundred and eighty thou- 
sand square miles in extent, nearly equal to all 
Christian Europe, and containing thirty millions 
of the human race. It matters not whether do- 
minion arises from conquest or from compact. 
Conquest gives no right to the conqueror to be 
a tyrant ; and it is no violation of right to abol- 
ish the authority which is misused. 

II. Having said so much upon the general 
Objections matter of the bill, I must beg leave to 
answered. ^g.\^Q ^ fcw observatious upon the re- 
marks of particular gentlemen ; and first of the 
learned gentleman over against me [Mr. Dun- 
das]. The learned gentleman has made a long, 
and, as he always does, an able speech ; yet, 
translated into plain English, and disrobed of 
the dextrous ambiguity in which it has been 
enveloped, to what does it amount ? To an es- 
tablishment of the principles upon which this bill 
was founded, and an indirect confession of its 
necessity. He allows the frangibility of char- 
ters, when absolute occasion requires it ; and 
admits that the charter of the Company should 
not prevent the adoption of a proper plan for the 
future government of India, if a proper plan can 
be achieved upon no other terms. The first 
of these admissions seems agreeable to the civil 
maxims of the learned gentleman's life, so far 
as a maxim can be traced in a political charac- 
ter so various and flexible f and to deny the 
second of these concessions was impossible even 
for the learned gentleman, with a staring reason 
upon your table to confront him if he attempt- 
ed it.''' The learned gentleman's bill, and the 
bill before you, are grounded upon the same bot- 
tom, of abuse of trust, maladministiation, debil- 
ity, and incapacity in the Company and their serv- 
ants. But the difference in the remedy is this : 
the learned gentleman's bill opens a door to an 
influence a hundred times more dangerous than 

* A side blow of this kind, in passing, is peculiar- 
ly characteristic of Mr. Fox. 

'' Mr. Dundas.as a member of the Shelburne minis- 
try, had brought in a bill on the subject about seven 
months before. This gave the Governor General 
of Bengal a controlling power over the other two 
presidencies ; and authorized him, wlien he saw fit, 
to act on his own responsibility, in o[)position to the 
opinion of his own coun'^il. His bill also created a 
new Secretary of State for Indian affairs, with am- 
ple powers resembling, to a considerable extent, 
those of Mr. Fox's commissioners. 



any that can be imputed to this bill ; and de- 
posits in one man an arbitrary power over mill- 
ions, not in England, where the evil of this cor- 
rupt ministry could not be felt, but in the East 
Indies, the scene of every mischief, fraud, and 
violence. The learned gentleman's bill afford- 
ed the most extensive latitude for malversation ; 
the bill before you guards against it with all 
imaginable precaution. Every line in both the 
bills, which I have had the honor to introduce, 
presumes the possibility of bad administration, 
for every word breathes suspicion. This bill 
supposes that men are but men. It confides in 
no integrity ; it trusts no character ; it incul- 
cates the wisdom of a jealousy of power, and 
annexes responsibility, not only to every action^ 
but even to the inaction of those who are to 
dispense it. The necessity of these provisions 
must be evident, when it is known that the dif- 
ferent misfortunes of the Company have result- 
ed not more fi'om what the servants did^ than 
from what the masters did not. 

To the probable effects of the learned gentle- 
man's bill and this, I beg to call the attention 
of the House. Allowing, for argument's sake, 
to the Governor General of India, under the 
first-named bill [Mr. Dundas'], the most unlim- 
ited and superior abilities, with soundness of 
heart, and integrity the most unquestionable ; 
what good consequences could be reasonably 
expected from his extraordinary, extravagant, 
and unconstitutional power, under the tenure by 
which he held it ? Were his projects the most 
enlarged, his systems the most wise and excel- 
lent which human skill could devise ; what fair 
hopes could be entertained of their eventual suc- 
cess, when, perhaps, before he could enter upon 
the execution of any measure, he may be re- 
called in consequence of one of those changes 
in the administrations of this country, which have 
been so frequent for a few years, and which 
some good men wish to see every year? Ex- 
actly the same reasons which banish all rational 
hope of benefit from an Indian administration 
under the bill of the learned gentleman, justify 
the duration of the proposed commission. If 
the dispensers of the plan of governing India (a 
place from which the answer of a letter can not 
be expected in less than twelve months) have 
not greater stability in their situations than a 
British ministry, adieu to all hopes of rendering 
our Eastern territories of any real advantage 
to this country ; adieu to every expectation of 
purging or purifying the Indian system, of re- 
form, of improvement, of reviving confidence, of 
regulating the trade upon its proper principles, 
of restoring tranquillity, of re-establishing the 
natives in comfort, and of securing the perpetu- 
ity of these blessings by the cordial reconcile- 
ment of the Indians with their former tyrants 
upon fixed terms of amity, friendship, and fel- 
lowship. I will leave the House and the king- 
dom to judge which is best calculated to accom- 
plish those salutary ends ; the bill of the learn- 
ed gentleman, which leaves all to the discretion 
of one man, or the bill before you, which de- 



1783.] 



THE EAST INDIA BILL. 



465 



pends upon the duty of several men, who are in 
a state of daily account to this House, of hourly 
account to the ministers of the Crown, of occa- 
sional account to the proprietors of East India 
stock, and who are allowed sufficient time to 
practice their plans, unaffected by every politic- 
al fluctuation. 

But the learned gentleman wishes the appoint- 
ment of an Indian Secretary of State in prefer- 
ence to these commissioners. In all the learned 
gentleman's ideas on the government of India, 
the notion of a new Secretary of State for the 
Indian department springs up, and seems to be 
cherished with the fondness of consanguinity.^ 
But that scheme strikes me as liable to a thou- 
sand times more objections than the plan in agi- 
tation ; nay, the learned gentleman had rather, 
it seems, the affairs of India were blended with 
the business of the office which I have the honor 
to hold. His good disposition toward me upon 
all occasions can not be doubted, and his sinceri- 
ty in this opinion is unquestionable. I beg the 
House to attend to the reason which the learned 
gentleman gives for this preference, and to see 
the plights to which men even of his understand- 
ing are reduced who must oppo.se. He laughs 
at the responsibility of the Commissioners to this 
House, who, in his judgment, will find means of 
soothing and softening, and meliorating the mem- 
bers into an oblivion of their maladministration. 
What opinion has the learned gentleman of a 
Secretary of State ? Does he think him so inert, 
so inactive, so incapable a creature, that, with all 
this vaunted patronage of the seven Commission- 
ers in his own hands, the same means of sooth- 
ing, and softening, and meliorating, are thrown 
away upon him? The learned gentleman has 
been for some years conversant with ministers ; 
but his experience has taught him, it seems, to 
consider secretaries not only untainted and im- 
maculate, but innocent, harmless, and incapable ! 
In his time, secretaries were all purity, with ev- 
ery power of corruption in their hands ; but so 
inflexibly attached to rigid rectitude, that no 
temptation could seduce them to employ that 
power for the purpose of corrupting, or, to use 
his own words, for soothing, or softening, or me- 
liorating ! The learned gentleman has formed 
his opinion of the simplicity and inaction of sec- 
retaries from that golden age of political probity 
when his own friends were in power, and when 
himself was every thing but a minister. This 
erroneous humanity of opinion arises from the 
learned gentleman's unsuspecting, unsullied na- 
ture, as well as from a commerce with only the 
best and purest ministers of this country, which 
has given him so favorable an impression of a 
Secretary of State that he thinks this patronage, 
so dangerous in the hands of seven Commission- 
ers, perfectly safe in his hands.^ I leave to the 
learned gentleman that pleasure which his mind 

8 Had the Earl of Shelburne continued in power, 
it was understood that Mr. Dundas was to be the 
Indian secretary. Mr. Fox here stingingly alludes 
to this fact. 

9 These bitter sarcasms were aimed at Lord Shel- 

Gg 



must feel under the conviction with which he 
certainly gives this opinion ; but I submit to ev- 
ery man who hears me, what would be the prob- 
able comments of the other side of the House, 
had I proposed either the erection of an Indian 
secretary, or the annexation of the Indian busi- 
ness to the office which I hold? 

In the assemblage of the learned gentleman's 
objections, there is one still more curious than 
those I have mentioned. He dislikes this bill 
because it establishes an imperium in imperio 
[one government within another]. In the course 
of opposition to this measure, we have been fa- 
miliarized to hear certain sentiments and partic- 
ular words in this House, but directed, in reality, 
to other places [for the King]. I therefore take 
it for granted that the learned gentleman has not 
so despicable an idea of the good sense of the 
members, as to expect any more attention within 
these walls to such a dogma than has been shown 
to the favorite phrase of his honorable friend near 
him [^Ir. Pitt], who calls a bill which backs this 
sinking Company with the ci-edit of the state a 
confiscation of their property ! I would only 
wish to ask the learned gentleman if he really 
holds the understanding even of the multitude in 
such contempt as to imagine this species of ar- 
gument can have the very slightest effect? The 
multitude know the fallacy of it as well as the 
learned gentleman himself. They know that a 
dissolution of the East India Company has been 
wished for scores of years, by many good people 
in this country, for the very reason that it was 
an imperium in imperio. Yet the learned gen- 
tleman, with infinite gravity of face, tells you he 
dislikes this bill, because it establishes this novel 
and odious principle ! Even a glance at this 
bill, compared with the present constitution of 
the Company, manifests the futility of this objec- 
tion, and proves that the Company is, in its pres- 
ent form, a thousand times more an imperium in 
imperio than the proposed Commissioners. The 
worst species of government is that which can 
run counter to all the ends of its institution with 
impunity. Such exactly is the East India Com- 
pany. No man can say that the Directors and 
proprietors have not, in numerous instances, mer- 
ited severe infliction ; yet who did ever think of 
a legal punishment for either body ? Now the 
great feature of this bill is to render the Com- 
missioners amenable, and to punish them upon 
delinquency. 

The learned gentleman prides himself that his 
bill did not meddle with the commerce of the 
Company ; and another gentleman, after ac- 
knowledging the folly of leaving the govern- 
ment in the hands of the Company, proposes to 
separate the commerce entirely from the domin- 



burue, who was generally regarded as insincere and 
grasping. " His character," says a late writer, "was 
not simple; it was curiously artificial. Under the 
affectation of patriotism, he had a great craving for 
public honors. There was a vein of subtlety in his 
nature, and an appearance of insincerity in his man- 
ner, which deprived him of the confidence of his as- 
sociates." — Age of Fox and Pitt, i., 109. 



466 



MR. FOX ON 



L1783. 



ion, and leave the former safe and untouched to 
the Company itself. I beg leave to appeal to 
every gentleman conversant in the Company's 
affairs, whether this measure is, in the nature of 
things, practicable at this moment. That the 
separation of the commerce from the government 
of the East may be ultimately brought about, I 
doubt not. But when gentlemen reflect upon 
the immediate state of the Company's affairs ; 
when they reflect that their government was 
carried on for the sake of their commerce ; that 
both have been blended together for such a se- 
ries of years ; v/hen they review the peculiar, 
perplexed, and involved state of the eastern ter- 
ritories, their dissimilitude to every system in 
this part of the globe, and consider the deep and 
laborious deliberation with which every step for 
the establishment of a salutary plan of govern- 
ment, in the room of the present odious one, must 
be taken — the utter impossibility of instantly de- 
taching the governing power from interference 
with the commercial body, will be clear and in- 
dubitable. 

A gentleman has asked, Why not choose the 
Commissioners out of the [present] body of Direct- 
ors ; and why not leave the choice of the Assistant 
Directors in the Court of Proprietors ? That is to 
say, why not do that which would infallibly undo 
all you are aiming at ? I mean no general dis- 
paragement when I say that the body of the Di- 
rectors have given memorable proofs that they 
are not the sort of people to whom any man can 
look for the success or salvation of India. Among 
them there are, without doubt, some individuals 
respectable both for their knowledge and integ- 
rity ; but I put it to the candor of gentlemen, 
whether they are the species of men whose wis- 
dom, energy, and diligence would give any prom- 
ise of emancipating the East India concerns from 
their present disasters and disgraces. Indeed, 
both questions may be answered in two words. 
Why not choose the Directors, %cho have ruined 
the Company ? Why not leave the power of elec- 
tion in the proprietors, who have thwarted every 
good attempted by the Directors ? 

The last point adverted to by the learned gen- 
tleman relates to influence ; and upon his I'e- 
marks, combined with what fell from some oth- 
ers upon the same subject, I beg leave to make 
a few observations. Much of my life has been 
employed to diminish the inordinate influence of 
the Crown. In common with others, I succeed- 
ed ; and I glory in it.^° To support that kind of 
influence which I formerly subverted, is a deed of 
which I shall never deserve to be accused. The 
affirmation with which I first introduced this plan, 
I now repeat. I reassert, that this bill as little 
augments the influence of the Crown as any meas- 

^° Mr. Fox and his friends had lonij urged, an9 suc- 
ceeded at last in passing, the celebrated resolution 
drawn up by Mr. Dunning, "That the influence ol." 
the Crown has increased, is increasing, and ought to 
he diminished." He applies this principle very hajj- 
pily to the present case, by showing that the Com- 
missioners must be raised above that influence, if 
they are to discharge their duty. 



ure which can be devised for the government of 
India, that presents the slightest promise of solid 
success ; and that it tends to increase it in a far 
less degree than the bill proposed by the learned 
gentleman [Mr. Dundas]. The very genius of 
influence consists in hope or fear ; fear of losing 
what we have, or hope of gaining more. Make 
these Commissioners removable at will, and you 
set all the little passions of human nature afloat. 
If benefit can be derived from the bill, you had 
better burn it than make the duration short of the 
time necessary to accomplish the plans it is des- 
tined for. That consideration pointed out the ex- 
pediency of a fixed period, and in that respect it 
accords with the principle of the learned gentle- 
man's bill, with this superior advantage, that, in- 
stead of leaving the Commissioners liable to all 
the influence which springs from the appointment 
of a Governor General, removable at pleasure, 
this bill invests them with the power, for the time 
specified, upon the same tenure that British judg- 
es hold their station ; removable upon delinquen- 
cy, punishable upon guilt ; but fearless of power 
if they discharge their trust, liable to no seduce- 
ment, and with full time and authority to execute 
their functions for the common good of the coun- 
try, and for their own glory. I beg of the House 
to attend to this difference, and then judge upon 
the point of increasing the influence of the Crown, 
contrasted with the learned gentleman's bill. 

The state of accusations against me upon this 
subject of infiuence, is truly curious. The learned 
gentleman [Mr. Dundas], in strains of emphasis, 
declares that this bill diminishes the influence of 
the Crown beyond all former attempts, and calls 
upon those who formerly voted with him in sup- 
port of that influence, against our efforts to re- 
duce it, and who now sit near me, to join him now 
in opposing my attempts to diminish that darling 
influence. He tells them I " out-Heroded Herod ;" 
that I am outdoing all my former outdoings ; and 
proclaims me as the merciless and insatiate en- 
emy of the influence of the Crown. 

Down sits the learned gentleman, and up starts 
an honorable gentleman [Mr. Martin], with a 
charge against me, upon the same subject, of a 
nature the direct reverse. I have fought under 
your banners, cries the honorable gentleman, 
against that fell giant, the influence of the Crown. 
I have bled in that battle which you commanded, 
and have a claim upon the rights of soldiership. 
You have conquered through us ; and now that 
victory is in your arms, you turn traitor to our 
cause, and carry over your powers to the enemy. 
The fiercest of your former combatants in the 
cause of influence falls far short of you at this 
moment ; your attempts in re-erecting this mon- 
ster exceed all the exertions of your former foes. 
This night you will make the influence of the 
Crown a Colossus, that shall bestride the land 
and crush every impediment. I impeach you 
for treachery to your ancient principles ! Come, 
come, and divide with us ! ! 

This honorable gentleman, after a thrust or 
two at the Coalition, sits down ; and while the 
House is perplexing itself to reconcile these wide 



1783.] 



THE EAST INDIA BILL. 



467 



differences, the right honorable gentlenaan [Mr. 
Pitt] over the way confounds all past contradic- | 
tion, by combining, in his own person, these ex- 
travagant extremes. He acknowledges that he 
has digested a paradox ; and a paradox well he 
might call it, for never did a grosser one puzzle 
the intellects of a public assembly. By a mirac- 
ulous kind of discernment, he has found out that 
the bill both increases and diminishes the influ- 
ence of the Crown ! 

The bill diminishes the influence of the Crown, 
sa3's one ; you are wrong, says a second, it in- 
creases it : you are both right, says a third, for 
it both increases and diminishes the influence of 
the Crown ! Now, as most members have one 
or other of these opinions upon the subject, the 
honorable gentleman can safely join w'ith all 
parties upon this point ; but few, I trust, will be 
found to join him !^^ 

Thus, sir, is this bill combated, and thus am I 
accused. The nature and substance of these ob- 
jections I construe as the strongest comment 
upon the excellence of the bill. If a more ra- 
tional opposition could be made to it, no doubt it 
would. The truth is, it increases the influence 
of the Crown, and the influence of party, as little 
•IS possible ; and if the reform of India, or any 
other matter, is to be postponed until a scheme 
be devised against which ingenuity, or ignorance, 
or caprice, shall not raise objections, the affairs 
of human life must stand still. 

I beg the House will attend a little to the 
Conductor manner in which the progress of this 
Mr. Pitt, ijijj i^j^g \)QQ^ retarded, especially by the 
right honorable gentleman [Mr. Pitt]. First, the 
members were not all in town, and time was de- 
sii-ed upon that account. Next, the finances of 
the East India Company were misstated by me, 
and time was desired to prove that. The time 
came, and the proofs were exhibited, counsel 
heard, and yet the issue was, that my former 
statement, instead of being controverted, became 
more established by the very proofs which were 
brought to overturn it. The honorable gentleman 
has misrepresented me to-night again. He has 
an evident pleasure in it, which, indeed, I can not 
prevent ; but I can prevent this House and this 
country from believing him. He prefers the au- 
thority of his own conception (eager enough, in 
all conscience, to misunderstand me) of what I 
said, to my own repeated declarations of my own 
meaning. He supposes I mistake, because he 
wishes it. I never did say, the Company were 
absolute bankrupts to the amount of the debt ; 
but I said there was immediate necessity of pay- 
ing that given sum, without any immediate means 
of providing for it. The account of the Com- 



1^ Mr. Fox did not very often indulge in humor; 
he was usually too much in earnest to do it ; but, in 
exposing the inconsistency of his opponents, he 
caught the very spirit of Lord North. Tims he 
gave the House the relief of a hearty laugh after a 
sitting of ten hours, and laid the foundation, at the 
same time, of the conclusion which he draws, that 
his scheme can not be far from right, when opposed 
on such contradictory grounds. 



pany's circumstances, presented last week, fur- 
nished matter of triumph to the honorable gen- 
tleman for the full space of three hours : that is 
to say, while counsel were at the bar. 1 made 
no objection to the account but this trifling one, 
that c€l 2,000,000 were stated which ought nvot 
to appear at all there, and which were placed 
there only for delusion and fallacy. I never ob- 
jected to the arithmetic of the account. The 
sums, I doubt not, were accurately cast up even 
to a figure. Yet the House will recollect that the 
honorable gentleman, about this very hour of that 
debate, endeavored to protract the business to the 
next day, upon assuring the House that the Com- 
pany would then support their statement. I re- 
fused to accede, because I knew the matter to be 
mere shifting and maneuvering for a vote, and 
that the Company could not support their state- 
ment. Was I right ? The House sees whether 
I was. The House sees the finance post is now 
totally abandoned, and for the best reason in the 
world, because it is no longer tenable. But the 
honorable gentleman is, indeed, a man of resour- 
ces. He now gives me a challenge ; and I beg 
the House to remark that I accept his challenge, 
and that I prophecy he will no more meet me 
upon this than upon the former points. ^^ 

But there is no limit to a youthful and vigor- 
ous fancy. The right honorable gentleman jnst 
now, in very serious terms, and with all his ha- 
bitual gravity, engages, if the House will join 
in opposing us to-night, that he will digest and 
methodize a plan, the outline of which he has 
already conceived. He has nothing now to of- 
fer; but justly confiding in the fertility of his 
own imagination, and the future exercise of his 
faculties, he promises that he will bring a plan, 
provided the majority of this House will join him 
to-night. Now, if ever an idea was thrown cut 
to pick up a stray vote or two in the heel of a 
debate, by a device, the idea thrown out a while 
ago by the honorable gentleman is precisely 
such. But if I can augur rightly from the com- 
plexion of the House, his present will have ex- 
actly the same success with all his past strata- 
gems to oppose this bill.^^ 

His learned friend [Mr. Durdas], w^ith singu- 
lar placidness, without smile or sneer, An^wertothe 
has said, "as this measure was prob- pretense that 

' . ^. tlie Company 

ably decided upon some time since, was taken im- 
the East India Company, loho could 
not expect such a blow, ought to have been in- 
formed of the intended project. The Company 
was evidently unaware of this attack, and, in 
fairness, should have been apprised of it." Does 
the learned gentleman imagine that men are in 
their sober senses who listen to such caviling 
and quibbling opposition ? The Company una- 
w-are of this attack ! The learned gentleman's 
own labors, independent of any other intimation, 



12 Mr. Pitt had challenged Mr. Fox to discuss with 
him the particulars of a statement drawn out by the 
Company, to which Mr. Fox had objected. 

1^ He was right; for the ministry had an accession 
of five votes this night above the former division. 



468 



MR. FOX ON 



[1783. 



had been an ample warning to the Company to 
be prepared. Every man in the kingdom, who 
reads a newspaper, expected something ; and 
the only wonder with the nation was, how it 
could be so long delayed. The reports of the 
committees alarmed the public so much, for the 
honor of the country, and for the salvation of the 
Company, that all eyes were upon East India 
affairs. This sort of observation had, indeed, 
much better come from any other man in this 
House than from that identical gentleman. 

If these were not sufficient to rouse the atten- 
tion and diligence of the Company, his Majesty's 
speech at the commencement and conclusion of 
the late session of Parliament gave them note 
of preparation in the most plain and decisive 
terms. In his opening speech, his Majesty thus 
speaks to Parliament upon the subject of India : 
" The regulation of a vast territory in Asia 
opens a large field for your wnsdom, prudence, 
and foresight. I trust that you will be able to 
form some fundamental laws which may make 
their connection wnth Great Britain a blessing 
to India ; and that you will take therein proper 
measures to give all foreign nations, in matters 
of foreign commerce, an entire and perfect con- 
fidence in the probity, punctuality, and good or- 
der of our government. You may be assured 
that whatever depends upon me shall be execu- 
ted with a steadiness which can alone preserve 
that part of my dominions, or the commerce 
which arises from it." 

The learned gentleman, who knows more of 
the dispositions of the Cabinet [Lord Shelburne's] 
at that time than I do, can better tell whether 
any measure of this nature was then intended. 
The words are very wide, and seem to portend, 
at least, something very important ; but wheth- 
er any thing similar to this measure was meant, 
as this passage seems to imply, or not, is indif- 
ferent to the point in question ; this is clear fi-om 
it, that it gives a very ceremonious warning to 
the East India Company ; enough surely to ex- 
pose the weakness and futility of the learned 
gentleman's remark. The changes and circum- 
stances of the cabinet, in the course of the last 
session, can be the only excuse for the delay of 
some decisive measure wnlh regard to India ; 
and if, in addition to all these, any thing more is 
requisite to confirm the notoriety of Parliament's 
being to enter upon the business, the following 
paragraph of the King's closing speech, last 
July, completes the mass of evidence against 
the learned gentleman. 

His Majesty, after intimating a belief that he 
shall be obliged to call his Parliament together 
earlier than usual, thus speaks : 

" The consideration of the affairs of the East 
Indies will require to be resumed as early as 
possible, and to be pursued with a serious and 
unremitting attention." Superadd to all this the 
part of the King's opening speech this year upon 
India ; and if the whole do not constitute suffi- 
cient testimony that the Company had full no- 
tice, nothing can. 

Yet, notwithstanding all this, the learned gen- 



tleman accuses us of surprising the Company ; 
and his right honorable friend [Mr. Pitt], in hopes 
his proposal of another bill may have weight in 
the division, repeats the hackneyed charge of 
precipitation, and forces the argument for delay 
in a taunt, "that we wish to get rid of our tor- 
ments by sending this bill to the other House." 
The honorable gentleman's talents are splendid 
and various ; but I assure him that all his efforts 
for the last eight days have not given me a sin- 
gle torment. Were I to choose a species of 
opposition to insure a ministerial tranquillit}', it 
would be the kind of opposition which this bill 
has received ; in which every thing brought to 
confute has tended to confirm, and in which the 
arguments adduced to expose the weakness have 
furnished materials to establish the wisdom of 
the measure. So impossible is it, without some- 
thing of a tolerable cause, even for the right hon- 
orable gentleman's abilities to have effect, though 
his genius may make a flourishing and superior 
figure in the attempt ! 

Before I proceed to the other parts of the de- 
bate, I wish to say one word upon a remark of 
the learned gentleman [Mr. Dundas] ; he says, 
that the clause relative to the zemindars was 
suggested by his observations.^^ God forbid I 
should detract from the merit, or diminish the 
desert of any man. Undoubtedly that excellent 
part of the regulation bill derives from the learn- 
ed gentleman ; and if he were in this House 
when I introduced the subject of India he would 
have known, that I did him full and complete 
justice upon that point. 

My noble friend [Lord John Cavendish] has 
said, this bill does not arise from the Real grounds 
poverty of the Company, but that lib- "'"'ebiii. 
cral policy and national honor demanded it. 
Upon the last day this bill was debated, I con- 
fined myself chiefly to the demonstration of the 
fallacy and imposture of that notable schedule 
presented by the East India Company ; and, hav- 
ing proved its falsehood, I can now with the 
greater safety declare, that if every shilling of 
that fictitious property were real and forthcom- 
ing, a bill of this nature was not therefore the 
less necessary. I thought we Avere fully under- 
stood upon this point, from the opening speech 
in this business, which did not so degrade the 
measure as to say it originated in the poverty of 
the Company. This, as my noble friend rightly 
remarks, was the smallest reason for its adop- 
tion, and this opinion is not, as the right honor- 
able gentleman [Mr. Pitt] insinuates, "shifting," 
but recognizing and recording the true grounds 
of the bill. If any misunderstanding, then, has 
hitherto taken place upon this head, it will, I 
trust, cease henceforth ; and so odious a libel 
upon this country will not pass current, as that 
sordid motives only induced the government of 
England to that which we were bound to do. as 
politicians, as Christians, and as men, by every 



^* The zemindars, or native landlords, had a right 
of inheritance confirmed to them in Mr. Fox's sec- 
ond bill. 



1783.J 



THE EAST INDIA BILL. 



469 



consideration which makes a nation respectable, 
great, and n^lorious ! 

Having vindicated the bill from this aspersion, 
and founded it upon that basis v^-hich every hon- 
est and sensible man in England must approve, 
I may be allowed to say, that some regard may 
be had even to the mean and mercenary upon 
this subject — a portion of whom we have here, 
in common with all other countries. Will such 
men endure with temper a constant drain upon 
this kingdom, for the sake of this monopolizing 
corporation ? Will those, for instance, who clam- 
or against a twopennv tax, af!brd, with good hu- 
mor, million after million to the East India Com- 
pany ? The Sinking Fund is at this moment 
a million the worse for the deficiency of the Com- 
pany; and as the noble Lord [Lord J. Cavendish] 
says, an extent [execution] must in three weeks 
arrest their property, if Parliament does not in- 
terpose, or enable them to discharge a part of 
their debt to the Crown. Let those, therefore, 
who think the commerce ought to be instantly 
separated from the dominion (were that at this 
time possible), and who think it ought to be left 
wholly in the present hands, reflect that the 
formation of a vigorous system of government 
for India is not more incumbent upon us than 
the establishment of the eastern trade, upon 
such principles of solidity and fitness as shall 
give some just hopes that the public may be 
speedily relieved from the monstrous pressure 
of constantly supporting the indigence of the 
Company. 

I have spoke of myself very often in the course 
Notice of a of what I havc said this night, and must 
laXmnlre' spcak Still morc frequently in the course 
by Mr. Pitt, of ^vhat I havc to say. The House will 
see this awkward task is rendered indispensable, 
infinitely more having been said concerning mc, 
during the debate, than concerning the question, 
which is the proper subject of aoitation. The 
right honorable gentleman [Mr. Pitt] .says, that 
nothing ever happened to give him an ill impres- 
sion of my character, or to prevent a mutual 
confidence. He says rightly ; there have been 
interchanges of civility, and amicable habits be- 
tween us, in which I trust I have given him no 
cause to complain. But after pronouncing a 
brilliant eulogy upon me and my capacity to 
serve the country, the honorable gentleman con- 
siders me, at the same time, the most dangerous 
man in the kingdom. (Mr. Pitt said across the 
House, " dangerous only from this measure.''' 
To which Mr. Fox instantly made this reply.) 
I call upon the House to attend to the honorable 
gentleman. He thinks me dangerous only from 
this measure, and confesses that hitherto he has 
seen nothing in my conduct to obliterate his good 
opinion. Compare this with his opposition dur- 
ing the last and the present session. Let every 
man reflect, that up to this moment the honora- 
ble gentleman deemed me worthy of confidence, 
and competent to m.y situation in the state. I 
thank him for the support he has afforded to the 
minister he thus esteemed, and shall not press 
the advantage he gives me, farther than leaving 



to himself to reconcile his practice and his doc- 
trine in the best manner he can.''' 

III. The honorable gentleman [Mr. Pitt] could 
not for one night pass by the Coalition; xheCoaii- 
yet I think he might have chosen a fitter '"'"• 
time to express his indignation against the noble 
Lord [Lord North] than the present moment. 
An attack upon the noble Lord in his presence, 
would bear a more liberal color ; and the cause 
of his absence now would surely rather disarm 
than irritate a generous enemy !'^ There are 
distinctions in hatred, and the direst foes upon 
such occasions moderate their aversion. The 
Coalition is, however, a fruitful topic ; and the 
power of traducing it, which the weakest and 
meanest creatures in the country enjoy and ex- 
ercise, is of course equally vested in men of rank 
and parts, though every man of parts and rank 
would not be apt to participate the privilege. 
Upon the Coalition, the honorable gentleman is 
welcome to employ his ingenuity, but upon an- 
other subject alluded to by him I shall beg leave 
to advise, nay, even to instruct him. 

In what system of ethics will the lionorable 
gentleman find the precept taught of ripping up 
old sores, and reviving animosities amon«x indi- 
viduals, of which the parties themselves retain 
no memory?^'' This kind of practice may incur 
a much worse charge than weakness of under- 
standing, and subject a man to much greater im- 
putations than are commonly applied to political 
mistakes of party violence. The soundness of 
the heart may be liable to suspicion, and the 
moral character be in danger of suffering by it 
in the opinion of mankind. To cover the heats 
and obliterate the sense of former quarrels be- 
tween two persons, is a very distinguished vir- 
tue ; to renew the subject of such differences, 
and attempt the revival of such disputes, deserves 
a name which I could give it, if that honorable 
gentleman had not forgotten himself, and fallen 
into some such deviation. He values himself, I 
doubt not, too much again to make a similar slip, 
and must even feel thankful to me for the coun- 
sel I thus take the liberty to give him. 

An honorable gentleman under the gallery 
[Mr. Martin], to whom an abuse of the Coalition 
seems a sort of luxury, wishes that a starling 
were at the right hand of the chair to cry out 
" disgraceful Coalition !" Sir, upon this subject 
I shall say but a few words. 

The calamitous situation of this country re- 
quired an administration whose stabil- Defense of 
ity could give it a tone of firmness t''»t "measure, 
with foreign nations, and promise some hope of 
restoring the faded glories of the country. Such 



'* There is a great dexterity in this retort, and 
something of that over-reaching in the assumption, 
that Mr. Pitt had "seen nothing in his conduct to 
obliterate his good opinion," which we sometimes 
see in Demosthenes. 

•« Lord North left the House, in a state of indis- 
position, about midnight. 

1^ Alluding to tlie passage quoted by Mr. Pitt from 
that famous speech of Mr. Fox's, which produced 
the duel between him and Mr. Adam. 



470 



MR. FOX ON 



[1783. 



ail administration could not be formed without 
some junction of the parties; and if former diifer- 
ences were to be an insurmountable barrier to 
union, no chance of salvation remained for the 
country, as it is well known that four public men 
could not be found who had not at one time or 
other taken opposite sides in polities. The great 
cause of ditferenee between us and the noble 
Lord in the blue ribbon [Lord North] no longer 
exiiitcd ; his personal character stood high ; and 
thinking it safer to trust him than those who had 
before deceived us, we preferred to unite w^ith 
the noble Lord. A similar junction in 1757,^^ 
against which a similar clamor was raised, saved 
the empire from ruin, and raised it above the 
rivalship of all its enemies. The country, when 
we came into office, bore not a very auspicious 
complexion ; yet, sir, I do not despair of seeing 
it once again resume its consequence in the scale 
ot nations, and make as splendid a figure as ever. 
Those who have asserted the impossibility of our 
agreeing with the noble Lord and his friends 
■were false prophets, for events have belied their 
augury. We have differed like men, and like 
men we have agreed. 

A body of the best and honestest men in this 
House, who serve their country without any 
other reward than the glory of the disinterested 
discharge of their public duty, approved that 
junciion, and sanctify the measure by their cor- 
dial support. 

Such, sir, is this Coalition, which the state of 
the country rendered indispensable, and for which 
the history of every country records a thousand 
precedents ; yet to this the term disgraceful is 
applied ! Is it not extraordinary, then, that gen- 
tlemen should be under such spells of false delu- 
sion as not to see that if calling it disgraceful 
makes it so, these epithets operate with equal 
force against themselves? If the Coalition be 
disgraceful, what is the anti-Coalition ? When 
I see the right honorable gentleman [Mr. Pitt] 
surrounded by the early objects of his political, 
nay, his hereditary ^^ hatred, and hear him revile 
the Coalition, I am lost in the astonishment how 
men can be so blind to their own situation as to 
attempt to wound us in this particular point, pos- 
sessed as we are of the power of returning the 
same blow, with the vulnerable part staring us 
directly in the face. If the honorable gentle- 
man under the gallery [Mr. Martin] wishes that 
a starling were perched up on the right hand of 
the chair, I tell him that the wish is just as rea- 
sonable to have another starling upon the left 
hand of the chair, to chirp up Coalition against 
Coalition, and so harmonize their mutual dis- 
grace, if disgrace there be. 

With the same consistency, an honorable gen- 
tleman calls us deserters .''-^^ Us ! A few cold 



18 That of Lord Chatham with the Duke of New- 
castle. 

•' Mr. Jenkinson, Mr. Dundas, &c., sat near Mr. 
Pitt. 

*° This refers to the resignation of Mr. Fox, Mr. 
Burke, and the other Rockingham Whigs, when 
Lord Shelbame seized the reins of government. 



and disaffected members fall off, then turn about, 
and, to palliate their own defection, call the body 
of the army deserters ! We have not deserted ; 
here v\-e are, a firm phalanx. Deserted, indeed, 
we have been in the moment of disaster, but 
never deje(;ted, and seldom complaining. Some 
of those who rose upon our wreck, and who 
eagerly grasped that power which we had the 
labor of erecting, now call us deserters. We 
retort the term with just indignation. Yet while 
they presume we have the attributes of men, 
they would expect us to have the obduracy of 
savages. They would have our resentments in- 
satiaie, our rancor eternal. In our opinion, an 
oblivion of useless animosity is much more no- 
ble ; and in that the conduct of our accusers goes 
hand in hand with us. But I beg of the House, 
and I wish the world to observe, that although, 
like them, we have abandoned our enmities, we 
have not, like them, relinquished our friendships. 
There is a set of men, v.'ho, from the mere van- 
ity of having consequence as decisive voters, ob- 
ject to all stable government. These men hate 
to see an administration so fixed as not to be 
movable by their vote. They assume their dig- 
nity on the mere negative merit of not accept- 
ing places ; and in the pride of this self-denial, 
and the vanity of fancied independence, they ob- 
ject to every system that has a solid basis, be- 
cause their consequence is unfelt. Of such men 
I can not be the panegyrist, and I am sorry that 
some such men are among the most estimable 
in the House.^^ 

IV. An honorable gentleman advises me, for 
the future, not to mention the name of Misceiiane- 
the Marquess of Rockingham, who, he °"^- 
says, would never countenance a bill of this kind. 
This is indeed imposing hard conditions upon 
those who have willingly suffered a sort of polit- 
ical martyrdom in the cause of that noble Lord's 
principles — those who surrendered pomp and 
power, rather than remain where his principles 
ceased to be fashionable, and were withering 
into contempt. I venerate the name of that noble 
Marquess, and shall ever mention it with love 
and reverence ; but at no period of my life with 
more confidence than at this moment, when I say 
that his soul speaks in every line of the bill be- 
fore you, for his soul speaks in every measure 
of virtue, wisdom, humane policy, general jus- 
tice, and national honor. The name of the no- 
ble Lord, who enjoys his fortune, has been men- 
tioned in this debate, and will be mentioned again 
by me. I will tell the honorable gentleman that 
this noble Lord [Earl Fitzwilliam], though not 
the issue of his loins, inherits, with his property, 
the principles of that noble Marquess in all their 
purity and soundness ; and is as incapable as that 
noble Marquess himself, or as any man on earth, 

^^ Alluding probably to Mr. Powys, who had been 
a friend of Mr. Fox, but would not vote with him 
after his junction with Lord North. Mr. Powys, at 
the opening of the debate, ascribed the obnoxious 
features of the present bill to Lord North, saying, 
"The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the 
hands of Esau." 



1783.] 



THE EAST INDIA BILL. 



471 



of countenancing any act which either immedi- 
ately or ultimately tended to the prejudice of his 
country, or the injury of the Constitution.'^^ I 
have had the honor of knowing the noble Earl 
fi'om an early age. I have observed the motives 
of his actions ; I am endeared to him by every 
tie of kindred sentiment and of mutual principle. 
A character more dignified and exalted exists 
riot in the empire ; a mind more firmly attached 
to the Constitution of his country. He is, what 
the nation would desire in the heir of Lord Rock- 
ingham, the only compensation that w'e could 
have for his loss. 

An honorable gentleman on the other side 
[Mr. T. Pitt] has used violent terms against this 
bill and the movers of it. Sir, I tell that honor- 
able gentleman [looking him directly in the face] 
that the movers of this bill are not to be brow- 
beaten by studied gestures, nor frightened by 
tremulous tones, solemn phrases, or hard epi- 
thets. To arguments they are ready to reply ; 
but all the notice they can take of assertions is 
to mark to the House that they are only asser- 
tions. The honorable gentleman again repeats 
his favorite language of our having seized upon 
the government. His Majesty changed his minis- 
try last April, in consequence of a vote of this 
House ; his Majesty did the same twelve months 
before [when Lord North was displaced], in con- 
sequence of a vote of this House. His Majesty, 
in so doing, followed the example of his prede- 
cessors ; and his successors will, I doubt not, fol- 
low the example of his Majesty. The votes of 
Parliament have always decided upon the dura- 
tion of the ministry, and always will, I trust. It 
is the nature of our Constitution ; and those who 
dislike it had better attempt to alter it. The 
honorable gentleman called the change in 1782 
a glorious one; this in 1783 a disgraceful one. 
Why ■? For a very obvious, though a very bad 
reason. The honorable gentleman assisted in ef- 
fecting the first, and strenuously labored to pre- 
vent the second. The first battle he fought with 
us ; the second against us, and we vanquished 
him. In 1782 his friends w^ere owf, and would 
be in. In 1783 his friends were m, nor would 
go out. Thus, having done without him w4iat 
we once did with him, the House sees his mo- 
tive. It is human nature, certainly ; but certain- 
ly not the better part of human nature. He says 
he is no party man, and abhors a systematic op- 
position. I have always acknowledged myself 
to be a party man. I have always acted with 
a party in whose principles I have confidence ; 
and if I had such an opinion of any ministry as 
the gentleman professes to have of us, I would 
pursue their overthrow by a systematic opposi- 
tion. I have done so more than once, and I think 
that, in succeeding, I saved my country. Once 
the right honorable gentleman, as I have said, 
was with me, and our conduct was fair, manly, 
constitutional, and honorable. The next time 



22 Earl Fitzwilliam had been named by Mr. Fox 
as the first of the Commissioners under this bill. 
The names of the remainder were withheld until 
the bill should have passed. 



he was against me, and our conduct was violent 
and unconstitutional, it was treasonable I And 
yet the means were in both instances the same 
— the means were the votes of this Hou.se ! 

A game of a two-fold quality is playing by the 
other side of the House upon this occasion, to 
which I hope the House, and I hope the kingdom, 
will attend. They are endeavoring to injure us 
through two channels at the same time ; through 
a certain great quarter, and through the people. 
They are attempting to alarm the first by as- 
serting that this bill increases the influence of 
ministry against the Crown ; and rousing the 
people, under an idea that it increases the influ- 
ence of the Crown against them. That they will 
fail in both, I doubt not. In the great quarter 
I trust they are well understood, and the prince- 
ly mind of that high person is a security against 
their devices. They are running swiftly to take 
off' whatever little imposition might have been 
put upon any part, even of the multitude ; and I 
wish to rescue the character of the public un- 
derstanding from the contemptuous implication, 
that it is capable of being gulled by such arti- 
fices. I feel for my country's honor when I say 
that Englishmen, free themselves, and fond of 
giving freedom to others, disdain these strata- 
gems, and are equally above the silliness of cred- 
iting the revilers of this act, and the baseness 
of confederating or making common cause with 
those who would support a system which has 
dishonored this country, and which keeps thirty 
millions of the human race in wretchedness. I 
make allowances for the hair-brained, headstrong 
delusions of folly and ignorance, and the effects 
of design. To such evils every measure is lia- 
ble, and every man must expect a portion of the 
consequence. But for the serious and grave de- 
terminations of the public judgment I have the 
highest value ; I ever had, and ever shall have. 
If it be a weakness, I confess it, that to lose the 
good opinion of even the meanest man gives me 
some pain ; and whatever triumph my enemies 
can derive from such a frame of mind they are 
welcome to. I do not, after the example of the 
honorable gentleman who began this debate [Mr. 
Powys], hold the opinion of constituents in dis- 
paragement. The clear and decided opinion of 
the more reasonable and respectable should, in 
my opinion, weigh with the member, upon the 
same principle that, I think, the voice of the na- 
tion should prevail in this House, and in every 
other place. But when the representative yields 
to the constituent, it should, indeed, be by the 
majority of the reasonable and respectable ; and 
not, as we shall see in a day or two, some of 
the honestest men in England voting against 
the most popular tax ever introduced into this 
House, in direct opposition to their own convic- 
tion, and not upon the opinion of either the more 
respectable or reasonable class of their constit- 
uents.^^ 

My noble friend [Sir John Cavendish], with 



23 This refers to the Receipt Tax, for the repeal 
of which Alderman Newnham had made a motion 
a few days before. 



472 



MR. FOX ON 



[1783. 



his characteristic spirit, has said, that we never 
sought power by cabal, or intrigue, or under- 
hand operations ; and this he said in reply to an 
honorable gentleman [Mr. T. Pitt], whose con- 
duct demonstrates that he thinks these the sur- 
est path for his friends. This bill, as a ground 
of contention, is farcical. This bill, if it admit- 
ted it, would be combated upon its intrinsic qual- 
ities, and not by abusing the Coalition or raising 
a clamor about influence. But why don't the 
gentlemen speak out fairly, as we do ; and then 
let the world judge between us? Our love and 
loyalty to the sovei'eign are as ardent and firm 
as their own. Yet the broad basis of public 
character, upon which we received, is the prin- 
ciple by which we hope to retain this power, 
convinced that the surest road to the favor of 
the prince is by serving him with zeal and fidel- 
ity; that the safest path to popularity is by re- 
ducing the burden, and restoring the glory of 
the nation. Let those (looking at Mr. Jenkin- 
son) who aim at office by other means, by inscru- 
table and mysterious methods, speak out ; or, if 
they will not, let the w^orld know it is because 
their arts will not bear examination, and that 
their safety consists in their obscurity.^* Our 
principles are well knowTi ; and I should prefer 
to perish with them, rather than prosper with 
any other. 

The honorable gentleman under the gallery 
[Mr. Martin] also says he dislikes systematic 
opposition. Whether perpetually rising up with 
peevish, capricious objections to every thing pro- 
posed by us deserve that name or not, I leave 
the gentleman himself to determine, and leave 
the House to reflect upon that kind of conduct 
which condemns the theory of its own constant 
practice. But I meet the gentleman directly 
upon the principle of the term. He dislikes 
systematic opposition ; now I like it. A sys- 
tematic opposition to a dangerous government 
is, in my opinion, a noble employment for the 
brightest faculties ; and if the honorable gentle- 
man thinks our administration a bad one, he is 
right to contribute to its downfall. Opposition 
is natural in such a political system as ours. It 
has subsisted in all such governments ; and per- 
haps it is necessary. But to those who oppose, 
it is extremely essential that their manner of 
conducting it incur not a suspicion of their mo- 
tives. If they appear to oppose from disappoint- 
ment, from mortification, from pique, from whim, 
the people will be against them. If they op- 
pose from public principle, from love of their 
country rather than hatred to administration^ 
from evident conviction of the badness of meas- 
ures, and a full persuasion that in their resist- 
ance to men they are aiming at the public wel- 
fare, the people will be with them. We opposed 



^* Mr. Jenkinson had entered life as the protege 
of Lord Bute, and was looked upon for many years 
as the pivot of every court intrigue, the confidential 
agent of the King, and the prime mover in all kinds 
of secret influence ; hence this pointed allusion. He 
was afterward known as Lord Hawkesbury, and at 
a subsequent period as Lord Liverpool. 



upon these principles, and the people were with 
us ; if we are opposed upon other principles, 
they will not be against us. Much labor has 
been employed to infuse a prejudice upon the 
present subject ; but I have the satisfaction to 
believe that the labor has been fruitless, making 
a reasonable allowance for the mistakes of the 
uninformed, the first impressions of novelty, and 
the natural result of deliberate malice. We de- 
sire to be tried by the test of this bill, and risk 
our character upon the issue; confiding thor- 
oughly in the good sense, the justice, and the 
spirit of Englishmen. Not lofty sounds, nor se- 
lected epithets, nor passionate declamation in 
this House, nor all the sordid efforts of interested 
men out of this House — of men whose acts in 
the East have branded the British name, and 
whose ill gotten opulence has been working 
through a thousand channels to delude and de- 
bauch the public understanding — can fasten 
odium upon this measure, or draw an obloquy 
upon the authoi's of it. We have been tried in 
the cause of the public, and until we desert that 
cause we are assured of public confidence and 
protection. 

The honorable gentleman [Mr. Powys] has 
supposed for me a soliloquy, and has put into 
my mouth some things which I do not think are 
likely to be attributed to me. He insinuates that 
I w^as incited by avarice, or ambition, or party 
spirit. I have failings in common with every 
human being, besides my own peculiar faults ; 
but of avarice I have indeed held m.yself guilt- 
less. My abuse has been for many years even 
the profession of several people ; it was their 
traffic, their livelihood ; yet until this moment I 
knew not that avarice was in the catalogue of 
the sins imputed to me. Ambition I confess I 
have, but not ambition upon a narrow bottom, 
or built upon paltry principles. If, from the de- 
votion of my life to political objects ; if, from the 
direction of my industry to the attainment of 
some knowledge of the Constitution and the true 
interests of the British empire, the ambition of 
taking no mean part in those acts that elevate 
nations and make a people happy, be criminal, 
that ambition I acknowledge. And as to party 
spirit — that I feel it, that I have been ever under 
its impulse, and that I ever shall, is wiiat I pro- 
claim to the world. That I am one of a party 
— a party never known to sacrifice the interests, 
or barter the liberties of the nation for mercena- 
ry purposes, for personal emolument or honors 
— a party linked together upon principles which 
comprehend whatever is most dear and precious 
to free men, and essential to a free Constitution 
— is my pride and my boast. 

The honorable gentleman has given me one 
assertion which it is my pride to make ; he sAys 
that I am connected with a number of the first 
families in the country .^^ Yes, sir, I have a pe- 
culiar glory that a body of men, renowned for 
their ancestry, important for their possessions, 
distinguished for their personal worth, with all 

" The Rockingham Whigs. 



1783.] 



THE EAST INDIA BILL. 



473 



that is valuable to men at stake — hereditary for- 
tunes and hereditary honors — deem me worthy 
of their confidence. With such men I am some- 
thing — without them, nothing. My reliance is 
upon their good opinion ; and in that respect, 
perhaps, I am fortunate. Although I have a just 
confidence in mv own integrity, yet, as I am 
but man, perhaps it is well that I have no choice 
but between my own eternal disgrace and a 
faithful discharge of my public duty, while men 
of this kind are overseers of my conduct, while 
men whose uprightness of heart and spotless 
honor are even proverbial in the country [look- 
ing at Lord John Cavendish], are the vigils of 
my deeds, it is a pledge to the public for the 
purity and rectitude of my conduct. The pros- 
perity and honor of the country are blended with 
the pi'osperity and honor of these illustrious per- 
sons. They have so much at stake, that if the 
country falls they fall with it; and to counte- 
nance any thing against its interest would be a 
suicide upon themselves. The good opinion and 
protection of these men is a security to the na- 
tion for my behavior, because if I lose them I 
lose my all. 

Having said so much upon the extraneous sub- 
jects introduced by the honorable gentleman 
[Mr. Powys] into the debate, I shall proceed to 
make some observations upon the business in 
question. When the learned gentleman [Mr. 
Dundas] brought in his bill last year, the House 
saw its frightful features with just horror ; but 
a very good method was adopted to soften the 
terrors of the extravagant power wiiich that bill 
vested in the Governor General. The name of 
a noble Lord [Lord Cornwallis] was sent forth 
at the same time, whose great character lent a 
grace to a proposition which, destitute of such 
an advantage, could not be listened to for one 
moment. Now, sir, observe how ditferently we 
have acted upon the same occasion. 

Earl Fitzwilliam has been spoken of here this 
day, in those terms of admiration with which his 
name is always mentioned. Take notice, how- 
ever, that we did not avail ourselves of the fame 
of his virtue and abilities in passing this bill 
through the House. 

If such a thing were to have taken place as 
the institution of an Indian secretaryship (ac- 
cording to the suggestions of some gentlemen), 
this noble Lord would certainly have been the 
very person whom, for my part, I should have 
advised his Majesty to invest with that office. 
Yet, although his erect mind and spotless honor 
would have held forth to the public the fullest 
confidence of a faithful execution of its duties, 
the objections in regard to influence upon a re- 
movable officer, are ten-fold in comparison with 
the present scheme. The House must now see, 
that with all the benefits we might derive from 
that noble Lord's character — that although his 
name would have imparted a sanctity, an orna- 
ment, and an honor to the bill, we ushered it in 
without that ceremony, to stand or fall by its 
own intrinsic merits, neither shielding it under 
the reputation nor gracing it under the mantle 



of any man's virtue. Our merit will be more in 
this, when the names of those are known whom 
we mean to propose to this House, to execute 
this commission. [Name them, said Mr. Arden, 
across the House.] I will not. I will not name 
them. The bill shall stand or fall by its own 
merits, without aid or injury from their charac- 
ter. An honorable gentleman has said these 
Commissioners will be made up of our " adher- 
ents and creatures." Sir, there is nothing more 
easy than to use disparaging terms ; yet I should 
have thought the name of Earl Fitzwilliam would 
have given a fair presumption that the colleagues 
we shall recommend to this House for the co- 
execution of this business with that noble Lord, 
will not be of a description to merit these un- 
handsome epithets. I assure the honorable gen- 
tleman they are not. I assure him they are not 
men whose faculties of corrupting, or whose cor- 
ruptibilit}', will give any alarm to this House, or 
to this country. They are men whose private 
and public characters stand high and untainted ; 
who are not likely to countenance depredation, 
or participate the spoils of rapacity. They are 
not men to screen delinquency, or to pollute the 
service by disgraceful appointments. Would 
such men as Earl Fitzwilliam suffer unbecom- 
ing appointments to be made ? Is Earl Fitz- 
william a man likely to do the dirty work of a 
minister ? If they, for instance, M'cre to nomin- 
ate a Paul Benfield to go to India in the supreme 
council, would Earl Fitzwilliam subscribe to his 
appointment? This is the benefit of having a 
commission of high honor, chary of reputation, 
noble and pure in their sentiments, who are su- 
perior to the little jobs and traffic of political 
intrigue. ^^ 

But this bill, sir, presumes not upon the prob- 
ity of the men ; it looks to the future possibili- 
ty of dissimilar successors, and to the morality 
of the present Commissioners, who are merely 
human, and therefore not incapable of alteration. 
Under all the caution of this bill, with the re- 
sponsibility it imposes, I wall take upon me to 
say that if the aggregate body of this Board de- 
termined to use all its power for the purpose of 
corruption, this House, and the people at large, 
would have less to dread from them, in the way 
of influence, than from a few Asiatics who would 
probably be displaced in consequence of this ar- 
rangement — some of whom will return to this 
country with a million, some with seven hundred 
thousand, some with five, besides the three or four 
hundred thousand of others, who are cut off in 
their career by the hand of Fate. An inunda- 
tion of such wealth is far more dangerous than 
any influence that is likely to spring from a plan 
of government so constituted as this proposed — 
w^hether the operation of such a mass of wealth 



26 The Commissioners, as named by Mr. Fox when 
the bill passed the House, were Earl Fitzwilliam, 
Chairman of the Board, the Honorable Frederick 
Montague, Lord Lcwisham, the Honorable George 
Augustus North, eldest son of Lord North, Sir Gil- 
bert Elliot, Baronet, Sir Henry Fletcher, Baronet, 
and Robert Gregory, Esq. 



474 



MR. FOX ON 



[1783 



be considered in its probable effects upon the 
principles of the members of this House, or the 
manners of the people at large; more especially 
when a reflection that Orientalists are in general 
the most exemplary class of people in their mor- 
als, and in their deportment the most moderate, 
and corresponding with the distinction of their 
high birth and family, furnishes a very reasona- 
ble presumption that the expenditure of their 
money will be much about as honorable as its 
acquirement."^ 

I shall now, sir, conclude my speech with a 
few words upon the opinion of the right honor- 
able gentleman [Mr. Pitt]. He says " he will 
stake his character upon the danger of this bill." 
I meet him in his own phrase, and oppose him, 
character to character. I risk my all upon the 
excellence of this bill. I risk upon it whatever 
is most dear to me, whatever men most value, 
the character of integrity, of talents, of honor, 



of present reputation and future fame. These, 
and whatever else is precious to me, I stake upon 
the constitutional safety, the enlarged policy, the 
equity, and the wisdom of this measure ; and 
have no fear in saying (whatever may be the 
fate of its authors) that this bill will produce to 
this country every blessing of commerce and 
revenue ; and that by extending a generous and 
humane government over those millions whom 
the inscrutable destinations of Providence have 
placed under us in the remotest regions of the 
earth, it will consecrate the name of England 
amonof the noblest of nations. 



The vote was carried by a majority of 217 to 
103. But when the bill reached the House of 
Lords, it was met and defeated by the influence 
of the King, as already mentioned in the sketch 
of Mr. Fox's life. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. FOX ON THE USE OF SECRET INFLUENCE TO DEFEAT HIS EAST INDIA BILL, DELIVERED 
IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, DECEMBER 17, 1783. 

INTRODUCTION. 

On the ninth of December, 1783, when Mr. Fox's East India Bill went up to the House of Lords, the 
ministry supposed themselves to possess the fullest evidence that it would pass that body by a decided ma- 
jority. Within three days, however, rumors were in circulation of some extraordinary movements in the 
interior of the Court. It was affirmed that Lord Temple was closeted with the King on the eleventh, and 
that his Majesty had intrusted him with a message of some kind, expressing a strong disapprobation of the 
bill ; which message his Lordship and others were circulating among the peers, and especially among the 
Lords of the Bedchamber and other members of the royal household who were more immediately connected 
with the King's person. On the fifteenth, the Duke of Portland, as head of the ministry, alluded to these 
rumors in the House of Lords. Lord Temple admitted that the interview referred to had taken place, but 
would neither acknowledge nor deny any thing farther touching the reports in question. It was evident, 
however, that a powerful impression had been made. Some peers who had given their proxies to the 
minister or his friends, withdrew them only a few hours before the time appointed for the second reading 
of the bill; and a letter was at length placed in the hands of the ministry, containing the message of the 
King which had produced these unexpected results. The substance of this letter is given in the speech 
below. 

In view of these facts, before the bill had been decided upon by the Lords, Mr. Baker moved a resolu- 
tion in the House of Commons, that " it is now necessary to declare, that to report any opinion or pre- 
tended opinion of his Majesty upon any bill or other proceeding depending in either House of Parliament, 
is a high crime and misdemeanor, derogatory to the honor of the Crown, a breach of the fundamental priv- 
ileges of Parliament, and subversive of the Constitution of this country." In his remarks on the subject, 
Mr. Baker divided the criminality into two parts; first, the giving of secret advice to his Majesty ; and, sec- 
ondly, the use that had been made of the King's name for the purpose of influencing the votes of members 
of Parliament in a matter depending before them. He proved from the journals, that "any reference to 
the opinions of the King touching a bill before either House had always been judged a high breach of the 
privileges of Parliament." The motion was seconded by Lord Maitlaud, and was vehemently opposed by 
Mr. Pitt, who was a near relative of Lord Temple. Mr. Fox then delivered the following speech, in which 
he gave full vent to his indignation at the injustice done to ministers and the wound inflicted upon the Con- 
stitution by this interference. 

SPEECH, &c.^ 



I did not intend, sir, to have said any thing in 
addition to that which has been already urged so 
ably in favor of the resolution now agitated. In 



^'' The adventurers to India, here called Oriental- 
ists, such as Paul Benfield, &c., were in most in- 
stances persons of no family, and of little worth or 
education. Hence the sneering terms here used. 



my own opinion, its propriety and necessity are 
completely and substantially established. A few 
particulars, suggested in the course of the debate 
by gentlemen on the other side of the House, 

^ This speech has been slightly abridged by omit- 
ting a few passages in which the ideas were unnec- 
essarily expanded. 



1783.] 



SECRET INFLUENCE. 



475 



may be thought, however, to merit some animad- 
version. And, once for all, let no man complain 
cf strong language. Things are now arrived at 
such a crisis as renders it impossible to speak 
without warmth. Delicacy and reserve are crim- 
inal where the interests of Englishmen are at haz- 
ard. The various points in dispute strike to the 
heart ; and it were unmanly and pusillanimous to 
wi-ap up in smooth and deceitful colors objects 
which, in their nature and consequences, are cal- 
culated to fill the House and the country with a 
mixture of indignation and horror. 

This, at least, has made such an impression on 
Greatness of ^^^J "^'"^1, that I ucvcr fclt SO much aux- 
the interests jetv : I ucvcr addrcsscd this House un- 

involved. , , c ■ ,• 

der such a pressure ol mipendmg mis- 
chief; I never trembled so much for public lib- 
erty as I now do. The question before the House 
involves the rights of Parliament in all their con- 
sequences and extent. These rights are the ba- 
sis of our Constitution, and form the spirit of what- 
ever discriminates the government of a free coun- 
try. And have not these been threatened and as- 
saulted ? Can they exist a moment in opposition 
to such an interference as that which is supposed 
by the resolution, and has been stated by several 
honorable gentlemen to have taken place ? No : 
human nature is not sufficiently perfect to resist 
the weight of such a temptation. When, there- 
fore, shall the House assert its dignity, its inde- 
pendence, its prerogatives, by a resolute and un- 
equivocal declaration of all its legal and consti- 
tutional powers, but in the instant of their dan- 
ger '? The disease, sir, is come to a crisis ; and 
now is the juncture which destines the patient to 
live or die. We are called to sanctify or oppose 
an absolute extinction of all for which our ances- 
tors struggled and expired. We are called to 
protect and defend, not only the stipulated fran- 
chises of Englishmen, but the sacred privileges 
of human nature. We are called to protract the 
ruin of the Constitution. The deliberations of 
this night must decide whether we are to be free 
men or slaves; whether the House of Commons 
be the palladium of liberty or the organ of des- 
potism ; whether we are henceforth to possess a 
voice of our own, or to be only the mechanical 
echo of secret influence. Is there "an individual 
who feels for his own honor, callous to an appre- 
hension of such a consequence as this ? Does 
not every regard which he owes to a body that 
can not be degraded without his disgrace, that 
can not expire without involving his fate, rouse 
his indignation, and excite him to every exertion, 
both in his individual and delegated capacity, 
which can reprobate, suspend, or desti'oy a prac- 
tice so inimical to public prosperity, as well as 
hostile to the very existence of this House? 



But what is this resolutic 



It has been 



r 



Fact of in- Called, with great technical acuteness, 
terference. g^ truism, which sccms as incapable of 
discussion as it is of proof. The foundation of 
it, however, is a matter of such general and pal- 
pable notoriety, as to put every degree of skep- 
ticism to defiance. Rumors of a most extraor- 
dinary nature have been disseminated in no com- 



mon way, and by no inferior agents. A noble 
Earl [Lord Temple] is said to have used the 
name of Majesty with the obvious and express 
intention of alfecting the decisions of the Lco-is- 
lature concerning a bill, of infinite consequence to 
thirty millions of people, pending in Parliament. 
I tell gentlemen this is not a newspaper surmise, 
but something much stronger and more serious ; 
there is a written record to be produced. This 
letter [pulling it out of his pocket] is not to be put 
in the balance with the lie of the day. It states, 
that " his Majesty allowed Earl Temple to say, 
that whoever voted for the India Bill were not 
only not his friends, but he should consider them 
as his enemies ; and if these words were not 
strong enough. Earl Temple might use whatever 
words he might deem stronger, or more to the 
purpose." Is this parliamentary, or is it truth? 
Where is the man who dares to affirm the one 
or deny the other ; or to say that he believes in 
his conscience such a rumor was not calculated 
to produce an immediate effiict ? It certainly 
tended, in the first instance, to vilify, in the gross- 
est and most violent manner, the proceedings of 
Parliament. It says to the public, that we are 
not equal to our trust ; that we either ignoraiftiy 
or willfully betray the interest of our constituents ; 
and that we are not to be guided in our decisions 
by their convictions or our own, but by that un- 
seen and mysterious authority of which the Sov- 
ereign, his counselors, and the Legislature, are 
only the blind and passive instruments. Both 
Houses of ParHament are, consequently, parties 
in the contest, and reduced, by this unfortunate 
and wicked device, to the predicament of a man 
struggling for his life. We are robbed of our 
rights, with a menace of immediate destruction 
before our face. From this moment, farewell 
to every independent measure ! AVhenever the 
liberties of the people, the rights of private prop- 
erty, or the still more sacred and invaluable priv- 
ileges of personal safety, invaded, violated, or in 
danger, are vindicated by this House, where alone 
they can be legally and efl^ectually redressed, the 
hopes of the public, anxious, eager, and panting 
for the issue, are whispered away, and forever 
suppressed by the breath of secret influence. A 
Parliament thus fettered and controlled, without 
spirit and without freedom, instead of limiting, 
extends, substantiates, and establishes, beyond all 
precedent, latitude, or condition, the prerogatives 
of the Crown. But, though the British House of 
Commons were so shamefully lost to its own 
weight in the Constitution, were so unmindful of 
its former struggles and triumphs in the great 
cause of liberty and mankind, were so indifler- 
ent and treacherous to those primary objects and 
concerns for which it was originally instituted, I 
trust the characteristic spirit of this country is 
still equal to the trial ; I trust Englishmen will 
be as jealous of secret mfluence as superior to 
open violence; I trust they are not more ready 
to defend their interests against foreign depreda- 
tion and insult than to encounter and defeat this 
midnight conspiracy against the Constitution. 
The proposition of this evening is, therefore, 



476 



MR. FOX ON 



[1783. 



founded on a fact the most extraordinary and 
Greatness alarming this country could possibly 
oftueevu. i^gg^j.. ^ f^g^ which Strikes at the great 
bulwark of our liberties, and goes to an absolute 
annihilation, not only of our chartered rights, 
but of those radical and fundamental ones which 
are paramount to all charters, which were con- 
signed to our care by the sovereign disposition 
of Nature, which we can not relinquish without 
violating the most sacred of all obligations ; to 
which we are entitled, not as members of socie- 
ty, but as individuals and as men ; the rights of 
adhering steadily and uniformly to the great and 
supreme laws of conscience and duty, of prefer- 
ring, at all hazards, and without equivocation, 
those general and substantial interests which we 
have sworn to prefer ; of acquitting ourselves 
honorably to our constituents, to our friends, to 
our own minds, and to that public whose trust- 
ees we are and for whom we act. 

How often shall the friends of the noble Earl 
Conduct of whom I have named be called upon to 
Lord Temple's negativc the proposition, by vouching 

friends when . ^, . , . . * ' r , , \ 

chaUenged to lor him his umocencc ot the charge .■• 
*"'y ' Will any of them lay their hand on their 

heart, and disavow the fact in that nobleman's 
name ? Let them fairly, honorably, and deci- 
dedly put an end to that foul imputation which 
rests on his conduct, and the House must imme- 
diately dismiss the report as idle and ill founded. 
But, while no man comes honestly forward and 
takes truth by the hand, we must look to the 
consequence. This House must not lose sight 
of its rights and those of the community. The 
latter can subsist no longer than the former are 
safe- We now deliberate on the life and blood 
of the Constitution. Give up this point, and we 
seal our own quietus, and are accessory to our 
own insignificance or destruction. 

But how is the question, thus unsuccessfully 
Conductor P^t ^^ ^^^ fi'iends and abettors of se- 
Lord Temple crct influence in this, answered, when 
the House of put to the noblc prmcipal m the other 
House ? Is he ready and eager to vin- 
dicate his own character, and rescue that of his 
Sovereign from so foul a reproach ? No ; but 
he replies in that mean, insidious, equivocal, and 
temporizing language, which tends to preserve 
the effect without boldly and manfully abiding 
by the consequences of the guilt. Such was the 
answer, as mysterious and ill-designed as the 
delinquency it was intended to conceal ; and the 
man only, who could stoop to the baseness of the 
one, was the most likely in the world to screen 
himself behind the duplicity of the other. What, 
then, shall we infer from a system of acting and 
speaking thus guarded and fallacious, but that 
the device was formed to operate on certain 
minds, as it is rumored to have done ; and that 
such a shallow and barefaced pretext could influ- 
ence those only who, without honor or consisten- 
cy, are endowed with congenial understandings ! 

Had this alarming and unconstitutional inter- 
im ortanc ^^i^dce happened in matters of no con- 
of the bill in sequence, or but of inferior con.sequence, 
quebion. ^^^^ ^^ .^ would not havc appeared of 



such magnitude as it does. But let us consider 
the nature of the business which it is intended 
to impede or suppress. For nearly twenty years 
have the affairs of the East India Company, more 
or less, occasionally engrossed the attention of 
Parliament. Committees of this House, com- 
posed of the most able, industrious, and upright 
characters, have sat long, indefatigably, and as- 
siduously, in calling forth, arranging, digesting, 
and applying every species of evidence which 
could be found. Reports of their honest and 
elaborate conduct are before the House.^ The 
public feel the pi'essure of this monstrous and 
multifarious object. Gentlemen in opposition 
were, at least, not insensible to its necessity, its 
urgency, and its importance. A right honora- 
ble gentleman [Mr. W. Pitt], who has distin- 
guished himself so much upon this occasion, pro- 
tested very solemnly against all palliatives, ex- 
pedients, or any abortive substitutes for radical 
and complete measures. To meet that right 
honorable gentleman's idea, as well as to suit 
the exigence of the case, the present bill was 
brought in. It has been called a rash, inconsid- 
erate, and violent measure. The House is aware 
what discussion it has occasioned ; and I dare 
any one to mention a single argument brought 
against it which has not been candidly and fairly 
tried, not by the weight of a majority, but by the 
force of plain and explicit reasoning. No bill 
was more violently and systematically opposed, 
investigated at greater length, or with more abil- 
ity; passed the House under the sanction of a 
more respectable and independent majority : or 
had more the countenance and patronage of the 
country at large. How, then, did it succeed in 
the other House? What was the reception 
which, thus circumstanced, it received from their 
Lordships ? Some degree of decency might 
have been expected from one branch of the Leg- 
islature to another. That respectable independ- 
ence which ought to be the leading feature in 
their decisions is not incompatible with, but es- 
sential to such a mutual deference for the pro- 
cedure of each, as m.ust be the consequence 
of acting constitutionally. The bill, however, 
though matured and debated by all the abilities 
of this House, though urged by the most power- 
ful of all arguments, necessity, and though rec- 
ommended by almost two to one on every divi- 
sion it occasioned, will, in all probability, be lost. 
But, sir, I beseech the House to attend to the 
manner in which it is likely to meet Means by 
such a fate. Is this to be effected by Z^uXe^ 
the voice of an independent majority ? tJ^fe^ted. 
Can any man view the Lords of the Bedcham- 
ber in that respectable light? and the whole 
fortune of the measure now depends on their 
determination. The rumor, so often stated and 



2 In the year 1781 two committees of the House 
of Commons, one a select and the other a secret 
committee, were appointed to inquire into the af- 
fairs of the East India Company, both at home and 
abroad. The re[)orts of the select committee were 
twelve, and those of the secret committee six in 
number. 



1783] 



SECRET INFLUENCE. 



477 



alluded to, was calculated and intended to an- 
swer an immediate and important end. I am 
far from saying that it ought. Those in high 
office and of elevated rank should prove them- 
selves possessed of high and elevated sentiments; 
should join to an exquisite sense of personal hon- 
or the most perfect probity of heart ; should dis- 
cover as much dignity and strength of undei*- 
standing as may be naturally expected from a 
superior education, the distinctions of fortune, 
and the example of the great and the wise. But 
how does this description agree with their mode 
of managing their proxies ? These they coi^di- 
ally give in [to the ministry] before a rumor of 
the King's displeasure reaches their ears. The 
moment this intimation is made, on the same 
day, and within a few hours, matters appear to 
them in quite a different light, and the opinion 
which they embrace in the morning is renounced 
at noon. I am as ready as any man to allow, 
what is barely probable, that these Lords might 
receive new convictions, which, like a miracle, 
operated effectually and at once ; and that, not- 
withstanding their proxies, from such a sudden 
and extraordinary circumstance, without hear- 
ing an)' debate or evidence on the subject, they 
might feel an immediate and unaccountable im- 
pulse to make their personal appeai'ance, and 
vote according to their consciences. Who would 
choose to say that all this may not actually have 
been the case ? There is certainly, however, a 
very uncommon coincidence in their Lordship's 
peculiar situation, and this unexpected revolution 
of sentiment ; and, were 1 disposed to treat the 
matter seriously, the whole compass of language 
affords no terms sufficiently strong and pointed 
to mark the contempt which I feel for their con- 
duct. It is an impudent avowal of political 
profligacy ; as if that species of treachery were 
less infamous than any other. It is not merely 
a degradation of a station which ought to be oc- 
cupied only by the highest and most exemplary 
honor, but forfeits their claim to the characters 
of gentlemen, and reduces them to a level with 
the meanest and the basest of the species ; it in- 
sults the noble, the ancient, and the chai-acter- 
istic independence of the English peerage, and 
is calculated to traduce and vilify the British 
Legislature in the eyes of all Europe and to the 
latest posterit}'. By what magic nobility can 
thus charm vice into virtue I know not, nor wish 
to know ; but in any other thing than politics, 
and among any other men than Lords of the 
Bedchamber, such an instance of the grossest 
perfidy would, as it well deserves, be branded 
with infamy and execration. 

Is thei-e any thing, then, sir, more plain and ob- 

,, ,. ^ vious, than that this great, this import- 
Motives for ' , o ' r " 

this interfer- ant, this Urgent measure, is become the 
handle of a desperate faction, whose 
principal object is power and place ? It is the 
victim, not of open and fair reasoning, but of 
that influence which shuns the light and shrinks 
from discussion. Those who pledged their hon- 
or in its support, from an acknowledged convic- 
tion of its rectitude, its propriety, and utility, 



have broken that faith, and relinquished their 
own judgments, in consequence of a rumor that 
such a conduct would be personally resented by 
the Sovereign. What bill, in the history of Par- 
liament, was ever so traduced, so foully misrep- 
resented and betrayed in its passage through 
the different branches of the Legislature ? The 
stroke which must decide the contest can not 
come from its real enemies, but its false friends ; 
and its fate, without example in the annals of 
this House, will be handed down to the remot- 
est posterity, not as a trophy of victory, but as a 
badge of treachery. 

Here, sir, the right honorable gentleman [Mv. 
Pitt], with his usual liberality, up- „, , 

.J' , . J) f The real am- 

braids me with monopolizing, not only bitioaof Mr. 
all the influence of the Crown, the 
patronage of India, and the principles of Whig- 
ism, but the whole of the royal confidence ; but 
all such round, unqualified, and unfounded im- 
putations must be contemptible, because they 
are not true ; and the bitterest enemy, not lost 
to every sense of manliness, would scorn to be- 
come an accuser on grounds so palpably false. 
It is, indeed, as it has always been, my only am- 
bition to act such a part in my public conduct 
as shall eventually give the lie to every species 
of suspicion which those who oppose me seem 
so anxious to create and circulate ; and if to 
compass that by every possible exertion from 
which no man in the sound exercise of his un- 
derstanding can honestly dissent, be a crime, 
I plead guilty to the charge. This I am not 
ashamed to avow the predominating passion of 
my life ; and I will cherish it in spite of calum- 
ny, declamation, and intrigue, at the risk of all 
I value most in the world. 

But, sir, in this monopoly of influence, the 
Lords of the Bedchamber ought, at least, ^^^^^ .^^ 
for the sake of decency, to have been waiting on 
excepted. These, we all know, are con- '^ '"^' 
stantly at the beck of whoever is minister of the 
day. How often have they not been stigma- 
tized with the name of the household troops, 
who, like the Praetorian bands of ancient Rome,^ 
are always prepared for the ready execution of 
every secret mandate ! I remember a saying 
of an able statesman, whom, though I differed 
with him in many things, I have ever acknowl- 
edged to be possessed of many eminent and use- 
ful qualities. The sentence I allude to I have 
always admired for its boldness and propriety. 
It was uttered by the late George Grenville in 
experiencing a similar treachery ; and would to 
God the same independent and nianh- sentiments 
had been inherited by all who bear the name ! 
"I will never again," said he, ''be at the head 

^ Gibbon, speaking of the Praetorian bands, says, 
"They derived their institution fi-ora Augustus. 
That crafty tyrant, sensible that laws might color, 
but that arms alone could maintain his usurped do- 
minion, had gradually formed this powerful body of 
guards, in constant readiness to protect his person, 
to awe the Senate, and either to prevent or crush 
the first motions of rebellion." — Hist, of the Decline 
and Fall, ch. v. 



478 



MR. FOX ON 



[1783. 



of a string of janizaries, who are always ready 
to strangle or dispatch me on the least signal." 
Where, sir, is that undue, that unconstitution- 
Kindofinflu- ^^ influence with which the right hon- 
ence sought orablc gentleman upbraids me and 

by Mr. Fox. ^^^^^ ^..^^^ ^^^^^^ j ^^^ ^ ^^.^ ^^^^, 

measures supported by any other means than 
ministers have usually employed ? In what, 
then, am I the " champion of influence ?" Of 
the influence of sound and substantial policy, of 
open, minute, and laborious discussion, of the 
most respectable Whig interest in the kingdom, 
of an honorable majority in this House, of public 
confidence and public responsibility, I am proud 
to avail myself, and happy to think no man can 
bar my claim. But every sort of influence un- 
known to the Constitution, as base in itself as 
it is treacherous in its consequences, which is 
always successful because incapable of opposi- 
tion, nor ever successful but when exerted in the 
dark, which, like every other monster of factious 
breed, never stalks abroad but in the absence of 
public principle, never a.ssumes any other shape 
than a whisper, and never frequents any more 
public place of resort than the back stairs or 
closet at St. James's — all this secret, intriguing, 
and underhand influence I am willing and ready 
to forego. I will not even be the minister of a 
great and free people on any condition dei'oga- 
tory to my honor and independence as a private 
gentleman. Let those who have no other ob- 
ject than place have it, and hold it by the only 
tenure worthy of their acceptance, secret influ- 
ence ; but without the confidence of this House, 
as well as that of the sovereign, however neces- 
sary to my circumstances, and desirable to my 
friends, the dignity and emoluments of office shall 
never be mine. 

The task, therefore, the gentleman has as- 
Mr. Pitt the signed me, of being the champion of in- 
eecret^fnfl'u- fli^cnce, bclongs more properly to him- 
ence. ggjf^ ^yjjQ j^^^g ^j^jg night stood forward 

in defense of a practice which can not be in- 
dulged for a moment but at the imminent risk 
of ever}^ thing great and valuable which our 
Constitution secures. With what consistency he 
embarks in a cause so hcstile and ominous to 
the rights and wishes of Englishmen, those who 
have known his connections and observed his 
professions will judge. Let him not, then, in 
the paroxysm of party zeal, put a construction 
on my conduct which it will not bear, or endeav- 
or to stamp it with the impression of his own. 
For that influence which the Constitution has 
wisely assigned to the different branches of the 
Legislature, I ever have contended, and, I trust, 
ever shall. That of the Crown, kept within its 
legal boundaries, is essential to the practice of 
government ; but woe to this country the mo- 
ment its operations are not as public and noto- 
rious as they are sensible and effective ! A great 
writer"* has said that the' English Constitution 
will perish when the legislative becomes more 
corrupt than the executive power. Had he been 



Montesquieu. — Esprit des Lois, liv. xi., eh. 6. 



as sound a judge of the practice as of the theory 
of government, he might have added, with still 
greater truth, that we shall certainly lose our 
liberty when the deliberations of Parliament are 
decided, not by the legal and usual^ but by the 
illegal and extraordinary exertions of prerogative. 

The right honorable gentleman declares that 
if the King is thus prevented from con- secret infiu- 
sulting his peers, who are constitution- p"em°athe'^ 
ally styled the ancient and hereditary "fU'e^Lords. 
counselors of the Crown, or any other of his sub- 
jects, whenever he is pleased to call for it, he 
would be a captive on his throne, and the first 
slave in his own dominions. Does he, then, af- 
fect to think or allege that it is the desire of 
ministers to proscribe all social intercourse be- 
tween his Majesty and his subjects ? I will tell 
the right honorable gentleman thus far his argu- 
ment goes, and that is something worse than 
puerility and declamation ; it is disguising truth 
under such colors as are calculated to render it 
odious and detestable. The Lords are undoubt- 
edly entitled to advise the throne collectively ; 
but this does not surely entitle every noble indi- 
vidual to take his Majesty aside, and, by a shock- 
ing farrago of fiction and fear, poison the royal 
mind with all their own monstrous chimeras ! 
Whoever knows the mode of digesting business 
in the cabinet must be sensible that the least in- 
terference with any thing pending in Parliament 
must be dangerous to the Constitution. The 
question is not, whether his Majesty shall avail 
himself of such advice as no one readily avows, 
but xvho is answerable for such advice ? Is the 
right honorable gentleman aware that the re- 
sponsibility of ministers is the only pledge and se- 
curity the people of England possess against the 
infinite abuses so natural to the exercise of this 
power ? Once remove this great bulwai'k of the 
Constitution, and we are in every respect the 
slaves and property of despotism. And is not this 
the necessar}'- consequence of secret influence ? 

How, sir, are ministers situated on this ground ? 
Do they not come into power with a „^ , . 

11 I I • 1 1 , . 1 , Effect of se- 

halter about their necks, by which the cret influence 

^.,, ^I'ii 1. on ministers. 

most contemptible wretch in the king- 
dom may dispatch them at pleasure ? Yes, they 
hold their several offices, not at the option of the 
sovereign, but of the very reptiles who burrow 
under the throne. They act the part of pup- 
pets, and are answerable for all the folh% the ig- 
norance, and the temerity or timidity, of some 
unknown juggler behind the screen ; they are 
not once allowed to consult their own, but to pay 
an implicit homage to the understandings of 
those whom to know were to despise. The only 
rule by which they are destined to extend author- 
ity over free men is a secret mandate which 
carries along with it no other alternative than 
obedience — or ruin ! What man, who has the 
feelings, the honor, the spirit, or the heart of a 
man, would stoop to such a condition for any 
official dignity or emolument whatever ? Boys, 
without judgment, experience of the sentiments 
suggested by the knowledge of the world, or the 
amiable decencies of a sound mind, may follow 



1783.] 



SECRET INFLUENCE. 



479 



the headlong course of ambition thus precipi- 
tantly, and vault into the seat while the reins of 
government are placed in other hands ; but the 
minister who can bear to act such a dishonora- 
ble part, and the country that suffers it, will be 
mutual plagues and curses to each other.^ 

Thus awkwardly circumstanced, the best min- 
ister on earth could accomplish nothing, nor on 
any occasion, however pressing and momentous, 
exert the faculties of government with spirit or 
effect. It is not in the human mind to put forth 
the least vigor under the impression of uncer- 
tainty. While all my best-meant and best-con- 
certed plans are still under the control of a vil- 
lainous whisper, and the most valuable conse- 
quences, which I flatter myself must have result- 
ed from my honest and indefatigable industry, 
are thus defeated by secret influence, it is im- 
possible to continue in office any longer either 
with honor to myself or success to the public. 
The moment I bring forward a measure ade- 
quate to the exigency of the state, and stake my 
reputation, or indeed whatever is most dear and 
interesting in life, on its merit and utility, instead 
of enjoying the triumphs of having acted fairly 
and unequivocally, all my labors, all my vigil- 
ance, all my expectations, so natural to every 
generous and manly exertion, are not only vilely 
frittered, but insidiously and at once whispered 
away by rumors, which, whether founded or not, 
are capable of doing irreparable mischief, and 
have their full effect before it is possible to con- 
tradict or disprove them. 

So much has been said about the captivity of 
The King's thc throuc, if his Majesty acts only in 
mi^nTsteTs'tiiJ'^ coucert with his ministers, that one 
l'hei/being''re-'^ would imagine the spirit and soul of 
sponsible." the British Constitution were yet un- 
known in this House. It is wisely established 
as a fundamental maxim, that "the King can do 
no wrong;" that whatever blunders or even- 
crimes may be chargeable on the executive pow- 
er, the Crown is still faultless. But how ? Not 
by suffering tyranny and oppression in a free 
government to pass with impunity; certainly 
not ; but the minister who advises or executes 
an unconstitutional measure does it at his peril ; 
and he ought to know that Englishmen are not 
only jealous of their rights, but legally possessed 
of powers competent, on every such emergency, 
to redress their wrongs. What is the distinc- 
tion between an absolute and a limited monarchy 
but this, that the sovereign in the one is a des- 
pot, and may do what he pleases; but in the 
other is himself subjected to the laws, and con- 
sequently not at liberty to advise with any one 
on public affairs not responsible for that advice; 
and the Constitution has clearly directed his 
negative to operate under the same wise restric- 
tions. These prerogatives are by no means vest- 
ed in the Crown to be exerted in a wanton and 
arbitrary manner. The good of the whole is the 
exclusive object to which all the branches of the 



old, 



Mr. Pitt was at this time but twenty-four years 



Legislature and their different powers invariably 
point. Whoever interferes wdth this primary 
and supreme direction must, in the highest de- 
gree, be unconstitutional. Should, therefore, his 
Majesty be disposed to check the progress of the 
Legislature in accomplishing any measure of 
importance, either by giving countenance to an 
invidious whisper, or the exertion of his negative, 
without at the same time consulting the safety 
of his ministers, here would be an instance of 
maladministration, for which, on that supposition, 
the Constitution has provided no remedy. And 
God forbid that ever the Constitution of this 
country should be found defective in a point so 
material and indispensable to the public welfare ! 
Sir, it is a public and crying grievance that we 
are not the first who have felt this se- former opera- 
cret influence. It seems to be a habit t'"" of secret 
against which no change of men or 
measures can operate with success. It has over- 
turned a more able and popular minister [Lord 
Chatham] than the present, and bribed him with 
a peerage, for which his best friends never cor- 
dially forgave him. The scenes, the times, the 
politics, and the system of the court may shift 
with the party that predominates, but this dark, 
m3'sterious engine is not only formed to control 
every ministry, but to enslave the Constitution. 
To this infernal spirit of intrigue we owe that 
incessant fluctuation in his Majesty's councils by 
which the spirit of government is so much re- 
laxed, and all its minutest objects so fatally de- 
ranged. During the strange and ridiculous in- 
terregnum of last year,^ I had not a doubt in my 
own mind with whom it originated ; and I looked 
to an honorable gentleman [Mr. Jenkinson] oppo- 
site to me, the moment the grounds of objection 
to the East India Bill were stated. The same 
illiberal and plodding cabal which then invested 
the throne, and darkened the royal mind with ig- 
norance and misconception, has once more been 
employed to act the same part. But how will 
the genius of Englishmen brook the insult? Is 
this enlightened and free countr}', which has so 
often and successfully struggled against every 
species of undue influence, to revert to those 
Gothic ages when princes were tyrants, ministers 
minions, and governments intriguing? Much 
and gloriously did this House fight and overcome 
the influence of the Crown by purging itself of 
ministerial dependents ; but what was the con- 
tractors' bill, the Board of Trade, or a vote of 
the revenue officers, compared to a power equal 
to one third of the Legislature, unanswerable 
for and unlimited in its acting?^ Against those 
we had always to contend; but we knew their 
strength, we saw their disposition ; they fought 
under no covert, they were a powerful, not a 
sudden enemy. To compromise ^he matter 
therefore, sir, it would become this House to say, 

^ Between the resignation of Lord Shelbunie and 
the appointment of his successors. 

■' This refers to a bill excluding certain placemen 
from Parliament, and others from voting at elections, 
on the ground of their holding offices or contracts un- 
der the government. 



480 



MR. FOX ON 



[1783. 



" Rather than yield to a stretch of prerogative 
thus unprecedented and alarming, withdraw your 
secret influence, and whatever intrenchments 
have been made on the Crown we are ready to 
repair : take back those numerous and tried de- 
pendents who so often secured you a majority in 
Parliament ; we submit to all the mischief which 
even this accession of strength is likely to pro- 
duce ; but, for God's sake, strangle us not in the 
very moment we look for success and triumph by 
an infamous string of Bed-chamber janizaries !" 
The right honorable gentleman has told us. 
Reply to Mr ^'^^^ ^^^ usual conscqucncc and tri- 
Pitt as to re- umph, that our dutv, circumstanced as 

Ei'gning. , ■'11 •! i.,Y^ 

we are, can be attended with no dim- 
culty whatever : the moment the Sovereign with- 
draws his confidence it becomes us to retire. I 
will answer him in my turn, that the whole sys- 
tem in this dishonorable business may easily be 
traced. Aware of that glorious and independent 
majority which added so much dignity and sup- 
port to the measure which appears thus formida- 
ble to secret influence, they find all their eflbrts 
to oppose it here abortive ; the private cabal is 
consequently convened, and an invasion of the 
throne, as most susceptible of their operations, 
proposed. It was natural to expect that I, for 
one, would not be backward to spurn at such an 
interference. This circumstance affords all the 
advantage they wished. I could not be easy in 
my situation under the discovery of such an in- 
sult j and this critical moment is eagerly em- 
braced to goad me from office, to upbraid me 
with the meanness of not taking the hint, to re- 
mind me in public of the fate which I owe to se- 
cret advice. When that hour comes — and it 
may not be very distant — that shall dismiss me 
from the service of the public, the right honora- 
ble gentleman's example of lingering in office 
after the voice of the nation was that he should 
quit it, shall not be mine.^ I did not come in by 
the fiat of Majesty, though by this fiat I am not 
unwilling to go out. I ever stood, and wish now 
and always to stand on public ground alone. I 
have too much pride ever to owe any thing to 
secret influence. I trust in God this country has 
too much spirit not to spurn and punish the min- 
ister that does ! 

It is impossible to overlook or not to be sur- 
Mr. Pitt's ea- V^^^^*^ ^^ ^hc cxtremc eagerness of the 
gerness on tiie right honorable gentleman about our 

Bubject. ° in, 

places, when twenty-lour hours, at 
most, would give him full satisfaction. Is it that 
some new information may be requisite to finish 
a system thus honorably begun ? Or is the right 
honorable gentleman's youth the only account 
which can be given of that strange precipitancy 
and anxiety which he betrays on this occasion ? 
It is, in my q^jiinion, the best apology which can 
be urged in his behalf. Generosity and unsus- 
pecting confidence are the usual disposition of 
this tender period. The friends of the right hon- 



8 This refers to Mr. Pitt's continuing for a time 
in office the year before, when Lord Shelburne, to 
whose ministry he belonged, was defeated. 



orable gentleman, I doubt not, will soon teach 
him experience and caution ; and when once he 
has known them as long, received as many of 
their promises, and seen their principles as much 
tried as I have done, he may not, perhaps, be 
quite so prodigal of his credulity as he now is. 
Is he apprised of the lengths these men would 
go to serve their own selfish and private views ? 
that their public spirit is all profession and hypoc- 
risy ? and that the only tie which unites and keeps 
them together is that they are known only to each 
other, and that the moment of their discord puts 
a period to their strength and consequence ? 

If, however, a change must take place, and a 
new ministry is to be formed and sup- consequences 
ported, not by the confidence of this "„'".'isJ'rvTn°'" 
House, or of the public, but by the such grounds. 
sole authority of the Crown, I, for one, shall not 
envy that right honorable gentleman his situation. 
From that moment I put in my claim for a mo- 
nopoly of Whig principles. The glorious cause 
of freedom, of independence, and of the Constitu- 
tion, is no longer his, but mine. In this I have 
lived ; in this I will die. It has borne me up un- 
der every aspersion to which my character has 
been subjected. The resentments of the mean 
and the aversions of the great, the rancor of the 
vindictive and the subtlety of the base, the dere- 
liction of friends and the efforts of enemies, 
have not all diverted me from that line of con- 
duct w4iich has always struck me as the best. 
In the ardor of debate, I may have been, like all 
other men, betrayed into expressions capable of 
misrepresentation ; but the open and broad path 
of the Constitution has uniformly been mine. I 
never was the tool of any junto. I accepted of 
office at the obvious inclination of this House ; I 
shall not hold it a moment after the least hint 
from them to resume a private station. 

The right honorable gentleman is, however, 
grasping at place on very different Mr. Pitt's situ- 
grounds. He is not called to it by t^:^^^:^^ 
a majority of this House ; but, in de- such grounds, 
fiance of that majority, stands forth the advocate 
and candidate for secret influence. How will he 
reconcile a conduct thus preposterous to the Con- 
stitution with those principles for which he has 
pledged himself to the people of England? By 
what motives can he be thus blind to a system 
which so flatly and explicitly gives the lie to all 
his former professions? Will secret influence 
conciliate that confidence to which his talents, 
connections, and principles entitle him, but which 
the aspect under which he must now appear 
to an indignant and insulted public effectually 
bars his claim ? Will seci-et inffuencc unite this 
House in the adoption of measures which are not 
his own, and to which he only gives the sanc- 
tion of his name to save them from contempt ? 
Will secret influence draw along with it that af- 
fection and cordiality from all ranks without 
which the movements of government must be 
absolutely at a stand ? Or, is he weak and vio- 
lent enough to imagine that his Majesty's mere 
nomination will singly weigh against the consti- 
tutional influence of all these considerations? 



1784.] 



THE WESTMINSTER SCRUTINY. 



481 



For my own part, it has been always my opinion 
that this country can labor under no greater mis- 
fortune than a ministry without strength and sta- 
bility. The tone of government will never re- 
cover so as to establish either domestic harmony 
or foreign respect, without a permanent admin- 
istration ; and whoever knows any thing of the 
Constitution, and the present state of parties 
among us, must be sensible that this great bless- 
ing is only and substantially to be obtained and 
reahzed in connection with public confidence. It 
is undoubtedly the pi'erogative of the Sovereign 
to choose his own servants ; but the Constitution 
provides that these servants shall not be obnox- 
ious to his subjects by rendering all their exer- 
tions, thus circumstanced, abortive and imprac- 
ticable. The right honorable gentleman had, 
therefore, better consider how much he risks by 
joining an arrangement thus hostile to the inter- 
ests of the people ; that they will never consent 
to be governed by secret influence ; and that all 
the weight of his pi'ivate character, all his elo- 
quence and popularity, will never render the mid- 
night and despotic mandates of an interior cabi- 
net acceptable to Englishmen. 



When I say in what manner and to what ends 
the wisdom and experience of our an- Respect due 
cestors have thus directed the exercise '" ^''^ "^'"s- 
of all the royal prerogatives, let me not be un- 
derstood as meaning in any degi-ee to detract 
from those dutiful regards which all of us owe, 
as good citizens and loyal subjects, to the prince 
who at present fills the British throne. No man 
venerates him more than I do, for his personal 
and domestic virtues. I love him as I love the 
Constitution, for the glorious and successful ef- 
forts of his illustrious ancestors in giving it form 
and permanency. The patriotism of these great 
and good men must endear, to every lover of his 
country, their latest posterity. The King of En- 
gland can never lose the esteem of his people, 
while they remember with gratitude the many 
obligations which they owe to his illustrious fam- 
ily. Nor can I wish him a greater blessing than 
that he may reign in the hearts of his subjects, 
and that their confidence in his government may 
be as hearty and sincere as their affection for his 
person. 



The motion was carried by a majority of 73. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. FOX ON THE WESTMINSTER SCRUTINY, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 

JUNE 8, 1784. 



INTRODUCTION. 

The leading facts respecting the Middlesex election of 1784 have already been given in the sketch of 
Mr. Fox's life. His contest with Sir Cecil Wray lasted forty days, and when the polls were closed there 
was a majority for Mr. Fox of two hundred and thirty-five votes. 

Great care had been taken throughout the contest to prevent false voting. At the suggestion of Lord 
Mahon, acting for Sir Cecil Wray, it was agreed, before opening the polls, that eleven inspectors and five 
friends should be constantly present on each side; and that whenever a person was challenged, his case 
should be reserved, and no vote allowed him until his claims were thoroughly investigated. A large part 
of Mr. Fox's votes were subjected to this test, and toward the close of the polls hardly one was received 
" without an appeal to the presiding oiBcer, and a decision that such vote was good."^ Some of these de- 
cisions may have been hasty, but after such an arrangement Sir Cecil Wray ought to have acquiesced : 
to dispute the vote was unfair and uucandid in the extreme. But he did dispute it. Before the result was 
declared, he delivered to the presiding officer, Thomas Corbett, High Bailiff of Westminster, a list of bad 
votes which had been polled, as he affirmed, by Mr. Fox, and demanded a scrutiny, or re-examination of 
the entire poll. This was granted by Mr. Corbett on the 17th of May, 1784, when, by the writ under which 
he acted, he was bound to return two members for Westminster on the 18th, being the next day ! Two 
questions, therefore, arose ; first, whether a scrutiny into an election so conducted could be fairly and prop- 
erly demanded ; and, secondly, whether the presiding officer had a legal right to grant a sci-utiuy which ran 
beyond the time prescribed in his writ. 

Parliament met May 18th, 1784, and Mr. Fox, who had been returned by a friend as member for Kirk- 
wall, in the Orkneys, took his seat for that borough. Within a few days, the subject was brought before 
the House. Mr. Corbett appeared at the bar, and read a long paper in defense of his conduct. Witnesses 
were examined, counsel were heard on both sides, and the subject was discussed in the House, from time 
to time, under various aspects. 

On the 8th of June, Mr. Wellbore EUis offered the following resolution : " That it appearing to the House 
that Thomas Corbett, Esquire, baihfFof the Liberty of the City of Westminster, having received a precept 
from the Sheriff of Middlesex for electing two citizens to serve in Parliament for the said city; and hav- 
ing taken and finally closed the poll on the 17th day of May last, being the day next before the daj- for the 
return of the said writ, he be now directed forthwith to make return of his precept, and the names of mem- 
bers chosen in pursuance thereof" During the debate which followed Mr. Fox delivered the following 
speech, in which, 

^ Parliamentary Histoiy, xxiv., 844. 

H H 



482 



MR. FUX ON 



[1784. 



I. He examines the evidence by which Mr. Corbett had endeavored to justify his granting the scrutiny. 

II. He discusses the question of law in respect to such a measure. 

III. He enters into remarks of a more general nature respecting the authors of this scrutiny, the expense 
it involved, the alternative suggested of issuing a writ for a new election ; and repels the intimation of Mr. 
Pitt, that he " ought not again to disturb the peace of the city of Westminster !" 

A circumstance occurred at the commencement of the speech which turned greatly to the advantage of 
Mr. Fox. He began by complaining of a want of courtesy in the mode of carrying on the debate, and add- 
ed, " But I have no reason to expect indulgence, nor do I know that I shall meet with hdtxe justice in this 
House." Murmurs of disapprobation broke forth from a large part of the House, in which the minister had 
an overwhelming majority. Mr. Fox was at once roused to the utmost. His ordinary embarrassment and 
hesitation in commencing a speech instantly passed away. He repeated the words ; he challenged his 
opponents to make a motion for taking them down with a view to his being censured ; he referred to Mr. 
Grenville's bill in proof that the House was considered as peculiarly liable to act unjustly in such cases ; 
he turned upon Lord Mulgrave, Lord Mahon, and Lord Kenyon, who had just spoken, commenting in the 
severest terms on the treatment they had shown him, and affirming that he might reasonably object to them 
as judges to decide in his cause ; and repeated, for the fourth time, " I have no reason to expect indulgence, 
nor do I know that I shall meet with bare justice in this House.'" Never was a great assembly more com- 
pletely subdued. From that moment, he was heard with the utmost respect and attention. He had re- 
marked, in going to the House, that this would be one of the best speeches he ever made. It proved so ; 
and if the subject had been equal to his manner of treating it, embracing great national interests, instead 
of the details of a contested election, roused to the utmost as he was, he would probably have made it the 
greatest speech he ever delivered. 



SPEECH, & c. 



Mr. Speaker. — Before I enter upon the con- 
sideration of this question, I can not help express- 
ing my surprise, that those who sit over against 
me [the ministry] should have been hitherto si- 
lent in this debate. Common candor might have 
taught them to urge whatever objections they 
have to urge against the motion of my honora- 
ble friend [Mr. Ellis] before this time ; because, 
in that case, I should have had an opportunity of 
replying to their arguments ; and sure it would 
have been fair to allow me the slight favor of 
being the last speaker upon such a subject. But, 
sir, I have no reason to expect indulgence, nor 
do I know that I shall meet with bare justice in 
this House.^ Sir, I say that I have no reason to 
expect indulgence., nor do I know that I shall 
meet with bare justice in this House.^ 

Mr. Speaker, there is a regular mode of check- 
ing any member of this House for using improp- 
er words in a debate ; and that is, to move to 
have the improper words taken down by the 
Clerk, for the purpose of censuring the person 
who has spoke them. If I have said any thing 
unfit for this House to hear, or me to utter — if 
any gentleman is offended by any thing that fell 
from me, and has sense enough to point out and 
spirit to correct that offense, he will adopt that 
parliamentary and gentleman-like mode of con- 
duct ; and that he may have an opportunity of 
doing so, I again repeat, that I have no reason 
to expect INDULGENCE, nor do I Icnow that I shall 
meet with bare justice in this House. 

Sir, I am warranted in the use of these words, 
by events and authorities that leave little to be 
doubted and little to be questioned. The treat- 
ment this business has received within these 
walls, the extraordinary proceedings which have 

= Expressions of disapprobation from the ministe- 
rial side of the House. 
3 Expressions of disapprobation repeated. 



sprung from it, the dispositions which have been 
manifested in particular classes of men, all con- 
cur to justify the terms I have adopted, and to 
establish the truth of what I have asserted. 

If the declaration I have made had happened 
not to have been supported by the occurrences I 
allude to, the very consideration of Mr. Gren- 
ville's bill is of itself sufficient to vindicate what 
I have said. That bill, sir, originated in a be- 
lief that this House, in the aggregate, was an 
unfit tribunal to decide upon contested elections. 
It viewed this House, as every popular assem- 
bly should be viewed, as a mass of men capable 
of political dislike and personal aversion ; capa- 
ble of too much attachment and too much ani- 
mosity ; capable of being biased by weak and 
by wicked motives ; liable to be governed by 
ministerial influence, by caprice, and by corrup- 
tion. Mr. Grenville's bill view^ed this House as 
endued with these capacities ; and judging it 
therefore incapable of determining upon contro- 
verted elections with impartiality, with justice, 
and with equity, it deprived it of the means of 
mischief, and formed a judicatui'C as complete 
and ample perhaps as human skill can consti- 
tute."* That I am debarred the benefits of that 
celebrated bill is clear beyond all doubt, and 
thrown entirely upon the mercy, or, if you please, 
upon the wisdom of this House. Unless, then, 
we are to suppose that human nature is totally 
altered within a few months — unless we can be 
so grossly credulous as to imagine that the pres- 



* Mr, Grenville's bill enacted that the persons to 
try disputed elections shall be drawn out of a glass 
to the number of forty-nine ; that the parties in the 
dispute shall strike from these names alternately 
without assigning any reason until they reduce the 
number to thirteen ; that these thirteen shall be gov- 
erned by positive law, and sworn upon oath to ad- 
minister strict justice. 



1784] 



THE WESTMINSTER SCRUTINY. 



483 



ent is purged of all the frailties of former Parlia- 
ments — xinless I am to surrender my understand- 
ing, and blind myself to the extraordinary con- 
duct of this House, in this extraordinary business, 
for the last fortnight — I may say, and say with 
truth, " that I expect no indulgence, nor do I know 
that I shall meet with bare Justice in the House?' 

There are in this House, sir, many persons to 
whom I might, upon every principle of equity, 
fairness, and reason, object as judges to decide 
upon my cause, not merely from their acknowl- 
edged enmity to me, to my friends, and to my 
politics, but from their particular conduct upon 
this particular occasion. To a noble Lord [Lord 
Mulgrave] who spoke early in this debate, I 
might rightly object as a judge to try me, who, 
from the fullness of his prejudice to me and pred- 
ilection for my opponents, asserts things in di- 
rect defiance of the evidence which has been 
given at your bar. The noble Lord repeats 
again that "tricks" were used at my side in the 
election, although he very properly omits the 
epithet which preceded that term when he used 
it in a former debate. But does it appear in 
evidence that any tricks were practiced on my 
part ? Not a word. Against him, therefore, 
who, in the teeth of the depositions on your ta- 
ble, is prompted by his enmity toward me to 
maintain what the evidence (the ground this 
House is supposed to go upon) absolutely de- 
nies, I might object with infinite propriety as a 
judge in this cause. 

There is another judge, sir, to whom I might 
object with greater reason if possible than to 
the last. A person evidently interested in in- 
creasing the numbers of my adversaries upon 
the poll, but who has relinquished his right as 
an elector of Westminster, that his voting may 
not disqualify him from being a judge upon the 
committee to decide this contest. A person too, 
sir, who in the late election scrupled not to act 
as an agent, an avowed, and indeed an active 
agent, to my opponents.^ Is there an}' interrup- 
tion, sir? I hope not. I am but stating a known 
fact, that a person who is to pronounce a judg- 
ment this night in this cause, avoided to exercise 
one of the most valuable franchises of a British 
citizen, only that he might be a nominee for my 
adversaries ; concluding that his industry upon 
the committee would be of more advantage to 
their cause than a solitary vote at the election. 
This, sir, I conceive would be a sufficient objec- 
tion to him as a judge to try me. 

A third person there is [Mr., afterward Lord 
Kenyon] whom I might in reason challenge up- 
on this occasion. A person of a sober demean- 
or, who, with great diligence and exertion in a 

^ Here Lord Mahon started up in much agitation, 
and exposed himself to the House as the person 
alluded to. He appeared inclined to call Mr. Fox 
to order, but bis friends prevented him. His Lord- 
ship, as alread}' stated, was an avowed and active 
agent of Sir Cecil Wray during the election, and 
had been placed by his nomination on the joint com- 
mittee selected by the two parties to conduct the 
scratiny. 



very respectable and learned profession, has 
raised himself to considerable eminence ; a per- 
son who fills one of the first seats of justice in 
this kingdom, and who has long discharged the 
functions of a judge in an inferior but very hon- 
orable situation. This person, sir, has upon this 
day professed and paraded much upon the im- 
partiality with which he should discharge his 
conscience in his judicial capacity as a member 
of Parliament in my cause. Yet this very per- 
son, insensible to the rank he maintains, or should 
maintain in this country, abandoning the gravity 
of his character as a member of the Senate, and 
losing sight of the sai)ieftity of his station, both in 
this House and out of it,*^ even in the very act of 
delivering a judicial sentence, descends to minute 
and mean allusions to former politics — comes 
here stored with the intrigues of past times, and 
instead of the venerable lanjjuafjc of a sood iudo"e 
and a great lawyer, attempts to entertain the 
House by quoting, or by ?nisquoting, words sup- 
posed to have been spoken by me in the heat of 
former debates, and in the violence of contending 
parties, when my noble friend [Lord North] and 
I opposed each other. This demure gentieman, 
sir, this great lawyer, this judge of law, and equi- 
ty, and constitution, also enlightens this subject, 
instructs and delights his hearers, by reviving 
this necessary intelligence, that when I had the 
honor of first sitting in this House for Midhurst, I 
was not full twenty-one years of age ! And all 
this he does for the honorable purpose of sancti- 
fying the Pligh BailifT of Westminster in defraud- 
ing the electoi-s of their representation in this 
House, and robbing me of the honor of assertino- 
and confirming their right by sitting as their 
representative ! Against him, therefore, sir, and 
against men like him, I might justly object as a 
judge or as judges to try my cause ; and it is 
with perfect truth I once more repeat, " that I 
have no reason to expect indulgence, nor do I knoto 
that I shall meet ivilh bare justice in this Housed 
Sir, I understand that the learned gentleman 
I have just alluded to (I was not in the House 
during the first part of his speech) has insinua- 
ted that I have no right to be present during this 
discussion, and that hearing me is an indulgence. 
Against the principle of that assertion, sir, and 
against every syllable of it, I beg leave, in the 
most express terms, directly to protest.* I main- 
tain, that I not only have a right to speak, but 
a positive and clear right to vote upon this oc- 
casion ; and I assure the House that nothing but 
the declaration I have made in the first stage of 
this business should prevent me from doing so. 
As to myself, if I were the only person to be 
aggrieved by this proceeding, if the mischief of 
it extended not beyond me, I should rest thor- 
oughly and completely satisfied with the great 
and brilliant display of knowledge and abilities 
which have been exhibited by the learned gen- 
tlemen [Mr. Erskine and others], who appeared 



^ We have, in this enumeration of qualities, one 
of those side-blows so common with Mr. Fox, as he 
is pressing forward to his main point. 



484 



MR. FOX ON 



[1784. 



for me and for my constituents at your bar. If 
I alone was interested in the decision of this mat- 
ter, their exertions, combined with the acute and 
ingenious treatment this question has received 
from many gentlemen on this side of the House, 
whose arguments are, as learned as they are, 
evidently unanswerable, would have contented 
me. But a sense of duty superior to all personal 
advantage calls on me to exert myself at this 
time. Whatever can best encourage and ani- 
mate to diligence and to energy ; whatever is 
most powerful and influencing upon a mind not 
callous to every sentiment of gratitude and hon- 
or, demand at this moment the exercise of ev- 
ery function and faculty that I am master of. 
This, sir, is not my cause alone ; it is the cause 
of the English Constitution ; the cause of the 
electors of this kingdom ; and it is in particular 
the especial cause of the most independent, the 
most spirited, the most kind, and generous body 
of men that ever concurred upon a subject of 
public polic}'. It is the cause of the Electors 
of Westminster ; the cause of those who, upon 
many trials, have supported me against hosts of 
enemies •, of those who upon a recent occasion, 
when every art of malice, of calumny, and cor- 
ruption ; every engine of an illiberal and shame- 
less system of government ; when the most gross 
and monstrous fallacy [as to the East India Bill] 
that ever duped and deceived a credulous coun- 
try have been propagated and worked with all 
imaginable subtlety and diligence, for the pur- 
pose of rendering me unpopular throughout the 
empire, have, with a steadiness, with a sagacity, 
with a judgment becoming men of sense and 
spii'it, defeated all the miserable malice of my 
enemies ; vindicated themselves from the charge 
of caprice, and changeableness, and fluctuation ; 
and, with a generosity that binds me to them by 
every tie of affection, supported me thx'ough the 
late contest, and accomplished a victory against 
all the arts and power of the basest system of 
oppression that ever destined the overthrow of 
any individual.''' 

If, by speaking in this House (where many 
perhaps may think I speak too much), I have ac- 
quired any reputation ; if I have any talents, and 
that attention to public business has matured or 
improved those talents into any capability of sol- 
id servife, the present subject and the present 
moment, beyond any other period of my life, 
challenge and call them into action.^ When 
added to the importance of this question upon 
the English Constitution, combined with the im- 
mediate interest I feel personally in the fate of 
it, I am impelled by the nobler and more forci- 
ble incitement of being engaged in the cause of 
those to whom the devotion of all I have of dili- 



■' This fine burst of eloquence is highly character- 
istic of the speaker; not lofty or imaginative, but 
simple, terse, bold, and springing from those gener- 
ous sentiments which were the master-spirit of Mr. 
Fox's oratory. 

** The reader of Cicero will at once trace the open- 
ing of this sentence to the exordium of the oration 
for the poet Archias. 



gence or ability would be but a slight recom- 
pense for their zeal, constancy, firm attachment, 
and unshaken friendship to me upon all occa- 
sions, and under all circumstances. 

There are two leading points of view in which 
this question should be considered. The first is, 
whether the High Bailifl' of Westminster has had 
sufficient evidence to warrant his grantino- a 
scrutiny, supposing that he possessed a legal dis- 
cretion to grant it. The second, whether any 
returning officer can by law grant a scrutiny, 
even upon the completest evidence of its neces- 
sity, which scrutiny can not commence till after 
the day on which the writ is returnable. 

It is of little consequence in which order the 

question is taken up. I shall Examination of 

I. First proceed upon the evidence, the evidence. 

(1.) The great defense of the High Bailiff" is 
built upon the circumstance of Sir Cecil Wray 
and his agents having furnished him with regu- 
lar lists of bad votes on my part ; and to prove 
that these lists were delivered they have brought 
a witness who knows not a syllable of the truth 
of the contents of the list ! The witness who 
drew the affidavit which affirms those bad votes 
to have polled for me, upon cross-examination 
appears equally ignorant of the truth of the affi- 
davits; and therefore the burden of the proof 
rested upon the evidence of Affleck, whose test- 
imony, nevertheless, after four hours examina- 
tion, is expunged from your books as inadmissi- 
ble. Expunged, however, though it is, I wish 
the House to recollect the answers he gave con- 
cerning the descriptions of the bad voters which 
are imputed to me, and to the stated number of 
them. The number is said to be one hundred 
and forty-three ; and the House will recollect 
that, although I repeatedly pressed the witness 
to name some of them, he could not even name 
one. I questioned Affleck particularly whether 
the one hundred and forty-three were persons 
who did not exist where they pretended to re- 
side ; his answer was that some did reside in the 
streets as mentioned in the poll-books, and that 
others could not be found at all. Those who 
could not be found at all (if any such there were) 
might fairly be deemed bad votes, but the other 
class of voters involved a question of law ; and 
I submit to the House whether, if the evidence 
of this man, instead of being rejected as incom- 
petent, had actually been admitted, the whole 
tenor of it, instead of exculpating, would not in 
the strongest sense tend to criminate the High 
Bailiff". Had he known his duty, or been disposed 
to discharge it, this he would have said to such 
a reporter. " You may be, and most likely are, 
interested in deceiving me. After much argu- 
ment and discussion I, as the sole judge in this 
court, have admitted these to be legal votes, 
which you (of whom I know nothing) affirm to 
be only lodgers or non-residents. My situation 
is too solemn to be affected by such information, 
and therefore I dismiss it as unfit for me to pro- 
ceed upon." 

This should have been the High Bailiff"'s con- 
duct, but his conduct is the exact reverse of it. 



1784.] 



THE WESTMINSTER SCRUTINY. 



485 



He receives this species of information, and from 
this sort of men ; and not only so, but accepts 
affidavits imputing bribery to some persons who 
canvassed for me, acknowledging at the same 
moment that he had no cognizance of bribery ; 
and never once inquires into the truth of the 
charge, nor whether any credit is due to the de- 
poser, nor even who the deposcr is. All this the 
High Bailitr does in concert with my adversaries, 
secretly, collusively, without even once giving 
me or any one of my agents the very slightest 
idea that any such intercourse had subsisted be- 
tween him [the judge of the court] and one of 
the parties litigating that upon which he was to 
exercise his judicial function. 

To have received such information with the 
least attention was in itself criminal enough ; but 
studiously, cautiously, and deliberately to have 
concealed it from me was base and wncked in the 
extreme. Had I been apprised of these mach- 
inations, I might have established the falsehood 
of every accusation ; and surely, if justice had 
been the object of the High Bailiff, he w^ould not 
rest one moment until he communicated to me 
the burden of these informations and affidavits, 
especially if he meant to overturn the whole tide 
of precedents, and to innovate upon the practice 
of all the returning officers that ever lived in this 
kingdom, in granting a scrutiny to commence 
after the return of the WTit. If truth was his 
aim, the obvious mode of ascertaining it was to 
have given the other party an opportunity of 
knowing the charges brought against them ; to 
let them have the chance of contradicting their 
accusers ; and if w^e failed in falsifying these in- 
formations, the High Bailiff would have had this 
presumption in his favor, that it was only be- 
cause we could not. But, sir, not this nor any 
thing like it did the High Bailiff of Westminster. 
So far from acting like an impartial judge, he 
appears to have been the agent, or rather the 
mere tool of my opponents ; and every syllable^ 
of these informations upon which he acted might 
have been, for aught he knev/, the vilest mass 
of falsehood and perjury that ever thwarted the 
course of justice. I say then, sir, if the High 
Bailiff absolutely possessed a legal discretion in 
granting a scrutiny, to have granted it upon this 
sort of evidence, and under these circumstances, 
was, to say no worse of it, an act that can not 
be justified upon any obvious principle of law, 
reason, common sense, or common equity. 

(2.) But what will the candid part of the House 
think of this High Bailiff when they consider that 
the grounds of his vindication at your bar differ 
as much as light and darkness, from his vindica- 
tion in the vestry of Covent Garden, upon grant- 
ing the scrutiny? And here, sir, I have to la- 
ment that the paper which he i-ead to this House 
as his defense, which the gentlemen opposite to 
me [the ministry], for reasons as honorable, per- 
haps, to themselves as to the High Bailiff, so 
strenuously opposed being laid on the table, is 
now impossible to be produced. That paper, sir, 
would have enabled me, from his own words, to 
have proved to you that the principle he avowed 



at your bar, as the rule that governed him in this 
business, is exactly and directly the very reverse 
of the principle he pretended to act upon at the 
time of granting the scrutiny. Fortunately, how- 
ever, this fact is established in clear and unques- 
tioned evidence before you. Mr. O'Bryen's test- 
imony is complete and decisive to that point. His 
words wxre, " that the High Bailiff in the vestry, 
upon granting the scrutin}', disclaimed the inform- 
ations delivered to him by Sir Cecil Wray and 
his agents — that he replied with peevishness and 
some displeasure to Sir Cecil for having men- 
tioned them — that he declared he believed he had 
never read them ; certainly never with any at- 
tention — that he threw them aside unnoticed — 
that they had not the least operation upon his 
judgment; and that they did not, in the very 
slightest sense, influence his determination in 
granting the scrutiny." These were his words. 
Atkinson, upon cross-examination, was obliged 
to acknowledge this ; and Grojan's want of mem- 
ory upon it goes of itself a great way to establish 
the truth, if it required farther corroboi-ation. 

Now, let the House and the w^orld judge of this 
High Bailiff, who, upon granting the scrutiny, af- 
fects to be insulted at the supposition of his act- 
ing upon this ex parte information, and yet rests 
all his defense at the bar of this House upon that 
very ex parte information which, but a fortnight 
before, he disclaimed and despised ! !• 

Without adverting to his shameful and scan- 
dalous conduct (which, if he had one spark of 
feeling, would make him blush to show his face, 
much less to avow the act) in holding this fraud- 
ulent intercourse with my enemies, cautiously 
concealing that any such intercourse subsisted 
between them, treacherously betraying the cause 
of justice, which his situation bound him to sup- 
port inviolate, and basely lending himself to one 
party for the ruin of the other ; can any thing 
better show his iniquity than varying the grounds 
•of his defense according to the variation of scene, 
and 'the pressure of exigency. This continual 
shifting demonstrates that he has no honest de- 
fense to make ; put the most favorable construc- 
tion possible upon his conduct, and the best of 
the alternatives marks him a hypocrite, at the 
least. If he has spoken truth in the vestry, he 
is an arrant liar before this House ; or if he vin- 
dicates himself before you upon pure principles, 
he has grossly and wickedly deceived'me and all 
who heard the contempt he expressed in the vest- 
ry for that information upon which he has expa- 
tiated at the bar of this House with such extra- 
ordinary reverence.^ 

So much for the consistency of the High Bailiff, 
respecting his alleged motives in granting a scru- 
tiny. 

(3.) It is said upon the other side of the House 
that the poll was not a scrutiny, and said, in ex- 

^ This is one of those repetitions, so often spoken 
of as a peculiarity of Mr. Fox. He manages it ad- 
mirably in this case ; varying the mode of statement, 
and crushing into one mass the preceding charges of 
fraudulent collusion and gross inconsistency on the 
part of Mr. Corbett. 



486 



MR. FOX ON 



[1784. 



press contradiction to the evidence produced at 
your bar. Never was a poll a scrutiny, unless 
the poll in question was such. It is established 
by respectable testimony at your bar that the 
poll was an absolute scrutiny.'*^ It is proved that 
the parish books were constantly at the hust- 
ings, and each voter's name, profession, and de- 
scription collated with the books. It is proved 
that when the names of voters could not be 
found in the parish books (which was often the 
case, and yet the votes perfectly legal) a gentle- 
man in the interest of each side frequently went 
to the very street in which the voter said he 
lived ; that the vote was suspended until that in- 
quiry was made ; and that the decision was al- 
ways governed by the report of the inquirers i-n 
such case. Was this or was it not a scrutiny? 
But it is said that the poll was "crammed" at 
one time, and hence an inference is drawn that 
the poll was not a scrutiny. This is strange 
reasoning, surely. To support this inference, it 
should be proved that votes were excepted to, 
and yet admitted in the hurry without examina- 
tion or inquiry. Does this ajipear to be the case '? 
Nothing like it. With all Mr. Grojan's disposi- 
tion to shelter the High Bailifl', with all his power 
of memory at one time, and his want of it at an- 
other, does he assert any such thing? No, sir; 
he could not with truth, and even he could not 
venture up^n this without truth. Did you ever 
hear, or did such a thing ever happen, as that a 
returning officer of his oicn accord should reject 
any votes not excepted to by the contending par- 
ties? Certainly not. These votes, therefore, 
in whose legality the candidates themselves 
agreed, must be justly presumed by the High 
Bailiff to be unexceptionable ; and from hence to 
suppose that the poll was no scrutiny, is weak in 
the extreme. In the early part of the election, 
it was the natural w^ish of each candidate to get 
upon the head of the poll. Each brought up as. 
many friends as possible, and this accounts for 
what they call cramming the poll. Respecting 
the High Bailiff's ditHculty in forming an opinion 
as to which of the two had the greater number 
of legal votes, had / been the lowest upon the 
poll at the close of the election, there might have 
been some little color for his affectation of scru- 
ples. Why ? because upon the days when the 
poll was most crammed, when the greatest num- 
bers polled, and when there was least inquiry and 
least examination into their legality. Sir Cecil 
Wray had a very great majority over me. I be- 
gan to gain upon my adversary, not when thou- 
sands polled of a day, but when only few hund- 
reds and less than a hundred polled each day — 
at a time when there was sulHcient leisure to 
scrutinize the votes, and when the most acute, 
the most jealous and sharp inquiry look place as 
to the qualiftcation of each voter that was per- 
haps ever practiced in any court of hustings. 

^^ Mr. Fox does not mean that there was a scru- 
tiny, in the technical sense of the term ; but that the 
election was so conducted, under the arrangement 
mentioned above, as to give it all the substantial at- 
tributes of a scrutinj'. 



(4.) With a view^ to exculpate this High Bailiff, 
his deputy, Mr. Grojan, related an incident which 
I shall notice ; and the exultation of the opposite 
side of the House, at the time of that relation, ren- 
ders that notice the mox-e necessary. It was this : 
He asked a man which way the street lay in 
which he lived, and the man said it was that way^ 
pointing his hand toward Drury Lane. '"I im- 
mediately suspected him, and afterward rejected 
him," says Mr. Grojan. Now, sir, this story hap- 
pens to be strictly true : and true to the confusion 
of those who relate it for the vindication of the 
High Bailiff. Were my election to depend upon 
the merits of a single vote, I do not know that I 
should prefer any other inhabitant of this great 
city before that very man then rejected by Mr. 
Grojan ; for in all Westminster there is not a 
better qualified, a more undoubted legal voter 
than that identical person. And what is the fact, 
sir ? That this honest, ignorant man came to poll 
with liquor in his head ; and embarrassed by the 
scene, by the shouting, and by the manner, per- 
haps, of the question, made that absurd reply. 
These events, sir, were not unfrequent at that 
hustings ; and when one considers the facility of 
puzzling such men in all places, when one con- 
siders that Mr. Grojan is not of all men living 
the most embarrassed in the exercise of his duty, 
nor exactly the most anxious for the comments of 
by-standers upon his conduct, there is little won- 
der that honest, uninformed men. surrounded by 
thousands, with half a dozen inspectors plaguing 
them with different questions at the same mo- 
ment, in the midst of noise and huzzaing, in that 
state of hilarity, perhaps, which is too frequent 
at general elections, should sometimes give a 
foolish, unconnected answer to such interrogato- 
ries as generally come from Mr. Grojan. 

(5.) I understand that a learned gentleman has 
said that he would have closed the poll long be- 
fore the High Bailiff proclaimed his intention of 
doing so. I do not mean to argue the legality 
of that position with the learned gentleman. 
That the fact was exactly otherwise is all that 
is necessary for me to maintain. It is in evi- 
dence before you that he did not close it until 
the 17th of May; and that he then closed it not 
from deficiency of voters, but for the express 
purpose of enabling himself to make his return 
by the 18th, the day on which the writ was re- 
turnable. The first and the only notice I had of 
his intention to close the poll was on the Thurs- 
day preceding (May 13th) ; and I do confess, and 
have always declared, that my object was to con- 
tinue the poll during the three intermediate days, 
that the High Bailiff may be obliged to assign 
this as his reason, since the act of closing the 
poll was his owm act. In this I hold myself per- 
fectly justifiable. During these three days I con- 
fess it was my wish to protract the poll, but I 
solemnly deny that it was ever prolonged by me 
a single hour more ; and also deny that up to 
the 13th of May, I had any proposal or any offer 
that I could notice for closing it. 

(6.) Attempts have been made to prove, and 
that is the last head of evidence I shall touch 



1784.] 



THE WESTMINSTER SCRUTINY. 



487 



upon, that insinuations came from us at a cer- 
tain period of the poll of demanding a scrutiny. 
That some of my friends might have expressed 
that intention is veiy probable ; but give me 
leave to say, sir, that if I had myself formally 
demanded it there is no rule of law that war- 
rants a conclusion against me on account of my 
own conduct as a party. A thousand motives 
there may be to justify me in demanding of the 
High Bailiff that which it would be perfectly 
right in him to refuse. If, in any case of litiga- 
tion, a judge should grant to one of the parties 
whatever he wished, how could he ever come to 
a just decision ? Or who would ever be defeat- 
ed, whatever may be the badness of his cause ? 

But, sir, has it been offered to you in proof, or 
is there a man that can say I ever did for one 
moment entertain the idea, much less ex^txess it, 
that a scrutiny could go on after the day on 
which the writ was returnable? Sir, I do as- 
sure you, so absurd, so preposterous, so perni- 
cious a thought never once possessed me. I had 
occasion very maturely to consider this subject 
at the first Westminster election. Lord Lincoln 
then demanded a scrutiny, which the High Bail- 
iff granted, and which the noble Lord aftei'ward 
relinquished. I remember to have investigated 
the matter then. I consulted the greatest dead 
and living authorities, the best books, and the 
most learned men in my circle ; and the result 
was that the granting a scrutiny before the re- 
turn of the writ was legal ; but no book, no 
lawyer, no man before this time ever to my 
knowledge maintained that a scrutiny could be 
continued, much less begun, after the day on 
which the writ was returnable. 

Then say my enemies, why did you expect 
the High Bailiff to grant you a scrutiny, which 
you must know could not be finished before the 
18th of May ? — and at that I see the gentlemen 
on the opposite benches [the ministry] exult a 
little. But, sir, it is a weak and childish exult- 
ation. Do they think, or if they deceive them- 
selves, can they believe the public will think 
that I could have been so gross an idiot as to 
suppose a scrutiny of this election could be over 
before the 18th, with the instance of Vandeput 
and Trentham staring me in the face ; where 
an unfinished scrutiny lasted above five months ? 
Can they imagine I could hope a scrutiny in this 
case, where upward of three thousand voters 
polled more than at the contested election of 
Vandeput and Trentham, could by any possible 
means be over before the 18th ? Surely not. A 
tolerable knowledge of Mr. Thomas Corbett, the 
High Bailiff of Westminster, gave me no extrav- 
agant hopes of success in any scrutiny where he 
was to be the sole judge. All, therefore, I ever 
meant was, that an inquiry might take place 
^ previous to the 18th ; which inquiry might ena- 
ble us to form the train and order of the neces- 
sary evidence, that we might the better know 
how to discover the different species of bad votes, 
and class under their various heads those which 
were doubtful, those which were suspected, and 
those which were positively illegal ; and so far 



to methodize, arrange, and simplify the business 
before the return, that we might go on in the 
committee under Granville's bill with the great- 
er facility and expedition, and with less expense ; 
and this would have been a material point of 
preparation for us. This, sir, was all I ever 
meant by a scrutiny before Mr. Corbett, and all 
that any man of common fairness and liberality 
can suppose I meant. 

(7.) A noble Lord over against me [Lord 
Mulgrave], in his zeal to exculpate the High 
Bailiff, charges me with having intimidated him, 
and charges it upon the evidence of Mr. Gro- 
jan. That noble Lord, disdaining all regard to 
consistency whenever he thinks he can impute 
a fault to us, at the same moment that he as- 
serts the High Bailiff was intimidated, pronoun- 
ces a flashy panegyric upon the firmness and in- 
trepidity of the very man he affirms to have been 
thus terrified. But, sir, the High Bailiff ivas 
threatened — and how ? Was it by threats of as- 
saulting him ? No. Was it by holding up the 
fear of danger to him by mobs or riots ? No. 
Was it by a menace of taking away his books, 
breaking the peace of the hustings, and inter- 
rupting him in the discharge of his duty ? No, 
no ; but it was by warning him of the conse- 
quences of unjust partialities, false or corrupt 
decisions ; it was by threatening him with legal 
punishment if he did not make the law of the 
land the rule of his conduct. Grojan tells you 
that he believes these threats sometimes induced 
the High Bailiff to make decisions in my favor, 
contrary to his judgment. Yet this is the man 
whose firmness and intrepidity the noble Lord 
commends so much, and whom the government 
of this country is straining every nerve to bear 
harmless through this unprecedented business. 
An oflicer whose deputy, as a palliation of great- 
er guilt, defends by saying that he coriimitted a 
palpable breach of his duty, and only because he 
is threatened with legal punishment if he acts 
against law ! Sir, for my own part I believe 
there is as much sincerity in the noble Lord's 
panegyric as there is veracity in the deputy 
Bailiff's inference from these threats. All I. wish 
however, is, that you would properly notice this 
species of intimidation. It is an intimidation, sir, 
the influence of which I hope will reach every 
man, every magistrate in this country, however 
splendid his station, however lifted up above his 
fellow-creatures in office or dignity. To keep 
before his eyes the danger of a vicious or a wan- 
ton breach of the law of the land. Would to 
God this House were in a capacity to become 
an object of those consequences, which the ver- 
dict of a jury would determine to follow the vio- 
lation of the laws ! With what content, with 
what confidence should I submit my cause to 
such a tribunal !^^ 



^1 This paragraph is worthy of being dwelt upon, 
as showing some of Mr. Fox's most striking peculi- 
arities. (1.) He instantly turns his defense into an 
attack, by exposing the "inconsistency" of Lord 
Mulgrave. (2.) He adopts bis favorite mode of 
question and answer, by which he so often gives 



488 



MR. FOX ON 



[1784. 



Having now, Mr. Speaker, gone through the 
Recapitu- various depositions that have been made 
lation. before 3-ou — having, from the evidence, 
shown that the alleged grounds of the High 
Bailiff's first granting this scrutiny were the di- 
rect reverse of those he declares to this House 
to have been his motives — having shown that he 
was in habits of clandestine intercourse with my 
opponents — having shown that he was in the 
constant course of receiving ex parte information 
in an illicit and shameful secrecy — having shown 
that he positively and solemnly denied this se- 
ries of iniquitous proceeding in the vestry, which 
he boldly avows at your bar — having shown that 
the poll was as much a scrutiny as any poll can 
possibly be — having explained my views in the 
event of my demanding a scrutiny — having de- 
scribed the species of intimidation used to this 
man, and confirmed that, so far from exculpating, 
it tends deeply to criminate him — having shown 
this, sir, and shown it by the evidence which you 
have heard at your bar, I shall conclude this 
part of my subject with submitting to every man 
of honor and candor who hears me. whether he 
really thinks that the High Bailiff of Westmin- 
ster exercised a sound and honest discretion in 
granting a scrutiny, supposing for argument sake 
that he aetually possessed a legal power to 
grant it. 

H. The remainder of what I have to say shall 
Question bc directed to prove that he had no such 
of law. power, and to lay before you the fatal ef- 
fects of such a precedent as the loss of this ques- 
tion will afford. 

I am not a professional man, and can not be 
supposed to speak with the information of pro- 
fessional gentlemen upon a legal subject. There 
are, however, general and fixed principles of com- 
mon sense which serve to guide an unlearned man 
upon a subject of this kind.^'^ Four different ways 
occur to me by which in a case of doubt the law 
may be discovered and ascertained. First of all, 
I should look into the statute-book upon the table ; 
if, upon searching there, I find an act of Parlia- 
ment upon the point in dispute, doubt and conject- 
ure cease at once, and all is clear and certain. 
But if there should be found no act to regulate 
the case in question, I should then, in the second 
place, have recourse to practice and precedent, 



liveliness and force to a statement. (3.) He shows 
what the intimidation consisted in, viz., pointing out 
the consequences of a breach of law. Thus he flashes 
his defense upon the mind, in the very act of stating 
what be did. (4.) He adroitly rounds off" by apply- 
ing the whole to his present situation ; exjjressing 
his fervent wish that every member of that House 
could feel himself liable to the punishment of the 
laws, if through party prejudice, or any other cause, 
he gave his vote unjustly. The manner in which 
all this is wrought into a single paragraph, and 
poured at once upon the mind, is truly admirable. 

^2 The reader will be struck with the beauty of 
this preparation for the legal argument by a brief 
view of the sources from which it was to be de- 
duced. The argument itself is one of the finest in 
our language for clearness, condensation, and bind- 
ing force. 



and inquire what has been done in similar cases 
on similar occasions. In other words, I should 
try what is the common law. If I find practice 
and precedent direct me, then every thing is 
plain and easy ; but if no statute and no prece- 
dent should be found by which I could steer in 
this ambiguit}--, my next obvious resort would be 
to legal analogies^ to cases which, though not pre- 
cisely the same in all points, are yet perfectly sim- 
ilar in principle. If in this department of research 
I find any thing to direct me, there too all will be 
smooth, intelligible, and certain ; but if I find no 
positive statute, nor precedent, nor practice at 
common lav^^, and no legal analogy, whereby I 
might discover the fact, there is then much diffi- 
culty, indeed, but not an insurmountable one. 
Still I should make an effort, and my last and 
fourth resort should be to the experience and un- 
derstanding of mankind — to those arguments 
which common sense suggests — to fair conclu- 
sions deducible from fair reasoning, founded upon 
the immutable principles of policy and expedi- 
ency. 

Now, sir, if some of these various modes of de- 
fining the law should happen to favor me upon 
the present subject, and that others should unfor- 
j tunately militate against me, still I may be right 
in my position : but not with that fullness of con- 
viction, that clearness of certainty which I might 
wish. The case, however, is so entirely other- 
wise, that I do venture to affirm, and engage to 
prove to the satisfaction of every man capable of 
being satisfied, that not only nothing in any of 
these different ways of attaining the fact does 
operate in the slightest degree against me, but 
that all and each concur in supporting me, and 
demonstrating the illegality and violence of my 
enemies in the present business. I do, therefore, 
assert, that the High Bailiff of Westminster, in 
granting this scrutiny, has violated the law of the 
land, by the combined force and testimony of these 
four tests : 

By the statutes. 
By the common law. 
By the analogies of law. 
By policy and expediency. 
(1.) First, as to the sto^Mics. The act of the 
tenth and eleventh of William III. was made for 
the avowed purpose of checking the bad conduct 
of returning officers. The preamble of the bill 
and every clause in it proves this to have been 
j the object of enacting it. As the part of it which 
relates to returns is merely directory, it is gross 
and absurd to construe it in any other manner 
than that which makes it answer the evident pur- 
j pose for which it is enacted. It requires that the 
; writs for any future Parliament shall be returned 
j on or before the day that Parliament is called to 
meet — that the return shall be made to the clerk 
of the crown, which clerk of the crown is author- 
ized to receive four shillings for every knight and 
two shillings for every burgess. It imposes a 
penalty upon the sheriff if he does not make his 
return on or before this day. 

Now observe the construction given by the op- 
I posite side of the House to this plain, intelligible 



1784.] 



THE WESTMINSTER SCRUTINY. 



489 



statute. It is true, say they, this act is binding 
upon a sheriff, but not at all upon a mayor or 
bailiff! Why ? Because a mayor or bailiff are 
not mentioned ! True, they are not mentioned ; 
and probably the action I spoke of some time ago 
might not lie against the High Bailiff, not that he 
has not openly transgressed the spirit of the law, 
but because the penal part of every statute is to 
be construed according to the strict letter of the 
act. But I submit to the House whether they 
ever heard so low, so vile, so dirty a quibble ; 
whether they ever heard so base a perversion of 
common sense, as to suppose the Legislature of 
this country to have been such a set of idiots, 
such a herd of miserable beings, as that in an act 
made for the avowed and declared purpose of 
correcting and punishing the misconduct of re- 
turning officers, they should have provided against 
the partialities, and corruption, and roguery of 
sheriffs, and have left the nation at the mere 
mercy of mayors and bailiffs, without restraint, 
redress, or punishment ? This is the construc- 
tion put upon this act by his Majesty's ministers, 
the patrons of this High Bailiff, although they 
see those express words in the body of the act — 
"that the clerk of the crown shall receive at the 
time of these returns (which returns must be 
made on or before the day of the meeting of such 
new Parliament) four shillings for every knight, 
and two shillings for every burgess." Why men- 
tion the burgess, if that act is not meant to com- 
pel the return of the writ under which he is cho- 
sen? Was there ever such an outrage upon 
common sense, as to maintain, although they see 
the fee stated for the burgess to pay, though they 
see the return required proceeding from the sher- 
iff's precept to the mayor or bailiff, that the mayor 
or bailiff is not obliged to make return within the 
time prescribed by the same act ; that is, on or 
before the day that the new Parliament shall be 
called to meet ? 

But there is another point which defines the 
meaning of the Legislature to a certainty, and 
that is the exception in favor of new writs upon 
vacancies. In that case, there is an obligation 
that the return be made within fourteen days aft- 
er the election upon that vacancy. Is it consist- 
ent with reason, or, rather, is it not making down- 
right nonsense of this act, to suppose that it should 
compel a return within a certain time in cases of 
vacancy.^ but that upon a general election all should 
lie at the mere will and pleasvire of the returning 
officer ? Will the gentlemen urge the same con- 
temptible reasoning here, and assert that the com- 
pulsion in this case only respects the returns of 
the knights of the shire? What? That an act 
should be made to prevent the collusion and knav- 
ery of returning officers, yet that it extends only 
to the preclusion of frauds in returning about one 
hundred because they are knights of the shire ! 
and leaves the remaining four hundred at the 
discretion of every mayor or bailiff it Sheriffs 
are, in general, of a much superior rank and char- 
acter to the other returning officers ; yet the wit- 
tol caution which the honorable interpreters of 
this act impute to the English Legislature is, that 



they guarded against abuses from that class of re- 
turning officers whose fortune and sphere of life 
presumed most for their integrity, and made no 
provision whatever for the possible misconduct 
of that very description of returning officers 
whose situation gave the least pledge or security 
for honest and uncorrupt conduct! If 1 am not 
mistaken, this species of reasoning carries with 
it its own refutation. 

A noble Lord over against me (Lord Mul- 
grave) has advanced a singular kind of argument, 
indeed, touching the intention of this act of King 
William. He has read to you from the journals 
an instruction to the committee appointed to bring 
it in, which instruction suggests to them the in- 
troduction of a clause to secui'e the returns for 
cities and boroughs within the specified time ; 
and, in a style of inference peculiar to himself, he 
concludes that as the express words [mayor and 
bailiff] do not appear in the statute, the Legisla- 
ture never meant to include the returning officers 
of cities and boroughs. 

Now I \\\\\ take upon me to say, that every 
other man in this country (that noble Lord and 
those who concur with him in opposition to my 
honorable friend's motion excepted), capable of 
understanding the sense of an act of Parliament, 
will draw the direct converse of his conclusion 
from the non-insertion of that clause. The sole 
view of this statute was to correct the abuses 
of returning officers. The instruction from the 
House to the Committee proves that the disease 
extended to mayors and bailiffs. The omission 
of that clause, therefore, clearly demonstrates 
that the framers of the act thought the sugges- 
tion fully comprehended in the act as it stands, 
and that it would be mere tautology and need- 
less repetition to be more explicit. What a mis- 
erable Legislature must that be which, in the 
act of applying a remedy to an acknowledged 
evil, creates ten times a greater than that which 
it endeavors to cure. Those who made this law 
were, in my opinion, good politicians ; but they 
were evidently not good prophets ; for they did 
not foresee that an hour would come when men 
should rise up, and put such a construction upon 
their labors as marked them for the most despi- 
cable set of drivelers that ever insulted society 
under the appellation of law-makers. In a word, 
sir, I contend that the statute of King William 
is decisively and completely with us. 

The 23d of Henry the Sixth is likewise with 
us, and does afford me a legal remedy against 
the High Bailiff, of which I shall most certainly 
avail myself. ^^ That act authorizes the sheriff to 
issue his precepts to the returning officers of cities 
and boroughs. It requires that they shall make 
a return to the sheriff, and gives the person cho- 
sen and not returned an action, which must be. 
brought within three months after the meeting of 
Parliavient. From this it is evident that the re- 
turn of ihe writ, and of the precept proceeding 
from the writ, must be at one and the same time. 



^3 He did so afterward, and obtained damages 
from Mr. Corbett to the amount of £2000. 



490 



MR. FOX ON 



[1784. 



viz., by the meeting of the Parliament; lor oth- 
erwise observe what rank nonsense this statute 
would be. The misconduct of returning officers 
made it necessary to give a power of legal pun- 
ishment to the party chosen and 7iot returned. 
That power is here given ; but if we can sup- 
pose that the act does not compel the return to 
be positively made by the meeting of Parliament, 
the penalty is all a farce ; for who will make a 
return that will subject him to a civil action, if 
it be in his power to avoid it. Whether the re- 
turn be true or false, therefore, it is as clear as 
daylight that some return must be made by the 
meeting of Parliament, for it is insulting com- 
mon sense to say that the man who incurs a le- 
gal penalty shall have a legal power of evading 
it. That is to say, that a returning officer may, 
o/" his cum authority^ prolong his return until the 
three months pass away, within which time alone 
the action can commence for the punishment of 
this gross abuse ! 

I have, therefore, sir, no difficulty in saying, 
and I am confident every fair man agrees in the 
truth of it, that these two acts, in their letter as 
well as their spirit, demonstrate that the High 
Bailiff of Westminster, in granting this scrutiny, 
has positively broken the statute law of the land. 

(2.) The second point to which I shall advert 
in the arrangement of this argument is the point 
of practice, or what the common Ictw is upon this 
occasion. And the best way to show that the 
High Bailiff of Westminster's return is against 
both the one and the other, is to observe this 
fact, that in all the records of Parliament, in all 
the annals of elections, and in the history of this 
country, not a single precedent can be found to 
justify this exti'aordinary return. The main and 
evident drift of it was to deprive me of the ben- 
efit of IMr. Grenville's bill ; and to accomplish 
this end, do but observe how many obvious modes 
of return he has passed by. Had the bailiff done 
his dut}'-, and returned Lord Hood and me, Sir 
Cecil Wray would not have been injured, for he 
w^ould instantly petition, and the merits of the 
election would be tried by a committee upon 
their oaths. Had the bailiff, doubting, as he 
pretends, the legality of my majority, returned, 
as he undoubtedly might have done. Lord Hood 
and Sir Cecil Wray, then I should have petition- 
ed, and one of Mr. Grenville's committees would 
have redressed me. Had he returned Lord Hood 
alone, still it was cognizable by Grenville's bill. 
A petition against an undue return would have 
been presented, and this House infallibly pre- 
vented all interference in the matter, except in 
appointing the committee. Or, if he had return- 
ed the three candidates, the double return would 
have entitled it to a priority of hearing (upon 
that great and fundamental maxim that the first 
object was to have the House complete), and a 
committee under Grenville's bill would instantly 
have tried the merits of the return, and rescued 
the case from the prejudices and party influence 
of the House of Commons. At all events, my 
sitting here for Kirkwall rendered an immediate 
discussion and decision upon the business indis- 



pensable, as petitions complaining of pluralities 
of election are always heard in order, next to 
double returns. Thus you see with what dex- 
terity this has been managed. 

This curious return had two views. First, to 
exclude me from sitting for Westminster. Sec- 
ondly, to deprive me of the advantage of Mr. 
Grenville's bill. And, sir, does any man think 
this return was the fabrication of Mr. Thomas 
Corbett ? The party spirit and personal rancor, 
so visible in his defense before this House, con- 
firm that he has all the disposition, if nut all the 
ability in the world, to do me every mischief. 
Yet I can not be persuaded, when I consider who 
they are that take the lead in his vindication be- 
fore this House, and when I observe how very 
familiar they appear to be with this historical 
return^* (as my noble friend has well called it), 
that so peculiar, so ingenious, and so original a 
fragment as this could ever have been his sole 
production. In a word, sir, this accursed histor- 
ical return, this return unmatched, and unprece- 
dented in the history of Parliament, is the only 
species of return that could have robbed me and 
the independent electors of Westminster of a fair 
hearing before that admirable judicature insti- 
tuted by Mr. Grenville's bill. 

A learned gentleman who appears at your bar 
for the High Bailiff, admits that no instance of 
this kind ever happened before ; and to induce 
the House to support his client, he says it will 
never happen again. How he comes to know 
that a line of conduct so convenient to a minis- 
ter, so w^ell suited to those who have the power 
to oppress, and a disposition to exert every pow- 
er against those they dislike [will not be repeat- 
ed], the learned gentleman himself best under- 
stands. But surely, after such an admission, to 
pray the sanction of this House for an act allow- 
edly unprecedented, is somewhat singular. The 
learned gentleman's prophecy is surprising, it is 
true ; but the argument drawn from that proph- 
ecy is still more surprising. Grant the .scrutiny, 
says he, in this case ; but you certainly never 
will do the like again. Perpetrate the most gross 
and glaring injustice deliberately, for you never 
will commit a similar outrage hereafter ! A 
good understanding, however, seems to prevail 
between those within and those outside of the 
bar. And the intimation of a learned gentleman 
over against me, of an intention to bring in a bill 
to regulate this matter in future, does in a great 
measure account for the prediction of the High 
Bailiff's counsel, that this iniquitous precedent 
will be no example for future imitation. Now, 
sir, I take the first oppoi-tunity of saying that a 
bill declaring the law, after a decision directly 
contrary to law, shall be opposed by me with all 
the faculties and force I am master of. This is 
no new principle with me. I have ever set my- 
self against the affectation of applying a remedy 
upon en-fneous decisions, subversive of law in 
supreme courts of judicature. In the case of 
the determination concerning general bonds of 



" So called from its detailing the facts of the case. 



1784.] 



THE WESTMINSTER SCRUTINY. 



491 



resignation of Church livings in the House of 
Lords last year, a bill passed there and was sent 
afterw^ard to this House, the purport of which 
was to declare the law in that case, after a de- 
termination w^iich reversed the uniform current 
of decisions in Westminster Hall for a series of 
ages.^'' Such a bill would have been most fatal 
in its example, because it would have taken 
awa}' the only check, restraint, and control, upon 
courts of dernier appeal. It w^ould take away 
the general public inconvenience arising from 
the false determinations of superior courts. I 
opposed that bill, sir, and opposed it with suc- 
cess, for this House rejected it. I shall oppose 
the bill suggested by the learned gentleman 
upon the same principle, and every other bill of 
the same tendency ; for sure there can not be a 
more barefaced violence of decency and justice, 
a gi'osser mockery of the common sense of man- 
kind, than to authorize a scrutiny in direct op- 
position to the whole tide of precedents, and ex- 
actly subversive of positive law, because you in- 
tend to bring in a bill to prevent the repetition 
in future time of so scandalous and shocking a 
proceeding. 

An incident occurs to me which will be prop- 
er to mention here. Much discussion formerly 
took place upon this subject of regulating scru- 
tinies, and especially at the time of the Oxford- 
shire election ; concerning which election I shall 
presently trouble the House with a few observa- 
tions. Great pains and labor were employed 
then with a view to frame an act of Parliament 
upon the subject : and a great man, whose name 
I mention only with the purest respect and rev- 
erence for his character [Lord INIansfield], took 
an active part, and gave the whole attention of 
his extensive and shining talents to the business. 
Yet, after the most deliberate and mature con- 
sideration of the subject, even he abandoned it, 
in a despair of being able to accomplish any sys- 
tem of management, from which many evils and 
various disadvantages impossible to be remedied, 
might not flow. All attempts to regulate scru- 
tinies by act of Parliament were then conse- 
qtiently given up. The learned gentleman [Mr. 
Harding] will excuse me if I can not easily be- 
lieve that he will effect that which Lord Mans- 
field relinquished as impracticable ; and even 
this consideration woiald be an additional motive 
with me, for not hastily assenting to a bill of the 
complexion suggested by him to the House upon 
the present subject. 

I have said that this business had no prece- 
dent in the annals of Parliament. The gentle- 
men on the other side do not attempt, because 
the}' dare not, to show that this High Bailiff is 
justified by any. The only cases they venture 
to touch upon are the cases of Oxford and West- 
minster ; and yet these two cases are fundament- 
ally and altogether against them. Could they 
cite any instances more apposite, undoubtedly 
they would never have alluded to those, which, 
under a hope of giving some color to the matter 



Case of Fytche and the Bishop of London. 



in question, do absolutely, positively, and sub- 
stantially make against them. If out of the 
mass of precedents I were to choose one, to 
prove the grossness of this proceeding, I think 
it would be the very case of Oxfordshire. The 
candidates who at that election were lowest on 
the poll demanded a scrutiny, and the sheriff 
granted it. Every one knows that the sheriff 
carried his partialities for the losing candidates, 
who demanded the scrutiny to the greatest 
lengths ; yet, partial as he was, and although 
his friends were diminishing their opponent's 
majority daily by the scrutiny, he gave them no- 
tice that his duty bound him to stop the scruti- 
ny for the purpose of making his return on the 
day the writ was returnable. He accordingly 
stopped it, and made his return. If this sheriff, 
interested as he was for those who were gaining 
by the scrutiny, conceived it possible for him to 
be sanctioned by any law or precedent in mak- 
ing a special return, and going on with the scru- 
tiny, would he not have done so ? Undoubtedly 
he would ; and the kind of return he made 
proves that he would, if he thought he might. 
L^n willing that those who were obnoxious to him 
should sit in the House, he returns all the four 
candidates ; and this he does as the last and 
greatest act of friend.ship he could confer on his 
friends, previous to the extinction of his author- 
ity, viz., the return of the writ. I do not say 
that in making this double return the sheriff did 
right. But right or wrong, it proves this, that 
all the service he could render his friends he 
did. Does any one doubt that the two candi- 
dates, thus aided by the sheriff, and in the act 
of growing daily upon their adversaries by the 
scrutiny, would not have preferred the partial, 
the kind, and favoring tribunal of their determ- 
ined friend the sheriff, to the House of Commons, 
had they supposed that any thing could justify 
him in continuing the scrutiny after the meeting 
of Parliament? But so frightful an idea was 
never cherished ; and they held themselves bound 
forever in gratitude to the sheriff for having in- 
cluded them in his return. An honorable gen- 
tleman, whom I see in his place, but who I be- 
lieve neither sees nor hears me at this moment,'^ 
knows full well that all I am stating relative to 
the Oxfordshire election is strictly true. He can 
not easily have forgotten the part he took in that 
memorable transaction. He engaged eagerly in 
the contest, and embarked in that interest which 
I should certainly have embraced had I been of 
an age to form an opinion, and to act upon it. 
That honorable gentleman can attest the verac- 
ity of this recital ; but it were vain flattery, I 
fear, to hope that he will rise up to-night, and 
vindicate, by his voice and his vote, the princi- 
ples of the cause he then supported, and which 
gained his friends the election. 

He must remember that a long discussion took 
place in this House, touching the right of a cer- 

16 Mr. Jenkinson, who was fast asleep upon the 
treasury bench, and whom Mr. Pitt awoke when 



treasury uencu, uuu v\ 
Mr. Fox alkided to him 



492 



MR. FOX ON 



[1784. 



tain class of copyhold tenants who voted for those 
who had the majority upon the poll ; and that 
the disqualification of this description of voters 
seated those in the House who -were lowest upon 
the poll and the scrutiny. And here I must ob- 
serve, what a strong and unanswerable confirm- 
ation of the point I am endeavoring to establish 
springs from a careful I'cview of the Oxfordshire 
case. The cause of the unsuccessful candidates 
was pleaded at the bar by one of the greatest 
characters of that time, and one of the greatest 
ornaments of this ; I mean Lord Camden, qucm 
gratia honoris nomine/" A question was agita- 
ted to ascertain a peculiar qualification, w^hich 
bore the most inauspicious, and as it afterward 
proved, the most fatal aspect toward his clients. 
If any objection to determine the point upon that 
ground could possibly be supported, does any 
one doubt that his ingenuity and penetration 
would not have discovered it? Does any one 
doubt that he would have enforced that objec- 
tion with all that perspicuity and fervor of elo- 
quence which so much characterize that noble 
Lord ? But the idea of a sheriff's withholding 
a return on account of a scrutiny never once 
occurred to him, nor to those who managed it 
within the bar ; nor do I believe, until this time 
(to answer the laudable purpose of the present 
moment), did it ever enter into the head of any 
man as legal or practicable. 

So much for the Oxfordshire case, which I 
maintain goes with us in all its points and prin- 
ciples. 

With respect to the Westminster case in 1749. 
A learned gentleman [Mr. Harding], who has 
spoken w^ith much liveliness, but without one 
word of legal argument, tells you that the scru- 
tiny then and the scrutiny now are cases exactly 
in point. In contradiction to that, I affirm that 
not the least similitude subsists between them. 
In this case the writ is returnable upon the 18th 
day of May ; in that no precise time is mention- 
ed for the return ; and here consists the whole 
difference. Every one knows that the election 
of Trentham and Vandeput was upon a vacancy 
in consequence of Lord Trentham's accepting a 
seat at the Board of Admiralty. Upon a gener- 
al election the King calls a Parliament for the 
dispatch of great and urgent affairs, and he calls 
it to meet upon a particular day. Now, sir, ob- 
serve, if there be no compulsion upon returning 
officers to make their returns by that express 
time, what is to become of the great and urgent 
affairs for the dispatch of which his Majesty calls 
a Parliament ? 

Can you reconcile, for one moment, that the 
nation .should be bound by laws and burdened 
with taxes to which they did not consent ; that 
the King should have no Parliament, and the peo- 
ple no representatives to dispatch the weighty and 
urgent affairs they are called to consider by a par- 
ticular day, only because it is the whim or fancy, 
or wickedness of a returning officer, at his leisure, 
to keep them employed in the long, laborious busi- 
ly Whom I name only to praise. 



ness of a scrutiny? But dtiring the existence of 
Parliament, when a writ issues upon a vacancy, 
no particular day is named for its return. A poll 
or a scrutiny (which means only the continuation 
of the poll in another form) may be carried on, 
because it does not in the least infringe upon the 
exigency of the w^it ; because no particular time 
is mentioned for the return ; and because his Maj- 
esty does not call upon that individual represent- 
ative to come upon a precise day, for the dispatch 
of great and urgent affairs that aflfect his people, 
as upon a general election. This, therefore, con- 
stitutes the distinction, and it is a wnde and a ma- 
terial distinction. The grievance from the ab- 
sence of one representative is slight, and the law 
in that case admits a scrutiny ; but in the other 
case, to w^ithhold the return beyond the time ap- 
pointed, is infringing the exigency, and violating 
the terms on which it was issued, which ai-e, that 
the Parliament must meet upon that express day, 
for that express purpose. 

Why there should be this distinction — why 
the compulsion of a return by a specified period 
should not exist as well in cases of vacancy as of 
general election, is not now the point in dispute. 
If it be, as I think it is, a defect, it only serves to 
prove that in the best works of human wisdom 
there are flaws and imperfections. Our aim is 
to find out ichat is the law, not why it is the law ; 
and, from the whole, it is clear that the High 
Bailiff" of Westminster, in overstepping this dis- 
tinction, and granting a scrutiny to commence 
after the day of the general return, has broken 
every statute that appears upon this subject in 
your books, and gone in the face of every prece- 
dent that can be found in your journals. 

(3.) The third ground upon which I shall take 
up this subject is upon that of the analogies of 
law. Upon this I shall detain the House only 
wnth a few words ; not only because my igno- 
rance of that profession disqualifies me from treat- 
ing the point fully, but because all that can be said 
has been urged with the greatest force and effect 
possible by the learned gentlemen who appeared 
at 3^our bar in my behalf; the proof of which is, 
that not a position they have advanced upon the 
legal analogies has iDcen controverted by the 
learned gentlemen who pleaded for the High 
Bailiflf without the bar, or those venerable judg- 
es and crown lawyers who have attempted to de- 
fend him within the bar. Little, therefore, re 
mains for me to say. But little as I affect to have 
of information upon this part of the subject, I have 
enough to know that wherever the gentlemen on 
the other side have attempted to assimilate this 
case with legal analogies, they have completely 
and entirely failed. They have endeavored to 
establish that an officer may go on to execute 
the object for which the writ was issued from 
the courts in Westminster Hall, even after the 
day on \vhich the WTit is returnable. Yes, sir, 
he may go on ; but how ? Upon the authority 
of the expired writ ? No, by no means ! He 
goes on by a neio power given him by that court 
whence the writ originally issues, to complete 
that which the premature expiration of his first 



1784.] 



THE WESTMINSTER SCRUTINY. 



493 



commission prevented his accomplishing. In a 
word, the court has the power of rendering effect- 
ual its own process, and therefore grants a writ 
of venditioni exponas^ where the sheriff has not 
been able to sell the goods levied under the fii'st 
writ, and grants many other writs of different ti- 
tles, for the purpose of completing that process 
the court has begun. But has any man said, that 
without a fresh authority, any sheriff, or any ofR- 
cer of any court of law, can proceed a single step 
under the old wi'it, one single hour after the day 
named for its return ? I say, no, sir. There is not 
one man, however ignorant in other things, who 
does not know that all the authorities of all writs 
are defunct and extinct on the day named for 
their return. It is admitted that the court can 
grant a new power to complete its own process. 
Now, sir, to show the gentlemen on the other 
side that they have not a shred of analogy to sup- 
port them, I will suppose, for a moment, that the 
writ under which the High Bailiff carried on this 
election had been issued from this court, what 
writ, or what legal authority can you give him 
to finish that which he says is still depending ? 
None, I say, sir. A court of law can effectuate 
its own process by giving its officer a new power 
on the demise of the old ; but did you ever hear 
of one court granting an authority to accomplish 
the purpose of a writ issued from another ? Nev- 
er. Such a thing was never heard of. And how 
stands the fact here ; that the Court of Chancery 
issues the writ, and the House of Commons (an- 
other court) is to send forth a fresh writ to finish 
that which has not been finished under the King's 
writ issuing from chancery, the duration of which 
ceased on the 18th of May ! See the infinite ab- 
surdity into which these poor attempts to make 
out analogies involve the supporters of the High 
Bailiff. Will they say, though this House can 
not issue a supplemental power, the usual officer 
for making out parliamentary writs can ? Try 
it, sir, and you will puzzle all the writ-framers 
belonging to the House. I will venture to say, 
that all the skill of the Crown-office, and all the 
skill of the Court of Chancery combined, will be 
at a loss in what shape or mode to frame an in- 
strument so exotic and hideous. I will not push 
this point further, satisfied that no candid man 
can have a second opinion upon the subject ; and 
shall conclude this part of my speech with affirm- 
ing that the statutes, the precedents, and analo- 
gies of law assert and establish the truth of my 
honorable friend's motion; and that, by those 
three tests, I am clearly entitled to the judgment 
of this House against the conduct of the High 
Bailiff of Westminster. 

(4.) The fourth and last ground of considera- 
tion is upon that of expediency^ of sound sense, 
and of general policy. And here I shall have as 
little trouble as upon the three former grounds, 
to establish every position, and to show the House 
the iniquity of this proceeding. The conduct of 
this bailiff not only violates the spirit and letter of 
every law, but absolutely, in so far, subverts the 
main principless of the British Constitution. When 
the King calls a new Parliament, the fair pre- 



sumption is, that the "great and urgent affairs" 
for which he calls them together demand their 
immediate deliberation. It is clear that our an- 
cestors were extremely cautious that nothing 
should prevent or obstruct their meeting ; and, 
lest returning officers should be instrumental to 
this obstruction, all the statutes, and all the prec- 
edents that bear upon this matter, confirm their 
jealousy, and prove their diligence to guard 
against abuses. The misconduct of returning 
officers, the facility of evil, and the dangerous 
consequences resulting from it, were the evident 
and avowed cause of making those laws which 
I have mentioned, and which were avowedly in- 
tended to restrain them. Let but the conduct of 
the High Bailiff of Westminster be sanctified this 
night by this House, and I challenge the ingenu- 
ity of mankind to show a more elfectual mode 
of putting the nation into the hands of returning 
officers. 

What security can any man have that a Par- 
liament shall meet when the King calls it, if you 
establish this precedent ? An honorable friend of 
mine who has this day spoken for the first time [Sir 
James Erskine], and who has exhibited a power 
of fancy and force of argument that give a high 
promise of his making a splendid figure in this 
House, has said, it was possible the House of Com- 
mons of England might, upon the assembling of a 
new Parliament, be confined to the members from 
Scotland, where all scrutinies precede elections, 
and where the positiveness of the law precludes 
the commission of these knaveries. Now, al- 
though the brilliant fancy of my honorable friend 
might, perhaps, have stretched the pcssibility a 
little too far, is there a man who will engage, 
that this case once sanctified, the example will 
not be followed to the most calamitous excess ? 
The exact number of five hundred and thirteen 
English members might not, indeed, be absent 
upon the meeting of a new Parliament; but will 
any man say why twenty, why sixty, why one 
hundred, nay, why two hundred might not, by the 
ignorance, by the caprice, by the foily, by the stu- 
pidity, or (what is more analogous to the case in 
question) by the baseness or treachery of a re- 
turning officer, remain unreturned ? Here I 
must notice the low, the little, the miserable al- 
lusions which are so frequently made by those 
over against me, to the place that did me the 
honor of sending me to Parliament.'^ But it is 
a poor and pitiful kind of triumph. INIuch as 
they may affect to exult, nothing can be clearer 
than their disappointment upon the occasion ; 
and the petition lately presented against my seat 
for Kirkwall proves their mortification to a cer- 
tainty. And indeed it appears, from the conduct 
of government, that Scotland is the only place that 
could return me ; as the same shameless perse- 
cution would, no doubt, have followed me in any 
other place in England. Fortunately, there was 
one part of the kingdom where their oppression 

'^ Mr. Pitt, as already stated, had spoken of 
Mr. Fox as an "exile driven to seek refage on 
the stormy and desolate shores of the Ultima 
Thule." 



494 



MR. FOX ON 



[1784. 



could not prosper, and from which their violence 
and injustice could not exclude me. 

Sir, I do really believe that the supporters of 
this extraordinary business look but a short way, 
and do not at all calculate or count upon its 
probable effects. If there had not been an act 
of Parliament expressly to regulate scrutinies in 
the city of London, who can say that at this mo- 
ment, when laws are to be made as serious and 
interesting as any that ever passed in this coun- 
try — when great and weighty impositions must 
be laid upon the subjects — when new and im- 
portant regulations are to be entered upon con- 
cerning the commerce, the credit, and revenues 
of the nation — who can say that at this time the 
capital of the country, so deeply and supremely 
interested in all these objects, might not be de- 
prived of representation as well as the city of 
Westminster? But, sir, I beg pardon. I am 
doing injustice. The sheriffs of London are too 
well acquainted with their duty, and too zealous 
for the honorable discharge of it, to have been 
guilty of so gross an outrage upon the laws of 
the land, or lent themselves to be the vile and 
sordid instruments of so base a business. 

But the character of an officer is a weak se- 
curity against the abuse of an office. Under 
men less informed, and less tenacious of their of- 
ficial reputation, who can say (if an express act 
had not rendered it impossible) that the patrons 
of Sir Cecil Wray, who are also patrons of Mr. 
Atkinson,^'' might not practice the same strata- 
gem in the city of London, and by that maneu- 
ver prevent the wishes and the sentiments of 
the capital from being declared in this House, 
through the constitutional organ of their repre- 
sentatives ? They, sir, I affirm, are weak and 
foolish men, rash and giddy politicians, who, by 
supporting a measure of this kind, become par- 
ties in a precedent, capable of producing conse- 
quences which strike at the source and root of 
all legislation ; for it is the fundamental maxim 
of our Constitution, that the consent of the peo- 
ple by their representatives is essential and in- 
dispensable to those laws that are to govern 
them. 

Upon this, however, a curious sort of reason- 
ing is adopted, and a noble Lord [Lord Mul- 
grave] sees no evil in a defect of representatives 
for Westminster, as it is virtually represented by 
those who sit here for other places. Li the prin- 
ciple that every member is bound to the com- 
mon interest of all, I certainly do agree ; but I 
beg leave to set myself wholly against the gen- 
eral argument of virtual representation. We 
have too much of virtual, and too little of real 
representation in this House. And to the pres- 
ent hour I never heard that the most determined 
enemy to a parliamentary reform ever urged 
that the virtual representation of the country 
was so complete a substitute for real represent- 



I'j This would seem to be Mr. llichard Atkinson, 
the agent of Paul Benfield, spoken of by Mr. Burke 
in his speech on the Nabob of Arcot's debts, who 
had just been defeated in Loudon at the general 
election. 



ation as to deem it vi'ise and salutary upon slight 
occasions, or upon any occasion, to lessen that 
which is already much too little. The whole tide 
of reasoning has, on the contrary, run in the oth- 
er channel ; and the great argument for a par- 
liamentary reform has been founded upon this 
very defect of real representation, which the no- 
ble Lord over against me is so zealous to dimin- 
ish. As the honorable gentleman near him, 
however [Mr. Pitt], is the professed friend of 
that reform, in the representation of the people 
of this country, which I have in common with 
him, so long labored in vain to accomplish, I 
shall hope to see him stating this very case of 
Westminster, to induce the House to adopt the 
motion which will be made upon that subject by 
my honorable friend [Mr. Sawbridge] in a few 
days. Of the prosperity of that motion I now 
entertain real confidence. The boasted power 
in this House of the right honorable gentleman 
insures success to any measure he abets. No 
question, therefore, can be entertained of attain- 
ing it, if the honorable gentleman is serious upon 
the subject; for surely the people of England 
can never be persuaded that the majority, which 
supported the minister in vindicating a direct 
violation of the law of the land, in the person of 
Mr. Corbett, could have failed him in endeavor- 
ing to effect an object so long looked for, so 
loudly called for, and so essentially necessary to 
the security of the Constitution and the good of 
the nation, as a reform in the palpably defective 
repi'csentation of the people in this House. 

The same noble Lord attempts to strengthen 
his cause with a species of argument still more 
extraordinary, if possible, than the former, al- 
though of nearly the same nature. He tells you, 
that representing Westminster has been a mere 
naval honor ; and after stating the choice of 
Lord Rodney when on foreign service, leads you 
to this inference, that the electors of Westmin- 
ster are wholly unsolicitous whether they are 
represented or not. This is rating the electors 
of Westminster at a lov.'- estimate indeed ; but I, 
sir, who know them better than the noble Lord, 
deny that they are so insensible to the blessings 
of the British Constitution as his argument pre- 
tends. The electors of Westminster have res- 
cued themselves from this imputation. Sir, they 
are seriously anxious to be represented, and they 
tell you so. But I remember when absence ivas 
deemed a disqualification for naval officers upon 
a Westminster election. I remember when Lord 
Hood was in the zenith of his fame, that persons 
now in my eye [looking at Lord Mahon] urged 
his absence to the electors as a ground of rejec- 
tion ; and advised them to prefer Sir Cecil Wray, 
who was present and able to represent them, to 
Lord Hood, who was absent and unable.^" This, 
though not my argument (whose opinion is uni- 
formly that all electors of all places should elect 

-0 This kind of home thrust, by referring to some 
past incident, is one of Mr. Fox's most striking pe- 
culiarities. So, likewise, is the turn given in the 
next sentence, respecting the coalUion of one who 
so hated Coalitions. 



1784.] 



THE WESTMINSTER SCRUTINY. 



the men of their choice), was the exact argu- 
ment of the present supporters of Lord Hood in 
favor of that of Sir Cecil Wray, who then opposed 
him, but who noiv — in his enmity to any junc- 
tion after past opposition, in his utter abhorrence 
of all coalitions — is linked with that very Lord 
Hood in ties of friendship and good faith, which 
he certainly never will violate. 

Efforts, sir, have been made to explain the act 
of George II. to the exculpation of this High 
Bailiff; and his supporters afiect to justify him 
upon his declared difliculty in making up his 
"conscience." Why, sir, the very act they at- 
tempt to shield him under is his strongest con- 
demnation. The oath imposed in that act only 
binds him to decide to "the best of his judg- 
ment"' by a limited time. Lives there one man 
who shall say, "this man would have incurred 
the penalties of perjury if he had returned the 
majority upon the poll ?" Lives there one man 
who thinks the disquietude of his conscience 
alone prompted him to make the return he has 
made, when they must see a thousand instances 
eveiy day of decisions of conscience, in cases a 
thousand times more ambiguous and solemn ? 
I will ask the House whether this High Bailiff 
has appeared to them, in the course of this busi- 
ness, so .spotless, so immaculate, so consistent, 
as to induce them to give him credit for a deli- 
cacy of nerve, and a tenderness of scruple be- 



yond any other man livi 



Every person in 



the exercise of a judicial function stands pre- 
cisely in his predicament. What would become 
of us if a judge were forever to delay justice, 
until he could make up his conscience to the 
minutest point of precise accuracy upon every 
doubt? There are few cases upon which a 
man can not form some opinion. All that is re- 
quired here is to form the best opinion he can ; 
and if seven weeks did not afford the High Bail- 
iff time enough to determine, it is surely hard 
with those who are obliged to decide almost im- 
mediately in the most important interests of hu- 
manity. ]My honorable friend who made this 
motion, with that weight and wisdom that ac- 
company all his observations, has adverted to 
the case of jurors. Have you, then, patience at 
this man's pretense of conscience, when you re- 
flect that twelve men must all concur before 
they go out of court, in a judgment which per- 
haps consigns a fellow-creature to an ignomin- 
ious death ? The case may be doubtful too, and 
yet they must all concur in a few hours, at most. 
It is unnecessary to push this point farther. I 
appeal to the House. There are feelings which 
even party prejudices can not dispossess us of. 
We owe to each other a certain candor ; and I 
am sure I should be thoroughly satisfied to put 
this matter to the private answer of any man 
who hears me ; if I were only to ask him, upon 
his honor as a gentleman, whether he really 
believes the return of this High Bailiff is an 
act of conscience? And whether he thinks, if 
/ stood in Sir Cecil Wray's place, and he had 
my majority, we should ever have heard of 
this man's difficulty in giving judgment ; or 



495 

with this mockery of his 



ever been insulted 
scruples ?^^ 

To show, in another striking point of view, 
that this scrutiny is against the law, let the 
House reflect for a moment upon its utter ineffi- 
cacy to enable the High Bailiff to form a judg- 
ment, as that is the pretended cause of it. What 
means has he of exploring those things which he 
now affects to entertain doubts upon ? He can 
command no witness; he can compel no appear- 
ance. He has no legal authority for penetrating 
the obscurity of any fact like other judges ; he 
can administer no oath ; he can impart no rem- 
edy to the party aggrieved by so tedious and 
vexatious a process ; he can award no costs ; he 
can try no offense that occurs in the execution 
of this important duty ; he is governed by no 
precedents ; he is bound by no decisions : what 
he affirms to-day he may deny to-morrow ; he 
has, in a word, all the means of doing injustice, 
and no one power or competent faculty to do 
justice. Yet to this species of tribunal is this 
House going (in violation of law and practice) 
to send me and my cause, on purpose to evade 
one which is full, adequate, effective, and vigor- 
ous — I mean, a committee under Grenville's bill. 

A noble Lord expresses his suspicions of the 
sincerity of my praises of Grenville's bill, and 
says he imagines there is "a snake in the grass." 
It is most true, that I had my doubts upon the 
effects of that bill, when it first passed into a 
law. But, sir, it is exerting the worst tyranny 
upon the understanding of men, if they are to be 
forever condemned for having entertained doubts 
upon a subject purely theoretical. Extinct is 
every idea of freedom, and lost is the boasted 
liberty of debate, and the spirit of free thinking 
in this country, if men are to be debarred from 
profiting by practice, and changing opinion upon 
the conviction of experiment. All I can say, 
sir, is, that the many salutaiy effects of that bill 
have long since completely converted me ; and 
I do assure you, in great sincerity, that no man 
living reveres and loves it more than I do. There 
can be no stronger proof of its superior excel- 
lence, than that the evasion of it is the only pos- 
sible means by which his Majesty's ministers 
could perpetrate this gross act of injustice. The 
most infallible of all tests, the test of repeated 
practice, asserts its virtues; and my attachment 
to it is not a little increased, for that it resem- 
bles that inestimable right — one of the few that 
Englishmen have yet to boast — the trial by jury. 
Oh that it were possible to mold this House into 
the size and character of a jury ! — of twelve men 
acting indeed upon conscience, and sworn upon 
oath to give a true verdict according to evidence ! 



aj There can hardly be found any where a pas- 
sago which is a more complete "settler" than this 
paragraph about Mr. Corbett's conscience. There 
is a sort of power in it which no speaker but De- 
mosthenes ever so fully possessed — strong common 
sense, brief but irresistible reasoning, keen sar- 
casm, manly appeal, all wrought together in the 
tersest language, and vivified by the warmest emo- 
tion. 



496 



MR. FOX ON 



[1784. 



How easy slwuld I feel concerning the issue of 
this discussion ! 

In addition to all these arguments, will the 
House reflect that this scrutiny is not final in de- 
ciding the right of sitting here?"^'^ Will they re- 
flect that, after all the waste of time, after all the 
expense, all the labor, all the fatigue, which are 
indispensable upon it, its termination (whenever 
it may happen) is but the commencement of an- 
other process before a judicature, capable and 
competent to administer justice, with a new se- 
ries of expense, and labor, and fatigue ? And 
who can tell us when this scrutiny shall con- 
clude ? The granting it is not more illegal and 
oppressive than the duration is uncertain and in- 
definite. Who can promise when such a con- 
science as Corbett's will be quieted ? And who 
will venture to say that, after one, two, three, or 
ten yeai's' investigation, the High Bailiff's con- 
science may not be as unsatisfied, even upon the 
scrutiny, as it appears at this moment, after a 
seven weeks' poll ? 

" But," say the supporters of the High Bailiff, 
" this House will take care that there is no vex- 
atious delay in the business, and will from time 
to time call upon him for a return, or for the 
cause that may prevent his making one." I un- 
derstand that argument perfectly well, sir; and 
it is of itself sufficient to show the grossness of 
this proceeding. When the bailiff will be called 
on to make a return, and when he will obey that 
call, can be very easily conceived, indeed. If it 
were possible for this man, in the course of this 
scrutiny, to strike off from my numbers so many 
as would place Sir Cecil Wray on the head of 
the poll, I have not the smallest doubt that all 
delay's, subsequent to such an event, would ap- 
pear just as frivolous, as vexatious and oppress- 
ive to the gentlemen on the opposite bench [the 
Ministry], and to the High Bailiff's conscience^ as 
the whole proceeding now appears to me, and 
to the injured electors of Westminster. Upon 
all the considerations, therefore, that I have men- 
tioned — the inordinate expense ; the inefficacy 
of the tribunal ; the obvious necessity of after- 
ward resorting to a more adequate and compe- 
tent judicature ; the certainty that this precedent 
will be the source of future oppressions; the dan- 
gerous example of it to other returning officers, 
who, under the sanction of this case, can give 
full scope to their partialities, their caprices, and 
corruptions ; the circumstance of depriving so 
great and respectable a body of men of their 
representation in this House ; the recognizing 
that dreadful doctrine, that a King may be with- 
out a Parliament, and the people without repre- 
sentation, at the mere will and bare discretion 
of any low, mean, ignorant, base, and wretched 
being, who may happen to be a returning officer 
— from all these considerations, therefore, I am 
convinced, and I hope I have convinced this 
House, that if no statute could be found upon 



^^ The question could be brought up again after 
the return was made, and tried before a committee 
of the House under Mr. Grenville's bill. 



the subject; that if the common law were silent, 
and that legal analogies gave no light upon the 
subject, even upon the grounds of common sense 
and expediency, the law is clear and intelligible. 
But when all these concur to define and to de- 
cide the law ; when positive statutes, when prac- 
tice and precedents, when the analogies of law, 
and the arguments of expediency, founded upon 
the immutable principles of wisdom, reason, and 
sound poUcy, all combine and unite to establish 
and to assert it, can I have any fear to say that 
this motion ought to pass, and that the High 
Bailiff of Westminster, instead of being permit- 
ted to pi'oceed with this scrutiny, should instant- 
ly make a return of members for Westminster? 

Some gentlemen have argued that this motion 
does not agree with the prayer of the petition 
[previously presented by Mr. Fox]. Let it be 
recollected, sir, that the petition was presented 
by me with a view of its being referred to a com- 
mittee.^'' Really, sir, if there is not enough of 
candor to admit this assertion without being ex- 
plained, there seems but little chance of a fair 
hearing, or of a fair construction, upon points 
much more material. I again declare it was 
presented for the purpose I have described. A 
majority of this House decided that the petition 
was not cognizable by Mr. Grenville's bill ; and 
it was upon a suggestion from the other side of 
the House that I presented it the same day, to 
save time, and prayed that counsel might be heard 
at the bar in favor of it. The sole object of that 
petition was, that this House might order such a 
return as would come under the jurisdiction of a 
committee ; the motion before you goes precise- 
ly to the same point, and to no other. 

To that argument, if it deserves the name of 
argument, that we are inconsistent in desiring the 
High Bailiff to make a return, when we contend 
that all his authority .under that writ is complete- 
ly defunct, it is almost unnecessary to reply, be- 
cause it evidently defeats itself. In contending 
that the High Bailiff was _/tmc<MS officio"^ on the 
18th of May, we are fortified by law ; and, in de- 
siring he would make some return, we are justi- 
fied by precedent. 

AVe contend, and contend with truth, that the 
writ under which the High Bailiff carried on the 
election, being returnable on the 18th of May, on 
that very day deprived the bailiff of all judicial 
authority, and devested him of all legal power 
under that writ. To proceed with a scrutiny is 
a great act of authority ; to tell us who have, in 
his opinion, the majority of legal votes, is not. 
That this House should order a returning officer 
to commence a scrutiny several days after the 
positive day on which his writ was returnable, 
can not be paralleled by a single case in all the 
history of Parliament. That it should order a 
returning officer, who tells you he proceeded to 
an election, carried on a poll for a sufficient time, 
and that he then closed that poll of his own au- 

^3 Here the minister shook his head, as if to deny 
the fact. 
2* Discharged from further duty. 



1784.] 



THE WESTMINSTER SCRUTINY. 



497 



thority, to make a return, has happened again 
and again. We do not desire him to exercise 
any jurisdiction under that writ now; we only 
desire him to acquaint us with the fruits of the 
jurisdiction which he has exercised under it. 
I have done so and so, says the High Bailiff. 
"Tell us what you mean," is all we say. "I 
have, on such a day, proceeded to an election," 
says he ; "I have carried on a poll for forty 
days; I have, on the day before the return of 
the writ, closed that poll, of my own author- 
ity." AH this we understand. In all this you 
did your duty. Only tell us who are the candi- 
dates chosen upon this long poll? We do not 
mean to say you have at present any authority 
to do any thing under that writ ; all we want to 
know is, what you did when you had authority 
under it ? Let the House reflect upon this fair 
and reasonable distinction, and they will see the 
paltriness of those quibbles, the misery of those 
low subterfuges, which imply that we would 
bring " a dead man to life ;" and which imply 
an inconsistency between the motion and the ar- 
guments advanced in support of it. 

What, I beg leave to ask, has appeared to the 
House extraordinary or uncommon in the elec- 
tion for Westminster, that justifies this matchless 
violence ? In all the variety of evidence they 
have heard at the bar, has there been a proof of 
one single bad vote of my side ? Not one. But 
there was much hearsay that I had bad votes. 
Sir Cecil Wray and his agents told the High 
Bailiff they heard 1 had. Good God, sir, am I 
addressing men of common sense? Did any of 
you ever yet hear of an election wherein the losing 
candidate did not charge bad votes and bad prac- 
tices upon the fortunate candidate? Peevish- 
ness upon miscarriage is perhaps an error, but it 
is the habit of human nature ; and was the High 
Bailiff of Westminster so unhackneyed in the 
ways of men, as to be unapprized of this frailty ; 
or are the discontents of Sir Cecil Wray, and the 
loose accusations of his agents, the extraordinary 
things which the House sees in the Westminster 
election, to justify this proceeding ? Is the length 
of the election one of these uncommon incidents ? 
By no means. The same thing happened at Bris- 
tol, where, without doubt, a scrutiny would have 
been granted, if the returning oflicer had thought 
the law would bear him out in it. The same 
thing happened at Lancaster, where a scrutiny 
was demanded and refused, and where, when the 
connections of one of the candidates'^^ are consid- 
ered, no doubt can be entertained that every strat- 
agem to procrastinate, every scheme to perplex, 
every expedient to harass, all that a disposition 
not the mildest when victorious, nor the most pa- 
tient when vanquished, all that wealth, all that 
the wantonness of wealth could do, would have 
been exerted ; and where a plan so admirably 
calculated for litigation, for vexation, for expense, 
for oppression, as a scrutiny, would not have been 
admitted, were it found legal or practicable. 

Let the House reflect for a moment upon the 

" Mr. Lowther, the nephew of Sir James Lowther. 
Ii 



facility of a collusion in a case of this sort, to keep 
a candidate from his seat, whose right to it is 
clear, unquestioned, and unquestionable. Sup- 
pose that not one single bad vote had been giv- 
en for Lord Hood in the late election, and that 
the noble Lord were not (he best knows why) 
resigned and easy under this proceeding, what 
could be more hard and cruel than his situation ? 
Does not the House see that ministers will be en- 
abled by this precedent to exclude an obnoxious 
candidate for an indefinite space of time, even 
though his majority be the most undoubted pos- 
sible, and his election the fairest in the world ? 
It is only for the losing candidate to demand, and 
for the returning officer to grant, a scrutiny. 
These are some of the evils that present them- 
selves upon the recognition of this practice as 
right and legal. For my part, I see nothing in 
the late election for Westminster peculiar and 
distinct from many other elections, but this sin- 
gly, that I ivas one of the candidates. In that 
light it is already seen by every cool, dispassion- 
ate, and sensible man ; and that the whole nation 
will contemplate and construe the business of this 
night as an act of personal oppression, 1 am thor- 
oughly convinced : nor can they think otherwise, 
when they learn that in all the law books of this 
country, in all your journals, in all the histories 
of Parliament, in all the annals of elections, in 
this great land of elections, where, from time to 
time, all that power, all that ingenuity, all that 
opulence could devise or execute, has been tried 
in elections — where, in the vast mass of cases 
that have happened, in all the multiplied variety 
of singular and curious contests we read and hear 
oi, nothing is found that assimilates with^ or au- 
thorizes this scrutiny^ under these circumstances — 
not even by the worst of men, in the worst of 
times. 

III. (1.) I will acquit the honorable gentle- 
man over against me [Mr. Pittl of be- „ , , 

^ '- J Remnrka of a 

ing the author, or being a voluntary more general 
instrument in this vile affair ; and in 
that concession, sir, I do not give him much. It 
is but crediting him for a little common sense, 
indeed, when I suppose that, from a regard to 
that government of which he is the nominal lead- 
er, from a regard to his own character with the 
world at this time, and his reputation with pos- 
terity, he acts his part in this business not with- 
out concern. That he may be accusable of too 
servile a compliance is probable enough ; but of 
a free agency in it I believe he is guiltless. Not 
to him, sir, but to its true cause, do I attribute 
this shameful attack — to that black, that obsti- 
nate, that stupid spirit which, by some strange 
infatuation, pervades, and has pervaded the coun- 
cils of this country throughout the whole course 
of this unfortunate and calamitous reign — to that 
weak, that fatal, that damnable system, which has 
been the cause of all our disgraces and all our 
miseries — to those secret advisers, who hate with 
rancor and revenge with cruelty — to those ma- 
lignant men, whose character it is to harass the 
object of their enmity with a relentless and insa- 
tiate spirit of revenge ; to those, sir, and not to 



498 



MR. FOX ON 



[1784. 



the honorable gentleman, do I impute this unex- 
ampled persecution.^^ 

(2.) Having said so much as to the real au- 
thors of this measure, there remains another con- 
sideration with which I am desirous to impress 
the House. It is a consideration, however, 
which in policy I ought to conceal, because it 
will be an additional incitement to my enemies 
to proceed in their career with vigor ; but it will 
nevertheless show the extreme oppression and 
glaring impolicy of this scrutiny — I mean the 
consideration of expense. 

I have had a variety of calculations made upon 
the subject of this scrutiny, and the lowest of all 
the estimates is c£ 18,000. This, sir, is a serious 
and an alarming consideration. But I know it 
may be said (and with a pitiful triumph it per- 
haps will be said) that this is no injury to me, in- 
asmuch as I shall bear but a small portion of the 
burden ; but this, sir, to me, is the bitterest of all 
reflections ! 

Affluence is, on many accounts, an enviable 
state ; but if ever my mind languished for and 
sought that situation, it is upon this occasion ; it 
is to find that, when I can bear but a small part 
of this enormous load of wanton expenditure, the 
misfortune of my being obnoxious to bad men in 
nigh authority should extend beyond myself; it 
is when I find that those friends whom I respect 
for their generosity, whom I value for their vir- 
tues, whom I love for their attachment to me, 
and those splinted constituents to whom I am 
bound by every tie of obligation, by every feeling 
of gratitude, should, besides the great and import- 
ant injury they receive in having no representa- 
tion in the popular Legislature of this country, 
be forced into a wicked waste of idle and fruit- 
less costs, only because they are too kind, too par- 
tial to me. This, sir, is their crime ; and for their 
adherence to their political principles, and their 
personal predilection for me, they are to be pun- 
ished with these complicated hardships. 

These, sir, are sad and severe reflections ; and 
although I am convinced they will infuse fresh 
courage into my enemies, and animate them the 
more to carry every enmity to the most vexatious 
and vindictive extremity, still it shows the wick- 
edness of this scrutiny, and the fatality of its ef- 
fects as an example for future ministers. 

(3.) Little remains for me now to say upon 
this subject ; and I am sure I am unwilling to 
trespass more upon the House than is barely nec- 
essary. I can not, however, omit to make an ob- 
servation upon an argument of two learned 
gentlemen,^'' who concluded two very singular 
speeches with this very singular position, that 
the House had only to choose between issuing 
a new writ or ordering i\1t scrutiny ; that in 

26 This refers to that system of secret influence 
with the King-, supposed to have commenced with 
Lord Bute, which was so much comy)lained of at the 
beginning of this reign. Here Mr. Fox alludes par- 
ticularly to Lord Temple's communications with the 
King, respecting the East India Bill, and the events 
dependent thereon. 

2' The Lord Advocate and Mr. Hardinge. 



its lenity it might adopt the latter method, but 
that their opinion was for issuing a new writ. 
Now, sir, if I, who think the old writ totally an- 
nihilated — who think that its powers and author- 
ities have been completely extinct since the 18th 
of May — had delivered such an opinion, there 
would have been nothing in it inconsistent. And 
I should certainly be for issuing a new writ in 
preference to a scrutin}', if the law, the reason 
of the thing, and the practice of Parliament, did 
not convince me that the High Bailiff^ having fin- 
ished the election on the 17th, might make are- 
turn as of that day. But for the learned gentle- 
men who contend that the old writ is still in full 
vigor and force ; who think that the High Bailiff" 
has acted constitutionally and legally, and that a 
scrutiny may go on after the return of the writ — 
for those gentlemen to assert that the is.suing a 
new one would be the fitter measure, is indeed 
extraordinary. But, sir, against that position, 
that the House might order the scrutiny to pro- 
ceed, as a measure of lenity, I beg leave directly 
to oppose myself ! I beg leave to deprecate such 
lenity, such oppressive, such cruel lenity ! 

To issue a new writ is a severe injustice, and 
a great hardship ; but if I am forced to the altern- 
ative, if I am driven to the necessity of choosing 
between two evils, I do implore the House rather 
to issue a new writ than to order this scrutiny. 
Nothing can possibly be half so injurious, half so 
burdensome, half so vexatious to me and to my 
friends, as this scrutiny ; and it is evidently inef- 
fectual, as it can not be supposed that I should 
finally submit to the decision of a tribunal from 
which I have so little justice to expect. There 
is nothing, I assure the House, to which I should 
not rather resort than to the conscience of Mr. 
Thomas Corbett ; upon whom I do not expect 
that the translation of the scene from Covent 
Garden to St. Ann's, or proceeding upon a scru- 
tiny instead of a poll, will operate such conver- 
sions as to give me any hope of his displaying 
any other character, or appearing in any other 
light than that in which I have seen him upon 
many occasions in his official capacity. There- 
fore, sir, if it be only the alternative, I beg that 
the issuing a new writ may be the alternative 
you will adopt. In that case, I assure the hon- 
orable gentleman [Mr. Pitt] that I shall immedi- 
ately apply to him for one of the Chiltern Hund- 
reds to vacate my seat for Kirkwall, and instant- 
ly throw myself, as my only chance for the honor 
of sitting in this House, upon the good opinion 
of the electors of Westminster — who, in a season 
of frenzy and general delusion ; who, when arti- 
fice, fallacy, and imposture prevailed but too suc- 
cessfully in other parts of the country, discovered 
a sagacity, a firmness, and a steadiness superior 
to the effects of a vulgar and silly clamor ; and 
who, upon the very spot, the very scene of action, 
manifested that they understood and despised the 
hypocrisy, the fraud, and falsehood which gulled 
and duped their fellow-subjects in other places. 
In the event of a new election, I do anticipate 
future triumphs more brilliant, more splendid, if 
possible, than those I had lately the honor of en- 



1784.] 



THE WESTMINSTER SCRUTINY. 



499 



joying. Little fear do I feel of success with the 
electors of Westminster, who will not, I am sure, 
abandon me until I desert those principles which 
first recommended me to their favor! 

(4.) A person of great rank in this House [Mr. 
Pitt] has thrown out a hint or threat, I know 
not which to call it, in a former debate, " that I 
should not again disturb the peace of the city of 
Westminster." Good God, sir ! did any man 
ever hear such aggravating, such insulting in- 
sinuations? / disturb the peace of Westminster! 
Is that honorable gentleman not contented with 
breaking every law, with violating every stat- 
ute, with overturning every analogy and every 
precedent, to accomplish this business ; but must 
he, at the very moment he thus makes a deep 
breach in the English Constitution, complete the 
catalogue of injury, by adding pertness and per- 
sonal contumely to every species of rash and in- 
considerate violence ! I, I disturb the peace of 
this city, who have three times had the honor of 
representing it in this House ! I, who was fa- 
vored with the free suffrages of its electors, long, 
long before any of those who lately opposed me 
were ever talked of, ever thought of for such a 
distinction ! Every man qualified to sit in Par- 
liament has a right to offer himself wherever he 
thinks proper ; and it is indecent, daring, and 
audacious in any man, to insinuate that he ought 
not to disturb the peace of the place. I there- 
fore hope, sir, that a language so peculiarly false 
and unbecoming toward m.e, and so directly re- 
pugnant to the genius and spirit of the Constitu- 
tion, will meet with the disapprobation it de- 
serves m this House, as it certainly will be re- 
ceived with merited odium and execration otd 
of this House. 

Upon the generous protection of the electors 
of this city I shall certainly throw myself, in case 
of a new writ ; and, in doing so, sir, well I am 
awai-e what a series of various difficulties I have 
to encounter. Expenses at elections, in despite 
of every effort to reduce them, still continue 
most exorbitant ; and how ill matched in funds 
and certain inexhaustible resources I stand with 
my opponents, is indeed very unnecessary to ex- 
plain. But, sir, it is not in the article of ex- 
penses that I should most dread the operation of 
that power that sustains my adversaries — that 
power which discovers itself in characters that 
can not be mistaken, through every part of this 
transaction. I must be blind not to see that the 
hand of government appears throughout this 
matter. When I consider the extreme care em- 
ployed in preparing it for the measures which 
have been taken in this House in consequence 
of it — when I consider the evident determination 
not to let it rest here — when I consider the ex- 
traordinary zeal and anxiety of pai'ticular per- 
sons in this House to shelter and to sanctify this 
High Bailiff — when I consider the situation of 
those who take the lead, and are most active in 
his vindication — when I consider the indifference 
of my adversaries to the expenses which result 
from this scrutiny, but which expenses must be 
a severe stroke upon the spirit and independence 



of those by whom I am supported — when I con- 
sider that all that artifice could dictate and pow- 
er could execute have been exerted upon this 
occasion, I can have no doubt that the hand of a 
revengeful government pervades it all. The op- 
position of such a government upon an election 
is a discouraging circumstance ; and the likeli- 
hood of renewing again those events which I 
have witnessed within the last two months, is 
indeed a formidable and terrific prospect. 

When I look back, sir, to all the shameful and 
shocking scenes of the Westminster election — 
when I consider that my enemies practiced all 
that was possible of injustice, indecency, and 
irreverence in their efforts to overwhelm me — 
when I consider the gross, the frontless prosti- 
tution of names too sacred to be mentioned^** — 
when I consider that all the influence of all the 
various branches of government was employed 
against me. in contempt of propriety and defi- 
ance of law — when I consider that a bodv of 
men was brought, in the appearance of consta- 
bles, to the place of election, under the command 
of a magistrate, and against the express opinion 
of all the other magistrates of Westminster — 
that these constables broke that peace they were 
bound to preserve, and created a riot which 
proved fatal to one of their own body — when I 
consider that this was made the pretense of a 
wanton, and indecent, and unconstitutional intro- 
duction of the military, in violation of all that has 
been done by our ancestors to keep sacred the 
freedom of election — when I consider that the 
lives of innocent men were deemed light and 
trivial impediments to the gratification of that 
implacable spirit of revenge, which appears 
through the whole of this business — when I con- 
sider that several men of the lower order of life, 
whose only crime was appearing in my interest, 
were confined for many weeks in a prison, and 
obliged to stand trial,^^ and that others, of the 
higher rank, ingenious and amiable men, valua- 
ble for their qualities, respectable for their char- 
acters, distinguished for their abilities, and every 
way meriting the .esteem of mankind, were also 
attacked without the show of a pretense, and 
obliged to undergo the ceremony of a public ac- 
quittal from the foul crime of murder — when I 
consider that palpable perjury, and subornation 
of perjury were employed to accomplish the san- 
guinary object of this base conspiracy — when I 
consider that the malignity of my enemies has 
stopped at nothing, however gross and wicked, to 
ruin me and all that appeared in my interest — 
when I consider all this, sir, I can not, indeed, but 
look with some anxiety to the circumstance of a 
new election. 

I am not, it is well known, sir, of a melan- 
choly complexion, or of a desponding turn of 



^^ Reference is here made to the use of the King's 
name by Lord Temple and others, to defeat Mr. 
Fox. 

2^ They were acquitted on that trial. Mr. O'Bry- 
en, who is next referred to, was indicted for murder, 
but no evidence whatever was produced against 
him, and he was of course discharged. 



500 



MR. FOX ON 



[1792. 



mind ; yet the idea of again combating this host 
of oppressions might, in other situations, deter 
me from the risk. But I owe too much to the 
electors of Westminster ever to abandon them 
from any dread of any consequences ; and I do 
assure you that I should conceive a new writ, 
with the hazard of all these hardships, as a great 
indulgence and favor, compared to that mockery, 
that insult upon judicature, a scrutiny under Mr. 
Thomas Corbett. 

Sir, I have nothing more to say upon this sub- 
ject. Whatever may be the fate of the ques- 
tion, it will be a pleasing reflection to me that I 
have delivered my opinions at full upon a point 
so important to that great and respectable body 
of men, to whom I am so much indebted ; and I 
sincerely thank the House for the honor of their 
patience and attention through so long a speech. 

To the honorable gentleman over against me 
[Mr. Pitt] I will beg leave to offer a little advice. 
If he condemns this measure, let him not stoop 
to be the instrument of its success. Let him 
well weigh the consequences of wiiat he is about, 
and look to the future effect of it upon the nation 
at large. Let him take care, that when they 
see all the powers of his administration employed 
to overwhelm an individual, men's eyes may not 
open sooner than they would if he conducted 
himself within some bounds of decent discretion, 
and not thus openly violate the sacred principles 
of the Constitution. A moderate use of his pow- 
er might the longer keep people from reflecting 
upon the extraordinary means by which he ac- 
quired it. But if the honorable gentleman neg- 
lects his duty, I shall not forget mine. Though 
he may exert all the influence of his situation to 
harass and persecute, he shall find that we are in- 
capable of unbecoming submissions. There is a 
principle of resistance in mankind which will not 
brook such injuries ; and a good cause and a good 
heart will animate men to struggle in proportion 
to the size of their wrongs, and the grossncss of 
their oppressors. If the House rejects this mo- 
tion, and establishes the fatal precedent which 
follows that rejection, I confess I shall begin to 



think there is little to be expected from such a 
House of Commons. But let the question term- 
inate as it may, I feel myself bound to maintain 
an unbroken spirit through such complicated dif- 
ficulties. And I have this reflection to solace 
me, that this unexampled injustice could never 
have succeeded but by the most dangerous and 
desperate exertions of a government, which, 
rather than not wound the object of their enmi- 
ty, scrupled not to break down all the barriers 
of law ; to run counter to the known custom of 
our ancestors ; to violate all that we have of 
practice and precedent upon this subject; and 
to strike a deep blow into the very vitals of the 
English Constitution, without any other induce- 
ment, or temptation, or necessity, except the ma- 
lignant wish of gratifying an inordinate and ira- 
placable spirit of resentment. 



These eloquent reasonings, and the significant 
appeal at the close, were lost upon Mr. Pitt. 
He had taken his ground, and Mr. Ellis' motion 
was negatived by a majority of 117. Still the 
mind of the country was aflfected precisely as 
Mr. Fox declared it would be. The scrutiny 
was more and more regarded as dishonorable 
and unjust ; especially when, at the expiration 
of eight months, Mr. Fox was found to have lost 
only eighteen votes, as compared with his antag- 
onist. All this time had been spent upon two 
out of seven parishes, and how long the investi- 
gation might be continued no one could predict. 
On Feb. 9th, 1785, another motion was made 
for an immediate return. This was rejected by 
a greatly diminished majority. The motion was 
renewed at the close of the same month, when 
the majority against it was reduced to nine. On 
the third of March, 1785, it was made again, 
and Mr. Pitt now endeavored to stave it off by 
moving an adjournment ; but perfectly as he was 
master of his majority on every other subject, 
they deserted him here. His motion was neg- 
atived by a vote of 162 to 124. The original 
motion was carried, and the next day the High 
Bailiff made a return of Mr. Fox. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. FOX ON THE RUSSIAN ARMAMENT, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 1, 

1792. 



INTRODUCTION. 
This was the most galling attack ever made by Mr. Fox on his great antagonist. The circumstances 
of the case were these. Turkey having commenced war against Russia in 1788, Joseph, Emperor of 
Austria, espoused the cause of the Russians, and attacked the Turks. At the end of two yeais, bow- 
ever, Joseph died, and his successor, Leopold, being unwilling to continue the contest, resolved on peace. 
He therefore called in the mediation of England and Prussia at the Congress of Reicheubach ; and the 
, three allied powers demanded of the Empress of Russia to unite in making peace on the principle of 
the status quo, that is, of giving up all the conquests she had gained during the war. To this Catharine 
strongly objected, and urged the formation of a new Christian kingdom out of the Turkish provinces 
of Bessarabia, Moldavia, and Wallachia, over which her grandson Constantine was expected to be 
ruler. This the allied powers refused, on the ground of its giving too great a preponderance to Russia; 
and the Empress, being unable to resist so strong an alliance, consented finally to relinquish all her con- 
quests, with the exception of the fortress of Oczakow (pronounced Otchakoff), at the mouth of the Dnie- 



1792.] THE RUSSIAN ARMAMENT. 501 

per, on the Black Sea, and a desert tract of country dependent thereon, which was valuable only as a 
security for her former conquests. England and Prussia, however, insisted on her restoring Oczakow, 
to which they attached undue importance as the supposed key of Constantinople, distant about one hund- 
red and ninety miles. The pride of Catharine was touched, and she indignantly refused. Mr. Pitt 
instantly prepared for war, and with his views and feelings at that time he would probably have thrown 
himself into the contest with all the energy and determination which marked his character. 

But when he brought the subject before Parliament, he found that both sides of the House shrunk back. 
His majority carried him through, indeed, but with diminished numbers ; and as the question caine up 
again and again under different forms, it became obvious that the nation would never sustain him on so 
narrow an issue ; for it seemed preposterous to every one to think of plunging England into war about a 
foi-tress in the wilds of Tartary, which hardly any man in the kingdom had ever heard of before. He 
therefore wisely determined to recede, though much to the mortification of some of his friends, and par- 
ticularly of the Duke of Leeds, his foreign secretary, who instantly resigned under a sense of the dis- 
grace brought upon government. Still Mr. Pitt continued his preparations for war (fearing, no doubt, that 
the Empress might rise in her demands), and thus brought upon himself new charges of wasting the 
public money, since it turned out that Catharine was still ready to abide by her original terms. On those 
terms the matter was finally adjusted, Mr. Pitt pledging himself that Turkey should accept them within 
four months, or be abandoned to her fate. Accordingly, peace was concluded on this basis between the 
Empress and the Porte, in August, 1791, and Oczakow has remained from that time in the hands of the 
Russians. 

At the next session of Parliament, early in 1792, the Opposition seized upon this as a favorable oppor- 
tunity to attack Mr. Pitt. He had placed himself, they affirmed, in a dilemma from which it was impossi- 
ble for him to escape. If Oczakow was so important as to justify threats of war, and the expenditure of 
so large a sum for its recovery, he deserved a vote of censure for giving it up ; if not so important, he 
equally deserved censure for endangering the peace of the nation, and adding, by his rashness, to the 
weight of the public burdens. Whether he had acted the part of a coward or a bully, he had equally 
disgraced the nation, and deserved its sternest reproof. Such were the views with which Mr. Whitbread 
moved his celebrated resolutions, on the 29th of March, 1792, condemning Mr. Pitt as having been "guilty 
of gross misconduct tending to incur unnecessary expense, and to diminish the influence of the British 
cation in Europe." 

The debate occupied two nights, probably the most painful ones Mr. Pitt ever spent in the House of 
Commons. He was ingeniously defended on the ground of the balance of power, by Mr. Jenkinson, Mr. 
Grant, and Mr, Dundas (though some of his adherents gave him up, and joined in the general reprobation) ; 
and was lashed unmercifully by Mr. (afterward Earl) Grey, Sir Philip Francis, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Wind- 
ham, and others. Mr. Sheridan, speaking of the plea that ministers had obtained the navigation of the 
Dniester as a " radoucissement,'' said, "The Empress, with a vein of sarcasm, granted them their sweeten- 
er, but required them to go to the Porte and demand the same on their part. The entry of the Grand Viz- 
ier (Mr. Pitt) into the divan, accompanied by the Reis Effendi (Mr. Dundas), must have been a very cu- 
rious spectacle ! What sort of reception and dialogue must have taken place? 'What glorious terms 
have you procured with your grand fleet? Have you humbled Russia? Does she tremble at your pow- 
er ? Does she crouch ? Have you burned her fleets for us ? Have you demolished St. Petersburgh ?' A 
melancholy No! must be the answer. 'What! does she not repent that she provoked you? But Aare 
yoH made her give up Oczakoio 1 That your sovereign has pledged himself for.' The reply must be, 
'Nothing of all this! We have engaged, if you do not comply with every tittle she demanded of you 
Ijefore we presumed to interfere, that ue will abandon you to all the consecjuences of the war'.'" Mr. 
Windham, speaking of the unimportance of Oczakow as a gi'ound of arming, said, "Their political object 
was almost a nothing, and that nothing they have failed to obtain ! They have not even the plea of a 
great and glorious failure. They aimed at trifling objects, and their success has been still more diminutive. 
It reminds one of the account of an invalid who could swallow nothing, and even that would not stay on 
his stomach ! Or, to express it more classically. 

Nil habuit Codrus, attamen infelix ille, 
Perdidit totum nil 1"^ 
Mr. Pitt bore the whole in silence, resolved, when the attack was through, to sum up briefly in his own 
defense, and throw himself on his majority. But Mr. Fox held back, obviously with a view to defeat the 
plan; until, at the end of the first evening, Mr. Dundas called upon him by name to come forward, claim- 
ing for Mr. Pitt a right to the closing turn. Mr. Fox denied the right, but promised (as there was not then 
enough time left) to open the debate the next evening, if the House would adjourn over. This was ac- 
cordingly done, and, on the evening of the first of March, he delivered the following speech. Lord Broug- 
ham has spoken of it as perhaps the ablest, and certainly the most characteristic, of all Mr. Fox's pro- 
ductions. The occasion was one which gave the fullest scope for his favorite mode of attack, the argu- 
mentum ad hominem, the exposure of inconsistencies, the detection of what he considered the secret 

^ Codrus had nothing, yet, unhappy man, 
He all that nothing lost ! 



602 



MR. FOX ON 



[1792. 



motives of his opponents, and the bitterest invectives against Mr. Pitt's conduct, as bringing indelible 
disgrace on the country. The reader wiU mark the dexterity and force with which he wrests from the 
hands of Mr. Pitt's friends every weapon they had used in his defense— the ingenuity M'ith which he 
shapes and interprets every act of the minister into a ground of condemnation— the closeness with which 
he holds him to the point, and the incessant goading to which he subjects him, on the horns of the dilem- 
ma mentioned above. 

SPEECH, &c. 

After the challenge which was thrown \ the truth, never did man stand so much in need of 

■ " •• ' every advantage ! Never was there Hi^f„^„,„^^. 

an occasion in which a minister was r"s.-ii8,ami his 

,.,.., . . present back- 

exhibited to this House m circum- waniness, to 
stances so ungracious as those under ^''P'""' 
which he at present appears. Last session of 
Parliament, we had no fewer than four debates 
upon the question of the armament, in which the 
right honorable gentleman involved this country, 
without condescending to explain the object 
which he had in view. The minority of this 
House stood forth against the monstrous measure 
of involving the country, without unfolding the 
reason. The minister proudly and obstinately 
refused, and called on the majority to support 
him. We gave our opinion at large on the 
subject, and with effect, as it turned out, on the 
public mind. On that of the right honorable 
gentleman, however, we were not successful ; 
for what was his conduct ? He replied to us, 
" I hear what you say. I could answer all your 
charges ; but I know my duty to my King too 
well to submit, at this moment, to expose the 
secrets of the state, and to lay the reasons before 
you of the measure on which I demand your 
confidence. I choose rather to lie for a time 
under all the imputations which you may heap 
upon me, trusting to the explanations which will 
come at last." Such was explicitly his lan- 
guage. However I might differ from the right 
honorable gentleman in opinion, I felt for his sit- 
uation. There was in this excuse some shadow 
of reason by which it might be possible to de- 
fend him, when the whole of his conduct came 
to be investigated. I thought it hard to goad 
him, when, perhaps, he considered it as unsafe 
to expose what he was doing. But when the 
conclusion of the negotiation had loosed him 
from his fetters, when he had cast off the tram- 
mels that bound him, I thought that, like the 
horse described by Homer (if I remembered, I 
would quote the lines), exulting in the fresh pas- 
tures after he had freed himself from the bridle, 
the right honorable gentleman would have been 
eager to meet us with every sort of explana- 
tion and satisfaction.^ I thought that, restrained 

1 The lines referred to are those near the end of 
the sixth book of the Iliad, in which Paris, after be- 
ing withheld for a time from the combat, is repre- 
sented as rushing to meet the foe with all the ea- 
gerness of a horse escaped from the stalls, when he 
seeks his accustomed pastures. 

'flf (5' oTE Tig araroq i-mrog, uKoaTTjaag km (jxirvri, 

(hauov uTTOj^^ji^ag deir) Tvedioto Kpoaivuv, 

eludug XoveaOat ev^f)dog noTafj-olo. 

Kvdiotjv • vipov 6e Kaprj ^x^'-' "i"*^' ^^ X'^^'^"''' ' 

(j/ioi.g utaaovTai. ■ b 6' dy?i.atr)<pi Trenoidug , 

fytiKpa i yovva (pepei fierd r' 7)6ea Kal vofxav Iktvcjv. 



Sir,. 

out to me, in the speech of a right hon 

Reasons for , , ' , n, r ta i t i ^ 

not speaking orablc gentleman [Mr. DundasJ, last 
before. ^ight, I Consider it my duty to trouble 

you somewhat at length on this important ques- 
tion. But before I enter into the consideration 
of it, I will explain why 1 did not obey a call 
made, and repeated several times, in a manner 
not very consistent either with the freedom of de- 
bate, or with the order which the right honora- 
ble gentleman [Mr. Pitt] himself has prescribed 
for the discussion of this day. Why any mem- 
bers should think themselves entitled to call on 
an individual in that way, I know not ; but why 
I did not yield to the call is obvious. It was 
said by an honorable gentleman, last night, to be 
the wish of the minister to hear all that could be 
said on the subject, before he should rise to en- 
ter into his defense. If so, it certainly would 
not become me to prevent him from hearing any 
other gentleman wiio might be inclined to speak 
on the occasion ; and as he particularly alluded 
to me, I thought it respectful to give way to gen- 
tlemen, that I might not interrupt the course 
which he has chosen, as it seems he reserves 
himself till I have spoken. 

This call on me is of a singular nature. A 
Mr Pitt no niinister is accused of having rashly 
right to claim engaged the country in a measure by 

the last word. » f A- i t i 

which we have sufiered disaster and 
disgrace, and when a motion of censure is made, 
he chooses to reserve himself, and speak after ev- 
ery one, that no means may be given to reply to 
his defense — to expose its fallacy, if fallacious, 
or to detect its misrepresentations, if he shall 
choose to misrepresent what may be said. If 
the right honorable gentleman is truly desirous 
of meeting the charges against him, and has con- 
fidence in his ability to vindicate his conduct, why 
not pursue the course which would be manly and 
open ? Why not go into a committee, as was 
offered him by the honorable gentleman who 
made the motion [Mr. Whitbreadj. in which the 
forms of this House would have permitted mem- 
bers on each side to answer whatever was ad- 
vanced by the other, and the subject would have 
received the most ample discussion ? Instead of 
this honorable course, he is determined to take 
all advantages. He screens himself by a strat- 
agem which no defendant in any process in this 
country could enjoy ; since no man put upon his 
defense in any court of ju.stice could so contrive 
as not only to prevent all reply to his defense, but 
all refutation of what he may assert, and all ex- 
planation of what he may misrepresent. 

Such are the advantages which the right hon- 
orable gentleman [Mr. Pitt] is determined to 
seize in this moment of his trial : and, to confess 



1792.] 



THE RUSSIAN ARMAMENT. 



503 



by no delicacy, and panting only for the moment 
that was to restore him to the means of develop- 
ing, and of expatiating upon every part of his con- 
duct that was mysterious ; of clearing up that 
which had been reprobated ; of repelling on the 
heads of his adversaries those very accusations 
with which they had loaded him — the right hon- 
orable gentleman would have had but one wish, 
that of coming forward in a bold and manly man- 
ner, and endeavoring to make his cause good 
against us in the face of the world. Has he done 
so ? Has he even given us the means of inquir- 
ing fully and fairly into his conduct ? No such 
thing. He lays before us a set of papers, suffi- 
cient, indeed, as I shall contend, to found a strong 
criminal charge of misconduct against him, but 
evidently mutilated, garbled, and imperfect, with 
a view of precluding that full inquiry which his 
conduct demands, and which we had every rea- 
son to expect he would not have shrunk from on 
this day. We call for more. They are denied 
us. Why? " Because," say the gentlemen on 
the other side, "unless the papers now before 
you show there is ground for accusation, and un- 
less you agree to accuse, it is not safe or proper 
to grant you more." But is this a defense for 
the right honorable gentleman ? Do these pa- 
pers exculpate him ? Directly the reverse. Pri- 
ma facie they condemn him. They afford us, in 
the first instance, the proof of disappointment. 
They show us that we have not obtained what 
we aimed to obtain ; and they give us no justi- 
fication of the right honorable gentleman for 
that disappointment. I have heard much inge- 
nuity displayed to maintain that there was no 
guilt. But what is the fallacy of this argument ? 
When we called for papers during the Spanish 
negotiation [as to Nootka Sound], we were an- 
swered, " the negotiation was pending, and it was 
unsafe to grant them."^ Very well. But when 
it was over, and the same reasons for withhold- 
ing them could not be said to exist, we were 
told, " Look to the result. The nation is satis- 
fied with what we have got, and you must lay a 
ground of criminality before we can admit your 
principle of calling for papers." Thus we were 



The wanton courser thus with reins unbound 
Breaks from his stall, and beats the trembling 

ground ; 
Paraper'd and proud, he seeks the wonted tides, 
And laves, in height of blood, his shining sides ; 
His head now freed, he tosses to the skies ; 
His mane dishevel'd o'er his shoulders flies ; 
He snuffs the females in the distant plain. 
And springs, exulting, to his fields again. — Pope. 
2 In 1789, a Spanish frigate broke up a small trad- 
ing establishment of the English at Nootka Sound, 
alleging that Spain had an exclusive right to all the 
Pacific coast from Cape Horn to the sixteenth de- 
gree of north latitude. Mr. Pitt entered into nego- 
tiations on the subject, which could not then be made 
public; and in order to enforce his demands, he ap- 
plied to Parliament in 1790 for a large increase of 
military and naval force. It was granted, and Spain 
yielded the point during the same year. She re- 
stored Nootka Sound, and conceded to England the 
right of carrying on a free navigation and her fish- 
eries in the North Pacific Ocean. 



precluded from all inquiry into that business. 
But now the right honorable gentleman, con- 
scious that the country feels somewhat different- 
ly, admits the ground of criminality to have been 
laid, by producing those documents on your ta- 
ble, imperfect as they are. It is from his own 
confession, therefore, that I am to pronounce him 
guilty, until he proves himself not to be so ; and 
it is enough for me to contend that the papers 
now before us afford him prima facie no justifi- 
cation, but, on the contrary, afford strong proof 
of his guilt, inasmuch as they evince a complete 
failure in the object he aimed to extort. Sir, 
the right honorable gentleman is sensible how 
much these circumstances render it necessary 
for him to take every possible advantage his sit- 
uation can give him. Instead, therefore, of show- 
ing himself anxious to come forward, or thinking 
it his duty to explain, why it was inconvenient 
or impolitic for him to state last year the true 
grounds on which he had called upon us to arm, 
what was the object of that armament, and why 
he had abandoned it, he lays a few papers on the 
table, and contents himself with an appeal un- 
heard of before : "If you have any thing to say 
against me, speak out, speak all. I will not say 
a word till you have done. Let me hear you 
one after another. I will have all the advantage 
of the game — none of you shall come behind 
me ; for as soon as you have all thrown forth 
what you have to say, I will make a speech, 
which >'ou shall not have an opportunity to con- 
tradict, and I will throw myself on my majority, 
that makes you dumb forever." Such is the sit- 
uation in which we stand, and such is the course 
which the right honorable gentleman thinks it hon- 
orable to pursue ! I cheerfully yield to him the 
ground he chooses to occupy, and I will proceed, 
in obedience to the call personally addressed to 
me, frankly to state the reasons for the vote of 
censure, in which I shall this night agree. 

I. Much argument has been used on topics 
not unfit, indeed, to be mixed with Mr. pitt not ex- 
this question, but not necessary; doctnniofTi.e 
topics which undoubtedly may be i">'ance of power, 
incidentally taken up, but which are not essen- 
tial to the discussion. In this class I rank what 
has been said upon the balance of Europe. 
Whether the insulated policy which disdained 
all continental connection whatever, as adopted 
at the beginning of the present reign — whether 
the system of extensive foreign connection, so ea- 
gerly insisted on by a young gentleman who spoke 
yesterday for the first time [Mr. Jenkinson, aft- 
erward Lord Liverpool] — or whether the medium 
between these two be our interest, are certain- 
ly very proper topics to be discussed, but as cer- 
tainly not essc7itial topics to this question. Of 
the three, I confidently pronounce the middle 
line the true political course of this country. I 
think that, in our situation, every continental con- 
nection is to be determined by its own merits. 
I am one of those who hold that a total inatten- 
tion to foreign connections might be. as it has 
proved, very injurious to this country. But if I 
am driven to choose between the two extremes. 



604 



MR. FOX ON 



[1792. 



between that of standing insulated and aloof from 
all foreign connections, and trusting for defense to 
our own resources, and that system as laid down 
in the speech of an honorable gentleman [Mr. 
Jenkinson], who distinguished himself so much 
last night, to the extent to which he pressed it, 
I do not hesitate to declare that my opinion is 
for the first of those situations. I should prefer 
even total disunion to that sort of connection, to 
preserve which we should be obliged to risk the 
blood and the resources of the country in every 
quarrel and every change that ambition or acci- 
dent might bring about in any part of the Con- 
tinent of Europe. But in the question before us, 
I deny that I am driven to either of these ex- 
tremes. The honorable gentleman, who spoke 
with all the open ingenuousness, as well as the 
animation of youth, seemed himself to dread the 
extent to which his own doctrines would lead 
him. He failed, therefore, to sustain the policy 
of the system he described, in that part where it 
can alone apply, namely, to the degree in which 
it is necessary for us to support a balance of 
power. Holland, for instance, he states to be 
our natural ally. Granted. " To preserve Hol- 
land, and that she may not fall into the arms of 
France, we must make an alliance with Prussia." 
Good. But Prussia may be attacked by Austria. 
" Then we must make an alliance with the Otto- 
man Porte, that they may fall on Austria." 
Well, but the Porte may be attacked by Russia. 
" Then we must make an alliance with Sweden, 
that she may fall on Russia." By the way, I 
must here remind him that he totally forgot even 
to mention Poland, as if that countr}^, now be- 
come in some degree able to act for itself, from 
the change in its Constitution, was of no moment, 
or incapable of influencing in any manner this 
system of treaties and attacks. His natural in- 
genuity pointed out to him that, in casting up the 
account of all this, it would not produce a fa- 
vorable balance for England, and he evaded the 
consequence of his own principle, by saying that 
perhaps Russia would not attack the Porte ! 
" for when we speculate on extreme cases (says 
the honorable gentleman) we have a right to 
make allowances. It is fair to expect that when 
we are in alliance with the Porte, Russia will 
feel too sensibly the importance of the commer- 
cial advantages she enjoys in her intercourse 
with this country to rislf the loss of them by an 
attack on her." Are we, then, to suppose, in 
^ a scene of universal contest and warfare, that 
f «■ this ambitious power, who is reproached as per- 
petually and systematically aiming at the de- 
struction of the Porte, and while the rest of Eu- 
rope was at peace, has been in a state of restless 
and unceasing hostility with her, will then be the 
only power at peace, and let slip so favorable an 
opportunity of destroying her old enemy, simply 
because she is afraid of losing her trade with you 
in the Baltic ? If the honorable gentleman 
means to state this as a rational conjecture, I 
would ask him to look to the fact. Did her 
sense of these advantages restrain her in the 
late war, or compel her to desist from the de- 



mands she made before we began to arm ? Cer- 
tainly not. We find, from the documents before 
us, that she adhered to one uniform, steady course, 
from which neither the apprehension of commer- 
cial loss, nor the terrors of our arms, influenced 
her one moment to recede. What, then, are we 
to conclude from this intricate system of balances 
and counterbalances, and those dangerous theo- 
ries with which the honorable gentleman seemed 
to amuse himself? Why, that these are specu- 
lations too remote from our policy ; that in some 
parts, even according to the honorable gentle- 
man's argument, they may be defective, after all, 
and consequently, that if the .system he builds 
upon it fails in one of its possibilities, it fails in 
the whole of them. Such must ever be the fate 
of systems so nicely constructed. But it is not 
true that the system necessary to enable this 
country to derive the true benefit from the Dutch 
alliance ought to be founded upon those involved 
and mysterious politics which make it incumbent 
upon us, nay, which prove its perfection, by com- 
pelling us to stand foi-ward the principals in every 
quarrel, the Quixotes of every enterprise, the ag- 
itators in every plot, intrigue, and disturbance, 
which are every day arising in Europe to em- 
broil one state of it with another. I confess that 
my opinions fall infinitely short of these perilous 
extremes ; that possibly my genius is too scanty, 
and my understanding too limited and feeble, for 
the contemplation of their consequences ; and 
that I can speculate no farther than on connec- 
tions immediately necessary to preserve us, safe 
and prosperous, from the power of our open en- 
emies, and the encroachment of our competitors. 
This I hold to be the only test by which the mer- 
its of an alliance can be tried. I did think, for 
instance, that when the intrigues of France threat- 
ened to deprive us of our ancient ally, Holland, it 
was wise to interfere, and afterward to form an 
alliance by which that evil might be prevented.'^ 
But to push the system farther is pernicious. 
Every link in the chain of confederacies, which 
has been so widely expatiated upon by the mem- 
ber already alluded to, carries us more and more 
from the just point. By this extension the broad 
and clear lines of your policy become narrower 
and less distinct, until at last the very trace of 
them is lost. 

Other topics have been introduced into the 
discussion. The beginning of the war between 
Russia and the Porte has been referred to. What 
possible connection that has with our armament 
I know not, but of that I shall have occasion to 
speak by and by.'* 

11. I come, however, sir, to a question more 
immediately before us, and that is, the value 
and importance attached, in the minds of his 

' In 1788, there were serious dissensions in Hol- 
land, and France manifested her intentions to inter- 
pose, with a view of gaining an ascendency among 
the Dutch. England and Prussia instantly united 
to prevent it ; and Mr. Pitt went largely into prepa- 
rations for war, which had the approbation and con- 
currence of the whole English nation. 

* See page 508. 



1792.] 



THE RUSSIAN ARMAMENT. 



505 



Majesty's ministers, to the fortress of Oezakow ; 
Inconsistency and hcrc I must beg leave to say, 

of ministers in ^J^y^^ ^J^gy j^g^^g ,^q|. Q„gg attempted tO 
their estimate J t 

of Oezakow, answer the arguments so judiciously 
duct respect and ably enforced by ray honorable 
"'^'" friend who made this motion. It was 

explicitly stated by the gentlemen on the other 
side, as the only argument for our interference 
at all, that the balance of Europe was threaten- 
ed w^ith great danger if Oezakow was suffered 
to remain in the hands of Russia. Of no less 
importance did ministers last year state this for- 
tress of Oezakow, than as if it were indeed the 
talisman on which depended the fate of the whole 
Ottoman empire. But if this, from their own 
admission, was true last year, what has happen- 
ed to alter its value ? If it then excited the 
alarms of his Majesty's ministers for the safety 
of Europe, what can enable them now to tell us 
that we are perfectly secure ? If it was true 
that her bare possession of Oezakow would be 
so dangerous, what must be the terror of Eu- 
rope, when they see our negotiators put Russia 
into the way of seizing even Constantinople it- 
self? This was the strong argument of my 
honorable friend [Mr. Whitbread], and which he 
maintained with such solid reasoning that not 
the slightest answer has been given to it. To 
illustrate the value of Oezakow, however, one 
honorable gentleman [Mr. Grant] went back to 
the reign of Elizabeth, and even to the days of 
Philip and Demosthenes. He told us that when 
Demosthenes, urging the Athenians to make war 
on Philip, reproached them with inattention to 
a few towns he had taken, the names of which 
they scarcely knew, telling them that those 
towns were the keys by which he would in time 
invade and overcome Greece, he gave them a 
salutary warning of the danger that impended. 
But if the opponents of that great orator had 
prevailed, if they had succeeded in inducing their 
countrymen to acquiesce in the surrender not 
only of those towns, but of considerably more, 
as in the present instance, with what face would 
he afterward have declared to his countrymen. 
" True it was that these sorry and nameless 
towns were the keys to the Acropolis itself ; but 
you have surrendered them, and what is the 
consequence ? You are now in a state of the 
most perfect security. You have now nothing 
to fear. You have now the prospect of sixteen 
years of peace before you !" I ask, sir, what 
would have been the reception even of Demos- 
thenes himself, if he had undertaken to suppoit 
such an inconsistency ? 

Let us try this, however, the other way. In 
order to show that his JNIajesty's ministers merit 
the censure which is proposed, I will admit that 
the preservation of the Turks is necessary for 
the security of a balance of power. I trust, at 
the same time, that this admission, which I make 
merely for the argument, will not be disingen- 
uously quoted upon me, as hypothetical state- 
ments too commonly are, for admissions of fact. 
What will the right honorable gentleman gain 
by it ? The Turks, by his arrangement, are left 



in a worse situation than he found them ; for, 
previous to his interference, if Russia had gone 
to Constantinople, he w^ould have been unfettered 
by the stipulations which bind him now, and he 
and his ally might have interfered to save the 
Porte from total destruction. But at present the 
possible and total extirpation of the Ottoman pow- 
er is made to depend on a point so precarious as 
their accepting the proposal which the right 
honorable gentleman thought fit to agree to for 
them within the space of four months.^ And 
what is this proposal ? Why, that the Turks 
should give up, not only the war they had be- 
gun, but this very Oezakow, which of itself was 
sufficient, in the hands of Russia, to overturn the 
balance. If, therefore, it was so im- Dilemma for 
portant to recover Oezakow, it is not '"'"'^'^e^*- 
recovered, and ministers ought to be censured. 
If unimportant, they ought never to have de- 
manded it. If so unimportant, they ought to be 
censured for arming ; but if so important as they 
have stated it, they ought to be censured for dis- 
arming without having gotten it. Either way, 
therefore, the argument comes to the same point, 
and I care not on which side the gentlemen choose 
to take it up ; for whether Oezakow be, as they 
told us last year, the key to Constantinople, on 
the preservation of which to Turkey the balance 
of Europe depended, or, as they must tell us 
now, of no comparative importance, their con- 
duct is equally to be condemned for disarming, 
and pusillanimously yielding up the object, in 
the first instance ; for committing the dignity of 
their Sovereign, and hazarding the peace of their 
country, in the second. 

But they tell us it is unfair to involve them 
in this dilemma. There was a middle „ 

No escape 

course to be adopted. Oezakow was from tii'3 
certainly of much importance ; but this '^'"'""'^' 
importance was to be determined upon by cir- 
cumstances. Sir, we are become nice, indeed, in 
our political arithmetic. In this calculating age 
we ascertain to a scruple what an object is real- 
ly worth. Thus it seems that Oezakow was 
w^orth an armament, but not worth a war; it 
was worth a threat, but not worth carrying that 
threat into execution ! Sir, I can conceive noth- 
ing so degrading and dishonorable as such an ar- 
gument. To hold out a menace without ever se- 
riously meaning to enforce it, constitutes, in com- 
mon language, the true description of a bully. 
Ajiplied to the transactions of a nation, the dis- 
grace is deeper, and the consequences fatal to 
its honor. Yet such is the precise conduct the 
King's ministers have made the nation hold in 
the eyes of Europe, and which they defend by 
an argument that, if urged in private life, would 
stamp a man with the character of a coward 
and a bully, and sink him to the deepest abyss 
of infamy and degradation. Sure I am that this 
distinction never suggested itself to the reflec- 
tion of a noble Duke [the Duke of Leeds], whose 

5 Mr. Pitt, as already stated, when he gave up 
Oezakow, agreed that Turkey should accede to 
these terms within four months, or be abandoned 
to her fate. 



50G 



MR. FOX ON 



[1792. 



conduct throughout the whole of this business 
has evinced the manly character of his mind, un- 
accustomed to such calculations ! From him 
we learn the fact. He said in his place that his 
colleagues thought it fit to risk a threat to re- 
cover Oczakow, but would not risk a war for it. 
Such conduct was not for him. It might suit the 
characters of his colleagues in office: it could not 
his. But they say it might be worth a war tcith 
the public opinion, but worth nothing unthout it ! 
I can not conceive any case in which a great and 
wise nation, having committed itself by a men- 
ace, can withdraw that menace without dis- 
grace. The converse of the proposition I can 
easily conceive. That there may be a place, 
for instance, not fit to be asked at all, but which 
being asked for, and with a menace, it is fit to 
insist upon. This undoubtedly goes to make a 
nation, like an individual, cautious of committing 
itself, because there is no ground so tender as 
that of honor. How do ministers think on this 
subject ? Oczakow was every thing by itself ; 
but when they added to Oczakow the honor of 
England, it became nothing! Oczakow, by it- 
self, threatened the balance of Europe. Ocza- 
kow and national honor united weighed nothing 
in the scale ! Honor i.s, in their political arith- 
metic, a minus quantity, to be subtracted from 
the value of Oczakow ! Sir, I am ashamed of 
this reasoning ; nor can I reflect on the foul 
stain it has fixed on the English name, without 
feeling mortified and humbled indeed ! Their 
late colleague, the noble Duke [of Leeds], urged 
his sentiments with the feelings that became him 
— feelings that form a striking contrast to those 
that actuate the right honorable gentleman. He 
told his country, that when he had made up his 
mind to the necessity of demanding Oczakow, it 
was his opinion that it might have been obtained 
without a war ; but having once demanded it, 
he felt it his duty not to shrink from the war that 
might ensue from the rejection of that demand, 
and preferred the resignation of his office to the 
retracting that opinion. Far different was the 
conduct of the right honorable gentleman [Mr. 
Pitt], though his advice was the same ; and small 
were the scruples he felt in tarnishing the honor 
of his Sovereign, whose name he pledged to this 
demand, and afterward obliged him to recede 
from it. 

HI. They tell us, however, and seem to val- 
Pubiic opinion: ^^ thcmsclves much upon it, that, in 
Ministers ougiit abandoninjj the object for which thev 

to have resign- » J ^ . •' 

ed if it was ad- had armcd, they acted m conformity 

verse to their ^ , ,. . . ci- t •^^ r • ^ 

setiie-i convic- to public opuiiou. Sir, 1 Will fairly 
^'°"^' state my sentiments on this subject. 

It is right and prudent to consult the public 
opinion. It is frequently wise to attend even to 
public prejudices on subjects of such infinite im- 
portance, as whether they are to have war or 
peace. But if, in the capacity of a servant to 
the Crown, I were to see, or strongly to imag- 
ine that I saw any measures going forward that 
threatened the peace or prosperity of the coun- 
try, and if the emergency were so pressing as to 
demand the sudden adoption of a decisive course 



to avert the mischief, I should not hesitate one 
moment to act upon my own responsibility. If, 
however, the public opinion did not happen to 
square with mine ; if, after pointing out to them 
the danger, they did not see it in the same light 
with me ; or if they conceived that another rem- 
edy was preferable to mine, I should consider it 
as due to my King, due to my country, due to 
my own honor, to retire, that they might pursue 
the plan which they thought better by a fit in- 
sti'ument — that is, by a man who thought with 
them. Such would be my conduct on any sub- 
ject where conscientiously I could not .surrender 
my judgment. If the case was doubtful, or the 
emergency not so pressing, I should be ready, 
perhaps, to sacrifice ray opinion to that of the 
public ; but one thing is most clear in such an 
event as this, namely, that I ought to give the 
public the means of forming an accurate esti- 
mate. 

Do I state this diffisrence fairly ? If I do, and 
if the gentleman over against me will They ougiit.at 
admit that in the instance before us own\')rincip1e^s, 
the public sentiment ought to have tainedli'^br'^ 
influenced them, it follows that the forehand. 
public sentiment ought to have been consulted 
before we were committed in the eyes of Eu- 
rope, and that the country ought to have had the 
means, and the information necessary to form 
their judgment upon the true merits of this ques- 
tion. Did the Kij:ig's ministers act thus ? Did 
they either take the public opinion, or did they 
give us the means of forming one ? Nothing 
like it. On the 28th of March, 1791, the mes- 
sage was brought down to this House. On the 
29th, we passed a vote of approbation, but no 
opinion was asked from us, no explanation was 
given us. So far from it, we were expressly 
told our advice was not wanted ; that we had 
nothing to do with the prerogative of the Crown 
to make war; that all our business was to give 
confidence. So far with regard to this House. 
I can not help thinking this conduct somewhat 
hard upon the majority, who certainly might 
have counted for something in the general opin- 
ion, when the right honorable gentleman was 
collecting it, if he meant fairly so to do. I grant, 
indeed, that there are many ways by which the 
feeling and temper of the public may be tolera- 
bly well known out of this House as well as in it. 
I grant that the opinion of a respectable meeting 
at Manchester, of a meeting at Norwich, of a 
meeting at Wakefield, of public bodies of men in 
different parts of England, might give the right 
honorable gentleman a correct idea of the public 
impression.^ Permit me to say, also, that in the 
speeches of the minority of this House, he might 
find the ground of public opinion, both as to what 
might give it rise, and what might give it coun- 
tenance. But was the majority of this House 
the only body whose dispositions were not worth 
consulting? Will the minister say, "I traveled 
to Norwich, to York, to Manchester, to Wake- 



® Public meetings were held in these and in other 
places, and resolutions passed hostile to the meas- 
ures of the mhiister. 



1792.] 



THE RUSSIAN ARMAMENT. 



507 



field, for opinions;" "I listened to the minority; 

Pitt's con- I looked to Lord Stormont, to the Earl 

duct on this of Guilfoi'd ; but as to you, my trusty 

subject insult . . ' . t i i i 

ing to his ad- majority, 1 neglected you ! i had oth- 
herents. ^^ busiuess fof you ! It is not your 

office to give opinions ; your business is to con- 
fide ! You must pledge yourself, in the first in- 
stance, to all I can ask from you, and perhaps 
some time in the next year I may condescend to 
let you know the grounds on which you are act- 
ing." Such is the language he holds, if his con- 
duct were to be explained by words, and a con- 
duct more indecent or preposterous is not easily 
to be conceived ; for it is neither more nor less 
than to tell us, " When I thought the Ottoman 
power in danger, I asked for an armament to 
succor it. You approved, and granted it to me. 
The public sense was against me, and, without 
minding you, I yielded to that sense. My opin- 
ion, however, remains still the same ; though it 
must be confessed that I led you into giving a 
sanction to my schemes, by a species of reason- 
ing which it appears the country has saved itself 
by resisting. But they were to blame. I yet 
think that the exact contrary of what was done 
ought to have been done, and that the peace 
and safety of Europe depended upon it. But 
never mind how you voted, or how directly op- 
posite to the general opinion, with which I com- 
plied, was that opinion I persuaded you to sup- 
port. Vote now that I was right in both ; in the 
opinion I still maintain, and in my compliance 
with its opposite ! The peace of Europe is safe. 
I keep my place, and all is right again.''"' 

But after all, the right honorable gentleman 

Nottrue.how- ^^^ "°^ ^^^ ^^'^'^'^ ^"7 deference to the 
ever, that Mr. public opiniou ; and to prove this, I 

Pitt aid yield ^ , ^ ' ,, *^ , ' 

to public opin- have but to recall to your recollec- 
tion dates. The message was brought 
down, as I said before, on the 28th of March ; 
and in less than a week, I believe in four days, 
afterward, before it was possible to collect the 
opinion of any one public body of men, their 
whole system was reversed. The change, there- 
fore, could not come from the country, even had 
they been desirous of consulting it. But I have 
proved that they were not desirous to have an 
opinion from any quarter. They came down 
with their purposes masked and vailed to this 
House, and tried all they could to preclude in- 
quiry into what they were doing. These are 
not the steps of men desirous of acting by opin- 
ion. I hold it, however, to be now acknowl- 
was driven edged, that it was not the public 
b°ti,e o'Ts"-*^ opinion, but that of the minority in 
tion in Pariia- this Housc, which Compelled the 
ministers to relinquish their ill-ad- 
vised projects ; for a right honorable gentleman, 
who spoke last night [Mr. Dundas], confessed 
the truth in his own frank way. " We certain- 
ly," said he, "do not know that the opinion of 
■' There is nothing in the whole speech more char- 
acteristic of Mr. Fox, than the ingenuity with which 
he turns the conduct of Mr. Pitt into an insult to his 
"faithful majority," and the force he gives it by put- 
ting the whole into Mr. Pitt's own mouth. 



the public was against us ; we only know that 
a great party in this country was against us, and 
therefore we apprehended that, though one cam- 
paign might have been got through, at the be- 
ginning of the next session they would have in- 
terrupted us in procuring the supplies." I be- 
lieve I quote the right honorable gentleman cor- 
rectly. And here, sir, let me pause, and thank 
him for the praise which he gives the gentlemen 
on this side the House. Let me indulge the 
satisfaction of reflecting, that though we have 
not the emoluments of office, nor the patronage 
of power, yet we are not excluded from great 
influence on the measures of government. We 
take pride to ourselves, that at this moment we 
are not sitting in a committee of supply, voting 
enormous fleets and armies to carry into execu- 
tion this calamitous measure. To us he honest- 
ly declares this credit to be due ; and the coun- 
try will, no doubt, feel the gratitude they owe 
us for having saved them from the miseries of 
war.^ 

An honorable gentleman, indeed [Mr. Jenkin- 
son], has told us that our opposition to ^^^j j,,g ^^^ 
this measure in its commencement oc- "■"« "f^'''^ "e- 
casioned its having been abandoned fha'rgeawJ'to 
by the ministers ; ^but he will not al- ^^- «??-'"""• 
low us the merit of having saved the country 
from a war by our interposition, but charges us 
with having prevented their obtaining the terms 
demanded, which would have been got without 
a war. I am glad to hear this argument ; but 
must declare, in the name of the minority, that 
we think ourselves most unfaii'ly treated by it, 
and forced into a responsibility that belongs in 
no manner whatsoever to our situation. The 
minister, when repeatedly pressed on this sub- 
ject during the last session, was uniform in af- 
firming that he had reasons for his conduct, to 
his mind so cogent and unanswerable, that he 
was morally certain of the indispensable neces- 
sity of the measures he was pursuing. He has 
said the same since, and to this hour continues 
his first conviction. If, therefore, the right hon- 
orable gentleman [Mr. Pitt] thought so, and 
thought, at the same time, that our arguments 
were likely to mislead the country from its true 
interests, why did he continue silent ? If public 
support was so necessary to him, that without 
it, as he tells us now, he could not proceed a 
single step, why did he sufl"er us to corrupt the 
passions, to blind and to pervert the understand- 
ings of the public, to a degree that compelled his 
sacrifice of this essential measure ? Why did he 
quietly, and without concern, watch the preva- 
lence of our false arguments ? Why did he sanc- 
tion their progress, by never answering them, 
when he knew the consequence must necessarily 
be to defeat his dearest object, and put the safe- 
ty of his country to the hazard? Why did he 
not oppose some antidote to our poison ? But, 



^ Nothing could be more adroit than the manner 
in which Mr. Dundas' remark is here converted into 
an acknowledgment that the minority had saved 
the country from war, and a little below, that they 
were not " o. faction," as represented by others. 



.■^ 



508 



MR. FOX ON 



[1792. 



having neglected to do this (because of his duty 
to preserve state secrets, as he would have us 
believe), vi'hat semblance of right, what possible 
pretext has he to come forward now, and accuse 
us of thwarting his views, or to cast the respons- 
ibility of his failure and disgrace upon t<s, whose 
arguments he never answered, and to whom he 
obstinately and invariably refused all sort of in- 
formation, by which we might have been enabled 
to form a better judgment, and possibly to agree 
with him on this subject? Another right hon- 
orable gentleman, however [Mr. Dundas], judges 
more fairly of us, and I thank him for the hand- 
some acknowledgment he paid to the true char- 
acter of the gentlemen on this side of the House ; 
for by owning that, because we did not happen 
to approve of this armament, it was abandoned, 
he acknowledges another fact — that we are not 
what another honorable gentleman [Mr. Steele] 
chose to represent us, a factioti, that indiscrim- 
inately approves of every thing, right and wrong. 
This is clearly manifest from his own admissions ; 
for, giving up when they found we condemned, 
they must have begun in the idea that we should 
approve. We approved in the case of Holland, 
and in that of Spain. In the first case we did 
so, because the rectitude of the thing v/as so clear 
and manifest, that every well-wisher to England 
must have done it. We did so in the case of 
Spain, because the objects were explained to us. 
The insult given, and the reparation demanded, 
were both before us. But had the right honor- 
able gentleman any right, because we agreed to 
the Dutch and Spanish armaments, to anticipate 
the consent of Opposition to the late one. It was 
insulting to impute the possibility to us ! What, 
agree to take the money out of the pockets of the 
people, without an insult explained, or an object 
held up! It is said the object was stated, and 
that the means only were left to conjecture ; that 
the object proposed to the House was an arma- 
ment to make a peace, and Oczakow was sup- 
posed to be the means by which that peace was 
to be effected. Sir, it is almost constantly my 
misfortune to be differing from the right honor- 
able gentleman [Mr. Pitt] about the import of 
the words object and means. In my way of using 
these words, I should have directly transposed 
them, and called the armament the means of 
effecting peace, and Oczakow the object of that 
armament. And the event proves that ministers 
thought as I should have done ; for they gave 
up that object, because they knew they could get 
the end they proposed by their armament with- 
out it. This object, indeed, whatever was its 
importance ; whether it was or was not, as we 
have alternately heard it asserted and denied, the 
key of Constantinople ; nay, as some wild and 
fanciful people had almost persuaded themselves, 
the key to our possessions in the East Indies, the 
King's ministers have completely renounced ; 
and seem, by their conduct, to have cared very 
little what became of that or Constantinople it- 
self. The balance of Europe, however, is per- 
fectly safe, they tell us; and on that point we 
have nothing more to apprehend. The enormous 



Rusj'ia was the 
agj;res.s(ir, a 
fatse one. 



accession of power to Russia, from the posses- 
sion of Oczakow, so far from affecting Great 
Britain, is not likely, according to what the min- 
isters must assure us, to disturb the tranquillity 
of her nearest neighbors. That Oczakow, there- 
fore, was at any time an object sufficient to just- 
if}'^ their interference, I have stated many rea- 
sons for concluding will not be alleged this night. 
IV. Some of the gentlemen on the other side, 
indeed, have advanced other grounds, pretense that 
and told us (I confess it is for the first 
time) that in this war the Empress 
of Russia was the aggressor ; that on her part 
the war was offensive ; and that it became us to 
interfere to stop her progress. They tell us of 
various encroachments in the Kuban [a part of 
Tartary], of hostilities systematically carried on 
in violation of treaties, and man}^ other instances ; 
not one of which they have attempted to prove 
by a single document, or have rested on any oth- 
er foundation than their own assertions. But to 
these, sir, I shall oppose the authority of minis- 
ters themselves ; for, in one of the dispatches of 
the Duke of Leeds to Mr. Whitworth [British 
minister to Russia], he desires him to communi- 
cate to the court of Petersburgh, that if they will 
consent to make peace with the Turks on the 
status quo^^ the allies will consent to guarantee 
the Crimea to them, "Me object of the war,^^ as 
he states it to be. I desire no further proof than 
this, that we always considered the Turks as the 
aggressors ; for it follows, that where any place 
in the possession of one power is made the ob- 
ject of a war by another, the power claiming 
that object is the aggressor. If, for example, 
we were at war with Spain, and Gibraltar the 
object, Spain, of course, would be the aggressor : 
the contrary, if the Havana were the object. The 
King of England, therefore, by the dispatch which 
I have quoted, has, in words and in fact, acknowl- 
edged the Turks to have been the aggressors in 
this war, by making pretensions to a province 
solemnly ceded to Russia in the year 1783. I 
can scarcely think that ministers mean to con- 
tend that cession by treaty does not give right 
to possession. Where are we to look, therefore, 
to ascertain the right of a country to any place 
or territory, but to the last treaty ? To what 
would the opposite doctrine lead ? France might 
claim Canada, ceded in 1763, or we Tobago, ced- 
ed in 1783. It might be urged that they took 
advantage of our dispute with our own colonies, 
and that the treaty gave no right. Canada, Ja- 
maica, every thing, might be questioned. Where 
would be the peace of Europe, if these doctrines 
were to be acted on ? Every country must con- 
tinue in a state of endless perplexity, armament, 
and preparations. But, happily for mankind, a 
different principle prevails in the law of nations. 
There the last treaty gives the right ; and upon 
that we must aver, that if, as the dispatch says, 
the Crimea was the object, the Turk was the ag- 
grcssor}° 



^ State of things previous to the war. 
^^ On this subject, Mr. Whitbread said in bis open- 
ing Bpeecb, " It was stated by Count Osterman, in 



1792.] 



THE RUSSIAN ARMAMENT. 



509 



V. What, therefore, was the right claimed by 
the risht honorable gentleman to en- 

Rejil motives .==,.,. « t ii 

of Mr. Pitt's ter mto this dispute ? I will answer. 

intenenucn. ^^^ ^ .^^^ ^^ ^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ anxloUS tO 

play a lofty part. France had gone off the stage. 
The character of the miserable disturber of em- 
pires was vacant, and he resolved to boast and 
vapor, and play his antic tricks and gestures on 
the same theater. And what has been the first 
effect of this new experiment upon the British 
nation ? That, in the pride and zenith of our 
power, we have miserably disgraced ourselves 
in the eyes of Europe ; that the name of his Maj- 
esty has been sported with, and stained ; that the 
people of England have been inflamed, their com- 
merce disturbed, the most valuable citizens drag- 
ged from their houses [by press-warrants], and 
half a million of money added to the public bur- 
dens. And here, sir, in justice to my own feel- 
ings, I can not pass over wholly in silence the 
fate of that valuable body of our fellow-citizens 
who are more particularly the victims of these 
false alarms, and by whom the most bitter por- 
tion of the common calamity must be borne. I 
am compelled to admit that every state has a 
right, in the season of danger, to claim the serv- 
ices of all, or any of its members ; that the " sa- 
lus populi suprema lex est.^^ Tenderness and 
consideration in the use of such extensive pow- 
ers is all I can recommend to those whose busi- 
ness it is to call them into action. But here I 
must lament, in common with every feeling mind, 



that unnecessary barbarity which dragged them 
from their homes, deprived them of their liberty, 
and tore them from the industrious exercise of 
those modes of life by which they earned support 
for their families, want* nly, cruelly, and without 
pretext, because vxithout the smallest intention of 
employing them. The gentlemen well know 
what I state to be a fact; for they know that 
their system was changed, and their object aban- 
doned, before even they had begun to issue press- 
warrants ! 

VI. I return, sir, to the disgraceful condition in 
which the right honorable gentleman pj^grace 
has involved us. Let us see whether brought upon 

. the country 

what I have said on this point be not by Mr. Pitt's 
literally true. The Empress of Rus- 
sia offered, early in the year 1790, to depart from 
the terms she had at first thrown out, namely, 
that Bessarabia, Wallachia, and Moldavia should 
be independent of the Ottoman power. This, it 
appears, she yielded upon the amicable repre- 
sentations of the allied powers, and substituted 
in the room of them those conditions which have 
since been conceded to her, namely, that the 
Dniester should be the boundary between the 
two empires, and all former treaties should 
be confirmed. " Then," say ministers, " if we 
gained this by simple negotiation, what may we 
not gain by an armament?" Thus judging of 
her pusillanimity by their own, they threatened 
her. What did she do ? Peremptorily refused 
to depart one atom from her last conditions ; and 
this determination, I assert, was in the possession 
of his Majesty's ministers long before the arma- 
ment. They knew not only this, early in the 
month of March, 1791, but likewise the resolu- 



his letter to Mr. Whitworth and Count Goltze, dated 
June 6tb, 1791, that the courts of London and Berlin 
at the time avowed that Russia had been unjustly 

attacked." Mr. Pitt, therefore, could not but admit, , . r ,, -r^ .. • • u i i 

in his reply to Mr. Fox, that "in point of sti-ict fact. | ^'o^ of the Empress not o rise in her demands, 
the Turks were aggressors" in commencing the war. I notwithstanding any farther success that might 
Still, he contended, that " such had been the conduct I attend her arms. The memorial of the court 
of Russia toward the Porte, and such the indubitable of Denmark, which they have, for reasons best 
proof of her hostile intentions toward that power, j known to themselves, I'efused us, but which was 
that although the Turks struck the first blow, the circulated in every court, and published in ev- 
war might fairly be termed a defensive one." Th' 



statement was undoubtedly true, and is confirmed 
by Belsham, in his Memoirs of the reign of George j 
III., vol. iv., 258. It is there shown that Catharine j 
and the Emperor Joseph met at Cherson in 1787 — 
that " the Turkish Empire at this period presenting 
an easy and inviting prospect of conquest, a negotia- 
tion was set on foot, with thin view, between the two 
imperial courts" — that "scarcely did she [Catharine] 
deign to affect concealment of her hostile intentions ; 
and over one of the gates of the city she caused to 



ery newspaper in Europe, fully informed them 
of these matters. But the King's ministers, with 
an absurdity of which there is no example, call- 
ed upon the country to arm. Why ? Not be- 
cause they meant to employ the armament 
against her, but in the fanciful hope that, be- 
cause, in an amicable negotiation, the Empress 
had been prevailed upon not to press the demand 
of Wallachia, Moldavia, and Bessarabia as inde- 
pendent sovereignties, they should infallibly suc- 



be inscribed, ' This IS the gate which leads to Byzan- , , • j * i • .i * ..^ 

3 ,, ^ ., ,, ^r^,, r. . r II ' ceed by arming, and not employing that arma- 

riUM ; and that the Ottoman Porte, fully ap- .•' '^i'. , , i ,i i . . 

prised of the machinations of the imperial courts, I "^^nt, in persuading her to abandon all the rest ! 
took a hasty resolution, notwithstanding her own j ^"^ ^^'^at was the end? Why, that after pledg- 
extreme unpreparedness for commencing offensive i ing the King's name in the most deliberate and 
operations, to publish an immediate declaration of i solemn manner ; after lofty vaporing, menacing, 
war against Russia, in the hope, probably, of being ' promising, denying, turning, and turning again ; 
able to conciliate the Emperor [Joseph] before his after keeping up the parade of an armament for 

plan ofhostilities was matured." In this the Turks I fo^r n^o^ths, accompanied with those severe 
did not succeed. Joseph, according to his ae:ree- r • c i * u * 

uiu ijut => ^ -,1 •,, -^'^.i . .^ , I measures Ipressincr seamen, &c.], to be regret- 

ment, immediately united with Catharine in the ; , ^} . i i^ . i i 

war; and no one doubts that the dismemberment of I ^^^ ^^'^^ ^^"^en necessary, to be reprobated when 
the Turkish Empire had been concerted between "^^^ ^^e right honorable gentleman crouches 
them ; so that Mr. Pitt was correct in saying the humbly at her feet ; entreats, submissively sup- 
Turks were acting on the defensive. plicates of her moderation, that she will grant 
11 The highest law is the safety of the state. him some small trifle of what he asks, if it is but 



510 



MR. FOX ON 



[1792. 



by way of a boon ; and finding at last that he 
can get nothing, either by threats or his pray- 
ers, gives up the whole precisely as she insisted 
upon having it ! 

The right honorable gentleman, however, is 
He now seeks determined that this House shall take 
'r/race'toll:: the whole of this disgrace upon itself. 
Commons. J heard him with much delight, on a 
former day, quote largely from that excellent 
and philosophical work, "The Wealth of Na- 
tions. '"^-^ In almost the first page of that book 
he will find it laid down as a principle that, by 
a division of labor in the different occupations 
of life, the objects to which it is applied are per- 
fected, time is saved, dexterity improved, and 
the general stock of science augmented ; that by 
joint effort and reciprocal accommodation the 
severest tasks are accomplished, and difficulties I 
surmounted, too stubborn for the labor of a sin- j 
gle hand. Thus, in the building of a great pal- j 
ace. we observe the work to be parceled out , 
into different departments, and distributed and j 
subdivided into various degrees, some higher, | 
some lower, to suit the capacities and condition 
of those who are employed in its construction. 
There is the architect that invents the plan, and 
erects the stately columns. There is the dust- 
man and the nightman to clear away the rubbish. 
The right honorable gentleman applies these 
principles to his politics ; and, in the division ! 
and cast of parts for the job we are now to exe- j 
cute for him, has reserved for himself the high- 
er and more respectable share of the business, i 
and leaves all the dirty work to us. Is he asked i 
why the House of Commons made the armament i 
last year ? He answers, " The House of Com- : 
mons did not make the armament ! I made it. I 
The House of Commons only approved of it." I 
Is he asked why he gave up the object of the , 
armament, after he had made it ? "I did not [ 
give it up!" he exclaims. "I think the same j 
of its necessity as ever. It is the House of Com- 
mons that gives it up ! It is the House that ■ 
supports the nation in their senseless clamor ! 
against my measures. It is to this House that ' 
you must look for the shame and guilt of your 
disgrace." To himself he takes the more con- 1 
spicuous character of menacer. It is he that | 
distributes provinces, and limits empires ; while 
he leaves to this House the humbler olTice of 
licking the dust, and begging forgiveness ; 
" Not mine these groans — 

These sighs that issue, or these tears that flow." 
"I am forced into these submissions by a low, 
contracted, groveling, mean-spirited, and igno- 
rant people !" But this is not all. It rarely 
And saddles happens that in begging pardon (when 
wuii'^unneces- ^^^ dctcrminc upon that course) they 
sary expense, havc uot somc benefit in view, or that 

^^ Mr. "Tox, in order to relieve the minds of his 
hearers from a continual stream of invective, now 
turns oft" for a few moments to Adam Smith's doc- 
trine of a division of labor, and then makes it the 
starting-point of a new attack, to which he gives 
double life and force by his dramatic mode of put 
ting the subject. 



the profit to be got is not meant to counterbal- 
ance, in some measui-e, the honor to be sacri- 
ficed. Let us see how the right honorable gen- 
tleman managed this. On the first indication of 
hostile measures against Russia, one hundred 
and thirty-five members of this House divided 
against the adoption of them. This it was, ac- 
cording to a right honorable gentleman who 
spoke in the debate yesterday [Mr. Dundas], that 
induced ministers to abandon their first object ; 
but not like the Duke of Leeds, who candidly 
avowed, that if he could have once brought him- 
self to give up the claim of Oczakow, he would 
not have stood out for the razing its fortifications, 
or any such terms. The ministers determine 
that the nation, at least, shall reap no benefit 
from the reversal of their system. " You have 
resisted our projects," say they ; "you have dis- 
covered and exposed our incapacity ; you have 
made us the ridicule of Europe, and such we 
shall appear to posterity ; you have defeated, in- 
deed, our intentions of involving you in war ; but 
you shall not be the gainers by it ! you shall not 
save your money ! We abandon Oczakow, as 
you compel us to do ; but we will keep up the 
armament if it is only to spite you !" 

Determined to act this dishonorable part, their 
next care was to do it in the most dis- ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^■_ 
graceful manner: and as thev had ficesthepubho 

1 1 Ti T ■, , .^-r. honor by lii.s 

dragged Parliament and their King modeoinego- 
through the dirt and mire, they re- ^"'^'"°' 
solved to exhibit them in this offensive plight to 
the eyes of Europe. To do this, they did not 
care to trust to the minister we had at Peters- 
burgh — a gentleman distinguished for amiable 
manners, and by the faithful, the vigilant, and 
the able discharge of his duty. Why was the 
management of the negotiation taken from him ? 
Was he too proud for this service ? No man is 
too proud to do his duty ; and of all our foreign 
ministers, Mr. Whitworth'^ I should think the 
very last to whom it could be reproached that 
he is remiss in fulfilling the directions he re- 
ceives, in their utmost strictness. But a new 
man was to be found ; one whose reputation for 
talents and honor might operate, as they hoped, 
as a sort of set-off against the incapacitv he was 
to cure, and the national honor he was deputed 
to surrender. Was it thus determined, because, 
in looking round their diplomatic body, there was 
no man to be selected from it, whose character 
assimilated with the dirty job he was to exe- 
cute ? As there was honor to be sacrificed, a 
stain to be fixed upon the national character, en- 
gagements to be retracted, and a friend to be 
abandoned ; did it never occur to them that 
there was one man upon their diplomatic list 
who would have been pronounced by general 
acclamation thoroughly qualified in soul and 
qualities for this service ? Such a person they 
might have found, and not so occupied as to 
make it inconvenient to employ him. They 

■^ Afterward Lord Whitworth, and embassador 
at the court of Bonaparte during the peace of 
Amiens. 



1792] 



THE RUSSIAN ARMAMENT. 



611 



would have found him absent from his station, 
under the pretense of attending his duty in this 
House, though he does not choose often to make 
his appearance here.^^ Instead of this, howev- 
er, they increased the dishonor that they doomed 
us to suffer, by sending a gentleman endowed 
with every virtue and accomplishment, who had 
acquired, in the service of the Empress of Rus- 
sia, at an early period of his life, a character for 
bravery and enterprise that rendered him per- 
sonally esteemed by her, and in whom fine tal- 
ents and elegant manners, ripened by habit and 
experience, had confirmed the flattering promise 
of his youth. Did they think that the shabbi- 
ness of their message was to be done away by 
the worth of the messenger ? If I were to send 
a humiliating apology to any person, would it 
change its quality by being intrusted to Lord 
Rodney, Admiral Pigot, my honorable friend be- 
hind me [General Burgoyne], Lord Cornwallis, 
Sir Henry Clinton, Sir William Howe, or any 
other gallant and brave officer ? Certainly not. 
It was my fortune, in very early life, to have 
set out in habits of particular intimacy with Mr. 
Faulkener, and however circumstances may have 
intervened to suspend that intimacy, circumstan- 
ces arising from wide differences in political opin- 
ion, they never have altered the sentiments of pri- 
vate esteem which I have uniformly felt for him ; 
and with every amiable and conciliating quality 
that belongs to man, I know him to be one from 
whom improper submissions are the least to be 
expected. Well, sir, these gentlemen, Mr. Whit- 
worth and Mr. Faulkener, commence the nego- 
tiation by the offer of three distinct propositions, 
each of them better than the other, and accom- 
pany it with an expression somewhat remarka- 
ble, namely, that this negotiation is to be as un- 
like all the others as possible, and to be '■'"found- 
ed in -perfect candor?'' To prove this, they sub- 
mit at once to the Russian ministers "all that 
their instructions enable them to propose." Who 
would not have imagined, according to the plain 
import of these words, that unless the Empress 
had assented to one of. these propositions, all 
amicable interposition would have been at an 
end, and war the issue? The "perfect candor" 
promised in the beginning of their note, leads 
them to declare explicitly, that unless the forti- 
fications of Oczakow be razed, or the Turks are 
allowed, as an equivalent, to keep both the banks 

^* Lord Auckland is understood to have been the 
object of this fierce attack, which was certainly un- 
fair and ungentleraanly, as directed against one who, 
not being present, had no opportunity to speak in 
his own defense. Mr. Pitt, in his reply, asked Mr. 
Fox whether " it was decent or manly to go out of 
his way to allude, in an unhandsome manner, to an 
honorable gentleman in his absence, who was sup- 
posed to have been employed in a diplomatic ca- 
pacity ;" and declared that " no man who had been 
honored with the office of a minister at foreign 
courts had ever discharged his duty more ably, more 
honestly, or in a manner more creditable to himself, 
or advantageous to his country, than the honorable 
gentleman so illiberally alluded to." — Parliament- 
ary History, xxix., 998. 



of the Dnie.ster, the allies can not propose any 
terms to them. What answer do they receive ? 
An unequivocal rejection of every one of their 
propositions ; accompanied, however, WMth a dec- 
laration, to which I shall soon return, that the 
navigation of that river shall be free to all the 
world, and a reference to those maxims of policy 
which have invariably actuated the Empress of 
Russia in her intercourse with neutral nations, 
w^hose commerce she has at all times protected 
and encouraged. With this declaration the Brit- 
ish plenipotentiaries declare themselves perfect- 
ly contented ; nay, more, they engage that if the 
Turks should refuse these conditions, and con- 
tinue obstinate longer than four months, the al- 
lied courts " will abandon the termination of the 
war to the events it may produce." And here 
ends forever all care for the Ottoman empire, all 
solicitude about the balance of power. The right 
honorable gentleman will interpose no further to 
save either, but rests the whole of a measure, 
once so indispensable to our safety, upon this 
doubtful issue, whether the Turks will accept in 
December those very terms which in July the 
British ministers could not venture to propose to 
them ! 

Sir, we may look in vain to the events of for- 
mer times for a disgrace parallel to comparison of 
what we have suffered. Louis the ^r. Piu's con- 

, r 1 '^^'^^ ^'''' ^''-'^ 

fourteenth, a monarch often named of Louis xiv. 
in our debates, and whose reign ex- ingdrcmnstan- 
hibits more than any other the ex- '^^^" 
tremes of prosperous and of adverse fortune, nev- 
er, in the midst of his most humiliating distress- 
es, .stooped to so despicable a sacrifice of all that 
can be dear to man. The war of the succession, 
unjustly begun by him, had reduced his power, 
had swallowed up his armies and his navies, had 
desolated his provinces, had drained his treas- 
ures, and deluged the earth with the blood of the 
best and most faithful of his subjects. Exhaust- 
ed by his various calamities, he offered his ene- 
mies at one time to relinquish all the objects for 
which he had begun the war. That proud mon- 
arch sued for peace, and was content to receive 
it from our moderation. But when it was made 
a condition of that peace, that he should turn his 
arms against his grandson, and compel him by 
force to relinquish the throne of Spain, humbled, 
exhausted, conquered as he was, misfortune had 
not yet bowed his spirit to conditions so hard as 
these. We know the event. He persisted still in 
the war, until the folly and wickedness of Queen 
Anne's ministers enabled him to conclnde the 
peace of Utrecht, on terms considerably less dis- 
advantageous even than those he had himself pro- 
posed. And shall we. sir, the pride of our age, 
the terror of Europe, submit to this humiliating 
sacrifice of our honor? Have we suffered a de- 
feat at Blenheim? Shall we. with our increas- 
ing prosperity, our widely diffused capital, our 
navy, the just subject of our common exultation, 
ever-flowing coffers, that enable us to give back 
to the people what, in the hour of calamity, we 
were compelled to take from them ; flushed with 
a recent triumph over Spain [respecting Nootka 



512 



MR. FOX ON 



[1792. 



Sound], and yet more than all, while our old rival 
and enemy was incapable of disturbing us, shall 
it be for us to yield to what France disdained in 
the hour of her sharpest distress, and exhibit our- 
selves to the world, the sole example in its an- 
nals of such an abject and pitiful degradation?^^ 
VII. But gentlemen inform us now, in justifi- 
Preten.sesforcon- ^ation, as I suppose they mean it, 
tinuingthearma- of all thcsc mcasurcs, that to ef- 

ment: (1.) That the „ . t. • j 

Emperor might fcct a pcacc bctwecn Russia and 
e^con'juions on "^ the Portc was Only the ostensible 
the Turks. causc of our armament, or at least 

was not the sole cause ; and that ministers were 
under some appi'ehension lest the Emperor of 
Germany, if the allies were to disarm, should in- 
sist on better terms from the Turks than he had 
agreed to accept by the convention of Reichen- 
bach. This I can not believe. When his Maj- 
esty sends a message to inform his Parliament 
that he thinks it necessary to arm for a specific 
purpose, I can not suppose that a falsehood has 
been put into his Majesty's mouth, and that the 
armament which he proposes as necessary for 
one purpose is intended for another ! If the right 
honorable gentleman shall tell me, that although 
the war between Russia and the Porte was the 
real cause of equipping the armament, yet that 
being once equipped, it was wise to keep it up 
when no longer wanted on that account, because 
the Emperor seemed inclined to depart from the 
convention of Reichenbach ; then I answer, that 
it was his duty to have come with a second mes- 
sage to Parliament, expressly stating this new 
object, with the necessary information to enable 
the House to judge of its propriety. Another of 
(•3 ) That the ^^c arguments for continuing the arm- 
Ruilia mM.t ^"^^"^ ^^^er thc object was relinquish- 
have risen^in ed, is, that Russia might have insisted 

her demands. , ■, ^ ... 

on harder terms, not conceiving her- 
self bound by offers which w^ had refused to ac- 
cept. I perfectly agree with gentlemen, that 
after the repeated offer of those terms on the 
part of Russia, and the rejection of them by us, 
the Empress was not bound to adhere to them 
in all possible events and contingencies. If the 
war had continued, she would have had a right 
to further indemnification for the expense of it. 
But was it not worth the minister's while to try 
the good faith of the Empress of Russia, after 
she had so solemnly pledged herself to all Eu- 
rope that she would not rise in her demands ? 
The experiment would have been made with lit- 
tle trouble, by the simple expedient of sending a 
messenger to ask the question. The object of 
his armament would have suffered little by the 

'° We have here an instance of the admirable 
use which Mr. Fox sometimes made of history in 
his orations. The case selected was perfectly suit- 
ed to his purpose ; and the brief but masterly sketch 
which he gives of the circumstances and conduct of 
the French monarch, as contrasted with those of the 
British minister, was suited to awaken the keenest 
sense of disgrace in the minds of an English audi- 
ence. In respect to style alone, it is one of thc best 
specimens we liave in our eloquence of terse and 
powerful language. 



delay, as an answer from the Russian court 
might have been had in five or six weeks. Was 
it reasonable in ministers to suppose, that be- 
cause, in the early part of the negotiation, the 
Empress had shown so much regard to us as 
actually to give up whatever pretensions she had 
formed to other provinces of the Turkish empire, 
solely with the view of obtaining our concur- 
rence to the principle on which she offered to 
make peace, she would revert to those very pre- 
tensions the instant she had obtained that con- 
currence on our part, for the benefit of which 
she had sacrificed them ? Surely, as I have said, 
it was worth while to make the experiment; but 
simple and obvious as this was, a very different 
course was adopted. Oczakow, indeed, was re- 
linquished before the armament began, as we 
may find by comparing the date of the press- 
warrants with that of the Duke of Leed's resig- 
nation. As soon as the King's message was 
delivered to Parliament, a messenger was dis- 
patched to Berlin with an intimation of the reso- 
lution to arm. This, perhaps, was rashly done 
as the ministry might have foreseen that the 
measure would probably meet with opposition, 
and much time could not have been lost by wait- 
ing the event of the first debate. No sooner 
was the division [upon the debate] known, than 
a second messenger was sent off to overtake and 
stop the dispatches of the first ; and this brings 
me to another argument, which I confess appears 
to me very unlikely to help them out. They tell 
us, that the King of Prussia having (3.) That a con- 
armed in consequence of our assur- tinuameofthe 

^ IT armament was 

ances of support, we could not dlS- necessao, until 
■. c I 1 • t'le views of 

arm beiore we knew the sentiments Prussia could 
of the court of Berlin, without the im- ^^ ''"°''"- 
putation of leaving our ally in the lurch. Did 
we wait for the sentiments of that court to de- 
termine whether Oczakow was to be given up 
or not? Sir, when that measure was resolved 
upon, the right honorable gentleman actually had 
abandoned his ally ; and that such was the sense 
of the court of Berlin, I believe can be testified 
by every Englishman who was there at the time. 
No sooner did the second messenger arrive, and 
the contents of his dispatches become known, 
than a general indignation rose against the con- 
duct of the right honorable gentleman ; and I 
am well enough informed on the subject to state 
to this House, that not an Englishman could 
show his face in that capital without expc^ing 
himself to mortification, perhaps to insult. But, 
between the 28th of March, 1791, when the mes- 
sage was brought down to this House, and ihe 
2d or 3d of April, when the second messenger 
was dispatched with the news that ministers had 
abandoned the object of it, the armament could 
not have been materially advanced. VV^hy, then, 
was it persisted in ? The right honorable gen- 
tleman can not argue that he kept up the arma- 
ment in compliance with his engagements with 
Prussia, when the armament, in fact, did not ex- 
ist, and when it had been begun but four or five 
days previous to his renouncing the object of it. 
That could not have been his motive. What, 



1792] 



THE RUSSIAN ARMAMENT. 



513 



then, was the motive ? Why, that he was too 
proud to own his error, and valued less the mon- 
ey and tranquillity of the people than the appear- 
ance of firmness, when he had renounced the 
reality. False shame is the parent of many 
crimes. ^^ By false shame a man may be tempt- 
ed to commit a murder, to conceal a robbery. 
Influenced by this false shame, the ministers rob- 
bed the people of their money, the seamen of 
their liberty, their families of support and pro- 
tection, and all this to conceal that they had un- 
dertaken a system which was not fit to be pur- 
sued. If they say that they did this, apprehen- 
sive that, wnthout the terror of an armament, 
Russia would not stand to the terms which they 
had refused to accept, they do no more than ac- 
knowledge that, by the insolence of their arm- 
ing and the precipitancy of their submission, 
they had either so provoked her resentment, or 
excited her contempt, that she w^ould not even 
condescend to agree to her own propositions 
when approved by them. But however they 
might have thought her disposed to act on this 
subject, it was at least their duty to try whether 
such would have been her conduct or not. 

VIII. To prove that the terms to which they 
The free navi. agreed at last were the same with 
^niestef no* thosc thcy bcforc rejected, all I feel it 
real gain. ncccssary for me to observe is, that 
the free navigation of the River Dniester, the 
only novelty introduced into them, was implied 
in proposing it as a boundary ; for it is a well- 
known rule that the boundary between two pow- 
ers must be as free to the one as to the other. 
True, says the minister, but we have got the free 
navigation for the subjects of other powers, par- 
ticularly for those of Poland. If this be an ad- 
vantage, it is one which he has gained by con- 
cession ; for if he had not agreed that the river 
should be the boundary, the navigation would 
not have been free. The Turks offered no such 
stipulation, had they been put in possession of 
both the banks. Besides which, as a noble Duke, 
whom I have already quoted, well observed, it 
is an advantage, whatever may be its value, 
which can subsist only in time of peace. It is 
not, I suppose, imagined that the navigation will 
be free in time of war. They have, then, got 
nothing that deserves the name of a " modifica- 
tion," a term, I must here observe, the use of 
which is not justified even by the original me- 
morial, where the sense is more accurately ex- 
pressed by the French word ^^ radoucissement.^^ 
Was it, then, for some radoucissement [softening] 
that they continued their armament? Was it 
to say to the Empress, when they had conceded 
every thing, " We have given you all you asked, 
give us something that we may hold out to the 

^' The reader can not fail to remark how adroitly 
this mention of Mr. Pitt's pride and false shame is 
used by Mr. Fox to introduce anew some of the lead- 
ing topics of repi-oach — lavish expenditure, pressing 
of seamen, &c. He thus keeps the great points of 
bis case continually in view, at one time by inci- 
dental references in passing, at another by extend- 
ed and formal repetitions. 
Kk 



public, something that we may use against the 
minority ; that minority whom we have endeav- 
ored to represent as your allies. We have sac- 
rificed our allies, the Turks, to you. You can 
do no less than sacrifice your allies, the minor- 
ity, to us ?" If I had been to advise the Em- 
press on the subject, I would have counseled her 
to grant the British minister something of this 
sort. I would even have advised her to raze the 
fortifications of Oczakow, if he had insisted on it. 
I would have appealed from her policy to her 
generosity, and said, " Grant him this as an 
apology, for he stands much in need of it. His 
whole object was to appear to gain something, 
no matter what, by continuing the armament ; 
and even in this last pitiful and miserable object 
he has failed." If, after all, I ask, whether these 
terms are contained in the peace that we have 
concluded for the Turks, or, rather, which the 
Turks concluded for themselves, the answer is, 
"We have no authentic copy of it." Is this 
what we have got by our arms, by distressing 
our commerce, dragging our seamen from their 
homes and occupations, and squandering our 
ntoney ? Is this the efficacy of our interference, 
and the triumph of our wisdom and our firm- 
ness ? The Turks have at length concluded 
a peace, of which they do not even condescend 
to favor us with a copy, so that w^e know what 
it is only by report, and the balance of Europe, 
late in so much danger, and of so much import- 
ance, is left for them to settle without consult- 
ing us ! Is it for this that we employed such 
men as Mr. Faulkener and Mr. Whitworth? 
They were sent to negotiate for the materials 
of a speech, and failed. But what are the com- 
plaints that private friendship has a right to 
make, compared with those of an insulted pub- 
lic ? Half a million of money is spent, the peo- 
ple alarmed and interrupted in their proper pur- 
suits by the apprehension of a war, and for what ? 
For the restoration of Oczakow ? No ! Ocza- 
kow is not restored. To save the Turks from 
being too much humbled ? No. They are now 
in a worse situation than they would have been 
had we never armed at all. If Russia had per- 
severed in that system of encroachment of which 
she is accused, we could, as I observed before, 
then have assisted them unembarrassed. We 
are now tied down by treaties, and fettered by 
stipulations. We have even guaranteed to Rus- 
sia w^hat we before said it would be unsafe for 
the Turks to yield, and dangerous to the peace 
of Europe for Russia to possess. This is what 
the public have got by the armament. What, 
then, was the private motive ? 

Scilicet, ut Turno contingat regia conjux, 
Nos, animse viles, inhumata infletaque turba, 
Sfcernamur campis.^' 



^' That Turnus may obtain a royal spouse, 
We abject souls, unburiod and unwept, 
Lie scattered on the plains. 

The lines are taken from the ./Eneid of Virgil, 
book xi., line 371, and are part of Drances' speech 
in which he charges Turnus with sacrificing the 



514 



MR. FOX ON 



[1792. 



IX. The minister gained, or thought he was 
Tendency of to gain, an excuse for his rashness 
t^dlsuoy "con- and misconduct ; and to purchase this 
EnsUshCon^ cxcuse was the public money and 
Btitution. the public quiet wantonly sacrificed. 

There are some effects, which, to combine with 
their causes, is almost sufficient to drive men 
mad ! That the pride, the foll}^, the presump- 
tion of a single person shall be able to involve a 
whole people in wretchedness and disgrace, is 
more than philosophy can teach mortal patience 
to endure. Here are t-he true weapons of the 
enemies of our Constitution ! Here may we 
search for the source of those seditious writings, 
meant either to weaken our attachment to the 
Constitution, by depreciating its value, or which 
loudly tell us that we have no Constitution at 
all. We may blame, we may reprobate such 
doctrines ; but while we furnish those who cir- 
culate them with arguments such as these ; 
while the example of this day shows us to what 
degree the fact is true, we must not wonder if 
the purposes they are meant to answer be but 
too successful. ^^ They argue, that a Constitu- 
tion can not be right where such things are pos- 
sible ; much less so when they are practiced 
without punishment. This, sir, is a serious re- 
flection to every man who loves the Constitution 
of England. Against the vain theories of men, 
who project fundamental alterations upon grounds 
of mere speculative objection, I can easily defend 
it : but when they recur to these facts, and show 
me how we may be doomed to all the horrors of 
war by the caprice of an individual who will not 
even condescend to explain his reasons, I can only 
fly to this House, and exhort you to rouse from 
your lethargy of confidence into the active mis- 
trust and vigilant control which is your duty and 
your office. Without recurring to the dust to 
which the minister has been humbled, and the 
dirt he has been dragged through, if we ask, for 
what has the peace of the public been disturbed ? 
For what is that man pressed and dragged like 
a felon to a service that should be honorable ? 
we must be answered, for some three quarters 
of a mile of barren territory on the banks of the 
Dniester ! In the name of all we value, give us, 
when such instances are quoted in derogation of 
our Constitution, some right to answer, that these 
are not its principles, but the monstrous abuses 
intruded into its practice. Let it not be said, 
that because the executive power, for an ade- 
quate and evident cause, may adopt measures 
that require expense without consulting Parlia- 
ment, we are to convert the exception into a 
rule ; to reverse the principle ; and that it is 
now to be assumed, that the people's money 
may be spent for any cause, or for none, without 
either submitting the exigency to the judgment 

people in a useless war, simply that ho might re- 
ceive Laviiiia as his bride. 

^^ Mr. Fox shows great dexterity in thus retorting 
npon Mr. Pitt those charges of weakening the Brit- 
ish Constitution, which were brought against himself 
and friends so often at this time, in consequence of 
his admiration of the French Revolution. 



of their representatives, or inquiring into it aft- 
erward, unless we can make out ground for a 
criminal charge against the executive govern- 
ment. Let us disclaim these abuses, and return 
to the Constitution. 

I am not one of those who lay down rules as 
universal and absolute ; because I think there is 
hardly a political or moral maxim which is uni- 
versally true ; but I maintain the general rule to 
be, that before the public money be voted away, 
the occasion that calls for it should be fairly 
stated, for the consideration of those who are the 
proper guardians of the public money. Had the 
minister explained his system to Parliament be- 
fore he called for money to support it, and Par- 
liament had decided that it was not worth sup- 
porting, he would have been saved the mortifica- 
tion and disgrace in which his own honor is in- 
volved, and, by being furnished with a just ex- 
cuse to Prussia for withdrawing from the prose- 
cution of it, have saved that of his Sovereign and 
his country, which he has irrevocably tarnished. 
Is unanimity necessary to his plans ? He can be 
sure of it in no manner, unless he explains them 
to this House, who are certainly much better 
judges than he is of the degree of unanimity 
with which they are likely to be received. Why, 
then, did he not consult us? Because he had 
other purposes to answer in the use he meant to 
make of his majority. Had he opened himself to 
the House at first, and had we declared against 
him, he might have been stopped in the first in- 
stance : had we declared for him, we might have 
held him too firmly to his principle to suffer his 
receding from it as he has done. Either of these 
alternatives he dreaded. It was his policy to de- 
cline our opinions, and to exact our confidence ; 
that thus having the means of acting either way, 
according to the exigencies of his personal situa- 
tion, he might come to Parliament and tell us what 
our opinions ought to be ; which set of principles 
would be most expedient to shelter him from in- 
quir}'^, and from punishment. It is for this he 
comes before us with a poor and pitiful excuse, 
that for want of the unanimity he expected, there 
was reason to fear, if the war should go to a sec- 
ond campaign, that it might be obstructed. Wliy 
not speak out, and own the real fact ? He feared 
that a second campaign might occasion the loss 
of his place. Let him keep but his place, he 
cares not what else he loses. With other men, 
reputation and glory are the objects of ambition ; 
power and place are coveted but as the means 
of these. For the minister, power and place ai'e 
sufficient of themselves. With them he is con- 
tent ; for them he can calmly sacrifice every 
proud distinction that ambition covets, and every 
noble prospect to which it points the way ! 

X. Sir, there is yet an argument which I have 
not sufficiently noticed. It has been Mi^ceiinncoos 
said, as a around for his defense, that he concluding re- 

T r • ■ 1 . marks. 

was prevented from gammg what he 
demanded by our opposition ; and, but for this, 
Russia would have complied, and never would 
have hazarded a war. Sir, I believe the direct 
contrary, and my belief is as good as their asser- 



1797.] 



PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



515 



tion, unless they will give us some proof of its cor- 
rectness. Until then, I have a right to ask them, 
what if Russia had not complied ? Worse and 
worse for him ! He must have gone on, redoub- 
ling his menaces and expenses, the Empress of 
Russia continuing inflexible as ever, but for the 
salutary opposition which preserved him from his 
extremity of shame. I am not contending that 
armaments are never necessary to enforce nego- 
tiations ; but it is one, and that not the least, of 
the evils attending the right honorable gentle- 
man's misconduct, that by keeping up the parade 
of an armament, never meant to be employed, he 
has, in a great measure, deprived us of the use of 
this method of negotiating, whenever it may be 
necessary to apply it efFectuall}' ; for if you pro- 
pose to arm in concert with any foreign power, 
that power will answer. " What security can 
you give me that you will persevere in that sys- 
tem? You say you can not go to war, unless 
your people are unanimous." If you aim to ne- 
gotiate against a foreign power, that power will 
say, " I have only to persist — the British minis- 
ter may threaten, but he dare not act — he will 
not hazai'd the loss of his place by a war." A 
right honorable gentleman [Mr. Dundas], in ex- 
cuse for withholding papers, asked what foreign 
power would negotiate with an English cabinet, 
if their secrets were likely to be developed, and 
exposed to the idle curiosity of a House of Com- 
mons ? I do not dread such a consequence ; but 
if I must be pushed to extremes, if nothing were 
left me but an option between opposite evils, I 
should have no hesitation in choosing. " Better 
have no dealings with them at all," I should an- 



swer, " if the right of inquiry into every part of 
a negotiation thc}^ think fit, and of knowing why 
they are to vote the money of their constituents, 
be denied the House of Commons." But there 
is something like a reason why no foreign power 
will negotiate with us, and that a much better 
reason than a dread of disclosing their secrets, in 
the right honorable gentleman's example. I de- 
clare, therefore, for the genius of our Constitu- 
tion, against the practice of his Majesty's minis- 
ters ; I declare that the duties of this House are, 
vigilance in px-eference to secrecy, deliberation 
in preference to dispatch. Sir, I have given my 
reasons for supporting the motion for a vote of 
censure on the minister. I will listen to his de- 
fense with attention, and I will retract wherever 
he shall prove me to be wrong. 



Mr. Pitt closed the debate w^ith great ability. 
He insisted on the necessity of restraining the am- 
bition of Russia, and complained that Mr. Fox 
" had pushed his arguments, for the purpose of 
aggravation, to a degree of refinement beyond 
all reason." The vote was then taken, and stood 
244 in his favor, and 116 against him. The 
country acquiesced in this decision, though most 
persons condemned his taking a stand on such 
narrow ground as the occupation of Oczakow. 
Subsequent events have proved that Mr. Pitt's 
jealousy of the growing power of Russia was 
well founded ; and it has long been the settled 
policy of the other powers of Europe, at all haz- 
ards to prevent the Czar from becoming master 
of Constantinople. 



SPEECH 

OF MR. FOX IN FAVOR OF MR. GREY'S MOTION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, DELIVERED IN 
THE HOUSE OF COISIMONS, MAY 26, 1797. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Mr. Fox had always professed to be in favor of Parliamentary Reform, though he did not agree in the 
details of any of the .schemes which had been hitherto proposed, and he was not, perhaps, fully persuaded 
that those schemes could be so modified as to accomplish the desired object. But on this occasion he 
seems to have given his support to Mr. Grey's motion, with a sincere desire that it might prevail. The 
country was in a most disastrous state ; the French had subdued all their enemies on the Continent, and 
England was left to maintain the contest single-handed ; the pressure of commercial difficulties had ren- 
dered it necessary to suspend specie payments by law ; great distress prevailed throughout the nation ; 
there was much angry feeling and despondency both in England and Scotland, and a hostility to the gov- 
ernment in Ireland, which soon after resulted in open rebellion. Under these circumstances, Mr. Fox felt 
that the prospects of Great Britain were gloomy in the extreme, and that measures were called for cal- 
culated to inspire the nation with increased confidence and interest in the government. As essential to 
this end, he urged a reform in Parliament which should give the people their just share in the Constitu- 
tion ; and he took occasion, at the same time, to inveigh against the measures of Mr. Pitt as hurrying on 
the country to the brink of ruin. 

This speech bears internal evidence of having been con-ected, to some extent, by Mr. Fox or his friends. 
While it has all the elasticity of spirit and rapidity of progress which mark his other speeches, it has 
greater polish and beauty than most of his parliamentary efforts, especially in an admirable passage 
toward the close, in which he speaks of the energy imparted to the ancient republics by the Spirit of 
Libertv. 



^ 



516 



MR. FOX ON 



[1797. 



Sir, — Much and often as this question has 
been discussed, and late as the hour is, I feel it 
my duty to make some observations, and to de- 
liver my opinion on a measure of high import- 
ance at all times, but which, at the present pe- 
riod, is become infinitely more interesting than 
ever. 

I fear, however, that my conviction on this sub- 
Reform de- ject is not common to the House. I 
condluor/o?* ^^ar that we are not likely to be agreed 
the country, ^s to thc importance of the measure, 
nor as to the necessity ; since, by the manner in 
which it has been discussed this night, I foresee 
that, so far from being unanimous on the propo- 
sition, we shall not be agreed as to the situation 
and circumstances of the country itself, much less 
as to the nature of the measures which, in my 
mind, that situation and those circumstances im- 
periously demand. I can not suppress my as- 
tonishment at the tone and manner of gentlemen 
this day. The arguments that have been used 
would lead the mind to believe that we are in a 
state of peace and tranquillity, and that we have 
no provocation to any steps for improving the ben- 
efits we enjoy, or retrieving any misfortune that 
we have incurred. To persons who feel this to 
be our situation, every proposition tending to me- 
liorate the condition of the country must be sub- 
ject of jealousy and alarm ; and if we really dif- 
fer so widely in sentiment as to the state of the 
country, I see no probability of an agreement in 
any measure that is proposed. All that part of 
the argument against reform w^hich relates to the 
danger of innovation is strangely misplaced by 
those who think with me, that, so far from pro- 
curing the mere chance of practical benefits by a 
reform, it is only by a reform that we can have a 
chance of rescuing ourselves from a state of ex- 
treme peril and distress. Such is my view of our 
situation. I think it is so perilous, so imminent, 
that though I do not feel conscious of despair — 
an emotion which the heart ought not to admit — 
yet it comes near to that state of hazard when 
the sentiment of despair, rather than of hope, may 
be supposed to take possession of the mind. I 
feel myself to be the member of a community, in 
which the boldest man, without any imputation 
of cowardice, may dread that we are not merely 
approaching to a state of extreme peril, but of 
absolute dissolution ; and with this conviction 
impressed upon my mind, gentlemen will not be- 
lieve that I disregard all the general arguments 
that have been used against the motion on the 
score of the danger of innovation from any disre- 
spect to the honorable members who have urged 
them, or to the ingenuity with which they have 
been pressed, but because I am firmly persuad- 
ed that they are totally inapplicable to the cir- 
cumstances under which we come to the discus- 

^ Two or three paragraphs of this speech are omit- 
ted, relating, not to the question of reform, but to old 
coutests between Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt. 



SPEECH/ &c. 

sion. With the ideas that 1 entertain, I can not 
listen for a moment to suggestions that are appli- 
cable only to other situations and to other times ; 
for unless we are resolved pusillanimously to wait 
the approach of our doom, to lie down and die, 
w^e must take bold and decisive measures for our 
deliverance. We must not be deterred by mean- 
er apprehensions. We must combine all our 
strength, fortify one another by the communion 
of our courage; and, by a sea.sonable exertion 
of national wisdom, patriotism, and vigor, take 
measures for the chance of salvation, and encoun- 
ter with unappalled hearts all the enemies, for- 
eign and internal — all the dangers and calami- 
ties of every kind which press so heavily upon 
us. Such is my view of our present emergency ; 
and, under this impression, I can not, for a mo- 
ment, listen to the argument of danger arising 
from innovation, since our ruin is inevitable if we 
pursue the course which has brought us to the 
brink of the precipice. 

But before I enter upon the subject of the 
proposition that has been made to us, Reform not 
I must take notice of an insinuation thofi' pan" 
that has, again and again, been flung ^pfin- from*^a 
out by gentlemen on the other side of desire of office 
the House as to party feelings, in which they at 
feet to deplore the existence of a spirit injurious 
to the welfare of the public. I suspect, by tlie 
frequent repetition of this insinuation, that they 
are desirous of making it believed, or that they 
understand themselves by the word party feel- 
ings an unprincipled combination of men for the 
pursuit of office and its emoluments, the eager- 
ness after which leads them to act upon feelings 
of personal enmity, ill-will, and opposition to his 
Majesty's ministers. If such be their interpret- 
ation of party feelings, I must say that I am ut- 
terly unconscious of any such feeling ; and I am 
sure that I can speak with confidence for my 
friends, that they are actuated by no motives of 
so debasing a nature. But if they understand 
by party feelings, that men of honor, who enter- 
tain similar principles, conceive that those prin- 
ciples may be more beneficially and successfully 
pursued by the force of mutual support, harmony, 
and confidential connection, then I adopt the in- 
terpretation, and have no scruple in saying that 
it is an advantage to the country ; an advantage 
to the cause of truth and the Constitution ; an ad- 
vantage to freedom and humanity ; an advant- 
age to whatever honorable object they may be en- 
gaged in, that men pursue it with the united force 
of party feeling ; that is to say, pursue it with the 
confidence, zeal, and spirit which the communion 
of just confidence is likely to inspire. And if the 
honorable gentlemen apply this description of par- 
ty feeling to the pursuit in which we are engaged, 
I am equally ready to say, that the disastrous con- 
dition of the empire ought to animate and invig- 
orate the union of all those who feel it to be their 
duty to check and arrest a career that threatens us 
with such inevitable ruin ; for, surely, those who 



1797.] 



PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



5ir 



think that party is a good thing for ordinary occa- 
sions must admit that it is peculiarly so on emer- 
gencies like the present. It is peculiarly incum- 
bent upon men who feel the value of united ex- 
ertion, to combine all their strength to extricate 
the vessel when in danger of being stranded. 

But gentlemen seem to insinuate that this un- 
The discussion, ^^" of actiou is directed more against 
from Its very na- persons than mcasurcs, and that al- 

ture, involves a ^^ . ' 

certiiin degree of lusions ought not to bc made to the 
personaitj. conduct of particular men. It is not 
easy to analyze this sort of imputation, for it is 
not easy to disjoin the measure from its author, 
nor to examine the origin and progress of any 
evil without also inquiring into and scrutinizing 
the motives and the conduct of the persons who 
gave rise to it. How, for instance, is it possible 
for us to enter into the discussion of the partic- 
ular question now before the House, without a cer- 
tain mixture of personal allusion ? We complain 
that the representation of the people in Parlia- 
ment is defective. How does this complaint 
originate ? From the conduct of the majorities 
in Parliament. Does not this naturally lead us 
to inquire whether there is not either something 
fundamentally erroneous in our mode of election, 
or something incidentally vicious in the treatment 
of those majorities ? We surely must be per- 
mitted to inquire whether the fault and calamity 
of which we complain is inherent in the institu- 
tion (in which case nothing personal is to 'he 
ascribed to ministers, as it will operate, in a 
more or less degree, in all the circumstances in 
which we may find ourselves) ; or whether it is 
an^occasional abuse of an original institution, ap- 
plicable only to these times and to these men, in 
which case they are peculiarly guilty, while the 
system of representation itself ought to stand ab- 
solved. 

I put the question in this way, in order to show 
that a certain degree of personality is insepara- 
ble from the discussion, and that gentlemen can 
not with justice ascribe to the bitterness of party 
feelings, what flows out of the principle of free 
inquiry. Indeed, this is a pregnant example of 
there being nothing peculiarly hostile to persons 
in this subject ; it is not a thing now taken up 
for the first time, meditated and conceived in par- 
ticular hostility to the right honorable the Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer. Be it remembered, 
Reform early ^^^^ ^® him.sclf has again and again 
proposed by Mr. introduced and patronized the same 

Pitt, in which he / 

was supported mcasurc, and that on all the occa- 
^ '' °^' sions on which he has brought it for- 
ward it has invariably received my approbation 
and support. When he brought it forward first. 
in the year 1782, in a time of war and of severe 
public calamity, I gave to the proposition my 
feeble support. Again, when he brought it for- 
ward in 1783, at a time when I was in a high 
office in his Majesty's service, I gave it my sup- 
port. Again, in 1785, when the right honora- 
ble gentleman himself was in place, and renewed 
his proposition, it had my countenance and sup- 
port. I have invariably declared myself a friend 
to parliamentar}'^ reform, by w^homsoever propos- 



ed ; and though in all the discussions that have 
taken place, I have had occasion to express my 
doubt as to the efficacy of the particular mode, 
I have never hesitated to say that the principle 
itself was beneficial ; and that though not called 
for with the urgency which some persons, and, 
among others, the right honorable gentleman, 
declared to exist, I constantly was of opinion 
that it ought not to be discouraged. Now, how- 
ever, that all doubt upon the subject is removed 
by the pressure of our calamities, and the dread- 
ful alternative seems to be, whether we shall 
sink into the most abject thraldom, or continue 
in the same course until we are driven into the 
horrors of anarchy, I can have no hesitation in 
saying, that the plan of recurring to the princi- 
ple of melioration which the Constitution points 
out, is become a desideratum to the people of 
Great Britain. Between the alternatives of base 
and degraded slavery on the one side, or of tu- 
multuous, though, probably, short-lived anarchy 
on the other, though no man would hesitate to 
make his choice, yet, if there be a course obvious 
and practicable, which, without either violence 
or innovation, may lead us back to the vigor we 
have lost, to the energy that has been stifled, to 
the independence that has been undermined, and 
3'et preserve every thing in its place, a moment 
ought not to be lost in embracing the chance 
which this fortunate provision of the British sys- 
tem has made for British safety. 

This is my opinion, and it is not an opinion 
merely founded upon theory, but upon No argument 

.11 . • r 1 .. ■ • against reforra- 

actual observation ol what is passing ing Kngiand to 
in the world. I conceive that if we ^,fe'';£"o''f°"' 
are not resolved to shut our eyes to France, 
the instructive lessons of the times, we must be 
convinced of the propriety of seasonable conces- 
sion. I see nothing in what is called the lament- 
able example of France, to prove to me that 
timely acquiescence with the desires of the peo- 
ple is more dangerous than obstinate resistance to 
their demands ; but the situations of Great Brit- 
ain and France are so essentially different, there 
is so little in common between the character of 
England at this day, and the character of France 
at the commencement of the Revolution, that it 
is impossible to reason upon them from parity of 
circumstances or of character. It is not neces- 
sary for me, I am sure, to enter into any analysis 
of the essential difference between the character 
of a people that had been kept for ages in the 
barbarism of servitude, and a people who have 
enjoyed for so long a time the light of freedom. 
But we have no occasion to go to France for 
examples; another country, nearer to our hearts, 
with which we are better acquainted, opens to 
us a book so legible and clear, that he must be 
blind indeed who is not able to draw from it 
warning and instruction ; it holds forth a lesson 
which is intelligible to dullness itself. Let us 
look to Ireland, and see how remarkably the ar- 
guments and reasoning of this day tally with the 
arguments and reasoning that unfortunately pre- 
vailed in the sister kingdom, and by which the 
King's mmisters were fatally able to overpower 



518 



MR. FOX ON 



[1797. 



the voice of reason and patriotism, and stifle all 
attention to the prayers and applications of the 
people. 

It is impossible for any coincidence to be more 
Argument from perfcct. Wc are told that thcrc are 
lind'^^toin-'^" in England, as it is said there were 
fectionf^dln-- "^ Ireland, a small number of persons 
ing reform. dcsirous of throwing the country into 
confusion, and of alienating the affections of the 
people from the established government. Per- 
mit me, Mr. Speaker, in passing to observe, that 
the riglat honorable the Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer did not represent my learned friend [Mr. 
Erskine] quite correctly, when he stated that my 
learned friend admitted the existence of such men. 
On the contrary, the argument of my learned 
friend was hypothetical ; he said, if it be true, 
as it is so industriously asserted, that such and 
such men do exist in the country, then surely in 
wisdom you ought to prevent their number from 
increasing, by timely conciliation of the body of 
moderate men who desire only reform. In this 
opinion I perfectly acquiesce with my learned 
friend. I believe that the number of persons 
who are discontented with the government of 
the country, and who desire to overthrow it, is 
very small indeed. But the right honorable gen- 
tleman [Mr. Pitt] says that the friends of moder- 
ate reform are few, and that no advantage is to 
be gained by conceding to this very small body 
what will not satisfy the violent, which, he con- 
tends, is the more numerous party ; and he vehe- 
mently demands to know whom he is to divide, 
whom to separate, and what benefit he is to ob- 
tain from this surrender? To this I answer, 
that if there be two bodies [the rash and the 
moderate], it is wisdom, it is policy, to prevent 
the one from falling into the other, by granting 
to the moderate what is just and reasonable. If 
the argument of the right honorable gentleman 
be correct, the necessity for concession is more 
imperious ; it is only by these means that you 
can check the spirit of proselytism, and prevent 
a conversion that by-and-by will be too formida- 
ble for you to resist. Mark this, and see how it 
applies to the precedent of Ireland. In the re- 
port that has been made by the Parliament of 
that kingdom on the present disorders, it is said 
that, so long ago as the year 1791, there existed 
some societies in that country which harbored 
the desire of separation from England, and which 
wished to set up a republican form of govern- 
ment. The report does not state what was the 
precise number of those societies in 1791 ; it de- 
clares, however, that the number was small and 
insignificant. From small beginning.s, however, 
they have increased to the alarming number of 
one hundred thousand men in the province of 
Ulster only. By what means have they so in- 
creased, and who are the proselytes that swell 
their numbers to so gigantic a size ? Obviously 
the men who had no such design originally ; ob- 
viously the persons who had no other object in 
view in all the petitions which they presented, 
than Catholic emancipation and reform in Par- 
liament. This is also admitted by the report. 



The spirit of reform spread over the country,- 
they made humble, earnest, and repeated appli- 
cations to the Castle^ for redress; but there they 
found a fixed determination to resist every claim, 
and a rooted aversion to every thing that bore 
even the color of reform. They made their ap- 
plications to all the considerable characters in 
the country, who had on former occasions distin- 
guished themselves by exertions in the popular 
cause ; and of these justly eminent men I desire 
to speak as I feel, with the utmost respect for 
their talents and virtues. But, unfortunately, 
they were so alarmed by the French Revolution, 
and by the cry which had been so artfully set up 
by ministers, of the danger of infection, that they 
could not listen to the complaint. What was the 
consequence ? These bodies of men, who found 
it vain to expect it from the government at the 
Castle, or from the Parliament, and having no 
where else to recur for redress, joined the socie- 
ties, which the report accuses of cherishing the 
desire of separation from England ; and became 
converts to all those notions of extravagant and 
frantic ambition, which the report lays to their 
charge, and which threaten consequences so 
dreadful and alarming that no man can contem- 
plate them without horror and dismay. 

What, then, is the lesson to be derived from 
this example, but that the comparatively small 
societies of 1791 became strong and formidable 
by the accession of the many who had nothing 
in common with them at the outset ? I wish it 
were possible for us to draw the line more accu- 
rately between the small number that the report 
describes to have had mischievous objects orig- 
inally in view, and the numerous bodies who 
were made converts by the neglect of their peti- 
tion for constitutional rights. Is it improbable 
that the original few were not more than ten or 
twenty thousand in number? What, then, do I 
learn from this ? That the impolitic and unjust 
refusal of government to attend to the applica- 
tions of the moderate, made eighty or ninety 
thousand proselytes from moderation to violence.^ 
This is the lesson which the book of Ireland ex- 
hibits ! Can you refuse your assent to the mor- 
al ? Will any man argue, that if reform had 
been conceded to the eighty or ninety thousand 
moderate petitioners, you would have this day to 
deplore the union of one hundred thousand men, 
bent on objects so extensive, .so alarming, so ca- 
lamitous? I wish to warn you by this example. 
Every argument that you have heard used this 
day was used at Dublin. In the short-sighted 
pride and obstinacy of the government, they 
turned a deaf ear to the supplicant; they have 
now, perhaps, in the open field to brave the as- 
sertor. Unwarned, untutored by example, are 
you still to go on with the same contemptuous 
and stubborn pride? I by no means think that 
Great Britain is at this moment in the same sit- 
uation as Ireland. I by no means think tliatjlie 

2 The residence of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 

^ The societies spoken of were those of the United 
Irishmen, which embraced a pretty large part of the 
entire population in some parts of the island. 



1797.] 



PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



619 



discontents of this country have risen to such a 
height as to make us fear for the general peace 
of the country ; but I deprecate the course which 
has been pursued in Ireland. What England is 
now, Ireland was in 1791. What was said of 
the few, they have now applied to the many ; 
and as there are discontents in this country, 
w^iich we can neither dissemble nor conceal, let 
us not, by an unwise and criminal disdain, irri- 
tate and fret them into violence and disorder. 
The discontents may happily subside ; but a man 
must be sanguine indeed in his temper, or dull 
in his intellect, if he would leave to the opera- 
tion of chance what he might more certainly ob- 
tain by the exercise of reason. Every thing that 
is dear and urgent to the minds of En- 

Tlie existing *^ ... 

disconteiuin glishmeu prcsscs upon us; m the crit- 



maiids re- 
form. 



you, a day, an hour, ought not to elapse, 
without giving to ourselves the chance of this 
recovery. When government is daily present- 
ing itself in the shape of weakness that borders 
on dissolution — unequal to all the functions of 
useful strength, and formidable only in pernicious 
corruption — weak in power, and strong only in 
influence — am I to be told that such a state of 
things can go on with safety to any branch of 
the Constitution ? If men think that, under the 
impression of such a system, we can go on w^ith- 
out a recurrence to first principles, they argue 
in direct opposition to all theory and all practice. 
These discontents can not, in their nature, sub- 
side under detected weakness and exposed inca- 
pacity. In their progress and increase (and in- 
crease they must), who shall say that a direc- 
tion can be given to the torrent, or that, having 
broken its bounds, it can be kept from over- 
whelming the country ? Sir, it is not the part 
of statesmen, it is not the part of rational beings, 
to amuse ourselves with such fallacious dreams; 
we must not sit down and lament over our hap- 
less situation ; w^e must not deliver ourselves up 
to an imbecile despondency that would hasten 
the approach of danger; but, by a seasonable 
and vigorous measure of wisdom, meet it with a 
sufficient and a seasonable remed)'. We may be 
disappointed. We may fail in the application, 
for no man can be certain of his footing on 
ground that is unexplored ; but we shall at least 
have a chance for success — we shall at least do 
what belongs to legislators and to rational beings 
on the occasion, and I have confidence that our 
efforts would not be in vain. I say that we should 
give ourselves a chance, and, I ma}' add, the best 
chance for deliverance; since it would exhibit 
to the country a proof that we had conquered 
the first great difficulty that stood in the way of 
bettering our condition — that we had conquered 
ourselves. We had given a generous triumph 
to reason over prejudice ; we had given a death- 

t • blow to those miserable distinctions of Whig and 
Tory, under which the warfare has been main- 
tained between pride and privilege, and, through 
the contention of our rival jealousies, the genu- 
ll ine rights of the many have been gradually un- 

! dermined and frittered away. I say, that this 



would be giving us the best chance; because, 
seeing every thing go on from bad to worse — 
seeing the progress of the most scandalous waste 
countenanced by the most criminal confidence, 
and that the effiontery of corruption no longer 
requires the mask of concealment — seeing liber- 
ty daily infringed,"* and the vital springs of the 
nation insufficient for the extravagance of a dis- 
sipated government, I must believe that, unless 
the people are mad or stupid, they will suspect 
that there is something fundamentally vicious in 
our system, and which no reform would be equal 
to correct. Then, to prevent all this, and to try 
if we can efTect a reform without touching the 
main pillars of the Constitution, without chang- 
ing its forms, or disturbing the harmony of its 
parts, without putting any thing out of its place, 
or affecting the securities which we justly hold 
to be so sacred, is, I say, the only chance which 
we have for retrieving our misfortunes by the 
road of quiet and tranquillity, and by which na- 
tional strength may be recovered without dis- 
turbing the property of a single individual. 

It has been said that the House possesses the 
confidence of the country as much as Recent peti- 

m, . . ^ , . , tions show that 

ever. Ihis, m truth, is as much as the House, as 
to say that his Majesty's ministers t'eXdo"erno"t 
possess the confidence of the country J^onflje^nce^of 
in the same degree as ever, since the ti'e country. 
majority of the House support and applaud the 
measures of the government, and give their coun- 
tenance to all the evils which we are doomed to 
endure. I was very much surprised to hear any 
proposition so unaccountable advanced by any 
person connected with ministers, particularly as 
the noble Lord [Hawkesbury] had, but a sentence 
or two before, acknowledged that there had been, 
to be sure, a number of petitions presented to his 
Majesty for the dismission of his ministers. The 
one assertion is utterly incompatible with the oth- 
er, unless he means to assert that the petitions 
which have been presented to the Throne are of 
no importance. The noble Lord can hardly, I 
think, speak in this contemptuous manner of the 
petitions from Middlesex, London, Westminster, 
Surrey, Hampshire, York, Edinburgh, Glasgow, 
and many other places, unless he means to insin- 
uate that they are proofs only of our very great 
industry, and that they are not the genuine sense 
of the districts from which they come. If the 
noble Lord ascribes them to our industry, he gives 
us credit for much more merit of that kind than 
we are entitled to. It certainly is not the pecul- 
iar characteristic of the present Opposition, that 
they are very industrious in agitating the public 
mind. But, grant to the noble Lord his position — 
be it to our industry that all these petitions are to 
be ascribed. If industry could procure them, was 
it our moderation, our good v.'ill and forbearance, 
that have made us, for more than fourteen years, 
relax from this industry, and never bring forward 

* This refers to the operation of the Treason and 
Sedition Bills, which restricted the holding of pub- 
lic meeting-s, extended the laws of high treason, and 
subjected persons found guilty of seditious libels to 
transportation beyond the seas. 



520 



MR. FOX ON 



[1797. 



these petitions until now ? No, sir, it is not to 
our industry that they are to be ascribed now, 
nor to our forbearance that they did not come 
before. The noble Lord will not give us credit for 
this forbearance ; and the consequence is, that he 
must own, upon his imputation of industry, that 
the present is the first time that we were sure of 
the people, and that these petitions are a proof 
that at length the confidence of the people in 
ministers is shaken. That it is so, it is in vain 
for the noble Lord to deny. They who in former 
times were eager to show their confidence by ad- 
dresses have now been as eager to express their 
disapprobation in petitions for their removal. 
How, then, can we say that the confidence of the 
people is not shaken ? Is confidence to be al- 
ways against the people, and never for them ? 
It is a notable alignment, that because we do not 
find at the general election very material changes 
in the representation, the sentiments of the people 
continue the same, in favor of the war, and in fa- 
vor of his Majesty's ministers. The very ground 
of the present discussion gives the answer to this 
argument. Why do we agitate the question of 
parliamentary reform ? Why, but because a gen- 
eral election does not afford to the people the means 
of expressing their views ; because this House is not 
a sufficient representative of the people. Gentle- 
men are fond of arguing in this circle. 

False reason- , ^, ° . . 

ing on the When we contend that mmisters have 
'" ■'*'^*' not the confidence of the people, they 

tell us that the House of Commons is the faithful 
representative of the sense of the country. When 
we assert that the representation is defective, and 
show, from the petitions to the Throne, that the 
House does not speak the voice of the people, they 
turn to the general election, and say, that at this 
period the people had an opportunity of choosing 
faithful organs of their opinion ; and because very 
little or no change has taken place in the represent- 
ation, the sense of the people must be the same. 
Sir, it is in vain for gentlemen to shelter themselves 
by this mode of reasoning. We assert that, un- 
der the present form and practice of elections, w^e 
can not expect to see any remarkable change pro- 
duced by a general election. We must argue from 
experience. Let us look back to the period of the 
American war. It will not be denied by the right 
honorable gentleman, that toward the end of the 
war, it became extremely unpopular, and that the 
King's ministers lost the confidence of the nation. 
In the year 1 780 a dissolution took place, and then 
it was naturally imagined by superficial observers, 
who did not examine the real state of the repre- 
sentation, that the people would have returned a 
House of Commons that would have unequivo- 
cally spoken their sentiments on the occasion. 
What was the case ? I am able to speak with 
considerable precision. At that time I was much 
Illustration ^OYC than I am at present in the way 
from tiie eiec- of knowinor personally the individuals 

Uons at tl.e i i r i ■ 

close of the returned, and ot making an accurate 
Amencanwar. ggtjj^^^g ^f ^|^g acccssion gained to 

the popular side by that election. I can take 
upon me to say, that the change was very small 
indeed : not more than three or four persons were 



added to the number of those who had from the 
beginning opposed the disastrous career of the 
ministers in that war. I remember that, upon 
that occasion, Lord North made use of precisely 
the same argument as that which is now brought 
forward : " What !" said he ; " can you contend 
the war is unpopular, after the declaration in its 
favor that the people have made by their choice 
of representatives? The general election is the 
proof that the war continues to be the war of the 
people of England." Such was the argument of 
Lord North, and yet it was notoriously otherwise ; 
so notoriously otherwise, that the right honorable 
gentleman, the present Chancellor of the Excheq- 
uer, made a just and striking use of it, to demon- 
strate the necessity of parliamentary reform.^ He 
referred to this event as to a demonstration of this 
doctrine. " You see," said he, "that so defect- 
ive, so inadequate is the present practice, at least 
of the elective franchise, that no impression of 
national calamity, no conviction of ministerial er- 
ror, no abhorrence of disastrous war, is sufficient 
to stand against that corrupt influence which has 
mixed itself with election, and which drowns and 
stifles the popular voice." Upon this statement, 
and upon this unanswerable argument, the right 
honorable gentleman acted in the year 1782. 
When he proposed a parliamentary reform, he 
did it expressly on the ground of the experience 
of 1780, and he made an explicit declaration, 
that we had no other security by which to guard 
ourselves against the return of the ^j^ pjjj,^ ^^ 
same evils. He repeated this warning gun.entand 
in 1783 and in 1785. It was the lead- ^''''"'"^' 
ing principle of his conduct. " Without a re- 
form," said he, "the nation can not be safe ; this 
war may be put an end to, but what will protect 
you against another ? As certainly as the spirit 
which engendered the present war actuates the 
secret councils of the Crown, will you, under the 
influence of a defective representation, be in- 
volved again in new wars, and in similar calam- 
ities." This was his argument in 1782; this 
M'as his prophecy ; and the right honorable gen- 
tleman was a true prophet. Precisely as he pro- 
nounced it, the event happened ; another war took 
place ; and I am sure it will not be considered as 
an aggravation of its character that it is at least 
equal in disaster to the war of which the right 
honorable gentleman complained. " The defect 
of representation," he said, "is the national dis- 
ease ; and unless you apply a remedy directly to 
that disease, you must inevitably take the conse- 
quences with which it is pregnant." With such 
an authority, can any man deny that I reason 
right ? Did not the right honorable gentleman 
demonstrate his case ? Good God ! what a fate 
is that of the right honorable gentleman, and in 



® This was in Mr. Pitt's speech in favor of Parlia. 
mentary Reform, delivered in 1782; and we have 
here a striking instance of the dexterity and force 
with which Mr. Fox took the arguments of his oppo- 
nents and turned them against themselves. The 
pungency and eloquence with which he turns upon 
Mr. Pitt at the close of the paragraph, are surprising- 
ly great. 



1797.] 



PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



521 



what a state of whimsical contradiction does he 
stand ! During the whole course of his admin- 
istration, and particularly during the course of 
the present war, every prediction that he has 
made, every hope that he has held out, every 
prophecy that he has hazarded, has failed ; he 
has disappointed the expectations that he has 
raised ; and every promise that he has given has 
proved to be fallacious ; yet, for these very dec- 
larations, and notwithstanding these failures, we 
have called him a vv'ise minister. We have given 
him our confidence on account of his predictions, 
and have continued it upon their failure. The 
only instance in which he really predicted what 
has come to pass, we treated wiih stubborn in- 
credulity. In 1785, he pronounced the awful 
prophecy, " Without a parliamentary reform the 
nation will be plunged into new wars ; without 
a parliamentary reform you can not be safe 
against bad ministers, nor can even good minis- 
ters be of use to you." Such was his predic- 
tion ; and it has come upon us. It would seem as 
if the whole life of the right honorable gentleman, 
from that period, had been destined by Provi- 
dence for the illustration of his warning. If we 
were disposed to consider him as a real enthu- 
siast, and a bigot in divination, we might be apt 
to think that he had himself taken measures for 
the verification of his prophecy ; for he might now 
exclaim to us, with the proud fervor of success, 
" You see the consequence of not listening to the 
oracle. I told you what would happen ; it is 
true that your destruction is complete ; I have 
plunged you into a new war ; I have exhausted 
you as a people ; I have brought you to the 
brink of ruin, but I told you beforehand what 
would happen ; I told you that, without a reform 
in the representation of the people, no minister, 
however wise, could save you ; you denied me my 
means^ and you take the consequence /^^ 

The right honorable gentleman speaks, sir, of 
Answertoti.e the Strength of government. But what 
tuf"n^Tol'^r symptom of strength does it exhibit ? 
Btrengiiiofthe Is it the cordiality of all the branches 
government. q( ^]^q national forcc ?^ Is it the har- 

^ The keenness of the sarcasm involved in these 
questions will be seen by adverting to the state of 
the country at this time, which was partially referred 
to in the Introduction. About a month before, the fleet 
at Splthead had broken out into a general mutiny, 
and, notwithstanding the measures of Parliament de- 
signed to remove their discontent, they had renewed 
the mutiny only four days previous to the delivery of 
this speech. The King, as head of the " executive 
power,' felt so much pressed by the unpopularity of 
Mr. Pitt, that he was supposed to be seriously "con- 
templating a change of ministers. Mr. Fox also al- 
ludes to the wide-spread commercial embarrass- 
ments, the suspension of specie payments, the gen- 
eral distress which prevailed among the people, 
their loss of energy and spirit as the natural conse- 
quence, the diminislied resources of the government, 
and the victories of France on the Continent, which 
had left England to continue the war alone. In ad- 
dition to this, he refers to the lavish expenditures of 
the government, and the favoritism shov^^n to their 
friends and adherents. 



mony that happily reigns in all the departments 
of the executive power ? Is it the reciprocal af- 
fection that subsists between the government and 
the people ? Is it in the energy with which the 
people are eager to carry into execution the 
mea.sures of the administration, from the heart- 
felt conviction that they are founded in wisdom, 
favorable to their own freedom, and calculated 
for national happiness ? Is it because our re- 
sources are flourishing and untouched, because 
our vigor is undiminished, because our spirit is 
animated by success, and our courage by our 
glory ? Is it because government have, in a 
perilous situation, when they have been obliged 
to call upon the country for sacrifices, shown a 
conciliating tenderness and regard for the rights 
of the people, as well as a marked disinterested- 
ness and forbearance on their own parts, by which 
they have, in an exemplary manner, made their 
own economy to keep pace with the increased 
demands for the public service ? Are these the 
sources of the strength of government? I for- 
bear, sir, to push the inquiry. I forbear to al- 
lude more particularly to symptoms which no 
man can contemplate at this moment without 
grief and dismay. It is not the declarations of 
right honorable gentlemen that constitute the 
strength of a government. That government is 
alone strong which possesses the hearts of the 
people ; and wnll any man contend that we should 
not be more likely to add strength to the state, 
if we were to extend the basis of the popular 
representation ? Would not a House of Com- 
mons freely elected be more likely to conciliate 
the support of the people ? If this be true in the 
abstract, it is certainly our peculiar duty to look 
for this support in the hour of difficulty. What 
man who foresees a hurricane is not desirous of 
strengthening his house ? Shall nations alone 
be blind to the dictates of i^eason? Let us not, 
sir, be deterred from this act of prudence by the 
false representations that are made to us. France 
is the phantom that is constantly held out to ter- 
rify us from our purpose. Look at France ; it 
will not be denied but that she stands on the 
broad basis of free representation. Whatever 
other views the government of France may ex- 
hibit, and which may afford just alarm to other 
nations, it can not be denied that her represent- 
ative system has proved itself capable of vigorous 
exertion. 

Now, sir, though I do not wash you to imitate 
France ; and though I am persuaded Argument for 
you have no necessity for any terror '■efSrm from the 

•^ (. .••.,• 1 • r ^ 1 energy of popu- 

01 such imitation being Jorced upon largovemmenu 

^ T I I 1 aiiKin'T the an- 

you, yet I say that you ought to be ci^ntsand m 
as ready to adopt the virtues as you ^'"""'^■ 
are steady in averting from the country the vices 
of France. If it is clearly demonstrated that gen- 
uine representation alone can give solid power, 
and that in order to make government strong, 
the people must make the government, you ought 
to act on this grand maxim of political wisdom 
thus demonstrated, and call in the people, ac- 
cording to the original principles of your system, 
to the strength of your government. In doing 



522 



MR. FOX ON 



[1797 



this, you will not innovate, you will not imitate. 
In making the people of England a constituent 
part of the government of England, you do no 
more than restore the genuine edifice designed 
and framed by our ancestors. An honorable 
baronet spoke of the instability of democracies, 
and says that history does not give us the exam- 
ple of one that has lasted eighty years. Sir, I 
am not speaking of pure democracies, and there- 
fore his allusion does not apply to my argument. 
Eighty years, however, of peace and repose 
would be pretty well for any people to enjoy, 
and would be no bad recommendation of a pure 
democracy. I am ready^ however, to agree with 
the honorable baronet, that, according to the ex- 
perience of history, the ancient democracies of the 
world were vicious and objectionable on many ac- 
counts ; their instabiiitj, their injustice, and many 
other vices, can not be overlooked. But surely, 
when we turn to the ancient democracies of 
Greece, when we see them in all the splendor of 
arts and of arms, when we see to what an eleva- 
tion they carried the powers of man, it can not be 
denied that, however vicious on the score of in- 
gratitude or injustice, they were, at least, the 
pregnant source of national strength, and that in 
particular they brought forth this strength in a pe- 
culiar manner in the moment of difficulty and dis- 
tress. When we look at the democracies of the 
ancient world, we are compelled to acknowledge 
their oppression of their dependencies, their horri- 
ble acts of injustice and of ingratitude to their own 
citizens; but they compel us also to admiration 
by their vigor, their constancy, their spirit, and 
their exertions in every great emergency in which 
they were called upon to act. We are compelled 
to own that this gives a power of which no other 
form of government is capable. Why ? Because 
it incorporates every man with the state, because 
it arouses every thing that belongs to the soul as 
well as to the body of man ; because it makes ev- 
ery individual feel that he is fighting for himself, 
and not for another ; that it is his own cause, his 
own safety, his own concern, his own dignity on 
the face of the earth, and his own interest in that 
identical soil which he has to maintain; and ac- 
cordingly we find that whatever may be object- 
ed to them on account of the turbulency of the 
passions which they enirendered, their short du- 
ration, and their disgusting vices, they have ex- 
acted from the common suffi'age of mankind the 
palm of strength and vigor. Who that reads the 
Persian war — what boy, whose heart is warmed 
by the grand and sublime actions which the dem- 
ocratic spirit produced, does not find in this prin- 
ciple the key to all the wonders which were 
achieved at Thermopylaj and elsewhere, and of 
which the recent and marvelous acts of the French 
people are pregnant examples? He sees that 
the principle of liberty only could create the sub- 
lime and irresistible emotion ; and it is in vain 
to deny, from the striking illustration that our 
ow^n times have given, that the principle is eter- 
nal, and that it belongs to the heart of man. 
Shall we, then, refuse to take the benefit of this 
invigorating principle ? Shall we refuse to take 



the benefit which the wisdom of our ancestors re- 
solved that it should confer on the British Con- 
stitution ? With the knowledge that it can be 
reinfused into our system without violence, with- 
out disturbing any one of its parts, are we be- 
come so inert, so terrified, or so stupid, as to hes- 
itate for one hour to restore ourselves to the 
health which it would be sure to give ? When 
we see the giant power that it confers upon oth- 
ers, we ought not to withhold it from Great Brit- 
ain. How" long is it since we were told in this 
House that France was a blank in the map of 
Europe, and that she lay an easy prey to any 
power that might be disposed to divide and plun- 
der her? Yet we see that, by the mere force and 
spirit of this principle, France has brought all 
Europe to her feet. Without disguising the vices 
of France, without overlooking the horrors that 
have been committed, and that have tarnished 
the glory of the Revolution, it can not be denied 
that they have exemplified the doctrine that if 
you wish for power you must look to liberty. If 
ever there was a moment when this maxim ought 
to be dear to us, it is the present. We have tried 
all other means ; we have had recourse to every 
stratagem that artifice, that influence, that cun- 
ning could suggest ; we have addressed ourselves 
to all the base passions of the nation ; we have 
addressed ourselves to pride, to avarice, to fear ; 
we have aw^akened all the interested emotions ; 
we have employed every thing that flattery, ev- 
ery thing that address, every thing that privilege 
could effect : we have tried to terrify them into 
exertion, and all has been unequal to our emer- 
gency. Let us try them by the only means which 
experience demonstrates to be invincible ; let us 
address ourselves to their love ; let us identify them 
with ourselves ; let us make it their own cause 
as well as ours ! To induce them to come for- 
ward in support of the state, let us make them a 
part of the state ; and this they become the ver}'^ 
instant you give them a House of Commons which 
is the faithful organ of their will. Then, sir, when 
you have made them believe and feel that there 
can be but one interest in the country, you will 
never call upon them in vain for exertion. Can 
this be the case as the House of Commons is now 
constituted ? Can they think so if they review 
the administration of the right honorable gentle- 
man, every part of which must convince them that 
the present representation is a mockery and a 
shadow ? 

There has been, at different times, a great deal 
of dispute about virtual representa- a real ami not 
tion. Sir, I am no oreat advocate a vinnai renre 

„ , '. 1 , • 1 -1 sentatK.n of the 

oi these nice subtleties and special f.eoiiie demand- 
pleadings on the Constitution; much dm t\ir rw^nt 
depends upon appearance as well as ^■'^'■'''""""ts- 
reality. I know well that a popular body of five 
hundred and fifty-eight gentlemen, if truly inde- 
pendent of the Crown, would be a strong barrier 
to the people. But the House of Commons should 
not only be, but appear to be, the representatives 
of the people ; the system should satisfy the prej- 
udices and the pride, as well as the reason of the 
people ; and you never can expect to give that 



1797.] 



PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



523 



just impression which a House of Commons 
ought to make on the people, until you derive it 
unequivocally from them. It is asked why gen- 
tlemen who were against a parliamentary re- 
form on former occasions should vote for it now. 
Ten years ago men might reasonably object to 
any reform of the system, who ought now, in my 
opinion, to be governed by motives that are irre- 
sistible in its favor. They might look back with 
something like satisfaction and triumph to former 
Parliaments, and console themselves with the re- 
flection that, though in moments of an ordinary 
kind, in the common course of human events, Par- 
liament might abate from its vigilance, and give 
ministers a greater degree of confidence than 
was strictly conformable with representative duty 
— yet there was a point beyond which no artifice 
of power, no influence of corruption, could carry 
them ; that there were barriers in the British 
Constitution over which the House of Commons 
never would leap, and that the moment of dan- 
ger and alarm would be the signal for the return 
of Parliament to its post. Such might have been 
the reasoning of gentlemen on the experience of 
former Parliaments ; and with this rooted trust 
in the latent efficacy of Parliament, they might 
have objected to any attempt that should cherish 
hopes of a change in the system itself. But what 
will the same gentlemen say after the experi- 
ence of the last and the present Parliament? 
What reliance can they have for any one vestige 
of the Constitution that is yet left to us ? Or 
rather, what privilege, what right, what securi- 
ty, has not been already violated ? "Quid intac- 
tum nefasti liquimus?'"' And seeing that in no 
one instance have they hesitated to go the full 
length of every outrage that was conceived by 
the minister; that they have been touched by no 
scruples, deterred by no sense of duty, corrected 
by no experience of calamity, checked by no ad- 
monition or remonstrance ; that they have never 
made out a single case of inquiry; that they have 
never interposed a single restraint upon abuse ; 
may not gentlemen consistently feel that the re- 
form which they previously thought unnecessary 
is now indispensable? 

We have heard to-day, sir, all the old argu- 
No argument ^lents about honor on the one side be- 
to be derived [^cr as Hkelv as honor on the other: 

from tlie per- r> J 5 

sonai honor that there are good men on both sides 

of borough r i TT i i 

representa- ot the Housc ; that a man upon the 
one side of the House as well as upon 
the other, may be a member for a close borough ; 
and that he may be a good man, sit where he 
may. All this, sir, is very idle language ; it is 
not the question at i.ssue. No man disputes the 
existence of private and individual integrity ; 
but, sir, this is not representation. If a man 
comes here as the proprietor of a burgage ten- 
ure, he does not come here as the representative 
of the people. The whole of this system, as it 
is now carried on, is as outrageous to morality 
as it is pernicious to just government ; it brings 



' What, in our wickedness, have we left untouch 
ed? 



a scandal on our character, which not merel}'- 
degrades the House of Commons in the eyes of 
the people ; it does more, it undermines the very 
principles of integrity in their hearts, and gives 
a fashion to dishonesty and imposture. They 
hear of a person receiving four or five thousand 
pounds as the purchase-money of a seat for a 
close borough ; and they hear the very man who 
received and put the money into his pocket make 
a vehement speech in this House against bribery ! 
They see him move for the commitment to pris- 
on of a poor, unfortunate wretch at your bar, 
who has been convicted of taking a single guinea 
for his vote in the very borough, perhaps, where 
he had publicly and unblushingiy sold his influ- 
ence, though, under the horrors of a war which 
he had contributed to bring upon the country, that 
miserable guinea was necessary to save a family 
from starving ! Sir, these are the things that par- 
alyze you to the heart ; these are the things that 
vitiate the whole system ; that spread degenera- 
cy, hypocrisy, and sordid fraud over the coun- 
try, and take from us the energies of virtue, and 
sap the foundations of patriotism and spirit. The 
system that encourages so much vice ought to 
be put an end to ; and it is no argument, that 
because it lasted a long time without mischief, 
it ought now to be continued when it is found to 
be pernicious ; it has arisen to a height that de- 
feats the very end of government ; it must sink 
under its own iveakness. And this, sir, is not a 
case peculiar to itself, but inseparable from all \ 
human institutions. /AH the writers of eminence | 
upon forms of government have said that, in order .' 
to preserve them, frequent recurrence must be 
had to their original principle./ This is the opin- / 
ion of Montesquieu, as well as of Machiavelli. 
Gentlemen will not be inclined to dispute the 
authority of the latter, on this point at least ; and 
he says, that without this recurrence they grow 
out of shape, and deviate from their general form. 
It is only by recurring to former principles that 
any government can be kept pure and unabused. 
But, say gentlemen, if any abuses have crept into 
our system, have we not a corrective whose effi- 
cacy has been proved, and of which every body 
approves ? Have we not Mr. Grenville's bill, as 
an amendment to the Constitution? An amend- 
ment it is ; an amendment which acknowledges 
the deficiency. It is an avowal of a defective 
practice. It is a strong argument for reform, 
because it would not be necessary if the plan of 
representation were sufficient. But, sir, there is 
a lumping consideration, if I may be nan-erfrom 
allowed the phrase, which now more ageorVh^ 
than ever ought to make every man a '"'"'^'^o'. 
convert to parliamentary reform ; there is an an 
nual revenue of twenty-three millions sterling \ 
collected by the executive government from the 
people. Here, sir, is the despot of election ; here 
is the new power that has grown up to a mag- 
nitude, that bears down before it every defensive 
barrier established by our ancestors for the pro- 
tection of the people. They had no such tyrant 
to control ; they had no such enemy to oppose. 
Against every thing that was known, against 



524 



MR. FOX ON 



[1797. 



every thing that was seen, they did provide ; but 
it did not enter into the contemplation of those 
who estabhshed the checks and barriers of our 
system, that they would ever have to stand 
against a revenue of twenty-three millions, a 
year ! The whole landed rental of the kingdom 
is not estimated at more than twenty-five mill- 
ions a year, and this rental is divided and dis- 
persed over a large body, who can not be sup- 
posed to act in concert, or to give to their pow- 
er the force of combination and unity. But it is 
said, that though the government is in the receipt 
of a revenue of twenty-three millions a year, it 
has not the expenditure of that sum, and that its 
influence ought not to be calculated from what 
it receives, but from what it has to pay away. 
I submit, however, to the good sense, and to the 
personal experience of gentlemen who hear me, 
if it be not a manifest truth that influence de- 
pends almost as much upon what they have to 
receive as upon what they have to pay? And 
if this be true of the influence which individuals 
derive from the rentals of their estates, and from 
the expenditure of that rental, how much more 
so is it true of government, who, both in the re- 
ceipt and expenditure of this enormous revenue, 
are actuated by one invariable principle — that 
of extending or withholding favor in exact pro- 
portion to the submission or resistance to their 
measures, which the individuals make? Com- 
pare this revenue, then, with that against which 
our ancestors were so anxious to protect us, and 
compare this revenue with all the bulv\'a\-ks of 
our Constitution in preceding times, and you 
must acknowledge that, though those bulwarks 
were sufficient to protect us in the days of King 
William and Queen Anne, they are not equal to 
the enemy we have now to resist. 

But it is said, what will this reform do for us? 

„ ^ ^ Will it be a talisman sufficient to re- 
Benefits to . 11 1 • 
'je expected tricvc all the misfortuucs which we 

have incurred ? I am free to say that 
it would not be sufficient, unless it led to reforms 
of substantial expense, and of all the abuses that 
have crept into our government. But at the 
same time, I think it would do this, I think it 
would give us the chance, as I said before, of 
recovery. It would give us, in the first place, 
a Parliament vigilant and scrupulous, and that 
would insure to us a government active and 
economical. It would prepare the way for every 
rational improvement, of which, without disturb- 
ing the parts, our Constitution is susceptible. It 
would do more ; it would open the way for ex- 
ertions infinitely more extensive than all that we 
have hitherto made. The right honorable gen- 
tleman says that we have made exertions. True. 
But what are they in comparison with our ne- 



'^y 



The right honorable gentleman says, 



that when we consider our situation compared 
with that of countries which have taken another 
line of conduct, we ought to rejoice. I confess, 
sir, that I am at a loss to conceive what country 
the right honorable gentleman has in view in 
this comparison. Does he mean to assert that 
che nations who preferred the line of neutrality 



to that of war have fallen into a severer calami- 
ty than ourselves ? Does he mean to say that 
Sweden, or that Denmark, has suffered more by 
observing an imprudent neutrality, than England 
or Austria by wisely plunging themselves into a 
war ? Or does he mean to insinuate that Prus- 
sia has been the victim of its impolicy, in getting 
out of the conflict on the first occasion ? If this 
be the interpretation of the right honorable gen- 
tleman's argument, I do not believe that he will 
get many persons to subscribe to the justice of 
his comparison. But probably he alludes to the 
fate of Holland. If this be the object to which 
he wishes to turn our eyes, he does it unjustly. 
Holland acted under the despotic mandate of that 
right honorable gentleman ; and Holland, what- 
ever she has suffered, whatever may be her pres- 
ent situation, lays her calamities to the charge of 
England. I can not, then, admit of the argument, 
that our situation is comparatively better than 
that of the nations who altogether kept out of 
the war ; or, being drawn into it in the first in- 
stance, corrected their error, and restored to 
themselves the blessings of peace. 

I come now^ to consider the specific proposition 
of my honorable friend, and the argu- „ ^ 

-' ' P Reform pro- 

ments that have been brought agamst posed by 
it. Let me premise, that however ^^^' '''^' 
averse gentlemen may be to any specific propo- 
sition of reform, if they are friendly to the prin- 
ciple, they ought to vote for the present question, 
because it is merely a motion for leave to bring 
in a bill. An opposition to such a motion comes 
with a very ill grace from the right honorable 
gentleman, and contradicts the policy for which 
he strenuously argued. In 1785, he moved for 
leave to bring in a bill on a specific plan, and 
he fairly called for the support of all those who 
approved of the principle of reform, whatever 
might be the latitude of their ideas on the sub- 
ject; whether they wished for more or less than 
his proposition, he thought that they should agree 
to the introduction of the bill, that it might be 
freely discussed in the committee, in hopes that 
the united wisdom of the House might shape out 
something that would be generally acceptable. 
Upon this candid argument I, for one, acted. I 
did not approve of his specific proposition, and 
yet I voted with him for leave to bring in the 
bill. And this, sir, has generally happened to 
me on all the former occasions, when proposi- 
tions have been made. Though I have constant- 
ly been a friend to the principle, I have never 
before seen a specific plan that had my cordial 
approbation. That which came nearest, and of 
which I the least disapproved, was the plan of 
an honorable gentleman who is now no more 
[Mr. Flood]. He was the first person who sug- 
gested the idea of extending what might be 
proper to add to representation, to housekeepers, 
as to a description of persons the best calculated 
to give efficacy to the representative system. 
My honorable friend's plan, built upon this idea, 
is an improvement of it, since it is not an at- 
tempt even to vary the form and outline, much 
less to new-model the representation of the peo- 



i7a7.i 



PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



525 



pie ; it keeps every thing in its place ; it neither 
varies the number, nor changes the name, nor 
diverts the course of any part of our system ; it 
corrects without change ; it extends without de- 
struction of any established right; it restores 
simply what has been injured by abuse, and re- 
instates what time has moldered away ; no man 
can have a right to complain of genuine prop- 
erty assailed ; no habit even, no mode of think- 
ing, no prejudice, will be wounded ; it traces 
back the path of the Constitution from which we 
have wandered, but it runs out into no new di- 
rection. 

A noble Lord says that the county represent- 
it leaves the ^^^°" ™^^^* ^® goo^, that it must be 
county repre- approvcd of : be It SO : this proposes to 

sentation, , ^ ^ , ' ' . , 

leave the county repi-esentation where 
it is ; I wish so to leave it. I think that rep- 
resentation ought to be of a compound nature. 
The counties may be considered as territorial rep- 
resentation, as contradistinguished from popular ; 
but, in order to embrace all that I think necessa- 
ry, I certainly would not approve of any farther 
extension of this branch of the representation. 
It has been asked whether the rights of corpo- 
rations ought not to be maintained. That is a 
matter for farther discussion. I have no hesita- 
tion in saying that my opinion leans the other 
way ; but if it should be thought so, it may be so 
modified in the bill. There is no reasonable ob- 
jection to its introduction on account of our not 
now agreeing with all its parts. My honorable 
friend, with all his abilities, and all the industry 
with which he has digested his proposition, does 
not presume to offer it els a perfect plan. He 
does not call upon you to adopt all his notions, 
nor does he think that every part of his plan 
will be found to quadrate with the abstract prin- 
ciples of representation. He looks to what is 
practicable in the condition in which we are 
placed, not to what a new people might be tempt- 
ed to hazard. My opinion, however unimport- 
ant it may be, goes with my honorable friend. 
I think there is enough of enterprise and vigor 
in the plan to restore us to health, and not 
enough to run ns into disorder. I agree with 
him, because I am firmly of opinion, with all the 
philosophical writers on the subject, that nvhen 
a country is sunk into a situation of apathy and 
abuse^ it ran only be recovered by recurring to 
first principles. ) 

Now, sir, I think that, acting on this footing, to 

and extends the ©XtCnd the right of clcction to house- 
right of voting to keepers is the best and most advisa- 
ble plan of reform. I think, also, that 
it is the most perfect recurrence to first princi- 
ples — I do not mean to the first principles of so- 
ciety, nor the abstract principles of representa- 
tion — but to the first known and recorded prin- 
ciples of our Constitution. According to the ear- 
ly histcH'y of England, and the highest authorities 
on our parliamentary Constitution, I find this to 
be the case. It is the opinion of the celebrated 
Glanville, that in all cases where no particular 
right intervenes, the common law right of pay- 
ing scot and lot was the right of election in the 



land.^ This, sir. was the opinion of Sergeant 
Glanville, and of one of the most celebrated com- 
mittees of which our parliamentary history has to 
boast ; and this, in my opinion, is the safest line 
of conduct you can adopt. But it is said that 
extending the right of voting to housekeepers 
may, in some respects, be compared This does not 
to universal suffrage. I have always involve uni- 

. ^ •' versalsutirage, 

deprecated universal suffrage, not so which is ki be 
much on account of the confusion ^^'""^^ 
to which it would lead, as because I think that 
we should in reality lose the very object which 
we desire to obtain ; because I think it would, in 
its nature, embarrass and prevent the delibera- 
tive voice of the country from being heard. I 
do not think that you augment the deliberative 
body of the people by counting all the heads ; but 
that, in truth, you confer on individuals, by this 
means, the power of drawing forth numbers, who, 
without deliberation, would implicitly act upon 
their will. My opinion is, that the best plan of 
representation is that which shall bring into act- 
ivity the greatest number of independent voters 5 
and that that is defective which would bring forth 
those whose situation and condition take from 
them the power of deliberation. I can have no 
conception of that being a good plan of election 
which should enable individuals to bring regi- 
ments to the poll. I hope gentlemen will not 
smile if I endeavor to illustrate my position by 
referring to the example of the other sex. j\n 
all the theories and projects of the most absurd ^ 
speculation, it has never been suggested that it 
would be advisable to extend the elective suf- 
frage to the female sex. 'i And yet, justly re- 
specting, as we must do, the mental powers, the 
acquirements, the discrimination, and the talents, 
of the women of England, in the present im- 
proved state of society — knowing the opportuni- 
ties which they have for acquiring knowledge — 
that they have interests as dear and as important 
as our own, it must be the genuine feeling of ev- 
ery gentleman who hears me, that all the sune- 
rior classes of the female sex of England must 
be more capable of exercising the elective suf- 
frage with deliberation and propriety than the 
uninformed individuals of the lowest class of men 
to whom the advocates of universal suffrage ^ 
would extend it. And yet, why has it never i/ 
been imagined that the right of election should 
be extended to women ? Why ! but because by 
the law of nations, and perhaps also by the law 
of nature, that sex is dependent on ours ; and be- 
cause, therefore, their voices would be governed 
by the relation in which they stand in society. 
Therefore it is, sir, that, with the exception of 
companies, in which the right of voting merely 
affects property, it has never been in the contem- 
plation of the most absurd theorists to extend the 
elective franchise to the other sex. The desid- 
eratum to be obtained is independent voters; 
and that, I say, would be a defective system that 
should bring regiments of soldiers, of servants, 



^ Those who paid parish taxes according to their 
ability, were said to " pay scot and lot." 



526 



MR. FOX ON 



[1797. 



and of persons whose low condition necessarily 
curbed the independence of their minds. That, 
then, I take to be the most perfect system which 
shall include the oreatest number of independent 
electors, and exclude the greatest number of those 
who are necessarily, by their condition, depend- 
ent. I think that the plan of my honorable 
friend draws this line as discreetly as it can be 
drawn, and it by no means approaches to univers- 
al suffrage. It would neither admit, except in 
particular instances, soldiers nor servants. Uni- 
versal suffrage would extend the right to three 
millions of men, but there are not more than 
seven hundred thousand houses that would come 
within the plan of my honorable friend ; and when 
it is considered, that out of these some are the 
property of minors, and that some persons have 
two or more houses, it would fix the number of 
voters for Great Britain at about six hundred 
thousand ; and I call upon gentlemen to say 
whether this would not be sufficiently extensive 
for deliberation on the one hand, and yet suffi- 
ciently limited for order on the other. This has 
no similarity to universal suffrage ; and yet, tak- 
ing the number of representatives as they now 
stand, it would give to every member about fif- 
teen hundred constituents. 

It has often been a question, both within and 
Objection to without thcsc walls, how far repre- 
&ri^fr'esenV scntativcs ought to be bound by the 
f'i?irT'"' instructions of their constituents. It 

pelled to obey 

the instructions IS a Qucstion upou which mv mind is 

of tbe propria- ^ , * , i ' i t 

tors wiio send not altogether made up, though 1 own 
* *"■ I lean to the opinion that, having to 

legislate for the empire, they ought not to be 
altogether guided by instructions that may be 
dictated by local interests. I can not, however, 
approve of the very ungracious manner in which 
I sometimes hear expressions of contempt for the 
opinion of constituents. They are made with a 
very bad grace in the first session of a septenni- 
al Parliament ; particularly if they should come 
from individuals who, in the concluding session 
of a former Parliament, did not scruple to court 
the favor of the very same constituents by de- 
claring that they voted against their conscience 
in compliance with their desire, as was the case 
of an honorable alderman of the city of London. 
But, sir, there is one class of constituents whose 
instructions it is considered as the implicit duty 
of members to obey. When gentlemen represent 
populous towns and cities, then it is a disputed 
point, whether they ought to obey their voice, or 
follow the dictates of their own conscience ; but 
if they represent' a noble Lord or a noble Duke, 
then it becomes no longer a question of doubt ; 
and he is not considered as a man of honor who 
does not implicitly obey the orders of his single 
constituent ! He is to have no conscience, no 
liberty, no discretion of his own ; he is sent here 
by my Lord this or the Duke of that, and if he 
does not obey the instructions he receives, he is 
not to be considered as a man of honor and a gen- 
tleman. Such is the mode of reasoning that pre- 
vails in this House. Is this fair? Is there any 
reciprocity in this conduct ? Is a gentleman to 



be pei-mitted, without dishonor, to act in opposi- 
tion to the sentiments of the city of London, of the 
city of Westminster, or of the city of Bristol ; but if 
he dares to disagree with the Duke, or Lord, or 
Baronet, whose representative he is, must he be 
considered as unfit for the society of men of honor? 
This, sir, is the chicane and tyi-anny of corrup- 
tion ; and this, at the same time, is called repre- 
sentation ! In a very great degree the county 

I members are held in the same sort of thraldom. 
A number of peers possess an overweening in- 
terest in the county, and a gentleman is no lon- 
ger permitted to hold his situation than as he 
acts agreeably to the dictates of those powerful 
families. Let us see how the whole of this stream 
of corruption has been diverted from the side of 
the people to that of the Crown ; with what con- 
stant, persevering art every man who is possessed 
of influence in counties, corporations, or boroughs, 
that will yield to the solicitations of the court, is 
drawn over to that phalanx which is opposed to 
the small remnant of popular election. I have 
looked, sir, to the machinations of the present 
minister in this way, and I find that, including 
the number of additional titles, the right honora- 
ble gentleman has made no fewer than one hund- 
red and fifteen peers in the course of his admin- 
istration ; that is to say, he has bestowed no fewer 
than one hundred and fifteen titles, including new 
creations and elevations from one rank to anoth- 
er. How many of these are to be ascribed to na- 
tional services, and how many to parliamentary 

I interest, I leave the House to inquire. The coun- 
try is not blind to these arts of influence, and it is 
impossible that we can expect them to continue 
to endure them.^ 

Now, sir, having shown this to be the state of 
our representation, I ask what reme- Reform nec- 
dv there can be other than reform, essnryandun- 

-- avoidable. 

What can we expect, as the neces- 
sary result of a system so defective and vicious 
in all its parts, but increasing calamities, until 
we shall be driven to a convulsion that would 
overthrow every thing? If we do not apply this 
remedy in time, our fate is inevitable. Our most 
illustrious patriots — the men M'hose memories 
are the dearest to Englishmen, have long ago 
pointed out to us parliamentary reform as the 
only means of redressing national grievance. I 
need not inform you that Sir George Savile was 
its most strenuous advocate ; I need not tell you 
that the venerable and illustrious Camden was 
through life a steady adviser of seasonable re- 
form ; nay, sir, to a certain degree we have the 
authority of Mr. Burke himself for the propriety 
of correcting the abuses of our system ; for gen- 
tlemen will remember the memorable answer 
which he gave to the argument that was used 
for our right of taxing America, on the score of 

® Mr. Burke's Bill of Economical Reform took 
away a very large number of sinecure offices, which 
ministers had been accustomed to use as means of 
patronage and reward. Mr. Pitt therefore resorted 
to the expedient of raising men to the peerage, as a 
means of influence, to an extent which was general- 
ly and justly complained of. 



1797.] 



PARLIAMENTARY ^REFORM. 



527 



their being virtually represented, and that they 
were in the same situation as Manchester, Bir- 
mingham, and Sheffield. "What!" said Mr. 
Burke, " when the people of America look up to 
you with the eyes of filial love and affection, will 
you turn to them the shameful parts of the Con- 
stitution ?" With the concurring testimony of 
so many authorities for correcting our abuses, 
why do we hesitate ? Can we do any harm by 
experiment ? Can we possibly put ourselves into 
a worse condition than that in which we are ? 
What advantages we shall gain I know not. I 
think we shall gain many. 1 think we shall gain 
at least the chance of warding otTthe evil of con- 
fusion, growing out of accumulated discontent. I 
think we shall save ourselves from the evil that 
has fallen upon Ireland. I think we shall satisfy 
the moderate, and take even from the violent (if 
any such there be) the power of increasing their 
numbers and of making converts to their schemes. 
This, sir, is my solemn opinion, and upon this 
ground it is that 'I recommend with earnestness 
and solicitude the proposition of my honorable 
friend. 

And now^, sir, before I sit down, allow me to 
inumationthat "lake a single observation with re- 
Mr. Fox design- spcct to the character and conduct 

ed to Withdraw, ' . , , . . . 

to some e.\ tent, ol those who havB, HI conjuuction 
from tue House. ^,.^^^ ^^y^Q\{^ felt it their duty to Op- 
pose the progress of this disastrous war. I hear 
it said, "You do nothing but mischief when you 
are here ; and yet we should be sorry to see you 
away." I do not know how we shall be able to 
satisfy the gentlemen who feel toward us in this 
way. If we can neither do our duty without mis- 
chief, nor please them with doing nothing, I know 
but of one way by which we can give them con- 
tent, and that is by putting an end to our exist- 
ence. With respect to myself, and I believe I can 
also speak for others, I do not feel it consistent 
with my duty totally to secede from this House. 
I have no such intention ; but, sir, I have no hes- 
itation in saying, that, after seeing the conduct of 
this House ; after seeing them give to ministers 
their confidence and support, upon convicted fail- 
ure, imposition, and incapacity ; after seeing them 
deaf and blind to the consequences of a career 
that penetrates the hearts of all other men with 
alarm, and that neither reason, experience, nor 
duty, are sufficiently powerful to influence them 
to oppose the conduct of government ; I certain- 
ly do think I may devote more of my time to 
my private pursuits, and to the retirement which 
I love, than I have hitherto done ; I certainly 
think I need not devote much of it to fruitless 
exertions, and to idle talk, in this House. When- 
ever it shall appear that my efforts may contrib- 
ute in any degree to restore us to the situation 
from which the confidence of this House in a 
despevjgite system and an incapable administra- 
tion, has so suddenly reduced us, I shall be found 
ready to discharge my duty.^° 

Sir, I have done. I have given my advice. I 

1° Mr. Fox did for sorae time discontinue a regular 
attendance on the House. 



propose the remedy, and fatal will it Peroration: 
be for England if pride and prejudice ll'lw^ylt^hr 



. . . . , -I'e expense of 

pie, easy, and practicable ; it does not "le people. 
touch the vitals of the Constitution ; and I sin- 
cerely believe it will restore us to peace and har- 
mony. Do you not think that you must come to 
parliamentary reform soon ? and is it not better 
to come to it now, when you have the power of 
deliberation, than when, perhaps, it may be ex- 
torted from you by convulsion ? There is as yet 
time to frame it with freedom and discussion ; it 
will even yet go to the people with the grace and 
favor of a spontaneous act. What will it be 
when it is extorted from you with indignation 
and violence ? God forbid that this should be 
the case ! but now is the moment to prevent it ; 
and now, I say, wisdom and pdicy recommend 
it to you, when you may enter into all the con- 
siderations to which it leads, rather than to post- 
pone it to a time when you will have nothing to 
consider but the number and the force of those 
who demand it. It is asked, whether liberty 
has not gained much of late years, and w^hether 
the popular branch ought not, therefore, to be 
content ? To this I answer, that if liberty has 
gained much, power has gained more. Power 
has been indefatigable and unwearied in its en- 
croachments. Every thing has run in that direc- 
tion through the whole course of the present 
reign. This was the opinion of Sir George Sa- 
vile, of the Marquis of Rockingham, and of all 
the virtuous men who, in their public life, proved 
themselves to be advocates for the rights of the 
people. They saw and deplored the tendency of 
the Court; they saw that there was a determ- 
ined spirit in the secret advisers of the Crown 
to advance its power, and to encourage no ad- 
ministration that should not bend itself to that 
pursuit. Accordingly, through the whole reign, 
no administration which cherished notions of a 
difierent kind has been permitted to last ; and 
nothing, therefore, or next to nothing, has been 
gained to the side of the people, but every thing 
to that of the Crown, in the course of this reign. 
During the whole of this period, we have had no 
more than three administrations, one for twelve 
months, one for nine, and one for three months, 
that acted upon the popular principles of the early 
part of this century : nothing, therefore, I say, has 
been gained to the people, while the constant cur- 
rent has run toward the Crown ; and God knows 
what is to be the consequence, both to the Crown 
and the country ! I believe that we are come 
to the last moment of possible remedy. I believe 
that at this moment the enemies of both are few ; 
but I firmly believe that what has been seen in Ire- 
land will be experienced also here ; and that if we 
are to go on in the same career with convention 
bills and acts of exasperation of all kinds, the 
few^ will soon become the many, and that we shall 
have to pay a severe retribution for our present 
pride. What a noble Lord said some time ago 
of France may be applicable to this very subject — 
" What !" said he, " negotiate with France ? with 



628 



MR. FOX ON 



[1800. 



whose hands are reekincr with the blood of 



their Sov( 



What, shall we degrade our- 



selves by going to Paris, and there asking in hum- 
ble, diplomatic language, to be on a good under- 
standing with them ?" Gentlemen will remember 
these lofty words ; and yet we have come to this 
humiliation ; w^e have negotiated with France ; 
and I should not be surprised to see the noble Lord 
himself (Hawkesbury) going to Paris, not at the 
head of his regiment, but on a diplomatic mis- 
sion to those very regicides, to pray to be upon 
a good understanding with them. Shall w^e, then, 
be blind to the lessons which the events of the 
world exhibit to our view ? Pride, obstinacy, 
and insult, must end in concessions, and those 
concessions must be humble in proportion to our 
unbecoming pride. Now is the moment to pre- 
vent all these degradations ; the monarchy, the 
aristocracy, the people themselves, may now be 
saved ; it is only necessary, at this moment, to 
conquer our own passions. Let those ministers 
whose evil genius has brought us to our present 
condition retire from the post to which they are 
unequal. I have no hesitation in saying, that 
the present administration neither can nor ought 



to remain in place. Let them retire from his 
Majesty's councils, and then let us, with an earn- 
est desire of recovering the country, pursue this 
moderate scheme of reform, under the auspices 
of men w^ho are likely to conciliate the opinion 
of the people. I do not speak this, sir, from per- 
sonal ambition. A new administration ought to 
be formed : I have no desire, no wish to make a 
part of any such administration ; and I am sure 
that such an arrangement is feasible, and that it 
is capable of being done without me. My first 
and chief desire is to see this great end accom- 
plished. I have no wish to be the person, or to 
be one of the persons, to do it : but though my 
inclination is for retirement, I shall always be 
ready to give my free and firm suppoi-t to any 
administration that shall restore to the country 
its outraged rights, and re-establish its strength 
upon the basis of free representation ; and there- 
fore, sir, I shall certainly give my vote for the 
proposition of my honorable friend. 



On a division, the numbers were, Yeas, 93 ; 
Noes, 253. Mr. Grey's motion was therefore re- 
jected. 



SPEECH 

OF MR. FOX ON THE REJECTION OF BONAPARTE'S OVERTURES FOR PEACE, DELIVERED IN THE 
HOUSE OF COMMONS, FEBRUARY 3, 1800. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Napoleon Bonaparte, having usurped the government of France, became First Consul in December, 
1799 ; and, as an air of moderation seemed appropriate under these circumstances, be made overtures of 
peace to the King of England, in a letter written with his own hand. Mr. Pitt, who had no belief in the 
permanence of his power, rejected his offers in terms which were certainly rude, if not insulting. Some 
of them will be given hereafter in notes to this speech. 

The correspondence in question was laid before Parliament, and, on the 3d of February, 1800, a motion 
was made by Mr. Dundas approving of the course taken, and pledging the country for a vigorous prosecu- 
tion of the war. After Mr. Whitbread, Mr. Canning, and Mr. Erskine had spoken, Mr. Pitt rose, and held 
the House in fixed attention for nearly five hours by one of the most masterly orations he ever pronounced 
in Parliament. Mr. Fox then delivered the following speech in reply ; and never wei'e these two great 
orators brought into more direct competition, or the distinctive features of their eloquence exhibited in 
finer contrast. 

Mr. Pitt, instead of entering at once on the reasons for refusing at that time to negotiate, treated the rise 
of Napoleon as only a new stage of the French Revolution, and thus dextrously prepared the way for go- 
ing back to consider, 

I. The origin of the war, maintaining that France was the sole aggressor throughout the whole conflict. 

II. The atrocities of the French in oven-unning and subjugating a large part of Europe during the pre- 
ceding eight years. 

III. The genius and spirit of the Revolution, as " an insatiable love of aggrandizement, an implacable 
spirit of destruction against all the civil and religious institutions of every country." 

IV. The instability of the system, as marked from the first by sudden and great changes. 

V. The past history and character of Napoleon, whom he depicted in the darkest colors, as devoid of all 
faith, the inveterate enemy of England, and the cruel oppressor of every country he had overrun. His 
power he represented as wholly unstable , and insisted that England ought never to enter into a treaty with 
him until, " from experience and the evidence of facts, we are convinced that such a treaty is admissible." 
On these gi-ounds he defended his refusal to negotiate. This speech should be taken up previous to the 
one before us, if the reader intends to enter fully into the merits of the case. 

Mr. Fox, in reply, without the exactness of Mr. Pitt's method, touches upon most of these points, and ad- 
verts to others with great pungency and force. 

He condemns Mr. Pitt for reviving the early animosities of the contest as a reason for refusing to ti'eat, 
since on this principle the war must be eternal. 



1800.] 



THE REJECTION OF BONAPARTE'S OVERTURES. 



529 



He censures the severe and unconciliating teniis in which a respectful offer of negotiation had been re- 
jected. 

He insists, in regard to the origin of the war, that Austria and Prussia (so long the allies of England) 
were undeniably the aggressors ; that England provoked the contest by harsh treatment of the French 
minister; that, in relation to her grievances, she ought from the first to have stated definitely to the 
French what would satisfy her; that she ought, especially, to have accepted the mediation urged upou 
her by France, before a single blow had been struck, with a view to prevent the contest ; that the En- 
glish were, therefore, far from being guiltless as to the origin of the war, while the French, in all their ag- 
gressions, had been simply carrying out the principles taught them by the Bourbons, whom Mr. Pitt now 
proposed to restore. 

"While condemning the atrocities of the French, he sets off against them the outrages practiced on Po- 
land and other countries by the powers in league with England; and exposes the inconsistency of refus- 
ing, on the ground oi character, to treat with the French, while such rank oppressors were taken into the 
strictest alliance. 

He dwells upon the fact, that Mr. Pitt, who now refused to treat on account of the outrages of the 
French and the instability of their goveniraent, had Mmself twice opened negotiations (in 1796 and 1797) 
in the midst of these very outrages, while the existing governments were confessedly of the most unstable 
kind, and comments with great severity upon Mr. Pitt's explanation of his conduct on those occasions. 

Finally, in reference to the question, " When is this war to end ?" he considers the grounds on which 
Mr. Pitt had intimated a willingness to treat with Bonaparte, if the Bourbons could not be restored, viz., 
"experience and the evidence of facts ;" he adverts for a moment to some of the charges brought against 
the First Consul ; and, recurring again to the grounds stated, inquires, " Whei-e, then, is this war, which 
is pregnant with all these horrors, to be carried? Where is it to stop? Not till we establish the house 
of Bourbon" — or, at least, not until we have had due " experience" of Bonaparte's intentions. " So that we 
are called upon to go on merely as a speculation'' — " to keep Bonaparte some time longer at war, as a state 
oi probation" — " to try an experiment, if he will not behave himself better than heretofore!" With this 
thought he concludes, in the boldest and most eloquent strain of mingled argument, irony, and invective 
which he ever produced. 

The speech is admirably reported, and was considered by most who heard it as the ablest Mr. Fox 
ever made. 

SPEECH, &c. 



Mr. Speaker, — At so late an hour of the 
night, I am .sure you will do me the justice to 
believe that I do not mean to go at length into 
the discussion of this great question. Exhausted 
as the attention of the House must be, and un- 
accu.stomed as I have been of late to attend in 
my place, nothing but a deep sense of my duty 
could have induced me to trouble you at all, and 
particularly to request your indulgence at such 
an hour. 

Sir, my honorable and learned friend [Mr. Er- 

^ .^ skine] has truly said, that the present 

ihewar,hin.;iie is a now era in the war, and the 

old argunients • i i i i i 

used for .ts con- right houorable gentleman opposite 

tmuance. ^^ ^^^ |-jyj^ pj^^j j-^^j^ ^j^^ justice of 

the remark ; for, by traveling back to the com- 
mencement of the war, and relerring again to 
all the topics and arguments which he has so 
often and so successfully urged upon the House, 
and by which he has drawn them on to the sup- 
port of his measures, he is forced to acknowl- 
edge that, at the end of a seven years' conflict, 
we are come but to a new era in the war, at 
which he thinks it necessary only to press all his 
former arguments to induce us to persevere. All 
the topfes which have so often misled us — all 
the reasoning which has so invariably failed — 
all the lofty predictions which have so constantly 
been falsified by events — all the hopes which 
have amused the sanguine, and all the assuran- 
ces of the distress and weakness of the enemy 
"which have satisfied the unthinking, are again 
Ll 



enumerated and advanced as arguments for our 
continuing the war. What ! at the end of seven 
years of the most burdensome and the most ca- 
lamitous struggle in which this country ever was 
' engaged, are we again to be amused with no- 
tions of finance, and calculations of the exhaust- 
I ed resources of the enemy, as a ground of confi- 
dence and of hope ? Gracious God ! were w^e 
I not told five years ago that France was not only 
j on the brink and in the jaws of ruin, but that 
j she was actually sunk into the gulf of bankrupt- 
cy ? Were we not told, as an unanswerable ar- 
1 gument against treating, "that she could not hold 
j out another campaign — that nothing but peace 
j could save her — that she wanted only time to 
I recruit her exhausted finances — that to grant 
her repose v\'as to grant her the means of again 
molesting this country, and that we had nothing 
j to do but persevere for a short time, in order to 
save ourselves forever from the consequences 
I of her ambition and her jacobinism ?'' What ! 
after having gone on from year to year upon 
assurances like these, and after having seen the 
repeated refutations of every prediction, are we 
again to be gravely and seriously assured, that 
we have the same prospect of success on the 
; same identical grounds ? And, without any oth- 
' er argument or security, are we invited, at this 
new era of the war, to conduct it upon principles 
which, if adopted and acted upon, may make it 
, eternal ? If the right honorable gentleman shall 
I succeed in prevailing on Parliament and the 



530 



MR. FOX ON 



[1800. 



country to adopt the principles which he has ad- 
vanced this night, I see no possible termination 
to the contest. No man can see an end to it ; 
and upon the assurances and predictions which 
have so uniformly failed, we are called upon not 
merely to refuse all negotiation, but to counte- 
nance principles and views as distant from wis- 
dom and justice, as they are in their nature wild 
and impracticable. 

I must lament, sir, in common with every gen- 
Ministers cen- nine friend of peace, the harsh and un- 
usintha'^'sh Conciliating language which ministers 
de"dimf-to ^^^'^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ French, and which 
negotiate. they havc even made use of in their 
answer to a respectful offer of a negotiation.^ 
Such language has ever been considered as ex- 
tremely unwise, and has ever been reprobated 
by diplomatic men. I remember with pleasure 
the terms in which Lord Malmesbury, at Paris, 
in the year 1796, replied to expressions of this 
sort, used by M. de la Croix. He justly said, 
" that offensive and injurious insinuations were 
only calculated to throw new obstacles in the 
way of accommodation, and that it was not by 
revolting reproaches nor by reciprocal invective 
that a sincere wish to accomplish the great work 
of pacification could be evinced."^ Nothing 

1 The language refen-ed to was of the following 
kind. As a reason for refusing to negotiate, Lord 
Grenville goes back to the origin of the war, de- 
claring it to have been "an unprovoked attack" on 
the part of France. He says it sprung out of " a 
system, to the prevalence of which France justly 
ascribes all her present miseries, and which has in- 
volved all the rest of Europe in a long and destruc- 
tive warfare, of a nature long since unknown to the 
practice of civilized nations" — he assumes that this 
system "continues to prevail; that the most solemn 
treaties have only prepared a way for fresh aggres- 
sions;" and ascribes to the French those "gigantic 
objects of ambition, and those restless schemes of 
destruction, which have endangered the very exist- 
ence of civil society." In addition to this, he tells 
the French people, through their new ruler, that 
they ought at once to take back the Bourbons; that 
"the best and most natural pledge" they can give 
of a desire for peace, is "the restoration of that line 
of princes which for so many centuries maintained 
the French nation in prosperity at home, and con- 
sideration and respect abroad." He tells Bona- 
parte m direct terms, that England can not trust 
him; that there is "no sufficient evidence of the 
principles by which the new government will be 
directed ; no reasonable ground by which to judge 
of its stability." Such language deserved the cen- 
sures passed upon it by Mr. Fox. Nothing could 
more irritate the French people than to talk to them 
of restoring that hated dynasty against which they 
had so lately rebelled. Nothing was more calcula- 
ted to provoke Bonaparte to the utmost, and to foster 
a desire to invade England (which he attempted 
some years after), than personal reflections of this 
kind on the stability of his government. 

^ This is one of Mr. Fox's characteristic argu- 
ments, ad homincm. It was Mr. Pitt (through his 
embassador) who thus reproved the French minis- 
ter, M. de la Croix, for certain harsh expressions 
used during the negotiations for peace in 1796; and 
Mr. Fox now turns the reproof back upon Mr. Pitt, 
in language dictated by himself. 



could be more proper nor more wise than this 
language ; and such ought ever to be the tone 
and conduct of men intrusted whh the very im- 
portant task of treating with a hostile nation. 
Being a sincere friend to peace, I must say with 
Lord Malmesbury, that it is not by reproaches 
and by invective that we can hope for a recon- 
ciliation ; and I am convinced, in my own mind, 
that I speak the sense of this House, and, if not 
of this House, certainly of a majority of the peo- 
ple of this country, when I lament that any un- 
provoked and unnecessaiy recriminations should 
be flung out, by which obstacles are put in the 
way of pacification. I believe it is the prevail- 
ing sentiment of the people, that we ought to 
abstain from harsh and insulting language ; and 
in common with them, I must lament that both 
in the papers of Lord Grenville, and this night, 
such license has been given to invective and re- 
proach.^ 

For the same reason, I must lament that the 
right honorable gentleman [Mr. The original and 
Pitt] has thought proper to go at ces'ofihewTr'noi 
such length, and with such severity no^'tbe question. 
of minute investigation, into all the early circum- 
stances of the wai', which (whatever they were) 
are nothing to the present purpose, and ought not 
to influence the present feelings of the House. I 
certainly shall not follow him through the whole 
of this tedious detail, though I do not agree with 
him in many of his assertions. I do not know 
what impression his narrative may make on other 
gentlemen ; but I will tell him fairly and candid- 
ly, he has not convinced me. I continue to think, 
and until I see better grounds for changing my 
opinion than any that the right honorable gentle- 
man has this night produced, I shall continue to 
think, and to say, plainly and explicitly, " that 
this country was the aggressor in the j,,^ British ai- 
war." But with regard to Austria ''«»• Austria 

T T, ... 1 c and Prussia, un 

and Prussia — is there a man who, for deniabiy the ag- 
one moment, can dispute that they s""^^^"""^- 
were the aggressors ? It will be vain for the 
right honorable gentleman to enter into long 
and plausible reasoning against the evidence of 
documents so clear, so decisive — so frequently, 
so thoroughly investigated. The unfortunate 
monarch, Louis XVL, himself, as well as those 
who were in his confidence, has borne decisive 
testimony to the facit, that between him and the 
Emperor [Leopold of Austria] there was an inti- 
mate correspondence and a perfect understand- 
ing. Do I mean by this that a positive treaty 
was entered into for the dismemberment of 
France ? Certainly not. But no man can read 



^ Warmly as Mr. Wilberforce was attached to 
Mr. Pitt, he expressed himself still more strongly 
on this subject in a letter to a friend. "I must say 
I was shocked at Lord Grenville's letter; for though 
our government must feel adverse to any measure 
which might appear to give the stamp of our author- 
ity to Bonaparte's new dignity, yet I must say that 
unless they have some better reason than I fear tliey 
possess for believing that he is likely to be hurled 
from his throne, it seems a desperate game to play 
— to offend, and insult, and thereby irritate, this vain 
man beyond the hope of forgiveness." — Life, 215. 



1800.] 



THE REJECTION OF BONAPARTE'S OVERTURES. 



531 



the declarations which were made at Mantua,^ 
as well as at Pilnitz, as they ai'e given by M. 
Bertrand de jNIolvilJe, without acknowledginfr 
that this was not merely an intention, but a dec- 
laration of an intention, on the part of the great 
powers of Germany, to interfere in the internal 
affairs of France, for the purpose of regulating 
the government, against the opinion of the peo- j 
pie. This, though not a plan for the partition 
of France, was, in the eye of reason and common 
sense, an aggression against France. The right 
honorable gentleman denies that there was such 
Deciarntion ^ thing as a treaty of Pilnitz. Grant- 
ofpuuiiz. g(j gm ^^as there not a Declaration 
which amounted to an act of hostile aggression ?^ 
The two powers, the Emperor of Germany and 
the King of Prussia, made a public declaration, 
that they were determined to employ their forces, 
in conjunction with those of the other Sovereigns 



* The Count d'Artois, brother of the King of 
France, met the Emperor Leopold of Austria, the 
King of Sardinia, and th:j King of Spain, at Mantua, 
in May, 1791, and, on his representation, these mon- 
archs entered into an agreement to march one hund- 
red thousand men to the borders of France, in ex- 
pectation that the French people, terrified at the ap- 
proach of the allied powers, would seek safety by 
submitting themselves to Louis XVI., and asking 
his mediation ; but Louis, hoping at that time to re- 
store the monarchy by his own efforts, discouraged 
the immediate execution of the plan. See Migriei, 
p. 119 ; Alison's History of Europe, vol. i., p. 571, 
third edition. 

5 The following is a copy of this celebrated Decla- 
ration, which led to a general war in Europe. It 
was framed in August, 1791, at Pilnitz, a fortress in 
Saxouy, by the Emperor Leopold and the Kiiig of 
Prussia, and was given to the Count d'Artois, that 
he might use it to induce the other courts of Europe 
to enter into a league for restoring Louis XVI. 

"His Majesty the Emperor, and his Majesty the 
King of Prussia, having heard the desires and repre- 
sentations of Monsieur and of his royal highness the 
Count d'Artois, declare jointly, that they regard the 
situation in which his Majesty the King of France 
actually is, as an object of common interest to all the 
Sovereigns of Europe. They hope that this concern 
can not fail to be acknowledged by the powers 
whose assistance is claimed ; and that in conse- 
quence they will not refuse to employ jointlj' with 
their said Majesties the most efficacious means, in 
proportion to their forces, to place the King of 
France in a state to settle in the most perfect lib- 
erty the foundations of a monarchical government, 
equally suitable to the rights of Sovereigns and the 
welfare of the French. Then and in that case, their 
said Majesties are decided to act quickly and with 
one accord with the forces necessary to obtain the 
common end proposed. lu the mean time they will 
give suitable orders to their troops, that they may 
be ready to put themselves in motion." — Alison's 
History of Europe, vol. i., p. 574, third edition. 

The French justly regarded this as a hostde act, 
and, after caUing in vain for an explanation from the 
Emperor, who had marched large bodies of troops to 
their borders, they declared war against Austria on 
the 20th of April, 1792. Prussia instantly united 
with Austria, and, three months after, July 25th, 
1792, the Duke of Brunswick invaded France at the 
head of one hundred and thirty-eight thousand Aus- 
trian and Prussian troops. 



of Europe, " to put the King of France in a situ- 
ation to establish, in perfect liberty, the founda- 
tions of a monarchical government equally agree- 
able to the rights of Sovereigns and the welfare 
of the French." Whenever the other princes 
.should agree to co-operate with them, " thcn^ 
and in that case, their Majesties were determ- 
ined to act promptly, and by mutual consent, 
with the forces necessary to obtain the end pro- 
posed by all of them. In the mean time, they 
declared that they would give orders for their 
troops to be ready for actual service." Now, I 
would ask gentlemen to lay their hands upon 
their hearts, and say with candor what the true 
and fair construction of this Declaration was — 
whether it was not a menace and an insult to 
France, since, in direct terms, it declared, that 
whenever the other powers should concur, they 
would attack France, then at peace with them, 
and then employed only in domestic and internal 
regulations ? Let us suppose the case to be that 
of Great Britain. Will any gentleman sav that 
if two of the great powers should make a public 
declaration, that they were determined to make 
an attack on this kingdom as soon as circum- 
stances should favor their intention : that they 
only waited for this occasion, and that in the 
mean time they would keep their forces ready 
for the purpose, it would not be considered by 
the Parliament and people of this country as a 
hostile aggression ? And is there any English- 
man in existence who is such a friend to peace 
as to say that the nation could retam its honor 
and dignity if it should sit down under such a 
menace ? I know too well what is due to the 
national character of England to believe that 
there would be two opinions on the case, if thus 
put home to our own feelings and understand- 
mgs. We must, then, respect in others the in- 
dignation which such an act would excite in our- 
selves ; and when we see it established, on the 
most indisputable testimony, that both at Pilnitz 
and at Mantua declarations were made to this ef- 
fect, it is idle to say that, as far as the Emperor 
and the King of Prussia were concerned, they 
were not the aggressors in the war. 

" Oh ! but the decree of the 19th of Novem- 
ber, 1 792."*^ That, at least, the right honorable 

^ This famous " Decree of Fraternity" was passed 
under the following circumstances. The allied Aus- 
trian and Prussian armies, under the Duke of Bruns- 
wick, were beaten back by the French, who immedi- 
ately pressed forward into the Austrian Netherlands, 
and made themselves masters of the country by the 
decisive battle of Jemmape, November 6th, 1792. 
When the news reached Paris, the decree in ques- 
tion was passed in the exultation felt at this and 
other victories of the republic. It was in the fol- 
lowing words : 

"The National Convention declare, in the name 
of the French nation, they will grant fraternity and 
assistance to all those people who wish to procure 
liberty'. And they charge the executive power to 
send orders to the generals to give assistance to 
such people ; and to defend citizens who have suf- 
fered, and are now suffering, in the cause of liberty." 
— Alison, vol. i., p. 592, third edition. 

The reader will decide whether to consider it with 



532 



MR. FOX ON 



[1800. 



gentleman says, you must allow to be an act of 
^ r, ajjgression, not only against Enijland. 

Decree of the «*= • ,, , o • r -n ' 

French Nation- but agaiust all the Sovereigns ol bu- 

al Convention. t ^ r- >^i _ ,;.. 

rope. I am not one ot those, sir, 
who attach much interest to the general and in- 
discriminate provocations thrown out at random, 
like this resolution of the 19th of November, 
1792. I do not think it necessary to the digni- 
ty of any people to notice and to apply to them- 
selves menaces without particular allusion, which 
are always unwise in the power which uses them, 
and which it is still more unwise to treat with se- 
riousness. But if any such idle and general prov- 
ocation to nations is given, either in insolence or 
in folly, b}'^ any government, it is a clear first prin- 
ciple, that an explanation is the thing which a 
magnanimous nation, feeling itself aggrieved, 
ought to demand ; and if an explanation be giv- 
en which is not satisfactory, it ought clearly and 
distinctly to say so. There should be no am- 
biguity, no reserve, on the occasion. Now we 
all know, from documents on our table, that M. 
Chauvelin [the French minister] did give an ex- 
planation of this silly decree. He declared, " in 
Explanation ^^^ name of his government, that it 
of this decree -yvas ncvcr meant that the French gov- 

by the French , , i r • ■ 

minister at emmcnt should lavor insurrections; 
that the decree was applicable only 
to those people who, after having acquired their 
liberty by conquest, should demand the assist- 
ance of the Republic ; but that France would 
respect, not only the independence of England, 
but also that of her allies with whom she was 
not at war." This was the explanation of the 
offensive decree. " But this explanation was not 
satisfactory." Did you say so to M. Chauvelin? 
Did you tell him that you were not content with 
this explanation ? and when you dismissed him, 
afterward, on the death of the King [of France], 
did you say that this explanation was unsatisfac- 
tory ? No. You did no such thing ; and I con- 
ifnot satisfact- tend, that unless you demanded /ttr- 
tiTwe^e bound thcr explanations, and they were re- 
dechire'^wira"'' f^sed, you have no right to urge the 
would satisfy. (Jccree of the 19th of November as 
an act of aggression. In all your conferences 
and correspondence with M. Chauvelin. did you 
hold out to him what terms would satisfy you ? 
Did you give the French the power or the means 
of settling the misunderstanding which that de- 
cree, or any other of the points at issue, had cre- 
ated ? I maintain, that when a nation refuses to 
state to another the thing which would satisfy 
her, she shows that she is not actuated by a de- 
sire to preserve peace between them ; and I aver 
that this was the case here. The Scheldt, for 
instance. You now say that the navigation of 
the Scheldt was one of your causes of complaint.''' 



Mr. Fox, as an empty vaunt, or with Mr. Pitt, as a 
declaration of war a2;ainst all, the thrones of Kurope. 
' When the French conquered tho Austrian Neth- 
erlands (as mentioned in tlie preceding note), they 
forcibly opened the navigation of its principal river, 
the Scheldt, down to the sea. This had been closed 
for nearly one hundred and fifty years, out of regard 
to the rights of Holland (through which it entered 



Did you explain yourself on that subject ? Did 
you make it one of the grounds for the dismissal 
of M. Chauvelin ? Sir, I repeat it, that a nation^ 
to justify itself in appealing to the last solemn re- 
sort^ ought to prove that it has taken every possi- 
ble means^ consistent with dignity^ to demand the 
reparation and redress ivhich would be satisfacto- 
ry ; and if she re/uses to explain what would be 
satisfactory^ she does not do her duly, nor exoner- 
ate herself from the charge of being the aggressor. 
The right honorable gentleman has this night, 
for the first time, produced a most The plan ..f unit- 
important paper : the instructions '"s "''•> R"ssia 

1 • 1 . I • -Tv/r • to prevent the 

which were given to his Majesty s war would have 
minister at the court of St. Peters- thylf^JniTalted 
burgh, about the end of the year "P""' 
1792, to induce her Imperial Majesty to join 
her efforts with those of his Britannic Majesty, 
to prevent, by their joint mediation, the evils 
of a general war. Of this paper, and of the 
existence of any such document, I, for one, was 
wholly ignorant. But I have no hesitation in 
saying that I entirely approve of the instructions 
which appear to have been given ; and I am 
sorry to see the right honorable gentleman dis- 
posed rather to take blame to himself than cred- 
it for having written them. He thinks that he 
shall be subject to the imputation of having been 
rather too slow to apprehend the dangers with 
which the French Revolution was fraught, than 
that he was forward and hasty — "Quod solum 
excusat, hoc solum miror in illo."^ I do not 
agree with him. I by no means think that he 
was blamable for too much confidence in the 
good intentions of the French. I think the ten- 
or and composition of this paper was excellent — 
the instructions conveyed in it wise, and that it 
wanted but one essential thing to have entitled 
it to general approbation, namely, to have been 
acted upon! The clear nature and intent of that 
paper I take to be, that our ministers were to 
solicit the court of Petersburgh to join with them 
in a declaration to the French government, stat- 
ing explicitly what course of conduct, with re- 
spect to their foreign relations, they thought nec- 
e.ssary to the general peace and security of Eu- 
rope, and what, if complied with, would have in- 
duced them to mediate for that purpose. This 
was a proper, wise, and legitimate course of pro- 
ceeding. Now, I ask you, sir, whether, if this 
paper had been communicated to Paris, at the 
end of the year 1792, instead of Petersburgh, it 
would not have been productive of most sea- 
sonable benefits to mankind ; and, by informing 
the French in time of the means by which they 
might have secured the mediation of Great Brit- 
ain, have not only avoided the rupture with (his 
country, but have also restored general peace to 



the ocean), under the provisions of the treaty of 
Westphalia, which settled the political relations of 
modern Europe. Holland and her protector, P]n- 
gland, had just ground of complaint for the aL:gres- 
sion, tbougii it was too unimportant in itself to jus- 
tify a war. 

8 The only thing he excuses is the only thing in 
him which I admire. 



1800.] 



THE REJECTION OF BONAPARTE'S OVERTURES. 



533 



the continent? The paper, sir, was excellent in 
its intentions ; but its merit was all in the com- 
position. It was a fine theory, which ministers 
did not think proper to carry into practice. It 
was very much like what the right honorable 
ijentleman at the head of the Board of Control 
[Mr. Dundas] said some years ago of the com- 
mercial system upon which we have maintained 
our government in the East Indies. '"Nothing 
could be more moral, more beautiful, and benev- 
olent, than the instructions which were sent out 
to our governors ; but unfortunately those in- 
structions had been confined to the registers of 
the corporation : they were to be found only in 
the minute-books of Leadenhall Street. Their 
beneficial effects had never been felt by the peo- 
ple, for whose protection and happiness the the- 
ories w'ere framed."^ In the same manner, this 
very commendable paper, so well digested, and 
so likely to preserve us from the calamities of 
war, was never communicated to the French ; 
never acted upon ; never known to the world 
until this day ; nay, on the contrary, at the 
very time that ministers had drawn up this pa- 
per, they were insulting M. Chauvelin in every 
way, until about the 23d or 24th of January, 
1793, when they finally dismissed him, without 
stating any one ground upon which they were 
willing to preserve terms wnth the French."' 

' It is striking to see how dexteroasly Mr. Fox 
turns back Mr. Dundas' words upon himself in this 
case, as he did those of Lord Malmesbury upon Mr. 
Pitt on a preceding page. 

1° As the treatment of M. Chauvelin fonned the 
hinge of the controversy between Mr. Fox and Mr. 
Pitt, it will be proper briefly to remind the reader 
of the principal dates and facts. M. Chauvelin was 
sent to London as French minister by Louis XVI. 
When that monarch was virtually deposed by the 
events of August 10th, 1792, M. Chauvelin was in- 
formed that his functions as minister were suspend- 
ed, and though new credentials were sent him by 
the existing French government, they were not re- 
ceived. Informal communications did, however, pass 
between him and Lord Grenville, the Secretary of 
Foreign Affairs, but the tone of his Lordship was 
considered, not only by the French, but by Mr. Fox 
and his friends, as offensive, and even insulting. M. 
Char.velin was addressed as styling himself pleni- 
potentiary of France, and reminded that all official 
communication with that country had ceased. He 
was told that France "must confine herself within 
her own territory, without insulting other govern- 
ments, without disturbing their tranquillity, with- 
out violating their rights." Such language, when 
France had been asking the mediation of England 
to prevent a general war in Europe, and while she 
was offering explanations of her decrees, was 
strongly condemned by Mr. Fox. Even if but little 
confidence could be reposed in the sincerity of the 
French, this treatment was felt to be wrong and 
irritating. On the 24th of January, 1793, three days 
after L>;uis XVI. was beheaded, the following note 
\«s addressed to M. Chauvelin by Lord Grenville : 
"I am charged to notify you, sir, that the character 
with which you have been invested at this court, 
and the functions which have so long been suspend- 
ed, being now entirely terminated by the fatal 
death of his Most Christian Majesty, you have no 
longer any public character here; and his Majesty 



But "France," it seems, "then declared war 
against us ; and .she was the aggress- ji.„„,,„j the 
or. because the declaration came from aggressor m 

1 ' 11 T 11 1 • uifTnissing 

her. Let us look at the circumstan- m. ciumve- 
ces of this transaction on both sides. 
Undoubtedly the declaration was made by them ; 
but is a declaration the only thing which consti- 
tutes the commencement of a war? Do gentle- 
men recollect that, in consequence of a dispute 
about the commencement of war, respecting the 
capture of a number of ships, an article was in- 
serted in our treaty with France, by which it 
was positively stipulated that in future, to prevent 
all disputes, the act of the dismissal of a minister 
from either of the two courts should be held and 
considered as tantamount to a declaration of 
war?'^ I mention this, sir, because w^hen we 
are idly employed in this retrospect of the origin 
of a war which has lasted so many years, instead 
of turning our eyes only to the contemplation of 
the means of putting an end to it, w^e seem dis- 
posed to overlook every thing on our own parts, 
and to search only for grounds of imputation on 
the enemy. I almost think it an insult on the 
House to detain them with this sort of examina- 
tion. Why, sir, if France was the aggressor, 
as the right honorable gentleman says she was 



has thought proper to order that you should retire 
from the kingdom within the term of eight days." 

Mr. Pitt justified his sending M. Chauvehn out 
of the kingdom on this ground, that by the death of 
Louis XVI. he was reduced to the character of a 
private individual ; and was ordered to leave the 
country under the Alien Act, which authorized the 
government to send out of the kingdom any foreign- 
ers they thought proper. 

11 This was the treaty of Commerce and Naviga- 
tion made with France by Mr. Pitt, September 26th, 
1786. The second article contains the provision here 
referred to. Mr. Pitt could answer Mr. Fox's argu- 
ment only by saying, " This article does not noio 
applj'. I made the treaty with the regal govern- 
ment of France, and it can not be pleaded in behalf 
of the new government, which I have not recog- 
nized." But unfortunately for Mr. Pitt, he loas con- 
tinuing to act upon the Commercial Treaty as a 
treaty still in force. And bow could he do this, and 
yet not be subject to the article respecting the dis- 
missal of a minister? By acting upon the treaty, 
he did in fact recognize the new government. This 
was Mr. Fox's argument in his letter to the electors 
of Westminster. " Every contract," says he, "must 
be at an end when the contracting parties have no 
longer any existence in their own persons, or by their 
representatives. After the tentli of August, 1792, 
the political existence of Louis XVI. (who was the 
contracting party in the Treaty of Commerce) was 
completely annihilated. The only question, there- 
fore, is, whether the Executive Council of France 
did or did not represent the political power so anni- 
hilated? If we say they did not, the contracting 
party has no longer any political existence, either 
in his own person or by representation, and the 
treaty becomes null and void. If we say they did, 
then we have actually acknowledged them as rep- 
resentatives (for the time at least) of what was the 
executive government of France." Hence the dis- 
missal of M. Chauvelin was, by the provisions of an 
existing treaty, a virtual declaration of war. So 
Mr. Fox contended. 



534 



MR. FOX ON 



[1800. 



throughout, did not Prussia call upon us for the 
stipulated number of troops, according to the ar- 
ticle of the definitive treaty of alliance subsisting 
between us, by which, in case that either of the 
contracting parties was attacked, they had a 
right to demand ihe stipulated aid ? and the 
same thing again may be asked when w^e were 
attacked. The right honorable gentleman might 
here accuse himself, indeed, of reserve ; but it 
unfortunately happened, that at the time the point 
was too clear on which side the aggression lay. 
Prussia was too sensible that the war could not 
entitle her to make the demand, and that it w'as 
not a case within the scope of the defensive 
treaty. This is evidence worth a volume of 
subsequent reasoning ; for if, at the time when 
all the facts were present to their minds, they 
could not take advantage of existing treaties, 
and that too when the courts were on the m.ost 
friendly terms with one another, it will be mani- 
fest to every thinking man that thcrj were sensi- 
ble they were not authorized to make the demand. 

I really, sir, can not think it necessary to fol- 
Franpe was low the right houorablc gentleman 
interna/, and*'^ into all thc miuutc dctalls W'hich he 
'helTx7er»JP ^as thought propcr to give us re- 
concerna. spccting the first aggrcssiou ; but 

that Austria and Prussia were the aggressors, 
not a man in any country, who has ever given 
himself the trouble to think at all on the subject, 
can doubt. Nothing could be more hostile than 
their whole proceedings. Did they not declare 
to France, that it was her internal concerns, not 
her external proceedings, which provoked them 
to confederate against her? Look back to the 
proclamations with which they set out.'- Read 
the declarations which they made themselves to 
justify their appeal to arms. They did not pre- 
tend to fear her ambition — her conquests — her 
troubling her neighbors ; but they accused her 
of new-modeling her own government. They 
said nothing of her aggressions abroad. They 
spoke only of her clubs and societies at Paris. 

Sir, in all this, I am not justifying the French ; 
Theaggrea- ^ ^^ "^^ trying to absolvc them from 
French utfer- ^lamc, either in their internal or ex- 
ly wrong, but tcmal poHcy. I think, on the contra- 
conducted on . \ ^, ■ • 1 I 
Bourbonprin- ry, that their successive rulers have 

*^''"''" been as bad and as execrable, in vari- 

ous instances, as any of the most des'potic and un- 
principled governments that the world ever saw^ 
I think it impossible, sir, that it .should have been 
otherwise. It w'as not to be expected that the 
French, when once engaged in foreign wars, 
should not endeavor to spread destruction around 
them, and to form plans of aggrandizement and 
plunder on every side. Men bred in the school 
of the house of Bourbon could not be expected 



12 The manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick when 
he invaded France, declared that "all pcnsons found 
in arms against the allied powers should be punish- 
ed as 1-ebels to their King-; and in case the King 
and dueen were not immediately set at liberty, the 
city of Paris was threatened with the horrors of 
military execution, with avenging punishment and 
total destruction." 



to act otherwise.'^ They could not have lived 
so long under their ancient masters without im- 
bibing the restless ambition, the perfidy, and the 
insatiable spirit of the race. They have imitated 
the practice of their great prototype, and, through 
their whole career of mischiefs and of crimes, 
have done no more than servilely trace the steps 
of their own Louis XIV. If they have overrun 
countries and ravaged them, they have done it 
upon Bourbon principles ; if they have ruined 
and dethroned Sovereigns, it is entirely after the 
Bourbon manner ; if they have even fraternized 
with the people of foreign countries, and pretend- 
ed to make their cause their ow^n, they have only 
faithfully followed the Bourbon example. They 
have constantly had Louis, the Grand Monarque, 
in their eye. But it may be said, that this ex- 
ample was long ago, and that we ought not to 
refer to a period so distant. True, it is a re- 
mote period applied to the man, but not so of the 
principle. The principle was never extinct ; nor 
has its operation been suspended in France, exr 
cept, perhaps, for a short interval, during the ad- 
ministration of Cardinal Fleury ; and my com- 
plaint against the Republic of France is, not that 
she has generated new crimes — not that she has 
promulgated new mischief — but that she has 
adopted and acted upon the principles which 
have been so fatal to Europe under the practice 
of the house of Bourbon. It is said, that w^here- 
ever the French have gone, they have introduced 
revolution — they have sought for the means of 
disturbing neighboring states, and have not been 
content with mere conquest. What is this but 
adopting the ingenious scheme of Louis XIV. ? 
He w^as not content with merely overrunning a 
state. Whenever he came into a new" territory, 
he established what he called his chamber of 
claims, a most convenient device, by which he 
inquired whether the conquered country or prov- 
ince had any dormant or disputed claims — any 
cause of complaint — any unsettled demand upon 
any other state or province — upon w^hich he 
might wage war upon such state, thereby dis- 
cover again ground for new" devastation, and grat- 
ify his ambition by new acquisitions. What have 
the republicans done more atrocious, more Jaco- 
binical than this ? Louis went to war with Hol- 
land. His pretext was, that Holland had not 
treated him with sufficient respect. A very just 
and proper cause for war indeed ! 

This, sir, leads me to an example which I think 
seasonable, and worthy the attention Treaties were 
of his Majesty's ministers. When ^^^^J^and 
our Charles II., as a short exception oushtnowto 

\ . . 1 1 '^ made with 

to the polic}'' of his reign, made the the French, 

. , IT c 1 • c without ™ine 

triple alliance lor the protection ot back to the or. 
Europe, and particularly of Holland, 'i'"' "•"'''^ war 
against the ambition of Louis XIV., what was 
the conduct of that great, virtuous, and most 

'^ There is great adroitness in thus tracing the 
French spirit of aggression to the principles and 
practice of thc Bourbons, especially as Mr. Pitt, in 
refusing to treat with Bonaparte, had pointed to the 
restoration of the Bourbons as the most certain 
mode of preparing the way for peace. 



1800.] 



THE REJECTION OF BONAPARTE'S OVERTURES. 



535 



able statesman, INI. de Witt, when the confeder- 
ates came to deliberate upon the terms upon 
which they should treat with the French mon- 
arch ■? When it was said that he had made un- 
principled conquests, and that he ought to be 
forced to surrender them all, what was the lan- 
guage of that great and wise man ? " No," said 
he ; "I think we ought not to look back to the 
origin of the war so much as the means of put- 
ting an end to it. If you had united in time to 
prevent these conquests, well ; but now that he 
has made them, he stands upon the ground of 
conquest, and we must agree to treat with him, 
not with reference to the origin of the conquest, 
but with regard to his present posture. He has 
those places, and some of them we must be con- 
tent to give up as the means of peace ; for con- 
quest will always successfully set up its claims 
to indemnification." Such was the language of 
this minister, who was the ornament of his time : 
and such, in my mind, ought to be the langu^age 
of statesmen, with regard to the French, at this 
day ; and the same ought to have been said at 
the formation of the confederacy. It was true 
that the French had overrun Savoy ; but they 
had overrun it upon Bourbon principles ; and, 
having gained this and other conquests before 
the confederacy was formed, they ought to have 
treated with her rather for future security, than 
for past correction. States in possession, wheth- 
er monarchical or repubUcan, will claim indem- 
nity in proportion to their success ; and it will 
never so much be inquired by what right they 
gained possession, as by what means they can 
be prevented from enlarging their depredations. 
Such is the safe practice of the world ; and such 
ought to have been the conduct of the powers 
when the reduction of Savoy made them coalesce. 
The right honox-able gentleman may know more 
of the secret particulars of their overrunning Sa- 
voy than I do ; but certainly, as they have come 
to my knowledge, it was a most Bourbon-like 
act. A great and justly celebrated historian, I 
mean Mr. Hume, a writer certainly estimable 
in many particulars, but who is a childish lover 
of Princes, talks of Louis XI Y. in very magnifi- 
cent terms. But he says of him, that, though he 
managed his enterprises with great skill and 
bravery, he was unfortunate in this, that he nev- 
er got a good and fair pretense for war. This 
he reckons among his misfortunes. Can we say 
more of the repubUcan French ? In seizing on 
Savoy, I think they made use of the words " con- 
venances morales ct physiques. '^^^ These were 
her reasons. A most Bourbon-like phrase. And I 
therefore contend, that as we never scrupled to 
treat with the princes of the house of Boui'bon 
on account of their rapacity, their thirst of con- 
quest, their violation of treaties, their perfidy, and 
their restless spirit, so, I contend, we ought not 
to refuse to treat with their republican imitators. 
Ministers could not pretend ignorance of the 
unprincipled manner in which the French had 
seized on Savoy. The Sardinian minister corn- 



Conveniences moral and physical. 



plained of the aggression, and yet no stir was 
made about it. The courts of Europe 5^,.,,^, ought to 
stood by and saw the outrage : and iiave bee., pro- 

. •'. . „■.! • 1 1 tected at Ote 

our mmisters saw it. 1 he right hon- tivu, and not 
orablc gentleman will in vain, there- gm'^mTof^on^ 
fore, exert his powers to persuade ''""'"g'^i»'^''ar. 
me of the interest he takes in the preservation 
of the rights of nations, since, at the moment 
when an interference might have been made with 
eJBTect, no step was taken, no remonstrance made, 
no mediation negotiated, to stop the career of con- 
quest. All the pretended and hypocritical sensi- 
bility " for the rights of nations, and for social or- 
der," with which we have since been stunned, can 
not impose upon those who will take the trouble 
to look back to the period when this sensibiHty 
ought to have roused us into seasonable exertion. 
At that time, however, the right honorable gen- 
tleman makes it his boast that he was prevent- 
ed, by a sense of neutrality, from taking any 
measures of precaution on the subject. I do not 
give the right honorable gentleman much credit 
for his spirit of neutrality on the occasion. It 
flowed from the sense of the country at the time, 
the great majority of which was clearly and de- 
cidedly against all interruptions being given to 
the French in their desire of regulating their 
own internal government. 

But this neutrality, which respected only the 
internal rights of the French, and E„„,,„do„gut 
from which the people of England to iiave accept- 

, , , ^ ."^ , = - ed the media- 

would never have departed but tor t.on urged upon 
the impolitic and hypocritical cant ^^^ ^ France, 
which was set up to arouse their jealousy and 
alarm their fears, was very different from the 
great principle of political prudence which ought 
to have actuated the councils of the nation, on 
seeing the first steps of France toward a career 
of external conquest. My opinion is, that when 
the unfortunate King of France ofTered to us, in 
the letter delivered by M. Chauvelin and M. Tal- 
leyrand, and even entreated us to mediate be- 
tween him and the allied powers of Austria and 
Prussia, they [ministers] ought to have accepted 
of the offer, and exerted their influence to save 
Europe from the consequence of a system which 
was then beginning to manifest itself. -'" It was, 



15 Early in 1792 the King of France sent a letter 
to the King of England, through Talleyrand &nd 
Chauvelin, requesting the latter to mediate be- 
tween France and the allied powers, Austria and 
Prussia. " I consider," says Louis, " the success of 
the alliance in which I wish you to concur with as 
much zeal as I do, as of the highest importance ; I con- 
sider it as necessary to the stability of the respect- 
ive Constitutions of our two kingdoms : and 1 will 
add that our union ought to command peace to Eu- 
rope.'^ A few weeks after, the French monarch 
again applied to the King of England, through M. 
Chauvelin, " to interpose, and, by his wisdom and 
influence, avert, while there is still time, the prog- 
ress of the confederacy formed against France, and 
which threatened the peace, the liberties, and the 
happiness of Europe." After an interval of twen- 
ty days, July 8, 1792, the British government de- 
clined. The Duke of Brunswick invaded France 
at the close of the same month. 



)36 



MR. FOX ON 



[1800. 



at least, a question of prudence ; and as we had 
never refused to treat and to mediate witli the 
old princes on account of their ambition or their 
perfidy, we ought to have been equally ready 
now, when the same principles were acted upon 
by other men. I must doubt the sensibility which 
could be so cold and so indiflerent at the proper 
moment for its activity. I fear that there were 
at that moment the germs of ambition rising in 
the mind of the right honorable gentleman, and 
that he was beginning, like others, to entertain 
hopes that something might be obtained out of 
the coming confusion. What but such a senti- 
ment could have prevented him from overlooking 
the fair occasion that was offered for preventing 
the calamities with which Europe was threat- 
ened ? What but some such interested princi- 
ple could have made him forego the truly honor- 
able task, by which his administration would have 
displayed its magnanimity and its power ? But 
for some .such feeling, would not this country, 
both in wisdom and in dignity, have interfered, 
and, in conjunction with the other powers, have 
said to France, " You ask for a mediation. We 
will mediate with candor and sincerity, but we 
■will at the same time declax-e to you our appre- 
hensions. We do not trust to your assei'tion of 
a determination to avoid all foreign conquest, and 
that you are desirous only of settling your own 
Constitution, because your language is contra- 
dicted by experience and the evidence of facts. 
You are Frenchmen, and you can not so soon 
have forgotten and thrown off' the Bourbon prin- 
ciples in which you were educated. You have 
already imitated the bad practice of your princes. 
You have seized on Savoy without a color of right. 
But here we take our stand. Thus far you have 
gone, and we can not help it; but you must go 
no farther. We will tell you distinctly what we 
shall consider as an attack on the balance and the 
security of Europe ; and, as the condition of our 
interference, we will tell you also the securities 
that we think essential to the general repose." 
This ought to have been the language of his Maj- 
esty's ministers when their mediation was solic- 
ited ; and something of this kind they evidently 
thought of when they sent the instructions to Pe- 
tersburgh which they have mentioned this night, 
but upon which they never acted. Having not 
done so, I say they have no right to talk now 
about the violated rights of Europe, about the 
aggression of the French, and about the origin 
of the war in which this country was so sudden- 
ly afterward plunged. Instead of this, what did 
they do ? They hung back ; they avoided ex- 
planation ; they gave the French no means of 
satisfying them ; and I repeat my pi-oposition — 
when there is a question of peace and war be- 
tween two nations, that government feels itself in 
the wrong ivhich refuses to state ivith clearness 
and precision tvhat she should consider as a satis- 
faction and a pledge of peace. 

Sir, if I understand the true precepts of the 
Tiieirreiiiionof Christian religion, as set forth in 
grouT,d''f«rre"fu8- thc Ncw Tcstamcnt, I must be per- 
ing to treat. mittcd to Say, that there is no such 



thing as a rule or doctrine by which we are di. 
rected, or can be justified, in waging a war for 
religion. The idea is subversive of the very foun- 
dations upon which it stands, which are those of 
peace and good will among men. Religion never 
was and never can be a justifiable cause of war ; 
but it has been too often grossly used as the pre- 
text and the apology for the most unprincipled 
wars. 

I have already said, and I repeat it, that the 
conduct of the French to foreign na- Though the 
tions can not be justified. They have do'^rt" Vrong! 
given great cause of offense, but cer- auhiTlate pe-' 
tainly not to all countries alike. The riod would 

•^ render the 

right honorable gentlemen opposite to war etemai 
me have made an indiscriminate catalogue of all 
the countries which the French have offended, 
and, in their eagerness to throw odium on the 
nation, have taken no pains to investigate the 
sources of their several quarrels. I will not de- 
tain you, sir, by entering into the long detail 
which has been given of their aggressions and 
their violences ; but let me mention Sardinia as 
one instance which has been strongly insisted 
upon, Did the French attack Sardinia when at 
peace with them ? No such thing. The King 
of Sardinia had accepted of a subsidy from Great 
Britain ; and Sardinia was, to all intents and pur- 
poses, a belligerent power. Several other in- 
stances might be mentioned ; but though, per- 
haps, in the majority of instances, the French 
may be unjustifiable, is this the moment for us 
to dwell upon these enormities — to waste our 
time, and inflame our passions by criminating 
and recriminating upon each other? There is 
no end to such a war. I have somewhere read, 
I think in Sir Walter Raleigh's History of the 
World, of a most bloody and fatal battle which 
was fought by two opposite armies, in which al- 
most all the combatants on both sides were 
killed, "because," says the historian, "though 
they had offensive weapons on both sides, they 
had none for defense." So, in this war of words, 
if we are to use only oflfensive weapons — if we 
are to indulge only in invective and abuse, the 
contest must be eternal. 

If this war of reproach and invective is to be 
countenanced, may not the French xi,e French 
with equal reason complain of the "ay recrimin- 

^ • 1 1 ateontliepow- 

outrages and horrors committed by ers aiued with 
the powei-s opposed to them ? If we ^"° ^" ' 
must not treat with the French on account of 
the iniquity of their former transactions, ought 
we not to be as scrupulous of connecting our- 
selves with other powers equally criminal ? 
Surely, sir, if we must be thus rigid in scruti- 
nizing the conduct of an enemy, we ought to be 
equally careful in not committing ourselves, our 
honor, and our safety, with an ally who has man- 
ifested the same want of respect for the rights 
of other nations. Surely, if it is material to 
know the character of a power with whom you 
are about only to treat for peace, it is more 
material to know the character of allies with 
whom you are about to enter into the closest 
connection of friendship, and for whose exertions 



1800.] 



THE REJECTION OF BONAPARTE'S OVERTURES. 



537 



you are about to pay. Now, sir, what was the 
conduct of your own allies to Poland ? Is there 
a single atrocity of the French, in Italy, in Switz- 
erland, in Egypt, if you please, more unprincipled 
and inhuman than that of Russia, Austria, and 
Prussia, in Poland ? What has there been in 
the conduct of the French to foreign powers ; 
what in the violation of solemn treaties ; what 
in the plunder, devastation, and dismemberment 
of unotfending countries ; what in the horrors j 
and murders perpetrated upon the subdued vie- j 
tims of their rage in any district which they | 
have overrun, worse than the conduct of those i 
three great powers in the miserable, devoted, j 
and trampled on kingdom of Poland, and who , 
have been, or are, our allies in this war for re- , 
ligion and social order, and the rights of na- j 
tions ? " Oh ! but you regretted the partition } 
of Poland !" Yes, regretted! you regretted the | 
violence, and that is all you did. You united | 
yourselves with the actors ; you, in fact, by your 
acquiescence, confirmed the atrocity. But they 
are your allies ; and though they overran and 
divided Poland, there was nothing, perhaps, in 
the manner of doing it which stamped it with 
peculiar infamy and disgrace. The hero of Po- 
land [Suwarrow], perhaps, was merciful and 
mild ! He was " as much superior to Bona- 
parte in bravery, and in the discipline which he 
maintained, as he was superior in virtue and 
humanity !" He was animated by the purest 
principles of Christianity, and was restrained in 
his career by the benevolent precepts w^hich it 
inculcates ! Was he ? Let unfortunate War- 
saw, and the miserable inhabitants of the suburb 
of Praga in particular, tell ! What do we un- 
derstand to have been the conduct of this mag- 
nanimous hero, with whom, it seems, Bonaparte 
is not to be compared ? He entered the suburb 
of Praga, the most populous suburb of Wai'saw ; 
and there he let his soldiery loose on the miser- 
able, unarmed, and unresisting people. Men, 
women, and children, nay, infants at the breast, 
were doomed to one indiscriminate massacre ! 
Thousands of them were inhumanly, wantonly 
butchered ! And for what ? Because they had 
dared to join in a wish to meliorate their own 
condition as a people, and to improve their Con- 
stitution, which had been confessed by their own i 
Sovereign to be in want of amendment. And i 
such is the hero upon whom the cause of relio-- j 
ion and social order is to repose ! And such is i 
the man whom we praise for his discipline and 
his virtue, and whom we hold out as our boast 
and our dependence ; while the conduct of Bona- 
parte unfits him to be even treated with as an 
enemy ?^^ I 

.— i . .j 

1^ Pragfa was taken in the manner here described, : 
on the 4th of November, 1794. Thirteen thousand 
Poles covered the field of battle without the walls, 
two thousand perished iu the Vistula, nearly fifteen ' 
thousand were made prisoners by the Russians, and ' 
about twelve thousand were butchered in the way i 
described by Mr. Fox. This led to the third and I 
last partition of Poland, iu 1795. This battle was the I 
one which Campbell describes with so much power j 



But the behavior of the French toward Switz- 
erland raises all the indignation of switzertand was 
the right honorable gentleman, and scanjni.m.siy 

. == Ti-i abused, but En- 

Hiflames his eloquence, i admu-e the giand lirstinvit- 

. T ^- I • 1 1 1 ^"J 'ler to depart 

mdignation which he expres.ses, and from her neu- 
I think he felt it, in speaking of this '"'"^• 
country, so dear and so congenial to every man 
who loves the sacred name of liberty. " He who 
loves liberty," says the right honorable gentle- 
man, "thought himself at home on the favored 
and happy mountains of Switzerland, where she 
seemed to have taken up her abode under a sort 
of implied compact, among all other states, that 
she should not be disturbed in this her chosen 
asylum." I admire the eloquence of the right 
honorable gentleman in speaking of this country 
of liberty and peace, to which every man would 
desire, once in his life at least, to make a pil- 
grimage ! But who, let me ask him, first pro- 
posed to the Swiss people to depart from the 
neutrality^ which was their chief protection, and 
to join the confederacy against the French ? I 
aver that a noble relation of mine [Lord Robert 
Fitzgerald], then the minister of England to the 
Swiss Cantons, was instructed, in direct terms, 
to propose to the Swiss, by an official note, to 
break from the safe line they had laid down for 
themselves, and to tell them, "in such a contest 
neutrality was criminal." I know that noble 
Lord too well, though I have not been in habits 
of intercourse with him of late, from the employ- 
ments in which he has been engaged, to suspect 
that he would have presented such a paper with- 
out the express instructions of his court, or that 
he would have gone beyond those instructions. 

But was it only to Switzerland that this sort 
of language was held ? What was our Tuscany and 
language also to Tuscany and Genoa? S^dTnthe"' 
An honorable gentleman [Mr. Can- ^'a^eway. 
ning] has denied the authenticity of a pretended 
letter which has been circulated, and ascribed to 
Lord Harvey. He says, it is all a fable and a 
forgery. Be it so; but is it also a fable that 
Lord Harvey did speak in terms to the Grand 
Duke, which he considered as oflTensive and in- 
sulting ? I can not tell, for I was not present : 
but was it not, and is it not believed? Is it a 
fable that Lord Harv^ey went into the closet of 
the Grand Duke, laid his watch on the table, 
and demanded, in a peremptory manner, that 
he should, within a certain number of minutes 

in his Pleasures of Hope, though many, iu conse- 
quence of his using the word Pragve [" Prague's 
proud arch" or bridge] instead o^ Praga, have been 
led to suppose that another Polish city was referred 
to. The capture of the place is described in the fol- 
lowing lines : 

The sun went down, nor ceased the carnage there, 
Tumultuous murder shook the midnight air ; 
On Prague's proud arch the fires of ruin glow, 
His blood-dyed waters murmuring far below ; 
The storm prevails, the rampart yields away, 
Bursts the wild cry of hon-or and dismay ! 
Hark! as the smoldering piles with thunder fall, 
A thousand shrieks for hopeless mercy call! 
Earth shook — red meteors flashed aloug the sky, 
And conscious Nature shudder'd at the cry ! 



538 



MR. FOX ON 



[1800. 



(I think I have heard within a quarter of an 
hour), determine, aye or no, to dismiss the 
French ministei', and order him out of his do- 
minions, with the menace, that if he did not, the 
English fleet should bombard Leghorn ? Will 
the honorable gentleman deny this also? I 
certainly do not know it from ray own knowl- 
edge ; but I know that persons of the first cred- 
it, then at Florence, have stated these facts, and 
that they have never been contradicted. It is 
true that, upon the Grand Duke's complaint of 
this indignity. Lord Harvey was recalled; but 
was the prmciple recalled ? was the mission re- 
called? Did not ministers persist in the demand 
which Lord Harvey had made, perhaps ungra- 
ciously ? and was not the Grand Duke forced, 
in consequence, to dismiss the French minister? 
and did they not drive him to enter into an un- 
willing war with the republic ? It is true that 
he after vvard made his peace, and that, having 
done so, he was treated severely and unjustly by 
the French; but what do I conclude from all 
this, but that we have no right to be scrupulous, 
we who have violated the respect due to peacea- 
ble powers ourselves, in this war, which, more 
than any other that ever afflicted human nature, 
has been distinguished by the greatest number 
of disgusting and outrageous insults by the great 
to the smaller powers. And I infer from this, 
also, that the instances not being confined to the 
French, but having been perpetrated by every 
one of the allies, and by England as much as by 
others, we have no right, either in personal char- 
acter, or from our own deportment, to refuse to 
treat with the French on this ground. Need I 
speak of your conduct to Genoa also? Perhaps 
the note delivei'cd by Mr. Drake was also a for- 
gery. Perhaps the blockade of the port never 
took place. It is impossible to deny the facts, 
which were so glaring at the time. It is a pain- 
ful thing to me, sir, to be obliged to go back to 
these unfortunate periods of the history of this 
war, and of the conduct of this country ; but I 
am forced to the task by the use which has been 
made of the atrocities of the French as an argu- 
ment against negotiation. I think I have said 
enough to prove, that if the French have been 
guilty, we have not been innocent. Nothing but 
determined incredulity can make us deaf and 
blind to our own acts, when we are so ready to 
yield an assent to all the reproaches which are 
thrown out on the enemy, and upon which re- 
proaches we are gravely told to continue the 
war. 

"But the French," it seems, "have behaved 
Case of fll every where. They seized on Venice, 
Venice, •which had preserved the most exact neu- 
trality, or rather," as it is hinted, "had manifest- 
ed symptoms of friendship to them." I agree 
with the right honorable gentleman, it was an 
abominable act. I am not the apologist, much 
less the advocate, of their iniquities ; neither 
wifl I countenance them in their pretenses for 
the injustice. I do not think that much regard 
is to be paid to the charges which a triumphant 
soldiery bring on the conduct of a people whom 



they have overrun. Pretenses for outrage will 
never be wanting to the strong, when they wish 
to trample on the weak ; but when we accuse 
the French of having seized on Venice, after 
stipulating for its neutrality, and guaranteeing 
its independence, we should also remember the 
excuse that they made for the violence, namely, 
that their troops had been attacked and murder- 
ed. I say I am always incredulous about such 
excuses ; but I think it fair to hear whatever can 
be alleged on the other side. We can not take 
one side of a story only. Candor demands that 
we should examine the whole before we make 
up our minds on the guflt. I can not think it 
quite fair to state the view of the subject of one 
party as indisputable fact, witnout even mention- 
ing what the other party has to say for itself. 
But, sir, is this all ? Though the perfidy of the 
French to the Venetians be clear and palpable, 
was it worse in morals, in principle, and in ex- 
ample, than the conduct of Austria ? My hon- 
orable friend [Mr. Whitbread] properly asked, 
"Is not the receiver as bad as the thief?" If 
the French seized on the territory of Venice, did 
not the Austrians agree to receive it? "But 
this," it seems, "is not the same thing." It is 
quite in the nature, and within the rule of diplo- 
matic morality, for Austria to receive the coun- 
try which was thus seized upon unjustly. "The 
Emperor took it as a compensation. It was his 
by barter. He was not answerable for the guilt 
by which it was obtained." What is this, sir, 
but the false and abominable reasoning with 
which we have been so often disgusted on the 
subject of the slave trade ? Just in the same 
manner have I heard a notorious wholesale deal- 
er in this inhuman traflac justify his abominable 
trade. " I am not guilty of the horrible crime 
of tearing that mother from her infants ; that 
husband from his wife ; of depopulating that vil- 
lage ; of depriving that family of their sons, the 
support of their aged parents ! No, thank Heav- 
en ! I am not guilty of this hori'or. I only bought 
them in the fair way of trade. They w^ere 
brought to the market ; they had been guilty of 
crimes, or they had been made prisoners of war ; 
they were accused of witchcraft, of obi, or of 
some other sort of sorcery ; and they were 
brought to me for sale. I gave a valuable con- 
sideration for them. But God forbid that I should 
have stained my soul with the guilt of dragging 
them from their friends and families !" Such has 
been the precious defense of the slave trade, and 
such is the argument set up for Austria in this 
instance of Venice. " I did not commit the crime 
of trampling on the independence of Venice ; 1 
did not seize on the city ; I gave a quid pro quo. 
It was a matter of barter and indemnity; I 
gave half a million of human beings to be put 
under the yoke of France in another district, 
and I had these people turned over to me in re- 
turn !"^" This, sir, is the defense of Austria; 
1'' By the treaty of Campo Formic, coticluded Oc- 
tober 17th, 1797, Fnance ceded to Austria the whole 
of the Venetian teiTitory east of the Adige, includ- 
ing that part of Istria, Dalmatia, &c., which had 



1800.] 



THE REJECTION OF BONAPARTE'S OVERTURES. 



539 



and under such detestable sophistry is the infer- 
nal traffic in human flesh, whether in white or 
black, to be continued, and even justified ! At 
no time has that diabolical traffic been carried 
to a greater length than during the present war, 
and that by England herself, as well as Austria 
and Russia. 

"But France," it seems, '"has roused all the 
Not true that natious of Europc against her;" and 
both France and tjjg Jong cataloguc has bccn read to 

the Ministers " ^ 

have united all you, to provc that shc must have 

Kurope against , , • ^ i .»i n 

French uggre3 bccn atrocious to provoKc them all. 
*'""■ Is it true, sir, that she has roused 

them all ? It does not say much for the address 
of his Majesty's ministers, if this be the case. 
What, sir ! have all your negotiations, all your 
declamation, all your money, been squandered in 
vain ? Have you not succeeded in stirring the 
indignation, and engaging the assistance of a 
single power ? But you do yourselves injustice. 
Between the crimes of France and your money 
the rage has been excited, and full as much is 
due to your seductions as to her atrocities. My 
honorable and learned friend [Mr. Erskine] was 
correct, therefore, in his argument ; for you can 
not take both sides of the case ; you can not ac- 
cuse France of having provoked all Europe, and 
at the same time claim the merit of having 
roused all Europe to join you. 

You talk, sir, of your allies. I wish to know 
chamcter of "^^^^ y^'^' allies are ? Russia is one 
one of the allies of them, I supposc. Did Francc at- 

ofEnsland, i ti • n tt i 

Pauii. ofRus- tack Russia.'' Has the magnani- 
mous Paul taken the field for social 
order and religion, or on account of personal 
aggression ?^^ The Emperor of Russia has de- 
clared himself Grand Master of Malta, though his 
religion is as opposite to that of the Knights as 
ours is : and he is as much considered a heretic 
by the Church of Rome as we are. The King 
of Great Britain might, with as much reason and 

formerly belonged to the Venetian republic. All 
Europe was scandalized at the eagerness with 
which the Emperor, who had commenced the war 
as the defender of the weak and the protector of 
social order against the common destroy er, grasped 
the spoils which were offered bim at the close of 
the contest. 

'8 Paul I. of Russia, father of the Emperors Alex- 
ander and Nicholas. His conduct had for some time 
been singular, and even foolish. "When the Knights 
of Malta were driven out by Bonaparte, Paul re- 
ceived them at St. Petersburgh, and was greatly 
delighted to be chosen their Grand Master, direct- 
ing that no communications should be received from 
foreign governments which did not address him in 
this character. He also interfered in the internal 
concerns of Denmark, Sweden, Hamburgh, and 
Spain, in the way alluded to by Mr. Fox. Mr. Pitt 
had said of him, a few months before, in the House 
of Comn.jns, " There is no reason, no ground, to fear 
that this magnanimous prince will ever desert a 
cause in which he is so sincerely engaged." Hence 
Mr. Fox's sarcasm respecting the "magnanimous" 
Paul. But he did desert the allies, and make peace 
with the French, about this time. He was proba- 
bly insane, and was assassinated March 11th, 1801, 
and succeeded by his sou, the Emperor Alexander. 



propriety, declare himself the head of the order 
of the Chartreuse monks. Not content with tak- 
ing to himself the commandcry of this institution 
of Malta, Paul has even created a married man 
a Knight, contrary to all the most sacred rules 
and regulations of the order ; and yet this ally 
of ours is fighting for religion ! So much for his 
religion. Let us see his regard to social order! 
How does he show his abhorrence of the princi- 
ples of the French, in their violation of the rights 
of other nations ? What has been his conduct 
to Denmark ? He says to her, " You have sedi- 
tious clubs at Copenhagen ; no Danish vessel 
shall therefore enter the ports of Russia !" He 
holds a still more despotic language to Ham- 
burgh. He threatens to lay an embargo on her 
trade ; and he forces her to surrender up men 
who are claimed by the French as their citizens, 
whether truly or not, I do not inquire. He 
threatens her with his own vengeance if she re- 
fuse, and subjects her to that of the French if 
she comply. And what has been his conduct to 
Spain ? He first sends away the Spanish minis- 
ter from Petersburgh, and then complains, as a 
great insult, that his minister was dismissed from 
Madrid ! This is one of our allies ; and he has 
declared that the object for which he has taken 
up arms, is to replace the ancient race of the 
house of Bourbon on the throne of France, and 
that he does this for the cause of religion and 
social order ! Such is the respect for religion 
and social order which he himself displays, and 
such are the examples of it with which we coa- 
lesce ! 

No man regrets, sir, more than I do, the enor- 
mities that France has committed; The atrocities of 
but how do they bear upon the gimenTafra?nsY' 
question as it at present stands? wTput'L": S 
Are we forever to deprive ourselves ready treated 

i With them for 

of the benefits of peace, because peace. 
France has perpetrated acts of injustice ? Sir, 
we can not acquit ourselves upon such ground. 
We have negotiated. With the knowledge of 
these acts of injustice and disorder, we have 
treated with them twice ; yet the right honora- 
ble gentleman can not enter into negotiation 
with them again ; and it is worth while to at- 
tend to the reasons that he gives for refusing 
their offer. The Revolution itself is no more an 
objection now than it was in the year 1796, 
when he did negotiate. For the government of 
France at that time was surely as unstable as 
it is at present. The crimes of the French, the 
instability of their government, did not then pre- 
vent him ; and why are they to prevent him 
now ? He negotiated with a government as un- 
stable, and, baffled in that negotiation, he did not 
scruple to open another at Lisle in the year 
1797. AVe have heard a very curious account 
of these negotiations this day, and, as „ 

, • , , , , , , Remarks on 

the right honorable gentleman has em- thatnegotia- 
phatically told us, an honest account of 
them. He says he has no scruple in avowing 
that he apprehended danger fi'om the success of 
his own efforts to procure a pacification, and 
that he was not displeased at its failure. Ho 



l:i^ 



540 



MR. FOX ON 



[1800. 



was sincere in his endeavors to treat, but he was 
not disappointed when they failed. I wish ac- 
curately to understand the right honorable gen- 
tleman. His declaration on the subject, then, I 
take to be, that though sincere in his endeavors 
to procure peace in 1797, yet he apprehended 
greater danger from accomplishing his object, 
than from the continuance of war ; and that he 
felt this apprehension from the comparative 
views of the probable state of peace and war at 
that time. I hope I state the right honorable 
gentleman correctly. I have no hesitation in 
allowing the fact that a state of peace, immedi- 
ately after a war of such violence, must, in 
some respects, be a state of insecurity ; but 
does this not belong, in a certain degree, to all 
wars ? and are we never to have peace, because 
that peace may be insecure? But there was 
something, it seems, so peculiar in this war, and 
in the character and principles of the enemy, 
that the right honorable gentleman thought a 
peace in 1797 would be comparatively more 
dangerous than war. Why, then, did he treat ? 
I beg the attention of the House to this point. 
He treated "because the unequivocal sense of 
the people of England was declared to be in fa- 
vor of a negotiation." The right honorable gen- 
Mr Pitt com- tleman, therefore, confesses the truth, 
peiied to nego- that in 1797 the people were for 

tiate by tlie ^ , , , • , 

voice of the pcacc. 1 thought SO at the time, but 
P^"P ^- you all recollect that, when I stated 

it in my place, it was denied. "True," minis- 
ters said, "you have procured petitions, but we 
have petitions also. We all know in what 
strange ways petitions may be procured, and 
how little they deserve to be considered as the 
sense of the people." This was their language 
at the time ; but now we find these petitions did 
speak the sense of the people, and that it was on 
this side of the House only the sense of the peo- 
ple was spoken. The majority spoke a contrary 
language ! It hence follows that the unequiv- 
ocal sense of the people of England may be 
spoken by the minority of this House, and that 
it is not always by the test of numbers that an 
honest decision is to be ascertained. This House 
decided against what the right honorable gentle- 
man knew to be the sense of the country ; but 
he himself acted upon that sense against the 
vote of Parliament. 

The negotiation in 1796 went off, as my hon- 
inconsistenoy orablc and learned friend [Mr. Er- 
accounting for skinc] has Said, upon the question of 
u^JfelZif Belgium ; or, as the right honorable 
tion. gentleman asserts, upon a question of 

principle. He negotiated to please the people, 
but it was defeated on account of a " monstrous 
principle advanced by France, incompatible with 
all negotiation." This is now said. Did the 
right honorable gentleman say so at the tune ? 
Did he fairly and candidly inform the people of 
England that they broke off the negotiation be- 
cause the French had urged a basis that it was 
totally impossible for England at any time to 
grant ? No such thing. On the contrary, when 
the negotiation broke off, they [the ministry] pub- 



lished a manifesto, "renewing, in the face of Eu- 
rope, the solemn declaration, that whenever the 
enemy should be disposed to enter on the work 
of a general pacification in a spirit- of concilia- 
tion and equity, nothing should be wanting on 
their part to contribute to the accomplishment 
of that great object."'^ And, accordingly, in 
the year 1797, notwithstanding this "incompat- 
ible principle," and with all the enormities of the 
French on their heads, they opened a new^ nego- 
tiation at Lisle. They did not wait for any re- 
traction of this incompatible principle ; they did 
not wait even till overtures were made to them ; 
but they solicited and renewed a negotiation 
themselves.^° I do not blame them for this, sir ; 
I say only that it is an argument against the as- 
sertion of an "incompatible principle." It is a 
proof that they did not then think as the right 
honorable gentleman now says they thought, 
but that they yielded to the sentiments of the 
nation, who were generally inclined to peace, 
against their own judgment ; and, from a mo- 
tive which I shall come to presently, they had 
no hesitation, on account of the first rupture, to 
renew the negotiation. It was renewed at Lisle ; 
and this the French broke off, after the Revolu- 
tion at Paris on the 4th of September, 1797. 
What was the conduct of ministers upon this 
occasion ? One would have thought, that with 
the fresh insult at Lisle in their minds, with the 
recollection of their failure the year before at 
Paris, if it had been true that they found an in- 
compatible principle, they would have talked a 
warlike language, and would have announced to 
their country and to all Europe, that peace was 
not to be obtained ; that they must throw away 
the scabbard, and think only of the means of con- 
tinuing the contest. No such thing. They put 
forth a Declaration, in which they said that they 
should look with anxious expectation for the mo- 
ment when the government of France should 
show a disposition and spirit corresponding with 
their own ; and renewing before all Europe the 
solemn declaration, that at the very moment when 
the brilliant victory of Lord Duncan might have 
justified them to demand more extravagant 
terms, they were willing, if the calamities of war 
could be closed, to conclude peace on the same 



19 There is here no meonsistency. The " princi- 
ple" referred to was this, that the French would 
not treat, except on the ground of rclaining- all the 
territory of other cotinfries which they had incorpo- 
rated into their republic. This they said with par- 
ticular reference to a restoration of the Netherlands 
to Austria. Tlie English "manifesto" did at the 
time say of this, "A pretension in itself so extrava- 
gant could in no instance have been admitted, or 
even listened to for a moment." — See Parliament- 
ary History, vol. xxxii., p. 1437. 

20 Here, again, there was no inconsistency. Early 
in 1797, Austria had given up the contest, and ceded 
the Nctherlnndu to France. This removed the whole 
difficulty which existed the preceding year. En- 
gland did not in 1797 ask France to part with any 
of her territory, and therefore there was no reanon 
for any '' restriction of this incompatible princijjle," 
as preliminary to treating. 



1800] 



THE REJECTION OF BONAPARTE'S OVERTURES. 



541 



motlerate and equitable principles and terms 
vvliich they had before proposed. Such was their 
declaration upon that occasion ; and in the discus- 
sions vvliich we had upon it in this House, minis- 
ters were explicit. They said that, by that nego- 
tiation, there had been given to the world what 
might be regarded as an unequivocal test of the 
I sincerity and disposition of a government toward 
peace or against it. For those who refuse dis- 
cussion show that they are disinclined to pacifi- 
cation ; and it is therefore, they said, always to 
be considered as a test, that the party who re- 
fuses to negotiate is the party who is disinclined 
to peace. This they themselves set up as the 
criterion. Try them now, sir, by it. An offer 
is made them. They rashly, and I think rudely, 
refuse it. Have they, or have they not, broken 
their own test ? 

But they say '" they have not refused all dis- 
The restoration cussion." They have put a case, 
^co^d^onof"' They have expressed a wish for the 
treating. restoration of the house of Bourbon, 

and have declared that to be an event which 
would immediately remove every obstacle to ne- 
gotiation. Sir, as to the restoration of the house 
of Bourbon, if it shall be the wish of the people 
of France, I, for one, will be perfectly content to 
acquiesce. I think the people of France, as well 
as every other people, ought to have the govern- 
ment which they like best, and the form of that 
government, or the persons who hold it in their 
hands, should never be an obstacle with me to 
treat with the nation for peace, or to live with 
them in amity. But as an Englishman, sir, and 
actuated by English feelings, I surely can not 
wish for the restoration of the house of Bourbon 
to the Throne of France. I hope that I am not 
a man to bear heavily upon any unfortunate fam- 
ily. I feel for their situation ; I respect their 
distresses ; but as a friend of England, I can not 
wish for their restoration to the power which they 
abused. I can not forget that the whole history 
of the last century is little more than an account 
of the -wars and the calamities arising from the 
restless ambition, the intrigues, and the perfidy 
of the house of Bourbon. 

I can not discover, in any part of the labored 
Reply to Mr. defense which has been set up for not 
Canning's ar accepting the ofTcr now made bv 

gument trom _, ' '^ J 

the addres.* to Francc, any argument to satisfy mv 

William HI. • 1 .1' • • , i-r- 

mmd that mmisters have not forfeit- 
ed the test which they held out as infallible in 
1797. An honorable gentleman [Mr. Canning] 
thinks that Parliament should be eager only to 
approach the Throne with declarations of their 
readiness and resolution to support his JMajesty 
in the further "prosecution of the war without in- 
quiry ; and he is delighted with an address, 
which he has found upon the journals, to King 
William, in which they pledged themselves to 
support him in his efforts to resist the ambition 
of Louis XIV. He thinks it quite astonishing 
how much it is in point, and how perfectly it ap- 
plies to the present occasion. One would have 
thought, sir, that in order to prove the applica- 
lion, he would have shown that an offer had been 



respectfully made by the Grand Monarqne to 
King William, to treat, which he had perempto- 
rily, and in very irritating terms, refused ; and 
that, upon this, the House of Commons had come 
forward, and with one voice declared their de- 
termination to stand by him, with their lives and 
fortunes, in prosecuting the just and necessary 
war. Not a word like this ; and yet the honor- 
able gentleman finds it exactly a parallel case, 
and a model for the House on this day to imitate. 
I really think, sir, he might as well have taken 
any other address upon the journals, upon any 
other topic, as this address to King William. It 
would have been equally in point, and would 
have equally served to show the honorable gen- 
tleman's talent for reasoning. 

Sir, I can not here overlook another instance 
of this honorable gentleman's candid Remarks on 
style of debating, and of his respect Mr- canning's 

c n ^• TT 1 f 1 • attack on the 

tor Parliament. He has found out, it Duke of Bed- 
seems, that in former periods of our ^"^'^' 
history, and even in periods which have been de- 
nominated good times, intercepted letters have 
been published ;-^ and he reads from the gazette 
instances of such publication. Really, sir, if the 
honorable gentleman had pursued the profession 
to which he turned his thoughts when younger, 
he would have learned that it was necessary to 
find cases a little more apposite. And yet, full 
of his triumph on this notable discovery, he has 
chosen to indulge himself in speaking of a most 
respectable and a most honorable person as any 
that his country knows, and who is possessed of 
as sound an understanding as any man that I 
have the good fortune to be acquainted with, in 
terms the most offensive and disgusting, on ac- 
count of words which he may be supposed to 
have said in another place.'^^ He has spoken of 
that noble person, and of his intellect, in terms 
which, were I disposed to retort, I might say, 
show himself to be possessed of an intellect 
which would justify me in passing over in si- 
lence any thing that comes from him. Sir, the 
noble person did not speak of the mere act of 
publishing the intercepted correspondence ; and 
the honorable gentleman's reference to the ga- 
zettes of former periods is, therefore, not in point. 
The noble Duke complained of the manner in 
which these intercepted letters had been pub- 
lished, not of the fact itself of their publication ; 
for, in the introduction and notes to those letters, 
the ribaldry is such, that they are not screened 
from the execration of every honorable mind 
even by their extreme stupidity. The honorable 
gentleman [Mr. Canning] says, that he must treat 
with indifference the intellect of a man who can 
ascribe the present scarcity of corn to the war. 
Sir, I think there is nothing either absurd or un- 
just in such an opinion. Does not the war nec- 
essarily, by its magazines, and still more by its 
expeditions, increase consumption ? But when 

2^ Mr. Canning had justified the publication of the 
intercepted correspondence of the French from 
Egypt by the British government. 

2^ This refers to the Duke of Bedford's speech in 
the House of Lords. 



542 



MR. FOX ON 



[1800. 



we learn that corn is at this veiy moment sold 
in France for less than half the price which it 
bears here, is it not fair to suppose that, but for 
the war and its prohibitions, a part of that grain 
would be brought to this country, on account of 
the high price which it would command, and 
that, consequently, our scarcity would be reliev- 
ed from their abundance ? I speak, of coarse, 
only upon report ; but I see that the prices quot- 
ed in the French markets are less, by one half, 
than the prices in England. There was noth- 
ing, therefore, very absurd in what fell from the 
noble person ; and I would really advise the hon- 
orable gentleman, when he speaks of persons dis- 
tinguis,-hed for every virtue, to be a little more 
guarded in his language. I see no reason why 
he and his friends should not leave to persons in 
another place, holding the same opinions as them- 
selves, the task of answering what may be thrown 
out there. Is not the phalanx sufficient ? It is 
no great compliment to their talents, considering 
their number, that they can not be left to the 
task of answering the few to whom they ai-e op- 
posed ; but perhaps the honorable gentleman has 
too little to do in this House, and is to be sent 
there himself. In truth, I see no reason why 
even he might not be sent, as well as some oth- 
ers who have been raised to the peerage.^^ But 
while he continues with us, I really think that 
the honorable gentleman will find full employ- 
ment for all his talents in answering the argu- 
ments which are urged in this House, without 
emplo3nng them in disparaging one of the finest 
understandings in this kingdom. 

And now, sir, to return to the subject of the 
Motives of Mr. negotiation in 1797. It is, in my 
mind, extremely material to attend 
to the account which the minister 
gives of his memorable negotiation of 1797, and 
of his motives for entering into it. In all ques- 
tions of peace and war, he says, many circum- 
stances must necessarily enter into the considera- 
tion ; and that the}^ are not to be decided upon by 
the extremes. The determination must be made 
upon a balance and a comparison of the evils or 
the advantages upon the one side and the other, 
and that one of the greatest considerations is that 
of finance. In 1797, the right honorable gentle- 
man confesses he found himself peculiarly em- 
barrassed as to the resources for the war, if they 
were to be found in the old and usual way of the 
funding system. Now, though he thought, upon 
his balance and comparison of considerations, 
that the evils of war would be fewer than those 
of peace, yet they would only be so, provided 
that he could establish "a new and solid system 
of finance" in the place of the old and exhausted 
funding s3'stem ; and to accomplish this scheme, 
it was necessary to have the unanimous assent 
and approbation of the people. To procure una- 

23 This sneer was founded on the fact that Mr. 
Pitt, being in want of the means of patronage, had 
raised persons to the peerage, as a reward for polit- 
ical services, to an extent which was considered 
discreditable to the ministry and degrading to the 
House of Lords. 



Pitt's negotia- 
tion in 1797. 



nimity, he pretended to be a friend to negotia- 
tion, though he did not wish for the success of 
that negotiation, but hoped only through that 
means he should bring the people to agree to 
his oiew and solid system of finance. I trust I 
state the right honorable gentleman fairly. I am 
sure that I mean to do so. With these views, 
then, what does he do ? Knowing that, contrary 
to his declarations in this House, the opinion of 
the people of England was generally for peace, 
he enters into a negotiation, in which, as the 
world believed at the time, and even until this 
day, he completely failed. No such thing, sir. 
He completely succeeded ! For his object was not 
to gain peace. It was to gain over the people 
of this country to a " new and solid system of 
finance" — that is, to the raising a great part of 
the supplies within the year, to the triple assess- 
ment, and to the tax upon income ! And how 
did he gain them over ? By pretending to be a 
friend of peace, which he was not ; and by open- 
ing a negotiation which he secretly wished might 
not succeed ! The right honorable gentleman 
says that in all this he was honest and sincere. 
He negotiated fairly, and would have obtained 
the peace, if the French had shown a disposition 
correspondent to his own ; but he rejoiced that 
their conduct was such as to convince the peo- 
ple of England of the necessity of concurring 
with him in the views which he had, and in 
granting him the supply which he thought es- 
sential to their posture at the time. Sir, I will 
not say that in all this he was not honest to his 
own purpose, and that he has not been honest in 
his declarations and confessions this night ; but 
I can not agree that he was honest to this House, 
or honest to the people of this country. To this 
House it was not honest to make them counter- 
act the sense of the people, as he knew it to be 
expressed in the petitions upon the table, nor 
was it honest to the country to act in a disguise, 
and to pursue a secret purpose unknown to them, 
while affecting to take the road which they point- 
ed out. I know not .whether this may not be hon- 
esty in the political ethics of the right honorable 
gentleman ; but I know that it would be called 
by a very different name in the common trans- 
actions of society, and in the rules of morality 
established in private life. I know^ of nothing 
in the history of this country that it resembles, 
except, perhaps, one of the most profligate peri- 
ods — the reign of Charles II., when the sale of 
Dunkirk might probably have been justified by 
the same pretense. That monarch also declared 
war against France, and did it to cover a nego- 
tiation by which, in his difficulties, he was to 
gain a ^^ solid system of finance.^'' 

But, sir, I meet the right honorable gentleman 
on his own ground, t say that you Henn^i.tnow 
ouo-ht to treat on the same principle to treat out of 

r? f _ * rej>nril to tlie 

on which you treated in 1797, in or- wi^.esofthe 
der to gain the cordial co-operation 
of the people. We want " experience and the 
evidence of facts." Can there be any evidence 
of facts equal to that of a frank, open, and candid 
negotiation. Let us see whether Bonaparie will 



1800.] 



THE REJECTION OF BONAPARTE'S OVERTURES. 



543 



display the same temper as his predecessors. If 
he shall do so, then you svill confirm the people of 
England in their opinion of the necessity of con- 
tinuing the war, and you will revive all the vigor 
v;hich you roused in 1797. Or will you not do 
this until you have a reverse of fortune ? Will 
you never treat but when j'ou are in a situation 
of distress, and when j'ou have occasion to im- 
pose on the people ? 
,. But you say you have not refused to treat. 

The re.9toration You havc Stated a casc in which you 
f/reauy made"a will be ready immediately to enter 
sine qua non. Jj^^q g^ negotiation, viz., the restora- 
tion of the house of Bourbon. But you deny 
that this is a si7ie qua non ; and in your nonsens- 
ical language, which I do not understand, you 
talk of " limited possibilities," which may induce 
you to treat without the restoration of the house 
of Bourbon. But do you state what they are ? 
Now, sir, I say, that if you put one case upon 
which you declare that you are willing to treat 
immediately, and say that there are other possi- 
ble cases which may induce you to treat here- 
after, without mentioning what these possible 
cases are, you do state a sine qua non of imme- 
diate treaty. Suppose that I have an estate to 
sell, and I say ray demand is 66 1000 for it. For 
that sum I will sell the estate immediately. To 
be sure, there may be other terms upon which 
I may be willing to part with it ; but I mention 
nothing of them. The d£lOOO is the only con- 
dition that I state at the time. Will any gentle- 
man assert that I do not make the c£lOOO the 
sine qua non of the immediate sale ? Thus you 
say the restoration of the Bourbons is not the only 
possible ground ; but you give no other. This 
is your project. Do you demand a counter proj- 
ect ? Do you follow your own rule ? Do you 
not do the thing of which you complained in the 
enemy ? You seemed to be afraid of receiving 
another proposition ; and, by confining yourselves 
to this one point, you make it in fact, though not 
in terms, your sine qua non. 

But the right honorable gentleman, in his 
Ridiculous to speech, does what the official note 
look for "expe- avoids. He finds thcrc the convcn- 

nence ' of Bona- . t l- 

pane's pe.icea icnt words, cxpericnce and the ev- 
ke^epins"hiraat^ idcucc of facts." Upon thcsc he 
Z^"- goes into detail ; and in order to 

convince the House that new evidence is re- 
quired, he reverts to all the earliest acts and 
crimes of the Revolution ; to all the atrocities 
of all the governments that have passed away ; 
and he contends that he must have experience 
that these foul crimes are repented of, and that 
a purer and a better system is adopted in France, 
by which he may be sure that they will be ca- 
pable of maintaining the relations of peace and 
1 amity. Sir, these are not conciliatory words ; 
nor is this a practicable ground to gain experi- 
ence. Does he think it possible that evidence 
of a peaceable demeanor can be obtained in war ? 
What does he mean to say to the French consul ? 
"Until you shall, in tmr, behave yourself in a 
peaceable manner, I will not treat with you !" 
Is there not in this something extremely ridicu- 



lous? In duels, indeed, we have often heard of 
such language. Two gentlemen go out and 
fight, when, having discharged their pistols at 
one another, it is not unusual for one of them to 
say to the other, "Now I am satisfied. I see 
that you are a man of honor, and we are friends 
again." There is something, by-the-by, ridicu- 
lous, even here. But between nations it is more 
than ridiculous. It is criminal. It is a ground 
which no principle can justify, and which is as 
impracticable as it is impious. That two na- 
tion.s should be set on to beat one another into 
friendship, is too abominable even for the fiction 
of romance ; but for a statesman seriously and 
gravely to lay it down as a system upon which 
he means to act, is monstrous. What can we 
say of such a test as he means to put the French 
government to, but that it is hopeless? It is in 
the nature of war to inflame animosity ; to exas- 
perate, not to soothe ; to widen, not to approxi- 
mate. So long as this is to be acted upon. I say, 
it is in vain to hope that we can have the evi- 
dence which we require. 

The right honorable gentleman, however, 
thinks otherwise ; and he points out Mr. piu's four 
four distinct possible cases, besides in'wh'^dn,e^^* 
the re-establishment of the Bourbon ";""''' ^'■''''' 

v. itli Bona- 

faraily, in which he would agree to p^r'e 
treat with the French. 

(1.) "If Bonaparte shall conduct himself so as 
to convince him that he has abandoned the prin- 
ciples which were objectionable in his prede- 
cessors, and that he will be actuated by a more 
moderate system." I ask you, sir, if this is like- 
ly to be ascertained in war ? It is the nature of 
war not to allay, but to inflame the passions ; 
and it is not by the invective and abuse which 
have been thrown upon him and his government, 
nor by the continued irritations which war is sure 
to give, that the virtues of moderation and for- 
bearance are to be nourished. 

(2.) "If, contrary to the expectations of minis- 
ters, the people of France shall show a disposition 
to acquiesce in the government of Bonaparte." 
Does the right honorable gentleman mean to say, 
that because it is a usurpation on the part of the 
present chief, that therefore the people are not 
likely to acquiesce in it ? I have not time, sir, 
to discuss the question of this usurpation, or 
whether it is likely to be permanent ; but I cer- 
tainly have not so good an opinion of the French, 
nor of any people, as to believe that it will be 
short-lived, merely becau.se it was a usurpation, 
and because it is a system of military despotism. 
Cromwell was a usurper ; and in many points 
there may be found a resemblance between him 
and the present Chief Consul of France. There 
is no doubt but that, on several occasions of his 
life, Cromwell's sincerity may be questioned, 
particulai-ly in his self-denying ordinance, in his 
affected piety, and other things ; but would it not 
have been insanity in France and Spain to refuse 
to treat with him because he was a usurper or 
wanted candor ? No, sir, these are not the max- 
ims by which governments are actuated. They 
do not inquire so much into the means by which 



544 



MR. FOX ON 



[1800. 



power may have been acquired, as into the fact 
of where the power resides. The people did 
acquiesce in the government of Cromwell. But 
it may be said that the splendor of his talents, 
the vigor of his administration, the high tone 
with which he spoke to foreign nations, the suc- 
cess of his arms, and the character which he 
gave to the English name, induced the nation to 
acquiesce in his usurpation ; and that we must 
not try Bonaparte by his example. Will it be 
said that Bonaparte is not a man of great abili- 
ties ? Will it be said that he has not, by his vic- 
tories, thrown a splendor over even the violence 
of the Revolution, and that he does not conciliate 
the French people by the high and lofty tone in 
which he speaks to foreign nations? Are not 
the French, then, as likely as the English in the 
case of Cromwell, to acquiesce in his govern- 
ment ? If they should do so, the right honora- 
ble gentleman may find that this possible predic- 
ament may fail him. He may find that though 
one power may make war, it requires two to 
make peace. He may find that Bonaparte was 
as insincere as himself in the proposition which 
he made ; and in his turn he may come forward 
and say, "I have no occasion now for conceal- 
ment. It is true that, in the beginning of the year 
1800, I offered to treat, not because I wished for 
peace, but because the people of France wished 
for it ; and besides, my old resources being ex- 
hausted, and there being no means of carrying 
on the war without ' a new and solid system of 
finance,' I pretended to treat, because I wished 
to procure the unanimous assent of the French 
people to this 'new and solid system of finance.' 
Did you think I was in earnest ? You were de- 
ceived. I now throw off" the mask. I have 
gained my point, and I reject your oflers with 
scorn. "^"^ Is it not a very possible case that he 



may 



this 1 



anofuaire 



? Is it not within the 



right honorable gentleman's knowledge of human 
nature ?^^ But even if this should not be the 
case, will not the very test which you require, 
the acquiescence of the people of France in his 
government, give him an advantage-ground in 

24 It is a curious fact that Mr. Fox, in putting 
these words into the mouth of Bonaparte, hit pre- 
cisely on the sentiments be entertained at this 
crisis. He says in his Memoirs, as dictated to Mon- 
tholon, "I had then need of war; a treaty of peace 
which should have derogated from that of Campo 
Formic, and annulled the creations of Italy, would 
have withered every imagination. Mr. Pitt's an- 
swer accordingly was impatiently expected. When 
it arrived, it filled me with a secret satif action. 
His answer could not have been more favorable ! 
From that moment I foresaw that, with such im- 
passioned antagonists, I would have no difficulty in 
reaching the highest destinies." — Vol. i., 33, 34. 

23 This was a "palpable hit." A few months be- 
fore, Mr. Pitt had made a descent upon Holland, 
which he declared, from "his knowledge of human 
nature," must be successful in rousing the Dutch 
against their French rulers. As it proved a miser- 
aiale failure, he got many hints from Mr. Sheridan 
and Mr. Fox respecting "his knoivledge of human 
nature.'' 



the negotiation which he docs not now possess ? 
Is it quite sure, that when he finds himself safe 
in his seat, he will treat on the same terms as at 
present, and that you will get a better peace 
some time hence than you might reasonably hope 
to obtain at this moment? Will he not have one 
interest less to do it? and do you not overlook 
a favorable occasion for a chance which is ex- 
ceedingly doubtful ? These are the considera- 
tions which I would urge to his Majesty's min- 
isters against the dangerous experiment of wait- 
ing for the acquiescence of the people of France. 

(3.) "If the allies of this country shall be less 
successful than they have every reason to expect 
they will be, in stirring up the people of France 
against Bonaparte, and in the further prosecution 
of the war." And, 

(4.) "If the pressure of the war should be 
heavier upon us than it would be convenient for 
us to continue to bear." These are the other 
two possible emergencies in which the right hon- 
orable gentleman would treat even with Bona- 
parte. Sir, I have often blamed the right hon- 
orable gentleman for being disingenuous and in- 
sincere. On the present occasion I certainly can 
not charge him with any such thing. He has 
made to-night a most honest confession. He is 
open and candid. He tells Bonaparte fairly what 
he has to expect. "I mean," says he, "to do 
every thing in my power to raise up the people 
of France against you ; I have engaged a num- 
ber of allies, and our combined efforts shall be 
used to excite insurrection and civil war in 
France. I will strive to murder you, or to get 
you sent away. If I succeed, well; but if I fail, 
then I will treat with you. My resources being 
exhausted ; even my ' solid system of finance' 
having failed to supply me with the means of 
keeping together my allies, and of feeding the 
discontents I have excited in France ; then you 
may expect to see me renounce my high tone, 
my attachment to the house of Bourbon, my ab- 
horrence of your crimes, my alarm at your prin- 
ciples ; for then I shall be ready to own that, on 
the balance and comparison of circumstances, 
there will be less danger in concluding a peace 
than in the continuance of war!" Is this polit- 
ical language for one state to hold to another? 
And what sort of peace does the right honorable 
gentleman expect to receive in that case ? Does 
he think that Bonaparte would grant to baffled 
insolence, to humiliated pride, to disappointment 
and to imbecility, the same terms which he 
would be ready to give now ? The right hon- 
orable gentleman can not have forgotten what 
he said on another occasion, 

"Potuit quae plurima virtus 
Esse, fuit. Toto certatum est corpore regni."'^^ 



26 See Virgil's -lEneid, book xi., line 313. The 
words are those of the Latin King in relation to his 
war with iEneas. 

Valor has done its utmost : we have fought 

With the embodied force of all the realm ! 

On a former occasion, Mr. Pitt had said that the 
contest ought never to be given up, until England 



1800.] 



THE REJECTION OF BONAPARTE'S OVERTURES. 



545 



He would then have to repeat his words, but 
with a different application. He would have to 
say, " All our efforts are vain. We have exhaust- 
ed our strength. Our designs are impracticable, 
and we must sue to you for peace." 

Sir, what is the question to-night? We are 
Appeal to the Called upon to support ministers in 
fn7trewiwien*a^ refusing a frank, candid, and re- 
imi not 'rcoX' spectful offcr of negotiation, and to 
uance ofthe war. countenancc them in Continuing the 
war. Now I would put the question in another 
way. Suppose that ministers had been inclined 
to adopt the line of conduct which they pursued 
in 1796 and 3 797, and that to-night, instead of a 
question on a war address, it had been an ad- 
dress to his Majesty to thank him for accepting 
the overture, and for opening a negotiation to 
treat for peace : I ask the gentlemen opposite ; 
I appeal to the whole five hundred and fifty- 
eight representatives of the people, to lay their 
hands upon their hearts, and to say whether they 
would not have cordially voted for such an ad- 
dress. Would they, or would they not ? Yes, 
sir, if the address had breathed a spirit of peace, 
your benches would have resounded with rejoic- 
ings, and with praises of a measure that was 
likely to bring back the blessings of tranquillity. 
On the present occasion, then, I ask for the vote 
of no gentlemen but of those who, in the secret 
confession of their conscience, admit, at this in- 
stant, while they hear me, that they would have 
cheerfully and heartily voted with the minister 
for an address directly the reverse ofthe one pro- 
posed. If every such gentleman were to vote 
with me, I should be this night in the greatest 
majority that ever I had the honor to vote with 
in this House. I do not know that the right 
honorable gentleman would find, even on the 
benches around him, a single individual who 
would not vote with me. I am sure he would 
not find many. I do not know that in this 
House I could single out the individual who 
would think himself bound by consistency to 
vote against the right honorable gentleman on 
an address for negotiation. There may be some, 
but they are very few. I do know, indeed, one 
most honorable man in another place, whose pu- 
rity and integrity I respect, though I lament the 
opinion he has formed on this subject, who would 
think himself bound, from the uniform consist- 
ency of his life, to vote against an address for 
negotiation. Earl Fitzwilliam would, I verily 
believe, do so. He would feel himself bound, 
from the previous votes he has given, to declare 
his objection to all treaty. But I own I do not 
know more in either House of Parliament. There 
may be others, but I do not know them. What, 
then, is the House of Commons come to, when, 
notwithstanding their support given to the right 
honorable gentleman in 1796 and 1797, on his 
entering into negotiation ; notwithstanding their 
inward conviction that they would vote with him 
this moment for the same measure ; who, after 

was compelled to adopt these words as her own. 
Mr. Fox now ingeniously gives them a nevsr turn. 
Mm 



supporting the minister in his negotiation for a 
solid system of finance, can now bring themselves 
to countenance his abandonment of the ground 
he took, and to support him in refusing all nego- 
tiation ! What will be said of gentlemen who 
shall vote in this way, and yet feel, in their con- 
sciences, that they would have, with infinitely 
more readiness, voted the other ? 

Sir, we have heard to-night a great many most 
acrimonious invectives against Bo- The military des- 
naparte, agamst all the course oi pane has its conn- 
his conduct, and against the un- I^I^P^fa'^p'^ed'io 
principled manner in which he Ireland, 
seized upon the reins of government. I will not 
make his defense. I think all this sort of invec- 
tive, which is used only to inflame the passions 
of this House and of the country, exceedingly 
ill timed, and very impolitic. But I say I will 
not make his defen.se. I am not sufficiently in 
possession of materials upon which to form an 
opinion on the character and conduct of this ex- 
traordinary man. On his arrival in France, he 
found the government in a very unsettled state, 
and the whole affairs of the Republic deranged, 
crippled, and involved. He thought it necessary 
to reform the government ; and he did reform 
it, just in the way in which a military man may 
be expected to carry on a reform. He seized 
on the whole authority for himself. It will not 
be expected from me that I should either ap- 
prove or apologize for such an act. I am cer- 
tainly not for reforming governments by such 
expedients ; but how this House can be so vio- 
lently indignant at the idea of military despot- 
ism, is, I own, a little singular, when I see the 
composure with which they can observe it near- 
er home ; nay, when I see them regard it as a 
frame of government most peculiarly suited to 
the exercise of free opinion, on a subject the 
most important of any that can engage the at- 
tention of a people. Was it not the system 
which was so happily and so advantageously es- 
tablished of late, all over Ireland, and which 
even now the government may, at its pleasure 
proclaim over the whole of that kingdom ? Are 
not the persons and property of the people left, 
in many districts, at this moment, to the entire 
will of military commandex's ? and is not this 
held out as peculiarly proper and advantageous, 
at a time when the people of Ireland are freely, 
and with unbiased judgments, to discuss the 
most interesting question of a legislative union ? 
Notwithstanding the existence of martial law, so 
far do we think Ireland from being enslaved, 
that we presume it precisely the period and the 
circumstances under which she may best declare 
her free opinion ! Now, really, sir, I can not 
think that gentlemen, who talk in this way about 
Ireland, can, with a good grace, rail at military 
despotism in France. 

But, it seems, " Bonaparte has broken his 
oaths. He has violated his oath of 
fidelity to the Constitution of the Bonaparte 

,.,•' riii-T i f be liai) viol 

third year. Sir, I am not one oi husoatiist, 
those who hold that any such oaths eovemment. 
ought ever to be exacted. They are seldom or 



Charge against 
that 
ioiatcd 
to the 



546 



MR. FOX ON 



[1800. 



ever of any effect ; and I am not for sporting 
with a thing so sacred as an oath. I think it 
would be good to lay aside all such oaths. Who 
ever heard that, in revolutions, the oath of fidel- 
ity to the former government was ever regard- 
ed, or even that, when violated, it was imputed 
to the persons as a crime ? In times of revo- 
lution, men who take up arms are called rebels. 
If they fail, they are adjudged to be traitors ; but 
who before ever heard of their being perjured ? 
On the restoration of King Charles II., those 
who had taken up arms for the commonwealth 
were stigmatized as rebels and traitors, but not 
as men forsworn. Was the Earl of Devonshire 
charged with being perjured, on account of the 
allegiance he had sworn to the house of Stuart, 
and the part he took in those struggles which 
preceded and brought about the Revolution ? 
The violation of oaths of allegiance was never 
imputed to the people of England, and will 
never be imputed to any people. But who 
brings up the question of oaths ? He who 
Retort on Mr. strivcs to make twenty-four millions 
Pitt respecting of pcrsons violatc the oaths they have 
taken to their present Constitution, 
and who desires to re-establish the house of 
Bourbon by such violation of their vows. I put 
it so, sir, because, if the question of oaths be of 
the least consequence, it is equal on both sides ! 
He who desires the whole people of France to 
perjure themselves, and who hopes for success 
in his project only upon their doing so, surely 
can not make it a charge against Bonaparte 
that he has done the same ! 

" Ah ! but Bonaparte has declared it as his 
Retort in re- opinion, that thc two governments of 
spect to Bona- Great Britain and of France can not 

parte s saying 

tiiat Frame and cxist together. After the treaty of 

England could ^ 17 • u . . c 

notexistto- Campo !> ormio, he sent two conri- 
gether. dcntial persons, Berthier and Monge, 

to the Directory, to say so in his name." Well, 
and what is there in this absurd and puerile as- 
sertion, if it were ever made ? Has not the right 
honorable gentleman, in this House, said the 
same thing ? In this, at least, they resemble 
one another! They have both made use of this 
assertion ; and I believe that these two illustri- 
ous persons are the only two on earth who think 
it ! But let us turn the tables. We ought to 
put ourselves at times in the place of the enemy, 
if we are desirous of really examining with can- 
dor and fairness the dispute between us. How 
may they not interpret the speeches of ministers 
and their friends, in both houses of the British 
Parliament? If we are to be told of the idle 
speech of Berthier and Monge, may they not 
also bring up speeches, in which it has not been 
merely hinted, but broadly asserted, that "the 
two Constitutions of England and France could 
not exist together?" May not ihese offenses 
and charges be reciprocated without end ? Are 
we ever to go on in this miserable .squabble 
about words ? Are we still, as we happen to be 
successful on the one side or the other, to bring 
up these impotent accusations, insults, and prov- 
ocations against each other ; and only when we 



are beaten and unfortunate, to think of treating? 
Oh ! pity the condition of man, gracious God ! 
and save us from such a system of malevolence, 
in which all our old and venerated prejudices 
are to be done away, and by which we are to be 
taught to consider war as the natural state of 
man, and peace but as a dangerous and difficult 
extremity ! 

Sir, this temper must be corrected. It is a 
diabolical spirit, and would lead to an ^, . ,. 

11 /-v 1 • ■ o 1. Tills disposi- 

mterminable war. Our history is full tion to pro- 
of instances that, where we have over- condem^ned 
looked a proffered occasion to treat, we ^^ '""^"o-- 
have uniformly suffered by delay. At what time 
did we ever profit by obstinately persevering in 
war? We accepted at Ryswick the terms we 
had refused five years before, and the same peace 
which was concluded at Utrecht might have 
been obtained at Gertruydenberg ; and as to se- 
curity from the future machinations or ambition 
of the French, I ask you, what security you ever 
had or could have. Did the different treaties 
made with Louis XIV. serve to tie up his hands, 
to restrain his ambition, or to stifle his restless 
spirit? At what time, in old or in recent peri- 
ods, could you safely repose on the honor, for- 
bearance and moderation of the French govern- 
ment? Was there ever an idea of refusing to 
treat, because the peace might be afterward in- 
secure ? The peace of 1763 was not accompa- 
nied with securities ; and it was no sooner made, 
than the French court began, as usual, its in- 
trigues. And what security did the right hon- 
orable gentleman exact at the peace of 1783, in 
which he was engaged ? Were we rendered se- 
cure by that peace ? The right honorable gen- 
tleman knows well that, soon after that peace, the 
French formed a plan, in conjunction with the 
Dutch, of attacking our India possessions, of rais- 
ing up the native powers against us, and of driv- 
ing us out of India; as they were more recently 
desirous of doing, only with this difl"erence, that 
the cabinet of France formerly entered into this 
project in a moment of profound peace, and when 
they conceived us to be lulled into a perfect se- 
curity. After making the peace of 1783, the 
right honorable gentleman and his friends went 
out, and I, among others, came into office. Sup- 
pose, sir, that we had taken up the jealousy upon 
which the right honorable gentleman now acts, 
and had refused to ratify the peace which he had 
made. Suppose that we had said — No ! France is 
acting a perfidious part ; we see no security for 
England in this treaty; they want only a respite, 
in order to attack us again in an important part 
of our dominions, and we onght not to confirm 
the treaty. I ask you, would the right honora- 
ble gentleman have supported us in this refusal ? 
I say, that upon his present reasoning he ought. 
But I put it fairly to him, would he have sup- 
ported us in refusing to ratify the treaty upon 
such a pretense? He certainly ought not, and 
I am sure he would not; but the course of lea- 
soning which he now assumes would have justi- 
fied his taking such a ground. On the contrary, 
I am persuaded that he would have said, " This 



1800] 



THE REJECTION OF BONAPARTE'S OVERTURES. 



547 



security is a refinement upon jealousy. You 
have security, the only security that you can 
ever expect to get. It is the present interest of 
France to make peace. She will keep it, if it 
be her interest. She will break it, if it be her 
interest. Such is the state of nations ; and you 
have nothing but your own vigilance for your 
security." 

"It is not the interest of Bonaparte," it seems, 
Kepiy a? to Bo- " sinccrcly to enter into a negotiation, 
Sves'to'coT o^i ^f he should even make peace, 
tinuethewar. sinccrcly to kccp it." But how are 
we to decide upon his sincerity? By refusing 
to treat with him ? Surely, if we mean to dis- 
cover his sincerity, we ought to hear the propo- 
sitions which he desires to make. "But peace 
would be unfriendly to his system of military 
despotism." Sir, I hear a great deal about the 
short-lived nature of military despotism. I wish 
the history of the world would bear gentlemen 
out in this description of it. Was not the gov- 
ernment erected by Augustus Cesar a military 
despotism ? and yet it endured for six or seven 
hundred years. Military despotism, unfortunate- 
ly, is too likely in its nature to be permanent, 
and it is not true that it depends on the life of the 
first usurper. Though half of the Roman Emper- 
ors were murdered, yet the military despotism 
went on ; and so it would be, I fear, in France. 
If Bonaparte should disappear from the scene, to 
make room, perhaps, for a Berthier, or any other 
general, what difference would that make in the 
quality of French despotism, or in our relation 
to the country ? We may as safely treat with 
a Bonaparte, or with any of his successors, be 
they whom thev may, as we could with a Louis 
XVI., a Louis XVII.,' or a Louis XVIII. There 
is no difTerence but in the name. Where the 
power essentially resides, thither we ought to go 
for peace. 

But, sir, if we are to reason on the fact, I 
should think that it is the interest of Bo- 
reason to naparte to make peace. A lover of 

peace, j^uj^^^y glory, as that general must 
necessarily be, may he not think that his meas- 
ure of glory is full ; that it may be tarnished by 
a reverse of fortune, and can hardly be increased 
by any new laurels ? He must feel that, in the 
situation to which he is now raised, he can no 
longer depend on his own fortune, his own gen- 
ius, and his own talents, for a continuance of his 
success. He must be under the necessity of 
employing other generals, whose misconduct or 
incapacity might endanger his power, or whose 
triumphs even might aflect the interest which 
he holds in the opinion of the French. Peace, 
then, would secure to him what he has achieved, 
and fix the inconstancy of fortune. But this will 
not be his only motive. He must see that France 
also requires a respite — a breathing interval, to 
recruit her wasted strength. To procure her 
this respite, would be, perhaps, the attainment of 
more solid glory, as well as the means of acquir- 
ing more solid power, than any thing which he 
can hope to gain from arms, and from the proud- 
est triumphs. May he not, then, be zealous to 



secure this fame, the only species of fame, per- 
haps, that is worth acquiring? Nay, granting 
that his soul may still burn with the thirst of 
military exploits, is it not likely that he is dis- 
posed to yield to the feelings of the French peo- 
ple, and to consolidate his power by consulting 
their interests? I have a right to argue in this 
way when suppositions of his insincerity are rea- 
soned upon on the other side. Sir, these asper- 
sions are, in truth, always idle, and even mis- 
chievous. I have been too long accustomed to 
hear imputations and calumnies thrown out upon 
great and honorable characters, to be much in- 
fluenced by them. My honorable and learned 
friend [Mr. Erskine] has paid this night a most 
just, deserved, and eloquent tribute of applause 
to the memory of that great and unparalleled 
character, who is so recently lost to the world." 
I must, like him, beg leave to dwell a moment 
on the venerable George Washington, though 
I know that it is impo.ssible for me to bestow 
any thing like adequate praise on a character 
which gave us, more than any other human be- 
ing, the example of a perfect man ; yet, good, 
great, and unexampled as General Washington 
was, I can remember the time when he was not 
better spoken of in this House than Bonaparte 
is at present. The right honorable gentleman 
who opened this debate [Mr. Dundas] may re- 
member in what terms of disdain, of virulence, 
even of contempt, General Washington was spok- 
en of by gentlemen on that side of the House.'^® 
Does he not recollect with what marks of indig- 
nation any member was stigmatized as an ene- 
my to his country who mentioned with common 
respect the name of General Washington? If 
a negotiation had then been proposed to be open- 
ed with that great man, what would have been 
said ? Would you treat with a rebel, a traitor! 
What an example would you not give by such 
an act ! I do not know whether the right hon- 
orable gentleman may not yet possess some of 
his old prejudices on the subject. I hope not : 
I hope by this time we are all convinced that a 
republican government, like that of America, 
may exist without danger or injury to social or- 
der, or to established monarchies. They have 
happily shown that they can maintain the rela- 
tions of peace and amity with other states. They 
have shown, too, that they are alive to the feel- 
ings of honor ; but they do not lose sight of 
plain good sense and discretion. They have not 
refused to negotiate with the French, and they 
have accordingly the hopes of a speedy termina- 
tion of every difference.^'* We cry up their con- 



*' The news of Washington's death, which took 
place December 14th, 1799, had just arrived in En- 
gland. 

^^ This hit was directed against Mr. Dundas, be- 
cause he was one of Lord North's ministry, who 
had poured out this abuse upon Washington. 

29 It is curious to observe how adroitly Mr. Fox 
turns back upon his opponent almost every argu- 
ment he uses. Thus, in the present case, Mr. Pitt 
had enumerated the Americans among those whom 
the French had injured and insulted. Mr. Fox re- 
plies that the Americans did not for this reason re- 



64S 



MR. FOX ON 



[1800. 



duct, but we do not imitate it. At the beijinning 
of the struggle, we were told that the French 
were setting up a set of wild and impracticable 
theories, and that we ought not to be misled by 
them : that they were phantoms with which we 
could not grapple. Now we are told that we 
must not treat, because, out of the lottery, Bona- 
parte has drawn such a prize as military despot- 
ism. Is military despotism a theory '? One would 
think that that is one of the practical things 
which ministers might understand, and to which 
they would have no particular objection. But 
what is our present conduct founded on but a 
theory, and that a most wild and ridiculous the- 
ory?' For what are we fighting? Not for a 
principle ; not for security ; not for conquest ; 
but merely for an experiment and a speculation, 
to discover whether a gentleman at Paris may 
not turn out a better man than we now take him 
to be. 

My honorable friend [Mr. Erskine] has been 
Difficulties censured for an opinion which he gave, 
in the way of and I think justly, that the change of 

the return of . '' •' . i -n ^ i 

tUeBour- property m 1" ranee smce the Kevolu- 
^''"*" tion must form an almost insurmount- 

able barrier to the return of the ancient proprie- 
tors. •• No such thing," says the right honorable 
gentleman, '' nothing can be more easy. Prop- 
erty is depreciated to such a rate, that the pur- 
chasers would easily be brought to restore the 
estates." I think dififerently. It is the charac- 
ter of every such convulsion as that which has 
ravaged France, that an infinite and undescriba- 
ble load of misery is inflicted upon private fam- 
ilies. The heart sickens at the recital of the 
sorrows which it engenders. The Revolution 
did not imply, though it may have occasioned, a 
total change of property ; the restoration of the 
Bourbons does imply it ; and such is the differ- 
ence. There is no doubt but that if the noble 
families had foreseen the duration and the extent 
of the evils which were to fall upon their heads, 
they would have taken a very different line of 
conduct : but they unfortunately flew from their 
country. The King ai;d his advisers sought for- 
eign aid, and a confederacy was formed to re- 
store them by military force. As a means of re- 
sisting this combination, the estates of the fugi- 
tives were confiscated and sold. However com- 
passion may deplore their case, it can not be said 
that the thing is unprecedented. The people 
have always resorted to such means of defense. 
Now the question is, how this property is to be 
got out of their hands. If it be true, as I have 
heard it said, that the purchasers of national and 
forfeited estates amount to one million and a half 
of persons, I see no hopes of their being forced 

fuse to negotiate ; but by showing their readiness 
to do so, had tlie liopes of a speedy termination of 
their differences with France. In this he refers to 
the mission of Oliver Ellsworth, Chief Justice of 
the United States, Patrick Henry, and W. V. Mur- 
ray, in 1799, to settle terms of peace between 
France and the United States. Their mission was 
successful, and an amicable adjustment took place 
a few months after. 



to deliver up their property ; nor do I even know 
that they ought. I doubt whether it would be 
the means of restoring tranquillity and order to 
a country, to attempt to divest a body of one 
million and a half of inhabitants, in order to re- 
instate a much smaller body, I question the 
policy, even if the thing were practicable ; but 
I assert, that such a body of new proprietors 
forms an insurmountable barrier to the restora- 
tion of the ancient order of things. Never was 
a revolution consolidated by a pledge so strong. 
But, as if this were not of itself sufficient, 
Louis XVIII., from his retirement at , 

-.. ' I. , » .„ . Increasedbya 

Mittau, puts lorth a manilesto, m decijiration of 
which he assures the friends of his 
house that he is about to come back with all 
the powers that formerly belonged to his family. 
He does not promise to the people a Constitu- 
tion which might tend to conciliate their hearts ; 
but, stating that he is to come with all the old 
regime^ they would naturally attach to it its prop- 
er appendages of bastiles, lettres de cachet, ga- 
belle, &c. ; and the noblesse, for whom this proc- 
lamation was peculiarly conceived, would also 
naturally feel that, if the monarch was to be re- 
stored to all his privileges, they surely were to 
be reinstated in their estates without a compen- 
sation to the purchasers. Is this likely to make 
the people wish for the restoration of royalty ? 
I have no doubt but thei-e may be a number of 
Chouans in France, though I am persuaded that 
little dependence is to be placed on their efforts.^" 
There may be a number of people dispersed over 
France, and particularly in certain provinces, 
who may retain a degree of attachment to roy- 
alty : how the government will contrive to com- 
promise with that spirit I know not. I suspect, 
however, that Bonaparte will try. His efforts 
have been already turned to that object ; and, if 
we may believe report, he has succeeded to a 
considerable degree. He will naturally call to 
his recollection the precedent which the history 
of France itself will furnish. The once formida- 
ble insurrection of the Huguenots was complete- 
ly stifled, and the party conciliated, by the poli- 
cy of Henry IV., who gave them such privileges, 
and raised them so high in the government, as 
to make some persons apprehend danger there- 
from to the unity of the empire. Nor will the 
French be likely to forget the revocation of the 
edict; one of the memorable acts of the house 
of Bourbon, which was never surpassed in atroc- 
ity, injustice, and impolicy, by any thing that 
has disgraced Jacobinism. If Bonaparte shall 
attempt with the Chouans some similar arrange- 
ment to that of Henry IV., who will say that he 
is likely to fail ? He will meet with no great 
obstacle to success from the influence which our 
ministers have established with the chiefs, or in 
the attachment and dependence which they have 
on our protection. For what has the right hon- 
orable gentleman told them, in stating the con- 



^° The Chouans were Iloyalists. particularly those 
on the Loire, who rose against the revolutionary 
government. 



1800.] 



THE REJECTION OF BONAPARTE'S OVERTURES. 



549 



tingencies in which he will treat with Bona- 
parte? He will excite a rebellion in France. 
He will give support to the Chouans, if they can 
stand their ground ; but he will not make com- 
mon cause with them ; for, unless they can de- 
pose Bonaparte, send him into banishment, or 
execute him, he will abandon the Chouans, and 
treat with this very man, whom, at the same 
time, he describes as holding the reins and wield- 
ing the powers of France for purposes of unex- 
ampled barbarity. 

Sir, I wish the atrocities, of which we hear so 
Retort upou ™"ch, and which I abhor as much as 
Mr. Pitta« anv maif, were, indeed, unexampled. 

to cruelties , -i , , , . . i 

practiced at I Icar that they do not belong exclu- 
K'ipies. sively to the French. When the right 
honorable gentleman speaks of the extraordinary 
successes of the last campaign, he does not men- 
tion the horrors by which some of these success- 
es were accompanied. Naples, for instance, has 
been, among others, what is called delivered ; and 
yet, if I am rightly informed, it has been stained 
and polluted by murders so ferocious, and by 
cruelties of every kind so abhorrent, that the 
heart shudders at the recital. It has been said, 
not only that the miserable victims of the rage 
and brutality of the fanatics were savagely nmr- 
dered, but that, in many instances, their flesh 
was eaten and devoured by the cannibals, who 
are the advocates and the instruments of social 
order ! Nay, England is not totally exempt 
from reproach, if the rumors which are circula- 
ted be true. I will mention a fact, to give min- 
isters the opportunity, if it be false, to wipe away 
the stain that it must otherwise affix on the Brit- 
ish name. It is said, that a party of the repub- 
lican inhabitants of Naples took shelter in the 
fortress of the Castel de Uovo. They were be- 
sieged by a detachment from the royal army, to 
whom they refused to surrender ; but demanded 
that a British officer should be brought forward, 
and to him they capitulated. They made terms 
with him under the sanction of the British name. 
It was ajjreed that their persons and property 
should be safe, and that they should be conveyed 
to Toulon. They were accordingly put on board 
a vessel ; but, before they sailed, their property 
was confiscated, numbers of them taken out, 
thrown into dungeons, and some of them, I un- 
derstand, notwithstanding the British guarantee, 
actually executed !^^ 



'^ All this was literally true, and took place in 
the summer of 1799. Lord Nelson was the officer 
referred to: he was led by his infatuated attach- 
ment to Lady Hamilton, the favorite of the dueen 
of Naples, into conduct which has left an indelible 
stain on his memory. After tlie retreat of the French 
from Southern Italy, the leaders of the republican 
government, which had been organized at Naple.s, 
Were besieged in the castles of Uovo and Nuovo by 
the Cardinal Ruffo at the head of the Royalists. The 
remainder of the story will be given in the words 
of Mr. Southey, the biographer of Nelson. " They 
[these castles] were strong places, and there was 
reason to apprehend that the French fleet might 
arrive to relieve them. Ruffo proposed to the gar- 
rison to capitulate, on condition that their persons 



Where then, sir, is this war, which on every 
side is pregnant with such horror.s, to 
be carried ? Where is it to stop ? Not ^'''"'^ ■°"* 
till we establish the house of Bourbon ! And 
this you cherish the hope of doing, because you 
have had a successful campaign. Why. sir, be- 
fore this you have had a successful campaign. 
The situation of the allie.$, with all they have 
gained, is surely not to be compared now to 
what it was when you had taken Valenciennes, 
Quesnoy, Conde, &c., which induced some gen- 
tlemen in this House to prepare themselves for a 
march to Paris. With all that you have gain- 
ed, you surely will not say that the prospect is 
brighter now than it was then. What have 
you gained but the recovery of a part of what 
you before lost ? One campaign is successful 
to you ; another to them ; and in this way. ani- 
mated by the vindictive passions of revenge, ha- 
tred, and rancor, which are infinitely more flagi- 
tious, even, than those of ambition and the thirst 
of power, you may go on forever ; as, with such 
black incentives, I see no end to human misery. 

And all this without an intelligible motive. 
All this because you may gain a better peace a 
year or two hence ! So that we are called 
upon to go on merely as a speculation. We 
must keep Bonaparte for some time longer at 
war, as a state of probation. Gracious Gk>d, 
sir ! is war a state of probation ? Is peace a 
rash system ? Is it dangerous for nations to 
live in amity with each other? Are your vigi- 
lance, 3'our policy, your common powers of ob- 
servation, to be extinguished by putting an end 
to the horrors of war ? Can not this state of 

and property should be guaranteed, and that they 
should, at their own option, either be sent to Toulon 
or remain at Naples, without being molested either 
in their persons or families. This capitulation was 
accepted ; it was signed by the Cardinal, and the 
Russian and Turkish commanders, and, lastly, by 
Captain Foote, as commander of the British force- 
About six-and-thirty hours afterward. Nelson arrived 
in the bay, with a force, which had joined him dur- 
ing his cruise, consisting of seventeen sail of the line, 
with seventeen hundred troops on board, and the 
Prince Royal of Naples in the Admiral's ship. A 
flag of truce was flying on the castles and on board 
the Sea-horse. Nelson made a signal to anuitl the 
treaty, declaring that he would grant rebels no oth- 
er terms than those of unconditional submission. 
The Cardinal objected to this; nor could all the ar- 
guments of Nelson, Sir W. Hamilton, and Lady 
Hamilton, who took an active part in the confer- 
ence, convince him that a treaty of such a nature, 
solemnly concluded, could honorably be set aside. 
He retired at last, silenced by Nelson's authority, 
but not convinced. Captain Foote was sent out 
of the bay; and the garrisons, taken out of the cas- 
tles under pretense of carrying' the treaty into ef- 
fect, v-ere delivered over as rcbcU to the vengeance 
of the Sicilian court. — A deplorable transaction I A 
stain upon the memory of Nelson, and the honor of 
England ! To palliate it would be in vain ; to just- 
ify it would be wicked: there is no alternative, for 
one who will not make himself a participator ia 
guilt, but to record the disgraceful story with sorrow 
and with shame." — Life of Nelson in Harper's Fam- 
ily Library, vol. vi., 177-8, 



.^ 



550 



MR. FOX ON THE REJECTION OF BONAPARTE'S OVERTURES. 



[1800. 



probation be as well undergone without adding 
to the catalogue of human sufferings ? " But 
we must pause!''' What! must the bowels of 
Great Britain be torn out — her best blood be 
spilled — her treasure wasted — that you may 
tnake an experiment? Put yourselves, oh ! that 
^ou would put yourselves in the field of battle, 
and learn to judge of the sort of horrors that 
you excite ! In former wars a man might, at 
least, have some feeling, some interest, that 
served to balance in his mind the impressions 
which a scene of carnage and of death must 
inflict, If a man had been present at the bat- 
tle of Blenheim, for instance, and had inquired 
the motive of the battle, there was not a soldier 
engaged who could not have satisfied his curi- 
osity, and even, perhaps, allaved his feelings. 
They were fighting, they knew, to repress the 
uncontrolled ambition of the Grand Monarch. 
But if a man were present now at a field of 
slaughter, and were to inquire for what they 
were fighting — "Fighting!" would be the an- 
swer; "they are not fighting; they are paus- 
ing.''' "Why is that man expiring? Why is 
that other writhing with agony ? What means 
this implacable fury?" The answer must be, 
" You are quite wrong, sir, you deceive your- 
self — they are not fighting — do not disturb them 
— they are merely pausing! This man is not 
expiring with agony — that man is not dead — 
he is onl}' pausing ! Lord help you. sir ! they 
are not angry with one another; they have now 
no cause of quarrel ; but their country thinks 
that there should be a pause. All that you see, 
sir, is nothing like fighting — ^there is no harm, 
nor cruelty, nor bloodshed in it whatever: it is 
nothing more than a political pause ! It is mere- 
ly to try an experiment — to see whether Bona- 
parte will not behave himself better than here- 
tofore ; and in the mean time we have agreed 
to a pause., in pure friendship!" And is this 
the way, sir, that you are to show yourselves 
the advocates of order? You take up a system 
calculated to uncivilize the world — to destroy 
order — to trample on religion — to stifle in the 
heart, not merely the generosity of noble senti- 
ment, but the affections of social nature ; and in 
the prosecution of this system, you spread ter- 
ror and devastation all around you. 

Sir, I have done. I have told you my opin- 
ion. I think you ought to have given a civil, 
clear, and explicit answer to the overture which 
was fairly and handsomely made you. If you 
were desirous that the negotiation should have 
included all your allies, as the means of bring- 
ing about a general peace, you should have told 
Bonaparte so. But I believe you were afraid 
of his agreeing to the proposal. You took that 
method before. Ay, but you say the people 
were anxious for peace in 1797. I say they 
are friends to peace now ; and I am confident 
that you will one day acknowledge it. Believe 
me, they are friends to peace; although by the 
laws which you have made, restraining the ex- 
pression of the sense of the people, public opin- 
ion can not now be heard as loudly and unequiv- 



ocally as heretofore. But I will not go into the 
internal state of this country. It is too afl[lict- 
ing to the heart to see the strides which have 
been made by means of, and under the misera- 
ble pretext of this war, against liberty of every 
kind, both of power of speech and of writing ; 
and to observe in another kingdom the rapid ap- 
proaches to that military despoli.^m which we 
alfect to make an argument against peace. I 
know, sir, that public opinion, if it could be col- 
lected, would be for peace, as much now as in 
1797 ; and that it is only by public opinion, and 
not by a sen.se of their duty, or by the inclina- 
tion of their minds, that ministers will be brought, 
II ever, to give us peace. 

I conclude, sir, with repeating what I said be- 
fore : I ask for no gentleman's vote who would 
have reprobated the compliance of ministers 
with the proposition of the French government. 
I ask for no gentleman's support to-night who 
would have voted against ministers, if they had 
come down and proposed to enter into a nego- 
tiation with the French. But I have a right to 
ask, and in honor, in consistency, in conscience, 
I have a right to expect, the vote of every hon- 
orable gentleman who would have voted with 
ministers in an address to his Majesty, diamet- 
rically opposite to the motion of this night. 



These eloquent reasonings are said to have 
produced a powerful effect on the House, but 
Mr. Pitt's political adherents could not desert 
him on a question of this nature. Not to have 
passed the address approving of his conduct, 
would have been the severest censure, and it 
was accordingly carried by a vote of 265 to 64. 

Bonaparte made this the occasion of appeal- 
ing to a new class of feelings among the 
French. Hitherto liberty had been the rallying 
word in calling them to arms ; the First Consul 
now addressed their sense of honor, and roused \ 
all by the appeal. Russia had already with- 
drawn from the contest, leaving Austria as the 
only ally of England on the Continent. Bona- 
parte instantly assembled his troops on the Rhine 
and Alps ; made his celebrated passage of the 
St. Bernard in the month of June ; crushed the 
Austrian power in Italy by the battle of Maren- 
go (June 17th, 1800) ; and concluded the cam- 
paign in forty days! In Germany, the Austri- 
ans were again defeated by Moreau in the bat- 
tle of Hohenlinden (Dec. 3d, 1800), and com- 
pelled to sue for peace, which was concluded be- 
tween them and the French by Napoleon about 
a year after this debate, Feb. 9th, 1801. Mr. 
Pitt resigned nine days after, chiefly (as became 
afterward known) in consequence of a difference 
with the King on the subject of Catholic Eman- 
cipation. 

Mr. Addington [afterward Lord Sidmouth] 
succeeded as minister, and in a short time 
opened negotiations for peace, the preliminaries 
of which were signed Oct. 1st, 1801. These 
were followed by the treaty of Amiens, which 
was concluded about six months after, March 
27th, 1802. 



WILLIAM PITT. 

William Pitt, the younger, was born at Hayes, in Kent, on the 28th of May, 1759, 
and was the second son of Lord Chatham and of Lady Hester Grenville, Countess of 
Temple. His constitution was so weak from infancy that he was never placed at a 
public school, but pursued his studies as he was able, from time to time, under a pri- 
vate tutor, at his father's residence in the country. After eight years spent in this 
way, half of which time, however, was lost through ill health, he was sent, at the age 
of fourteen, to the University of Cambridge ; and so great had been his proficiency, 
notwithstanding all his disadvantages, that, according to his tutor. Dr. Prettyman, 
afterward Bishop of Lincoln, " in Latin authors he seldom met with difficulty ; and it 
was no uncommon thing for him to read into English six or eight pages of Thucydides 
which he had not previously seen, without more than two or three mistakes, and 
sometimes without even one." His ardor of mind and love of study may be inferred 
from a letter written by his father at this time, which gives a beautiful view of the 
familiarity and affection which always reigned in the intercourse of Lord Chatham 
with his children. " Though I indulge with inexpressible delight the thought of your 
returning health, I can not help being a little in pain lest you should make more 
haste than good speed to be well. You may, indeed, my sweet boy, better than any 
one, practice this sage dictum [festina lente] without any risk of being thrown out (as 
little James would say) in the chase of learning. All you want at present is quiet; 
with this, if your ardor to excel can be kept in till you are stronger, you will make 
noise enough. How happy the task, my noble, amiable boy, to caution you only 
against pursuing too much all those liberal and praiseworthy things, to which less 
happy natures are perpetually to be spurred and driven ! I will not teaze you with 
too long a lecture in favor of inaction and a competent stupidity — your two best tu- 
tors and companions at present. You have time to spare : consider there is but the 
Encyclopedia ; and when you have mastered all that, what will remain ? You will 
want, like Alexander, another world to conquer ! Your mamma joins me in every 
word, and we know how much your affectionate mind can sacrifice to our earnest 
and tender wishes. Vive, vale, is the increasing prayer of your truly loving fa- 
ther. Chatham." 

But all these cautions were unavailing. ^His constitution was so frail, and his 
strength so much reduced by the illness referred to, that during the first three years 
of his college life he was never able to keep his terms with regularity ; It was not 
until the age of eighteen that he gained permanent health, and from that time on- 
ward few persons had greater powers of application to the most exhausting study or 
business. But though his early life at Cambridge seems to have been "one long dis- 
ease," his quickness and accuracy of thought made up for every deficiency arising 
from bodily weakness. His whole soul from boyhood had been absorbed in one idea / r 
— that of becoming a distinguished orator ; and when he heard, at the age of ^gvgft^^ %.<f^ 
that his father had been raised to the peerage, he instantly exclaimed, " Then I must ^ 
take his place in the House of Commons." To this point all his efforts were now 
directed, with a zeal and constancy which knew of no limits but the weakness of 
his frame, and which seemed almost to triumph over the infirmities of nature. His 
studies at the University were continued nearly Seven years, though with frequent 



652 WILLIAM PITT. 

intervals of residence under his father's roof; and the reader will be interested to 
know how the greatest of English orators trained his favorite son for the duties of 
public life. 

Three things seem to have occupied his time and attention for many years, viz., 
the classics, the mathematics, and the logic of Aristotle applied to the purposes of 
debate. His mode of translating the classics to his tutor was a peculiar one. He 
did not construe an author in the ordinary way, but after reading a passage of some 
length in the original, he turned it at once into regular English sentences, aiming to 
give the ideas with great exactness, and to express himself, at the same time, with 
idiomatic accuracy and ease. Such a course was admirably adapted to the formation 
of an English style, distinguished at once for copiousness, force, and elegance. To 
this early training Mr. Pitt always ascribed his extraordinary command of language, 
which enabled him to give every idea its most felicitous expression, and to pour out 
an unbroken stream of thought, hour after hour, without once hesitating for a word, 
or recalling a phrase, or sinking for a moment into looseness or inaccuracy in the 
structure of his sentences. One of the great English metaphysicians was spoken of 
by Voltaire as "a reasoning machine," and the mind of Mr. Pitt might, in the same 
way, be described as a fountain ever flowing forth in clear, expressive, and command- 
ing diction. In most persons, such a mode of translating would have a tendency to 
draw off the mind from the idiomatic forms of the original to those of our own lan- 
guage, but it was otherwise with him. " He was a nice observer," says Dr. Pretty- 
man, " of the different styles of the authors read, and alive to all their various and 
characteristic excellences. The quickness of his comprehension did not prevent close 
and minute application. When alone, he dwelt for hours upon striking passages of 
an orator or historian, in noticing their turns of expression, marking their manner of 
arranging a narrative, or of explaining the avowed or secret motives of action. He 
was in the habit of copying any eloquent passage, or any beautiful or forcible expres- 
sion, which occurred in his reading." The poets, in the mean time, had a large share 
of his attention ; his memory was stored with their finest passages ; and few men ever 
introduced a quotation in a more graceful manner, or with a closer adaptation to the 
circumstances of the case. " So anxious was he to be acquainted with every Greek 
poet, that he read with me," says his tutor, " at his own request, the obscure and 
generally uninteresting work of Lycophron, and with an ease, at first sight, which, 
if I had not witnessed it, I should have considered beyond the compass of the human 
intellect. The almost intuitive quickness with which he saw the meaning of the 
most difficult passages of the most difficult authors, made an impression on my mind 
which time can never efface. I am persuaded that, if a play of Menander or JEs- 
chylus, or an ode of Pindar, had been suddenly found, he would have understood it 
as soon as any professed scholar." Df. Prettyman adds, that there was scarcely a 
Greek or Latin classical writer of any eminence, the ivhole of whose works Mr. Pitt 
had not read to him, in this thorough and discriminating manner, before the age of 
twenty. 

The mathematics, in the mean time, had their daily share of attention, being reg- 
ularly intermingled with his classical studies. Here he was equally successful, show- 
ing surprising promptitude and acuteness in mastering the greatest difficulties, and 
especially in solving problems in algebra, trigonometry, &c. — an employment which, 
though many consider it as dull and useless, is better fitted than almost any mental 
exercise to give penetration, sagacity, and fixedness of thought, and to establish the 
habit of never leaving a subject until all its intricacies are fully explored. "VYhen we 
remember the high standard of mathematical study at Cambridge, we learn with 
surprise that, in addition to all his attainments in the classics, " he was master of 
every thing usually known by young men who obtain the highest academical honors, 



WILLIAM PITT. 553 

and felt a great desire to fathom still farther the depths of the pure mathematics." 
"When the connection of tutor and pupil was about to cease between us," says Dr. 
Prettyman, " from his entering on the study of the law, he expressed a hope that he 
should find leisure and opportunity to read Newton's Principia again with me after 
some summer circuit ; and, in the later periods of his life, he frequently declared that 
no portion of his time had been more usefully employed than that which had been 
devoted to these studies, not merely from the new ideas and actual knowledge thus 
acquired, but also on account of the improvement which his mind and understanding 
had received from the habit of close attention and patient investigation." 

In regard to dialectics. Dr. Prettyman gives us less information as to the course 
pursued ; but Mr. Pitt being asked by a friend how he had acquired his uncommon 
talent for reply, answered at once that he owed it to the study of Aristotle's Logic 
in early life, and the habit of applying its principles to all the discussions he met with 
in the works he read and the debates he witnessed. Dr. Prettyman thus describes 
a mode of studying the classics, which opened to Mr. Pitt the widest scope for such 
an exercise of his powers : "It was a favorite employment with him to compare op- 
posite speeches on the same subject, and to examine how each speaker managed his 
own side of the argument, or answered the reasoning of his opponent. This may 
properly be called a study peculiarly useful to the future lawyer or statesman. The 
authors whom he preferred for this purpose were Livy, Thucydides, and Sallust. 
Upon these occasions his observations were often committed to paper, and furnished 
a topic for conversation at our next meeting." But he carried this practice still 
farther. He spent much of his time at London during the sessions of Parliament, and 
as he listened to the great speakers of the day, Burke, Fox, Sheridan, and others, he 
did so, not to throw his mind on the swelling tide of their eloquence, not even to an- 
alyze their qualities as orators, and catch the excellences of each with a view to his 
own improvement, but to see how he could refute the arguments on the one side, or 
strengthen them on the other, as he differed or agreed with the speakers. It was 
this practice which enabled him to rise, at the end of a debate of ten or twelve hours, 
extending over a vast variety of topics, and reply to the reasonings of every opponent 
with such admirable dexterity and force, while he confirmed the positions of his 
friends, and gave a systematic thoroughness to the whole discussion, such as few speak- 
ers in Parliament have ever been able to attain. 

This severe training prepared Mr. Pitt to enter with ease and delight into the ab- 
strusest questions in moral and political science. Locke on the Human Understand- 
ing was his favorite author upon the science of mind ; he soon mastered Smith's 
Wealth of Nations, which was first published when he was a member of college ; he 
gave great attention to an able course of lectures by Dr. Halifax on the Civil LaAV ; 
and, in short, whatever subject he took up, he made it his chief endeavor to be deeply 
grounded in its principles, rather than extensively acquainted with mere details. 
" Multum baud multa" was his motto in pursuing these inquiries, and, indeed, in most 
of his studies for life. The same maxim gave a direction to his reading in English lit- 
erature. He had the finest parts of Shakspeare by heart. He read the best histo- 
rians with great care. Middleton's Life of Cicero, and the political and historical 
writings of Bolingbroke, were his favorite models in point of style ; he studied Bar- 
row's sermons, by the advice of his father, for copiousness of diction, and was inti- 
mately acquainted with the sacred Scriptures, not only as a guide of his faith and 
practice, but, in the language of Spenser, as the true " xcell of English undefiled." 

How far Lord Chatham contributed by direct instruction to form the mind and 
habits of his son, it is difficult now to say. That he inspired him with his own lofty 
and generous sentiments ; that he set integrity, truth, and public spirit before him as 
the best means of success even in politics ; that he warned him against that fashion- 



554 WILLIAM PITT. 

able dissipation which has proved the ruin of half the young English nobility ; that 
he made him feel intensely the importance oi character to a British statesman ; that, 
in short, he pursued a course directly opposite to that of Lord Holland wilh his favor- 
ite son, is obvious from what remains to us of his correspondence, and from the results 
that appear in the early life of Mr. Pitt. But there is no evidence that he took any 
active part in his intellectual training. Dr. Prettyman says " the only wish ever ex- 
pressed by his Lordship relative .to Mr. Pitt's studies, was that I would read Polybius 
with him ;" and we should naturally conclude, from the character of Lord Chatham, 
and the confidence he had in the talents and industry of his son, that having settled 
the general outline of his studies, he left his mind to its own free growth, subject 
only to those occasional influences which would, of course, be felt when they met in 
the intervals of collegiate study. Such, at least, is the only inference we can draw 
from the statements contained in the biographies of the father and the son ; from all 
the letters between them which have come down to us ; and especially from the course 
which Lord Chatham pursued with his favorite nephew. Lord Camelford, as shown 
in his correspondence afterward published. There must, therefore, have been an en- 
tire mistake in the statements of Coleridge on this subject. \\\ a bitter, disparaging 
sketch of Mr. Pitt, written in early life, under the influence of hostile feelings, he says : 
*' His father's rank, fame, political connections, and parental ambition were his mold 
— he was ca?,t rather than greiv. A palpable election, a conscious predestination con- 
trolled the free agency and transfigured the individuality of his mind, and that which 
he might have been was compelled into that which he ivas to be. From his early 
childhood, it was his father's custom to make him stand upon a chair and declaim 
before a large company, by which exercise, practiced so frequently, and continued foi 
so many years, he acquired a premature and unnatural dexterity in the combination 
of words, which must, of necessity, have diverted his attention from present objects, 
obscured his impressions, and deadened his genuine feelings." This story of his de- 
claiming from a chair is not alluded to either by Dr. Prettyman in his Life of Mr, 
Pitt, or by Mr. Thackeray in his Memoirs of Lord Chatham. That the boy some- 
times recited the speeches of others in a circle of family friends is not improbable, for 
it was at that time a very common practice in England ; but if Coleridge meant 
that Lord Chatham set a child, under fourteen years of age, to " declaim," or make 
speeches of his oivn, " before a large assembly," and that Mr. Pitt thus *•' acquired 
a premature and unnatural dexterity in the combination of words," productive of all 
the evils stated, it is what few men would believe, except from a desire to make 
out some favorite theory.^ Mr. Coleridge's theory (for he could do nothing with- 
out one) was intended to ru7i down Mr. Pitt as having " an education of words," 
which " destroys genius ;" as "a being who had no feelings connected with man or 
nature, no spontaneous impulses, no unbiased and desultory studies, nothing that 
constitutes individuality of intellect, nothing that teaches brotherhood or affection," 
So much for theory ; we may learn the fact from the testimony of his tutor and of 
his most intimate companions. Dr. Prettyman says : " Mr. Pitt now began [at the 
age of sixteen] to mix with other young men of his own age and station in life then 
resident in Cambridge, and no one was ever more admired and beloved by his ac- 
quaintances and friends. He was always the same person in company, abounding 
in playful and quick repartee." Mr. Wilberforce, who became his most intimate 
friend at the age of twenty, remarks : "He was the wittiest man I ever knew, and, 
what was quite peculiar to himself, had at all times his wit under entire control. 

^ In America the word declaim is often used for recite in the Enghsh sense of the term; i. e., to 
pronounce tlie speech of another when committed to memory. But in England it is very rarely 
used in thi 
Coleridge. 



WILLIAM PITT. 555 

Others appeared struck by the unwonted association of brilliant images ; but every 
possible combination of ideas seemed always present to his mind, and he could at 
once produce whatever he desired. I was one of those who met to spend an even- 
ing in memory of Shakspeare, at the Boar's Head, East Cheap. Many professed 
wits were present, but Pitt was the most amusing of the party, and the readiest and 
most apt in the required allusions. He entered with the same energy into all our 
different amusements." 

The truth is, Mr. Pitt had by nature a mind of such peculiar and unyielding ma- 
terials, that Lord Chatham would have been wholly unable (whatever might be his 
wishes) to mold or fashion it after any preconceived model of his own. With some 
general resemblance in a few points, it has rarely happened in the case of two indi- 
viduals so highly gifted, and placed in such similar circumstances, that a son has been 
so entirely unlike a father in all the leading traits of his intellectual character. It 
may interest the reader to dwell for a moment on some of the differences between 
them, before we follow Mr. Pitt into the scenes of public life. Lord Chatham, with all 
his splendid abilities, was still pre-eminently a man of feeling and impulse, governed 
by the suggestions of an ardent imagination, hasty in his resolves, wanting in self- 
command, irregular and often changeable in his plans and purposes. Mr. Pitt, with 
all his burning energy, w^as equally the man of intellect, deficient in imagination, 
gifted with extraordinary powers of abstract reasoning, having all his faculties brought 
into complete subjection- to his will; so wary and circumspect in the midst of his 
boldest schemes, that Mr. Fox declared " he had never caught him tripping in a 
single instance" during a twenty years' contest ; inflexible in his determinations, 
regular and symmetrical in the entire structure of his character. Both were lofty 
and assuming, but these qualities in Lord Chatham were connected with a love of 
display, with ceremonious manners notwithstanding the warmth of his affections, 
and a singular delight in the forms of office and state ; while Mr. Pitt had the severe 
simphcity of one of the early Romans, with a coldness of address, as he advanced in 
life, which was repulsive to every one except his most intimate friends. Lord Chat- 
ham loved fame, and was influenced more than he would have been willing to ac- 
knowledge by a desire for popularity and a regard to the opinion of others. Mr. 
Pitt loved power : he cared but little for office except as it gave him command over 
others. Without a particle of vanity, he had excessive pride ; he despised popularity, 
and looked with contempt on the vulgar, " among whom he included a large propor- 
tion of the peerage and commonalty of England." Mr. Pitt had less genius than 
his father, but greater strength of mind ; and while the one swayed the feelings of 
his countrymen by the vehemence of his own, the other guided their wills and formed 
their purposes by the intense energy of his understanding. 

Mr. Pitt lost his father in 1778, and being left in straitened circumstances, applied 
himself to the law as affording the most direct means of support, and was called to 
the bar on the 12th of June, 1780. He rode the western circuit during that and 
the next year, having causes put occasionally into his hands which he managed 
with great skill and success, especially one w^hich he argued before Judge Buller, in 
a manner that awakened the admiration of the bar, and another before Lord Mans- 
field, on granting the writ of Jiabeas corjms to a man charged with murder, in which 
he received the warmest applause from that distinguished jurist. He was a favorite 
with his brethren of the circuit, one of whom remarks : "Among the lively men of 
his own time of life, Pitt was always the most animated and convivial in the many 
hours of leisure which occur to young men on circuit. He joined all the little ex- 
cursions to Southampton, Weymouth, and such parties of amusement as were habit- 
ually formed. He was extremely popular. His name and reputation for high ac- 
quirements at the University commanded the attention of his seniors. His wit and 



556 WILLIAM PITT. 

good humor endeared him to the younger part of the bar. After he became minister 
he contniued to ask his old circuit intimates to dine with him, and his manners re- 
mained unchanged." 

In January, 1781, he was returned as member of Parliament from Appleby, a 
borough belonging to Sir James Lowther. He immediately joined the Opposition un- 
der Burke and Fox, at a time when Lord North, besides the revolt of the American 
colonies, was engaged in a war with France, Spain, and Holland. His maiden speech 
was delivered on the twenty-sixth of the next month, and being wholly unpremedi- 
tated, gave a surprising exhibition of the readiness and fertility of his mind. One of 
Mr. Burke's bills on Economical Reform was under debate, and when Lord Nugent 
rose to oppose it, Mr. Byng, a member from Middlesex, asked Mr. Pitt to come for- 
ward in reply. He partly assented, but afterward changed his mind, and determ- 
ined not to speak. Byng, who understood him otherwise, the moment Lord Nugent 
sat down, called out " Pitt, Pitt," and the cry at once became general throughout the 
House. At first he declined ; but finding that the House M^ere bent on hearing him, 
he rose with entire self-possession, took up the argument with all the dexterity and 
force of a practiced debater, and threw over the whole a glow, an elegance, a rich- 
ness of thought and fervor of emotion, which called forth a round of applause from 
every quarter of the House. Burke took him by the hand, declaring that he was 
"not merely a chip of the old block, but the old block itself." Fox carried him to 
Brookes' when the House adjourned, and had him enrolled among the elite of the 
Whigs ; and the nation felt that the mantle had fallen upon one who was already 
qualified to go forth in "the spirit and power" of his illustrious predecessor. He 
spoke but twice that session ; and at the close of it, as some one was remarking, " Pitt 
promises to be one of the first speakers that was ever heard in Parliament," Mr. 
Fox, m4io was passing at the moment, turned instantly round and replied, " He is so 
already." Thus, at the age of twenty-two, when most men are yet in the rudiments 
of political science, and just commencing their first essays in oratory, he placed him- 
self at a single bound in the foremost rank of English statesmen and orators, at the 
proudest era of English eloquence. What is still more wonderful, he became, not by 
slow degrees, like Mr, Fox, but, as it were, by " inspiration" (in the language of Lord 
Brougham), one of the most accomplished debaters in the British Parliament. 

At the next session, commencing in November, 1781, Mr. Pitt entered into debate 
on the broadest scale, and made the most strenuous exertions to put an end to the 
American war. The defeat of Comwallis had rendered the contest absolutely hope- 
less ; and he denounced it as one which "wasted the blood and treasure of the kinn-- 
dom without even a rational object." But he avoided the error of Fox ; he made 
no personal attack on the King. With that forecast which marked all his actions, 
in opposing the favorite measure of his sovereign, he did nothing to wound his pride 
or to rouse his resentment. He put the responsibility on his ministers, where the Con- 
stitution rests it, and inveighed against them as men, " who, by their fatal system, had 
led the country, step by step, to the most calamitous and disgraceful situation to which 
a once flourishing and glorious empire could possibly be reduced — a situation which 
threatened the final dissolution of the state, if not prevented by timely, wise, and 
vigorous efibrts." A few days after, he again called forth a burst of admiration by one 
of those classical allusions, united to the keenest sarcasm, with which his early pro- 
ductions were so often adorned. In a speech on the army estimates, while comment- 
ing with great severity on a contradiction in the statements of Lord North and Lord 
George Germaine, he saw the two (who were seated near each other) conversing 
with great earnestness, while Welbore Ellis, Treasurer of the Navy, was interposing 
between them as if to impart some seasonable information. Stopping in the middle 
of a sentence, and turning the eyes of the whole House upon the group, he said, in a 



v.: 



WILLIAM PITT. 557 

significant tone, "I will pause until the Nestor of the Treasury Bench shall settle 
the difference between Agamemnon and Achilles." The suddenness of the stroke, 
and the idea especially of making Lord George an Achilles after the part he acted 
at the battle of Minden, produced a roar of laughter throughout the House, which 
was instantly followed by a tumult of applause. It was by such means that Mr. 
Pitt always took care to repress any disposition to treat his remarks with levity or 
disrespect. 

At the end of a few weeks, Lord North was driven from office, and the Rocking- 
ham administration came into power, March 19, 1782, with Mr. Fox and Lord Shel- 
burne as principal secretaries of state. Various stations, and among them one of 
great emolument, the vice-treasurership of Ireland, were offered Mr. Pitt, but he de- 
clined them all, having resolved, with that lofty feeling which always marked his 
character, never to take office until he could come in at once as a member of the 
cabinet. 

The Hockingham ministry was terminated by the death of its chief, at the end 
of thirteen weeks. Lord Shelburne succeeded, and with him brought in Mr. Pitt as 
Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. Such an event 
had never before happened in the history of English politics. The conduct of the 
entire finances of the empire had hitherto been reserved for men of tried experience. 
Godolphin, Oxford, Walpole, Pelham, Grenville, Townsend, and North, had risen by 
slow degrees to this weighty and responsible office. Mr. Pitt alone received it at 
once without passing through any subordinate station, at the age of twenty-three, 
and the country hailed him with joy as worthy to take his father's placeJpn the 
management of the highest concerns of the empire. Lord Shelburne now made 
peace (October 30, 1782), on terms quite as favorable as could have been expected, 
after the disgraceful results of Lord North's contest with America and France. But 
it was already obvious that his Lordship, though head of the government, was not 
master of the House of Commons. Mr. Fox, who had seceded when the new min- 
istry came in, held the balance of power between them and Lord North : some union V 
of parties was, therefore, indispensable, or the government could not go on, and Mr. 
Pitt was commissioned to negotiate with Mr. Fox for a return to power. Their in 
terview was short. Fox instantly demanded whether, under the proposed arrange- 
ment. Lord Shelburne Avas still to remain prime minister. Pitt replied that nothing 
else had ever been contemplated. "I can not," said Fox, warmly, "ever consent to 
hold office under his Lordship." " And I certainly have not come here," replied Pitt, 
"to hetray Lord Shelburne." They parted, and never again met under a private 
roof. From the entire contrariety of their habits and feelings, they could never have 
acted except as political opponents. Fox now united with Lord North, and voted down 
the ministry, as already mentioned, on the 17th of February, 1783. Four days after. 
Lord John Cavendish followed up the blow by moving a resolution involving a severe 
censure upon ministers, for the terms on which they had concluded peace. The de- 
,bate was a long one, and Mr. Fox reserved himself for the close of the evening, ob- 
viously intending to overwhelm his young antagonist and put an end to the discussion 
by the force and severity of his remarks.^ The moment he sat down, Mr. Pitt rose, 
to the surprise of all, and grappled at once in argument with " the most accomplished 
debater the world ever saw." Though imperfectly reported, his speech contains pass- 
ages which he never surpassed in his long and brilliant career of eloquence. Some 
of them will here be given, and the reader can not fail to admire the dignity with 
which he faces his opponent, the compact energy of his defense touching the con- 

. 2 Mr. Pitt was seriously indisposed during this debate, and, as Mr. Wilberforce states, was " act- 
ually holding Solomon's porch door (a portico behind the House) open while vomiting during 
Fox's speech, to which he was to reply." 



558 WILLIAM PITT. 

cessions made in the treaty, and the lofty spirit of self-assertion with which he turns 
back the assault of Mr. Fox, and vindicates his conduct and his motives. 

" Sir. revering as I do the great abilities of the honorable gentleman who spoke last, I lament, 
in common with the House, when those abilities are misemployed, as on the present question, to 
inflame the imagination and mislead the judgment. I am told, sir, 'he does not envy me the tri- 
umph of my situation on this day,' a sort of language which becomes the candor of that honorable 
gentleman as ill as his present principles. The triumphs of part}', sir, with which this self-ap- 
pointed minister seems so highly elate, shall never seduce me into any inconsistency which the 
busiest suspicion shall presume to glance at. / will never engage in political enmities without 
a public cause ! I will never forego such enmities without the public approbation ; nor will / be 
questioned and cast off in the face of this House by one virtuous and dissatisfied friend ! ^ These, 
sir, the sober and durable triumphs of reason over the weak and profligate inconsistencies of party 
violence ; these, sir, the steady triumphs of virtue over success itself, shall be mine, not only in 
my present situation, but through every future condition of my life — triumphs which no length of 
time shall diminish, which no change of principle shall ever sully." 

Having dwelt at large on the disgraces and dangers of the country at the close of 
the American war, Mr. Pitt now asks, " Could Lord Shelburne, thus surrounded with 
scenes of ruin, affect to dictate the terms of peace ? Are these articles seriously com- 
pared with those of the peace of Paris in 1763 ?" This leads him to speak of the 
elevated position in which the country was at that time left by his father, and from 
this he passes to defend the concessions made by Lord Shelburne. 

" I feel, sir, at this instant, how much I have been animated in my childhood by the recital of 
England's victories. I was taught, sir, by one whose memory I shall ever revere, that at the close 
of a war far different, indeed, from this, she had dictated the terms of peace to submissive nations. 
This, in wiiich I have something more than a common interest, was the memorable era of England's 
glory. But that era has passed ; she is under the awful and mortifying necessity of employing a 
language which corresponds to her true condition : the visions of her power and pre-eminence are 
passed away. 

" We have acknowledged American independence. That, sir, was a needless form : the incapaci- 
ty of the noble Lord who conducted our affairs [Lord North] ; the events of war ; and even a vote 
of this House, had already granted what it was impossible to withhold. 

'■'■We have ceded Florida. We have obtained Providence and the Bahama Islands. 

'■''We have ceded an extent of fishery on the coast of Newfoundland. We have established an ex- 
tensive right to the most valuable banks. 

" We have restored St. Lucia and given up Tobago. We have regained Grenada, Dominica, St. 
Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat, and have wrested Jamaica from her impending danger. In Africa 
we have ceded Goree, the grave of our countrymen ; and we possess Senegambia, the best and 
most healthy settlement. 

" We have likewise permitted his most Christian Majesty to repair his harbor of Dunkirk. The 
humiliating clause for its destruction was inserted, sir, after other wars than the past ; and the im- 
mense expense attending its repair will still render the indulgence of no value to the French. 

'■ In the East Indies., where alone we had power to dictate the terms of peace, we have restored 
what was useless to ourselves, and scarcely tenable in a continuance of the war. 

" But ive have abandoned the American Loyalists to their implacable enemies. Little, sir, are those 
unhappy men befriended by such language in this House ; nor shall we give much assistance to 
their cause, or add stability to the reciprocal confidence of the two states, if we already impute to 
Congress a violence and injustice which decency forbids us to suspect. Would a continuance of 
the war have been justified on the single principle of assisting these unfortunate men ? or would 
a continuance of the war, if so justified, have procured them a more certain indemnity? Their 
hopes must have been rendered desperate, indeed, by any additional distresses of Britain ; those 
hopes which are now revived by the timely aid of peace and reconciliation. 

"These are the ruinous conditions to which this country, engaged with four powerful states, and 
exhausted in all its resources, thought fit to subscribe for the dissolution of that alliance, and the 
immediate enjoyment of peace. Let us examine what is left with a manly and determined courage. 
Let us strengthen ourselves against inveterate enemies, and reconciliate our ancient friends. The 
misfortunes of individuals and of kingdoms., when laid open and examined with true wisdom, are more 
than half redressed ; and to this great object should be directed all the virtue and abilities of this 
House. Let us feel our calamities — let us bear them, too, like men ! 

3 This was one of Mr. Pitt's severest sarcasms. Sir Cecil Wray, Mr. Powys, and others, who 
had long been connected with Mr. Fox as political adherents and personal friends, had put to him 
during this debate the most painful interrogatories respecting his coalition with Lord North, and 
renounced all connection with him if that measure was consummated. 



WILLIAM PITT. 559 

" But, sir, I fear I have too long engaged your attention to no real purpose ; and that the public 
safety is this day risked, without a blush, by the malice and disappointment of faction. The hon- 
orable gentleman who spoke last [Mr. Fox] has declared, with that sort of consistency that marks 
his conduct, ' Because he is prevented from prosecuting the noble Lord in the blue ribbon [Lord 
North] to the satisfaction of public justice, he will heartily embrace him as his friend.' So readily 
does he reconcile extremes, and love the man whom he wishes to prosecute ! With the same spirit, 
sir, I suppose he will cherish this peace, too — because he abhors it /" 

We have liere another instance of that keen and polished sarcasm which Mr. Pitt 
had more perfectly at command than any orator in our language, and which enabled 
him, as Charles Butler remarks, "to inflict a wound even in a single member of a 
sentence, that could never be healed." From this passing notice of Mr. Fox, he turns 
to Lord Shelburne, for whom he had a personal attachment as a friend and adherent 
of his father, and bestows upon him the following splendid eulogium : 

" This noble Earl, like every other person eminent for ability, and acting in the first department 
of a great state, is undoubtedly an object of envy to some, as well as of admiration to others. 
The obloquy to which his capacity and situation have raised him, has been created and circulated 
with equal meanness and address ; but his merits are as much above my panegyric, as the arts to 
which he owes his defamation are beneath my attention. When, stripped of his power and emolu- 
ments, he once more descends to private life without the invidious appendages of place, men will 
see him through a different medium, and perceive in him qualities which richly entitle him to their 
esteem. That official superiority which at present irritates their feelings, and that capacity of con- 
ferring good offices on those he prefers, which all men are fond of possessing, will not then be any 
obstacle to their making an impartial estimate of his character. But notwithstanding a sincere 
predilection for this nobleman, whom I am bound by every tie to treat with sentiments of deference 
and regard, I am far from wishing him retained in power against the public approbation ; and if his 
removal can be innocently effected, if he can be compelled to resign without entailing all those mis- 
chiefs which seem to be involved in the resolution now moved, great as his zeal for his country 
is, powerful as his abilities are, and earnest and assiduous as his endeavors have been to rescue the 
British empire from the difficulties that oppress her, I am persuaded he will retire, firm in the dig- 
nity of his own mind, conscious of his having contributed to the public advantage, and, if not at- 
tended with the fulsome plaudits of a mob, possessed of that substantial and permanent satisfaction 
which arises from the habitual approbation of an upright mind. I know him well ; and dismiss 
him from the confidence of his sovereign and the business of the state when you please, to this 
transcendent consolation he has a title, which no accident can invalidate or affect. It is the glo- 
rious reward of doing well, of acting an honest and honorable part. By the difficulties he encounter- 
ed on his accepting the reins of government, by the reduced state in which he found the nation, 
and by the perpetual turbulence of those who thought his elevation effected at their own expense, 
he has certainh' earned it dearly ; and with such a solid understanding, and so much goodness of 
heart as stamp his character, he is in no danger of losing it." 

Mr. Pitt next took up the Coalition, which had not yet assumed any definite shape, 
and delighted the House with one of those sudden hits as to its going on to be con- 
summated, which have always so peculiar a power in a large and promiscuous as- 
sembly. 

"I repeat it, sir, it is not this treaty, it is the Earl of Shelburne alone whom the movers of this 
question are desirous to wound. This is the object which has raised this storm of faction ; this is 
the aim of the unnatural Coalition to which I have alluded. If, however, the baneful alliance is not 
already formed — if this ill-omened marriage is not already solemnized, I know a just and lawful 
impediment — and, in the name of the public safety, I here forbid the bans!" 

Pausing for a moment during the applause which followed this bold image, he then 
addressed himself to Mr. Fox with a proud consciousness of integrity, glancing at the 
same time at the supposed motives of those, lately the bitterest enemies, who were 
now transformed into bosom friends. 

" My own share in the censure, pointed by the motion before the House against his JNIajesty's 
ministers, I will bear with fortitude, because my own heart tells me I have not acted wrong. To 
this monitor, which never did, and, I trust, never will deceive me, I shall confidently repair, as to 
an adequate asylum from all clamor which interested faction can raise. I was not very eager to 
come in, and shall have no great reluctance to go out, whenever the public are disposed to dismiss 
me from their service. It has been the great object of my short official existence to do the duties 
of my station with all the ability and address in my power, and with a fidelity and honor which 
should bear me up, and give me confidence, under every possible contingency or disappointment. 



560 WILLIAM PITT. 

I can say, with sincerity, I never had a wish which did not terminate in the dearest interests of the 
nation. I will, at the same time, imitate the honorable gentleman's candor, and confess that I too 
have my ambition. High situation and great influence are desirable objects to most men, and ob- 
jects which I am not ashamed to pursue — which I am even solicitous to possess, whenever they 
can be acquired with honor and retained with dignity. On these conditions, I am not less ambi- 
tious to be great and powerful than it is natural for a young man, with such brilliant examples be- 
fore him, to be. But even these objects I am not beneath relinquishing, the moment my duty to 
my country, my character, and my friends, renders such a sacrifice indispensable. Then I hope 
to retire, not disappointed, but triumphant ; triumphant in the conviction that my talents, humble 
as they are, have been earnestly, zealously, and strenuously employed, to the best of my apprehen- 
sion, in promoting the truest welfare of my country ; and that, however I may stand chargeable 
with weakness of understanding or error of judgment, nothing can be imputed to me in my official 
capacity which bears the most distant connection with an interested, a corrupt, or a dishonest in- 
tention. 

" But it is not any part of my plan, when the time shall come that I quit my present station, to 
threaten the repose of my country, and erect, like the honorable gentleman, a fortress and a refuge 
for disappointed ambition. The self-created and self-appointed successors to the present adminis- 
tration have asserted, with much confidence, that this is likely to be the case. I can assure them, 
however, when they come from that side of the House to this, I will for one most cordially accept 
the exchange. The only desire I would indulge and cherish on the suV)ject, is, that the service of 
the public may be ably, disinterestedly, and faithfully performed. To those who feel for their coun- 
try as I wish to do, and will strive to do, it matters little who are out or in ; but it matters much 
that her affairs be conducted with wisdom, with firmness, with dignity, and with credit. Those 
intrusted to my care I shall resign, let me hope, into hands much better qualified to do them jus- 
tice than mine. But I will not mimic the parade of the honorable gentleman in avowing an indis- 
criminate opposition to whoever may be appointed to succeed. I will march out with no warlike, 
no hostile, no menacing protestations ; but hoping the new administration will have no other ob- 
ject in view than the real and substantial welfare of the community at large ; that they will bring 
with them into office those truly public and patriotic principles which they formerly held, but which 
they abandoned in opposition ; that they will save the state, and promote the great purposes of 
public good, with as much steadiness, integrity, and solid advantage, as I am confident it must 
one day appear the Earl of Shelburne and his colleagues have done. I promise them, beforehand, 
my uniform and best support on every occasion, where I can honestly and conscientiously assist 
them." 

He had now carried the House to the utmost point of interest and expectation. 
Something more directly relating to himself was obviously yet to come ; and it is not 
wonderful that the ablest of the eloquent men before him, when they saw the peril- 
ous height to which he had raised his audience, felt he could never descend to his 
own personal concerns without producing in the minds of his hearers a painful shock 
and revulsion of feeling. But no, his crowning triumph was yet to come. 

" Unused as I am to the factions and jarring clamors of this day's debate, I look up to the inde- 
pendent part of the House, and to the public at large, if not for that impartial approbation which 
my conduct deserves, at least for that acquittal from blame to which my innocence entitles me. 
My earliest impressions were in favor of the noblest and most disinterested modes of serving the 
public : these impressions are still dear, and will, I hope, remain forever dear to my heart : I will 
cherish them as a legacy infinitely more valuable than the greatest inheritance. On these prin- 
ciples alone I came into Parliament, and into place ; and I now take the whole House to witness, 
that / have not been under the necessity of contradicting one public declaration I have ever made.* 

"I am, notwithstanding, at the disposal of this House, and with their decision, whatever it shall 
be, I will cheerfully comply. It is impossible to deprive me of those feelings which must always 
result from the sincerity of my best endeavors to fulfill with integrity every official engagement. 
You may take from me, sir, the privileges and emoluments of place, but you can not, and you .shall 
not, take from me those habitual and warm regards for the prosperity of Great Britain, which con- 
stitute the honor, the happiness, the pride of my life, and which, I trust, death alone can extinguish. 
And, with this consolation, the loss of power, sir, and the loss of fortune, though I affect not to de- 
spise them, I hope I soon shall be able to forget." 

Here he went on to quote the beautiful lines of Horace in respect to Fortune 
(Odes, book iii. Ode 29, line 53-6) : 

■* The reader can not have forgotten the declaration of Mr. Fox, made only a few months before, 
that nothing could ever induce him to think of a coalition with Lord North, and that he was will- 
ing to be considered as infamous if he ever formed one. See page 445. 



WILLIAM PITT. 661 

Laudo manentem ; si celeres quatit 
Pennas, resigno quae dedit — 

when the thought struck him that the next words, " et mea virtute me involvo'' 
would appear unbecoming if taken (as they might be) for a comphment to himself. 
Mr. Wraxall, who was present, describes him as instantly casting his eyes upon the 
floor, while a momentary silence elapsed, which turned upon him the attention of the 
whole House. He drew his handkerchief from his pocket, passed it over his lips, and 
then, recovering as it were from his temporary embarrassment, he struck his hand 
with great force upon the table, and finished the sentence in the most emphatic 
manner, omitting the words referred to : 

Laudo manentem ; si celeres quatit 
Pennas, resigno quae dedit, [e< mea 
Virtute me involvo'] probamque 
Pauperiem sine dote quaero.^ 

"The effect was electric ; and the cheers with which his friends greeted him as he 
sat down, were followed with that peculiar kind of buzz, which is a higher testimony 
to oratorical merit than the noisier manifestations of applause."^ 

Lord North, in following Mr. Pitt that night, spoke of his eloquence as " amazing ;" 
and added, "It is no small presumption of my innocence that I could hear his thun- 
der without being dismayed, and even listen to it with a mixture of astonishment 
and dehght.'"" But the Coalition was too strong to be dissolved. The vote of cen- 
sure was passed by a majority of seventeen, and the Earl of Shelburne resigned. 

The King now sent for Mr. Pitt, and urged him, in the most pressing terms, to ac- 
cept the office of prime minister ; but, with that strength of judgment which never 
deserted him in the most flattering or the most adverse circumstances, he steadfastly 
rejected the offer, satisfied that it would be impossible to resist the combined force 
of Lord North and Mr. Fox in the House. To gratify the King, however, while en- 
deavoring to form a ministry to his mind, Mr. Pitt remained in office for six weeks, 
carrying on the government with a dignity of deportment, and an ease and dexterity 
in the dispatch of business, which excited the admiration of all, and produced the 
frequent remark, " there is no need of a ministry while Mr. Pitt is here." In the 
mean time, the King, though urged by repeated addresses from the House, continued 
to shrink back from the Coalition ; and it is now known that he seriously meditated 
a retirement to Hanover, as the only means of relief from the painful situation to 
which he was reduced. It was Thurlow that deterred him from so hazardous a step. 
" Your Majesty may go to your Electoral dominions," said the ChanceUor, bluntly ; 
" nothing is easier ; but you may not find it so easy to return when you grow tired 
of staying there. James II. -did the same ; your Majesty must not follow his ex- 
ample.'' He therefore advised the King to submit with patience, assuring him that 
the Coalition could not remain long in power without committing some error which 

® While propitious, I praise her, and bless her glad stay; 

But if, waving her light wings, she flies far away, 
[Why, wrapped in my virtue], her gifts I resign 
And honest, though poor, I shall never repine. 
6 More than twenty years after, Mr. Canning, while defending himself under circumstances 
somewhat similar, in respect to Catholic emancipation, began to quote the passage so finely turn- 
ed by Pitt; but as he uttered the words "Laudo manentem," it suddenly occurred to him how 
they had been used before, and he instantly varied them, in his graceful manner, saying, " or, rather, 
to use the paraphrase of Dryden," 

" I can applaud her when she's kind ; 
But when she dances in the wind, 
And shakes her wings, and will not stay, 
I puS" the prostitute away." 
' Age of Pitt and Fox, page 155. 

Nn 



562 WILLIAM PITT. 

would lay them open to successful attack. The King saw the wisdom of his advice. 
He permitted the CoaUtion ministry to be formed, April 2, 1783, but with an ex- 
press reservation that he was to be understood as no way concerned in their meas- 
ures. 

Soon after the close of this session, Mr. Pitt visited France in company with Mr. 
Wilber force, and spent some months in studying the institutions of the country. He 
was treated with great distinction; and, as Mr. Wilberforce states, " it was hinted to 
him, through the intervention of Horace Walpole, that he would be an acceptable 
suitor for the daughter of the celebrated Necker, afterward Madame De Stael. Neck- 
er is said to have offered to endow her with a fortune of £14,000 a year." But he 
declined the proposal, and remained unmarried to the end of life.* "With all the 
diversity of his powers, there were two characters which Mr. Pitt would have been 
quite unable to sustain — to play the part of the lover or the husband would have been 
equally beyond his reach. 

The measure foretold by Thurlow came earlier than was expected. During the 
first week of the next session (November 18th, 1783), Mr. Fox brought forward his 
East India Bill. In opposing this scheme, Mr. Pitt spoke the sentiments of most 
men in the kingdom. The firmest Whigs, like Lord Camden, the most strenuous en- 
emies of oppression, like Wilberforce, united with the supporters of the Crown and 
the entire moneyed interest of the country to denounce it in the strongest terms. There 
were two features which exposed the bill to this general reprobation. First, it put 
the civil and military government of India in the hands of Commissioners, appoint- 
ed, not, as usual in such cases, by the Crown, but by Parliament. Considering the 
manner in which Fox came into office, this was calculated to awaken the very worst 
suspicions. It looked like a direct defiance of the sovereign — like a determination 
on the part of the Coalitionists to make use betimes of their ascendency in Parlia- 
ment, and establish themselves so firmly in power, through this immense increase of 
patronage, that the King would be unable to remove them. As already stated in 
the memoir of Mr. Fox, few men at the present day believe he had any such scheme 
of desperate ambition. He was actuated, there is reason to think, by humane sen- 
timent. He did not mean to have his plan crippled in its execution by the personal 
animosity of the King, and he therefore gave to Parliament the first appointment of 
the Commissioners for four years ; and while he expected, no doubt, to add greatly 
to the strength of his administration by these means, the idea of his aiming at an 
imperium in imperio, or " a perpetual dictatorship" over England, is now generally 
discarded. Still, the jealousy which prevailed was perfectly natural. Mr. Fox had 
made it for himself; and Mr. Pitt used it against him, only as the best men in the 
kingdom believed it to be founded in truth. Secondly, the bill stripped the Company 
of all their commercial rights, and placed their property in the hands of another 
board of Commissioners. This was a much more doubtful measure. " It was tan- 
tamount," as Lord Camden truly said, " to a commission of bankruptcy or a commis- 
sion of lunacy against them ; it pronounced them to be unable to proceed in their 
trade, either from want of property or from want of mental capacity." Nothing 
could justify it but the extremest necessity ; and though Mr. Fox was convinced of 
that necessity, he ought, in prudence at least, to have delayed such a measure until 
the other part of his plan had been tried ; until experience had shown that the 

8 The reason which he was reported to have given, viz., that " he was married to his country," 
if not a mere jest, was probably, as Lord Brougham remarks, a fabrication of the day, like the 
words (" Oh, my country !") which were represented to have been the last that he uttered on his 
death-bed. " Such things," as his Lordship justly remarks, '' were too theatrical for so great a man, 
and of too vulgar a cast for so consummate a performer, had he stooped to play a part in such cir 
ciamstances." 



WILLIAM PITT. 563 

abuses in India were incapable of redress by a change of its civil and military gov- 
ernment — that the Company Avere fit only to be treated as bankrupts or lunatics. It 
is unnecessary to dvi^ell on the means by which the East India Bill was defeated, and 
the Coalition ministiy diiven from power. They have been detailed in the memoir 
of Mr. Fox. What share Mr. Pitt had in Lord Temple's communications with the 
King has never been made known ; but the course taken was regarded by all con- 
cerned as an extreme measure on the part of the Crown to repel an extreme measure 
of Mr. Fox, which endangered the rights of the King and the balance of the Consti- 
tution. The great body of the people gave it their sanction, and rejoiced in a step 
which they would have resisted, in almost any other case, as an invasion of their 
rights. 

Mr. Pitt now came in as Prime Minister at the age oi twenty-four (December 22d, 
1783)j under circumstances wholly without precedent in the history of English poli- 
tics. Against him was arrayed an overwhelming majority in the House, led on by 
the most eloquent men of the age, inflamed by a sense of injury and disappointed 
ambition. So hopeless did his prospect appear, that a motion for a new writ to fill 
his place for the borough of Appleby was received with a general shout of laugh- 
ter. In the contest which followed, and which turned the eyes of the whole empire 
on the House of Commons for nearly three months, the young minister's situation 
was not only trying beyond measure, in a political point of view, but, as Wraxall ob- 
serves, " appeared at times to be not wholly exempt from personal danger. Fox 
might be said, without exaggeration, to hold suspended over his head the severest 
marks of the indignation of the offended House. His removal from the King's pres- 
ence and councils as an enemy of his country — his impeachment or his commitment 
to the Tower — any or all of these propositions might, nay, might certainly have been 
carried in moments of effervescence, when the passions of a popular assembly, in- 
flamed by such a conductor as Fox, seemed to be ripe for any acts of violence."^ Un- 
der these circumstances, Mr. Pitt displayed a presence of mind, a skill and boldness 
in repelling attack, a dexterity in turning the weapons of his adversaries against 
themselves, and making the violence of their assault the very means of their final dis- 
comfiture, which we can not even now contemplate, as remote spectators of the scene, 
without wonder and admiration. Mr. Fox's first step was to demand, rather than re- 
quest of the King, that Parliament should not be dissolved, intimating, in his speech 
on the subject, that it would not be safe to adopt such a measure " merely to suit the 
convenience of an ambitious young man." Mr. Pitt, who had wisely determined to 
fight the battle for a new Parharaent in and through the present House, replied by 
a friend (for he had not yet been re-elected as a member), that he had no designs of 
this sort, and " that if any idea of proroguing or dissolving Parliament should be en- 
tertained any ivhere, Mr. Pitt would instantly resign." To make himself still more 
sure, Mr. Fox next moved a resolution, declaring " the payment of any public money 
for services, voted in the present session, after Parliament should be prorogued or dis- 
solved (if such events should take place before an act should have passed appropri- 
ating the supplies for such services), to be a high crime and misdemeanor." To this 
Mr. Pitt made no objection, and the motion was carried by general consent. These 
things combined brought Mr. Pitt apparently to the feet of Mr. Fox. The majority 
were not to be broken down by a new election, and if they stopped the supplies, he 
had no longer the resource of proroguing Parliament, and using the money on hand 
as absolutely necessary for continuing the government : he must resign, or bring 
the country at once into a state of anarchy. So certain did Mr. Fox consider the 
result, that he said on the floor of the House, '' To talk of the permanency of such 
an administration would be only laughi7ig at and insulting them ;" and at the close 
' Historical Memoirs, vol. iv., p. 724. 



564 WILLIAM PITT. 

of the same speech, he spoke of " the youth of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and 
the weakness incident to his early period of life, as the only possible excuse for his 
temerity I" 

The Mutiny Bill had been already delayed by Mr. Fox for a month, and the same 
decisive step was soon after taken with the supplies. Mr. Pitt was thus distinctly 
warned of the inevitable consequences of his persisting in a refusal to resign, while 
he was insulted for many weeks by one resolution after another, passed by large ma- 
jorities, reflecting in the severest terms on the means by which he had gained pow- 
er, and declaring that his ministry did not possess the confidence of the House or the 
country. As to the first point, he repelled with indignation the charge of having 
come into office by indirect or unworthy means. " I declare," said he, " that I came 
up no back stairs. "When my Sovereign was pleased to send for me, in order to know 
whether I would accept of employment, I was compelled to go to the royal closet ; 
but I know of no secret infiuence ! My own integrity forms my protection against 
such a concealed agent ; and whenever I discover it, the House may rest assured I 
will not remain one hour in the cabinet I I will neither have the meanness to act 
upon advice given by others, nor the hypocrisy to pretend, when the measures of an 
administration in which I occupy a place are censured, that they were not of my ad- 
vising. If any former ministers are hurt by these charges, to them be the sting /^° 
Little did I conceive that I should ever be accused within these walls as the abet- 
tor or the tool of secret influence I The nature and the singularity of the imputa- 
tion only render it the more contemptible. This is the sole reply that I shall ever 
deign to make. The probity and rectitude of my private, as well as of my public 
principles, will ever constitute my sources of action. I never will be responsible for 
measures not my own, nor condescend to become the instrument of any secret ad- 
visers whatever. With respect to the questions put to me on the subject of a dis- 
solution of Parliament, it does not become me to comment on the expressions com- 
posing the gracious answer of the sovereign, delivered by him from the Throne. Nei- 
ther will I compromise the royal prerogative, nor bargain it away in the House of 
Commons I" » 

The King, whose residence was then at Windsor, waited with deep emotion for a 
daily account of the conflict going on in the House ; and such was his anxiety during 
part of the time, that hourly expresses were sent him with a report of the debates. 
It was, indeed, more his battle than that of the ministry. His correspondence shows 
that he had resolved to stake every thing on the firmness of Mr. Pitt. His honor as 
a sovereign forbade the thought of his receiving back Lord North and Mr. Fox, after 
the means they were using to force themselves again into power : if Mr. Pitt sunk 
in the conflict, it was the King's determination to sink with him. After a night of 
the greatest disaster, when the ministry had been five times beaten — twice on ques- 
tions directly involving their continuance in office — his Majesty wrote to Mr. Pitt in 
the following terms : " As to myself, I am perfectly composed, as I have the self-satis- 
faction of feeling that I have done my duty. Though I think Mr. Pitt's day will be 
fully taken up in considering with the other ministers what measures are best to be 
adopted in the present crisis, yet, that no delay may arise from my absence, I shall 
dine in town, and consequently be ready to see him in the evening, if he should think 
that would be of utility. At all events, I am ready to take any step that may be 
proposed to oppose this faction, and to struggle to the last period of my life. But I 
can never submit to throw myself into its power. If they at the end succeed, my 
line is a clear one, and to which I have fortitude enoitgh to submit. '' These words, 
pointing directly to a withdrawal from England (with the case of James II. in 

'° Lord North felt this blow so keenly, that Wraxall says, he had never but once seen him so 
much agitated during his whole parliamentary career. 



WILLIAM PITT. 565 

full view), if not to consequences even more fatal, must have wrought powerfully on 
the mind of Mr. Pitt. It was not merely his love of office or scorn of being beaten 
that nerved him with such energy for the conflict ; it was sympathy and respect for 
his Sovereign, and the hope of averting those terrible civil commotions which seemed 
inevitable if Mr. Fox, at the head of the Commons, drove the King, supported by the 
nobility, into the desperate measure contemplated.^^ 

As the contest went on, Mr. Pitt having been beaten on an East India Bill which 
he introduced, Mr. Fox moved the same night for leave to bring in another of his own, 
which he declared to be the same as his former one in all its essential principles. He 
then turned to Mr. Pitt, and demanded to know whether the King would dissolve Par- 
liament to prevent the passing of such a bill. All eyes were turned to the treasury 
bench, and a scene ensued of the most exciting nature. " Mr. Pitt," says the Par- 
liamentary History, ''sat still — the members on all sides calling upon him in vain to 
rise."^' Sir Grey Cooper then broke out into some very severe remarks, and closed with 
saying, that if the gentleman persisted in his silence, the House ought " to come to a 
resolution''' on the subject. " On Mr. Pitt's sitting still, the cry was very loud of 
Move, move .'" calling on Sir Grey to bring forward a resolution. Mr. Fox then made 
some very cutting observations on "the sulky silence of the gentleman," his treating 
the House with so little decency," &c., when " the House still called most vehemently 
on Mr. Pitt to rise." General Conway now came out with great warmth, and at- 
tacked the character and motives of ministers in the bitterest terms, declaring that 
"the present ministry, originating in darkness and secrecy, maintained themselves by 
artifice. All their conduct was dark and intricate. They existed by corruption, and 
they were now about to dissolve Parliament, after sending their agents about the coun- 
try to bribe men." Mr. Pitt now rose, not to answer the interrogatories put him, but 
with a call to order. As Conway was advanced in years, Pitt treated him with re- 
spect, but demanded that he should '' specify the instances of corruption" charged; 
and told him that " what he could not prove, he ought never to assert'' *' No man," 
said he, in his loftiest tone, " shall draw me aside from the purpose which, on mature 
deliberation, I have formed. Individual members have no right to call upon me for 
replies to questions involving in them great public considerations. Nor is it incum- 
bent on me to answer interrogatories put in the harsh language that has been used." 
Turning again to Conway, whose age ought to have taught him more moderation, 
he reproved his intemperance of language in a way which called forth a burst of 
applause from the House, by quoting the noble reply of Scipio to Fabius, " Si nulla 
aha re, modestia certe et temperando linguam adolescens seneni vicero !"^^ 

Some of Mr. Fox's friends now became anxious for a compromise. Among them 
was Mr. Powys, who had been so scandalized by the Coalition and the East India 
Bill, that he joined Mr. Pitt in opposing them, but went back to Fox the moment 
he was dismissed and Pitt was put in his place. He now urged a coahtion be- 
tween them as the only possible means of giving peace and harmony to the country. 

^^ The King's determination was again expressed in a letter to Mr. Pitt, written on the morning 
of the day when Lord Effingham moved a resolution in the House of Lords, condemning the con- 
duct of the majority in the Commons. " I trust," said he, " that the House of Lords will this day 
feel, that the hour is come for which the wisdom of our ancestors estabhshed that respectable corps 
in the state, to prevent either the Crown or the Commons from encroaching on the rights of each 
other. Indeed, should not the Lords boldly stand forth, this Constitution must soon be changed ; 
for if the \.\vo only remaining privileges of the Crown are infringed — that of negativing bills which 
have passed both Houses of Parliament, and that of naming the ministers to be employed — I can 
not but feel, as far as regards my person, that I can be no longer of utility to this country, nor can 
with honor continue in this island.^ ^ 

12 See the report of this debate, vol. xxiv., 421-4. 

13 Youth as I am, I will conquer the aged, if in nothing else, at least in modesty and command 
over my tongue. 



666 WILLIAM PITT. 

He proposed to remove the difficulty as to Lord North (whom Fox could not desert) 
by raising him to the Upper House. " I did not," said he, " approve of the coalition 
between the late secretary [Mr. Fox] and the noble Lord. The ambition of the for- 
mer was certainly laudible in itself, though he was not very delicate in the means 
of its gratification ; still the noble Lord must not be disgraced. He shines, indeed, 
no longer except with a borrowed light. He is a man of whom I can not say lau- 
dandus ; but ornandus, tollendus.'' His Lordship, with his accustomed suavity and 
wit, in alluding to Powys' observation about his shining with " a borrowed light," 
observed, that " a classical expression had been applied to him, though with the dif- 
ference of a monosyllable — no7i laudandus — sed ornandus, tollendus." " I hope," con- 
tinued he, ''tollendus is not to be taken in the worst sense : it is not meant to kill 
me I It is only intended I should be ornandus, — or, in vulgar English, kicked up 
stairs I But, sir, I have no inclination to be kicked up stairs. I should be very un- 
willing to stand in the way of any political agreement which might be beneficial to 
the country, but I will not go up to the House of Peers. An acceptance of the peer- 
age would place me in Agrippina's situation — 

"' Je vois mes honneurs croitre, et tomber mon credit.' "^^ 
No one knew better than Lord North how to soften the asperity of debate by good- 
humored pleasantry or elegant allusion. 

A large number of country gentlemen had now become so anxious for a coalition 
(which Fox himself proposed), that a meeting, attended by nearly seventy members 
of the House, was held at St. Alban's Tavern, under the auspices of Powys and Mr. 
Grovesnor of Chester. On applying to the Duke of Portland, as head of the Oppo- 
sition, they received for answer, that the only obstacle in the way was "-Mr. Pitfs 
being in ojfice.^'' He was required to resign as preliminary to negotiation I The 
King, though with great reluctance, consented to receive some of the Opposition " as 
a respectable part of one [a ministry] on a broad basis," but insisted on " their giving 
up the idea of having the administration in their oivn hands'' In accordance with 
these views, Mr. Pitt refused to resign, and when afterward reproached by Mr. Powys 
on the subject, said, " The honorable gentleman has talked of the fortress which I 
occupy, and has declared that he did not wish me to march out with a halter about 
my neck. Sir, the only fortress that I know of, or desire ever to defend, is the for- 
tress of the Constitution. To preserve it, I will resist every attack and every seduc- 
tion. With what regard, either to my own personal honor or to public principle, 
could I change my armor, and meanly beg to be received as a volunteer under the 
forces of the enemy ? But, sir, I have declared, again and again, only prove to me 
that there is but a reasonable hope — show me even but the most distant prospect — 
that my resignation will at all contribute to restore peace to the country, and I will 
instantly resign. But, sir, I declare, at the same time, I will not resign as a pre- 
liminary to negotiation. I will not abandon this situation, in order to throw myself 
on the mercy of the right honorable gentleman. He calls me now a nominal min- 
ister — the mere puppet of secret influence. Sir, it is because I will not consent to 
become a merely nominal minister of his creation — it is because I disdain to become 
the puppet of that right honorable gentleman, that I wiU not resign. Neither shall 
his contemptuous expressions provoke me to resignation. My own honor and repu- 
tation I never will resign. That I am now standing on the rotten ground of secret 
influence I will not allow ; nor yet will I quit my ground in order to put myself un- 
der the right honorable gentleman's protection — in order to accept of my nomination 
at his hands — to become a poor, self-condemned, helpless, and unprofitable ministei 
in his train ; a minister, perhaps, in some way serviceable to that right honorable 

^■* The line is from Racine's Britannicus (Act i., Scene 1): 

I see my honors rise, my credit sink. 



WILLIAM PITT. 567 

gentleman, but totally unserviceable to my King and to my country. If I have, in- 
deed, submitted to become the puppet and minion of the Crown, w^hy should he con- 
descend to receive me into his band ?" 

It wsis in this speech that Mr. Pitt, with reference to Fox's boasts of the great 
names that adorned the Opposition, broke forth into his splendid eulogium on Lord 
Camden. " Sir, I am not afraid to match the minority against the majority, either 
on the score of independence, of property, of long hereditary honors, of knowledge of 
the law and Constitution, of all that can give dignity to the peerage. Mr. Speaker, 
when I look round me, when I see near whom I am standing (Lord Camden was 
present at the debate), I am not afraid to place in the front of that battle — for at 
that battle the noble peer was not afraid to buckle on his armor and march forth, as 
if inspired with his youthful vigor, to the charge — I am not afraid to place foremost 
that noble and illustrious peer — venerable as he is for his years — venerable for his 
abilities — venerated throughout the country for his attachment to our glorious Con- 
stitution — high in honors — and possessing, as he does, in these tumultuous times, an 
equanimity and dignity of mind, that render him infinitely superior to the ivretched 
party spirit with which the world may fancy us to be infected !" 

In concluding his speech, Mr. Pitt thus defied Mr. Fox to stop the supplies. " The 
right honorable gentleman tells you, sir, that he means not to stop the supplies again 
to-night, but that he shall only postpone them occasionally. He has stopped them 
once, because the King did not listen to the voice of his Commons. He now ceases 
to stop them, though the same cause does not cease to exist. Now, sir, what is all 
this but a mere bravado ? — a bravado calculated to alarm the country, but totally 
inefiectual to the object. I grant, indeed, that if the money destined to pay the pub- 
lic creditors is voted, one great part of the mischief is avoided. But, sir, let not this 
House think it a small thing to stop the money for all j^^blic services. Let us not 
think that, while such prodigious sums of money flow into the public coffers without 
being sufiered to flow out again, the circulation of wealth in the country will not be 
stopped, nor the public credit afTected. It has been said, ' How is it possible that 
Parliament should trust public money in the hands of those in whom they have ex- 
pressly declared that they can not confide V What, sir, is there any thing, then, in 
my character so flagitious ? Am I, the Chief Minister of the Treasury, so suspected 
of alienating the public money to my own, or any other sinister purpose, that I am 
not to be trusted with the ordinary issues ?" (A cry of No, no, from the Opposition.) 
"Why, then, sir," he exclaimed, seizing on the admission with instant effect, " if they 
renounce the imputation, let them also renounce the argument I'' 

It was not without reason that Mr. Fox had been desirous of a compromise ; the 
whole country had begun to move ''for Pitt and the King." Addresses in favor 
of the ministry now poured in from every part of the kingdom. London led the way, 
and sent a deputation to Mr. Pitt's residence, in Berkeley Square, preceded by the City 
Marshal and Sheriffs, to present him with the freedom of the city in a gold box of 
one hundred guineas in value, " as a mark of gratitude for, and approbation of, his 
zeal and assiduity in supporting the legal prerogatives of the Crown, and the consti- 
tutional rights of the people." Mr. Fox's majority now began to diminish, until, on 
the 27th of February, it was reduced to nine. On the 8th of March he made his 
last great effort in a "Representation to the King," drawn up in powerful language, 
containing reasons for the removal of ministers. So great was the anxiety to be pres- 
ent at this debate, that the gallery was filled to overflowing more than six hours be- 
fore the House assembled. The debate was opened by Mr. Fox's moving that this 
Representation be entered on the records of the House ; it continued till midnight, and 
when the vote was taken he had only one majority I Tremendous cheers now broke 
forth from the Treasury benches : the Coalition was defeated ; the Mutiny Bill was 



668 WILLIAM PITT. 

passed ; Parliament was soon after dissolved ; and the nation was called upon to de- 
cide, at the hustings, between Fox and Pitt.^^ 

The people ratified at the polls what they had declared in their addresses to the 
King and ministry. Never was there so complete a revolution in any House of Com- 
mons. More than a hundred and sixty of Mr. Fox's friends lost their seats ; and at 
the opening of the new Parliament, May 18th, 1784, it might truly be said, in the 
words of Lord Campbell, " No administration in England ever was in such a triumph- 
ant position as that of Mr. Pitt, when, after the opposition it had encountered, the 
nation, applauding the choice of the Crown, declared in its favor, and the Coalition 
leaders, with their immense talents, family interest, and former popularity, found dif- 
ficulty to obtain seats in the House of Commons. "^^ From this period for seventeen 
years, and, after a short interval, during three years more, Mr. Pitt swayed the des- 
tinies of England under circumstances, for the most part, more perilous and appal- 
ling than have fallen to the lot of any British statesman in modern times. As to his 
leading measures, men differ now almost as much as during the heat of the contest, 
in the judgment they pronounce between him and his great opponent. But there is 
more candor in estimating the motives and i?itentions of both. Very few, at the pres- 
ent day, would call in question the honor, the integrity, or the sincere patriotism of 
"William Pitt. All, too, have come to feel that, in deciding on the conduct of public 
men during the French Revolution, the question is not so much, ' Who was in the 
right,' as 'Who was least in the wrong.' Facts, also, are beginning to come out 
through the diaries of such men as Mr. Wilberforce, Lord Malmesbury, &c., who knew 
the secret history of the times, which put a new face upon many transactions, or on 
the motives in which they originated ; but half a century must still elapse before the 
world will have the means of forming a full and impartial estimate of Mr. Pitt's ad- 
ministration. All that can here be attempted is a brief survey of his most important 
measures, commencing with those of the eight years previous to the war with France, 
and then touching lightly on the grounds and conduct of that fearful contest. Ref- 
erence will occasionally be made to the opinions of Lord Campbell in his Lives of 
the Chancellors, not only because his judgments have been formed from the most 
recent information, but because his views, when favorable to Mr. Pitt, may be relied 
upon the more as coming from a strong political opponent. 

The first measure of Mr. Pitt was a bill for the better government of India. It 
differed from that of Mr. Fox chiefly in the two particulars mentioned above : it left 

15 The reader may be interested to see the state of the vote at the several divisions which took 
place during this contest. It was as follows : 



January 12th, 232 to 193 ; majority 39. 



« 


" 196 to 142 ; 


54 


<< 


16th, 205 to 184; 


21 


u 


23d, 222 to 214; 


8 


ru£ 


iry 2d, 223 to 204; 


19. 


" 


3d, 211 to 187; 


24. 


u 


16th, 186 to 157; 


" 29. 



February 18th, 208 to 196 ; majority 12. 



March 



20th, 197 to 177 ; 


20. 


" 177 to 156; 


" 21. 


27th, 175 to 168; 


7. 


1st, 201 to 189; 


12. 


5th, 171 to 162; 


9. 


8th, 191 to 190; 


1. 



It was the press, to a great extent, which carried Mr. Pitt triumphantly through this struggle. 
The East India Company felt their existence to be staked on his success, and they spared no efforts 
or expense to rouse the nation in his behalf. From the day Mr. Fox introduced his bill into the 
House, a committee of the proprietors sat uninterruptedly at Leadenhall Street, for many weeks, 
sounding the alarm throughout the kingdom; and from that time, down to his final defeat in the 
general elections of 1784, they used eveiy instrument in their power to defeat liis designs. Among 
other things, caricatures were employed with great effect, some of them very ingenious and laugh 
able. One of them, called the Triumphant Entry of Carlo Khan, represented Fox in the splendid 
costume of a Mogul emperor, seated on the body of an elephant, upon which was stuck the queer, 
fat, good-humored face of Lord North, while Burke strutted in front as a trumpeter with his instru 
ment in full blast, sounding the praises of the Great Man. (See peroration of his speech on the 
East India Bill.) i6 Lives of the Chancellors, vol. v., p. 566. 



WILLIAM PITT. 669 

the commercial concerns of the Company in the hands of the Directors ; and, instead 
of the seven Commissioners of Mr. Fox, it established a Board of Control, appointed 
by the Crown, whose members come in and go out with the ministry, and exercise 
the government of India in conjunction with the Directors. " The joint sway," says 
Lord Campbell, " of the Court of Directors and the Board of Control being substituted 
for the arbitrary rule of the " Seven Kings," our Eastern empire has been governed 
with wisdom, with success, and w4th glory. "^' 

Early in 1785, Mr. Pitt brought forward a plan of Reform in Parliament. On 
this subject he had, from early life, entered with great warmth into the feelings of 
his father, and had twice before (in 1782 and 1783) moved similar resolutions, sup- 
ported by able speeches, though without success. He now took it up as minister. 
His plan was to disfranchise thirty-six decayed boroughs (making due compensation 
to the owners), and transfer the representation, consisting of nearly a hundred mem- 
bers, to the counties and unrepresented large towns. He also proposed to extend the 
right of voting in populous places to the inhabitants in general. Mr. Fox strenuously 
resisted the proposed compensation, and the friends of reform being thus divided, Mr. 
Pitt was beaten by a majority of 248 to 174. As he never brought up the subject 
again, he has been accused by some of insincerity ; but we learn his true feelings 
from a record in the diary of Mr. Wilberforce : " At Pitt's all the day. It (reform) 
goes on well : sat up late chatting With Pitt, who has good hopes of the country — 
noble and patriotic heart ! To town (next day) — House — Parliamentary Reform — 
terribly disapj^ointcd and leatT^^ It is not surprising that, after being defeated 
three times, he should be in no haste to revive the subject again, especially as the 
King was strongly opposed to the measure ; nor does it show any want of sincerity 
in his early efforts, that he afterward changed his views as to the expediency of agi- 
tating the question. Even Lord Brougham, with all his disposition to censure Mr. 
Pitt, says^ " the alarms raised by the French Revolution, and its cognate excitement 
among ourselves, justified a reconsideration of the opinions originally entertained on 
our parliamentary system, and might induce an honest alteration of them. "^^ 

At this time, also, Mr. Pitt proposed two measures which the reader may recollect 
as denounced in bitter terms by Mr. Burke, in his speech on the Nabob of Arcot's 
Debts. ^° Neither of them deserved these censures. The first related to fees in the 
public offices, and, instead of being designed " to draw some resource out of the crumbs 
dropped from the trenchers of penury," was intended to abolish sinecures which, in 
some cases, yielded £16,000 a year. The bill v/as passed almost unanimously, and 
proved highly useful. The other was intended to give Ireland the benefits of free 
trade. Every one now sees that Mr. Pitt's plan was wise and salutary. Lord Camp- 
bell speaks of "the propositions for commercial union with Ireland, which do so much 
honor to the memory of Mr. Pitt, and not only show that he was disposed to govern 
that country with justice and liberality, but that, being the first disciple of Adam 
Smith who had been in powder, he thoroughly understood, and was resolved to carry 
into efiect, the principles of free trade. ""^ He was defeated, however, partly through 
the clamor raised by the English traders and manufacturers, and partly by the un- 
founded jealousy of the Irish. Moore says, in his Life of Sheridan, " the acceptance 
of the terms then proffered by the minister might have averted much of the evil of 
which she [Ireland] was afterward the victim."*"^ 

In 1786, Mr. Pitt brought forward his celebrated plan for paying the national debt 

1'' Lives of the Chancellors, vol. v., p. 561. 

18 Lord Campbell gives a letter from Lord Camden on this subject, which he says " aifords strong 
evidence of the Premier's sincerity." — Lives of the Chancellors, vol. v., p. 332. 

19 Sketch of Pitt.— Statesmen of the Times of George III. 20 gee page 332-3. 
21 Lives of the Chancellors, vol. v., p. 569. 22 Vol. i., p. 231. 



570 WILLIAM PITT. 

of £239,000,000, by means of a Sinking Fund. The suggestion came from Dr. Price, 
who offered three schemes to the ministry ; and it has often been said that Mr. Pitt 
"chose the worst." True it is that on the other two the debt would have been paid 
sooner, but they were more compUcated, and required an annual outlay to begin with, 
which Mr. Pitt clearly saw the country could never endure. He, therefore, chose the 
plan which, though less expeditious, was the only one he deemed practicable. It 
was founded on the fact that he had a suri^lus revenue of £900,000 a year. To 
this £100,000 might be added from taxes without burdening the country ; and " this 
sum of one million a year, improved at compound interest by being regularly invested 
in public stocks, would, in twenty-eight years, amount to four millions a year at the 
supposed interest of five per cent., a sum which would pay off one hundred millions of 
three per cents." The scheme was professedly founded on the continuance of peace. 
While this remained, the surplus could be relied on without adding any new debt ; 
and, as the nations of Europe seemed tired of war after the exhausting contest from 
which they had just escaped, Mr. Pitt not unnaturally hoped that England might en- 
joy so long a season of repose as to place her Sinking Fund on high and safe ground 
before the occurrence of another war. But unfortunately, within seven years, there 
commenced the most terrible conflict in which the country was ever engaged. The 
surplus failed ; and, though the form of a Sinking Fund was kept up, it became from 
this time a mere bubble — paying a debt with one hand while borrowing with the 
other. This was not the Sinking Fund devised by Dr. Price and Mr. Pitt. If the 
peace in Europe had been as lasting then as since the fall of Bonaparte, and the 
original plan had been faithfully carried out, the fund would probably by this time 
have extinguished a large part, if not the whole, of the public debt. 

Mr. Pitt's Commercial Treaty with France, in 1787, was the first step on the part 
of England toward those enlarged principles of national intercourse which now so 
generally prevail. His armament against France, the same year, in behalf of Hol- 
land, M^as applauded by all; that against Spain, in 1790, was ultimately approved 
by Mr. Fox f^ that against Russia, in 1791, was promptly and wisely given up (as 
already stated) when the voice of the nation declared against it.^* 

The ground taken by Mr. Pitt on the exciting question of the Regency has already 
been stated in the memoir of Mr. Fox f^ the measures he then proposed now form 
an acknowledged part of the constitutional law on this subject. His change of policy 
in regard to the impeachment of Mr. Hastings was mentioned in the memoir of Mr, 
Burke.^^ Mr. Wilberforce always ascribed it to a growing conviction of Mr. Hastings' 
guilt ; but the personal considerations referred to in the memoir are believed by most 
persons to have had a powerful influence with the ministry. 

Mr. Pitt was a warm advocate of the immediate abolition of the slave trade, and 
in 1792 made the most eloquent speech on this subject ever delivered in the House 
of Commons. ^^ Lord Brougham speaks of him in the harshest terms for not making 
this a ministerial question, and compelling his adherents to unite with him at once 
in a vote for suppressing the traffic. It may be doubted, however, whether a great 
moral question of this kind ought ever to be carried by mere force. Years of inquiry 
and argument are often necessary to make the removal, even of enormous abuses, 
either permanent or useful. The King and his whole family remained to the last; 
strenuous opponents of the abolition of the slave trade. Most of the nobility, for a 
long time, had the same feelings ; and nearly all the mercantile interest of the king- 
dom resisted it for many years with their utmost strength. Some of the ablest of 
Mr. Pitt's colleagues were vehemently opposed to what they regarded as a rash and 
impracticable scheme, while they professed a sincere desire for a gradual abolition 

23 See page 508. ^4 gge page SOL 25 gee page 45L 

26 See page 223. 27 gge page 579. 



WILLIAM PITT. 571 

of the traffic. It certainly does honor to Mr. Pitt, that, under these circumstances, 
he never wavered or shrunk back. He gave Mr. Wilherforce all the influence of his 
personal and official character ; he spoke and voted for immediate abolition. If he 
had gone farther, and attempted what Lord Brougham condemns him so bitterly for 
not doing, he would probably have put an end at once to his ministry, without the 
slightest advantage, and perhaps with serious detriment, to the cause he had espoused. 

In 1791, it became the duty of Mr. Pitt to frame a new Constitution for Canada. 
He did it upon wise and liberal principles. He forever took away the question which 
led to the American war, that of taxing the colonies for the sake of revenue. The 
British Parhament now expressly relinquished the right of laying any taxes except 
for the regulation of trade (to which the Americans were always ready to submit) ; 
and, in order to guard this point more fully, Mr. Pitt provided that the proceeds even 
of these taxes should go to the provincial assemblies, and not to the government at 
home. It was much for George III. to make such concessions. 

The financial measures of Mr. Pitt, during the period under review, were highly 
successful. He took the government at the end of Lord North's wars, with an un- 
funded debt of thirty millions sterling, and a national income wholly unequal to the 
expense of even a moderate peace establishment. There were large claims to be pro- 
vided for in favor of the American Loyalists ; there was a system of enormous fraud 
in the collection of the pubhc revenues to be searched out and collected ; there were 
permanent arrangements to be made for commercial intercourse with America and 
some countries of Europe ; and the vast concerns of India, all resting back on the 
treasury at home, were to be reduced to order and placed on a new foundation. In 
carrying out his plans, he had to fight his way at every step against the acutest and 
most eloquent men of England ; and he did it under the disadvantage of having no 
common ground of argument on which to meet them, since they were ignorant of the 
principles of Adam Smith, while the popular maxims and prejudices of the day were 
all on their side. T\''ithin five years the debt was funded and reduced five millions 
of pounds, notwithstanding the expense of two armaments, and other outlays to the 
amount of six millions. An entire and most beneficial change was made in the man- 
ner of collecting the eustom.s and auditing the public accounts, requiring more than 
three thousand distinct resolutions of Parliament to carry the plan into effect.*^ Un- 
der this system, the public revenue went on gradually increasing, until early in 1792 
he " felt justified in proposing a repeal of the most burdensome imposts, and an ad- 
dition of £400,000 to the annual milHon already appropriated as a Sinking Fund. 
In respect, then, to the first eight years of Mr. Pitt's administration, it was not, per- 
haps, too much for Mr. Gibbon to say, that " in all his researches in ancient and 
modern history, he had nowhere met with a parallel — with one who at so early a pe- 
riod of life had so important a trust reposed in him, which he had discharged with 
so much credit to himself and advantage to the kingdom." 

We now come to the course adopted by Mr. Pitt respecting the Revolution in 
France and a war with that country. This, as Lord Brougham remarks, " is the 
Tnain charge against him." ' It is obvious that, whatever may have been his errors 
on this subject, he had every possible motive to desire the continuance of peace. On 
this depended all his plans of finance, and especially the success of his Sinking Fund, 
to which he looked as the proudest memorial of his greatness as a statesman. That 
he did ardently desire it, no one doubts ; and so sanguine were his expectations, that 
he remarked in the House of Commons, about the middle of 1792, " England had 
never a fairer prospect of a long continuance of peace. I think we may confidently 
reckon upon peace for ten years ^ Mr. Burke had previously expressed similar views. 

28 See Prettyman's Life of Pitt, voL ii., p. 215 ; Belsham's Memoirs of the Reign of George III., 
vol. iv., p. 123 ; Wade's British History, p. 559. 



572 WILLIAM PITT. 

England had no longer any thing to fear from her hereditary rival. " France," said 
he, " in a political light, is to be considered as expunged out of the system of Eu- 
rope." At this moment (July 25th, 1792) Austria and Prussia invaded France for 
the avowed purpose of restoring Louis XVI. to all his rights as an absolute monarch. 
It is unnecessary to say that this step kindled the fire which soon after wrapped the 
whole of Europe in one general conflagration. But it is now known that England 
had no privity or concern in this invasion. On the contrary, Mr. Pitt declined all 
communication with Austria on the subject, and declared to Prussia his unalterable 
resolution to maintain neutrality and avoid all interference with the internal con- 
cerns of France. ^^ It is also known that, some months after, he endeavored to put a 
stop to the contest, by "negotiating," in the words of Mr. Wilberforce, "with the 
principal European powers for the purpose of obtaining a joint representation to 
France, assuring her that if she would formally engage to keep within her own lim- 
its, and not molest her neighbors, she should be suffered to settle her own internal 
government and constitution without interference."^" This negotiation was broken 
off in the midst by the execution of Louis XVI., and Mr. Pitt thus failed in his efforts 
to arrest the war on the Continent. 

"When the French drove out the Austrians and Prussians, they seized, in turn, on 
the Austrian Netherlands, early in November, 1792. Here arose the first point of 
collision between England and France. The Uepublican rulers forced the passage 
of the Uiver Scheldt from the Netherlands down to the sea. This river had been 
closed, under the provisions of the treaty of "Westphalia, for a century and a half, out 
of regard to the rights of Holland, through which it flows, and England was bound 
by treaty to defend those rights. A second point of collision was the French Decree 
of Fraternity, passed November 19, 1792, by the National Assembly, declaring that 
the French " would grant fraternity and assistance to all those people who wish to 
procure liberty, and charged the executive power to send orders to their generals to 
give assistance to such people as have suffered, or are now suffering, in the cause of 
liberty." This was considered as a declaration of war against all the monarchies 
of Europe, and a direct call upon their subjects to rise in rebellion. It was brought 
home to England by the fact, that delegates from societies in London and elsewhere, 
consisting of many thousands, were received at the bar of the French National Con- 
vention nine days after the publication of this decree, where they declared their in- 
tention to " adopt the French form of government, and establish a National Conven- 
tion in Great Britain." The President of the Convention replied in very significant 
terms : " Royalty in Europe is either destroyed or on the point of perishing ; and the 
Declaration of Rights placed by the side of thrones is a devouring fire which will 
consume them. The festival which you have celebrated in honor of the French Rev- 
olution is the prelude to the festival of nations .'" There is no doubt that the French, 
at this time, expected a revolution in England. 

These aggressions and insults would have justified the English government in de- 
manding ample reparation. But there was a difficulty as to the mode of negotiating. 
When Louis XVI. was made a prisoner of the Convention by the events of August 
10th, 1792, his government ceased, and Mr. Pitt recalled the English embassador 
from Paris, and suspended the functions of M. Chauvelin, the French embassador at 
London. How, then, were the two countries to communicate ? This soon after be- 
came a practical question. England began to arm, which she might reasonably do 
under existing circumstances. The French government instructed M. Chauvelin, 
who remained at London, to demand whether this armament was directed against 
France, tendering at the same time an explanation of the Decree of Fraternity as 

25^ See his statements on this subject, page 611. 

3° See Life, page 125, Philadelphia edition. See, also, page 612 of this volume. 



WILLIAM PITT. 573 

not aimed at England, and proposing to negotiate in relation to the Scheldt. What 
was Mr. Pitt now to do ? No one would expect him instantly to recognize the Na- 
tional Convention as de jure the government of France. Mr. Fox proposed to treat 
with them as the government de facto ; but this is a distinction which has sprung 
up chiefly since the French Revolution, and it is easy to see how strong a repugnance 
George III. and most of the English must have felt to any recognition of the new 
government, while they held their King as a prisoner, and were calling on the sub- 
jects of every other monarch in Europe to join with them in rebellion. Mr. Pitt took 
a middle course. He did not refuse to communicate with the French rulers, but he 
declined to receive the paper of M. Chauvelin as "an official communication." He 
did, however, reply "under a form neither regular nor official," telling him, "If 
France is really desirous of maintaining friendship and peace with England, she 
must show herself disposed to renounce her views of aggression and aggrandizement, 
and confine herself within her own territory, without insulting other governments, 
without disturbing their tranquillity, without violating their rights:" Within less 
than a month the King of France was beheaded. M. Chauvelin, whose functions 
had been suspended during the imprisonment of Louis, was now dismissed and sent 
out of the kingdom ; and seven days after, France declared war against England. 
Such is an exact representation of the facts. It is certainly to be regretted that Mr. 
Pitt did not adopt the course recommended by Mr. Fox, and thus take from France 
all pretense of putting him in the wrong. But in passing a sentence on his conduct 
we are not to be influenced by our knowledge of the result. He acted under the 
prevailing delusion that, even if war took place, it could not be severe or calamitous. 
" It must certainly be ended," said he to a friend, " in one or two campaigns." He 
. acted as most men act who feel strong, in dealing with those whom they consider as 
weak. He acted, also, under the belief (which subsequent events proved correct) 
that the French were insincere in their disavowals, that they only wished to gain 
time. The French Minister of War is now understood to have said at this juncture, 
" We have three hundred thousand men in arms, and we must make them march as 
far away as their legs will carry them, or they will return and cut our throats." 
From the moment of their triumph in the Austrian Netherlands, the policy of the 
French government was war. On the other hand, George III. and the great body 
of the English people were equally bent on fighting. " If a stop is not put to French 
principles," said he, " there will not be a king left in Europe in a few years."^^ The 
only stop then thought of w-as to shut out these principles by war, and to put down 
the authors of them as enemies of the human race. "Had Mr. Pitt refused to go 
to war," says a late writer, who was by no means friendly to his measures, "he 
would have been driven fi:om power by the united voice of king and people ; and his 
successor, whether Whig or Tor}^ would have been compelled to pursue the course 
of policy which was only reluctantly followed by that celebrated statesman. "^^ The 
war, therefore, was not Mr. Pitt's war ; it was equally the war of the English and 
of the French nation. 

As to " French principles," which were an object of so much terror to the King, 
they had, no doubt, to some extent, gained a foothold among the middling and lower 
classes. Paine's Rights of Man, and other publications of a still more radical char- 
acter, were widely circulated ; and it has since been stated on high authority, that 
"the soldiers were every where tampered with." " You have a great estate," said one 
of these radical reformers to General Lambton; "we shall soon divide it among us." 
"You will presently spend it in liquor," replied the general, " and what will you do 
then?" "Why, then we will divide again T' 

31 Nicholl's Recollections of George III., p. 400. 

32 Wade's British History, p. 572. 



574 WILLIAM PITT. 

Between 1793 and 1795 very stringent measures were adopted for putting down 
this spirit. Acts of Parliament were passed, as already stated in the memoir of Mr. 
Fox, suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, imposing severe restrictions on the holding 
of political meetings, and giving a wider extent to the crime of treason. They were 
designed, however, only as temporary measures, and were limited to three years. 
Still, they brought great reproach on Mr. Pitt, though it now appears that they origin- 
ated not with him, but with the followers of Mr. Burke, who had been recently brought 
into the ministry. Lord Campbell, speaking of this period, says, " Now began that sys- 
tem of policy for the repression of French principles, which has caused the period in 
which it prevailed to be designated, in the language of exaggeration, ' the Reign of 
Terror.' I think the system was unwise, and that Lord Loughborough is chiefly an- 
swerable for it. I am afraid that, if he did not originate, he actively encouraged it, 
and that he, as the organ of the alarmist party, forced it upon the reluctant Prime 
Minister. Pitt had not only come forward in public life on the popular side, but I be- 
lieve that his propensities continued liberal, and that, if he could have fulfilled his 
wishes, he would have emancipated the Catholics — he would have abolished slavery 
— he would have established free trade — and he would have reformed the House of 
Commons. His regard for the liberty of the press he had evinced by carrying Fox's 
Libel Bill by the influence of government, notwithstanding the furious opposition of 
Lord Chancellor Thurlow. He was likewise particularly adverse to any stringent 
measures against reformers, being aware that, having himself very recently belonged 
to that body, he would appear rather in an invidious light as the persecutor of his for- 
mer associates. But he found that he could not adhere to constitutional laws and 
constitutional practices, without the disruption of his administration.'"'^ During this 
period, also, occurred those state trials, arising out of some wild attempts at parlia- 
mentary reform, in which Erskine was so much distinguished. Some reproach has 
fallen upon Mr. Pitt for allowing them to go on. It appears, however, from the state- 
ment of Lord Campbell, that " Lord Loughborough was the principal adviser of them. 
He had surrendered himself to the wildest apprehensions of Burke, he feared that 
any encouragement to parliamentary reform was tantamount to rebellion ; and he 
believed that general bloodshed would be saved by the sacrifice of a few individuals. 
# # * When the plan was first proposed of arresting the members of the Corresponding 
Society, and proceeding capitally against them, it is said that Pitt, who had studied 
the law, expressed some disapprobation of the notion of ' constructive treason,' but 
he did not like to rely upon the objection that the Duke of Richmond and himself 
had supported similar doctrines, and no doubt in his heart he believed that, under 
the pretense of parliamentary reform, deeper designs were now carried on. The At- 
torney and Solicitor General, being consulted by the Chancellor, gave an opinion that 
the imputed conspiracy to change the form of government was a compassing of the 
King's death within the meaning of the statute of Edward HL — and the King him- 
self, upon this opinion, was eager for the prosecutions. So in an evil hour an order 
was made that they should be instituted, and warrants were signed for the arrest 
of the supposed traitors." " Happily, English juries," adds Lord Campbell, " and the 
returning sober sense of the English people, at last saved public liberty from the great 
peril to which it was then exposed." * ^ =^ " To the credit of George III., when the 
whole subject was understood by him, he rejoiced in the acquittals, and, laying all the 
blame on the Chancellor, he said, ' You have got us into the wrong box, my Lord, you 
have got us into the wrong box. Constructive treason won't do, my Lord, construc- 
tive treason won't do.' "^"^ 

Mr. Pitt saw, within three years from the commencement of the war, how idle it 
was to think of refusing to recognize the French Republic as forming part of the po- 
33 Lives of the Chancellors, vol. vi., p. 254. st Id. ib., p. 266. 



WILLIAM PITT. 575 

litical system of Europe. She had extorted that recognition from all around her at 
the point of the bayonet, and had nearly doubled her territory and dependencies at 
the expense of her neighbors. He therefore brought down a message from the King, 
acknowledging her government as estabhshed under the Directory in October, 1795, 
and in October, 1796, sent a plenipotentiary to Paris with proposals of peace. His 
terms were highly liberal. He offered to restore the conquests he had made from 
France, being all her rich colonies in the East and West Indies, receiving nothing in 
return, and only asking for Austria, as the ally of England, a similar restoration of 
the territory which had been wrested from her by the French. This the Directory 
refused, and, after a short negotiation, ordered the English embassador to quit Paris 
in twenty-four hours. 

The next year, 1797, was one of the darkest seasons that England had known for 
centuries. In April, Austria was compelled to sue for peace, lea\'ing the English to 
carry on the contest single-handed ; and at the moment when this intelligence ar- 
rived, a mutiny had broken out in the fleets both at the Nore and Spithead, more 
extensive and threatening than has ever occurred in the English navy ; while Ire- 
land was on the brink of rebellion, and actually had deputies in France soliciting 
the aid of her troops. Never were the funds so low, even in the worst periods of the 
American war. These events were ushered in by the greatest calamity that can 
befall a commercial people, a drain of specie arising from the operation of the war, 
which endangered the whole banking system of the country. Whether Mr. Pitt was 
to blame or not for the causes which produced this drain, it is certain that his daring 
resolution saved the country in this alarming crisis. He issued an order of the Privy 
Council, February 26th, 1797, requiring the Bank of England to ui?,pencl sijecie 'paij- 
ments. He might have avoided the personal hazard thus incurred by throwing the 
responsibility on Parliament, which was then in session — the order, indeed, was gen- 
erally considered as unconstitutional ; but the case would not admit of delay, a 
single night's debate on such a question might have destroyed all credit throughout 
the kingdom. Parliament and the country justified the course he took, while the 
bankers in every part of the empire united to sustain him. The mutiny was quelled 
by a judicious union of firmness and concession ; Ireland was held down for another 
year ; and Great Britain, instead of being plunged into the gulf of national and in- 
dividual bankruptcy as predicted by Mr. Fox, was placed on a vantage ground, which 
enabled her to sustain the pressure of the war without injury to her financial system. 
It is not wonderful that the friends of Mr. Pitt were loud in their applause of " the 
pilot that weathered the storm." 

About the middle of the same year, July, 1797, Mr. Pitt renewed his proposals of 
peace. He sent Lord Malmesbury to Lisle, offering, as in the former case, to restore 
all his conquests, and, as Austria was now out of the way, demanding nothing in re- 
turn. There were at this juncture two parties in the Director}', one for peace and 
the other for war ; and the negotiation changed its aspect, from time to time, during 
the two months of its continuance, as the one or the other obtained the mastery. It 
is a curious circumstance, showing the difficulties he had to encounter, that a similar 
division existed in his own cabinet ; so that among the " astounding disclosures" 
made in Lord Malmesbury's diary, we find that it was necessary for his Lordship to 
send two sets of dispatches every time he communicated with his government, one 
of a more general nature to be read by Lord Loughborough and his associates, who 
were bent on defeating the negotiation, and the other for Mr. Pitt, Lord Grenville, 
and Mr. Dundas ! The violent part of the Directory at last prevailed. War became 
the policy of the government, and Lord Malmesbury was dismissed. The French 
were to be deluded with new visions of conquest. Bonaparte was sent to subdue 
Egypt, and thus open a pathway to India ; and the whole of Hindostan, with its hund- 



676 WILLIAM PITT. 

red and fifty millions of inhabitants, was to become a tributary of the Republic. 
Mr. Pitt laid the subject before Parliament, November 10th, 1797, in a masterly 
speech, which is given in this collection. Parliament, without one dissenting voice, 
approved of his conduct, and united in the emphatic declaration, " We know that 
great exertions are wanted ; we are ready to make them ; and are, at all events, 
determined to stand or fall by the laws, liberties, and religion of our country." The 
people came forward with that noble spirit and unanimity which has always dis- 
tinguished the English in times of great peril, and subscribed fifteen hundred thou- 
sand pounds, not as a loan, but as a voluntary gift for carrying on the war. 

The Directory lasted a little more than four years, and then yielded to the power 
of Bonaparte, who usurped the government, and became First Consul in December, 
1799. He immediately proposed a peace, and it was now Mr. Pitt's turn to reject 
the ofier. Wounded by the insults which he had received in the tAVo preceding ne- 
gotiations, doubting whether the power of the First Consul would be at all more per- 
manent than that of others who had gone before him, and convinced, at all events, 
that he could not be sincere in his offer, since the genius and interests of Bonaparte 
led only to war, Mr. Pitt declined to negotiate on the subject. It appeared afterward, 
as already stated, that Bonaparte did not wish for peace. When the question came 
before Parliament, February 3d, 1800, he delivered the third of his speeches con- 
tained in this volume. It is the most elaborate of all his efforts ; and though worse 
reported than the other two, so far as language is concerned (Mr. Canning, indeed, 
says that Mr. Pitt suffered more in this respect than any orator of his day), it can 
hardly be too much admired for its broad and luminous statements, the closeness of 
its reasonings, and the fervor of its appeals. 

In 1800, Mr. Pitt accomplished his favorite plan of a legislative union of Ireland 
with Great Britain. But he was unable to effect it without a distinct intimation to 
the Roman Catholics that they should receive, as a reward for their acquiescence, 
the boon of emancipation which they had been so long seeking. He did this without 
the privity of the King, and knowing his scruples on the subject, but still with a firm 
belief that his Majesty, in attaining so great an object, would yield those scruples to 
the wishes of the most enlightened men in the kingdom. But the moment he dis- 
closed his plan to his colleagues. Lord Loughborough, says Lord Campbell, " set se- 
cretly to work, and composed a most elaborate and artful paper, showing forth the 
dangers likely to arise from Mr. Pitt's plan, in a manner admirably calculated to 
make an impression on the royal mind." The King was thus fortified against the pro- 
posal before Mr. Pitt had time to present his reasons ; and, adopting the course he 
had taken with the East India Bill of Mr. Fox, declared at the levee, with a view 
to have his words circulated, " that he should consider any person who voted for the 
measure proposed by his minister as perso7ially indisijosed toicard himself I'' Mr. 
Pitt justly considered this as a direct exclusion from the public service, and so in- 
formed the cabinet, January 22d, 1800, having held the office of Prime Minister be- 
tween sixteen and seventeen years. It was generally supposed at the time that he 
retired with a view to open a more easy way for negotiating a peace with France. 
He certainly desired peace, but the circumstances here stated were the true cause of 
his withdrawing from the government. 

Mr. Addington (afterward Lord Sidmouth) succeeded him, and Mr. Pitt gave the 
new minister a cordial support. Mr. Wilberforce, in his diary, says, " Pitt has really 
behaved with a magnanimity unparalleled in a politician, and is wishing to form for 
Addington the best and strongest possible administration." He approved of the 
peace ; and again, when the rupture took place, he gave the declaration of war, June 
18th, 1803, his warmest support. His speech on this occasion (which, through an 
accident in the gallery, was never reported) is said by Lord Brougham to have " ex- 



WILLIAM PITT. 577 

celled all his other performances in vehement and spirit-stirring declamation ; and 
this may be the more easily believed when we know that Mr. Fox, in his reply, said, 
' The orators of antiquity would have admired, probably would have envied it.' The 
last half hour is described as having been one unbroken torrent of the most majestic 
declamation." 

Mr. Addington had a timidity and inertness which wholly unfitted him for carry- 
ing on the war. The people were clamorous for a change of ministers, and Mr. Pitt 
was again called to the head of affairs, May 12th, 1804. Lord Brougham has re- 
proached him for accepting office without insisting upon Catholic emancipation ; but 
his former step had thrown the King into a fit of derangement for nearly three weeks, 
a new agitation of the subject might have produced the same result, and, as it was 
now obvious that emancipation could never be granted during the life of George IIL, 
Mr. Pitt, surely, was not to exclude himself from office on a mere point of etiquette, 
without the slightest advantage to the cause. He now formed his last great coali- 
tion against Bonaparte, but the battle of Austerlitz (December 2d, 1805) was a death 
blow to his hopes. Worn out with care and anxiety, his health had been declining 
for some months. On the 21st of January, 1806, the Bishop of Lincoln apprised him 
that his end was approaching. Mr. Pitt heard him with perfect composure, and after 
a few moments, rising as he spoke, and clasping his hands with the utmost fervor, 
he exclaimed, "I throw myseli^ entirely (laying a strong emphasis on the last word) 
upon the mercy of God through the merits of Christ." He now arranged all his sec- 
ular concerns with perfect calmness, and died at a quarter past four, Thursday morn- 
ing, the 23d of January, 1806, in the forty-seventh year of his age. He was buried 
near his father in Westminster Abbey, and his debts, amounting to £40,000, were 
paid by the public. Mr. Wilberforce, who knew him more intimately than any other 
man, has given this testimony to his character : " Mr. Pitt had his foibles, and of 
course they were not diminished by so long a continuance in office ; but for a clear 
and comprehensive view of the most complicated subject in all its relations ; for that 
fairness of mind which disposes a man to follow out, and, when overtaken, to recog- 
nize the truth ; for magnanimity, which made him ready to change his measures 
when he thought the good of the country required it, though he knew he should be 
charged with inconsistency on account of the change ; for willingness to give a fair 
hearing to all that could be urged against his own opinions, and to listen to the sug- 
gestions of men whose understandings he knew to be inferior to his own ; for per- 
sonal purity, disinterestedness, integrity, and love of country, I have never known his 
equal. His strictness in regard to truth was astonishing, considering the situation he 
so long filled." 

In person, Mr. Pitt was tall and slender ; his features were somewhat harsh, but 
lighted up with inteUigence by the flashes of his eye ; his gesture was animated, but 
devoid of grace ; his articulation was remarkably full and clear, filling the largest 
room with the volume of sound. His manner of entering the House was strikingly 
indicative of his absorption in the business before him. " From the instant he passed 
the doorway," says Wraxall, " he advanced up the floor with a quick and firm step, 
his head erect and thrown back, looking neither to the right nor the left, nor favoring 
with a nod or a glance any of the individuals seated on either side, among whom 
many who possessed £5000 a year would have been gratified even by so slight a 
mark of attention," Those who knew him best as a speaker expatiated with delight 
on "the perfection of his arrangement, the comprehensiveness of his reasonings, the 
power of his sarcasm, the magnificence of his declamation, the majestic tone of his 
voice, the legislative authority of his manner, and his felicitous observance of the 
temper of his audience." Mr. Canning has given the following sketch of his char- 
acter, which will form an appropriate conclusion to this memoir. 

o 



578 WILLIAM PITT. 

" The character of this illustrious statesman early passed its ordeal. Scarcely had 
he attained the age at which reflection commences, when Europe with astonishment 
beheld him fiUing the first place in the councils of his country, and managing the 
vast mass of its concerns with all the vigor and steadiness of the most matured wis- 
dom. Dignity — strength — discretion — these were among the masterly qualities of 
his mind at its first dawn. He had been nurtured a statesman, and his knowledge 
was of that kind which always lay ready for practical application. Not dealing in 
the subtleties of abstract politics, but moving in the slow, steady procession of reason, 
his conceptions were reflective, and his views correct. Habitually attentive to the 
concerns of government, he spared no pains to acquaint himself with whatever was 
connected, however minutely, with its prosperity. He was devoted to the state. Its 
interests engrossed all his study and engaged all his care. It was the element alone 
in which he seemed to live and move. He allowed himself but little recreation from 
his labors. His mind was always on its station, and its activity was unremitted. 

" He did not hastily adopt a measure, nor hastily abandon it. The plan struck 
out by him for the preservation of Europe was the result of prophetic wisdom and 
profound policy. But, though defeated in many respects by the selfish ambition and 
short-sighted imbecility of foreign powers — whose rulers were too venal or too weak 
to follow the flight of that mind which would have taught them to outwing the 
storm — the policy involved in it has still a secret operation on the conduct of sur- 
rounding states. His plans were full of energy, and the principles which inspired 
them looked beyond the consequences of the hour. 

" He knew nothing of that timid and wavering cast of mind which dares not abide 
by its own decision. He never sufTered popular prejudice or party clamor to turn 
him aside from any measure which his deliberate judgment had adopted. He had 
a proud reliance on himself, and it was justified. Like the sturdy warrior leaning on 
his own battle-ax, conscious where his strength lay, he did not readily look beyond it. 

"As a debater in the House of Commons, his speeches were logical and argument- 
ative. If they did not often abound in the graces of metaphor, or sparkle with the 
brilhancy of wit, they were always animated, elegant, and classical. The strength 
of his oratory was intrinsic ; it presented the rich and abundant resource of a clear 
discernment and a correct taste. His speeches are stamped with inimitable marks 
of originality. When replying to his opponents, his readiness was not more conspic- 
uous than his energy. He was always prompt and always dignified. He could 
sometimes have recourse to the sportiveness of irony, but he did not often seek any 
other aid than was to be derived from an arranged and extensive knowledge of his 
subject. This qualified him fully to discuss the arguments of others, and forcibly to 
defend his own. Thus armed, it was rarely in the power of his adversaries, mighty 
as they were, to beat him from the field. His eloquence, occasionally rapid, electric, 
and vehement, was always chaste, winning, and persuasive — not awing into acqui- 
escence, but arguing into conviction. His understanding was bold and comprehen- 
sive. Nothing seemed too remote for its reach or too large for its grasp. 

"Unallured by dissipation and unswayed by pleasure, he never sacrificed the na- 
tional treasure to the one, or the national interest to the other. To his unswerving 
integrity the most authentic of all testimony is to be found in that unbounded public 
confidence which followed him throughout the whole of his political career. 

" Absorbed as he was in the pursuits of public life, he did not neglect to prepare 
himself in silence for that higher destination, which is at once the incentive and re- 
ward of human virtue. His talents, superior and splendid as they were, never made 
him forgetful of that Eternal Wisdom from which they emanated. The faith and 
fortitude of his last moments were affecting and exemplary." 



SPEECH 

OF MR. PITT ON THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COM- 
MONS, APRIL 2, 1792. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Numerous petitions for the abolition of the African slave ti-ade were presented to Parliament at the 
session of 1787-8. On the 9th of May, 1788, Mr. Pitt, acting for Mr. Wilberforce, who was confined by 
illness, moved that " the subject be taken up early the next session." This was accordingly done on 
the 19th of May, 1789, when Mr. Wilberforce laid open the euomiities of this traffic in a speech of great 
compass and power. So conclusive were his statements, that Mr. Pitt was prepared to carry through 
the measure by an immediate vote ; but yielded, at last, to a demand for the examination of witnesses 
in behalf of the slave merchants, remarking, however, that " he could by no means submit to the ultimate 
procrastination of so important a business." Every artifice was now used to protract the inquiry. The 
passions of the colonists were inflamed; the wealth and influence of the great commercial towns engaged 
in the trade, Liverpool, Bristol, &c., were arrayed against the measure ; the revolution in St. Domingo, 
and the insurrection in Dominica, furnished plausible arguments to alarm the timid ; the speedy depopu- 
lation of the West Lidia Islands, with the loss of seventy millions sterling of property, was urged as the 
inevitable result ; until the nation was staggered, and many well-wishers of the cause began to waver 
in their opinions. Some of Mr. Pitt's warmest supporters were of this number, and especially Mr. Dun- 
das, with whom it was impossible for him to break, so that he felt himself no longer able to make it a 
ministerial question, or to insist on its being carried as a measure of the government. In the mean time, 
Mr. Wilberforce and his friends were not idle. Evidence of the most conclusive kind was collected from 
every quarter, and presented in so clear a light, as to relieve the public mind from the terrors which had 
been thrown around the subject, and to give a full exhibition of the unparalleled atrocities of the traffic, 
as then actually carried on. 

Early in 1792, five hundred and seventeen petitions against the slave trade were laid before Parlia- 
ment; and on the 2d of April, Mr. Wilberforce made a motion, supported by an able speech, for its m 
mediate suppression. After a protracted debate, Mr. Dundas rose, and, declaring himself to be in favor 
of the ultimate extinction of the trade, pleaded for delay, insisting that the object aimed at by Mr. Wil- 
berforce would be secured with far gi-eater ease and certainty by a gradual than by an immediate abo- 
lition. Mr. Addington, the Speaker, followed him in the same strain. This called forth a reply from Mr. 
Pitt in the speech before us, being one of the ablest pieces of mingled argument and eloquence which he 
ever produced. He first took up the question of expediency, comparing the two schemes of gi'adual and 
immediate abolition ; and while he put down Mr. Dundas and Mr. Addington completely on every point, 
he showed admirable tact in so doing it, as to leave no room for mortified feeling or personal resentment. 
He then proceeded to his main ground, that oi right. "I now come to Africa! Why ought the slave 
trade to be abolished ? Because it is incurable injustice. How much stronger, then, is the argument for 
immediate than for gi-adual abolition!" On this topic he put forth all his strength, exposing, in tones of 
lofty and indignant eloquence, the complicated enormities of a system which had made the shores of Af- 
rica for centuries a scene of cruelty and bloodshed, and brought infamy on the character of Chi-istian na- 
tions engaged in this guilty traffic. Mr. Wilberforce says in his Journal, " Windham, who has no love 
for Pitt, tells me that Fox and Grey, with whom he wallted home from this debate, agi-eed in thinking 
Pitt's speech one of the most extraordinary displays of eloquence they had ever heard. For the last 
twenty minutes he really seemed to be inspired." — P. 111. 

SPEECH, &c. 



Mr. Speaker, — At this hour of the morning 
[four o'clock], I am afraid, sir, I am too much 
exhausted to enter so fully into the subject be- 
fore the committee as I could wish : but if my 
bodily strength is in any degree equal to the task, 
I feel so strongly the magnitude of this question, 
that I am extremely earnest to deliver my senti- 
ments, which I rise to do with more satisfaction, 
because I now look forward to the issue of this 
business with considerable hope of success. 

The debate has this night taken a turn which, 



though it has produced a variety of new sugges- 
tions, has, upon the whole, contracted „ 

^, . . ^ . , Ground nar- 

this question nito a much narrower rowed by 
point than it was ever brought into be- ^''* '^®''^'*- 
fore. 

I can not say that I quite agree with the right 
honorable gentleman over the way 
[Mr. Fox], for I am far from deplor- the trade mus't 
ing all that has been said by my two ^^^^pp'-^^^'^J- 
honorable friends [Mr. Dundas and Mr. Adding- 
ton]. I rather rejoice that they have now brought 



580 



MR. PITT ON 



[1792. 



this subject to a fair issue ; that something, at 
least, is already gained, and that the question has 
taken altogether a new course this night. ^ It is 
true, a difference of opinion has been stated, and 
has been urged with all the force of argument 
that could be given to it. But permit me to say 
that this difference has been urged upon princi- 
ples very far removed from those which were 
maintained by the opponents of my honorable 
friend [Mr. Wilberforce], when he first brought 
forward his motion. There are very few of 
those who have spoken this night, who have not 
thought it their duty to declare their full and 
entire concurrence with my honorable friend in 
promoting the abolition of the slave trade as 
their ultimate object. However we may differ 
as to the time and manner of it, we are agreed 
in the abolition itself; and my honorable friends 
have expressed their agreement in this sentiment 
with that sensibility upon the subject, which hu- 
manity does most undoubtedly require. I do not, 
however, think they yet perceive what are the 
necessary consequences of their own concession, 
or follow up their own principles to their just 
conclusion. 

The point now in dispute between us is a dif- 
Tbe present fcrencc mcrcly as to the period of time 
6nSj°one ^^ which the abolition of the slave trade ■ 
of time. ought to take place^ I therefore con- 
gratulate this House, the country, and the world, 
that this great point is gained. That we may 
now consider this trade as having received its 
condemnation ; that its sentence is sealed ; that 
this curse of mankind is seen by the House in its 
true light ; and that the greatest stigma on our 
national character which ever yet existed is 
about to be removed ; and. sir, which is still more 
important, that mankind, I trust, in general, are 
now likely to be delivered from the greatest prac- 
tical evil that has ever afflicted the human race ; 
from the severest and most extensive calamity 
recorded in the history of the world ! 

In proceeding to give my reasons for concur- 
Ground of i^iiig with my honorable friend [Mr. Wil- 
discussion. berforce] in his motion, I shall necessa- 
rily advert to those topics which my honorable 
friends near me [Dundas and Addington] have 
touched upon, and which they stated to be their 
motives for preferring a gradual, and, in some 
degree, a distant abolition of the slave trade, to 
the more immediate and direct measure now 
proposed to you. Beginning as I do, with de- 
claring that, in this respect, I differ completely 
from my right honorable friends near me, I do 
not, however, mean to say that I differ as to one 
observation which has been pressed rather strong- 

• It is one characteristic of Mr. Pitt to open a dis- 
cussion by some striking remark of this kind — some 
difference between him and a preceding speaker, 
some distinction, &c., &.c. — which gives him an op- 
portunity to state his ground with great clearness, 
and to place the question on its true footing. This 
throws a light forward upon the entire course he 
has to traverse, and conduces greatly to that lumin- 
ous exposition of a subject for which he was so 
much celebrated. 



ly by them. If they can show that their propo- 
sition of a gradual abolition is more likely than 
ours to secure the object which we have in view ; 
that by proceeding gradually we shall arrive 
more speedily at our end, and attain it with more 
certainty, than by a direct vote immediately to 
abolish ; if they can show to the satisfaction both 
of myself and the committee, that our proposi- 
tion has more the appearance of a speedy aboli- 
tion than the reality of it, undoubtedly they will 
in this case make a convert of me, and my hon- 
orable friend w^ho moved the question. They 
will make a convert of every man among us 
who looks to this (which I trust we all do) as a 
question not to be determined by theoretical prin- 
ciples or enthusiastic feelings, but considers the 
practicability of the measure, aiming simply to 
effect his object in the shortest time, and in the 
surest possible manner." If, however, I shall be 
able to show that our measure proceeds raoi-e 
directly to its object, and secures it with more 
certainty, and within a less distant period ; and 
that the slave trade will on our plan be abolish- 
ed sooner than on theirs, may I not then hope 
that my right honorable friends will be as ready 
to adopt our proposition, as we should in the 
other case be willing to accede to theirs? 

One of my right honorable friends has stated 
that an act passed here for the aboli- preliminary 
tion of the slave trade would not se- inquiry: can 

, , . . - , . _ , - immediate 

cure Its abolition. JNow, sir, 1 should abolition be 
be glad to know why an act of the ^"'"''''*''' 
British Legislature, enforced by all those sanc- 
tions which we have undoubtedly the power and 
the right to apply, is not to be effectual ; at least, 
as to every material purpose ? Will not the ex- 
ecutive power have the same appointment of the 
ofl[icers and the courts of judicature, by which 
all the causes relating to this subject must be 
tried, that it has in other cases ? Will there not 
be the same system of law by which we now 
maintain a monopoly of commerce ? If the same 
lavA', sir, be applied to the prohibition of The laws 
the slave trade which is applied in the fy^8tr*([ng"" 
case of other contraband commerce, enough. 
with all the same means of the country to back 
it, I am at a loss to know why the actual and 
total abolition is not as likely to be effected in 
this way, as by any plan or project of my hon- 
orable friends, for bringing about a gradual ter- 
mination of it.^ But my observation is extreme- 
ly fortified by what fell from my honorable friend 
who spoke last. He has told you, sir, that if you 



2 It is hardly necessary to remark how soon Mr. 
Pitt enters (as in these three sentences) on one of 
those amplijications by w^hich he was accustomed 
to enforce his thoughts, presenting them in detail 
under different aspects upon which the mind might 
dwell. 

^ Mr. Pitt was much accustomed to argue, as in 
these four sentences, by exhaustion — by taking all 
the suppositions belonging to the case, and deduc- 
ing the result. The turn which he next gives to 
the argument, by making Mr. Addington testify 
against himself, is an instance of the extraordinary 
sagacity for which he was distinguished in sifting 
the arguments of others. 



1792.] 



THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE. 



581 



will have patience with it for a few years, the 
Mr. Adding- slave trade must drop of itself, from 
tu?ne"fga"nJl^ the increasing dearness of the com- 
himseif. modity imported, and the increasing 

progress, on the other hand, of internal popula- 
tion. Is it true, then, that the importations are so 
expensive and disadvantageous already, that the 
internal population is even now becoming a 
cheaper resource ? I ask, then, if you leave to the 
importer no means of importation but by smug- 
gling, and if, besides all the present disadvanta- 
ges, you load him with all the charges and haz- 
ards of the smuggler, by taking care that the 
laws against smuggling are in this case watch- 
fully and rigorously enforced, is there any dan- 
ger of any considerable -supply of fresh slaves 
being poured into the islands through this chan- 
nel ? And is there any real ground of fear, be- 
cause a few slaves may have been smuggled in 
or out of the islands, that a bill will be useless 
and ineffectual on any such ground ? The ques- 
tion under these circumstances will not bear a 
dilute. 

I. Perhaps, however, my honorable friends 
may take up another ground, and say, 
It IS true your measure would shut 
out further importations more immediately ; but 
we do not mean to shut them out immediately. 
We think it right, on grounds of general expedi- 
ency, that they should not be immediately shut 
out." Let us, therefore, now come to this ques- 
tion of the expediency of making the abolition dis- 
tant and gradual, rather than immediate. 

The argument of expediency, in my opinion, 
like every other argument in this disquisition, 
will not justify the continuance of the slave trade 
for one unnecessary hour. Supposing it to be 
in our power, which I have shown it is, to en- 
force the prohibition from this present time, the 
expediency of doing it is to me so clear, that if 
I went on this principle alone, I should not feel 
a moment's hesitation. What is the argument 
Population of cxpcdiency stated on the other side ? 
question, jj- jg doubtcd whcthcr the deaths and 
births in the islands are, as yet, so nearly equal 
as to insure the keeping up a sufficient stock of 
laborers. In answer to this, I took the liberty 
of mentioning in a former year what appeared 
to me to be the state of population at that time. 
My observations were taken from documents 
which we have reason to judge authentic, and 
which carried on the face of them the conclu- 
sions I then stated ; they were the clear, simple, 
and obvious result of a careful examination w^hich 
I made into this subject, and any gentleman who 
will take the same pains may arrive at the same 
degree of satisfaction. 

These calculations, however, applied to a pe- 
(1.) Births among riod of time that is now four or five 
o^V"ite"q'iTr'o years past. The births were then, 
the deaths. j^ the general view of them, nearly 

equal to the deaths ; and. as the state of popula- 
tion was shown, by a considerable retrospect, to 
be regularly increasing, an excess of births must, 
before this time, have taken place. 

Another observation has been made as to the 



disproportion of the sexes. This, however, is a 
disparity which existed in any mate- (2)Thedi3- 
rial degree only in former years ; it [exes iris'''^ 
is a disparity of which the slave trade ceased, 
has been itself the cause, which will gradually 
diminish as the slave trade diminishes, and must 
entirely cease if the trade shall be abolished ; 
but which, nevertheless, is made the very plea 
for its continuance. I believe this disproportion 
of the sexes, taking the whole number of the isl- 
ands, Creole as well as imported Africans, the 
latter of whom occasion all the disproportion, is 
not now by any means considerable. 

But, sir, I also showed that the great mortal- 
ity, which turned the balance so as (3.) Abolition 
to make the deaths appear more nu- '^'""'^ remove 

1 i one great 

merous than the births, arose too from Bource of mor- 
the imported Africans, who die in ex- amon!; the im 
traordinary numbers in the seasoning, p'"'^*-''* ""^sroes. 
If, therefore, the importation of negroes should 
cease, every one of the causes of mortality which 
I have now stated would cease also ; nor can I 
conceive any reason why the present number of 
laborers should not maintain itself in the West 
Indies, except it be from some artificial cause, 
some fault in the islands ; such as the impolicy 
,of their governors, or the cruelty of the mana- 
gers and officers whom they employ. I will 
not reiterate all that I said at that time, or go 
through island by island. It is true there is a 
difference in the ceded islands ; and I state them 
possibly to be, in some respects, an excepted 
case. But we are not now to enter into the sub- 
ject of the mortality in clearing new lands. It 
is, sir, undoubtedly another question ; the mor- 
tality here is ten-fold ; neither is it to be consid- 
ered as the carrying on, but as the setting on 
foot a slave trade for the purpose of peopling the 
colony ; a measure which I think will not now 
be maintained. I therefore desire gentlemen to 
tell me fairly, whether the period they look to 
is not now arrived ; whether, at this hour, the 
West Indies may not be declared to have actual- 
ly attained a state in which they can maintain 
their, population ? And upon the answer I must 
necessarily receive, I think I could safely rest 
the whole of the question. 

One honorable gentleman has rather ingeni- 
ously observed, that one or other of His opponents' 

.1 . ^- c i dilemma on this 

these two assertions ot ours must subject set 
necessarily be false : that either the ''*"''^- 
population must be decreasing, wiiich we deny, 
ox*, if the population is increasing, that the slaves 
must be perfectly well treated (this being the 
cause of such population), which we deny also. 
That the population is rather increasing than 
otherwise, and also that the general treatment 
is by no means so good as it ought to be, are 
both points which have been separately pi'oved 
by different evidences ; nor are these two points 
so entirely incompatible. The ill treatment must 
be very great, indeed, in order to diminish ma- 
terially the population of any race of people. 
That it is not so extremely great as to do this, 
I will admit. I will even admit, if you please, 
that this charge may possibly have been some 



MR. PITT ON 



[1792. 



times exaggerated ; and I certainly think that 
it applies less and less as we come nearer to the 
present times."* 

But let us see how this contradiction of ours, 
Dilemma ^^ ^^ ^^ thought, really stands, and how- 
turned back the explanation of it will completely 

on its author. ., . , ^, ■ . • 

settle our minds on the point in ques- 
tion. Do the slaves diminish in numbers? It 
can be nothing but ill treatment that causes the 
diminution. This ill treatment the abolition must 
and will restrain. In this case, therefore, we 
ought to vote for the abolition. On the other 
hand, do you choose to say that the slaves clear- 
ly increase in numbers '? Then you Want no 
importations, and, in this case also, you may 
safely vote for the abolition. Or, if you choose 
to say, as the third and only other case which can 
be put, and which perhaps is the nearest to the 
truth, that the population is nearly stationary, 
and the treatment neither so bad nor so good as 
it might be ; then surely, sir, it will not be de- 
nied that this, of all others, is, on each of the two 
grounds, the proper period for stopping farther 
supplies ; for your population, which you own is 
already stationary, will thus be made undoubt- 
edly to increase from the births, and the good 
treatment of your present slaves, which I am 
now supposing is but very moderate, will be 
necessarily improved also by the same measure 
of abolition. I say, therefore, that these propo- 
sitions, contradictory as they may be represent- 
ed, are in truth not at all inconsistent, but even 
come in aid of each other, and lead to a conclu- 
sion that is decisive. And let it be always re- 
membered that, in this branch of my argument, 
I have only in view the well-being of the W'est 
Indies, and do not now ground any thing on the 
African part of the question. 

But, sir, I may carry these observations re- 
(4.) Any remain- spccting thc islands much farther. 
cifna'nd'^ougbtto It IS withiu the power of the colo- 
the'cXniai'g''o^v- "^^ts, and it is then their indispensa- 
ernments. blc duty to apply thcmselves to the 

correction of those various abuses by which pop- 
ulation is restrained. The most important con- 
sequences may be expected to attend colonial 
regulations for this purpose. With the improve- 
ment of internal population, the condition of ev- 
ery negro will improve also : his libei'ty will 
advance, or, at least, he will be approaching to 
a state of liberty. Nor can you increase the 
happiness, or extend the freedom of the negro, 
without adding in an equal degree to the safe- 
ty of the islands, and of all their inhabitants. 
Thus, sir, in the place of slaves, who naturally 
have an interest directly opposite to that of their 
masters, and are therefore viewed by them with 
an eye of constant .suspicion, you will create a 
body of valuable citizens and subjects, forming a 
part of thc same community, having a common 
interest with their superiors in the security and 
prosperity of the whole. 



* Mr. Pitt's peculiar dexterity in reply is here 
' shown, in the ease with which he extricates him- 
self from this dilemma and turns it upon his oppo- 
nent in the next paragraph. 



And here let me add, that in proportion as 
you increase the happiness of these They have ev- 
unfortunate beings, you will undoubt- LTerest't'^Vet- 
edly increase in effect the quantity of tkl^n^of tueir*^'' 
their labor also. Gentlemen talk of s'aves. 
the diminution of the labor of the islands ! I 
will venture to assert that, even if in consequence 
of the abolition there were to be some decrease 
in the number of hands, the quantity of work 
done, supposing the condition of the slaves to 
improve, would by no means diminish in the 
same proportion ; perhaps would be far from di- 
minishing at all. For if you restore to this de- 
graded race the true feelings of men ; if you take 
them out from among the order of brutes, and 
place them on a level with the rest of the hu- 
man species, they will then work with that en- 
ergy which is natural to men, and their labor 
will be productive, in a thousand ways, above 
what it has yet been : as the labor of a man is 
always more productive than that of a mere 
brute. 

It generally happens that in every bad cause 
information arises out of the evidence .p^j^ proved 
of its defenders themselves, which ''■■o™ (^'"•'s ''«■ 

' nished by the 

serves to expose m one part or other west Indians 
the weakness of their defense. It is * ^"^^'^ '^^" 
the characteristic of such a cause, that if it be at 
all gone into, even by its own supporters, it is li- 
able to be ruined by the contradictions in which 
those who maintain it are forever involved. 

The committee of the Privy Council of Great 
Britain sent over certain queries to the They testify, 
West India islands, with a view of elu- does'lwice^he 
cidating the pre.sent subject; and they ^^Hngtr'him- 
particularly inquired whether the ne- ^«"'- 
groes had any days or hours allotted to them in 
which they might work for themselves. The 
assemblies in their answers, with an air of great 
satisfaction, state the labor of the slaves to be 
moderate, and the West India system to be well 
calculated to promote the domestic happiness of 
the slaves. They add, '• that proprietors are not 
compelled by law to allow their slaves any part 
of the six working days of the week for them- 
selves, but that it is the general practice to al- 
low them one afternoon in every week out of 
crop-time ; which, with such hours as they choose 
to work on Sundays, is time amply sufficient for 
their own purposes." Now, therefore, will the 
negroes, or I may rather say, do the negroes 
work for their own emolument ? I beg the com- 
mittee's attention to this point. The Assembly 
of Grenada proceeds to state — I have their own 
words for it, "that though the negroes are al- 
lowed the afternoons of only one day in every 
week, they will do as much work in that after- 
noon, when employed for their own benefit, as in 
the whole day when employed in their master's 
service." 

Now, sir, I will desire you to burn all my cal- 
culations ; to disbelieve, if you please. This a decisive 
every word I have said on the pi-esent fnfp'^-ov^ing their 
state of population : nay, I will admit, '^°'"i"-'°"- 
for the sake of argument, that the numbers are 
decreasing, and the productive labor at present 



1792.] 



THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE. 



583 



insufficient for the cultivation of those countries ; 
and I will then ask, whether the increase in 
the quantity of labor which is reasonably to be 
expected from the improved condition of the 
slaves is not, by the admission of the islands 
themselves, by their admission not merely of an 
argument but a fact, far more than sufficient to 
counterbalance any decrease which can be ra- 
tionally apprehended from a defective state of 
their population? Why, sir, a negro, if he 
works for himself, and not for a master, will do 
double work ! This is their own account. If 
you will believe the planters, if you will believe 
the Legislature of the islands, the productive la- 
bor of the colonies would, in case the negroes 
worked as free laborers instead of slaves, be 
literally doubled. Half the present laborers, on 
this supposition, would suffice for the whole cul- 
tivation of our islands on the present scale ! I 
therefore confidently ask the House, whether, in 
considering the whole of this question, we may 
not fairly look forward to an improvement in the 
condition of these unhappy and degraded beings ; 
not only as an event desirable on the ground of 
humanity and political prudence ; but also as a 
means of increasing, very considerably indeed, 
even without any increasing population, the pro- 
ductive industry of the islands ? 

When gentlemen are so nicely balancing the 
past and future means of cultivating the planta- 
tions, let me request them to put this argument 
into the scale ; and the more they consider it, the 
more will they be satisfied that both the solidity 
of the principle vi^hich I have stated, and the 
fact which I have just quoted, in the very words 
of the Colonial Legislature, will bear me out in 
every inference I have drawn. I think they will 
perceive, also, that it is the undeniable duty of 
this House, on the grounds of true policy, imme- 
diately to sanction and carry into effect that 83-3- 
teni which insures these important advantages ; 
in addition to all those other inestimable bless- 
ings which follow in their train. 

If, therefore, the argument of expediency, as 
, applying to the West India islands, is 

Expediency de- / ^ -^ " , • , , • • • 

mands this im- the tcst by which this question is to 
provement. ^^ tried, 1 trust I havc now establish- 
ed this proposition, namely, that whatever tends 
most speedily and effectually to meliorate the 
condition of the slaves, is undoubtedly, on the 
ground of expediency, leaving justice out of the 
question, the main object to be pursued. 

That the immediate abolition of the slave 
And therefore trade wiU uiost eminently have this 
pr^srolfo/the effect, and that it is the only measure 
slave trade. from which this effect can in any con- 
siderable degree be expected, are points to which 
I shall presently come ; but befox-e I enter upon 
them, let me notice one or two farther circum- 
stances. 

We are told, and by respectable and w^ell-in- 
other consider- formcd pcrsons, that the purchase of 
to"the'same° "©w ucgrocs has bccu injurious in- 
conciusion. stgaj of profitable to the planters 
themselves ; so large a proportion of these un- 
happy wretches being found to perish in the sea- 



soning. Writers well versed in this subject 
have even advised that, in order to re- («.) The pur- 
move the temptation which the slave ne^roe"/from 
trade offers to expend large sums in frnpoverfJifth^ 
this injudicious way, the door of im- p'^inters. 
portation should be shut. This very plan we 
now propose, the mischief of which is represented 
to be so great as to outweigh so many other mo- 
mentous considerations, has actually been recom- 
mended by some of the best authorities, as one 
highly requisite to be adopted on the very prin- 
ciple of advantage to the islands ; not merely on 
that principle of general and political advantage 
on which I have already touched, but for the ad- 
vantage of the very individuals who w^ould oth- 
erwise be most forward in purchasing slaves. 
On the part of the West Indies it is urged, 
"the planters are in debt : they are already dis- 
tressed ; if you stop the slave trade, they will be 
ruined." Mr. Long, the celebrated historian 
of Jamaica, recommends the stopping of impor- 
tations, as a receipt for enabling the plantations 
which are embarrassed to get out of debt. I 
will quote his w^ords. Speaking of the usurious 
terms on which money is often borrow^ed for the 
purchase of fresh slaves, he advises " the laying 
a duty equal to a prohibition on all negroes im- 
ported for the space of four or five years, except 
for re-exportation." "Such a law," he pro- 
ceeds to say, "would be attended with the fol- 
lowing good consequences. It would put an 
immediate stop to these extortions. It would 
enable the planter to retrieve his affairs by pre- 
venting him from running in debt, either by 
renting or purchasing of negroes. It would 
render such recruits less necessary, by the re- 
doubled care he would be obliged to take of his 
present stock, the preservation of their lives and 
health. And, lastly, it would raise the value of 
negroes in the island. A North American prov- 
ince, by this prohibition alone for a few years, 
from being deeply plunged in debt, has become 
independent, rich, and flourishing." On this au- 
thority of Mr. Long I rest the question, whether 
the prohibition of further importations is that 
rash, impolitic, and completely ruinous measure, 
which it is so confidently declared to be with re- 
spect to our West India plantations. 

I do not, however, mean, in thus tkeatfaig this 
branch of the subject, absolittel^^to 'i„de,f,nifi^fion 
exclude the question of indemnifica- not refused, but 

^ . . „ •111- the case must 

tlOn on the supposition Ot possible dlS- be clearly made 

advantages affecting the West Indies 
through the abolition of the slave trade. But 
w^hen gentlemen set up a claim of compensation 
merely on those general allegations, which are 
all that I have yet heard from them, I can only 
answer, let them produce their case in a distinct 
and specific form ; and if upon any practicable 
or reasonable grounds it shall claim considera- 
tion, it will then be time enough for Parliament 
to decide upon it. 

I now come to another circumstance of great 
weight, connected with this part of the question. 
I mean the danger to which the islands are ex- 
posed from those negroes who are newly im- 



584 



MR. PITT ON 



[1792. 



ported. This, sir, like the observation which 
(&.) insurrec- I lately made, is no mere speculation 
tionstobedread- ^f ours ; for here, ajjain, I refer you 

ed chiefly irom ' j o ' c t • 

imported ne- to Mr. Lonfr, the historian of Jamai- 

groes, not lUose __ ^ »• i i r il 

bora m the isi. ca. He treats particularly ot the 
'^°'^^" dangers to be dreaded from the intro- 

duction of Coroniantine negroes ; an appellation 
under which are comprised several descriptions 
of Africans obtained on the Gold Coast, whose 
native country is not exactly known, and who 
are purchased in a variety of markets, having 
been brought from some distance inland. With 
a view of preventing insurrections, he advises 
that, " by laying a duty equal to a prohibition, no 
more of these Coromantines should be bought;" 
and, after noticing one insurrection which hap- 
pened through their means, he tells you of an- 
other in the following year, in which thirty-three 
Coromantines, most of whom had been newly 
imported, suddenly rose, and in the space of an 
hour murdered and wounded no less than nine- 
teen white persons. 

To the authority of Mr. Long, both in this 
and other parts of his work, I may add the re- 
corded opinion of the committee of the House of 
Assembly of Jamaica itself; who, in consequence 
of a rebellion among the slaves, were appointed 
to inquire into the best means of preventing fu- 
ture insurrections. The committee reported, 
" that the rebellion had originated (like most 
or all others) with the Coromantines ;" and they 
proposed that a bill should be brought in " for 
laying a higher duty on the importation of these 
particular negroes," which was intended to oper- 
ate as a pi'ohibition. 

But the danger is not confined to the impor- 
tation of Coromantines. Mr. Long, carefully 
investigating as he does the causes of such fre- 
quent insurrections, particularly at Jamaica, ac- 
counts for them from the greatness of its general 
importations. "In two years and a half," says 
he, " twenty-seven thousand negroes have been 
imported." "No wonder we have rebellions! 
Twenty-seven thousand in two years and a 
half!" Why, sir, I believe that in some late 
years there have been as many imported into 
the same island within the same period ! Sure- 
ly, sir, when gentlemen talk so vehemently of 
the safety of the islands, and charge us with be- 
ing so indifferent to it ; when they speak of the 
calamities of St. Domingo, and of similar dan- 
gers impending over their own heads at the 
present hour, it ill becomes them to be the per- 
sons w^ho are crying out for further importations. 
It ill becomes them to charge upon us the crime 
of stirring up insurrections — upon us who are 
only adopting the very principles which Mr. 
Long — which in part even the Legislature of 
Jamaica itself laid down in the time of danger, 
with an avowed view to the prevention of any 
such calamity. 

The House, I am sure, will easily believe it is 
no small satisfaction to me, that among the many 
arguments for prohibiting the slave trade which 
crowd upon my mind, the security of our West 
India possessions against internal commotions, as 



well as foreign enemies, is among the most prom 
inent and most forcible. And here let The supprea 
me apply to my two right honorable trade° there- 



no hazard, 

part of the argument they do not see ^"rif ao\ir' 
reason for immediate abolition ? Why west indies 
should you any longer import into those coun- 
tries that w^hich is the very seed of insurrection 
and rebellion ? Why should you persist in in- 
troducing those latent principles of conflagra- 
tion, which if they should once burst forth, may 
annihilate in a single day the industry of a hund- 
red years ? Why will you subject yourselves, 
with open eyes, to the evident and imminent 
risk of a calamity which may throw you back 
a whole century in your profits, in your cultiva- 
tion, in your progress to the emancipation of 
your slaves ; and disappointing at once every 
one of these golden expectations, may retard, 
not only the accomplishment of that happy sys- 
tem which I have attempted to describe, but 
may cut off even your opportunity of taking any 
one introductory step ? Let us begin from this 
time ! Let us not commit these important inter- 
ests to any further hazard ! Let us prosecute this 
great object from this very hour ! Let us vote 
that the abolition of the slave trade shall be im- 
mediate, and not left to I know not wiiat future 
time or contingency ! Will my right honorable 
friends answer for the safety of the islands dur- 
ing any imaginable intervening period ? Or do 
they think that any little advantages of the kind 
which they state, can have any weight in that 
scale of expediency in which this great question 
ought undoubtedly to be tried. 

Thus stated, and thus alone, sir, can it be 
truly stated, to what does the whole of Argument 
my right honorable friend's argument, ^""""'^'i"?- 
on the head of expediency, amount ? It amounts 
but to this : The colonies, on the one hand, would 
have to struggle with some few difficulties and 
disadvantages at the first, for the sake of obtain- 
ing on the other hand immediate security to 
their leading interests ; of insuring, sir, even 
their own political existence ; and for the sake 
also of immediately commencing that system of 
progressive improvement in the condition of 
slaves, which is necessary to raise them from 
the state of brutes to that of rational beings, but 
w^hich never can begin until the introduction of 
these new, disaffected^ and dangerous Africans into 
the same gangs shall have been stopped. If any 
argument can in the slightest degree justify the 
severity that is now so generally practiced in the 
treatment of the slaves, it must be the introduc- 
tion of these Africans. It is the introduction of 
these Africans that renders all idea of emancipa- 
tion for the present so chimerical, and the very 
mention of it so dreadful. It is the introduction 
of these Africans that keeps down the condition 
of all plantation negroes. Whatever system of 
treatment is deemed necessary by the planters 
to be adopted toward these new Africans, ex- 
tends itself to the other slaves also ; instead, 
therefore, of deferring the hour when you will 
finally put an end to importations, vainly pur- 



1792.] 



THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE. 



585 



posing that the condition of your present slaves 
should previously be mended, you must, in the 
very first instance, stop your importations, if you 
hope to introduce any rational or practicable 
plan, either of gradual emancipation or present 
general improvement. 

II. Being now done with this question of expe- 
ciaini of Parw- dicncy as affecting the islands, I come 
moniai rtg-Ar. ^^^^ ^^ ^ proposition advanccd by my 
right honorable friend [Mr. Dundas], which ap- 
peared to intimate that, on account of some pat- 
rimonial rights of the West Indies, the prohibi- 
tion of the slave trade might be considered as 
an invasion of their legal inheritance. 

Now, in answer to this proposition, I must 
make two or three remarks, which I think my 
right honorable friend will find some considera- 
ble difficulty in answering. 

I observe, then, that his argument, if it be 
(1 ) As strong worth any thing, applies just as much 
uaUs agamV to gradual as immediate abolition. I 
sup'reTst^'of ^ave uo doubt, that at whatever pe- 
the traffic. j-jod he might be disposed to say the 
abolition should actually take place, this de- 
fense will equally be set up ; for it certainly is 
just as good an argument against an abolition 
seven or seventy years hence, as against an ab- 
olition at this moment. It supposes we have no 
right whatever to stop the importations ; and 
even though the injury to our plantations, which 
some gentlemen suppose to attend the measure 
of immediate abolition, should be admitted grad- 
ually to lessen by the lapse of a few years, yet 
in point of principle the absence of all right of 
interference would remain the same. My right 
honorable friend, therefore, I am sure will not 
press an argument not less hostile to his propo- 
sition than to ours. 

But let us investigate the foundation of this 
(2.) The slave objcction, and I will commence what 
the'^ranctfon ol- I havc to Say by putting a question 
Parliament. ^q ^y j.jg^t honorablc friend. It is 
chiefly on the presumed ground of our being 
bound by a parliamentary sanction heretofore 
given to the African slave trade, that this argu- 
ment against the abolition is rested. Does, then, 
my right honorable friend, or does any man in 
this House think, that the slave trade has re- 
ceived any such parliamentary sanction as must 
place it more out of the jurisdiction of the Leg- 
islature forever after, than the other branches 
of our national commerce ? I ask, is there any 
one regulation of any part of our commerce, 
which, if this argument be valid, may not equal- 
ly be objected to, on the ground of its affecting 
some man's patrimony, some man's property, or 
some man's expectations ? Let it never be for- 
gotten that the argiynent I am canvassing would 
be just as strong if the possession affected were 
small, and the possessors humble ; for on every 
principle of justice, the property of any single 
individual, or small number of individuals, is as 
sacred as that of the great body of West In- 
dians. Justice ought to extend her protection 
with rigid impartiality to the rich and to the 
poor, to the powerful and to the humble. If 



this be the case, in what a situation does my n(r\it 
honorable friend's argument place the Legisla- 
ture of Britain ? What room is left This claim 
for their interference in the regulation 7aZt\oTLd * 
of any part of our commerce? It is pi^rpltuity o'f 
scarcely possible to lay a duty on any subjected to 
one article w^iich may not, when first taxation. 
imposed, be said in some way to affect the 
property of individuals, and even of some entire 
classes of the community. If the laws respect- 
ing the slave trade imply a contract for its per- 
petual continuance, I will venture to say, there 
does not pass a year without some act equally 
pledging the faith of Parliament to the perpetu- 
ating of some other branch of commerce. In 
short, I repeat my observation, that no new tax 
can be imposed, much less can any prohibitory 
duty be ever laid on any branch of trade that 
has before been regulated by Parliament, if this 
principle be once admitted. 

Before I refer to the acts of Parliament by 
which the public faith is said to be ,, , , , , ^ 

,11,^ , , , (3.) A pledge for 

pledged, let me remark, also, that a the perpetuity of 

^ ^ r ^, ^. r- ^1 the slave trade 

contract tor the contmuance ot the bein- unjust, 
slave trade must, on the principles -°"W ^e invalid. 
which I shall presently insist on, have been void, 
even from the beginning ; for if this trade is an 
outrage upon justice, and only another name for 
fraud, robbery, and murder, will any man urge 
that the Legislature could possibly by any pledge 
whatever incur the obligation of being an acces- 
sary, or, I may even say, a principal in the com- 
mission of such enormities, by sanctioning their 
continuance ? As well might an individual think 
himself bound by a promise to commit an assas- 
sination. I am confident gentlemen must see 
that our proceeding on such grounds w^ould in- 
fringe all the principles of law, and subvert the 
very foundation of morality. 

Let us now see how far these acts themselves 
show that there is that sort of parlia- 

Acts of Par- 

mentary pledge to continue the African liament ex- 
slave trade. The act of 23 George II., '""'""^'• 
c. xxxi., is that by which we are supposed to be 
bound up by conti-act, to sanction all those hor- 
rors now so incontrovertibly proved. How sur- 
prised, then, sir, must the House be to find that, 
by a clause of their very act, some of these out- 
rages are expressly forbidden ! It says : " No 
commander or master of a ship trading to Africa, 
shall by fraud, force, or violence, or by any indi- 
rect practice whatsoever, take on board or carry 
away from the coast of Africa, any negro, or na- 
tive of the said country, or commit any violence 
on the natives, to the prejudice of the said trade, 
and that every person so offending shall for ev- 
ery such offense forfeit," &c. When it comes to 
the penalty, sorry am I to say, that we see too 
close a resemblance to the West India law, which 
inflicts the payment of c£30 as the punishment for 
murdering a negro. The price of blood in Af- 
rica is c£lOO, but even this penalty is enough to 
prove that the act at least does not sanction, 
much less does it engage to perpetuate enormi- 
ties; and the whole trade has now been demon- 
strated to be a mass, a .system of enormities; of 



686 



MR. PITT ON 



[1792 



enormities which incontrovertibly bid defiance 
not only to this clause, but to every regulation 
which our ingenuity can devise and our power 
carry into effect. Nothing can accomplish the 
object of this clause but an extinction of the trade 
itself. 

But, sir, let us see what was the motive for 
carrvinfT on the trade at all. The pre- 

Motive for , X "^ , • il ttti 

these en- amblc of thc act States it : Whereas, 
sctments. ^^^^ trade to and from Africa is very ad- 
vantageous to Great Britain, and necessary for 
the supplying the plantations and colonies there- 
unto belonging with a sufficient number of ne- 
groes at reasonable rates, and for that purpose 
the said trade should be carried on," &c. Here, 
then, we see what the Parliament had in view 
when it passed this act ; and I have clearly shown 
that not one of the occasions on which it grounded 
its proceedings now exists. I may then plead, 
I think, the very act itself as an argument for 
the abolition. If it is shown that, instead of be- 
ing "very advantageous" to Great Britain, this 
trade is the most destructive that can well be 
imagined to her interests ; that it is the ruin of 
our seamen ; that it stops the extension of our 
manufactures; if it is proved, in the second place, 
that it is not now necessary for the "supplying 
our plantations with negroes;" if it is further 
established that this traffic was from the very 
beginning contrary to the first principles of jus- 
tice, and consequently that a pledge for its con- 
tinuance, had one been attempted to be given, 
must have been completely and absolutely void : 
where then, in this act of Parliament, is the con- [ 
tract to be found by which Britain is bound, as 
she is said to be, never to listen to her own true j 
interests, and to the cries of the natives of Afri- ! 
ca? Is it not clear that all argument, founded 
on the supposed pledged faith of Parliament, ! 
makes against those who employ it ? I refer i 
you to the principles which obtain in other cases. 
Every trade act shows undoubtedly that the Leg- 
islature is used to pay a tender regard to all 
classes of the community. But if for the sake of 
The same rao- ^(^'''^^ duty, of national honor, or even 
tive justifies of great political advantage, it is 

the suppres- " .* . /. 't-> i • 

eionoi the thought right, by authoi-ity oi Parlia- 
ment, to alter any long-established 
system, Parliament is competent to do it. The 
Legislature will undoubtedly be careful to sub- 
ject individuals to as little inconvenience as pos- 
sible : and if any peculiar hardship should arise 
that can be distinctly stated and fairly pleaded, 
there will ever, I am sure, be a liberal feeling 
toward them in the Legislature of this country, 
which is the guardian of all who live under its 
protection. On the present occasion, the most 
powerful considerations call upon us to abolish 
the slave trade ; and if we refuse to attend to 
them on the alleged ground of pledged faith and 
contract, we shall depart as widely from the 
practice of Parliament as from the path of moral 
duty. If, indeed, there is any case of hardship 
which comes within the proper cognizance of 
Parliament,' and calls for the exercise of its lib- 
erality — well ! But such a case must be re- 



served for calm consideration, as a matter dis 
tinct from the present question. 

I beg pardon for dwelling so long on the ar- 
gument of expediency, and on the manner in 
which it affects the West Indies. I have been 
carried away by my own feelings on some of 
these points into a greater length than T intend- 
ed, especially considering how fully the subject 
has been already argued. The result of all I 
have said is, that there exists no impediment, no 
obstacle, no shadow of reasonable objection on 
the ground of pledged faith, or even on that of 
national expediency, to the abolition of this trade. 
On the contrary, all the arguments drawn from 
those sources plead for it, and they plead much 
more loudly, and much more strongly in every 
part of the question, for an immediate than for 
a gradual abolition. 

III. But now, sir, I come to Africa. That is 
the ground on which I rest, and here it injustice of 
is that I say my right honorable friends ''" "''"^• 
do not carry their principles to their full extent. 
Why ought the slave trade to be abolished? 
Because it is incurable injustice ! How much 
stronger, then, is the argument for immediate 
than gradual abolition ! By allowing it to con- 
tinue even for one hour, do not my right honor- 
able friends weaken — do not they desert, their 
own argument of its injustice ? If on the ground 
of injustice it ought to be abolished at last, why 
ought it not now ? Why is injustice to be suf- 
fered to remain for a single hour? From what 
I hear without doors, it is evident that there is 
a general conviction entertained of its being far 
from just, and from that very conviction of its 
injustice some men have been led, I fear, to the 
supposition that the slave trade never could have 
been permitted to begin, but from some strong 
and irresistible necessity ; a necessity, 
however, which, it it was fancied to cessityun- 
exist at first, I have shown can not be 
thought by any man whatever to exist at pres- 
ent. This plea of necessity, thus presumed, and 
presumed, as I suspect, from the circumstance of 
injustice itself, has caused a sort of acquiescence 
in the continuance of this evil. Men have been 
led to place it in the rank of those necessary evils 
which are supposed to be the lot of human creat- 
ures, and to be permitted to fall upon some coun- 
tries or individuals, rather than upon others, by 
that Being whose ways are inscrutable to us, and 
whose dispensations, it is conceived, we ought not 
to look into. The origin of evil is, indeed, a sub- 
ject beyond the reach of the human understand- 
ing ; and the pea'mission of it by the Supreme 
Being, is a subject into which it belongs not to 
us to inquire. But where the evil in question is 
a moral evil which a man can scrutinize, and 
where that moral evil has its origin with our- 
selves, let us not imagine that we can clear our 
consciences by this general, not to say irreligious 
and impious way of laying aside the question. 
If we reflect at all on this subject, we must see 
that every necessary evil supposes that some 
other and greater evil would be incurred were it 
removed. I therefore desire to ask, what can 



1792.] 



THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE. 



587 



be that greater evil which can be stated to over- 
balance the one in question ? I know of no evil 
that ever has existed, nor can imagine any evil 
to exist, worse than the tearing of eighty thou- 
sand PERSONS annually from their native land, 
by a combination of the most civilized nations 
in the most enlightened quarter of the globe ; 
but more especially by that nation which calls 
herself the most free and the most happy of them 
all. Even if these miserable beings were proved 
Guilt and iHs- guilty of cvcry crime before you take 
traded even'lf thcm ofi', of whicli however not a sin- 
were'criraiT S^^ proof is adduced, ought wc to take 
a^s. upon ourselves the office of execution- 

ers ? And even if we condescend so far, still 
can we be justified in taking them, unless we 
have clear proof that they are criminals ? 

But if we go much farther ; if we ourselves 
English capital tempt them to sell their fellow creat- 
rectiy™^ed'in urcs to US, WC may rcst assured that 
kidnapping. ^^[ey will take care to provide by ev- 
ery method, by kidnapping, by village-breaking, 
by unjust wars, by iniquitous condemnations, by 
rendering Africa a scene of bloodshed and mise- 
ry, a supply of victims increasing in proportion 
to our demand. Can we, then, hesitate in de- 
ciding whether the wars in Africa are their wars 
or ours ? It was our arms in the River Came- 
roon, put into the hands of the trader, that fur- 
nished him with the means of pushing his trade ; 
and I have no more doubt that they are British 
arms, put into the hands of Africans, which pro- 
mote universal v,-ar and desolation, than I can 
doubt their having done so in that individual in- 
stance. 

I have shown how great is the enormity of 
Horrors of the this cvil, cvcu ou thc Supposition that 
result. ^,g toke only convicts and prisoners 

of war. But take the subject in the other way ; 
take it on the grounds stated by the right hon- 
orable gentleman over the way; and how does 
it stand ? Think of eighty tholsand persons 
carried away out of their country, by we knoiv 
not ivhat means / for crimes imputed ; for light 
or inconsiderable faults ; for debt, perhaps ; for 
the crime of witchcraft ; or a thousand other 
weak and scandalous pretexts ! Besides all the 
fraud and kidnapping, the villainies and perfidy, 
by which the slave trade is supplied. Reflect 
on these eighty thousand persons thus annually 
taken off! There is something in the horror of 
it, that surpasses all the bounds of imagination. 
Admitting that there exists in Africa something 
like to courts of justice ; yet what an office of 
humiliation and meanness is it in us, to take 
upon ourselves to carry into execution the par- 
tial, the cruel, iniquitous sentences of such 
courts, as if we also were strangers to all re- 
ligion, and to the first principles of justice. 

But that country, it is said, has been in some 
EffectaofEn (^egrce civilizcd, and civilized by us. 
giish civilization It is Said they have gained some 
knowledge of the principles of jus- 
tice. What, sir, have they gained the principles 
of justice from us ? Is their civilization brought 
about by us ! Yes, we give them enough of our 



intercourse to convey to them the means, and to 
initiate them in the study of mutual destruction. 
We give them just enough of the forms of jus- 
tice to enable them to add the pretext of legal tri- 
als to their other modes of perpetrating the most 
atrocious iniquity. We give them just enough 
of European improvements, to enable them thc 
more effectually to turn Africa into a ravaged wil- 
derness. Some evidences say that the Africans 
are addicted to the practice of gambling ; that 
they even sell their wives and children, and ul- 
timately themselves. Are these, then, the le- 
gitimate sources of slavery ? Shall we pretend 
that we can thus acquire an honest right to ex- 
act the labor of these people ? Can we pretend 
that we have a right to carry away to distant 
regions men of whom we know nothing by au 
thentic inquiry, and of whom there is every rea- 
sonable presumption to think that those who sell 
them to us have no right to do so ? But the evil 
does not stop here. I feel that there is not time 
for me to make all the remarks which the subject 
desei-ves, and I refrain from attempting to enu- 
merate half the dreadful consequences of this sys- 
tem. Do you think nothing of the ruin and the 
miseries in which so many other individuals, still 
remaining in Africa, are involved in consequence 
of carrying off so many myriads of people ? Do 
you think nothing of their families which are 
left behind ; of the connections which are bro- 
ken ; of the friendships, attachments, and rela- 
tionships that are burst asunder ? Do you think 
nothing of the miseries in consequence, that are 
felt from generation to generation ; of the priva- 
tion of that happiness which might be commu- 
nicated to them by the introduction of civiliza- 
tion, and of mental and moral improvement? A 
happiness which you withhold from them so long 
as you permit the slave trade to continue. What 
do you yet know of the internal state of Africa ? 
You have carried on a trade to that quarter of 
the globe from this civilized and enlightened 
country ; but such a trade, that, instead of diffus- 
ing either knowledge or wealth, it has been the 
check to every laudable pursuit. Instead of any 
fair interchange of commodities ; instead of con- 
veying to them, from this highly favored land, 
any means of improvement, you cany with you 
that noxious plant by which every thing is with- 
ered and blasted ; under whose shade nothing 
that is useful or profitable to Africa will ever 
flourish or take root. Long as that continent 
has been known to navigators, the extreme line 
and boundaries of its coasts is all with which 
Europe has yet become acquainted ; while other 
countries in the same parallel of latitude, through 
a happier system of intercourse, have reaped the 
blessings of a mutually beneficial commerce. 
But as to the whole interior of that continent, 
you are, by your own principles of commerce, 
as yet entirely .shut out. Africa is known to you 
only in its skirts. Yet even there you are able 
to infuse a poison that spreads its contagious ef- 
fects from one end of it to the other ; which pen- 
etrates to its very center, corrupting every part 
to which it reaches. You there subvert the 



588 



MR. PITT ON 



[1792. 



■whole order of nature ; you aggravate every 
natural barbarity, and furnish to every man liv- 
ing on that continent, motives for committing, 
under the name and pretext of commerce, acts 
of perpetual violence and perfidy against his 
neighbor. 

Thus, sir, has the perversion of British com- 
Engiand should mcrcc Carried misery instead of hap- 
be eager to re- pfness to onc wholc quarter of the 
and shame'^of globc. Falsc to the vcry principles 
of her^conv'°° of trade, misguided in our policy, and 
'°^''*^^" unmindful of our duty, what aston- 

ishing — I had almost said, what irreparable mis- 
chief, have we brought upon that continent ! 
How shall we hope to obtain, if it be possible, 
forgiveness from Heaven for those enormous evils 
we have committed, if we refuse to make use of 
those means which the mercy of Providence hath 
still reserved to us, for wiping away the guilt 
and shame with which we are now covered. If 
we refuse even this degree of compensation ; if, 
knowing the miseries we have caused, we refuse 
even now to put a stop to them, how greatly ag- 
gravated will be the guilt of Great Britain ! and 
what a blot will these transactions forever be in 
the history of this country ! Shall we, then, delay 
to repair these injuries, and to begin rendering 
justice to Africa ? Shall we not count the days 
and houi-s that are suffered to intervene, and to 
delay the accomplishment of such a work ? Re- 
flect what an immense object is before you ; what 
an object for a nation to have in view, and to 
have a prospect, under the favor of Providence, 
of being now permitted to attain ! I think the 
House will agree with me in cherishing the ar- 
dent wish to enter without delay upon the meas- 
ures necessary for these great ends ; and I am 
sure that the immediate abolition of the slave 
trade is the first, the principal, the most indis- 
pensable act of policy, of duty, and of justice, 
that the Legislature of this country has to take, 
if it is indeed their wish to secure those import- 
ant objects to which I have alluded, and which 
we are bound to pursue by the most solemn ob- 
ligations. 

There is, however, one argument set up as a 
Refutation of Universal answer to every thing that 
aTxiTaTother cau bc Urged on our side ; whether 
Snii°e"nrboirsh- ^c addrcss ourselves to the under- 
jDg the trade, standings of our opponents, or to their 
hearts and consciences. It is necessary I should 
remove this formidable objection ; for, though 
not often stated in distinct terms, I fear it is onc 
which has a very wide influence. The slave 
trade system, it is supposed, has taken so deep 
root in Africa, that it is absurd to think of its 
being eradicated ; and the abolition of that share 
of trade carried on by Great Britain, and es- 
pecially if her example is not followed by other 
powers, is likely to be of very little service. 
Give me leave to say, in reply to so dangerous 
an argument, that we ought to be extremely sure, 
indeed, of the assumption on w^hich it rests, be- 
fore we venture to rely on its validity ; before 
we decide that an evil which we ourselves con- 
tribute to inflict is incurable, and on that very 



plea, refuse to desist from bearing our part in 
the .system which pi'oduces it. You are not sure, 
it is said, that other nations will give up the 
trade, if you should renounce it. I answer, if 
this trade is as criminal as it is asserted to be, 
or if it has in it a thousandth part of the crim- 
inality, which I and others, after thorough inves- 
tigation of the subject, charge upon it, God for- 
bid that we should hesitate in determining to 
relinquish so iniquitous a traffic, even though it 
should be retained by other countries. God for- 
bid, however, that we should fail to do our ut- 
most toward inducing other countries to abandon 
a bloody commerce, which they have probably 
been, in a good measure, led by our example to 
pursue. God forbid that we should be capable 
of washing to arrogate to ourselves the glory of 
being singular in renouncing it ! 

I tremble at the thought of gentlemen's indulg- 
ing themselves in this argument ; an argument 
as pernicious as it is futile. " We are friends," 
say they, "to humanity. We are second to 
none of you in our zeal for the good of Africa ; 
but the French will not abolish — the Dutch will 
not abolish. We wait, therefore, on prudential 
principles, till they join us, or set us an example." 

How, sir, is this enormous evil ever to be 
eradicated, if every nation is thus pru- England, as 
dentially to wait till the concurrence of ru°ght\''J'J^^d 
all the world shall have been obtained ? ^''«' "^'^y- 
Let me remark, too, that there is no nation in 
Europe that has, on the one hand, plunged so 
deeply into this guilt as Britain ; or that is so 
likely, on the other, to be looked up to as an ex- 
ample, if she should have the manliness to be 
the first in decidedly renouncing it. But, sir, 
does not this argument apply a thousand times 
more strongly in a contrary way ?^ How much 
more justly may other nations point to us, and say, 
"Why should we abolish the slave trade, when 
Great Britain has not abolished ? Britain, free 
as she is, just and honorable as she is, and deeply, 
also, involved as she is in this commerce above 
all nations, not only has not abolished, but has 
refused to abolish. She has investigated it well ; 
she has gained the completest insight into its na- 
ture and effects : she has collected volumes of ev- 
idence on every branch of the subject. Her Sen- 
ate has deliberated — has deliberated again and 
again ; and what is the result ? She has gravely 
and solemnly determined to sanction the slave 
trade. She sanctions it at least for a while — her 
Legislature, therefore, it is plain, sees no guilt in 
it, and has thus furnished us with the strongest 
evidence that she can furnish — of the justice un- 
questionably — and of the policy also, in a certain 
measure, and in certain cases at least, of permit- 
ting this traffic to continue." 

This, sir, is the argument with which we fur- 
nish the otiier nations of Europe, if ^,^^^„^^,^^ 
we again refuse to put an end to the may be expect- 
slave trade. Instead, therefore, of 
imagining, that by choosing to presume on their 



* This taking an opponent's argument " in the con- 
trary way," is one of Mr. Pitt's most characteristic 
modes of coufating an antagonist. 



1792.] 



THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE. 



589 



continuing it, we shall have exempted ourselves 
from guilt, and have transferred the whole crim- 
inality to them ; let us rather reflect that, on the 
very principle urged against us. we shall hence- 
forth have to answer for their crimes, as well as 
our own. We have strong reasons to believe 
that it depends upon us, whether other countries 
will persist in this bloody trade or not. Already 
we have suffered one year to pass away, and 
now the question is renewed, a proposition is 
made for gradual, with the view of preventing 
immediate abolition. I know the difficulty that 
exists in attempting to reform long-established 
abuses ; and I know the danger arising from the 
argument in favor of delay, in the case of evils 
which, nevertheless, are thought too enormous 
to be borne, when considered as perpetual. But 
by proposing some other period than the pres- 
ent, by prescribing some condition, by waiting 
for some contingency, or by refusing to proceed 
till a thousand favorable circumstances unite to- 
gether ; perhaps until we obtain the general con- 
currence of Europe (a concurrence which I be- 
lieve never yet took place at the commencement 
of any one improvement in policy or in morals), 
year after year escapes, and the most enormous 
evils go unredressed. We see this abundantly 
exem.plified, not only in public, but in private life. 
Similar observations have been often applied to 
the case of personal reformation. If you go into 
the street, it is a chance but the first person who 
crosses you is one, 

Q,ui recta vivendi prorogat horarn.® 
We may wait ; we may delay to cross the stream 
before us, till it has run down ; but we shall wait 
forever, for the river will still flow on, without 
being exhausted. We shall be no nearer the 
object which we profess to have in view, so long 
as the step, which alone can bring us to it, is not 
taken. Until the actual, the only remedy is ap- 
plied, we ought neither to flatter ourselves that 
we have as yet thoroughly laid to heart the evil 
we affect to deplore ; nor that there is as yet any 
reasonable assurance of its being brought to an 
actual termination. 

It has also been occasionally urged, that there 
(2.) That the is Something in the disposition and 

iliied, but are 
doomed to bar- 
barism, zation on that continent extremely 
unpromising. " It has been known," says Mr. 
Frazer, in his evidence, "that a boy has been 
put to death who was refused to be purchased 
as a slave." This single story was deemed by 
that gentleman a sufficient proof of the barbarity 
of the Africans, and of the inutility of abolishing 

6 This line, with the remainder of the passage as 
referred to in the next sentence, is found in the 
Epistles of Horace, Book i., Epist. 2, lines 41-3: 
dai recte vivendi prorogat horam, 
Rusticus expectat dam defluat amnis, at ille 
Labitur et labetur in omne volabilis sevum. 
He who delays the hour of living well, 
Stands like the rustic on a river's brink, 
To see the stream run out; but on it flows. 
And still shall flow with current never ceasing. 



the slave trade. My honorable friend, however, 
has told you that this boy had previously run 
away from his master three several times ; that 
the master had to pay his value, according to the 
custom of the country, every time he was brought 
back ; and that partly from anger at the boy for 
running away so frequently, and partly to pre- 
vent a still farther repetition of the same ex- 
pense, he determined to put him to death. Such 
was the explanation of the story given in the 
cross-examination. This, sir, is the signal in- 
stance that has been dwelt upon of African bar- 
barity. This African, we admit, was unenlight- 
ened, and altogether barbarous ; but let us now 
ask, what would a civilized and enlightened West 
Indian, or a body of West Indians, xhe west India 
have done in any case of a parallel planters equaUy 

'' ,^ barbarous in 

nature f 1 will quote you, sir, a law, some of their 
passed in the West Indies, in the 
year 1722, which, in turning over the book I 
happened just now to cast my eye upon ; by 
which law, this very same crime of running 
away, is, by the Legislature of the island, by the 
grave and deliberate sentence of that enlightened 
Legislature, punished loith death ; and this, not 
in the case only of the third offense, but even in 
the very first instance. It is enacted, " that if 
any negro or other slave shall withdraw himself 
from his master for the term of six months ; or 
any slave that was absent, shall not return with- 
in that time, it shall be adjudged felony, and ev- 
ery such person shall suffer death." There is 
another West India law, by which every negro's 
hand is armed against his fellow-negroes, by his 
being authorized to kill a runaway slave, and 
even having a reward held out to him for doing 
so. Let the House now contrast the two cases. 
Let them ask themselves which of the two ex- 
hibits thfc greater barbarity ? Let them reflect, 
with a little candor and liberality, whether on 
the ground of any of those facts, and loose insin- 
uations as to the sacrifices to be met with in the 
evidence, they can possibly reconcile to them- 
selves the excluding of Africa from all means 
of civilization ; whether they can possibly vote 
for the continuance of the slave trade upon the 
principle that the Africans have .shown them- 
selves to be a race of incorrigible barbarians. 

I hope, therefore, we shall hear no more of the 
moral impossibility of civilizing the Resumption of 
Africans, nor have our understand- wheu'erot'her 
ings and consciences again insulted, "nlte'maboLh- 
by being called upon to sanction the in? tiie trade. 
slave trade, until other nations shall have set the 
example of abolishing it. While we have been 
deliberating upon the subject, one nation, not or- 
dinarily taking the lead in politics, nor by any 
means remarkable for the boldness of its coun- 
cils, has determined on a gradual abolition;''' a 
determination, indeed, which, since it permits for 
a time the existence of the slave trade, would be 
an unfortunate pattern for our imitation. France, 

"^ The country refeired to was Denmark, which, 
two years after the delivery of this speech (in 1794), 
made a law that the slave trade should cease at the 
end of ten years, i. e., in 1804. 



590 



MR. PITT ON 



[1792. 



it is said, will take up the trade if we relinquish 
it. What? Is it supposed that in the present 
situation of St. Domingo, of an island which used 
to take three fourths of all the slaves required 
by the colonies of France, she, of all countries, 
will think of taking it up ? What countries re- 
main? The Portuguese, the Dutch, and the 
Spaniards. Of those countries, let me declare 
it is my opinion that, if they see us renounce the 
trade after full deliberation, they will not be dis- 
posed, even on principles of policy, to rush fur- 
ther into it. But I say more. How are they to 
furnish the capital necessary for carrying it on ? 
If there is any aggravation of our guilt, in this 
wretched business, greater than another, it is that 
we have stooped to be the carriers of these mis- 
erable beings from Africa to the West Indies for 
all the other powers of Europe. And now, sir, 
if we retire from the trade altogether, I ask, 
where is that fund which is to be raised at once 
by other nations, equal to the purchase of 30 or 
40,000 slaves ? A fund which, if we rate them 
at c£40 or <£50 each, can not make a capital of 
less than a million and a half, or two millions of 
money. From what branch of their commerce 
is it that these European nations will draw to- 
gether a fund to feed this monster? to keep alive 
this detestable commerce? And even if they 
should make the attempt, will not that immense 
chasm, which must instantly be created in the 
other parts of their trade, from which this vast 
capital must be withdrawn in order to supply 
the slave trade, be filled up by yourselves ? Will 
not these branches of commerce which they 
must leave, and from which they must withdraw 
their industry and their capitals, in order to ap- 
ply them to the slave trade, be then taken up by 
British merchants ? Will you not even in this 
ease find your capital flow into these deserted 
channels? Will not your capital be turned from 
the slave trade to that natural and innocent com- 
merce from which they must withdraw their 
capitals in proportion as the}^ take up the traffic 
in the flesh and blood of their fellow creatures ? 

The committee sees, I trust, how little ground 
of objection to our proposition there is in this 
part of our adversaries' argument. 

Having now detained the House so long, all 
The civiiiza- that I will further add shall be on that 
a'iea'di4ob* important subject, the civilization of 
measurepro- ^-frica, which I have already shown 
posed. that I consider as the leading feature 

in this question. Grieved am I to think that 
there should be a single person in this country, 
much more that there should be a single mem- 
ber in the British Parliament, who can look on 
the present dark, uncultivated, and uncivilized 
state of that continent as a ground for continuing 
the slave trade ; as a ground not only for refusing 
to attempt the improvement of Africa, but even 
for hindering and intercepting every ray of light 
which might otherwise break in upon her, as a 
ground for refusing to her the common chance 
and the common means with which other nations 
have been blessed, of emerging from their native 
barbarism. 



Here, as in every other branch of this extens- 
ive question, the argument of our adversaries 
pleads against them ; for surely, sir, the pres- 
ent deplorable state of Africa, especially when 
we reflect that her chief calamities are to be 
ascribed to us, calls for our generous aid, rather 
than justifies any despair on our part of her re- 
covery, and still less any further repetition of our 
injuries. 

I will not much longer fatigue the attention 
of the House : but this point has im- Argument fro.-n 
pressed itself so deeply on mv mind, iiistory as to 

'■, - , 1 , " . the prospect of 

that I must trouble the committee African civiiiza- 
with a few additional observations. 
Are we justified. I ask, on any theory, or by any 
one instance to be found in the history of the 
world, from its very beginning to this day, in 
forming the supposition which I am now com- 
bating? Are we justified in supposing that the 
particular practice which we encourage m Af- 
rica, of men's selling each other for slaves, is 
any symptom of a barbarism that is incurable ? 
Are we justified in supposing that even the 
practice of offering up human sacrifices proves 
a total incapacity for civilization ? I believe it 
will be found, and perhaps much more generally 
than is supposed, that both the trade in slaves, 
and the still more savage custom of offering 
human sacrifices, obtained in former periods, 
throughout many of those nations which now, 
by the blessings of Providence, and by a long 
progression of impi'ovements, are advanced the 
furthest in civilization. I believe, sir, that, if 
we will reflect an instant, we shall find that 
this observation comes directly home to our own 
selves ; and that, on the same ground on which 
we now are disposed to proscribe Africa forever, 
from all possibility of improvement, we ourselves 
might, in like manner, have been proscribed, and 
forever shut out from all the blessings which we 
now enjoy. 

There was a time, sir, which it may be fit 
sometimes to revive in the remem- t, , . „ 

England once 

brance of our countrymen, when even polluted by hu- 



oflered in this island. But I would ^'^^^^" 
especially observe on this da}', for it is a case 
precisely in point, that the very practice of the 
slave trade once prevailed among us. Slaves, 
as we may read in Henry's History of Great 
Britain, were formerly an established article of 
our exports. "Great numbers," he says, "were 
exported like cattle from the British coast, and 
were to be seen exposed for sale in the Roman 
market." It does not distinctly appear by what 
means they were procured; but there was un- 
questionably no small resemblance, in this par- 
ticular point, between the case of our ancestors 
and that of the present wretched natives of Af- 
rica; for the historian tells you that "adultery, 
witchcraft, and debt, were probably some of the 
chief sources of supplying the Roman market 
with British slaves ; that prisoners taken in war 
were added to the number ; and that there might 
be among them some unfortunate gamesters 
who, after having lost all their goods, at length 



1792.] 



THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE. 



591 



staked themselves, their wives, and their chil- 
dren." Every one of these sources of slavery 
has been stated, and almost precisely in the same 
terms, to be at this hour a source of slavery in 
Africa. And these circumstances, sir, with a 
solitary instance or two of human sacrifices, fur- 
nish the alleged proofs that Africa labors under 
a natural incapacity for civilization ; that it is 
enthusiasm and fanaticism to think that she can 
ever enjoy the knowledge and the morals of Eu- 
rope ; that Providence never intended her to rise 
above a state of barbarism ; that Providence has 
irrevocably doomed her to be only a nursery for 
slaves for us free and civilized Europeans. Al- 
low of this principle, as applied to Africa, and I 
should be glad to know why it might not also 
have been applied to ancient and uncivilized 
Britain. Why might not some Roman senator, 
reasoning on the principles of some honorable 
gentlemen, and pointing to British barbarians, 
have predicted with equal boldness, "there is a 
people that will never rise to civilization — there 
is a people destined never to be free — a people 
without the understanding necessary for the at- 
tainment of useful arts ; depressed by the hand 
of Nature below the level of the human species ; 
and created to form a supply of slaves for the 
rest of the world." Might not this have been 
said, according to the principles which we now 
hear stated, in all respects as fairly and as truly 
of Britain herself, at that period of her history. 
as it can now be said by us of the inhabitants of 
Africa ? 

We, sii", have long since emerged from bar- 
Contrastofher barisHi. We havc almost forgotten 
ticm,^j"et*^en- ' that wc wcrc oncc barbarians We 
fn^others'bTr- ^^'® ^'^^"^ raised to a situation which 
barians. exhibits a striking contrast to every 

circumstance by which a Roman might have 
characterized us, and by which we now charac- 
terize Africa. There is, indeed, one thing want- 
ing to complete the contrast, and to clear us al- 
together from the imputation of acting even to 
^his hour as barbarians ; for we continue to this 
hour a barbarous traffic in slaves ; we continue 
it even yet, in spite of all our great and undenia- 
ble pretensions to civilization. We were once 
as obscure among the nations of the earth, as 
savage in our manners, as debased in our mor- 
als, as degraded in our understandings, as these 
unhappy Africans are at present. But in the 
lapse of a long series of years, by a progression 
slow, and for a time almost imperceptible, wo 
have become rich in a variety of acquirements, 
favored above measure in the gifts of Providence, 
unrivaled in commerce, pre-eminent in arts, 
foremost in the pursuits of philosophy and sci- 
ence, and established in all the blessings of civil 
society. We are in the possession of peace, of 
happiness, and of liberty. We are under the 
guidance of a mild and beneficent religion ; and 
we are protected by impartial laws, and the 
purest administration of justice. We are living 
under a system of government which our own 
happy experience leads us to pronounce the best 
and wisest which has ever yet been framed ; a 



system which has become the admiration of the 
world. From all these blessings we must for- 
ever have been shut out, had there been any truth 
in those principles which some gentlemen have 
not hesitated to lay down as applicable to the 
case of Africa. Had those principles been true, 
we ourselves had languished to this hour in that 
miserable state of ignorance, brutality, and deg- 
radation, in which histoiy proves our ancestry to 
have been immersed. Had other nations adopt- 
ed these principles in their conduct toward us ; 
had other nations applied to Great Britain the 
reasoning which some of the senators of this 
very island now apply to Africa ; ages might 
have passed without our emerging from barba- 
rism ; and we who are enjoying the blessings of 
British civilization, of British laws, and British 
liberty, might, at this hour, have been little su- 
perior, either in morals, in knowledge, or refine- 
ment, to the rude inhabitants of the coast of 
Guinea. 

If, then, we feel that this perpetual confinement 
in the fetters of brutal ignorance would Her duty to 
have been the greatest calamity which boon^toAf- 
could have befallen us ; if we view with ^'"^^■ 
gratitude and exultation the contrast between the 
peculiar blessings we enjoy, and the wretchedness 
of the ancient inhabitants of Britain ; if we shud- 
der to think of the misery which would still have 
overwhelmed us had Great Britain continued to 
the present times to be a mart for slaves to the 
more civilized nations of the world, through some 
cruel policy of theirs, God forbid that u-c should 
any longer subject Africa to the same dreadful 
scourge, and preclude the light of knowledge, 
which has reached every other quarter of the 
globe, from having access to her coasts. 

I trust we shall no longer continue this com- 
merce, to the destruction of every im- peroration - an- 
provement on that wide continent : Jmating pros- 

' , , - ., ' pectsintiiedis- 

and shall not consider ourselves as charge of this 
conferring too great a boon, in restor- "^'^' 
ing its inhabitants to the rank of human beings. 
I trust we shall not think ourselves too liberal, 
if, by abolishing the slave trade, we give them 
the same common chance of civilization with 
other parts of the world, and that we shall now 
allow to Africa the opportunity, the hope, the 
prospect of attaining to the same blessings \vhich 
we ourselves, through the favorable dispensations 
of Divine Providence, have been permitted, at a 
much more early period, to enjoy. If we listen 
to the voice of reason and duty, and pursue this 
night the line of conduct which they prescribe, 
some of us may live to see a reverse of that pic- 
ture from which we now turn our eyes with 
shame and regret. We may live to behold the 
natives of Africa engaged in the calm occupa- 
tions of industry, in the pursuits of a just and le- 
gitimate commerce. We may behold the beams 
of science and philosophy breaking in upon their 
land, which at some happy period in still later 
times may blaze with full luster ; and joining 
their influence to that of pure religion, may illu- 
minate and invigorate the most distant extrem- 
ities of that immense continent. Then may we 



592 



MR. PITT ON 



[1792. 



hope that even Africa, though last of all the quar- 
ters of the globe, shall enjoy at length, in the even- 
ing of her days, those blessings which have de- 
scended so plentifully upon us in a much earlier 
period of the world. Then, also, will Europe, 
participating in her improvement and prosperity, 
receive an ample recompense for the tardy kind- 
ness (if kindness it can be called) of no longer 
hindering that continent from extricating herself 
out of the darkness which, in other more fortu- 
nate regions, has been so much more speedily 
dispelled. 

Nos que ubi primus eqais oriens afflavit an. 

hells ; 
Illic sera rubens accendit lamina vesper.s 

Then, sir, may be applied to Africa those 
words, originally used, indeed, with a different 
view : 

His demum exactis 



Devenere locos laetos, et amcena vireta 
Fortunatorum nemomm, sedesque beatas ; 
Largior hie campos iEther et lumine vestit. 
Parpuero:9 

It is in this view, sir — it is an atonement for 
our long and cruel injustice toward Africa, that 
the measure proposed by my honorable friend 
most forcibly recommends itself to ray mind. 
The great and happy change to be expected in 
the state of her inhabitants, is, of all the various 
and important benefits of the abolition, in my es- 
timation, incomparably the most extensive and 
important. ^° 

s This passage is taken from Vii-gil's description 
of the zodiac in his Georgics (book i., lines 230-50), 
and of the sun's progress through the constellations, 
so that Morning rises on one side of the globe, while 
Evening follows in slow succession on the other. 
This Mr. Pitt beautifully applies to the successive 
rising of the light of science on the two continents 
of Europe and of Africa. 

On us, while earl}' Dawn with panting steeds, 

Breathes at his rising, ruddy Eve for them 

Lights up her fires slow-coming. 

^ These words introduce Virgil's description of 
the Elysian fields in his region of departed spirits 
(^Eneid, book vi., lines 637-41). 
These rites performed, they reach those happy fields, 
Gardens, and groves, and seats of living joy, 
Where the pare ether spreads with wider sway. 
And throws a purple light o'er all the plains. 

^° The last four paragraphs of this speech, togeth- 
er with three others at the opening of the third head, 
"But now, sir, I come to Africa," are specimens of 
that lofty declamation with which Mr. Pitt so often 
raised and delighted the feelings of the House. His 



I shall vote, sir, against the adjournment ; and 
I shall also oppose to the utmost every proposi- 
tion which in any way may tend either to pre- 
vent, or even to postpone for an hour, the total 
abolition of the slave trade : a measure which, 
on all the various grounds which I have stated, 
we are bound, by the most pressing and indis- 
pensable duty, to adopt. 



So great was the impression made by this 
speech, that nearly all the spectators present 
supposed the vote would be carried almost by 
acclamation. But the private, pecuniary inter- 
ests which bore upon the House were too weighty 
to be overcome, and Mr. Dundas' plan of a grad- 
ual abolition had the preference by a majority of 
sixty-eight votes. Mr. Dundas now bi'ought for- 
ward his scheme in detail, which was passed by 
a majority of nineteen, but the bill was lost in the 
House of Lords. The subject came up, through 
the indefatigable labors of Mr. Wilberforce, ses- 
sion after session, until in 1806, after Mr. Pitt's 
death, a resolution was passed declaring " that 
the slave trade was inconsistent with justice, hu- 
manity, and sound policy, and that measures 
ought to be taken for its immediate abolition." 
A bill to this effect was finally passed, February 
6th, 1807; and January 1st, 1808, was fixed 
upon for the termination of the traffic on the part 
of the English. 

America, in the meantime, had gone in advance 
on this subject, and stood foremost among the na- 
tions in her measure, for the suppression of the 
slave trade. In 1794, it was enacted that no 
person in the United States should fit out any ves- 
sel there for the purpose of carrying on any traf- 
fic in slaves to any foreign country, or for pro- 
curing from any foreign country the inhabitants 
thereof to be disposed of as slaves. In 1800, it 
was enacted that it should be unlawful for any 
citizen of the United States to have any property 
in any vessel employed in transporting slaves 
from one foreign country to another, or to serve 
on board any vessel so employed. In 1 807, it was 
enacted that after the first of January 1808, no 
slaves should be imported into the United States. 
The slave trade was declared to be piracy by the 
American Congress in 1820, and by the British 
Parliament in 1824. 



theme in such cases was usually his country — what 
she had been, what she might be, what she ought 
to accomplish. His amplifications are often in the 
best manner of Cicero, adapted to modem times. 



I 



1797.] THE RUPTURE OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE. 593 



SPEECH 

OF MR. PITT ON THE RUPTURE OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF 

COMMONS, NOVEMBER 10, 1797. 

INTRODUCTION. 

France having declared war against Austria, April 20th, 1792, and against England, February 1st, 1793, 
all the leading powers of Europe united with the latter, and the contest soon became general. At the 
end of four years, the French had triumphed over their adversaries throughout the Continent ; all the 
allies of England were driven from the field, and the Spaniards and Dutch were forced to turn their arms 
against her. The English, on the other hand, were every where victorious on the ocean, and had taken 
all her colonies from France, some valuable islands in the West Indies from Spain, and the Cape of Good 
Hope and the island of Ceylon from Holland, now the Batavian Republic. 

But the internal condition of England made Mr. Pitt desirous of peace, and while his adversaries had 
nothing to restore, he had large possessions of theirs which he was willing to surrender as the price of a 
general pacification. Accordingly, on the fourth of July, 1797, he opened negotiations with the French at 
Lisle, through Lord Malmesbury, who had been sent tlie preceding year to Paris on the same mission, 
though without success. There were two parties at this time in the French government — the one mod- 
erate, the other violent and extreme. Hence, in conducting the negotiation, there was a continual fluc- 
tuation and studied delay on the part of the French, until the violent party prevailed in the revolutionary 
movement of September 4th, 1797, when they broke off the negotiation, twelve days after, in a rude and 
insulting manner. Mignet gives a solution of their conduct in his History of the French Revolution: 
"The Directory, at this time without money, without the support of a party at home, with no other aid 
than that of the army, and no other means of influence than a continuation of its victories, was not in a 
condition to consent to a general peace. War was necessary to its existence. An immense body of troops 
could not be disbanded without danger." The nation was therefore to be dazzled, and the anny em- 
ployed, by an expedition for the conquest of Egypt, as the high road to the English possessions in India. 
Jomini admits, in his History of the Wars of the Revolution, that "Europe was convinced, on this occa- 
sion at least, that the cabinet of St. James had evinced more moderation than a Directory whose pro- 
ceedings were worthy of the days of Robespierre." 

On the 24th of October, 1797, the King of England issued a "Declaration respecting the Negotiation 
for Peace with France," part of which will here be given, as a specimen of the noble and commanding 
style of Mr. Pitt in his state papers. 

" His Majesty directed his minister to repair to France furnished with the most ample powers, and 
instructed to communicate at once an explicit and detailed proposal and plan of peace, reduced into the 
shape of a regular treatj-, just and moderate in its principles, embracing all the interests concerned, and 
extending to every subject connected with the restoration of public tranquillity. 

" To this proceeding, open and liberal beyond example, the conduct of his Majesty's enemies opposes 
the most striking contrast. From them no counter-project has ever yet been obtained ; no statement of 
the extent or nature of the conditions on which they would conclude any peace with these kingdoms. 
Their pretensions have alwajs been brought forward either as detached or as preliminary points, distinct 
from the main object of negotiation, and accompanied in eveiy instance with an express reserve of fur- 
ther and unexplained demands. 

"The points which, in pursuance of this system, the plenipotentiaries of the enemy proposed for sepa- 
rate discussion in their first conferences with his Majesty's minister, were at once frivolous and off'ensive; 
none of them productive of any solid advantage to France, but all calculated to raise new obstacles in the 
way of peace. And to these demands was soon after added another, in its form unprecedented, in its 
substance extravagant, and such as could only originate in the most determined and inveterate hostility. 
The principle of mutual compensation (before expressly admitted by common consent as the just and 
equitable basis of negotiation) was now disclaimed ; every idea of moderation or reason, every appear- 
ance of justice, was disregarded ; and a concession was required from his Mjijesty's plenipotentiary, as 
a preliminary and indispensable condition of negotiation, which must at once have superseded all the 
objects, and precluded all the means of treating. France, after incorporating with her own dominions so 
large a portion of her conquests, and affecting to have deprived herself, by her own internal regulations, 
of the power of alienating these valuable additions of territory, did not scruple to demand from his Maj- 
esty the absolute and unconditional suiTender of all that the energy of his people, and the valor of his 
fleets and armies, have conquered in the present war, either from France or from her allies. She required 
that the power of Great Britain should be confined within its former limits, at the very moment when 
her own dominion was extended to a degree almost unparalleled in history. She insisted that in pro- 
coition to the increase of danger the means of resistance should be diminished; and that his Majesty 
Pp 



594 MR. PITT ON [1797. 

should give up, without compensation, and into the hands of his enemies, the necessary defenses of his 
possessions, and the future safeguards of his empire. Nor was even this demand hrought forward as con- 
stitutinc the terms of peace, hut the price of negotiation ; as the condition on which alone his Majesty 
was to be allowed to learn what further unexplained demands were still reserved, and to what greater 
sacrifices these unprecedented concessions of honor and safety were to lead ! 

" To France, to Europe, and to the world, it must be manifest, that the French government (while they 
persist in their present sentiments) leave his Majesty without an alternative, unless he were prepared to 
surrender and sacrifice to the undisguised ambition of his enemies the honor of his crown and the safety 
of his dominions. It must be manifest, that, instead of showing, on their part, any inclination to meet his 
Majesty's pacific overtui-es on any moderate terms, they have never brought themselves to state any 
terms (however exorbitant) on which they were ready to conclude peace. ****** The rupture 
of the negotiation is not, therefore, to be ascribed to any pretensions (however inadmissible) urged as the 
price of peace ; not to any ultimate difference on terms, however exorbitant ; but to the evident and 
fixed determination of the enemy to prolong the contest, and to pursue, at all hazards, their hostile de- 
signs against the prosperity and safety oT these kingdoms. 

" While this determination continues to prevail, his Majesty's earnest wishes and endeavors to restore 
peace to his subjects must be fruitless. But his sentiments remain unaltered. He looks with anxious 
expectation to the moment when the government of France may show a disposition and spirit in any de- 
gree corresponding to his own. And he renews, even now, and before all Europe, the solemn declaration, 
that, in spite of repeated pi-ovocations, and at the very moment when his claims have been strengthened 
and confirmed by that fresh success which, by the blessing of Providence, has recently attended his arms, 
he is yet ready (if the calamities of war can now be closed) to conclude peace on the same moderate and 
equitable principles and terms which he has before proposed. The rejection of such terms must now, 
more than ever, demonstrate the implacable animosity and insatiable ambition of those with whom he has 
to contend, and to them alone must the future consequences of the prolongation of the war be ascribed. 

" His Majesty has an anxious, but a sacred, indispensable duty to fulfill: he will discharge it with reso- 
lution, constancy, and firmness. Deeply as he must regret the continuance of a war, so destructive in its 
progress, and so bui-densome even in its success, he knows the character of the brave people whose in- 
terests and honor are intrusted to him. These it is the first object of liis life to maintain; and he is con- 
vinced that neither the resources nor the spirit of his kingdoms will be found inadequate to this arduous 
contest, or unequal to the importance and value of the objects which are at stake. He trusts that the 
favor of Providence, by which they have always hitherto been supported against all their enemies, will 
be still extended to them ; and that, under this protection, his faithful subjects, by a resolute and vigorous 
application of the means which they possess, will be enabled to vindicate the independence of their 
country, and to resist with just indignation the assumed superiority of an enemy, against whom they 
have fought with the courage, and success, and glory of their ancestors, and who aims at nothing less 
than to destroy at once whatever has contributed to the prosperit}^ and greatness of the British empire ; 
all the channels of its industry, and all the sources of its power; its security from abroad, its tranquillity 
at home ; and, above all, that Constitution, on which alone depends the undisturbed enjoyment of its re- 
ligion, laws, and liberties." 

Tliis Declaration was laid before the House of Lords, November 8th, 1797, and an Address to the Throne 
was passed without a single dissenting voice, approving of the course taken, and closing with these words: 
" We know that great exertions are necessary ; we are prepared to make them ; and placing our firm 
reliance on that Divine protection which has always hitherto been extended to us, we will support your 
Majesty to the utmost, and stand or fall with our religion, laws, and liberties." This address was sent 
down to the Commons on the tenth, and every one supposed it would be adopted there with equal una- 
nimity. But Sir John Sinclair, a well-meaning but weak man, who was apprehensive that the tone of 
the Declaration might produce increased hostility among the French people, proposed a substitute, which 
dwelt in feeble language on " the various calamities to which nations in a state of hostility were neces- 
sarily exposed ;" " deplored the continuance of a war which had already occasioned such an expense of 
treasure and of blood," and expressed a hope of "speedily renewing a negotiation so favorable to the 
interests of humanity." This substitute he proposed, while, with singular inconsistency, he condemned 
the ministry for the anxiety they had shown to prevent the conference from being broken off, declaring 
himself " perfectly astonished at the mean and degrading manner in which ministers had carried or. the 
negotiation." He was followed by Earl Temple, a young relative of Mr. Pitt, who, in a maiden speech, 
took up the latter idea in a way perfectly consistent with his principles (which were those of Mr. Burke), 
and carried it much further, condemning ministers for negotiating at all, and going back to the origin and 
conduct of the war in a spirit which (if carried out) would have rendered it eternal. 

Mr. Pitt, in his peculiar mode of giving a bold relief to his position at the opening of a speech, seized 
on the opportunity thus presented, and placed himself at once at the middle point between these two 
extremes; and after showing the extravagance of each, went on to state the measures by which he had 
endeavored to obtain peace, in one of the finest specimens of luminous exposition, intermingled with im- 
passioned feeling, to be found in our language. 



1797.] 



THE RUPTURE OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE. 



595 



SPEECH, & c. 



Sir, — Having come to this House with the 
firm conviction that there never existed an oc- 
casion when the unanimous concurrence of the 
House might be more justly expected than on a 
proposal to agree in the sentiments contained in 
the address which has been read, I must con- 
fess myself considerably disappointed, in some 
degree, even by the speech of my noble relation 
[Lord Temple], much as I rejoice in the testimo- 
ny which he has given of his talents and abilities, 
and still more by the speech of the honorable 
baronet [Sir John Sinclair], and by the amend- 
ment which he has moved. I can not agree 
Mr. Pitt's posi- ^'^^^ ^h® noble Lord in the extent to 
lion between w'hich he has stated his sentiments, 

the extremes of ... 

thetwopreced- that wc ought to rcjoice that peace 
mgspe ers. ^^^^^ ^^^ made ; much less, sir, can I 
feel desii'ous to accept on the part of myself, or 
my colleagues, either from my noble kinsman, 
or any other person, the approbation which he 
was pleased to express of the manner in which 
we have concluded the negotiation — We have 
not concluded the negotiation — the negotiation has 
been concluded by others. We have not been 
suffered to continue it. Our claim to merit, if 
we have any, our claim to the approbation of our 
country, is, that we persisted in every attempt to 
conduct that negotiation to a pacific termination, 
as long as our enemies left us not the prospect, 
but the chance or possibility of doing so, consist- 
ently with our honor, our dignity, and our safety. 
We lament and deplore the disappointment of the 
sincere wishes which we felt, and of the earnest 
endeavors which we employed ; yet we are far 
from suffering those sentiments to induce us to 
adopt the unmanly line of conduct that has been 
recommended by the honorable baronet. This is 
not the moment to dwell only on our disappoint- 
ment, suppress our indignation, or to let our 
courage, our constancy, and our determination 
be buried in expressions of unmanly fear or un- 
availing regret. Between these two extremes 
it is that I trust our conduct is directed ; and in 
calling upon the House to join in sentiments be- 
tween those extremes, I do trust, that if we can 
not have the unanimous opinion, we shall have 
the general and ready concurrence both of the 
House and of the country. 

I. Sir, before I trouble the House (which I am 
Preliminary "^^ dcsirous of doing at length) with a 
fns'ir John ^®^^ points which I wish to recapitu- 
sinciair'3 latc, let mc first call to your minds the 
amen men ggj^gj-al nature of the amendment which 
the honorable baronet has, under these circum- 
stances, thought fit to propose, and the general 
nature of the observations by which he intro- 
duced it. He began with deploring the calam- 
ities of war, on the general topic that all war is 
calamitous. Do I object to this sentiment ? No. 
But is it our business, at a moment when we feel 
that the continuance of that war is owing to the 
animosity, the implacable animosity of our ene- 
my, to the inveterate and insatiable ambition of 



the present frantic government of France — not 
of the people of France, as the honorable baro- 
net unjustly stated ; is it our business at that 
moment to content ourselves with merely la- 
menting in commonplace terms the calamities of 
war ? and forgetting that it is part of the duty 
which, as representatives of the people, we owe 
to our govei-nment and our country, to state that 
the continuance of those evils upon ourselves, 
and upon France, too, is the fruit only of the 
conduct of the enemy, that it is to be imputed to 
them, and not to us ? 

Sir, the papers which were ordered to be laid 
on the table have been in every gen- ^j^^ prencU 
tleman's hand, and on the materials government re- 

, . , , r ■ ^ 1 sponsible for 

which they lurnish we must be pre- the continuance 
pared to decide. Can there be a °f'''«*^'- 
doubt that all the evils of war, whatever may be 
their consequences, are to be imputed solely to 
his Majesty's enemies? Is there any man here 
prepared to deny that the delay in every stage of 
the negotiation, and its final rupture, are proved 
to be owing to the evasive conduct, the unwar- 
rantable pretensions, the inordinate ambition, and 
the implacable animosity of the enemy ? I shall 
shortly state what are the points (though it is 
hardly necessary that I should state them, for they 
speak loudly for themselves) on which I would 
rest that proposition. But if there is a man who 
doubts it, is it the honorable baronet ? Is it he 
who makes this amendment, leaving out every 
thing that is honorable to the character of his 
OM'n country, and seeming to court some new 
complaisance on the part of the French Directo- 
ry ? The honorable baronet, who, as soon as he 
has stated the nature of his amendment, makes 
the first part of his speech a charge against his 
Majesty's ministers, for even having commenced 
the negotiation in the manner and under the cir- 
cumstances in which they did commence it — who 
makes his next charge their having persevered in 
■ it, when violations of form and practice were in- 
sisted upon in the earliest stage of it ? Does 
he discover that the French government, whom 
we have accused of insincerity, have been sin- 
cere from the beginning to the end of the nego- 
tiation ? Or, after having accused his Majesty's 
ministers for commencing and persevering in it, 
is the honorable baronet so afraid of being mis- 
construed into an idea of animosity against the 
people of France, that he must disguise the truth 
— must do injustice to the character and cause of 
his own country, and leave unexplained the cause 
of the continuance of this great contest ? Let us 
be prepared to probe that question to the bottom, 
to form our opinion upon it, and to render our 
conduct conformable to that opinion. This I 
conceive to be a manly conduct, and, especially 
at such a moment, to be the indispensable duty 
of the House. 

But let not the honorable baronet imagine there 
is any ground for his apprehension, that by adopt- 
ing the language of the Address, which ascribes 



596 



MR. PITT ON 



[1797. 



the continuance of the war to the ambition of 
Tiie Deciara- ^'^^ cncmy, he will declare a system 
tion whi.-ii as of cndlcss animositv between the na- 

eerts this, not . „ •' , _, 

caicuuted to tions of Great Britam and France. 1 
hostility*** say directly the contrary.^ He who 
FTencLpw- scruples to declare that in the pres- 
P'*- ent moment the government of France 

are actinor as much in contradiction to the known 
wishes of the French nation as to the just pre- 
tensions and anxious wishes of the people of 
Great Britain — he who scruples to declare them 
[the government] the authors of this calamity — 
deprives us of the consolatory hope which we are 
inclined to cherish of some future change of cir- 
cumstances more favorable to our wishes. It is 
a melancholy spectacle, indeed, to see in any 
country, and on the ruin of any pretense of liber- 
ty, however nominal, shallow, or delusive a sys- 
tem of tyranny erected, the most galling, the most 
horrible, the most undisguised in all its parts and 
attributes that has stained the page of history, or 
disgraced the annals of the world. But it would 
be much more unfortunate, if, when we see that 
the same cause carries desolation through France 
which extends disquiet and fermentation through 
Europe — it would be worse, indeed, if we attrib- 
uted to the nation of France that which is to be at- 
tributed only to the unwarranted and usurped au- 
thority which involves them in misery, and would, 
if unresisted, involve Europe with them in one 
common ruin and destruction. Do we state this 
to be animosity on the part of the people of 

raise up 



Do we state this in order to 



an implacable spirit of animosity against that 
country ? Where is one word to that effect in 
the declaration to which the honorable gentle- 
man has alluded ? He complains much of this 
declaration, because it tends to perpetuate ani- 
mosity between two nations which one day or 
other must be at peace — God grant that day 
may be soon ! But what does that Declaration 
express upon the subject ? Does it express that 
because the present existing government of 
France has acted as it has acted, we forego the 
wish or renounce the hope that some new situa- 
tion may lead to happier consequences ? On the 
contrary, his Majesty's language is distinctly 
this : " While this determination continues to 
prevail on the part of his enemies, his Majesty's 
earnest wishes and endeavors to restore peace to 
his subjects must be fruitless, but his sentiments 
remain unaltered. He looks with anxious ex- 
pectation to the moment when the government 
of France may show a temper and spirit in any 
degree corresponding with his own." I wish to 
know whether words can be found in the English 
language which more expressly state the contra- 
ry sentiment to that which the honorable baron- 
et imputes. They not only disclaim animosity 
against the people of France in consequence of 

1 This mode of turning an argument round and 
presenting it with startling force under directly the 
coutr.iry aspect, has already been mentioned as a 
striking characteristic of Mr. Pitt. The ease and 
dexterity with which he does it are truly admira- 
ble. 



the conduct of its rulers, but do not go the length 
of declaring that, after all this provocation, even 
with the present rulers, all treaty is impractica- 
ble. Whether it is probable that, acting on the 
principles upon which they have acquired their 
power, and while that power continues, they will 
listen to any system of moderation or justice at 
home or abroad, it is not now necessary to dis- 
cuss. But for one, I desire to express my cor- 
dial concurrence in the sentiment, so pointedly 
expressed in that passage of the Declaration in 
which his Majesty, notwithstanding all the prov- 
ocation he has received, and even after the recent 
successes which by the blessing of Providence 
have attended his arms, declares his readiness to 
adhere to the same moderate terms and princi- 
ples which he proposed at the time of our great- 
est difficulties, and to conclude peace on that 
ground, if it can now be obtained, even WMth this 
very government. 

I am sensible that while I am endeavoring 
to vindicate his Majesty's servants (2.)EariTem. 
against the charges of the honorable p''^''^ remarks, 
baronet (which are sufficiently, however, refuted 
by the early part of his own speech), I am in- 
curring, in some degree, the censure of the no- 
ble Lord to whom I before alluded. According 
to his principles and opinions, and of some few 
others in this country, it is matter of charge 
against us, that we even harbor in our minds, at 
this moment, a wish to conclude peace upon the 
terms which we think admissible with the pres- 
ent rulers of France. I am not one However ?maU 
of those who can or will join in that hope.'^Engiand 
sentiment. I have no difficulty in re- to"beVea^y"to 
peating what I stated before, that in '^'■'^''' ^■''«" '' 

' . " . . „ can be done 

then' present spu'it, after what they with safety. 
have said, and .still more, after what they have 
done, I can entertain little hope of so desirable an 
event. I have no hesitation in avowing (for it 
would be idleness and hypocrisy to conceal it) 
that, for the sake of mankind in general, and to 
gratify those sentiments which can never be 
eradicated from the human heart, I should see 
with pleasure and satisfaction the termination of 
a government whose conduct and whose origin is 
such as we have seen that of the government of 
France. But that is not the object — that ought 
not to be the principle of the war. Whatever 
wish I may entertain in my own heart, and what- 
ever opinion I may think it fair or manly to avow. 
I have no difficulty in stating that, violent and 
odious as is the character of that government, I 
verily believe, in the present state of Europe, 
that if we are not wanting to ourselves, if, by 
the blessing of Providence, our perseverance and 
our resources should enable us to make peace 
with France upon terms in which we taint not 
our character, in which we do not abandon the 
sources of our wealth, the means of our strength, 
the defense of what we already possess — if we 
maintain our equal pretentions and assert that 
rank w^hich we are entitled to hold among na- 
tions — the moment peace can be obtained on 
such terms, be the form of government in Franco 
what it may, peace is desirable, peace is then 



1797] 



THE RUPTURE OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE. 



597 



anxiously to be sought. But unless it is at- 
tained on such terms, there is no extremity of 
war — there is no extremity of honorable contest 
— that is not preferable to the name and pretense 
of peace, which must be, in reality, a disgraceful 
capitulation, a base, an abject surrender of ev- 
ery thing that constitutes the pride, the safety, 
and happiness of England." 

These, sir, are the sentiments of my mind on 
this leading point, and with these sentiments I 
shape my conduct between the contending opin- 
ions of the noble Lord and of the honorable bar- 
Answer to Sir onet. But there is one observation of 
chirjlof ini' ^ the honorable baronet on which I must 
consistency. jj^^y moYe particularly remark. He 
has discovered that we state the Directory of 
France to have been all along insincere, and 
yet take merit for having commenced a negotia- 
tion which we ought never to have commenced 
without being persuaded of their sincerity. This 
supposed contradiction requires but a few words 
to explain it. I believe that those who consti- 
tute the present government of France never 
were sincere for a moment in the negotiation. 
From all the information I have obtained, and 
from every conjecture I could form, I, for one, 
never was so duped as to believe them sincere. 
But I did believe, and I thought I knew, that 
there was a prevailing wish for peace, and a 
predominant sense of its necessity growing and 
confirming itself in France, and founded on the 
most obvious and most pressing motives. I did 
see a spirit of reviving moderation gradually 
gaining ground, and opening a way to the hap- 
piest alterations in the general system of that 
country. I did believe that the violence of that 
portion of the executive government which, by 
the late strange revolution of France, unhappily 
for France itself and for the world, has gained 
the ascendency, would have been restrained with- 
in some bounds — that ambition must give way to 
reason — that even frenzy itself must be controlled 
and governed by necessity. These were the 
hopes and expectations I entertained. I did, not- 
withstanding, feel that even from the outset, and 
in every step of that negotiation, those who hap- 
pily had not yet the full power to cut it short in 
the beginning — who dared not trust the public 
eye with the whole of their designs — who could 
not avow all their principles — unfortunately, nev- 
ertheless, did retain from the beginning power 
enough to control those who had a better dispo- 
sition, and to mix in every part of the negotia- 
tion (which they could not then abruptly break 
off) whatever could impede, embarrass, and per- 
plex, in order to throw upon us, if possible, the 
odium of its failure. 

Sir, the system of France is explained by the 
Conduct of tiie Very objections that are made against 
tile Frenchgov" '^^^ conduct. The violent party could 
ernment ^^^^ g^g J j^g^^,g Stated, at oucc break 

off the treaty on their part, but they wished to 



2 We have here one of those fine amplifications in 
which Mr. Pitt was accustomed to enlarge and dwell 
upon the more important parts of a subject, in order 
to deepen the impression. 



drive England to the rupture. They had not 
strength enough to reject all negotiation, yet 
they had strength enough to mix in every step 
those degradations and insults, those inconsistent 
and unwarranted pretensions in points even of 
subordinate importance, which reduced ministers 
to that option which I have described ; but which 
they decided in a way that has exposed them to 
the censure of the honorable baronet. We chose 
rather to incur the blame of sacrificing punctil- 
ios (at some times essential) rather „ 

^ ' . How met by 

than afford the enemy an opportunity the British gov- 

P ,. , . , . ^. ,, T eminent. 

ot evading this plam question. Is 
there any ground, and, if any, what, upon which 
you are ready to conclude?" To that point it 
was our duty to drive them. We have driven 
them to that point. They would tell us no 
terms, however exorbitant and unwarrantable, 
upon which they would be ready to make peace. 
What would have been the honorable baronet's 
expedient to avoid this embarrassment ? It 
would have been (as he has this day informed 
us) an address which he had thought of moving 
in the last session, and which, indeed, I should 
have been less surprised had he moved, than if 
the House had concurred in it. We would have 
moved that no project should be given sir .John sm- 
in till the enemy were prepared to pre- ^^^'^'^ '''^"• 
sent a counter-project. If it was a great mis- 
fortune that that address was not moved, I am 
afraid some of the guilt belongs to me 5 because 
the honorable baronet did suggest such an idea, 
and I did with great sincerity and frankness tell 
him that, if he was really a friend to peace, 
there was no motion he could make so little cal- 
culated to promote that object ; and I did prevail 
upon the honorable baronet to give up the inten- 
tion. If I am right in the supposition I have 
stated — if I am right in thinking that our great 
object was to press France to this point, and to 
put the question, " If you have any terms to of- 
fer, what are they? ' — was there any one way 
by w^hich we could make it so difficult for them 
to retain any pretense of a desire of peace as to 
speak out ourselves, and call upon them either 
for agreement, or for modification, or for some 
other plan in their turn ? By not adopting the 
honorable baronet's plan, we have put the ques- 
tion beyond dispute, whether peace was attain- 
able at last, and whether our advances would or 
would not be met on the part of France. And 
I shall, to the latest hour of my life, rejoice that 
we were fortunate enough to place this ques- 
tion in the light which defies the powers of mis- 

I representation ; in which no man can attempt 
to perplex it ; and in which it presents itself this 

I day for the decision of the House and of the na- 
tion, and calls upon every individual who has at 
stake the public happiness and his own, to de- 
termine for himself whether this is or is not a 
crisis which requires his best exertions in the de- 
fense of his country- 

II. To show which, I shall now proceed, not- 
withstanding the reproach which has been thrown 
on our line of conduct, to show^ the system even 
of obstinate forbearance, with which we endeav- 



59S 



MR. PITT ON 



[1797. 



ored to overcome preliminary difficulties — the de- 
Exposition of termined resolution on our part to over- 
the French' ""^ look all minor obstacles, and to come 
government to the real esscnce of discussion upon 

as compared , ^ _,,,.. 

with that of the terms of peace, lo show this, it 
the Enghsh. j^ ^^^ necessary to do more than to call 
to the recollection of the House the leading parts 
of the Declaration of his Majesty ; I mean to leave 
that part of the subject, also, v^'ithout the possibili- 
ty of doubt or difllercnce of opinion. It is certain- 
ly true that, even previous to any of the circum- 
stances that related to the preliminary forms of 
the negotiation, the prior conduct of France had 
offered to any government that was not sincerely 
and most anxiously bent upon peace, sufficient 
ground for the continuance of hostilities. It is 
(I.) Conductor ^^^^^ ^^^^^ '" ^^® former negotiation at 
the French in Paris, Lord Malmesburv was finally 

the previous ' •' . •' 

negotiation of scnt away, not upon a question of 
terms of peace — not upon a question 
of the cession of European or Colonial posses- 
sions, but upon the haughty demand of a pre- 
vious preliminary, which should give up every 
thing on the part of the allies ; and which should 
leave them afterward every thing to ask, or 
rather to require. It is true, it closed in nearly 
the same insulting manner as the second mission. 
It is true, too, that subsequent to that period, in 
the preliminaries concluded between the Emper- 
or and France, it was agreed to invite the allies 
of each party to a congress ; which, however, 
was never carried into execution.^ It was under 
these circumstances that his Majesty, in the 
earnest desire of availing himself of that spirit 
of moderation which had begun to show itself in 
France, determined to renew those proposals 
which had been before slighted and rejected. 
But when this step was taken, vv'hat was the 
conduct of those who have gained the ascenden- 
cy in France ? On the first application to know 
{-2.) The dicta- on w^hat ground they were disposed 

tonal tone from . . , •,, i 

the commence- to negotiate, wautouly, as Will be 
ITatuVofAe'^ shown by the sequel, and for no pur- 
negotiation. pogg but to prcvcut cvcu the Opening 
of the conferences, they insisted upon a mode of 
negotiation very contrary to general usage and 
convenience — contrary to the mode in which 
they had terminated war with any of the bellig- 
erent powers, and directly contrary to any mode 
which they themselves afterward persisted in 
following in this very negotiation with us ! They 
began by saying they would receive no proposals 
for preliminaries^ but that conferences should be 
held for the purpose of concluding at once a de- 
finitive treaty.'' 

' This was at Leoben, in April, 1797, when the 
preliminaries of peace were settled between France 
and Austria, which led to the treaty of Cainpo For- 
mio. 

* This refusal to discuss " the preliminaries of 
peace," as proposed by Lord Grenville (in accord 
ance with established usage), was contained in the 
first note from the French minister. He put the ne- 
gotiation on the ground of England's coming forward 
immediately with her "overtures and proposals," 
and insisted that "negotiations should be set on foot 



His Majesty's answer was, that it was his de- 
sire to adopt that mode only which was most 
likely to accelerate the object in view ; and the 
powers of his plenipotentiary would apply to 
either object, either preliminary or definitive. 
They appeared content with his answer, but 
what was the next step ? In the simple form of 
granting a passport for the minister, ,3 , ^^^^^ .^^ 
at the moment they were saying they propriety in the 

P J t c -,• L passport they 

prelerred a definitive peace, because sent to the En- 
it was the most expeditious — in that ^'^ ^mister, 
very passport, which in all former times has only 
described the character of the minister, without 
entering into any thing relating to the terms or 
mode of negotiating — they insert a condition rel- 
ative to his powers, and that inconsistent with 
what his Majesty had explained to be the nature 
of the powers he had intended to give, and with 
which they had apparently been satisfied. They 
made it a passport not for a minister coming to 
conclude peace generally, but applicable only to 
a definitive and separate peace.^ 

This proceeding was in itself liable to the most 
obvious objection. But it is more important, as 
an instance to show how, in the simplest part of 
the transaction, the untractable spirit of France 
discovered itself. It throws light on the subse- 
quent part of the transaction ; and shows the in- 
consistencies and contradictions of their success- 
ive pretensions. As to the condition then made 
in the passport for the first time, that the nego- 
tiation should be for a separate peace, his Majesty 
declared that he had no choice between a defini- 
tive and a preliminary treaty ; but as to a separ- 
ate peace, his honor and good faith, with regard 
to his ally the Queen of Portugal, would not per- 
mit it. He, therefore, stated his unalterable de- 
termination to agree to no treaty in which Port- 
ugal should not be included ; expressing, at the 
same time, his readiness that France should treat 
on the part of Holland and Spain. 

On this occasion, the good faith of this country 
prevailed. The system of violence and passport 
despotism was not then ripe, and there- '^''^"s*^'^- 
fore his Majesty's demand to treat for Portugal 



at once for a definitive treaty." See his Note in 
Parliamentary History, vol. xxxiii., page 909. 

5 The passport addressed to the officers of the 
French police was in the following words : 

" Allow to pass freely , furnished with 

the full powers of his Britannic Majesty for the pur- 
pose of negotiating, concluding, and signing a defin- 
itive and separate treaty of peace with the French 
Republic." 

Here the word separate was inserted in direct 
contravention of the arrangement between the two 
governments, and was obviously intended to make 
difficulty. England had agreed to negotiate for a de- 
finitive, but not for a separate treaty ; she could not 
give up Portugal, which had long been under her 
protection. The French Directory plainly designed 
to draw Mr. Pitt into a dilemma: if he accepted the 
passport, and afterward undertook to treat for Port- 
ugal, the negotiation could be broken off on the 
ground that he went beyond the terms established 
by the passport; if he refused the passport, it was 
easy to say he had broken off" the negotiation when 
acceded to by France. 



1797] 



THE RUPTURE OF NEGOTlATIOiNS WITH FRANCE. 



599 



was acquiesced in by the Directory. They, at 
the same tinae, undertook to treat on their part 
for their allies, Holland and Spain, as well as for 
themselves ; thoujrh in the subsequent course of 
the negotiation, they pretended to be without 
sufficient power to treat for either. 

I must here entreat the attention of the House 
(4.) Use of insult- to the ucxt circumstancc which oc- 
thf f>fncif as to curred. When the firmness of his 
ernmen'ttri°em- ^^^M^sty, his auxious and sinccrc de- 
bassador. sirc to terminate the horrors of war, 

and his uniform moderation overcame the vio- 
lence, and defeated the designs of the members 
of the executive government of France, they had 
recourse to another expedient, the most absurd, 
as well as the most unjustifiable. They advert- 
ed to the rupture of the former negotiation, as if 
that rupture was to be imputed to his Majesty ; 
and this insinuation was accompanied with a per- 
sonal reflection upon the minister who was sent 
by his Majesty to treat on the part of this coun- 
try.^ His Majesty, looking anxiously as he did 
to the conclusion of peace, disdained to reply 
otherwise than by observing that this was not a 
fit topic to be agitated at the moment of renew- 
ing a negotiation, and that the circumstances of 
the transaction were well enough known to Eu- 
rope and to the world. And the result of this 
negotiation has confirmed, what the former had 
sufficiently proved, that his Majesty could not 
have selected, in the ample field of talents which 

6 The following are the words which charge the 
rupture of the pi-eceding negotiation on the English : 

" The Directory requires that it shall be estab- 
/ished as a principle, that each English packet-boat 
which .shall have brought over either the plenipo- 
tentiary or a courier shall not be allowed to make 
any stay." "The Directory desires, at the same 
time, that the com-iers should not be sent too fre- 
quently; the frecjuent sending tkem having been one 
of the principal causes of the rupture of the preced- 
ing negotiation." 

Nothing more frivolous could be conceived of as a 
reason for such a rupture. Nothing of this kind was 
mentioned at the time. The French minister did in 
one instance inquire, whether it was necessary for 
Lord Malmesbury to send a courier to England every 
time he received a communication from the Direct- 
ory — a question which seems plainly to have been 
designed as a taunt ; and his Lordship coolly replied. 
that he should do it " as often as the official commu- 
nications made to him required special instructions." 

The " personal reflection" on Lord Malmesbury 
was in the following words : " The Directory consents 
that the negotiation shall be opened by Lord Malmes- 
bury. Another choice would, however, have appear- 
ed to the Directory to augur more favorably for a 
speedy conclusion of peace." This was a gratui- 
tous insult. Lord Malmesbury was distinguished for 
his courteous deportment, and no complaint had been 
made of him by the French government. Even 
Belsham, who was so rabid against Mr. Pitt and his 
? friends, that Fox once said concerning his Memoirs 

of the Reign of George III., "how can a man write 
history in this way 1" admits that his Lordship "was 
uniformly mild and temperate, his manners polite 
and pleasing." — Vol. vi., page 322. It is plain the 
Directory meant to force Mr. Pitt, by their treatment, 
to break oS'the negotiation. 



his dominions furnish, any person better qualified 
to do justice to his sincere and benevolent desire 
to promote the restoration of Peace, and his firm 
and unalterable determination to maintain the 
dignity and honor of his kingdom. 

In spite of these obstacles and others more 
minute, the British plenipotentiary (5.) Exchan-eof 
at length arrived at Lisle. The full p/'^ers, fi,o?e of 

^ . the French com- 

powers were transmitted to the missioners ie.s» 

^1 ample tlian tliose 

respective governments, and were oftheEnghsU 
found unexceptionable ; though the ^'"bassador. 
supposed defect of these full powers is, three 
months after, alleged as a cause for the rupture 
of the negotiation ! And what is more remark- 
able, it did so happen that the French full pow- 
ers were, on the face of them, much more limit- 
ed than ours: for they only enabled the commis- 
sioners of the Directory to act according to the 
instructions they were to receive from time to 
time. On this point it is not necessary now to 
dwell; but I desire the House to treasure it in 
their memory, when we come to the question of 
pretense for the rupture of the negotiation. 

Then, sir, I come to the point in which we 
have incurred the censure of the hon- (6.) The En- 
orable baronet, for delivering in on our olit'rJd thd^ 
part a project. To his opinion I do not ^^el^y VaWy 
subscribe, for the reasons that I stated Jrawn out. 
before. But can there be a stronger proof of 
his Majesty's sincerity than his waving so many 
points important in themselves, rather than suf- 
fer the negotiation to be broken off? What was 
our situation ? We were to treat with Re^go„g f^g^ 
a government that had in the outset ''"'"s-- 

1 , , 11 , (*>) France de- 

expressed that they would treat only manded a de- 

definitively, and from every part of >""-^'-«''^y- 

their conduct which preceded the meeting of 

our plenipotentiary and their commissioners, we 

might have expected that they would have been 

prepared to answer our project almost in twenty- 

j four hours after it was delivered. We stood 

I with respect to France in this pre- (b) England had 

dicament — we had nothing to ask ceive"from'^her 

! of them. The question only was, sS''to"s''aJ'"' 

' how much we were to jrive of that '''!;?' ^'l« ^*« 

& willing to give 

which the valor of his Majesty's op- 
arms had acquired from them and from their 
allies. In this situation, surely, we might have 
expected that, before we oflTered the price of 
peace, they would at least have condescended to 
say what were the sacrifices which they expect- 
ed us to make. But, sir, in this situation, what 
species of project was it that was presented by 
his Majesty's minister? A project the most 
distinct, the most particular, the most conciliato- 
ry and moderate, that ever constituted the first 
words spoken by any negotiator. And yet of 
this project what have we heard in the language 
of the French government? What have we seen 
dispersed through all Europe, by that press in 
France which knows no sentiments but what the 
French police dictates ? What have we seen 
dispersed by that English press which knows no 
other use of English liberty but servilely to re- 
tail and transcribe French opinions? We have 
been told that it was a project that refused to 



600 



MR. PITT ON 



[1797. 



embrace the terms of negotiation ! Gentlemen 
have read the papers ; how does that fact stand ? 
In the original project, we agreed to give up the 
conquests we had made from France and her 
allies, with certain exceptions. For those ex- 
ceptions a blank was left, in order to ascertain 
whether France was desirous that the exceptions 
should be divided between her and her allies, or 
whether she continued to insist upon a complete 
compensation, and left England to look for com- 
pensation only to her allies. Fi'ance, zealous as 
she pi-etends to be for her allies, had no difficulty 
in authorizing her ministers to declare that she 
must retain every thing for herself. This blank 
The blanks for was then filled up ; and it was then 
s^oniitV^fiaed distinctly stated how little, out of 
sub>"to*fu'r- what we had, we demanded to keep. 
tiiernesotiation. In ouc scuse, it remains a blank still : 
we did not attempt to preclude France from any 
other mode of filling it up ; but while we stated 
the utmost extent of our own views, we left open 
to full explanation whatever points the govern- 
ment of France could desire. We called upon 
them, and repeatedly solicited them to state 
something as to the nature of the terms which 
they proposed, if they objected to ours. It was 
thus left open to modification, alteration, or con- 
cession. But this is not the place, this is not the 
time, in which I am to discuss whether those 
terms, in all given circumstances, or in the cir- 
cumstances of that moment, were or were not 
the ultimate terms upon which peace ought to 
be accepted or rejected, if it was once brought 
to the point when an ultimatum could be judged 
of. I will not argue whether some greater con- 
cession might not have been made with the cer- 
tainty of peace, or whether the tei-ms proposed 
constituted an offer of peace upon more favora- 
ble grounds for the enemy than his Majesty's 
ministers could justify. I argue not the one 
question or the other. It would be inconsistent 
w4th the public interest and our duty, that we 
should here slate or discuss it. All that I have 
to discuss is, whether the terms, upon the face 
of them, appear honorable, open, frank, distinct, 
sincere, and a pledge of moderation ; and I leave 
it to the good sense of the House whether there 
can exist a difference of opinion upon this point. 
Sir, what was it we offered to renounce to 
(7 ) conces- ^^^"^^ ^ ^^ o"® word, all that we 
sions offered had taken from them. What did this 
^ "san . jjQj^gjig^ Qj" 9 rpj^g valuable, and almost 
under all circumstances, the impregnable isl- 
and of Martinique ; various other West India 
possessions ; Saint Lucia, Tobago, the French 
part of Saint Domingo, the settlements of Pondi- 
cherry and Chandernagore ; all the French fac- 
tories and means of trade in the East Indies ; and 
the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. And 
j|)r what were these renunciations to be made ? 
;foir peace, and for peace only. And to whom ? 
'To a nation which had obtained from his Majes- 
^'s dominions in Europe nothing in the course 
if -the u'ar — which had never met our fleets but 
Jo -add to the catalogue of our victories, and to 
swell the melancholy lists of their own captures 



and defeats. To a power which had never sep- 
arately met the arms of this country by land, but 
to carry the glory and prowess of the British 
name to a higher pitch ; and to a country whose 
commerce is unheard of; whose navy is annihi- 
lated ; whose distress, confessed bv themselves 
(however it may be attempted to be dissembled 
by their panegyrists in this or any other country), 
is acknowledged by the sighs and groans of the 
people of France, and proved by the expostula- 
tions and remonstrations occasioned by the vio- 
lent measures of its executive government — such 
was the situation in which we stood — such the 
situation of the enemy when we offered to make 
those important concessions as the price of 
peace. What was the situation of the allies of 
France ? From Spain — wiio, from the moment 
she had deserted our cause and enlisted on the 
part of the enemy, only added to the number of 
our conquests, and to her own indelible disgrace 
— we made claim of one island, the island of 
Trinidad — a claim not resting on the mere na- 
ked title of possession to counterbalance the gen- 
eral European aggrandizement of France, but as 
the price of something that we had to give, by 
making good the title to the Spanish part of 
Saint Domingo, w^hich Spain had ceded without 
right, and which cession could not be made with- 
out our guarantee. To Holland — having in our 
hands the whole means of their commerce, the 
whole source of their wealth — we offered to re- 
turn almost all that was valuable and lucrative 
to them, in the mere consideration of commerce. 
We desired, in return, to keep what to them, in 
a pecuniary point of view, would be only a bur- 
den [the Cape of Good Hope and tlie island of 
Ceylon] ; in a political view worse than useless, 
because they had not the means to keep it — what 
(had we granted it) would have been a sacrifice, 
not to them, but to France — what would in fu- 
ture have enabled her to carry on her plan of 
subjugation against the eastern possessions of 
Holland itself, as well as against those of Great 
Britain.''' All that we asked was not indemnifica- 
tion for what we had suffered, but the means of 
preserving our own possessions and the strength 
of our naval empire. We did this at a time 
when our enemy was feeling the pressure of war ; 
and who looks at the question of peace v^uthout 
some regard to the relative situation of the 
country with which you are contending ? Look, 
then, at their trade ; look at their means ; look at 
the posture of their affairs ; look at what we hold, 
and at the means we have of defending ourselves, 
and our enemy of resisting us, and tell me wheth- 
er this offer was or was not a proof of sincerity, 
and a pledge of moderation. Sir, I should be 
ashamed of arguing it. I confess I am appre- 
hensive we may have gone too far in the first 
proposals we made, rather than shown any back- 
wardness in the negotiation, but it is unnecessa- 
ry to argue this point. 

■> The concessions offered by England were so 
ample that all Europe, and even Mr. Belsham, pro- 
nounced them highly liberal. 



1797.] 



THE RUPTURE OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE. 



601 



Our proposal was received and allowed by the 

(8 ) The French French plenipotentiaries, and trans- 
nowin-siston mitted lor the consideration of the 

tue discussion -n r i i i i i • 

j ■ otpreiimina- Directory. Months had elapsed in 
I ""' sending couriers weekly and daily 

from Paris to Lisle, and from Lisle to Paris. 
They taufjht us to expect, from time to time, a 
consideration of this subject, and an explicit an- 
swer to our project. But the first attempt of the 
Directory to negotiate, after havinir received our 
project, is worthy of remark. They required 
thai we, whom they had summoned to a defini- 
tive treaty, should stop and discu.ss preliminary 
points, which were to be settled without know- 
ing whether, when we had agreed to them all, 
we had advanced one inch. We were to dis- 
cuss, (1) whether his Majesty would renounce 
the title of King of France, a harmless feather at 
most in the crown of England. We were to dis- 
cuss, (2) whether we would restore those ships 
taken at Toulon, the acquisition of valor, and 
which we were entitled upon every ground to 
hold. We were to discuss, (3) whether we 
would renounce the mortgage which we might 
. possess on the Netherlands, and which engaged 
much of the honorable baronet's attention ; but 
it does so happen that what the honorable bar- 
onet considered as so important was of no im- 
portance at all; for a mortgage on the Nether- 
lands w^e have none, and consequently we have 
none to renounce. Therefore, upon that condi- 
tion, w^hich they had no right to ask, and we had 
no means of granting, we told them the true 
state of the case, and that it was not worth talk- 
ing about.* 

•The next point which occurred is of a nature 
(9.) They next which is difficult to dwcll upon with- 
surrenderlfraw °^^ indignation. We were waiting 
the conquests thc fulfillment of a promise which had 
?iand, as a pre- been mads repeatedly, of delivering 
iminary. ^^ ^^^^, embassador a counter-project, 

when they who had desired us to come for the 
purpose of concluding a definitive treaty, propose 
that we should subscribe, as a sine qua nan prelim- 
inary^ that we were ready, in the first instance, 
to consent to give up all that we had taken, and 



^ It may be remarked as to the first of these pre- 
liminary points, that all the French kings for three 
centuries had allowed this part of the title of the 
English monarch ("King of France") to stand at 
the head of treaties, and it was, therefore, certainly 
frivolous to raise any question about it. As to the 
second, touching the ships taken at Toulon, there 
was more plausibility in the claim, because they 
were given up on the condition of being "restored 
in the event of peace." But they were given up by 
French Royalists to create a diversion against the 
Republic, and the peace referred to was, therefore, 
plainly a peace with the regal government, and not 
with a revolutionary body like the Directory. The 
third preliminary related to a lien which England 
had on the hereditary possessions of Austria, as se- 
curity for certain loans made to the Emperor; and 
the Directoi-y demanded to know whether the Aus- 
trian Netherlands (then incorporated into France) 
were considered as subject to this lien. Mr. Pitt 
answered them as stated in the text. 



then to hear what they had further to ask !^ la 
it possible to suppose that such a thing could be 
listened to by any country that was not prepared 
to prostrate itself at the feet of France ; and in 
that abject posture to adore its conqueror, to so- 
licit new insults, to submit to demands still more 
degrading and ignominious, and to cancel at 
once the honor of the British name ? His Maj- 
esty had no hesitation in refusing to comply with 
such insolent and unwarrantable demands. Here, 
again, the House will see that the spirit of the 
violent part of the French government which, 
had the insolence to advance this proposition, had 
not acquired power and strength in that state of 
the negotiation to adhere to it. His Majesty's 
explanations and remonstrances for a time pre- 
vailed ; and an interval ensued in which we had 
a hope that we were advancing to a pacification. 
His Majesty's refusal of this demand was received 
by the French plenipotentiaries with assurances 
of a pacific disposition, was transmitted to their 
government, and was seconded by a continued 
and repeated repetition of promises that a coun- 
ter-project should be presented — pretending that 
they were under the necessity of sending to 
their allies an account of what passed, and that 
they were endeavoring to prevail on them to ac- 
cede to proposals for putting an end to the ca- 
lamities of war — to terminate the calamities of 
that war into which those allies were forced ; in 
which they were retained by France alone ; and 
in which they purchased nothing but sacrifices 
to France and misery to themselves. We were 
told, indeed, in a conference that followed, that 
they had obtained an answer ; but that not being 
sufficiently satisfactory, it was sent back to be 
considered ! This continued during ihe whole 
period, until that dreadful catastrophe of the 4th 
of September, 1797. Even after that event, the 
same pretense was held out : they peremptorily 
promised the counter-project in four days ; the 
same pacific professions were renewed, and our 
minister was assured that the change of circum- 
stances in France should not be a bar to the pa- 
cification. Such was the uniform language of 
the plenipotentiaries in the name of the govern- 
ment — how it is proved by their actions, I have 
already stated to the House. After this series 

9 This extraordinai7 demand was made on the 
ground (never mentioned or alluded to before) that 
" there exists in the public and secret treaties by 
which the French Republic is bound to its allies, 
Spain and the Batavian Republic, articles by which 
those powers respectively guarantee the territories 
possessed by each of them before the war. The 
French government, unable to detach itself frora 
these engagements, establishes as an indispcjisahh 
preliminary of the negotiation for the peace with 
England, the consent of his Britannic Majesty to 
the restitution of all the possessions which he occu- 
pies, not only from the French Republic, but further 
and formally, of those of Spain and of the Batavian 
Republic." It is obvious that this was an after- 
thought to impede the negotiation, and that France, 
which overruled Spain and Holland at her will, had 
no difficulty on this subject except as she chose to 
make one. 



602 



MR. PITT ON 



[1797. 



of professions, what was the first step taken [by 
the French], to go on with the negotiation in 
this spirit of conciliation ? Sir, the first step 
was to renew (as his Majesty's Declaration has 
well stated), in a shape still more offensive, the 
former inadmissible and rejected demand — the 
rejection of which had been acquiesced in by 
themselves two months before ; and during all 
which time we had been impatiently waiting 
for the performance of their promises. That de- 
(10.) They fin- maud was the same that I have al- 
Lord Mlu'mes' I'^ady Stated in substance, that Lord 
bury that. i( lie ^Malmcsbury should explain to them 

has not power , , • , , , • • 

to do this he not only his powers, but also his in- 
from hifgov' structions ; and they asked not for 
ernment. ^j^^ formal cxtcut of liis powcr, which 

would give solidity to what he might conclude 
in the King's name, but they asked an irrevoca- 
ble pledge that he would consent to give up all 
that we had taken from them and from their al- 
lies without knowing how much more they had 
afterward to ask \^^ It is true, they endeavor- 
ed to convince Lord Malmesbury that, although 
an avowal of his instructions was demanded, it 
would never be required that he should act upon 
it — since there was a great difference between 
knowing the extent of the powers of a minister 
and insisting upon their exercise. And here I 
would ask the honorable baronet whether he 
thinks if, in the first instance, we had given up 
all to the French plenipotentiaries, they would 
have given it all back again to us ? Suppose I 
was embassador from the French Directory, and 
the honorable baronet was emba.ssador from Great 
Britain, and I were to say to him, '• Will you give 
up all you have gained; it would only be a hand- 
some thing in you as an Englishman, and no un- 
generous use shall be made of it?" would the 
honorable baronet expect me, as a French em- 
bassador, to say I am instructed, from the good 
nature of the Directory, to say you have acted 
handsomely, and I now return what you have so 
generously given ? Should we not be called 
children and drivelers, if we could act in this 
manner ? And, indeed, the French government 
could be nothing but children and drivelers if 
they could suppose that we should have acceded 
to such a proposal. But they are bound, it 
seems, by sacred treaties ! They are bound by 
immutable laws ! They are sworn, v^'hen they 
make peace to return every thing to their allies ! 
And who shall require of France, for the safety 
of Europe, to depart from its own pretensions to 
honor and independence ? 

If any person can really suppose that this 
country could have agreed to such a proposition, 

^° The words used were these: "There is a de- 
cree of the Directory, that in case Lord Malmesbury 
shall declare himself not to have the necessary pow- 
ers for agreeing to all the restitutions which the laws 
and treaties which bind the French Republic make 
indispensable, he shall return in twenty-f our hours to 
his court to ask for sufficierit powers." As the Di- 
rectory knew the English could not grant this, cer- 
tainly as a preliminary, such a communication was 
a direct dismissal of Lord Malmesbury. 



or that such a negotiation was likely to lead to a 
good end : all I can say is, that with impossible for 

1 T -11 T 1 England to 

such a man 1 will not argue. I leave grant this. 
others to imagine what was likely to have been 
the end of a negotiation in which it was to have 
been settled as a preliminary that you were to 
give up all thai you have gained ; and when, on 
the side of your enemy, not a word was said of 
what he had to propose afterward. They de- 
mand of your embassador to show to them, not 
only his powers, but also his instructions, before 
they explain a word of theirs ; and they tell 
you, too, that you are never to expect to hear 
what their powers are, until you shall be ready 
to accede to every thing which the Directory 
may think fit to require. This is certainly the 
substance of what they propose ; and they tell 
you, also, that they are to carry on the negotia- 
tion from the instructions which their plenipoten- 
tiaries are to receive from time to time from 
them. You are to have no power to instruct 
your embassador ! You are to show to the en- 
emy at once all you have ic view ! And they 
will only tell you from time to time, as to them 
shall seem meet, wiiat demands they shall make. 

It was thus it was attempted, on the part of the 
French, to commence the negotiation, uecapituia- 
In July, this demand was made to Lord """• 
Malmesbury. He stated that his powers were 
ample. In answer to this, they went no farther 
than to say that if he had no such power as what 
they required, he should send to England to ob- 
tain it. To which he replied, that he had not, nor 
should he have it if he sent. In this they acqui- 
esce, and attempt, to amuse us for two months. 
At the end of that time, the plenipotentiaries say 
to Lord Malmesbury, not what they said before, 
send to England for power to accede to propo- 
sals which you have already rejected : but go to 
England yourself for such powers, in order to 
obtain peace. 

Such was the winding up of the negotiation. 
Such was the way in wiiich the prospect of peace 
has been disappointed by the conduct of France ; 
and I must look upon the dismissal of Lord 
Malmesbury as the last stage of the negotiation, 
because the undisguised insult by which it was 
pretended to be kept up for ten days after Lord 
Malmesbury was sent away, was really below 
comment. You send him to ask for those pow- 
ers which you were told he had not, and in the re- 
fusal of which you acquiesced. Y''ou have asked 
as a preliminary that which is monstrous and ex- 
orbitant. That preliminary you were told would 
not be complied with, and yet the performance 
of that preliminary you made the sine qua non 
conditions of his return ! Such was the last step 
by which the French government has shown that 
it had feeling enough left to think it necessary to 
search for some pretext to color its proceedings. 
But they are such proceedings that no pretext or 
artifice can cover them, as will appear more par- 
ticularly from the papers oflicially communicated 
to the House. 

But here the subject does not rest. If we look 
to the whole complexion of this transaction, the 



1797.] 



THE RUPTURE OF NEGOTIATIONS WITH FRANCE. 



603 



duplicity, the arrogance, and violence which has 
A revolutionary appeared in the course of the nego- 
government,and tiation, if wc take from thence our 

nottlie trench . . „. , , , ,, 

people, responsi- opinion 01 its general result, we shall 

ble for their acts. , . ^. n ^ • i • 

be justined in our conclusion — not 
that the people of France — not that the whole 
government of France — but that part of the gov- 
ernment which had too much influence, and has 
now the whole ascendency, never was sincere — 
was determined to accept of no terms but such 
as would make it neither durable nor safe ; such 
as could only be accepted by this country by a 
surrender of all its interests, and by a sacrifice 
of every pretension to the character of a great, a 
powerful, or an independent nation. 

This, sir, is inference no longer. You have 
They are di- their owu opcn avowal. You have 
thrvery^eTsv Stated in the subsequent declaration 
B'rklsh'^e^m- ^^ France itself that it is not against 
p''«- your commerce, that it is not against 

your wealth, it is not against your possessions in 
the East, or your colonies in the West, it is not 
against even the source of your maritime great- 
ness, it is not against any of the appendages of 
your empire, but against the very essence of 
liberty, against the foundation of your independ- 
ence, against the citadel of your happiness, against 
your Constitution itself, that their hostilities are 
directed. They have themselves announced and 
proclaimed the proposition, that what they mean 
. " to bring with their invading army is the genius 
of their liberty. I desire no other word to ex- 
press the subversion of the British Constitution, 
and the substitution of the most malignant and 
fatal contrast — the annihilation, of British liberty, 
and the obliteration of every thing that has ren- 
dered you a great, a flourishing, and a happy 
people. 

This is what is at issue. For this are we to 
- declare ourselves in a manner that dep- 

Is.stie now ' 

before the rccatcs the rage which our enemy will 
coun Ti. ^^^^^ dissemble, and which will be little 
moved by our entreaty ! Under .such circum- 
stances, are we ashamed or afraid to declare, in 
a firm and manly tone, our resolution to defend 
ourselves, or to speak the language of truth with 
the energy that belongs to Englishmen united 
in such a cause ? Sir, I do not scruple, for one, 
to .say, If I knew nothing by xvhich I could state 
to myself a probability of the contest terminating 
in our favor ^ I would maintain that the contest, 
with its worst clianc.cs, is preferable to an acqui- 
escence in such demands. 

If I could look at this as a dry question of 
Peroration: prudencc ; if I could calculate it upon 
the^honn? the mere grounds of interest, I would 
teres\'rJr ^^7' ^^ ^'^ ^^^'^ ^'i^*^ dcgrcc of national 
a"- power which is necessary for the inde- 

pendence of the country and its safety ; if we 
regard domestic tranquillity, if we look at indi- 
vidual enjoyment from the highest to the mean- 
est among us, there is not a man whose stake is 
so great in the country that he ought to hesitate 
a moment in sacrificing any portion of it to op- 
pose the violence of the enemy — nor is there, I 
trust, a man in this happy and free nation whose 



stake is so small that would not be ready to 
sacrifice his life in the same cause. If we look 
at it with a view to safely, this would be our 
conduct. But if we look at it upon the princi- 
ple of true honor, of the character which we 
have to support, of the example which we have 
to set to the other nations of Europe ; if we view 
rightly the lot in which Providence has placed 
us. and the contrast between ourselves and all 
the other countries in Europe, gratitude to that 
Providence should inspire us to make every ef- 
fort in such a cause. There may be danger; 
but on the one side there is danger accompanied 
with honor ; on the other side, there is danger 
with indelible shame and disgrace : upon such 
an alternative, Englishmen will not hesitate. I 
wish to disguise no part of my sentiments upon 
the grounds on which I put the issue of the con- 
test. I ask, whether up to the principles I have 
stated, we are prepared to act? Having done 
so, my opinion is not altered : my hopes, howev- 
er, are animated by the reflection that the means 
of our safety are in our own hands ; for there 
never was a period wdien we had more to en- 
courage us. In spite of heavy burdens, the rad- 
ical strength of the nation never showed itself 
more conspicuous; its revenue never exhibited 
greater proofs of the wealth of the country; the 
same objects which constitute the blessings we 
have to fight for, furnish us with the means of 
continuing them. But it is not upon that point 
I rest. There is one great resource, which I 
trust will never abandon us, and which has shone 
forth in the English character, by which we have 
preserved our existence and fame as a nation, 
w^iich I trust we shall be determined never to 
abandon under any extremity ; but shall join hand 
and heart in the solemn pledge that is proposed 
to us, and declare to his Majesty that we know 
great exertions are wanted ; that we are prepared 
to make them ; and are, at all events, determined 
to stand or fall by the Laws, Liberties, and 
Religion of our country. 



The House was completely electrified by this 
speech. Sir John Sinclair, at the suggestion of 
Mr. Wilberforce, withdrew his motion for an 
amendment, and the Address was passed (as in 
the House of Lords) without one dissenting voice. 
The great body of the nation, with their charac- 
teristic energy in times of danger, rallied around 
King and Parliament. A subscription was raised 
of fifteen hundred thousand pounds sterling, as 
a voluntary donation to meet the increased ex- 
penses of the war ; and Mr. Pitt was permitted 
so to modify his system of taxation as to pro- 
duce a vast accession to the regular income of 
the government. This relieved him from his 
main difficulty, and enabled him to renew the 
contest with increased vigor. 

The Directory sent Bonaparte to invade Egypt 
early in 1798, and Turkey immediately declared 
war against France. Russia now entered eager- 
ly into the contest; and Austria, which had been 
negotiating with the French at Radstadt, since 



604 



MR. PITT ON 



[1800. 



the treaty of Campo Formio, respecting the con- 
cerns of the German Empire, encouraged by the 
advance of the Russians, again resorted to arms. 
Thus was formed the third great confederacy 
against France, which was sustained by immense 
subsidies furnished by Mr. Pitt out of the in- 
creased means now placed at his disposal. The 
scene of warfare at the close of 1798, and 
throughout the year 1799, was extended over 
the whole surface of Italy, along the banks of 
the Rhine, amid the marshes and canals of Hol- 
land, and among the lakes and mountains of 
Switzerland. France, after gigantic efforts, lost 
all Italy, with the exception of Genoa, but re- 
tained her borders upon the Rhine and the bar- 
riers of the Alps. Russia withdrew from the 
contest in the autumn of 1799. 

The Directory had now become extremely 



unpopular throughout France, but no party was 
strong enough to relieve the country from its ar- 
rogance and rapacity, until Bonaparte suddenly 
returned from Egypt, and, throwing himself on 
the army for support, usurped the government 
on the 9th of November, 1799. A new Consti- 
tution was immediately formed, under which 
Bonaparte was nominated First Consul for ten 
years, and this was adopted by a vote through- 
out France of 3,012,659 to 1562. The new 
government was inaugurated with great pomp 
on the 24th of December, 1799. Bonaparte 
made every effort to unite, and pacify the peo- 
ple ; and with a view to present himself before 
Europe as governed by a spirit of moderation, 
he instantly dispatched a courier to England 
with proposals for negotiating a peace. This 
brings us to the subject of the next speech. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. PITT ON AN ADDRESS TO THE THRONE APPROVING OF HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE 

WITH BONAPARTE FOR A PEACE WITH FRANCE, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 

FEBRUARY 3, 1800. 

INTRODUCTION. 

On the 25th of December, 1799, the day after he was inaugurated as First Consul of France, Bonaparte 
addressed a letter to the King of England, written with his own hand, and couched in the following terms : 

"Called by the wishes of the French nation to occupy the first magistracy of the Republic, I think 
it proper, on entering into office, to make a direct communication to your Majesty. The war which for 
eight years has ravaged the four quarters of the world, must it be eternal? Are there no means of com- 
ing to an understanding? How can the two most enlightened nations of Europe, powerful and strong 
beyond what their safety and independence require, sacrifice to ideas of vain greatness the benefits of 
commerce, internal prosperity, and the happiness of families ? How is it that they do not feel that 
peace is of the first necessity as well as of the first glory? These sentiments can not be foreign to the 
heart of your Majesty, who reigns over a free nation, and with the sole view of rendering it happy. Your 
Majesty will only see in this overture my sincere desire to contribute efficaciously, for the second time, 
to a general pacification, by a step speedy, entirely of confidence, and disengaged from those forms which, 
necessary perhaps to disguise the dependence of weak states, prove only in those which are strong the 
mutual desire of deceiving each other. France and England, by the abuse of their strength, may still 
for a long time, to the misfortune of all nations, I'etard the period of their being exhausted. But I will 
venture to say it, the fate of all civilized nations is attached to the termination of a war which involves 
the whole world. Of your Majesty, &c. Bonaparte." 

From the feelings expressed by Mr. Pitt in the preceding speech, we should naturally have expected 
him to embrace this overture with promptitude, if not with eagerness. But the resentment which he 
justly felt at the evasive and insulting conduct of the Directory during the last negotiation, seems wholly 
to have changed his views, and he rejected the proposal in terras which were too much suited to awaken 
a similar resentment in the new French rulers. The reply of Lord Grenville went back to the com- 
mencement of the war, declaring it to have been " an unprovoked attack" on the part of the French. It 
assumed, that "this system continues to prevail," and that on the part of England "no defense but that 
of open and steady hostility can be availing." In reference to peace, it pointed to the restoration of the 
Bourbons, as "the best and most natural pledge of its reality and permanence;" and while the English 
minister did not "claim to prescribe to France what shall be her form of government," he did say, as to 
any ground of confidence in the one recently organized, "Unhappily no such security hitherto exists; no 
sufficient evidence of the principles by which the new government will be directed; no reasonable ground 
by ichicli to judge of its stability." The French minister, Talleyrand, replied to these remarks in a 
pointed note, and Lord Grenville closed the correspondence in a letter reaffirming his former positions. 

These communications were laid before the House of Commons, February 3d, 1800, when an Address 
was proposed by Mr. Dundas, approving of the course taken by ministers. He was followed by Mr. Whit- 
bread. Mr. Canning, and Mr. [afterward Lord] Erskine, who complained in strong terms of tlie uncourt- 
eous language used by Lord Grenville. Mr. Pitt then rose, and without making any defense on this 
point, or touching directly upon the question, "Why should we not nov) treat?" took up the subject on 
the broadest scale, going back to the origin of the war, the atrocities of the French in overrunning a 



1800.] 



HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE. 



605 



large part of Europe during the last ten years, the genius and spirit of the Revolution, the instability of 
its successive governments, his motives for treating with such men on a former occasion, and the charac- 
ter an<1 deeds of Bonaparte from the commencement of his career as a military chieftain. This was the 
most elaborate oration ever delivered by Mr. Pitt. Of the vast variety of facts brought forward or re- 
ferred to, very few have ever been disputed ; they are arranged in luminous order, and grow out of each 
other in regular succession ; they present a vivid and horrible picture of the miseries inflicted upon Eu- 
rope by revolutionary France, while the provocations of her enemies are thrown entirely into the back- 
ground. 

It will interest the reader to compare this speech with the reply of Mr. Fox, in respect to the stand- 
point of the speaker. That of Mr. Fox was this, that peace is the natural state of human society, and 
ought, therefore, to be made, unless there is clear evidence that the securities for its continuance are in- 
adequate. Mr. Pitt's stand-point was this, that as the war existed, and sprung out of a system of perfidy 
and violence unparalleled in the history of the world, it ought not to be ended except on strong and direct 
evidence that there were adequate securities for the continuance of peace if made. The question was 
whether the new government under Bonaparte offered those securities. But Mr. Pitt showed great dex- 
terity in treating this government as merely a new phase of the Revolution, and thus bringing all the 
ati-ocities of the past to bear on the question before the House. His speech was admirably adapted to a 
people like the English, jealous of France as their hereditary rival, conscious of their resources, and pre- 
pared to consider a continuation of the contest, as the safest means of defending " their liberties, their 
laws, and their most holy religion." 

Some of the facts referred to in this speech have been already explained in connection with Mr. Fox's 
reply on this subject, as given on a preceding page. For the convenience of the reader, however, these 
explanations will, in a few instances, be given again. 

SPEECH, &c. 



Sir, — I am induced, at this period of the de- 
bate, to offer my sentiments to the House, both 
from an apprehension that at a later hour the at- 
tention of the House must necessarily be exhaust- 
ed, and because the sentiment with which the hon- 
orable and learned gentleman [Mr. Erskine] be- 
gan his speech, and with which he has thought 
proper to conclude it, places the question pre- 
cisely on that ground on which I am most desir- 
ous of discussing it. The learned gentleman 
seems to assume as the foundation of his reason- 
ing, and as the great argument for immediate 
treaty, that every effort to overturn the system 
of the French Revolution must be unavailing ; 
and that it would be not only imprudent, but al- 
most impious to struggle longer against that or- 
der of things which, on I know not what princi- 
ple of predestination, he appears to consider as 
immortal. Little as I am inclined to accede to 
this opinion, I am not sorry that the honorable 
gentleman has contemplated the subject in this 
serious view. I do, indeed, consider the French 
Revolution as the severest trial which the visita- 
tion of Providence has ever yet inflicted upon the 
nations of the earth ; but I can not help reflecting, 
with satisfaction, that this country, even under 
such a trial, has not only been exempted from 
those calamities which have covered almost every 
other part of Europe, but appears to have been 
reserved as a refuge and asylum to those who 
fled from its persecution, as a barrier to oppose 
its progress, and perhaps ultimately as an instru- 
ment to deliver the world from the crimes and 
miseries which have attended it. 

Under this impression, I trust the House will 
Reasons for dwell- forffive mc, if 1 cndcavor, as far as 



French Revolu- 
tion. 



question. In doing so, I agree 
with my honorable friend []Mr. Canning] that it 



would, in any case, be impossible to separate the 
present discussion from the former crimes and 
atrocities of the French Revolution ; because 
both the papers now on the table, and the whole 
of the learned gentleman's argument, force upon 
our consideration the origin of the war, and all 
the material facts which have occurred during its 
continuance. The learned gentleman [Mr. Er- 
skine] has revived and retailed all those argu- 
ments from his own pamphlet, which had before 
passed through thirty-seven or thirty-eight edi- 
tions in print, and now gives them to the House 
embellished by the graces of his personal deliv- 
ery. The First Consul has also thought fit to 
revive and retail the chief arguments used by all 
the opposition speakers and all the opposition 
publishers in this country during the last seven 
years. And (what is still more material) the 
question itself, which is now immediately at issue 
— the question whether, under the present cir- 
cumstances, there is such a prospect of security 
from any treaty with France as ought to induce 
us to negotiate, can not be properly decided upon 
without retracing, both from our own experience 
and from that of other nations, the nature, the 
causes, and the magnitude of the danger against 
which we have to guard, in order to judge of the 
security which we ought to accept. 

I say, then, that before any man can concur in 
opinion with that learned gentleman ; Three opinions, 
before any man can think that the sub- Tmfst'be'^heMbj- 
stance of his Majesty's answer is any In'^to^'lTf uL^ 
other than the safety of the country gotiation. 
required ; before any man can be of opinion that, to 
the overtures made by the enemy, at such a time 
and under such circum.'^tances, it would have been 
safe to return an answer concurring in the nego- 
tiation — he must come within one of the three fol- 
lowing descriptions : He must either believe that 
the French Revolution neither does now exhibit, 



606 



MR. PITT ON 



[1800. 



nor has at any time exhibited such circumstances 
of danger, arising out of the very nature of the 
system, and the internal state and condition of 
France, as to leave to foreign powers no ade- 
quate ground of security in negotiation ; or, sec- 
ondly, he must be of opinion that the change 
which has recently taken place has given that 
security which, in the former stages of the Rev- 
olution, was wanting ; or, thirdly, he must be 
one who, believing that the danger exists, not un- 
dervaluing its extent nor mistaking its nature, 
nevertheless thinks, from his view of the present 
pressure on the country, from his view of its 
situation and its prospects, compared with the 
situation and prospects of its enemies, that we 
are, with our eyes open, bound to accept of in- 
adequate security for every thing that is valua- 
ble and sacred, rather than endure the pressure, 
or incur the risk which would result from a far- 
ther prolongation of the contest.^ 

In discussing the last of these questions, we 
shall be led to consider what inference is to be 
drawn from the circumstances and the result of 
our own negotiations in former periods of the 
war ; whether, in the compax'ative state of this 
country and France, we now see the same rea- 
son for repeating our then unsuccessful experi- 
ments ; or whether we have not thence derived 
the lessons of experience, added to the deductions 
of reason, marking the inefficacy and danger of 
the very measures which are quoted to us as 
precedents for our adoption. 

I. Unwilling, sir, as I am to go into much de- 
Origin of tail on ground which has been so often 
the war. trQ^^j^jgri bcforc ; yet, when I find the learn- 
ed gentleman, after all the information which he 
must have received, if he has read any of the 
answers to his work (however ignorant he might 
be when he wrote it) still giving the sanction of 
his authority to the supposition that the order to 
M. Chauvelin [French minister] to depart from 
this kingdom was the cause of the war between 
this country and France. I do feel it necessary 
to say a few words on that part of the subject. 
Inaccuracy in dates seems to be a sort of fa- 
Error in the tality common to all who have written 
Fre1id[ -ot- on that side of the question ; for even 
eriimeMt. tjjg Writer of the note to his Majesty 
is not moi-e correct, in this respect, than if he had 
taken his information only from the pamphlet of 
the learned gentleman. The House will recol- 
lect the first professions of the French Republic, 
which are enumerated, and enumerated truly, in 
that note. They are tests of every thing which 
would best recommend a government to the es- 
teem and confidence of foreign powers, and the 
reverse of every thing which has been the sys- 
tem and practice of France now for near ten 
years. It is there stated that their first princi- 
ples were love of peace, aversion to conquest, 
and respect for the independence of other coun- 
tries. In the same note it seems, indeed, admit- 
* In distributing- his opponents into these three 
classes, Mr. Pitt follows his usual course of openin:^ 
his speech with a striking statement which reaches 
forward into the subsequent discussion. 



ted that they since have violated all those prin- 
ciples ; but it is alleged that they have done so 
only in consequence of the provocation of other 
powers. One of the first of those provocations 
is stated to have consisted in the various out- 
rages offered to their ministers, of which the ex- 
ample is said to have been set by the King of 
Great Britain in his conduct to M. Chauvelin. 
In answer to this supposition, it is only neces- 
sary to remark, that before the example was 
given, before Austria and Prussia are supposed 
to have been thus encouraged to combine in a 
plan for the partition of France, that plan, if it 
ever existed at all, had existed and been acted 
upon for above eight months. France and Prus- 
sia had been at w^ar eight months before the dis- 
missal of M. Chauvelin. So much for the accu- 
racy of the statement.^ 

I have been hitherto commenting on the ar- 
guments contained in the Notes. I contradiction 
come now to those of the learned gen- al to'^the ori^^in 
tleman. I understand him to say that °''""^ '"^'^'^■ 
the dismissal of M. Chauvelin was the real cause, 
I do not say of the general war, but of the rup- 
ture between France and England ; and the 
learned gentleman states particularly that this 
dismissal rendered all discussion of the points in 
dispute impossible. Now I desire to meet dis- 
tinctly eveiy part of this assertion. I maintain, 
on the contrary, that an opportunity w^as given 
for discussing every matter in dispute between 
France and Great Britain as fully as if a regular 
and accredited French minister had been resi- 
dent here ; that the causes of war, which existed 
at the beginning, or arose during the course of 
this discussion, were such as would have justified. 



^ Mr. Erskine here observed that this was not the 
statement of liis argument. Mr. Pitt replied that he 
had not yet come to Mr. Erskine, but was speaking 
of the statement made by the French government 
in their Note. It can not be, however, that Mr. 
Pitt had that Note before him when he made these 
remarks. The passage refeired to is in the follow- 
ing words : " As soon as the French Revolution had 
broken out, almost all Europe entered into a league 
for its destruction. The aggression was real long 
time before it was public. Internal resistance was 
excited; its opponents were favorably received; 
their extravagant declamations were supported ; the 
French nation was insulted in the person of its 
agents; and England set particularly this example 
by the dismissal of the minister accredited to her. 
Finally, France was, in fact, attacked in her inde- 
pendence, in her honor, and in her safety, long time 
befoi'e war was declared." — Pari. Hist., vol. xxxiv., 
p. ]201. It is obvious that the writer is liere giving 
a mere general summation of supposed wrongs, 
without professing to arrange them in the exact or- 
der of time. He does not say, as Mr. Pitt repre- 
sents, that "one oi the first of those provocations" 
was the ill treatment of French ministers, «f which 
"the example was set by the King of Great Brit- 
ain." He does not even mention Austria or Prus- 
sia, much less does he speak of their being "en- 
couraged to combine in a plan for the partition of 
France," by " the example" referred to. And j-et 
it is only by assuming this that Mr. Pitt makes out 
his argument, and then sneers at " the accuracy of 
the statement." 



HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE. 



1800] 

twenty times over, a declaration of war on the 
part of this country ; that all the explanations 
on the part of France were evidently unsatisfac- 
tory and inadmissible, and that M. Chauvelin had 
given in a peremptory ultimatum, declaring that 
if these explanations were not received as suffi- 
cient, and if we did not immediately disarm, our 
refusal would be considered as a declaration of 
war. After this followed that scene which no 
man can even now speak of without horror, or 
think of without indignation ; that murder and 
regicide from which I was sorry to hear the 
learned gentleman date the beginning of the le- 
gal government of France.^ 

Having thus given in their ultimatum, they 
/^ added, as a further demand (while we 
chauveim's ' wcrc Smarting under accumulated in- 
dismissai. j^^i-igs, for which all satisfaction was 
denied) that we should instantly receive M. 
Chauvelin as their embassador, with new cre- 
dentials, representing them in the character 
which they had just derived from the murder 
of their sovereign. We replied, " he came here 
as the representative of a sovereign whom you 
j have put to a cruel and illegal death ; we have 
; no satisfaction for the injuries we have received, 
I no security from the danger with which we are 
' threatened. Under these circumstances we will 
not receive your new credentials. The former 
credentials you have yourselves recalled by the 
sacrifice of your King." 

What, from that moment, was the situation of 
Sent out of M. Chauvclin ? He was reduced to the 
asTmvHte situation of a private individual, and was 
individual, required to quit the kingdom under the 
provisions of the Alien Act, which, for the pur- 
pose of securing dom.estic tranquillity, had re- 
cently invested his Majesty with the power of 

3 Here, again, Mr. Pitt founds his attack upon a 
mistake. Mr. Erskiue, as reported in the Parlia- 
mentary History, did not say " the beginning of le- 
gal government," but '•' when France cut off her 
most unfortunate monarch, and established her first \ 
republic, she had an embassador at our court." — ' 
Vol. xxxiv., p. 1289. His language may have been { 
confused or obscure, but it is hardly conceivable that 
Mr. Erskiue, through any baste or inadvertence, 
could have been betrayed into the absurdity of say- j 
ing that there never was a legal government in 
France until the 21st of January, 1793. 

Nor does Mr. Pitt appear to have understood Mr. 
Erskine more correctly when he represents him, a 
few sentences before, as affirming that the dismiss- 
al of M.ChauveHn "rendered all discussion of the 
points in dispute impossible." No statement of this 
kind appears in the printed speech. He and bis 
friends only maintained that tlie treatment of this 
gentleman, after the imprisonment and death of 
Louis XVI., was so harsh and irritating as to defeat 
all the objects of negotiation. It was a matter of 
public notoriety that informal communications did 
pass between the two governments ; but the agents 
of France were denied all pubhc and accredited 
character, an indignity (as Mr. Erskine and his 
friends maintained) which was tantamount to break- 
ing off all friendly intercourse, and which threw 
upon England, in their view, the responsibihty of 
the war which followed. 



607 



removing out of this kingdom all foreigners sus- 
pected of revolutionary principles. Is it con- 
tended that he was then less liable to the pro- 
visions of that act than any other individual for- 
eigner, whose conduct afforded to government 
ju.st ground of objection or suspicion ? Did his 
conduct and connections here afford no such 
ground ? or will it be pretended that the bare 
act of refusing to receive fresh credentials from 
an infant republic, not then acknowledged by 
any one power of Europe, and in the very act 
of heaping upon us injuries and insults, was of 
itself a cause of war ? So far from it, that even 
the very nations of Europe, whose wisdom and 
moderation have been repeatedly extolled for 
maintaining neutrality, and preserving friendship 
with the French Republic, remained for years 
subsequent to this period without receiving from 
it any accredited minister, or doing any one act 
to acknowledge its political existence. 

In answer to a representation from the bellig- 
erent powers, in December, 1793, a refusal to rec- 
Count Bernstorff, the minister of pvemme^ni'no 
Denmark, officially declared that fi^ZVlhl'"^'!^ 
"it was well known that the Na- of th^ French, 
tional Convention had appointed M. Grouville 
minister plenipotentiary at Denmark, but that it 
was also well known that he had neither been 
received nor acknowledged in that quality." 
And as late as February, 1796, when the same 
minister was at length, for the first time, received 
in his official capacity. Count Bernstorff, in a pub- 
lic note, assigned this reason for that change of 
conduct : '" So long as no other than a revolu- 
tionary government existed in France, his Maj- 
esty could not acknowledge the minister of that 
government; but now that the French Constitu- 
tion is completely organized, and a regular gov- 
ernment established in France, his Majesty's ob- 
ligation ceases in that respect, and M. Grouville 
will therefore be acknowledged in the usual 
form." How far the court of Denmark was 
justified in the opinion that a revolutionary gov- 
ernment then no longer existed in France, it is 
not now necessary to inquire ; but whatever may 
have been the fact in that respect, the principle 
on which they acted is clear and intelligible, and 
is a decisive instance in favor of the proposition 
which I have maintained. 

Is it, then, necessary to examine what were 
the terms of that ultimatum with which Ajeressions 
we refused to comply? Acts of hos- "''i'"r=i"<:e. 
tility had been openly threatened against our al- 
lies ; a hostility founded upon the assumption of 
a right which would at once supersede the whole 
law of nations. The pretended right to open 
the Scheldt we discussed at the time, not so 
much on account of its immediate importance 
(though it was important both in a maritime and 
commercial view) as on account of the general 
principle on which it was founded. "• On the 

* When the Austrians and Prussians, who invaded 
France under the Duke of Brunswick, were driven 
back, the French in return attacked the Austrian 
Netherlands, and became masters of the country by 
the battle of Jemappe, November Gth, 1792. They 



608 



MR. PITT ON 



[1800. 



same arbitrary notion they soon afterward dis- 
covered that sacred law of nature which made 
the Rhine and the Alps the legitimate bounda- 
ries of France, and assumed the power, which 
they have affected to exercise through the whole 
of the Revolution, of superseding, by a new code 
of their own, all the recognized principles of the 
law of nations. They were, in fact, actually ad- 
vancing toward the republic of Holland, by rapid 
strides, after the victory of Jemappe, and they 
had ordered their generals to pursue the Austri- 
an troops into any neutral country, thereby ex- 
plicitly avowing an intention of invading Holland. 
They had already show^n their moderation and 
self-denial, by incorporating Belgium with the 
French Republic. These lovers of peace, who 
set out with a sworn aversion to conquest, and 
professions of respect for the independence of 
other nations ; w^ho pretend that they departed 
from this system only in consequence of your 
aggression, themselves, in time of peace, while 
you were still confessedly neutral, without the 
pretense or shadow of provocation, wrested Sa- 
voy from the King of Sardinia, and had proceed- 
ed to incorporate it likewise with France.-'' These 
were their aggressions at this period, and more 
than these. They had issued a universal decla- 
ration of war against all the thrones of Europe, 
and they had, by their conduct, applied it partic- 
ularly and specifically to you. They had passed 
the decree of the 19th of November, 1792, pro- 
claiming the promise of French succor to all 
nations who should manifest a wash to become 
free f they had, by all their language as well as 



immediately forced the passage of the Scheldt (the 
principal river of the country) down to the sea. This 
had been closed for nearly one hundred and fifty 
years, out of regard to the rights of Holland (through 
which it entered the ocean), under the provisions of 
the treaty of Westphalia (1648), which established 
the international relations of modern Europe. En- 
gland, as the protector of Holland, justly complained 
of this, chiefly, however, as Mr. Pitt remarks, on ac- 
count of the general principle avowed by the French 
of setting aside the provisions of the treaty of West- 
phalia. 

^ Savoy had been invaded by the French in Sep- 
tember, 1792, on the ground that the King of Sar- 
dinia had united at Mantua with Austria and Spain 
in agreeing to march one hundred thousand troops 
to the borders of France. See page 531. The peo- 
ple united to a considerable extent with the French, 
and sent deputations from their clubs to Paris. On 
the 27th of November, 1792, the National Conven- 
tion erected Savoy into an eighty-fourth department 
of France, in direct defiance of the existing Consti- 
tution, which interdicted any permanent extension 
of the territory. 

^ This celebrated decree was passed by the Na- 
tional Convention in the tumult of joy which fol- 
lowed the victory at Jemappe. They resolved to 
adopt in other countries the course taken in Savoy, 
and hence framed this document in the following 
words: 

" The National Convention declare, in the name 
of the French nation, they will grant fraternity and 
assistance to all those people who wish to procure 
liberty. And they charge the executive power to 
send orders to the generals to give assistance to 



their example, shown what they understood to 
be freedom ; they had sealed their principles by 
the deposition of their sovereign ; they had ap- 
plied them to England by inviting and encour- 
aging the addresses of those seditious and trait- 
orous societies, who, from the beginning, favored 
their views, and who, encouraged by your for- 
bearance, were even then publicly avowing 
French doctrines, and anticipating their success 
in this country — who were hailing the progress 
of those proceedings in France which led to the 
murder of its King ; they were even then look- 
ing to the day when they should behold a Na- 
tional Convention in England formed upon simi- 
lar principles.' 

And what were the explanations they offered 
on these different grounds of offense ? Explanations 
As to Holland: they told you the "f^'e French. 
Scheldt was too insignificant for you to trouble 
yourselves about, and therefore it was to be de- 
cided as they chose, in breach of positive treaty, 
which they had themselves guaranteed, and which 
we, by our alliance, were bound to support.^ If, 
how^ever, after the war was over, Belgium should 
have consolidated its liberty (a term of which we 



such people, and to defend citizens who have suf- 
fered, and are now suff~ering, in the cause of liber- 
ty." — Alison, vol. i., p. 592, tliird edition. 

The reader will see (in note 9) M. Chauvelin's 
disclaimer in I'espect to this decree, of any intention 
on the part of the French to " favor insurrections or 
excite disturbance in any neutral or friendly country 
whatever" — " particularly Holland, so long as that 
power adheres to the principles of her neutrality." 
Mr. Pitt, of course, had no confidence in the sinceri- 
ty of these declarations. 

■' Within ten days after the decree of November 
19th was passed, an English "Society for Constitu- 
tional Infonnation" sent delegates to Paris, who pre- 
sented at the bar of the National Convention an ad- 
dress congratulating that body on " the glorious tn- 
umph of liberty on the 10th of August," when the 
King was deposed. These delegates take upon 
them to predict " that, after the example given by 
France, revolutions will become easy. Reason is 
about to make a rapid progress ; and it would not 
be extraordinary if, in a much less time than can be 
imagined, the French should send addresses of con- 
gratulation to a National Convention in England." 
M. Gregoire, the President of the Convention, re- 
plied in a high-flown style, praising the English as 
having aff"orded illustrious examples to the universe. 
"The shades of Hampden and Sydney," said he, 
"hover over your heads; and the moment without 
doubt approaches when the French will bring con- 
gratulations to the National Convention of Great 
Britain. Generous Republicans ! your appearance 
among us prepares a subject for history !" The 
French were egregiously deceived, no doubt, by 
these demonstrations of a comparatively small num- 
ber of individuals in England, and really expected 
great results. The English government had cer- 
tainly grounds of serious complaint against the Con- 
vention for receiving the deputation in this manner. 

8 Austria had endeavored, in 1784, to force the nav- 
igation of the Scheldt, but France had interfered and 
guaranteed to Holland her exclusive right to the 
lower part of that river. This guarantee England 
was bound to maintain by a subsequent alliance 
which she formed with Holland. 



1800.] 



HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE. 



G09 



now know the meaning, from the fate of every 
nation into which the arms of France have pen- 
etrated), then Belgium and Holland might, if 
they pleased, settle the question of the Scheldt, by 
separate negotiation between themselves. With 
respect to aggrandizement, they assured us that 
they would retain possession of Belgium by arms 
no longer than they should find it necessary to 
the purpose already stated, of consolidating its 
liberty. And with respect to the decree of the 
19th of November, 1792, applied as it was 
pointedly to you, by all the intercourse I have 
stated with all the seditious and traitorous part of 
this country, and particularly by the speeches of 
every leading man among them, they contented 
themselves with asserting that the declaration 
conveyed no such meaning as was imputed to it, 
and that, so far from encouraging sedition, it 
could apply only to countries where a great ma- 
jority of the people should have already declared 
itself in favor of a revolution : a supposition 
which, as they asserted, necessarily implied a to- 
tal absence of all sedition. 

What would have been the effect of admitting 
Effect of admit- ^^is explanation ? to suffer a nation, 
ting their ex- and an armed nation, to preach to the 

planationofthe . , , . /• ,i i • • i 

decree of No- inhabitants ol all the countries in the 
world, that they themselves were 
slaves, and their rulers tyrants ; to encourage and 
invite them to revolution, by a previous promise 
of French support, to whatever might call itself 
a majority, or to whatever France might declare 
to be so. This was their explanation ; and this, 
they told you, was their ultimatum.^ 

But was this all ? Even at that very moment, 
when they were endeavoring to induce you to 

^ The communication here spoken of as an ulti- 
matum was made through M. Chauvelin, December 
27, 1792, and contained the following words : "The 
Executive Council of the French Republic, thinking 
it a duty which they owe to the French nation not 
to leave it in a state of suspense into which it has 
been thrown by the late measures of the British 
government, have authorized him [M. Chauvelin] to 
demand with openness, whether France ought to 
consider England as a neutral or hostile power; at 
the same time being solicitous that not the smallest 
doubt should exist respecting the disposition of 
France toward England, and of its desire to remain 
in peace." In allusion to the decree of the 19th of 
November [for this decree see note 6], M. Chauvelin 
says, "that the French nation absolutely reject the 
idea of that false interpretation by which it might 
be supposed that the French Republic should favor 
insurrections, or excite disturbance in any neutral 
or friendly country whatever. In particular, they 
declare in the most solemn manner, that France 
will not attack Holland so long as that power ad- 
heres to the principles of her neutrality." As to the 
navigation of the Scheldt, M. Chauvelin affirms it 
" to be a question of too little importance to be made 
the sole cause of a war, and that it could only be 
used as a pretext for a premeditated aggression. 
On this fatal supposition (he says) the French na- 
tion will accept war; but such a war would be the 
war not of the British nation, but of the British 
ministry against the French Repubhc ; and of this 
he conjures them well to consider the terrible re- 
sponsibiUty." 

Qq 



admit these explanations, to be contented with 
the avowal, that France offered herself stiu more vi<.. 
as a general guarantee for every sue- Deceni'beM*5, 
cessl'ul revolution, and would interfere ^'•^" 
only to sanction and confirm whatever the free 
and uninfluenced choice of the people might have 
decided, what were their orders to their generals 
on the same subject ? In the midst of these am- 
icable explanations with you, came forth a de- 
cree w^hich I really believe must be effaced from 
the minds of gentlemen opposite to me, if they 
can prevail upon themselves for a moment to hint 
even a doubt upon the origin of this quarrel, not 
only as to this country, but as to all the nations 
of Europe w^th whom France has been subse- 
quently engaged in hostility. I speak of the de- 
cree of the 15th of December, 1792. This de- 
cree, more even than all the previous transactions, 
amounted to a universal declaration of war against 
all thrones, and against all civilized governments. 
It said, wherever the armies of France shall 
come (whether within countries then at war or 
at peace is not distinguished), in all those coun- 
tries it shall be the first care of their generals to 
introduce the principles and the practice of the 
French Revolution ; to demolish all privileged 
orders, and every thing which obstructs the es- 
tablishment of their new system.^'' 

If any doubt is entertained whither the armies 
of France were intended to come ; if „ , 

. . ' Extens)ve n\i- 

it is contended that they referred only pi»ation of 
to those nations with whom they were 
then at war, or with whom, in the course of this 
contest, they might be driven into w^ar ; let it be 
remembered that at this very moment they had 
actually given orders to their generals to pursue 
the Austrian army from the Netherlands into Hol- 
land, with whom they were at that time in peace. 
Or, even if the construction contended for is ad- 
mitted, let us see what would have been it§ ap- 
plication, let us look at the list of their aggres- 
sions, which was read by my right honorable 
friend [Mr. Dundas] near me. With whom have 
they been at war since the period of this decla- 
ration ? W^ith all the nations of Europe save two 
(Sweden and Denmark), and if not with these 
two, it is only because, with every provocation 



10 This decree was even more violent than Mr. 
Pitt has here described. It required the French 
generals, (1.) To proclaim wherever they marched 
their armies the abolition of all existing feudal and 
manorial rights, together with all imposts, contribu- 
tions, and tithes ; (2.) To declare the sovereignty of 
the people, and the suppression of all existing au- 
thorities ; (3.) To convoke the people for the establish- 
ment of a provisional government; (4.) To place all 
the jjroperty of the Prince and his adherents, and 
the property of all public bodies, both civil and relig- 
ious, under the safeguard of She French Republic ; 
(5.) To provide, as soon as possible, for the organiza- 
tion of a fi-ee and popular form of government. — A7m. 
Reg., vol. xxxiv., p. 155. 

There can be no doubt that the Convention at this 
time had extravagant notions of extending their 
principles of liberty by force. " A blind and ground- 
less confidence," says Marshal St. Cyr, "had taken 
possession of their minds; they thought only of de- 
throning kings by their decrees." 



610 



MR PITT ON 



[1800. 



that could justify defensive war, those countries 
have hitherto acquiesced in repeated violations of 
their rights, rather than recur to war for their 
vindication. Wherever their arms have been car- 
ried it will be a matter of short subsequent in- 
quiry to trace whether they have faithfully ap- 
plied these principles. If in terms, this decree is 
a denunciation of war aj^ainst all governments ; 
if in practice it has been applied against every 
one with which France has come into contact ; 
what is it but the deliberate code of the French 
Revolution, from the birth of the Republic, which 
has never once been departed from, which has 
been enforced with unremitted rigor against all 
the nations that have come into their power ? 
If there could otherwise be any doubt whether 
,i,npj to ^^® application of this decree was in- 
be applied to tended to be universal, whether it ap- 

all nations. i- i ,i • i t-i i i 

plied to all nations, and to Ji,noland 
particularly ; there is one circumstance which 
alone would be decisive — that nearly at the same 
period it was proposed [by M. Baraillon], in the 
National Convention, to declare expressly that 
the decree of November 19th was confined to the 
nations w^ith whom they were tken at war ; and 
that proposal was rejected by a great majority, 
by that very Convention from whom we were de- 
sired to receive these explanations as satisfactor}'. 
Such, sir, was the nature of the system. Let 
Instructions to US cxamiuc a little farther, whether it 
tueir generals. ^^^^ ^^.^^ ^^^ beginning intended to 

be acted upon in the extent which I have stated. 
At the very moment when their threats appeared 
to many little else than the ravings of madmen, 
they were digesting and methodizing the means 
of execution, as accurately as if they had actual- 
ly foreseen the extent to which they have since 
been able to realize their criminal projects. They 
sat down coolly to devise the most regular and 
effectual mode of making the application of this 
system the current business of the day, and in- 
corporating it with the general ordei's of their 
army ; for (will the House believe it !) this con- 
firmation of the decree of November 19th was 
accompanied by an exposition and commentary 
addressed to the general of every army of France, 
containing a schedule as coolly conceived, and as 
methodically reduced, as any by which the most 
quiet business of a justice of peace, or the most 
regular routine of any department of state in this 
country could be conducted. Each commander 
was furnished with one general blank formula of 
a letter for all the nations of the \vorld ! The 
people of France to the people of , Greet- 
ing, "We are come to expel your tyrants." 
Even this was not all : one of the articles of the 
decree of the fifteenth of December was express- 
ly. " that those who should show thcm.selves so 
brutish and so enamored of their chains as to re- 
fuse the restoration of their rights, to renounce 
liberty and equality, or to preserve, recall, or treat 
with their prince or privileged orders, were not 
entitled to the distinction which France, in other 
cases, had justly established between government 
and people ; and that such a people ought to be 
treated according to the rigor of war, and of con- 



quest." Here is their love of peace ; here is 
their aversion to conquest ; here is their respect 
for the independence of other nations ! 

It was then, after receiving such explanations 
as these, after receiving the ultima- Such the cir- 
tum of France, and after M. Chauve- der"'SrM.°' 
lin's credentials had ceased, that he ci>»"^'«''" *" 

' sent out of the 

was required to depait. Even at country, 
that period, I am almost ashamed to record it, 
we did not on our part shut the door against 
other attempts to negotiate, but this transaction 
was immediately followed by the declaration of 
war, proceeding not from England in vindica- 
tion of her rights, but from France, as the com- 
pletion of the injuries and insults they had offered. 
And on a war thus originating, can it be doubt- 
ed by an English House of Commons whether 
the aggression was on the part of this country 
or of France ? or whether the manifest aggres- 
sion on the part of France was the result of any 
thing but the principles which characterize the 
French Revolution ? 

What, then, are the resources and subterfuges 
by which those who agree with the learned gen- 
tleman are prevented from sinking under the 
force of this simple statement of facts ? None 
but wdiat are found in the insinuation contained 
in the note from France, that this country had, 
previous to the transactions to which I have re- 
ferred, encouraged and supported the combina- 
tion of other powers directed against them.^^ 

1' It is only an act of justice to remind the reader 
that Mr. Erskine, at the commencement of Mr. Pitt's 
speech, expressly disclaimed the ground here im- 
puted to him and his friends. See Note 2. Through- 
out his speech, he based his position (whether it 
was a true or false one) on other grounds. He did 
not claim that Mr. Pitt had acted in concert with 
Austria and Prussia in the declaration of Pilnitz, or 
in any of their other measures previous to the sus- 
pension of M. Chauveliu's functions as French min- 
ister. And Mr. Fox, in his reply to the speech be- 
fore us, admitted that England had maintained her 
neutrality down to that time. See page 532. But 
they insisted that, after the imprisonment of Louis 
XVI. (August 10th, 1792), France was not treated 
"as a civilized nation" — the English minister was 
ordered to leave Paris — M. Chauveliu's powers were 
suspended ; and when Mr. Fox moved, December 
]5th, 1792, -'that a minister be sent to Paris to treat 
with those persons v^'ho provisionoUy exercise tlie 
executive government of France" (thus avoiding a 
recognition of tliem as a government), Mr. Pitt re- 
fused. See Pari. Hist., vol. xxx., p. 80. They af- 
firmed that the tone of Lord Grenville, in his subse- 
quent informal communications with M. Chauvelin, 
was harsh and irritating — that England ought to 
have come frankly forward and negotiated as to her 
grievances in respect to the opening of the Scheldt, 
the decree of November the 19th, the speech of M. 
Gregoire, &:c., stating exi)licitly what would satisfy 
her — that she ouglit especially to have accepted the 
mediation urged upon her by Louis XVI. and the 
French National Assembly early in 1792. See note 
to Mr. Fox's speech, page 535. They affirmed that 
there was at least a possibility that in this way the 
war might have been prevented — that, at all events, 
England was bound to have made the trial before 
she commenced arming against France — that if she 



1800.] 



HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE. 



611 



Upon this part of the subject, the proofs which 
Facts .showing contradict such an insinuation are in- 
ient'ons'oV"" nuiTierable. In the first place, the 
France. evidcncc of dates ; in the second 

place, the admission of all the different parties 
in France ; of the friends of Brissot, charging on 
Robespierre the war with this country, and of 
the friends of Robespierre charging it on Bris- 
sot, but both acquitting England ; the testimo- 
nies of the French government during the whole 
interval, since the declaration of Pilnitz and the 
pretended treaty of Pavia ; the first of which 
had not the slightest relation to any project of 
partition or dismemberment ; the second of 
which I firmly believe to be an absolute fabrica- 
tion and forger}'^, and in neither of which, even 
as they are represented, any reason has been as- 
signed for believing that this country had any 
share. Even M. Talleyrand himself was sent 
by the constitutional king of the French, after 
the period when that concert which is now 
charged must have existed, if it existed at all, 
with a letter from the King of France, expressly 
thanking his Majesty for the neutrality which he 
had uniformly observed. ^'^ The same fact is con- 
firmed by the concurring evidence of every per- 
son who knew any thing of the plans of the King 
of Sweden in 1791 ; the only sovereign who, I 
believe, at that time meditated any hostile meas- 
ures against France, and whose utmost hopes 
were expressly stated to be, that England would 
not oppose his intended expedition ; by all those, 
also, who knew any thing of the conduct of the 
Emperor or the King of Prussia ; by the clear 
and decisive testimony of M. Chauvelin himself 
in his dispatches from hence to the French gov- 
ernment, since published by their authority ; by 
every thing which has occurred since the war ; 
by the publications of Dumourier ; by the publi- 
cations of Brissot ; by the facts that have since 
come to light in America, with respect to the 
mission of M. Genet, which show that hostility 
against this country was decided on by Prance 
long before the period when M. Chauvelin was 
sent from hence ;^^ besides this, the reduction of 



had done so, and failed through the violent councils 
of the French Assembly, she would have stood 
blameless before the world in the contest that fol- 
lowed — that, having neglected to do so, she was 
justly to be considered as in part, at least, the au- 
thor of the war ; and that Mr. Pitt, at all events, had 
no right to go back to these questions, and the sub- 
sequent atrocities of the French, as a reasunfor rc- 
fusinf^ 11010 to negotiate. 

'2 This was at the time when the mediation was 
requested, which has just been spoken of in the pre- 
ceding note. 

^^ In Genet's secret instructions (which he pub- 
lished at a later period), it is stated that France had 
a particular interest in acting efficiently against En- 
gland; and America was, if possible, to be drawn 
into the contest. As a preliminary step, the Amer- 
ican government were to be induced to unite with 
France in a league, " to befriend the empire of lib- 
erty wherever it can be extended — to guarantee the 
sovereignty of the people — and to punish those pow- 
ers who keep up an exclusive colonial and commer- 



our peace establishment in the year 1791, and 
continued to the subsequent year, is a fact from 
which the inference is indisputable ; a fact which, 
I am afraid, shows not only that we were not 
waiting for the occasion of war, but that, in our 
partiality for a pacific system, we had indulged 
ourselves in a fond and credulous securit}-, which 
wusdom and discretion would not have dictated. 
In addition to every other proof, it is singular 
enough that, in a decree, on the eve of a decla- 
ration of war on the part of France, it is express- 
ly stated, as for the first time, that England was 
then departing from that system of neutrality 
which she had hitherto observed. 

But, sir, I will not rest merely on these testi- 
monies or arguments, however strong j^-^^^i p^oof 
and decisive. I assert distinctly and J''^.* England 

J liad no connec- 

positively, and I have the documents tion witi, aus- 

,1 . , „ , tria and Prussia 

m my hand to prove it, that irom the on their first at 
middle of the year 1791, upon the »«'^''""J='^=*"^«- 
first rumor of any measure taken by the Emperor 
of Germany, and till late in the year 1792, we 
not only were no parties to any of the projects 
imputed to the Emperor, but, from the political 
circumstances in which we stood with relation to 
that court, we wholly declined all communications 
with him on the subject of France. To Prussia, 
with whom we were in connection, and still more 
decisively to Holland, with whom we were in 
close and intimate correspondence, M'e uniformly 
.stated our unalterable resolution to maintain neu- 
trality, and avoid interference in the internal af- 
fairs of France, as long as France should refrain 
from hostile measures against us and our allies. 
No minister of England had any authority to treat 
with foreign states, even provisionally, for any 
warlike concert, till after the battle of Jemappe ; 
till a period subsequent to the repeated provoca- 
tions which had been offered to us, and subse- 
quent particularly to the decree of fraternity of 
the 19th of November ; even then, to what ob- 
ject was it that the concert which we wished to 
establish, was to be directed ? If we had then 
rightly cast the true character of the French 
Revolution, I can not now deny that we should 
have been better justified in a very difTerent con- 
duct. But it is material to the present argument 
to declare what that conduct actually was, be- 
cause it is of itself sufficient to confute all the pre- 
texts by which the advocates of France have so 
long labored to perplex the question of aggres- 
sion. 



cial system, by declaring that their vessels shall not 
be received in the ports of the contracting parties." 
The last clause was pointed particularly against En- 
gland. Whether Mr. Pitt referred to any thing be- 
yond the disclosures in these instructions is uncer- 
tain. The instructions themselves prove but little, 
for they were drawn up Januurj' 4th, 1793, only three 
weeks before Chauvelin was sent out of England, 
and five months after his functions as minister were 
suspended. Mr. Pitt had, perhaps, forgotten the 
dates when he said "long before the period when 
M. Chauvelin was sent hence ;" or perhaps he fairly 
inferred that a systematic attack of this kind upon 
England, through her commerce, must have taken a 
considerable time in its preparation. 



612 



MR. PITT ON 



[1800. 



At that period Russia had at length conceived, 
- ,, , as well as ourselves, a natural and 

Ground taken 111 . ' 

a comnninica- just alarm for the balance of Europe, 

lion to Russia. " i ,• i i 

and applied to us to learn our senti- 
ments on the subject. In our answer to this ap- 
plication we imparted to Russia the principles 
upon which we then acted, and we communi- 
cated this answer to Prussia, with whom we were 
connected in defensive alliance. I will state 
shortly the leading part of those principles. A 
dispatch w^as sent from Lord Grenville to his 
Majesty's minister in Russia, dated the 29th of 
December, 1792, stating a desire to have an ex- 
planation set on foot on the subject of the war 
with France. I will read the material parts of it. 

" The two leading points on which such ex- 
planation will naturally turn are the line of con- 
duct to be followed previous to the commence- 
ment of hostilities, and with a view, if possible, 
to avert them ; and the nature and amount of the 
forces which the powers engaged in this concert 
might be enabled to use, supposing such extrem- 
ities to be unavoidable. 

" With respect to the first, it appears, on the 
\vhole, subject, however, to future consideration 
and discussion with the other powers, that the 
most advisable step to be taken would be, that 
sufficient explanation should be had with the 
powers at war with France, in order to enable 
those not hitherto engaged in the war to propose 
to that country terms of peace. That these 
terms should be the withdrawing their arms 
within the limits of the French territory ; the 
abandoning their conquests, the rescinding any 
acts injurious to the sovereignty or rights of any 
other nations, and the giving, in some public and 
unequivocal manner, a pledge of their intention 
no longer to foment troubles or to excite disturb- 
ances against other governments. In return for 
these stipulations, the different powers of Europe 
who should be parties to this measure might en- 
gage to abandon all measures, or views of hostili- 
ty against France, or interference in their internal 
affairs, and to maintain a correspondence and in- 
tercourse of amity with the existing powers in 
that country, with whom such a treaty may be 
concluded. If, as the result of this proposal so 
made by the powers acting in concert, these 
terms should not be accepted by France, or be- 
ing accepted, should not be satisfactorily per- 
formed, the different powers might then engage 
themselves to each other to enter into active 
measures for the purpose of obtaining the ends in 
view ; and it may be considered whether, in such 
case, they might not reasonably look to some in- 
demnity for the expenses and hazards to which 
they would necessarily be exposed." 

The dispatch then proceeded to the second 
point, that of the forces to be employed, on which 
it is unnecessary now to speak. 

Now, sir, I would really ask any person who 
has been from the beginning the most desirous 
of avoiding hostilities, whether it is possible to 
conceive any measure to be adopted in the situ- 
ation in which we then stood which could more 
evidently demonstrate our desire, after repeated 



provocations, to preserve peace, on any terms 
consistent with our safety ; or whether any sen- 
timent could now be suggested which would have 
more plainly marked our moderation, forbearance, 
and sincerity? In saying this I am not chal- 
lenging the applause and approbation of my coun- 
try, because I must now confess that we were too 
slow in anticipating that danger of which we had, 
perhaps, even then sufficient experience, though 
far short, indeed, of that which we now possess, 
and that we might even then have seen, what 
facts have since but too ineontestably proved, that 
nothing but vigorous and open hostility can afford 
complete and adequate security against revolu- 
tionary principles, while they retain a proportion 
of power sufficient to furnish the means of war. 
II. I will enlarge no farther on the origin of 
the war. I have read and detailed Atrocities of the 
to you a system which was in itself Frenciun carry- 

T , ■ I. . ,, ing out their 

a declaration ot war against all na- revolutionary 
tions, which was so intended, and *^^ '^'"" 
which has been so applied, which has been ex- 
emplified in the extreme peril and hazard of al- 
most all who for a moment have trusted to treaty, 
and which has not at this hour overwhelmed Eu- 
rope in one indiscriminate mass of ruin, only be- 
cause we have not indulged, to a fatal extremity, 
that disposition w^hich we have, however, in- 
dulged too far ; because we have not consented 
to trust to profession and compromise, rather than 
to our own valor and exertion, for security against 
a system, from which we never shall be delivered 
till either the principle is extinguished, or till its 
strength is exhausted. 

I might, sir, if I found it necessary, enter into 
much detail upon this part of the subject; Extent of 
but at present I only beg leave to ex- ^''^^"''J"*- 
press my readiness at any time to enter upon it, 
when either my own strength or the patience of 
the House will admit of it; but I say, without 
distinction, against every nation in Europe, and 
against some out of Europe, the principle has 
been faithfully applied. You can not look at the 
map of Europe, and lay your hand upon that 
country against which France has not either de- 
clared an open and aggressive war, or violated 
some positive treaty, or broken some I'ecognized 
principle of the law of nations. 

This subject may be divided into various pe- 
riods. There were some acts of hos- Asgressions of 



France upon 



with this country, and very little, in- '^ar'wfthEn"' 
deed, subsequent to that declaration, g'a"J- 
which abjured the love of conquest. The attack 
upon the papal state, by the seizure of Avignon, 
in 1791, was accompanied with specimens of all 
the vile arts and perfidy that ever disgraced a 
revolution. Avignon was separated from its law- 
ful sovereign, with whom not even the pretense 
of quarrel existed, and forcibly incorporated in 
the tyranny of one and indivisible France.^'' The 

^* This city with the adjoining province, lying on 
the Rhone, in the south of France, had been for more 
than four centuries the property of tlie papal srov- 
ernment. For seventy years (from 11305 to 1377) it 
was the residence of the popes, and was afterward 



1800.] 



HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE. 



613 



same system led, in the same year, to an aggres- 
sion against the whole German empire, by the 
seizure of Porentrui, part of the dominions of the 
Bishop of Basle. Afterward, in 1792, unpre- 
ceded by any declai-ation of war, or any cause 
of hostility, and in direct violation of the solemn 
pledge to abstain from conquest, they made war 
against the King of Sardinia, by the seizure of 
Savo}'^, for the purpose of incorporating it, in like 
manner, with France. In the same year, they 
had proceeded to the declaration of war against 
Austria, against Prussia, and against the German 
empire, in which they have been justified only 
on the ground of a rooted hostility, combination, 
and league of sovereigns, for the dismemberment 
of France. I say that some of the documents, 
brought to support this pretense are spurious 
and false. I say that even in those that are not 
so, there is not one word to prove the charge 
principally relied upon, that of an intention to 
effect the dismemberment of France, or to im- 
pose upon it, by force, any particular Constitu- 
tion. I say that, as far as we have been able to 

. , , trace what passed at Pilnitz, the Dec- 
import of the . • • 1 V 1 1 
Deoianuion laratiou thcrc signed relerred to the 

of Pilnitz. . . i I> T • -VTTT 

imprisonment ot Louis XVL, its imme- 
diate view was to effect his deliverance, if a con- 
cert sufficiently extensive could be formed with 
other sovereigns for that purpose. It left the 
internal state of France to be decided by the 
King restored to his liberty, with the free con- 
sent of the states of his kingdom, and it did not 
contain one word relative to the dismemberment 
of France.'^ 



governed by a vice-legate. The National Assembly 
seized it in 1790, and at the close of the next year 
annexed it to the French Republic. 

'' Mr. Erskine and his fiieuds did not maintain 
that the Declaration of Pilnitz was aimed at "the 
dismemhei-ment of France," and yet they considered 
it as a just ground of her declaring war against Aus- 
tria. "It was," said Mr. Fox in liis re[)ly to this 
speech, " a declaration of an intention on the part of 
the great powers of Germany, to interfere in the in- 
ternal affairs of France for the purpose oi regulating 
the government against the opinion of the people. 
This, thougli not a plan for the partition of France, 
was in the eye of reason and common sense an ag- 
gression against France." The Declaration was in 
the following words, and was given to the Count 
d'Artois, Vjrother of Louis XVL, in August, 1791, for 
the purpose of being used to combine tiie other 
powers of Europe against the existing French gov- 
ernment : 

" His Majesty the Emperor, and his Majesty the 
King of Prussia, having heard the desires ancl rep- 
resentations of Monsieur and of his royal higlmess 
the Count d'Artois, declare jointly that they regard 
the situation in which his Majesty the King of 
France actually is as an object of common interest 
to all the sovereigns of Europe. They hope that 
this concern can not fail to be acknowledged by the 
powers whose assistance is claimed ; and that in 
consequence they will not refuse to employ jointly 
with their said Majesties the most efficacious means, 
in proportion to their forces, to place the King of 
France in a state to settle in the most perfect liberty 
the fonndations of a monarchical government, equal- 
ly suitable to the rights of sovereigns and the welfare 



In the subsequent discussions, which took 
place in 1792, and which embraced at ,, 

1 -HI • n Sliown by 

the same time all the other points of subsequent 
jealousy which had arisen between the 
two countries, the Declaration of Pilnitz was re- 
ferred to, and explained on the part of Austria 
in a manner precisely conformable to what I have 
now stated. The amicable explanations which 
took place, both on this subject and on all the 
matters in dispute, will be found in the official 
correspondence between the two courts, which 
has been made public ; and it will be found, also, 
that as long as the negotiation continued to be 
conducted through M. Dclessart, then minister 
for foreign affains, there was a great prospect 
that those discussions would be amicably term- 
inated ; but it is notorious, and has since been 
clearly proved on the authority of Brissot him- 
self, that the violent party in France considered 
such an issue of the negotiation as likely to be 
fatal to their projects, and thought, to use his 
own words, that " war was necessary to consol- 
idate the Revolution." For the express purpose 
of producing the war, they excited a popular 
tumult in Paris ; they insisted upon and obtained 
the dismissal of M. Delessart. A new minister 
was appointed in his room, the tone of the nego- 
tiation was immediately changed, and an ulti- 
matum was sent to the Emperor, similar to that 
which was afterward sent to this country, afford- 
ing him no satisfaction on his just grounds of 
complaint, and requiring him, under those cir- 
cumstances, to disarm. The first events of the 
contest proved how much more France was pre- 
pared for war than Austria,'^ and afford a strong 
confirmation of the proposition which I maintain, 



of the French. Then and in that case, their said 
Majesties are decided to act quickly and with one 
accord with the forces necessary to obtain the com- 
mon end proposed. In the mean time they will give 
suitable orders to their troops, that they may be 
ready to put themselves in motion." — Alison's Hist, 
of Europe, vol. i., p. 574, third edition. 

The reader will observe that Mr. Pitt has inserted 
in his statement one very important clause not to be 
found in this document, viz. : " it left the internal 
state of France to be decided by the King restored 
to his liberty, n-ith the free consent of the states of his 
kingdom." He also omitted one important clause, 
viz., that this should be done " in a manner equally 
suitable to the rights of sovereigns and the welfare 
of the French." " Of sovereigns" — not of the King 
of France alone — clearly indicating that monarchical 
power in Europe was to be effectually provided for. 
and thus opening the way for other monarchs to in- 
terfere in deciding on the proper adjustment of the 
internal affairs of France. 

*® This shows the rashness and ignorance with 
which the allies rushed into the war. All the royal 
troops of France were infected with the spirit of the 
Revolution. Bonaparte, in his exile, speaking of 
this subject, said, " It was neither the volunteers nor 
the recruits who saved the Republic ; it was the one 
hundred and eighty thousand old troops of the mon- 
archy and the discharged veterans whom the Revo- 
lution impelled to the frontiers. Part of the recruits 
deserted, part died, a small portion only remained, 
who, in process of time, formed good soldiers." 



614 



MR. PITT ON 



[1800. 



Spain. 



that no offensive intention was entertained on the 
part of the latter power. 

War was then declai-ed against Austria, a war 
Reasons for whic'h I State to be a war of aggres- 
in'/wUhAut sion on the part of France. The 
*■■"*• King of Prussia had declared that he 

should consider war against the Emperor or em- 
pire as war against himself. He had declared 
that, as a coestate of the empire, he was determ- 
ined to defend their rights; that, as an ally of 
the Emperor, he would support him to the ut- 
most against any attack ; and that, for the sake 
of his own dominions, he felt himself called upon 
to resist the progress of French principles, and 
to maintain the balance of power in Europe. 
With this notice before them, France declared 
war upon the Emperor, and the war with Prus- 
sia was the necessary consequence of this ag- 
gression, both against the Emperor and the em- 
pire. 

The war against the King of Sardinia follows 
Case of next. The declaration of that war was 
Sardinia, j^j^g scizurc of Savoy by an invading army 
— and on what ground? On that which has 
been stated already. They had found out, by 
some light of nature, that the Rhine and the 
Alps were the natural limits of France. Upon 
that ground Savoy was seized ; and Savoy was 
also incorporated with France. 

Here finishes the history of the w^ars in which 
France was engaged antecedent to the w^ar 
with Great Britain, with Holland, and with 
Spain. With respect to Spain, we have seen 
nothing which leads us to suspect that either at- 
tachment to religion, or the ties of consanguini- 
ty, or regard to the ancient system of Europe, 
was likely to induce that court to connect itself 
in offensive w^ar against France. The war was 
evidently and incontestably begun by France 
against Spain. 

The case of Holland is so fresh in every man's 
Holland and rccollection, and so connected with the 
Portugal. immediate causes of the war with this 
country, that it can not require one word of ob- 
servation. What shall I say, then, on the case 
of Portugal? I can not, indeed, say that France 
ever declared war against that country. I can 
hardly say even that she ever made war, but she 
required them to make a treaty of peace, as if 
they had been at war ; she obliged them to pur- 
chase that treaty ; she broke it as soon as it was 
purchased ; and she had originally no other 
ground of complaint than this, that Portugal had 
performed, though inadequately, the engage- 
ments of its ancient defensive alliance with this 
country in the character of an auxiliary — a con- 
duct which can not of itself make any power a 
principal in a war. 

I have now enumerated all the nations at war 
at that period, with the exception only of 
Naples. It can hardly be necessary to 
call to the recollection of the House the charac- 
teristic feature of revolutionary principles which 
was shown, even at this early period, in the per- 
sonal insult offered to the King of Naples, by the 
commander of a French squadron riding uncon- 



Naple 



trolled in the Mediterranean, and (while our 
fleets were yet unarmed) threatening destruction 
to all the coast of Italy. 

It was not till a considerably later period that 
almost all the other nations of Europe and the ojher 
found themselves equally involved in Italian states. 
actual hostility ; but it is not a little material to 
the whole of my argument, compared with the 
statement of the learned gentleman, and with 
that contained in the French note, to examine at 
wl*»at period this hostility extended itself. It 
extended itself, in the course of 1796, to the 
states of Italy which had hitherto been exempt- 
ed from it. In 1797 it had ended in the destruc- 
tion of most of them ; it had ended in the virtual 
deposition of the King of Sardinia ; it had ended 
in the conversion of Genoa and Tuscany into 
democratic republics ; it had ended in the revo- 
lution of Venice, in the violation of treaties with 
the new Venetian Republic ; and, finally, in 
transferring that very republic, the creature and 
vassal of France, to the dominion of Austria. 

I observe from the gestures of some honorable 
gentlemen that they think we are pre- ^^ ,y ^^ ^^ 
eluded from the use of any argument Austria's re- 

... •' . T ceivmg Venice 

lounded on this last transaction. 1 from tiie 
already hear them saying that it was 
as criminal in Austria to receive as it was in 
France to give. I am far from defending or pal- 
liating the conduct of Austria upon this occasion. 
But because Austria, unable at last to contend 
with the arms of France, was forced to accept 
an unjust and insufiicient indemnification for the 
conquests France had made from it, are we to 
be debarred from stating what, on the part of 
France, was not merely an unjust acquisition, 
but an act of the grossest and most aggravated 
perfidy and cruelty, and one of the most striking- 
specimens of that system which has been uni- 
formly and indiscriminately applied to all the 
countries which France has had within its grasp? 
This only can be said in vindication of France 
(and it is still more a vindication of Austria) that, 
practically speaking, if there is any part of this 
transaction for which Venice itsell' has reason to 
be grateful, it can only be for the permission to 
exchange the embraces of French fraternity for 
what is called the despotism of Vienna.^^ 

Let these facts and these dates be compared 
with what we have heard. The hon- ^^^^^^ ^,, jj^ 
orable gentleman has told us, and the Er-'k'"« as if 

' approving <>t 

author ol the note from France has the FrencU as- 
told us also, that all the French con- ^"^^^'°"^- 



^' Austria, beins^ worsted in the contest, made 
peace with the French in 1797, and, as a recompense 
for her sacrifices, and for leaving the German states 
on the Rhine at the mercy of the conqueror, received 
Venice and the adjacent territory, whicli had just 
been seized, under circumstances of great perfidy 
and violence, by the French. Alison, with all his 
partiality for the allies, says of this transaction, "It 
is darker in atrocity than the partition of Poland, and 
has only excited less indignation in subsequent 
years because it was attended wilh no heroism or 
dignity in the vanquished." — Vol. iii., p. 276, third 
edition. 



1800] 



HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE. 



615 



quests were produced by the operations of the 
allies. It was, when they were pressed on all 
sides, when their own territory was in danger, 
when their own independence was in question, 
when the confederacy appeared too strong, it 
was then they used the means with which their 
power and their courage furnished them, and, 
"attacked upon all sides, they carried every 
where their defensive arms." I do not wish to 
misrepresent the learned gentleman, but I un- 
derstood him to speak of this sentiment with ap- 
probation. The sentiment itself is this, that if a 
nation is unjustly attacked in any one quarter by 
others, she can not stop to consider by whom, 
but must find means of strength in other quar- 
ters, no matter where; and is justified in attack- 
ing, in her turn, those with whom she is at peace, 
and from whom she has received no species of 
provocation. Sir, I hope I have already proved, 
in a great measure, that no such attack was 
made upon France ; but, if it was made, I main- 
tain that the whole ground on which that argu- 
ment is founded can not be tolerated. In the 
name of the laws of nature and nations, in the 
name of every thing that is sacred and honora- 
ble, I demur to that plea ; and I tell that honora- 
ble and learned gentleman that he would do well 
to look again into the law of nations before he 
ventures to come to this House to give the sanc- 
tion of his authority to so dreadful and execrable 
a system.'^ 

I certainly understood this to be distinctly the 
Thenoteofihe ^^^^^ °^ ^^^ learned gentleman's ar- 
Freucii govern- gumcut, but as he tells me he did 

went, at least, = '._,.„ i i t i 

justified those not use it, 1 take it lor granted he did 

atrocities. ,•. i, • t •• ^i^ 

not intend to use it. 1 rejoice that 
he did not ; but at least, then, I have a right to 
expect that the learned gentleman should now 
transfer to the French note some of the indigna- 
tion which he has hitherto lavished upon the 
declarations of this country. This principle, 
which the learned gentleman disclaims, the 
French note avows ; and I contend, without the 
fear of contradiction, it is the principle upon 
which France has uniformly acted. But while 
the learned gentleman disclaims this proposition, 
he certainly will admit that he has himself as- 
serted, and maintained in the whole course of 
his argument, that the pressure of the war upon 
France imposed upon her the necessity of those 
exertions which produced most of the enormities 
of the Revolution, and most of the enormities 



'^ Mr. Erskine here said across the House that 
he had never maintained any such proposition. His 
line of argument was certainly a very different one, 
as will be seen from the passage of his speech al- 
luded to. " Was it imagined that a powerful nation, 
so surrounded, would act merely on the defensive, 
or that, in the midst of a revolution which the con- 
federacy of nations had rendered terrible, the rights 
of nations would be respected? No; we gave the 
different French governments, by our conduct, a. pre- 
text for jealousy of every other European state, and, 
iti a manner, goaded them on to the accomplishment 
of all the conquests which had since been the sub- 
ject of just lamentation and complaint." — Pari. 
Hist., vol. xxxiv., p. 1291. 



practiced against the other countries of Europe. 
The House will recollect that, in the year 1796, 
when all these horrors in Italy were bejiinning, 
which are the strongest illustrations of the gen- 
eral character of the French Revolution, we had 
begun that negotiation to which the learned gen- 
tleman has referred. England then jiie oflVr of En- 
possessed numerous conquests. En- fl»nJ to restore 

f ^ lier numerous 

gland, though not having at that conquests as the 
time had the advantage of three of rej'eHed'bj^'^''' 
her most splendid victories, England ^'"^"''''• 
even then appeared undisputed mistress of the 
sea. England, having then engrossed the whole 
wealth of the colonial world ; England, having 
lost nothing of its original possessions ; England 
then comes forvvard, proposing a general peace, 
and oflliring — what? ofl^ering the surrender of all 
that it had acquired, in order to obtain — what ? 
Not the dismemberment, not the partition of an- 
cient France, but the return of a part of those 
conquests, no one of which could be retained, 
but in direct contradiction to that original and 
solemn pledge which is now referred to as the 
proof of the just and moderate disposition of the 
Fi-ench Republic. Yet even this ofier was not 
sufficient to procure peace, or to arrest the prog- 
ress of France in her defensive operations against 
other unoflTending countries ! 

From the pages, however, of the learned gen- 
tleman's pamphlet (which, after all its AnswertoMr. 
editions, is now fresher in his memo- t^.ecaTses ^° 
ry than in that of any other person in aVed thl^ne '"i 
this House or in the country), he is twtion of noe. 
furnished with an argument, on the result of the 
negotiation, on which he appears confidently to 
rely. He maintains that the single point on 
which the negotiation was broken oflT w^as the 
question of the possession of the Austrian Neth- 
erlands, and that it is, therefore, on that ground 
only that the war has, since that time, been con- 
tinued. When this subject was before under 
discussion, I stated, and I shall state again (not- 
withstanding the learned gentleman's accusation 
of my having endeavored to shift the question 
from its true point), that the question then at is- 
sue was not whether the Netherlands should in 
fact be restored ; though even on that question 
I am not (like the learned gentleman) unprepar- 
ed to give any opinion. I am ready to say, that 
to leave that territory in the possession of France 
would be obviously dangerous to the interests of 
this country, and is inconsistent with the policy 
which it has uniformly pursued at every period 
in which it has concerned itself in the general 
system of the continent. But it was not on the 
decision of this question of expediency and poli- 
cy, that the issue of the negotiation then turned. 
What was required of us by France was, not 
merely that we should acquiesce in her retaining 
the Netherlands, but that, as a preliminary to all 
treaty, and before entering upon the discussion 
of terms, we should recognize the principle that 
whatever France, in time of war, had annexcdio 
the Republic must remain inseparable forever, 
and could not become the subject of negotiation. 
I say that, in refusing such a preliminary, we 



616 



MR. PITT ON 



[1800. 



were only resisting the claim of France to arro- 
gate to itself the power of controlling, by its 
own separate and municipal acts, the rights and 
interests of other countries, and molding, at its 
discretion, a new and general code of the law of 
nations. 

In reviewing the issue of this negotiation, it 
is important to observe that France, 

Subsequent , / , , . . , ™ 

conductor who began by abjuring a love oi con- 
France. qygst, was dcsircd to give up nothing 
of her own, not even to give up all that she had 
conquered ; that it was offered to her to receive 
back all that had been conquered from her ; and 
when she rejected the negotiation for peace upon 
these grounds, are we then to be told of the un- 
relenting hostility of the combined powers, for 
which France was to revenge itself upon other 
countries, and which is to justify the subversion 
of every established government, and the destruc- 
tion of property, religion, and domestic comfort, 
from one end of Italy to the other? Such was the 
effect of the war against Modena, against Genoa, 
against Tuscany, against Venice, against Rome, 
and against Naples, all of which she engaged in, 
or prosecuted, subsequent to this very period. 

After this, in the year 1797, Austria had made 
^ , , peace; Enijland and its allv, Portufjal 

England re- 5, , ii " i- , 

newed tiie (trom whom we could expect little act- 
ive assistance, but whom we felt it our 
duty to defend), alone remained in the w^ar. In 
that situation, under the pressure of necessity, 
which I shall not disguise, we made another at- 
tempt to negotiate. In 1797, Prussia, Spain, 
Austria, Naples, having successively made peace, 
the princesof Italy having been destroyed, France 
having surrounded itself, in almost every part in 
which it is not surrounded by the sea, with rev- 
olutionary republics, England made another offer 
of a different nature. It was not now a demand 
that France should restore any thing. Austria 
having made a peace upon her own terms, En- 
gland had nothing to require with I'egard to her 
allies, she asked no restitution of the dominions 
added to France in Europe. So far from retain- 
ing any thing French out of Europe, we freely 
offered them all, demanding onl\', as a poor com- 
pensation, to retain a part of what we had ac- 
quired by arms from Holland, then identified 
with France. This proposal also, sir, was proud- 
ly refused, in a way which the learned gentle- 
man himself has not attempted to justify, indeed 
of which he has spoken with detestation. I wish, 
since he has not finally abjured his duty in this 
House, that that detestation had been stated ear- 
lier ; that he had mixed his own voice with the 
general voice of his country on the result of that 
negotiation."" 

Let us look at the conduct of France immedi- 



20 The following was the occasion of this severe 
blow. "When France broke oiF the nci^otiations of 
1797, and Mr. Pitt brought the subject before the 
House in the speech already given in tliis collection, 
Mr. Erskirie and his friends did not attend. They 
condemned the conduct of France, and liad no wisli 
to oppose the Address, but had not the magnanimity 
to appear in their places and vote for it. 



ately subsequent to this period. She had spurned 
at the offers of Great Britain : she had ^ , 

. , '. Conduct of 

reduced her continental enemies to the Frame attei 

• ^ r . • . tliis second 

necessity of accepting a precarious refusal of 
peace ; she had (in spite of those ^"*"'" 
pledges repeatedly made and uniformly violated) 
surrounded herself by new conquests on every 
part of her frontier but one. That one xo switzer- 
was Switzerland. Tlie first effect of '^"J- 
being relieved fi-om the war with Austria, of be- 
ing secured against all fears of continental inva- 
sion on the ancient territory of France, was their 
unprovoked attack against this unoffending and 
devoted country. This w^as one of the scenes 
which satisfied even those who were the most 
incredulous that France had thrown off' the mask, 
"?/ indeed she had ever worn it.'''' It collected, 
in one view, many of the characteristic features 
of that revolutionary system which I have endeav- 
ored to trace — the perfidy which alone render- 
ed their arms successful — the pretexts of which 
they availed themselves to produce division and 
prepare the entrance of Jacobinism in that coun- 
try — the proposal of armistice, one of the known 
and regular engines of the Revolution, which 
was, as usual, the immediate pre'ude to military 
execution, attended with cruelty and barbarity, 
of which there are few examples. All these are 
known to the world. The country they attacked 
was one which had long been the faithful ally 
of France, which, instead of giving cause of jeal- 
ousy to any other power, had been for ages pro- 
verbial for the simplicity and innocence of its 
manners, and which had acquired and preserved 
the esteem of all the nations of Europe ; which 
had almost, by the common consent of mankind, 
been exempted from the sound of war, and 
marked out as a land of Goshen, safe and un- 
touched in the midst of surrounding calamities. 

Look, then, at the fate of Switzerland, at the 
circumstances which led to its destruction. Add 
this instance to the catalogue of aggression 
against all Europe, and then tell me whether 
the system I have described has not been prose- 
cuted with an unrelenting spirit, which can not 
be subdued in adversity, which can not be ap- 
peased in prosperity, which neither solemn pro- 
fessions, nor the general law of nations, nor the 
obligation of treaties (whether previous to the 
Revolution or subsequent to it), could restrain 
from the subversion of every state into which, 
either by force or fraud, their arms could pene- 
trate. Then tell me, whether the disasters of 
Europe are to be charged upon the provocation 
of this country and its allies, or on the inherent 
principle of the French Revolution, of which the 
natural result produced so much misery and car- 
nage in France, and carried desolation and ter- 
ror over so large a portion of the world. 

Sir, much as I have now stated, I have not fin- 
ished the catalogue. America, almost 
as much as Switzerland, perhaps, con- 
tributed to that change which has taken place in 
the minds of those who were originally partial to 
the principles of the French government. The 
hostility against America followed a long course 



1800.] 



HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE. 



617 



of neutrality adhered to under the strongest prov- 
ocations, or rather of repeated compliances to 
France, with which we might well have been 
dissatisfied. It was on the face of it unjust and 
wanton ; and it was accompanied by those in- 
stances of sordid corruption which shocked and 
disgusted even the enthusiastic admirers of rev- 
olutionary purity, and threw a new light on the 
genius of revolutionary government.^' 

After this, it remains only shortly to remind gen- 
To Malta tlcmcn of the aggression against Eg3'pt, 
and Egspt. j^Qj omitting, however, to notice the cap- 
ture of Malta in the way to Egypt. Inconsid- 
erable as that island may be thought, compared 
with the scenes we have witnessed, let it be re- 
membered that it is an island of which the gov- 
ernment had long been recognized by every state 
of Europe, against which France pretended no 
cause of war, and whose independence was as 
dear to itself and as sacred as that of any coun- 
try in Europe. It was in fact not unimportant, 
fi'om its local situation to the other powers of 
Europe ; but in proportion as any man may di- 
minish its importance, the instance will only 
serve the more to iliu.strate and confirm the 
proposition which I have maintained. The all- 
searching eye of the French Revolution looks to 
every part of Europe, and every quarter of the 
world, in which can be found an object either of 
acquisition or plunder. Nothing is too great for 
the temerity of its ambition, nothing too small or 
insignificant for the grasp of its rapacity. From 
hence Bonaparte and his army proceeded to 
Egypt. The attack was made, pretenses w^ere 
held out to the natives of that country in the 
name of the French King, whom they had mur- 
dered. They pretended to have the approbation 
of the Grand Seignior, whose territories they w^ere 
violating ; their project was carried on under the 
profession of a zeal for Mohammedanism ; it was 
carried on by proclaiming that France had been 
reconciled to the Mussulman faith, had abjured 
that of Christianity, or, as he in his impious lan- 
guage ter^jied it, of the sect of the Messiah."'^ 

The only plea which they have since held out 
India finally to color this atrocious invasion of a 
aimed at. ncutral and friendly territory, is that it 
was the road to attack the English power in In- 
dia. It is most unquestionably true that this 



21 All this was emphatically true. France preyed 
OQ the commerce of America in the most wanton 
manner, and when redress was asked in 1797, large 
bribes for the officers of the government (£50,000 
sterling) were directly demanded of the American 
embassado^s, besides some millions of money for the 
public service. But America continued to negotiate ; 
and a few months after Bonaparte became First 
Consul, an amicable adjustment was eiFected. 

22 In his proclamation to the inhabitants of Cairo, 
December 28th, 1798, Bonaparte says (addressing 
the teachers in the mosques) : " Instruct the people, 
that since the world has existed it was written, that, 
after having destroyed the enemies of Islamism (Mo- 
hammedanism), and destroyed the cross, I should 
come from the farthest part of the west to fulfill the 
task which was imposed upon me." — Annual Reg- 
ister, vol. xl., p. 265. 



was one and a principal cause of this unparal- 
leled outrage ; but another, and an equally sub- 
stantial cause (as appears by their own state- 
ments) was the division and partition of the terri- 
tories of what they thought a falling power. It 
is impossible to dismiss this subject without ob- 
serving that this attack against Egypt was ac- 
companied by an attack upon the British posses- 
sions in India, made on true revolutionary prin- 
ciples. In Europe, the propagation of the prin- 
ciples of France had uniformly prepared the way 
for the progress of its arms. To India, the lov- 
ers of peace had sent the messengers of Jacobin- 
ism, for the purpose of inculcating war in those 
distant regions on Jacobin principles, and of 
forming Jacobin club.s, which they actually suc- 
ceeded in establishing ; and which in most re- 
spects resembled the European model, but which 
were distinguished by this peculiarity, that they 
w-ere required to swear in one breath hatred to 
tyranny, the love of liberty, and the destruction 
of all kings and sovereigns, except the good and 
faithful ally of the French Republic. Citizen Tip- 
poo !'^^ 

III. What, then, was the nature of this system? 
Was it any thing but what I have Genius and spir- 
stated it to be ? an insatiable love of l-evoiuuonlry''''' 
aggrandizement, an implacable spir- 'system. 
it of destruction against all the civil and religious 
institutions of every country. This is the first 
moving and acting spirit of the French Revolu- 
tion ; this is the spirit which animated it at its 
birth, and this is the spirit which will not desert 
it till the moment of its dissolution, " which grew 
with its growth, which strengthened with its 
strength," but which has not abated under its 
misfortunes, nor declined in its decay. It has 
been invariably the same in every period, oper- 
ating more or less, according as accident or cir- 
cumstances might assist it ; but it has been in- 
herent in the Revolution in all its stages ; it has 
equally belonged to Brissot, to Robespierre, to 
Tallien, to Reubel, to Barras, and to every one 
of the leaders of the Directory, but to none more 
than to Bonaparte, in whom now all their pow- 
ers are united. What are its characters ? Can 
it be accident that produced them ? No, it is 
only from the alliance of the most horrid princi- 
ples, with the most horrid means, that such mis- 
eries could have been brought upon Europe. It 
is this paradox which we must always keep in 
mind when we are discussing any question rela- 
tive to the effects of the French Revolution. 
Groaning under eveiy degree of misery, the vie 
tim of its own crimes, and as I once before ex- 
pressed in this House, asking pardon of God and 
of man for the miseries which it has brought 



2^ Tippoo Saib "the despot of Mysore," was the 
son and successor of the celebrated Hyder Ali, and 
was in the closest alliance with the French. Bar- 
ruel affirms, in his History of Jacobinism, that French 
emissaries from Pondicherry formed secret societies 
among the nations of India for the propagation of 
their principles ; and Mr. Pitt humorously add? an 
exception made in favor of Citi~en Tippoo, in ad- 
ministering their oaths. 



BU 



MR. PITT ON 



[1800 



upon itself and others, France still retains (while 
it has neither left means of comfort, nor almost 
of subsistence to its own inhabitants) new and 
unexampled means of annoyance and destruction 
against all the other powers of Europe. 

Its first fundamental principle was to bribe the 
Its leading poor against the rich, by proposing to 
principles. ti-an.sfer into new hands, on the delusive 
notion of equality, and in breach of every prin- 
ciple of justice, the whole property of the coun- 
try. The practical application of this principle 
was to devote the whole of that property to in- 
discriminate plunder, and to make it the founda- 
tion of a revolutionary system of finance, pro- 
luctive in proportion to the misery and desola- 
tion which it created. It has been accompanied 
by an unwearied spirit of proselytism, diffusing 
itself over all the nations of the earth : a spirit 
which can apply itself to all circumstances and 
all situations, which can furnish a list of griev- 
ances, and hold out a promise of redress equally 
to all nations ; which inspired the teachers of 
French liberty with the hope of alike recom- 
mending themselves to those who live under the 
feudal code of the German empire ; to the va- 
rious states of Italy, under all their different in- 
stitutions ; to the old republicans of Holland, and 
to the new republicans of America ; to the Cath- 
olic of Ireland, whom it was to deliver from Prot- 
estant usurpation ; to the Protestant of Switz- 
erland, whom it was to deliver from popish su- 
perstition; and to the Mussulman of Egypt, whom 
it was to deliver from Christian persecution ; to 
the remote Indian, blindly bigoted to his ancient 
institutions ; and to the natives of Great Britain, 
enjoying the perfection of practical freedom, and 
justly attached to their Constitution, from the 
joint result of habit, of reason, and of experience. 
The last and distinguishing feature is a perfidy 
which nothing can bind, which no tie of treaty, 
no sen.se of the principles generally received 
among nations, no obligation, human or divine, 
can restrain. Thus qualified, thus armed for de- 
struction, the genius of the French Revolution 
marched forth, the terror and dismay of the 
world. Every nation has in its turn been the 
witne.ss, many have been the victims of its prin- 
ciples ; and it is left for us to decide whether we 
will compromise with such a danger, while we 
have yet resources to supply the sinews of war, 
while the heart and spirit of the country is yet 
unbroken, and while we have the means of call- 
ing forth and supporting a powerful co-operation 
in Europe. 

Much more might be said on this part of the 
subject ; but if what I have said already is a faith- 
ful, though only an imperfect sketch of those ex- 
ces.ses and outrages which even history itself 
will hereafter be unable fully to represent and 
record, and a just representation of the principle 
and source from which they originated, will any 
man say that we ought to accept a precarious se- 
curity against so tremendous a danger? Much 
more — will he pretend, after the experience of 
all that has passed in the different stages of the 
French Revolution, that we ought to be deterred 



from probing this great question to the bottom, 
and from examining, without ceremony or dis- 
guise, whether the change which has recently tak- 
en place in France is sufiicient now to give secu- 
rity, not against a common danger, but against 
such a danger as that which I have described ? 
IV, In examining this part of the subject, let 
it be remembered that there is one , ,., ,. 

, , • • f- , -n , Instability ofitj 

Other characteristic ol the French successive gov- 
Revolution as striking as its dreadful 
and destructive principles : I mean the instabil- 
ity of its government, which has been of itself 
sufficient to destroy all reliance, if any such re- 
liance could at any time have been placed on 
the good faith of any of its rulers. Such has 
been the incredible rapidity with which the rev- 
olutions in France have succeeded each other, 
that I believe the names of those who have suc- 
cessively exercised absolute power, under the 
pretense of liberty, are to be numbered by the 
years of the Revolution, and by each of the new 
Constitutions, which, under the same pretense, 
has in its turn been imposed by force on France : 
all of w^iich alike were founded upon principles 
which professed to be univei'sal, and was intend- 
ed to be established and perpetuated among all 
the nations of the earth. Each of these will be 
found, upon an average, to have had about two 
years as the period ol its duration. 

Under this revolutionary system, accompanied 
with this perpetual fluctuation and change, both 
in the form of the government and in the per- 
sons of the rulers, what is the security which 
has hitherto existed, and what new security is 
now offered ? Before an answer is given to this 
question, let me sum up the history of all the 
revolutionary governments of France, and of 
their characters in relation to other powers, in 
words more emphatical than an}'^ which I could 
use — the memorable words pronounced, on the 
eve of this last Constitution, by the orator'^ who 
was selected to i-eport to an assembly, surround- 
ed by a file of grenadiers, the new form of lib- 
erty which it was destined to enjoy under the 
auspices of General Bonaparte. From this re- 
porter, the mouth and organ of the new govern- 
ment, we learn this important lesson: "It is 
easy to conceive why peace was not concluded 
before the establishment of the constitutional gov- 
ernment. The only government which then ex- 
isted described itself as revolutionary ; it was, 
in fact, only the tyranny of a few men who were 
soon overthrown by others, and it consequently 
presented no stability of principles or of views, 
no security either with respect to men or with 
respect to things. 

"It should seem that that stability and that 
security ought to have existed from the estab- 
lishment, and as the effect of the constitutional 
system ; and yet they did not exist more, per- 
haps even less, than they had done before. In 
truth, we did make some partial treaties ; we 

2* Vide the speech of Boulay de la Meuthe in the 
Council of Five Hundred, at St. Cloud, 19th Bru- 
maire (9th November), 1799. 



1800.] 



HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE. 



G19 



signed a continental peace., and a general con- 
gress was held to confirm it ; but these treaties, 
these diplomatic conferences, appear to have 
been the source of a new war, more inveterate 
and more bloody than before. 

"Before the 18th Fructidor (4th September) 
of the fifth year, the French government exhib- 
ited to foreign nations so uncertain an existence 
that they refused to treat with it. After this 
great event, the whole power was absorbed in 
the Directory ; the legislative body can hardly 
be said to have existed ; treaties of peace were 
broken, and war carried every where, without 
that body having any share in those measures. 
The same Directory, after having intimidated all 
Em-ope, and destroyed, at its pleasure, sevei'al 
governments, neither knowing how to make 
peace or war, or how even to establish itself, 
was overturned by a breath, on the 13th Prairial 
(18th June), to make room for other men, influ- 
enced perhaps by different views, or who might 
be governed by different principles. 

" Judging, then, only from notorious facts, the 
French government must be considered as ex- 
hibiting nothing fixed, neither in respect to men 
or to things." Here, then, is the picture, down 
to the period of the last revolution, of the state 
of France under all its successive governments ! 

V. Having taken a view of what it was, let us 

Character of "°^ examine what it is. In the first 

• ^''e system un- place, we SCO, as has been truly stat- 

der the consul- r ' ' J 

ate of Bona- cd, a change in the description and 
^" ^' form of the sovei'eign authority. A 

supreme power is placed at the head of this nom- 
inal republic, with a more open avowal of mili- 
tary despotism than at any former period ; with 
a more open and undisguised abandonment of the 
names and pretenses under which that despotism 
long attempted to conceal itself. The different 
institutions, republican in their form and appear- 
ance, which were before the instruments of that 
despotism, are now annihilated ; they have given 
way to the absolute power of one man, concen- 
trating in himself all the authority of the state, 
and differing from other monarchs only in this, 
that (as my honorable friend [!Mr. Canning] truly 
stated it) he wields a sword instead of a scepter. 
What, then, is the confidence we are to derive 
either from the frame of the government, or from 
the character and past conduct of the person who 
is now the absolute ruler of France ? 

Had we seen a man of whom we had no pre- 
vious knowledge suddenly invested with the sov- 
ereign authority of the country; invested with 
the power of taxation, with the power of the 
sword, the power of war and peace, the unlim- 
ited power of commanding the resources, of dis- 
posing of the lives and fortunes of every man in 
France ; if we had seen at the same moment all 
the inferior machinery of the Revolution, which, 
under the variety of successive shocks, had kept 
the system in motion, still remaining entire, all 
that, by requisition and plunder, had given act- 
ivity to the revolutionary system of finance, and 
had furnished the means of creating an army, 
by converting every man who was of age to bear 



arms into a soldier, not for the defense of his own 
country, but for the sake of carrying the war 
into the country of the enemy ; if we had seen 
all the subordinate instruments of Jacobin power 
subsisting in their full force, and retaining (to 
use the French phrase) all their original organ- 
ization ; and had then observed this single change 
in the conduct of their aflairs, that there was now 
one man^ with no rival to thwart his measures, 
no colleague to divide his powers, no council to 
control his operations, no liberty of speaking or 
writing, no expression of public opinion to check 
or influence his conduct ; under such circum- 
stances, should we be wrong to pause, or wait 
for the evidence of facts and experience, before 
we consented to trust our safety to the forbear- 
ance of a single man, in such a situation, and to 
relinquish those means of defense which have 
hitherto carried us safe through all the storms 
of the Revolution ? if we were to ask what are 
the principles and character of this stranger, to 
whom fortune has suddenly committed the con- 
cerns of a great and powerful nation ? 

But is this the actual state of the present ques- 
tion? Are we talking of a stranger character of 
of whom we have heard nothing ? No, Bonaparte, 
sir : w^e have heard of him ; we, and Europe, 
and the world, have heard both of him and of the 
satellites by whom he is surrounded, and it is 
impossible to discuss fairly the propriety of any 
answer which could be returned to his overtures 
of negotiation without taking into consideration 
the inferences to be drawn from his personal 
character and conduct. I know it is the fashion 
with some gentlemen to represent any reference 
to topics of this nature as invidious and irrita- - 
ting ; but the truth is, that they rise unavoidably 
out of the very nature of the question. Would 
it have been possible for ministers to discharge 
their duty, in offering their advice to their sover- 
eign, either for accepting or declining negotia- 
tion, without taking into their account the reli- 
ance to be jilaced on the disposition and the 
principles of the person on whose disposition and 
principles the security to be obtained by treaty 
must, in the present circumstances, principally 
depend ? Or would they act honestly or candidly 
toward Parliament and toward the country if, 
having been guided by these considerations, they 
forbore to state, publicly and distinctly, the real 
grounds which have influenced their decision ; 
and if, from a false delicacy and groundless ti- 
midity, they purposely declined an examination 
of a point, the most essential toward enabling 
Parliament to form a just determination on so 
important a subject? 

What opinion, then, are we led to form of the 
pretensions of the Consul to those partic- His pro 
ular qualities for which, in the ofiicial J""^"'^- 
note, his personal character is represented to us 
as the surest pledge of peace ? We are told this 
is his second attempt at general pacification. 
Let us see, for a moment, how his attempt has 
been conducted. There is, indeed, as the learned 
gentleman has said, a word in the first declara- 
tion which refers to general peace, and which 



620 



MR. PITT ON 



[1800. 



states this to be the second time in which the 
Consul has endeavored to accomplish that object. 
We thought fit, for the reasons which have been 
assigned, to decUne altogether the proposal of 
treating, under the present circumstances, but 
we, at the same time, expressly stated that, 
whenever the moment for treaty should arrive, 
we would in no case treat but in conjunction 
with our allies. Our general refusal to negoti- 
ate at the present moment does not prevent the 
Consul from renewing his overtures ; but are 
they renewed for the purpose of general pacifi- 
cation ■? Though he had hinted at general peace 
in the terms of his first note ; though we had 
shown by our answer that we deemed negotia- 
tion, even for general peace, at this moment in- 
admissible ; though we added that, even at any 
future period, we would treat only in conjunction 
with our allies, what was the proposal contained 
in his last note ? To treat for a separate peace 
between Great Britain and France. 

Such was the second attempt to effect general 
'pacification — a proposal for a separ- 

His former con- ^ ■> • , A, -r. • • Tin 

duct toward atc treaty with Great xsritam. What 
^"^^" ■ had been the first ? The conclusion 

of a separate treaty with Austria ; and there are 
two anecdotes connected with the conclusion of 
this treaty, which are sufficient to illustrate the 
disposition of this pacificator of Europe. This 
very treaty of Campo Formio was ostentatiously 
professed to be concluded with the Emperor for 
the purpose of enabling Bonaparte to take the 
command of the army of England, and to dictate 
a separate peace with this country on the banks 
of the Thames.-^^ But there is this additional 
circumstance, singular beyond all conception, 
considering that we are now referred to the 
treaty of Campo Formio as a proof of the per- 
sonal disposition of the Consul to general peace. 
He sent his two confidential and chosen friends, 
Berthier and Monge, charged to communicate to 
the Directory this treaty of Campo Formio; to 
announce to them that cne eneni}'^ was humbled, 
that the war with Austria was terminated, and, 
therefore, that now was the moment to prosecute 
their operations against this country; they used 
on this occasion the memorable words, " The 
kingdom of Great Britain and the French Re- 
public can not exist together.''- This, I say, was 
the solemn declaration of the deputies and em- 
bassadors of Bonaparte himself, offering to the 
Directory the first-fruits of this first attempt at 
general pacification. 

So much for his disposition toward general pa- 
His violation cification. Let us look next at the 
cldTni'lovJrn" V^^'^ ^c has taken in the diflbrent 
ments. stagcs of the Frcnch Revolution, and 

let us then judge whether we are to look to him 
as the security against revolutionary principles. 
Let us determine what reliance we can place 
on his engagements with other countries, when 
we see how he has observed his engagements to 



25 At that time (1797) the French threatened to 
invade Great Britain, and had collected for this pur- 
pose lari?e bodies of troops on the sea-coast, under 
the name of the Army of England. 



his own. When the Constitution of the third 
year was established under Barras, that Consti- 
tution was imposed by the arms of Bonaparte, 
then commanding the army of the triumvirate in 
Paris. To that Constitution he then swore fidel- 
ity. How often he has repeated the same oath 
I know not, but twice, at least, we know that he 
has not only repeated it himself, but tendered it 
to others, under circumstances too striking not 
to be stated. 

Sir, the House can not have forgotten the 
Revolution of the 4th of September, His support of 
which produced the dismissal of Lord ty*i„"t'ile"Dr'^' 
Malmesbury from Lisle. How was rectory. 
that revolution procured ? It was procured 
chiefly by the promise of Bonaparte, in the name 
of his army, decidedly to support the Directory 
in those measures which led to the infringement 
and violation of every thing that the authors of 
the Constitution of 1795, or its adherents, could 
consider as fundamental, and which established 
a system of despotism inferior only to that now 
realized in his ow^n person. Lnmediately before 
this event, in the midst of the desolation and 
bloodshed of Italy, he had received the sacred 
present of new banners from the Directory ; he 
delivered them to his array with this exhortation : 
"Let us swear, fellow-soldiers, by the manes of 
the patriots who have died by our side, eternal 
hatred to the enemies of the Constitution of the 
third year." That very Constitution which he 
soon after enabled the Directory to violate, and 
which, at the head of his grenadiers, he has now 
finally destroyed. Sir, that oath was again re- 
newed, in the midst of that very scene to which 
I have last referred ; the oath of fidelity to the 
Constitution of the third year was administered 
to all the members of the Assembly then sitting, 
under the terror of the bayonet, as the solemn 
preparation for the business of the day ; and the 
morning was ushered in with swearing attach- 
ment to the Constitution, that the evening might 
close with its destruction. 

If we carry our views^out of France, and look 
at the dreadful catalogue of all the His perfidy and 
breaches of treaty, all the acts of per- tiie s't'atelTf''''^ 
fidy at which I have only glanced, ^^'^'-^• 
and which are precisely commensurate with the 
number of treaties which the Republic have made 
(for I have sought in vain for any one which it has 
made and which it has not broken), if we trace 
the history of them all from the beginning of the 
Revolution to the present time, or if we select 
those which have been accompanied by the most 
atrocious cruelty, and marked the most strongly 
with the characteristic features of the Revolu- 
tion, the name of Bonaparte will be found allied 
to more of them than that of any other that can 
be handed down in the history of the crimes and 
miseries of the last ten yeai's. His name will be 
recorded with the horrors committed in Italy, in 
the memorable campaign of 1796 and 1797, in 
the Milanese, in Genoa, in Modena, in Tuscany, 
in Rome, and in Venice. 

His entrance into Lombardy was announced 
by a solemn proclamation, issued on the 27th of 



1800.] 



HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE. 



621 



April, 1796, which terminated with these words : 
" Nations of Italy ! the French army is 
come to break your chains, the French 
are the friends of the people in every country ; 
your religion, your property, your customs, shall 
be respected." This was followed by a second 
proclamation, dated from Milan 20th of May, 
and signed " Bonaparte,'^ in these terms : "Re- 
spect for property and personal security. Re- 
spect for the religion of countries, these are the 
sentiments of the government of the French Re- 
public and of the army of Italy. The French 
victorious, consider the nations of Lombardy as 
their brothers." In testimony of this fraternity, 
and to fulfill the solemn pledge of respecting 
property, this very proclamation imposed on the 
Milanese a provisional contribution to the amount 
of twenty millions of livres, or near one million 
sterling, and successive exactions were afterward 
levied on that single state to the amount, in the 
whole, of near six millions sterling. The regard 
to religion and to the customs of the country 
was manifested with the same scrupulous fidelity. 
The churches were given up to indiscriminate 
plunder. Every religious and charitable fund, 
every public treasure, was confiscated. The 
country was made the scene of every species of 
disorder and rapine. The priests, the establish- 
ed form of worship, all the objects of religious 
reverence, were openly insulted by the French 
troops ; at Pavia, particularly, the tomb of St. 
Augustin, which the inhabitants were accustomed 
to view with peculiar veneration, was mutilated 
and defaced ; this last provocation having roused 
the resentment of the people, they flew to arms, 
surrounded the French garrison and took them 
prisoners, but carefully abstained from offering 
any violence to a single soldier. In revenge for 
this conduct, Bonaparte, then on his march to the 
Mincio, suddenly returned, collected his troops, 
and carried the extremity of military execution 
over the country. He burned the town of Benas- 
CO, and massacred eight hundred of its inhabit- 
ants ; he marched to Pavia, took it by storm, and 
delivered it over to general plunder, and pub- 
lished, at the same moment, a proclamation, of 
the 26th of May, ordering his troops to shoot all 
those who had not laid down their arms and tak- 
en an oath of obedience, and to burn every vil- 
lage where the tocsin should be sounded, and to 
put its inhabitants to death. 

The transactions with Modena were on a 
smaller scale, but in the same character. 

Modena. ' 

Bonaparte began by signing a treaty, by 
which the Duke of Modena was to pay twelve 
millions of livres, and neutrality was promised 
him in return ; this was soon followed by the per- 
sonal arrest of the Duke, and by a fresh extortion 
of two hundred thousand sequins. After this he 
was permitted, on the payment of a farther sum, 
to sign another treaty, called a convention de 
sui-ete, which of course was only the prelude to 
the repetition of similar exactions. 

Neai-ly at the same period, in violation of the 

Tuscan ' ^^S^^^^ of neutrality and of the treaty which 

had been concluded between the French 



Republic and the Grand Duke of Tuscany in the 
preceding year, and in breach of a positive prom- 
ise given only a few days before, the French army 
forcibly took possession of Leghorn, for the pur- 
pose of seizing the British property which was 
deposited there and confiscating it as prize ; and 
shortly after, when Bonaparte agreed to evacu- 
ate Leghorn, in return for the evacuation of the 
island of Elba, which was in possession of the 
British troops, he insisted upon a separate ai'ticle, 
by which, in addition to the plunder before ob- 
tained, by the infraction of the law of nations, it 
was stipulated that the Grand Duke should pay 
the expense which the French had incurred by 
this invasion of his territory. 

In the proceedings toward Genoa we shall find 
not only a continuance of the same system 
of extortion and plunder, in violation of the 
solemn pledge contained in the proclamations al- 
ready referred to, but a striking instance of the 
revolutionary means employed for the destruction 
of independent governments. A French minis- 
ter was at that time resident at Genoa, which was 
acknowledged by France to be in a state of neu- 
trality and friendship ; in breach of this neutrali- 
ty Bonaparte began, in the year 1 796, with the de- 
mand of a loan. He afterward, from the month of 
September, required and enforced the payment of 
a monthly subsidy, to the amount which he thought 
proper to stipulate. These exactions were ac- 
companied by repeated assurances and protesta- 
tions of friendship ; they were followed, in May, 
1797, by a conspiracy against the government, 
fomented by the emissaries of the French embas- 
sy, and conducted by the partisans of France, en- 
couraged, and afterward protected by the French 
minister. The conspirators failed in their first 
attempt. Overpowered by the courage and vol- 
untary exertions of the inhabitants, their force 
was dispersed, and many of their number were 
arrested. Bonaparte instantly considered the de- 
feat of the conspirators as an act of aggression 
against the French Republic ; he dispatched an 
aid-de-camp with an order to the Senate of this 
independent state ; first, to release all the French 
who were detained ; secondly, to punish those 
who had arrested them ; thirdly, to declare that 
theij had no share in the insurrection ; and fourth- 
ly, to disarm the people. Several French pris- 
oners were immediately released, and a pi'ocla- 
mation was preparing to disarm the inhabitants, 
when, by a second note. Bonaparte required the 
arrest of the three inquisitors of state, and imme- 
diate alterations in the Constitution. He accom- 
panied this with an order to the French minister 
to quit Genoa, if his commands were not immedi- 
ately carried into execution ; at the same moment 
his troops entered the territory of the Republic, 
and shortly after, the councils, intimidated and 
overpowered, abdicated their functions. Three 
deputies were then sent to Bonaparte to receive 
from him a new Constitution. On the 6th of June, 
after the conferences at Montebello, he signed a 
convention, or rather issued a decree, by which 
he fixed the new form of their government ; he 
himself named provisionally all the members who 



622 



MR. PITT ON 



[1800. 



were to compose it, and he required the payment 
of seven millions of livres as the price of the 
subversion of their Constitution and their inde- 
pendence. These transactions require but one 
short comment. It is to be found in the official 
account given of them at Paris ; which is in these 
memorable words : " General Bonaparte has pur- 
sued the only line of conduct which could be al- 
lowed in the representative of a nation which has 
supported the war only to procure the solemn ac- 
knowledgment of the right of nations, to change 
the form of their government. He contributed 
nothing toward the revolution of Genoa, but he 
.seized the first moment to acknowledge the new 
government, as soon as he saw that it was the 
result of the wishes of the people. "^'^ 

It is unnecessary to dwell on the wanton at- 
tacks against Rome, under the direction of 
Bonaparte himself in the year 1796, and in 
the beginning of 1797, which terminated first by 
the treaty of Tolentino concluded by Bonaparte, 
in which, by enormous sacrifices, the Pope was 
allowed to purchase the acknowledgment of his 
authority as a sovereign prince ; and secondly, by 
the violation of that very treaty, and the subver- 
sion of the papal authority by Joseph Bonaparte, 
the brother and the agent of the general, and the 
minister of the French Republic to the Holy See. 
A transaction accompanied by outrages and in- 
sults toward the pious and venerable Pontiff, in 
spite of the sanctity of his age and the unsullied 
purity of his character, which even to a Protest- 
ant seem hardly short of the guilt of sacrilege. 

But of all the disgusting and tragical scenes 
which took place in Italy in the course of 
the period I am describing, those which 
passed at Venice are perhaps the most striking 
and the most characteristic. In May, 1796, the 
French army, under Bonaparte, in the full tide 
of its success against the Austrians, first ap- 
proached the territories of this republic, which 
from the commencement of the war had observed 
a rigid neutrality. Their entrance on these ter- 
ritories was, as usual, accompanied by a solemn 
proclamation in the name of their general, "Bo- 
naparte to the republic of Venice." " It is to 
deliver the finest country in Europe from the 
iron yoke of the proud house of Austria, that the 
French army has braved obstacles the most diffi- 
cult to surmount. Victory in union with justice 
has crowned its efforts. The wreck of the en- 
emy's army has retired behind the Mincio. The 
French army, in order to follow them, passes 
over the territory of the republic of Venice; but 
it will never forget that ancient friendship unites 
the two republics. Religion, government, cus- 
toms, and property shall be respected. That 
the people may be without apprehension, the 
most severe discipline shall be maintained. All 
that may be provided for the army shall be faith- 
fully paid for in money. The general-in-chief 
engages the officers of the republic of Venice, 
the magistrates, and the priests, to make known 
these sentiments to the people, in order that con- 

26 Rcdactear Official, June 30, 1797. 



fidence may cement that friendship which has 
so long united the two nations. Faithful in the 
path of honor as in that of victory, the French 
soldier is terrible only to the enemies of his lib- 
erty and his government." — Bonaparte. 

This proclamation was followed by exactions 
similar to those which were practiced against 
Genoa, by the renewal of similar professions of 
friendship and the use of similar means to excite 
insurrection. At length, in the spring of 1797, 
occasion was taken from disturbances thus ex- 
cited, to forge in the name of the Venetian gov- 
ernment, a proclamation hostile to France, and 
this proceeding was made the ground for milita- 
ry execution against the country, and for effect- 
ing by force the subversion of its ancient govern- 
ment and the establishment of the democratic 
forms of the French Revolution. This revolu- 
tion was sealed by a treaty, signed in May, 1797, 
between Bonaparte and commissioners appoint- 
ed on the part of the new and revolutionary gov- 
ernment of Venice. By the second and third 
secret articles of this treaty, Venice agreed to 
give as a ransom, to secure itself against all 
further exactions or demands, the sum of three 
millions of livres in money, the value of three 
millions more in articles of naval supply, and 
three ships of the line; and it received in return 
the assurances of the friendship and support of 
the French Republic. Immediately after the sig- 
nature of this treat)', the arsenal, the library, and 
the palace of St. Marc were ransacked and plun- 
dered, and heavy additional contributions were 
imposed upon its inhabitants. And, in not more 
than four months afterward, this very republic 
of Venice, united by alliance to France, the 
creature of Bonaparte himself, from whom it 
had received the present of French liberty, was 
by the same Bonaparte transferred, under the 
treaty of Campo Formio, to '^^ that iron yoke of 
the proud house of Austria,''' to deliver it from 
which he had represented in his first proclama- 
tion to be the great object of all his operations. 

Sir, all this is followed by the memorable ex- 
pedition into Egypt, which I mention, His conduct 
not merely because it forms a principal '" ^=^i'^ 
article in the catalogue of those acts of violence 
and perfidy in which Bonaparte has been en- 
gaged ; not merely because it was an enterprise 
peculiarly his own, of which he was himself the 
planner, the executor, and the betrayer ; but 
chiefly because when from thence he retires to a 
different scene to take possession of a new throne, 
from which he is to speak upon an equality with 
the kings and governors of Europe, he leaves be- 
hind him, at the moment of his departure, a spec- 
imen, which can not be mistaken, of his princi- 
ples of negotiation. The intercepted correspond- 
ence which has been alluded to in this debate, 
seems to afford the strongest ground to believe 
that his oflers to the Turkish government to evac- 
uate Egypt were made solely with a view to 
gain time ; that the ratification of any treaty on 
this subject was to be delayed with the view of 
finally eluding its performance, if any change of 
circumstances favorable to the French should oc- 



1800.] 



HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE. 



623 



cur in the interval. But whatever gentlemen 
may think of the intention with which the.se offers 
were made, there will at least be no question 
with respect to the credit due to those professions 
by which he endeavored to prove in Egypt his 
pacific dispositions. He expressly enjoins his 
successor strongly and steadily to insist, in all his 
intercourse with the Turks, that he came to 
Egypt with no hostile design, and that he never 
meant to keep possession of the country ; while. 
on the opposite page of the same instructions, he 
states in the most unequivocal manner his regret 
at the discomfiture of his favorite project of col- 
onizing E^ypt, and of maintaining it as a terri- 
torial acquisition. Now, sir, if in any note ad- 
dressed to the Grand Vizier or the Sultan, Bona- 
parte had claimed credit for the sincerity of his 
professions, that he came to Egypt with no view 
hostile to Turkey, and solely for the purpose of 
molesting the British interests, is there any one 
argument now used to induce us to believe his 
present professions to us, which might not have 
been equally urged on that occasion ? Would not 
those professions have been equally supported by 
solemn asseveration, by the same reference which 
is now made to personal character, with this sin- 
gle difference, that they would have then had one 
instance less of hypocrisy and falsehood, which 
we have since had occasion to trace in this very 
transaction ? 

It is unnecessary to say more with respect to 
He may have ^^® Credit duc to his profcssions, or the 
motives to reliance to be placed on his general 

negotiate, -r. • -n i i 

character. But it Will, perhaps, be 
argued that whatever may be his character, or 
whatever has been his past conduct, he has now 
an interest in making and observing peace. That 
he has an interest in making peace is at best but 
a doubtful proposition, and that he has an interest 
in preserving it is still more uncertain. That it 
is his interest to negotiate, I do not indeed deny. 
It is his interest, above all, to engage this country 
in separate negotiation, in order to loosen and 
dissolve the whole system of the confederacy on 
the continent, to palsy at once the arms of Rus- 
sia, or of Austria, or of any other country that 
might look to you for support; and then either to 
break off his separate treaty, or if he should have 
concluded it, to apply the lesson which is taught 
in his school of policy in Egypt; and to revive 
at his pleasure those claims of indemnification 
w^iich may have been reserved to some happier pe- 
riod.''' 

This is precisely the interest which he has in 
but none to negotiation. But on what grounds are 
makepeace. ^^^ ^^ j^g convinccd that hc has an in- 
terest in concluding and observing a solid and 
permanent pacification ? Under all the circum- 
stances of his personal character, and his newly 
acquired power, what other security has he for 
retaining that power but the sword ? His hold 
upon France is the sword, and he has no other. 
Is he connected with the soil, or with the habits, 
the affections, or the prejudices of the country ? 

^'' Vide intercepted correspondeuce from Egypt. 



] He is a stranger, a foreigner, and a usurper. 
j He unites in his own person every thing that a 
; pure republican must detest ; every thing that an 
enraged Jacobin has abjured ; every thing that a 
sincere and faithful royalist must feel as an insult. 
If he is opposed at any time in his career, what is 
his appeal '? He appeals to his fortune : in other 
words, to his army and his sword. Placing, then, 
his whole reliance upon military support, can hc 
afford to let his military renown pass away, to let 
his laurels wither, to let the memory of his trophies 
sink in obscurity ? Is it certain that, with his 
army confined within France, and restrained from 
inroads upon her neighbors, that he can maintain, 
at his devotion, a force sufficiently numerous to 
support his power ? Having no object but the 
possession of absolute dominion, no passion but 
military glory, is it to be reckoned as certain that 
he can feel such an intei-est in permanent peace 
as would justify us in laying down our arms, re- 
ducing our expense, and relinquishing our means 
of security, on the faith of his engagements ? Do 
we believe that, after the conclusion of peace, he 
would not still sigh over the lost trophies of 
Egypt, wrested from him. by the celebrated vic- 
tory of Aboukir, and the brilliant exertions of 
that heroic band of British seamen, whose influ- 
ence and example rendered the Turkish troops 
invincible at Acre ? Can he forget that the ef- 
fect of these exploits enabled Austria and Rus- 
sia, in one campaign, to recover from France all 
which she had acquired by his victories, to dis- 
solve the charm, which for a time fascinated 
Europe, and to show that their generals, con- 
tending in a just cause, could efface even by their 
success and their military glory, the most daz- 
zling triumphs of his victorious and desolating 
ambition ? 

Can we believe, w-ith these impressions on his 
mind, that if, after a year, eighteen „.„^,,^j ,,.,,,g 
months, or two years of peace had the strongest 
elapsed, he should be tempted by the bieak a%Mce 
appearance of fresh insurrection in ''^'"'■*''^- 
Ireland, encouraged by renewed and unrestrained 
communication with France, and fomented by the 
fresh infusion of Jacobin principles ; if we were 
at such a moment without a fleet to watch the 
ports of France, or to guard the coasts of Ireland, 
without a disposable army, or an embodied mili- 
tia, capable of supplying a speedy and adequate 
re-enforcement, and that he had suddenly the 
means of transporting thither a body of twenty 
or thirty thousand French troops ; can we believe 
that, at such a moment, his ambition and vindic- 
tive spirit would be restrained by the recollec- 
tion of engagements or the obligation of treaty? 
Or if, in some new crisis of difficulty and danger 
to the Ottoman empire, with no British navy in 
the Mediterranean, no confederacy formed, no 
force collected to support it, an opportunity 
should present itself for resuming the abandoned 
expedition to Egypt, for renewing the avowed 
and favorite project of conquering and colonizing 
that rich and fertile country, and of opening the 
way to wound some of the vital interests of En- 
gland, and to plunder the treasures of the East, 



624 



MR. PITT ON 



[1800. 



in ordei- to fill the bankrupt coffers of France ? 
Would it be the interest of Bonaparte, under 
such circumstances, or his principles, his mod- 
eration, his love of peace, his aversion to con- 
quest, and his regard for the independence of 
other nations — would it be all or any of these 
that would secure us against an attempt which 
would leave us only the option of submitting 
without a struggle to certain loss and disgrace, 
or of renewing the contest which we had prema- 
turely terminated, without allies, without prep- 
aration, with diminished means, and with in- 
creased difficulty and hazard ? 

Hitherto I have spoken only of the reliance 
, which w^e can place on the profes- 

No evidence of . '■ , , i 

the stability of sious, the Character, and the conduct 
us power. ^^ ^^^ prescnt First Consul; but it 
remains to consider the stability of his power. 
The Revolution has been marked throughout by 
a rapid succession of new depositaries of pub- 
lic authorit}', each supplanting its predecessor. 
What grounds have we to believe that this new 
usurpation, more odious and more undisguised 
than all that preceded it, will be more durable ? 
Is it that we rely on the particular provisions 
contained in the code of the pretended Constitu- 
tion, which was proclaimed as accepted by the 
French people as soon as the garrison of Paris 
declared their determination to exterminate all 
its enemies, and before any of its articles could 
even be known to half the country, whose con- 
sent was required for its establishment ? 

I will not pretend to inquire deeply into the 
His rew consti- uature and effects of a Constitution 
Sr"a:Sot' ^'hich can hardly be regarded but 
»«"'• as a farce and a mockery. If, how- 

ever, it could be supposed that its provisions 
were to have any effect, it seems equally adapt- 
ed to two purposes, that of giving to its founder, 
for a time, an absolute and uncontrolled author- 
ity, and that of laying the certain foundation of 
disunion and discord, which, if they once prevail, 
must render the exercise of all the authority un- 
der the Constitution impossible, and leave no 
appeal but to the sword. 

Is, then, military despotism that which w^e are 
,, . ... accustomed to consider as a stable 

Most unstnble 

ofaii kinds of form ot government? In all ages of 
power. ^^^ world it has been attended with 

the least stability to the persons who exercised 
it, and with the most rapid succession of changes 
and revolutions. In the outset of the French 
Revolution, its advocates boasted that it furnished 
a security forever, not to France only, but to all 
countries in the world, against military despot- 
ism ; that the force of standing ai-mies was vain 
and delusive ; that no artificial power could re- 
sist public opinion ; and that it was upon the 
foundation of public opinion alone that any gov- 
ernment could stand. I believe that in this in- 
stance, as in every other, the progress of the 
French Revolution has belied its professions ; but, 
so far from its being a proof of the prevalence 
of public opinion against military force, it is, in- 
stead of ihc proof, the strongest exception from 
that doctrine which appears in the history of the 



world. Through all the stages of the Revolu- 
tion, military force has governed, and public 
opinion has scarcely been heard. But still I 
consider this as only an exception from a gener- 
al truth. I still believe that in every civilized 
country, not enslaved by a Jacobin faction, pub- 
lic opinion is the only sure support of any gov- 
ernment. I believe this wath the more satisfac- 
tion, from a conviction that, if this contest is hap- 
pily terminated, the established governments of 
Europe will stand upon that rock firmer than 
ever ; and, whatever may be the defects of any 
particular Constitution, those who live under it 
will prefer its continuance to the experiment of 
changes which may plunge them in the unfath- 
omable abyss of revolution, or extricate them 
from it only to expose them to the terrors of 
military despotism. And to apply this to France, 
I see no reason to believe that the present usurp- 
ation wull be more permanent than any other 
military despotism which has been established by 
the same means, and with the same defiance of 
public opinion. 

What, then, is the inference I draw from all 
that I have now stated ? Is it that ah these facts 
we will in no case treat with Bona- ^^|} '^,'J,^^:^'; 
parte ? I say no such thing. But I evidence, 
say, as has been said in the answer returned to the 
French note, that we ought to wait for " expe- 
rience and the evidence of facts''^ before we are 
convinced that such a treaty is admissible. The 
circumstances I have stated would well justify 
us if we should be slow in being convinced ; but 
on a question of peace and war, every thing de- 
pends upon degree and upon comparison. If, 
on the one hand, there should be an appearance 
that the policy of France is at length guided by 
different maxims from those which have hitherto 
prevailed ; if we should hereafter see signs of 
stability in the government which are not now 
to be traced ; if the progress of the allied army 
should not call forth such a spirit in France as 
to make it probable that the act of the countiy 
itself will destroy the system now prevailing ; 
if the danger, the difficulty, the risk of continu- 
ing the contest should increase, w^hile the hope 
of complete ultimate success should be dimin- 
ished ; all these, in their due place, are consid- 
erations which, with myself and, I can answer 
for it, with every one of my colleagues, will have 
their just weight. But at present these consid- 
erations all operate one way ; at present there is 
nothing from which we can presage a favorable 
disposition to change in the French councils. 
There is the greatest reason to rely on powerful 
co-operation from our allies ; there are the stron- 
gest marks of a disposition in the interior of 
France to active resistance against this new tyr- 
anny ; and there is every ground to believe, on 
reviewing our situation and that of the enemy, 
that, if we are ultimately disappointed of that 
complete success which we are at present enti- 
tled to hope, the continuance of the contest, in- 
stead of making our situation comparatively 
worse, will have made it comparatively bettor. 

If, then. I am asked how long are we to per- 



1800.] 



HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE. 



G25 



, 



severe in the war, I can only say that no period 

can be accurately assioned. Consider- 
No definite . . •' ? , • • 

period can ing the importance oi obtaining coni- 
eassigne . ^j^^g sccurity for the objects for which 
we contend, we ought not to be discouraged too 
soon ; but on the contrary, considering the im- 
portance of not impairing and exhausting the 
radical strength of the countiy, there are lim- 
its beyond which we ought not to persist, and 
which we can determine only by estimating and 
comparing fairly, from time to time, the de- 
gree of security to be obtained by treaty, and 
the risk and disadvantage of continuing the con- 
test. 

But, sir, there are some gentlemen in the 
The object is Housc who sccm to cousider it already 
roVrrihy''^ certain that the ultimate success to 
upon France, ^'hich I am looking is unattainable. 
They suppose us contending only for the resto- 
ration of the French monarch}', which they be- 
lieve to be impracticable, and deny to be desira- 
ble for this country. We have been asked in 
the course of this debate : Do you think you can 
impose monarchy upon France, against the will 
of the nation ? I never thought it, I never hoped 
it, J never wished it. I have thought, I have 
hoped, I have wished, that the time might come 
when the effect of the arms of the allies might 
so far overpower the military force, which keeps 
France in bondage, as to give vent and .scope to 
the thoughts and actions of its inhabitants. We 
have, indeed, already seen abundant proof of 
what is the disposition of a large part of the 
country, we have seen almost through the whole 
of the Revolution the western provinces of France 
deluged with the blood of its inhabitants, obsti- 
nately contending for their ancient laws and re- 
lifrion. We have recently seen, in the revival of 
that war, fresh proof of the zeal which still ani- 
mates those countries in the same cause. These 
efforts (I state it distinctly, and there are those 
near me who can bear witness to the truth of 
the assertion) were not produced by any instiga- 
tion from hence ; they were the effects of a 
rooted sentiment prevailing through all those 
provinces forced mto action by the " law of the 
hostages" and the other tyrannical measures of 
the Directory, at the moment when we were 
endeavoring to discourage so hazardous an en- 
terprise. If, under such circumstances, we find 
them giving proofs of their unalterable persever- 
ance in their principles ; if there is every reason 
to believe that the same disposition prevails in 
many other extensive provinces of France ; if 
every party appears at length equally wearied 
and disappointed with all the successive changes 
which the Revolution has produced ; if the ques- 
tion is no longer between monarchy, and even 
the pretense and name of liberty, but between 
the ancient line of hereditary princes on the one 
hand, and a military tyrant, a foreign usurper, 
on the other ; if the armies of that usurper are 
likely to find suflicient occupation on the front- 
iers, and to be forced at length to leave the inte- 
rior of the country at liberty to manifest its real 
feeling and disposition ; what reason have we to 
Rr 



anticipate, that the restoration of monarchy un- 
der such circumstances is impracticable ? 

The learned gentleman has, indeed, told us 
that almost every man now possessed j^^^.^ ^j^^^^ 
of property in France must necessa- er the changes 

.,*,*./ , . . . , of property m 

rily be interested in resisting such a France would 
change, and that therefore it never ro^at^on of tlil 
can be effected.^s If that single con- J^-"^'"'-- 
sideration were conclusive against the possibility 
of a change, for the same reason the Revolution 
itself, by which the whole property of the coun- 
try was taken from its ancient possessors, could 
never have taken place. But though I deny it 
to be an insuperable obstacle, I admit it to be a 
point of considerable delicacy and difficulty. It 
is not, indeed, for us to discuss minutely what 
arrangement might be formed on this point to 
conciliate and unite opposite interests. But who- 
ever considers the precarious tenure and depre- 
ciated value of lands held under the revolutiona- 
ry title, and the low price for which they have 
generally been obtained, will think it, perhaps, 
not impossible that an ample compensation might 
be made to the bulk of the present possessors, 
both for the purchase-money they have paid and 
for the actual value of what they now enjoy ; and 
that the ancient proprietors might be reinstated 
in the possession of their former rights, with only 
such a temporary sacrifice as reasonable men 
would willingly make to obtain so essential an 
object. 

The honorable and learned gentleman, how- 
ever, has supported his reasoning on Hit at Mr. Er- 
this part of the subject, by an argu- me of three ^ 
ment which he undoubtedly considers ^""^,^1 Kngn^h 
as unanswerable — a reference to f^n'^^. 
what would be his own conduct in similar cir- 
cumstances; and he tells us that every landed 
proprietor in France must support the present 
order of things in that country from the same 
motive that he and every proprietor of three per 
cent, stock would join in the defense of the Con- 
stitution of Great Britain. I must do the learned 
gentleman the justice to believe that the habits 
of his profession must supply him with better 
and nobler motives for defending a Constitution, 
which he has had so much occasion to study and 
examine, than any he can derive from the value 
of his proportion, however large, of three per 
cents, even supposing them to continue to in- 
crease in price as rapidly as they have done dur- 
ing the last three years, in which the security 
and prosperity of the country has been estab- 
lished by following a system directly opposite 
to the counsels of the learned gentleman and his 
friends. 

The learned gentleman's illustration, howev- 
er, though it fails with respect to himself, is hap- 

28 An immense amount of confiscated property had 
passed into new hands during the Revolution. Mr. 
Erskine had correctly argued that if this was to be 
restored to the former proprietors, nearly ail France 
had the strongest motives to resist the return of the 
Bourbons. The obstacle plauily would have been 
insurmountable ; and when they did return in 1814, 
nothing of this kind was attempted. 



626 



Mil. PITT ON 



[1800. 



pily and aptly applied to the state of France ; 
and the low and let us see what inference it fur- 
Frenc°h"'^ Hishcs with respcct to the probable at- 
funiis. tachment of moneyed men to the contin- 
uance of the revolutionary system, as well as 
with respect to the general state of public credit 
in that country. I do not, indeed, know that 
there exists precisely any fund of three per cents 
in France, to furnish a test for the patriotism 
and public spirit of the lovers of French liberty. 
But there is another fund which may equally 
answer our purpose. The capital of three per 
cent, stock which formerly existed in France 
has undergone a whimsical operation, similar to 
many other expedients of finance which we have 
seen in the course of the Revolution. This was 
performed by a decree which, as they termed it, 
republicanized their debt ; that is, in other words, 
struck off at once two thirds of the capital, and 
left the proprietors to take their chance for the 
payment of interest on the remainder. This 
remnant was afterward converted into the pres- 
ent five per cent, stock. I had the curiosity very 
lately to inquire what price it bore in the mark- 
et, and I was told that the price had somewhat 
risen from confidence in the new government, 
and was actually as high as seventeen. I really 
at first supposed that my informer meant seven- 
teen years purchase for every pound of inter- 
est, and I began to be almost jealous of revolu- 
tionary credit ; but I soon found that he liter- 
ally meant seventeen pounds for every hundred 
pounds capital stock of five per cent., that is a 
little more than three and a half years' purchase. 
So much for the value of revolutionary proper- 
ty, and for the attachment wnth which it must 
inspire its possessors toward the system of gov- 
ernment to which that value is to be ascribed ! 

On the question, sir, how far the restoration 
Desirable- of the French monarchy, if practicable, 
?e\urnoale is dcsirablc, I shall not think it neces- 
Bourbons. g^ry to say much. Can it be supposed 
to be indifferent to us or to the world, whether 
the throne of France is to be filled by a Prince 
of the house of Bourbon, or by him whose prin- 
ciples and conduct I have endeavored to devel- 



op 



Is it nothing, with a view to influence and 



example, whether the fortune of this last adven- 
turer in the lottery of revolutions shall appear 
to be permanent? Is it nothing whether a sys- 
tem shall be sanctioned which confirms, by one 
of its fundamental articles, that general transfer 
of property from its ancient and lawful possess- 
ors, which holds out one of the most terrible ex- 
amples of national injustice, and which has fur- 
nished the gi-eat source of revolutionary finance 
and revolutionary strength against all the pow- 
ers of Europe ? 

In the exhausted and impoverished state of 
They could not, France, it seems for a time impossi- 
if restored, be' blc that any system but that of rob- 

formidable to t i< • i • i 

the rest of Eu- bcry and confiscation, any thing but 
'^^^' the continued torture, which can be 

applied only by the engines of the Revolution, 
can extort from its ruined inhabitants more than 
the means of supporting in peace the yearly ex- 



penditure of its government. Suppose, then, the 
heir of the house of Bourbon reinstated on the 
throne, he will have sufficient occupation in en- 
deavoring, if possible, to heal the wounds, and 
gradually to repair the losses of ten years of 
civil convulsion ; to reanimate the drooping com- 
merce, to rekindle the industry, to replace the 
capital, and to revive the manufactures of the 
country. Under such circumstances, there must 
probably be a considerable interval before such 
a monarch, whatever may be his views, can pos- 
sess the power which can make him formidable 
to Europe ; but while the system of the Revolu- 
tion continues, the case is quite different. It is 
true, indeed, that even the gigantic and unnatu- 
ral means by which that Revolution has been 
supported are so far impaix-ed ; the influence of 
its principles and the terror of its arms so far 
weakened ; and its power of action so much con- 
tracted and circumscribed, that against the em- 
bodied force of Europe, prosecuting a vigorous 
war, we may justly hope that the remnant and 
wreck of this system can not long oppose an ef- 
fectual resistance. 

But, supposing the confederacy of Europe pre- 
maturely dissolved ; supposing our ar- g^ t,,g p^^.p^ 
mies disbanded, our fleets laid up in of Bonaparte, 

' . i in the event of 

our harbors, our exertions relaxed, a premature 

, f. .11 peace, might be 

and our means ol precaution and de- terribly em- 
fense relinquished ; do we believe ^^°^''^^- 
that the revolutionary power, with this rest and 
breathing time given it to recover from the 
pressure under which it is now sinking, possess- 
ing still the means of calling suddenly and vio- 
lently into action whatever is the remaining 
physical force of France, under the guidance of 
military despotism ; do we believe that this rev- 
olutionary power, the terror of which is now be- 
ginning to vanish, will not again prove formida- 
ble to Europe? Can we forget that in the ten 
years in which that power has subsisted, it has 
brought more misery on surrounding nations, 
and produced more acts of aggression, cruelty, 
perfidy, and enormous ambition than can be 
traced in the history of France for the centuries 
which have elapsed since the foundation of its 
monarch}^, including all the wars which, in the 
course of that period, have been waged by any 
of those sovereigns, whose projects of aggrand- 
izement and violations of treaty afford a constant 
theme of general reproach against the ancient 
government of France? And if not, can we 
hesitate whether we have the best prospect of 
permanent peace, the best security for the inde- 
pendence and safety of Europe from the restora- 
tion of the lawful government, or from the con- 
tinuance of revolutionary power in the hands of 
Bonaparte ? 

In compromise and treaty with such a power, 
placed in such hands as now exercise no security 
it, and retaining the same means of hi'm-Jimbeps'! 
annoyance which it now possesses, I ^^^^"^ 
see little hope of permanent security. I see no 
possibility at this moment of such a peace a.s 
would justify that liberal intercourse which is 
the essence of real amity ; no chance of termin- 



1800.] 



HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE. 



627 



ating the expenses or the anxieties of war, or of 
restoring to us any of the advantages of estab- 
lished tranquillity ; and, as a sincere lover of 
peace, I can not be content with its nominal at- 
tainment. I must be desirous of pursuing that 
system which promises to attain, in the end, the 
permanent enjoyment of its solid and substantial 
blessings for this country and for Europe. As 
a sincere lover of peace, I will not sacrifice it 
by grasping at the shadow when the reality is 
not substantially within my reach. 

Cur igitur pacera nolo ? Quia infida est, 
quia periculosa, quia esse non potest.-^ 

If, sir, in all that I have now offei-ed to the 
House, I have succeeded in establishing the 
proposition that the system of the French Rev- 
olution has been such as to afford to foreign 
powers no adequate ground for security in ne- 
gotiation, and that the change which has recent- 
ly taken place has not yet afforded that security ; 
if I have laid before you a just statement of the 
nature and extent of the danger with which we 
have been threatened, it would remain only 
shortly to consider whether there is any thing in 
the circumstances of the present moment to in- 
duce us to accept a security confessedly inade- 
quate against a danger of such a description. 

It will be necessary here to say a few words 
„ „.„, on the subject on which gentlemen 

Mr. Pitt's rea- •> pipi,,- 

sons for negoti- havB becu SO fond of dwelung, I 

ating in 1796-7. r ^- ^- j 

mean our lormer negotiations, and 
particularly that at Lisle, in 1797. I am de- 
sirous of stating frankly and openly the true 
motives which induced me to concur in then rec- 
ommending negotiation ; and I will leave it to the 
House and to the country to judge whether our 
conduct at that time was inconsistent with the 
principles by which we are guided at present. 
That revolutionary policy which I have endeav- 
ored to describe, that gigantic sj-stem of prodi- 
gality and bloodshed by which the efforts of 
France were supported, and which counts for 
nothing the lives and the property of a nation, 
had at that period driven us to exertions which 
had, in a great measure, exhausted the ordinary 
means of defraying our immense expenditure, 
and had led many of those who were the most 
convinced of the original justice and necessity 
of the wai", and of the danger of Jacobin princi- 
ples, to doubt the possibility of persisting in it, 
till complete and adequate security could be ob- 
tained. There seemed, too, much reason to be- 
lieve that, without some new measure to check 
the rapid accumulation of debt, we could no 
longer trust to the stability of that funding sys- 
tem by which the nation had been enabled to 
support the expense of all the different wars in 
which we have engaged in the course of the 
present century. In order to continue our ex- 
ertions with vigor, it became necessary that a 
new and solid system of finance should be estab- 
lished, such as could not be rendered effectual 
but by the general and decided concurrence of 
^^ Why, then, am I against peace? Because it 
is faithless, because it is dangerous, because it can 
not be maintained. 



public opinion. Such a concurrence in the strong 
and vigorous measures necessary for the purpose 
could not then be expected, but from satisfying 
the country, by the strongest and most decided 
proofs, that peace, on terms in any degree admis- 
sible, was unattainable. 

Under this impression, we thought it our duty 
to attempt negotiation, not from the ^j^g ne..otia- 
sanguine hope, even at that time, that ^'on, tiiougii 

° . , ', rr- 1 1 unsuccessful, 

Its result could anord us complete se- produced the 
curity, but from the persuasion that sufts'i^i E^n^ 
the danger arising from peace, under ^'*"*^' 
such circumstances, was less than that of con- 
tinuing the war with precarious and inadequate 
means. The result of those negotiations proved 
that the enemy would be satisfied with nothing 
less than the sacrifice of the honor and independ- 
ence of the country. From this conviction, a 
spirit and enthusiasm was excited in the nation 
which produced the efforts to which we are in- 
debted for the subsequent change in our situa- 
tion. Having witnessed that happy change, 
having observed the increasing prosperity and 
security of the country from that period, seeing 
how much more satisfactory our prospects now 
are than any which we could then have derived 
from the successful result of negotiation, I have 
not scrupled to declare that I consider the rupture 
of the negotiation, on the part of the enemy, as 
a fortunate circumstance for the country. But 
because these are my sentiments at this time, 
after reviewing what has since passed, docs it 
follow that we were at that time insincere in 
endeavoring to obtain peace ? The learned gen- 
tleman, indeed, assumes that we were, and he 
even makes a concession, of which I desire not 
to claim the benefit. He is willing to admit that, 
on our principles and our view of the subject, in- 
sincerity would have been justifiable. I know, 
sir, no plea that would justify those who a,re 
intrusted with the conduct of public affairs in 
holding out to Parliament and to the nation one 
object, while they were, in fact, pursuing an- 
other. I did, in fact, believe, at the moment, 
the conclusion of peace, if it could have been ob- 
tained, to be preferable to the continuance of the 
war under its increasing risks and difficulties. 
I therefore wished for peace ; I sincerely labored 
for peace. Our endeavors were frustrated by 
the act of the enem3\ If, then, the circumstan- 
ces are since changed ; if what passed at that 
period has afforded a proof that the object we 
aimed at was unattainable ; and if all that has 
passed since has proved that, provided peace had 
been then made, it could not have been durable, 
are we bound to repeat the same experiment, 
when every reason against it is strengthened by 
subsequent experience, and when the induce- 
ments which led to it at that time have ceased 
to exist ? 

When we consider the resources and the spirit 
of the country, can any inan doubt that pemration. 
if adequate security is not now to be increase or 

, . ^ , , •' , , resource!). 

obtained by treat}^, we have the means 
of prosecuting the contest without material diffi- 
culty or danger, and with a reasonable prospect 



628 MR. PITT ON HIS REFUSAL TO NEGOTIATE WITH BONAPARTE. [1800. 



of completely attaining our object ? I will not 
dwell on the improved state of public credit, on 
the continually increasing amount, in spite of ex- 
traordinary temporary burdens, of our permanent 
revenue, on the yearly accession of wealth to an 
extent unprecedented even in the most flourish- 
ing times of peace, which we are deriving, in the 
midst of war, from our extended and flourishing 
commerce ; on the progressive improvement and 
growth of our manufactures ; on the proofs which 
we see on all sides of the uninterrupted accumu- 
lation of productive capital ; and on the active ex- 
ertion of every branch of national industry which 
can tend to support and augment the population, 
the riches, and the power of the country ? 

As little need I recall the attention of the 
Recent Housc to the additional means of action 
victories, .^^.j^iich wc havc derived from the great 
augmentation of our disposable military force, 
the continued triumphs of our powerful and vic- 
torious navy, and the events which, in the course 
of the last two years, have raised the military 
ardor and military glory of the country to a 
height unexampled in any period of our history. 
In addition to these grounds of reliance on our 
Skill and valor own Strength and exertions, we have 
of our allies, gg^j^ ^j^g consummatc skill and valor 
of the arms of our allies px'oved by that series of 
unexampled success in the course of the last cam- 
paign, and we have every reason to expect a co- 
operation on the continent, even to a greater ex- 
tent, in the course of the present year. If we com- 
pare this view of our own situation with every 
thing we can observe of the state and condition of 
our enemy — if we can trace him laboring under 
equal difficulty in finding men to recruit his army, 
or money to pay it — 'if we know that in the course 
of the last year the most rigorous efforts of military 
Exhausted state conscrij)tion were scarcely sufficient 
ofthe French, ^q rcplacc to the French armies, at 
the end of the campaign, the numbers which 
they had lost in the course of it — if we have seen 
that that force, then in possession of advantages 
which it has since lost, was unable to contend 
with the efforts of the combined armies — if we 
know that, even while supported by the plunder 
of all the countries which they had overrun, those 
armies were reduced, by the confession of their 
commanders, to the extremity of di.stress, and 
destitute not only of the principal articles of 
military supply, but almost of the necessaries of 
life — if we see them now driven back within 
their own frontiers, and confined within a coun- 
try whose own resources have long since been 
proclaimed by their successive governments to 
be unequal either to paying or maintaining them 
— if we observe that since the last revolution 
no one substantial or effectual measure has been 
adopted to remedy the intolerable disorder of their 
finances, and to supply the deficiency of their 
credit and resources — if we see through large 
and populous districts of France, either open war 
levied against the present usurpation, or evident 
marks of disunion and distraction, which the 



first occasion may call forth into a flame — if, I 
say, sir, this comparison be just, I feel myself au- 
thorized to conclude from it, not that we are en- 
titled to consider ourselves certain of ultimate 
success, not that we are to suppose ourselves ex- 
empted from the unforeseen vicissitudes of war ; 
but that, considering the value of the object for 
which we are contending, the means for support- 
ing the contest, and the probable course of hu- 
man events, we should be inexcusable, if at this 
moment we were to relinquish the struggle on 
any grounds short of entire and complete secu- 
rity ; that from perseverance in our efforts under 
such circumstances, we have the fairest reason 
to expect the full attainment of our object ; but 
that at all events, even if we are disappointed in 
our more sanguine hopes, we are more likely to 
gain than to lose by the continuation of the con- 
test ; that every month to which it is continued, 
even if it should not in its effects lead to the final 
destruction of the Jacobin system, must tend so 
far to weaken and exhaust it. as to give us at 
least a greater comparative security in any term- 
ination of the war; that, on all these grounds, 
this is not the moment at which it is consistent 
with our interest or our duty to listen to any pro- 
posals of negotiation with the present ruler of 
France ; but that we are not, therefore, pledged 
to any unalterable determination as to our future 
conduct ; that in this we must be regulated by 
the course of events ; and that it will be the duty 
of his Majesty's ministers from time to time to 
adapt their measures to any variation of circum- 
stances, to consider how far the effects of the 
military operations of the allies or of the internal 
disposition of France correspond with our present 
expectations ; and, on a view of the whole, to 
compare the difficulties or risks which may arise 
in the prosecution of the contest with the pros- 
pect of ultimate success, or of the degree of ad- 
vantage to be derived from its further continu- 
ance, and to be governed by the result of all these 
considerations in the opinion and advice which 
they may offer to their sovereign. 



Notwithstanding the deep impi-ession made by 
Mr. Fox in reply, the address was carried by a 
vote of 265 to 64. The result, however, pain- 
fully disappointed the expectations of Mr. Pitt. 
It seemed to be his fate, throughout the war. to 
be deceived on the two points dwelt upon in his 
peroration, viz., the skill and valor of his allies 
and the exhausted state of the French. The 
former were uniformly out-generaled and defeat- 
ed, while the latter grew continually in spirit 
and resources. The reader will see at the con- 
clusion of Mr. Fox's speech in reply to this, a 
slight sketch of the events which followed during 
the two subsequent years — the entire di.scomfit- 
ure of the allies, their withdrawal from the con- 
test, the resignation of Mr. Pitt, and the conclu- 
sion of the peace of Amiens in 1802, to the great 
joy of the English. 



LORD ERSKINE. 

Thomas Erskine, youngest son of the Earl of Buchan, was born at Edinburgh, on 
the 10th day of January, 1750. The family had once been eminent for rank and 
wealth ; but their ample patrimony being gradually wasted, the income of their es- 
tates was at last reduced to two hundred pounds a year. To conceal their poverty, 
they removed to the capital from an old castle, which was all that was left of their 
wide domains ; and "in a small and ill-furnished room in an upper flat, or story, 
of a lofty house in the old town of Edinburgh, first saw the light the Honorable 
Thomas Erskine, the future defender of Stockdale, and Lord Chancellor of Great 
Britain." 

Young Erskine displayed in very early life that quickness of intellect and joyous 
hilarity of spirits for which he was so remarkable throughout his professional career. 
He was kept for some years at the High School of Edinburgh, and then removed to the 
University of St. Andrew's, where he spent less than two years. His early education 
was, therefore, extremely limited. He had but little knowledge of Latin, and none 
of Greek. ^ Li the rudiments of English literature, however, he was uncommonly 
well instructed for one of his age. He profited greatly by conversation with his 
mother, who was a woman of uncommon strength of mind, and owed much of the 
daring energy of his character to her example and instructions. Being accustomed, 
notwithstanding the poverty of the family, to associate from childhood with persons of 
high rank and breeding, he early acquired that freedom and nobleness of manner for 
which he was so much distinguished in after life. He was the favorite of all who 
knew him — of his masters, his school-mates, and the families in which he visited. 
Full of fun and frolic, with a lively fancy, ready wit, and unbounded self-reliance, he 
found his chief delight in society ; and probably laid the foundation, at this early pe- 
riod, of those extraordinary powers of conversation to which he was greatly indebted 
for his subsequent success. He was one of the few who seem to have gained by be- 
ing left chiefly to themselves in their early years. K he had less learning, he had 
more freedom and boldness ; and when the time arrived for his entering into the con- 
flicts of the bar, it is not surprising that, with high native talent, extraordinary ca- 
pacity for application, and a self-coniidence amounting to absolute egotism, he was 
able to put forth his powers, under the impulse of strong motive, with prodigious ef- 
fect, and to make himself, without any preparatory training, one of the most ready 
and eloquent speakers of the age. 

He showed a great desire from boyhood to be fitted for one of the learned pro- 
fessions, and had even then his dreams of distinction in eloquence ; but the poverty 
of his father forbade the attempt. At the age of fourteen, he was placed as a mid- 
shipman in the navy, and was commended to the particular care of his captain by 
Lord Mansfield, who took a lively interest in the Buchan family. He now spent 
four years in visiting various parts of the globe, particularly the West Indies and the 
coast of North America. He was often on shore ; and it was probably on one of 

1 Lord Brougham speaks of him as having " hardly any access to the beauties of Attic eloquence, 
whether in prose or verse ;" but Lord Campbell goes farther, and says, " he learned Httle of Greek 
beyond the alphabet. '''' 



630 LORD ERSKINE. 

these occasions that he witnessed that meeting of an Indian chief with the governor 
of a British colony, which he described so graphically in his defense of Stockdale, 
and made the starting-point of one of the noblest bursts of eloquence in our language. 

At the end of four years he returned to England ; the ship was paid off, and he 
was cast without employment on the world. At this moment of deep perplexity 
his father died, leaving him but a scanty pittance for his support. After consulting 
with his friends, he saw no course but to try his fortune in the army ; and accord- 
ingly he spent the whole of his little patrimony in purchasing an ensign's commis- 
sion in the Royals, or First Regiment of Foot. The regiment remained for some 
years at home, and was quartered, from time to time, in different provincial towns. 
Erskine, with his habitual buoyancy of spirits, mingled in the best society of the 
places where he was stationed, and attracted great attention by the elegance of his 
manners and the brilliancy of his conversation. He at last became entangled with 
an affair of the heart ; and was married in April, 1770, at the age of twenty, to a 
lady of respectable family, though without fortune — the daughter of Daniel Moore, 
Esq., member of Parliament for Marlow. 

This rash step would to most persons have been the certain precursor of poverty 
and ruin ; but in his case it was a fortunate one. It served to balance his mind, to 
check his natural volatility, to impress him with a sense of new obligations and 
higher duties. The regiment was ordered to Minorca, where he spent two years in 
almost uninterrupted leisure. In the society of his wife, he now entered on the sys- 
tematic study of English literature, and probably no two years were ever better spent 
for the purposes of mental culture. As a preparation for his future efforts in oratory, 
they were invaluable. In addition to his reading in prose, he devoted himself with 
great ardor to the study of (Milton and Shakspeare.) A large part of the former he 
committed to memory, and became so familiar with the latter, that " he could al- 
most, like Person, have held conversations on all subjects for days together in the 
phrases of the great English dramatist." Here he acquired that fine choice of words, 
that rich and varied imagery, that sense of harmony in the structure of his sentences, 
that boldness of thought and magnificence of expression, for which he was afterward 
so much distinguished. It may also be remarked, that there are passages in both 
these writers which are the exact counterpart of the finest eloquence of the ancients. 
The speeches, in the second book of the Paradise Lost, have all the condensed energy 
and burning force of expression which belong to the great Athenian orator. The 
speech of Brutus, in Shakspeare's Julius Csesar, has all the stern majesty of Roman 
eloquence. That of Anthony over the dead body of Caesar is a matchless exhibition 
of the art and dexterity of insinuation which characterized the genius of the Greeks. 
It is not in regard to poetry alone that we may say of these great masters, 

Hither, as to a fountain, 
Other suns repair, and in their uras 
Draw golden light. 

In respect to eloquence, also, to use the words of Johnson, slightly varied, he who 
would excel in this noblest of arts must give his days and nights to the study of 
Milton and Shakspeare. 

In the year 1772 the regiment returned to England, and the young ensign obtained 
a furlough of six months. Most of this time he spent in the best society of London ; 
and Boswell speaks of Johnson and himself as dining, April 6, 1772, with " a young 
officer in the regimentals of the Scots Royals, who talked with a vivacity, fluency, 
and precision which attracted particular attention." It was Erskine, who, with his 
characteristic boldness, entered at once into a literary discussion with Johnson, dis- 
puting his views on the comparative merits of Fielding and Richardson in a man- 
ner which rather gained him the favor of the great English moralist. 



LORD ERSKINE. 631 

At the end of six years from his entering the army, when he had reached the rank 
of Lieutenant, the attention of Erskine was by mere accident directed to the bar. 
Being stationed, during the summer of 1774, in a country town where the Assizes 
were held, he rambled one day into court ; and Lord Mansfield, who presided, having 
noticed his uniform, was led to inquire his name. Finding that it was the boy whom 
he had aided ten years before in going to sea, he invited him to a seat on the bench, 
briefly stating the principal points of the case, and showing him other civilities which 
were peculiarly gratifying under such circumstances. Erskine listened with the 
liveliest interest. The counsel were considered skillful and eloquent ; but it often 
occurred to him, in the course of the argument on both sides, how much more clearly 
and forcibly he could have presented certain points and urged them on the minds of 
the jury. "And why not be a lawyer?" was the thought which instantly forced 
itself on his mind. "Why not carry out the early aspirations of boyhood?" Any 
one of a less sanguine temperament would have felt the attempt to be hopeless, 
burdened as he was with a young and growing family, and wholly destitute of any 
means of subsistence except his commission, which must, of course, be relinquished 
if he entered on the study of the law. But Erskine's whole life was one of daring 
enterprise. The very difficulty of an undertaking seemed only to impel him forward 
with greater eagerness. Being invited to dinner by Lord Mansfield, who was de- 
lighted with his conversational powers, he brought out at the close of the evening 
the question which was already beating at his heart, " Is it impossible for me to be- 
come a lawyer ?" Mansfield, who admired his talents and spirit, did not utterly dis- 
courage him, and this was enough for one of his sanguine temperament. He con- 
sulted his mother, who had the same habit of looking on the bright side of things, 
and who perfectly understood the force of his character, and found to his delight that 
she was almost as eager as he was to see him enter on the undertaking. He ac- 
cordingly became a member of Lincoln's Inn, about the middle of 1775. His term 
of legal study might be materially abridged by his taking a degree at one of the uni- 
versities, and to this he was entitled, as son of a nobleman, without passing an ex- 
amination, if he kept his regular terms. He therefore became a member of Trinity 
College, Cambridge, early in 1776, paying no attention whatever to the studies of 
the place, and contriving, at the same time, to keep his terms at Lincoln's Inn, He 
still retained his office in the army as a means of support, having obtained leave of 
absence for six months, and at the end of this time sold out his commission and hus- 
banded his resources to the utmost. He lived in a small village just out of London ; 
and Reynolds, the comic writer, says, in his " Life and Times," " The young stu- 
dent resided in small lodgings near my father's villa at Hampstead, and openly avowed 
that he lived on cow-beef, because he could not afford any of a superior quality ; he 
dressed shabbily, and expressed the greatest gratitude to Mr. Harris for occasional 
free admissions to Covent Garden, and used boastingly to exclaim to my father, 
" Thank fortune, out of my own family, I don't know a Lord." In July, 1778, he 
was called to the bar, and according to all ordinary experience of the profession in 
London, he had reason to expect a delay of some years before his business would sup- 
port his family. 

But the early life of Erskine was full of singular adventure. Not long after his 
call to the bar, he was dining with a friend, and happened to speak of a Captain 
Baillie, whose case at that time awakened great interest in the public mind. As 
Lieutenant Governor of Greenwich Hospital, Baillie had discovered enormous abuses 
in the management of the institution (which was- used for political purposes), and had 
publicly charged them on Lord Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty. For this 
he was prosecuted on a charge of a libel, at the instance of Sandwich, who kept, how- 
ever, behind the scenes to avoid any opportunity of bringing him before the court 



632 LORD ERSKINE. 

on the merits of the case. As the trial was soon to come on, Erskine remarked on 
this conduct at table with great severity, not knowing that Baillie was jiresent as 
one of the guests. The captain was delighted with what he heard ; and learning 
that his volunteer advocate was a young lawyer, as yet without business, who had 
himself been a sailor, declared to a friend that he should at least have one brief Ac- 
cordingly, Erskine's first retainer of a guinea was put into his hands the next day, 
and it never occurred to him but that he was the only counsel in the case. As the 
trial approached, however, he found there were four distinguished advocates before 
him, and he also found they had so little hope of success, that they advised Baillie, 
at a consultation, to pay the costs, and in this way escape trial, as the prosecutors 
had kindly proposed. Erskine alone dissented. " My advice, gentlemen," said he, 
" may savor more of my former profession than my present, but I am against con- 
senting." "You are the man for me," said Baillie, hugging the young advocate in 
his arms; " I will never give up." 

The case came on before Lord Mansfield in the afternoon of November 23d, 1778. 
The senior counsel of Baillie consumed the time till late in the evening, in showing 
cause why the rule should be dismissed ; and no one expecting Erskine to come for- 
ward, the case was adjourned until the next day. The court was crowded in the 
morning, as the Solicitov General was expected to speak in support of the rule, and, 
just as Lord Mansfield was about to call upon him to proceed, Erskine rose, un- 
known to nearly every indivi(>ual in the room except his Lordship, and said, in a 
mild but firm tone, " My Lord, I am likeivise counsel for the author of this sup- 
posed libel, ^ =^ ^ and when a British subject is brought before a court of justice only 
for having ventured to attack abuses which owe their continuance to the danger of 
attacking them, ^ =^ =^ I can not relinquish the privilege of doing justice to such 
merit, I will not give up even my share of the honor of repelling and exposing so 
odious a prosecution." The whole audience was hushed into a pin-fall silence, and 
he then went on to ask in regard to his client, ''Who is he? What was his duty? 
What has he ivrittcn ? To icliom has he ivritten ? and tvhat tnotive induced him 
to write ?"" Taking these inquiries as the heads of his speech, he went on, in brief 
but eloquent terms, to show that BailUe, as Lieutenant Governor of the Hospital, 
was bound in duty to expose the abuses of the institution — that he had written noth- 
ing on the subject but Avhat was undeniably true — that he had written it for the in- 
formation of the Governors of the Hospital, who ought to be informed on such a sub- 
ject — and that his only motive in writing had been the protection of those who had 
lost their limbs and periled their lives in fighting the battles of their country. In 
closing, he turned from Captain Baillie to the First Lord of the Admiralty, " Indeed, 
Lord Sandwich," said he, " has in my mind — " [Mansfield here reminded him that 
Lord Sandwich was not before the court, when Erskine, borne away by his feelings, 
instantly broke forth], " I know he is not formally before the court, but for that very 
reason I will bring him, before the court ! He has placed these men [the prosecu- 
tors] in the front of the battle, in hopes to escape under their shelter ; but I will not 
join in the battle with them ; their vices, though screwed up to the highest pitch of 
human depravity, are not of dignity enough to vindicate the combat with me. I will 
drag him to light, who is the dark mover behind this scene of iniquity. I assert, 
that the Earl of Sandwich has but one road to escape out of this business without 
pollution and disgrace, and that is, by publicly disavowing the acts of the prosecu- 
tors, and restoring Captain Baillie to his command. If he does this, then his offense 
will be no more than the too common one of having suffered his own personal inter- 
est to prevail over his public duty, in placing his voters in the hospital. But if, on 
the contrary, he continues to protect the prosecutors, in spite of the evidence of their 
guilt, which has excited the abhorrence of the numerous audience that crowd this 



LORD ERSKINE. 633 

court ; if he keeps this injured man suspended, or dares to turn that suspension 
into a removal, I shall then not scruple to declare him ayi accomplice in their guilt, 
a shameless oppressor, a disgrace to his rank, aiid a traitor to his trusty * * 
" Fine and imprisonment ! The man deserves a palace instead of a prison who 
prevents the palace, built by the public bounty of his country, from being converted 
into a dungeon, and vi^ho sacrifices his own security to the interests of humanity and 
virtue." Considering all the circumstances of the case, it is not surprising that Lord 
Campbell should pronounce this " the most wonderful forensic effort which we have 
in our annals." It is hardly necessary to say that the decision was for the defendant ; 
the nile was dismissed with costs. 

Never did a single case so completely make the fortune of any individual. Er- 
skine entered Westminster Hall that morning not only in extreme poverty, but with 
no reasonable prospect of an adequate subsistence for years. He left it a rich man. 
He received thirty retainers from attorneys who were present, it is said, while re- 
tiring from the hall. Not only was his ambition gratified, but the comfort and in- 
dependence of those whose happiness he had staked on his success as a lawyer were 
secured for life. Some one asked him, at a later period, how he dared to face Lord 
Mansfield so boldly on a point where he was clearly out of order, when he beauti- 
fully replied, " I thought of my children as plucking me by the robe, and saying, 
'Now, father, is the time to get us bread.' " His business went on rapidly increas- 
ing, until he had an annual income of £12,000. 

The next year he added to his reputation by a masterly defense of Admiral Kep- 
pel before a court-martial at Portsmouth. His experience in naval affairs recommend- 
ed him for this service, and he performed it with unabated zeal for thirteen days, which 
were spent in examining witnesses and arguing points of order, after which he wrote 
out the speech which the Admiral read to the court. This was followed by a 
unanimous verdict of acquittal ; and so strongly did Keppel feel the value of the 
young advocate's services, that he addressed him a note in token of his gratitude con- 
taining a present of a thousand pounds, adding, "I shall ever rejoice in this com- 
mencement of di. friendship which I hope daily to improve." Erskine, with the boy- 
ish hilarity which always marked his character, hastened to the villa of the Reyn- 
oldses, and, displaying his bank-notes, exclaimed, " Voilathe non-suit of cow-beef, my 
good friends." 

He came into the House five years after, in November, 1783, as a supporter of 
the Coalition ministry of Mr. Fox and Lord North. Nearly all the lawyers being on 
the other side, great reliance was placed on his services by the friends of the new 
government. But they were sorely disappointed. His habits were not suited to par- 
hamentary debate. His understanding was eminently a legal one ; he wanted the 
stimulus and encouragement of a listening court and jury ; and was embarrassed by 
the presence of sneering opponents ready to treat him with personal indignity. His 
vanity now turned to his disadvantage, and put him in the power of his antagonists. 
When he commenced his maiden speech, says Mr. Croly, in his Life of George IV., 
" Mr. Pitt, evidently intending to reply, sat with pen and paper in his hand, prepared 
to catch the arguments of his formidable adversary. He wrote a word or two. Er- 
skine proceeded ; but, with every additional sentence, Pitt's attention to the paper 
relaxed, his look became more careless, and he obviously began to think the orator 
less and less worthy of his attention. At length, while every eye in the House was 
fixed upon him, with a contemptuous smile he dashed the pen through the paper, 
and flung them on the floor. Erskine never recovered from this expression of dis- 
dain ; his voice faltered, he struggled through the remainder of his speech, and sank 
into his seat dispirited and shorn of his fame." Sheridan remarked to him at a later 
period, " I'll tell you how it happens, Erskine ; you are afraid of Pitt, and that is the 



634 LORD ERSKINE. 

flabby part of your character." There was too much truth in the remark, Erskine 
could bear any thing but contempt. He recovered himself, however, at a later pe- 
riod of life, and made quite a number of very able and eloquent speeches ; in fact, 
he would have stood high as a parliamentary orator, if he had not so completely 
outshone himself by the brilliancy of his efforts in Westminster Hall. 

"As an advocate in the forum," says Lord Campbell, " I hold him to be without 
an equal in ancient or modern times." What is rare in one of so brilliant a genius, 
he had no less power with the court than with the jury. It was remarked of him, 
as of Scarlett, that " he had invented a machine by the secret use of which, in court, 
he could make the head of a judge nod assent to his propositions ; whereas his riv- 
als, who tried to pirate it, always made the same head move from side to side." He 
was certainly not a profound lawyer, as the result of original investigation ; his short 
period of study rendered this impossible. But he had the power of availing himself 
more completely than almost any man that ever lived, of the knowledge collected for 
his use by others. His speech on the Rights of Juries, in the case of the Dean of 
St. Asaph, is universally admitted to show " a depth of learning which would have 
done honor to Selden or Hale ;" ^nd so completely had he thrown his mind into the 
case, and made himself master of what black-letter lawyers spent months in search- 
ing out as the materials of his brief, that he poured forth all this learning, in his ar- 
gument before the court, with the freshness and precision of one who had spent his 
life in such researches. Qle always, indeed, grasped a c_ause so firmly, that he 
never forgot a principle or a decision, an analogy or a fact which made for his client, 
while he showed infinite dexterity in avoiding the difficulties of his case, and turn- 
ing to his own advantage the unexpected disclosures which sometimes come out in 
the progress of a trial J Nothing could be more incorrect than the idea of some, that 
Erskine owed his success chiefly to the warmth and brilliancy of his genius. The 
dryest special pleader never managed a cause with greater caution. Even in his 
Indian Chief, in the case of Stockdale (p. 696), a passage which verges more toward 
poetry than any thing in our eloquence, he was still, as a writer in the Edinburgh 
Review remarks, ''feelmg his icay every step he took." His boldness was equal to 
his caution. In his defense of the liberty of the press, and of the rights of the sub- 
ject when assailed by the doctrine of constructive treason, he had some of the sever- 
est conflicts with the court which any advocate was ever called to maintain. When 
the jury, in the case of the Dean of St. Asaph, brought in their verdict, " Guilty of pub- 
lishing only,'^ which would have the eflect of clearing the defendant. Justice Buller, 
who presided, acting on the principle then held by the court, considered it beyond 
their province to make this addition, and determined they should withdraw it. Er- 
skine, on the other hand, seized upon the word the moment it was uttered, and de- 
manded to have it recorded. After some sparring between him and the court, he 
put the question to the foreman, " Is the word 07ily to stand as a part of the verdict ?" 
" Certainly," was the reply. " Then I insist it shall be recorded," says Erskine. 
" The verdict," says Buller, " must be misunderstood : let me understand^ the jury." 
" The jury," replied Erskine, " do understand their verdict." BuUcr. " Sir, I will 
not be interrupted." Erskine. " I stand here as an advocate for a brother citizen, 
and I desire the word onhj may be recorded." Buller. " Sit down, sir. Remem- 
ber YOUR DUTY, OR I SHALL BE OBLIGED TO PROCEED IN ANOTHER MANNER." 

JLrsldnc. " Your Lordship may proceed in what manner you think fit ; I know 

MY DUTY AS WELL AS YOUR LoRDSIIIP KNOWS YOURS. I SHALL NOT ALTER MY CON- 
DUCT." The spirit of the judge sunk before the firmness of the advocate ; no attempt 
wa^.made to carry the threat into execution. 

It was this mixture of boldness and caution, it was the keen sagacity and severe 
logic of Erskine, which laid the foundation of his unrivaled power over a jury. It 



LORD ERSKINE. 635 

was owing to these qualities that, when he threw into his argument all the strength 
of his ardent feelings, and all that beauty and richness of illustration which his glow- 
ing fancy supplied, no one ever suspected him of wishing to play upon their passions ; 
the appeal was still so entirely to their intellect, that the jury gave him their sym- 
pathies without hesitation or reserve. And if he seemed to digress for a moment 
from the line of his reasoning, as he sometimes did for the sake of relieving the minds 
of his auditors, he still showed the same sagacity in turning even this to the further- 
ance of his argument, for he always brought back with him from these excursions 
some weighty truth which he had gathered by the way, and which served to give 
a new and startling force to the urgency of his appeal. To these qualities he added 
a good-humored cheerfulness in the most difficult cases, Avhich put him on the best 
terms with the court and jury. They wished him to succeed, even when they had 
made up their minds that he must fail. It is easy to see the advantage he thus 
gained. Sometimes, under his management, the worst cause seemed wholly to 
change its aspect ; as in the case of Hadfield (given below), in which Kenyon, who 
presided, showed himself at first to be strongly prejudiced against the prisoner, but 
had his views so entirely changed that, at the close of Erskine's argument, he took 
the extraordinary step of recommending to the Attorney General not to proceed in 
the case, but to allow an immediate acquittal. Only one trait more will be added 
to his character as an advocate. He was uniformly kind to the younger members 
of the profession. He was the last man on earth to injure or depress a rival. When 
Sir James Mackintosh made his celebrated defense in the case of Peltier — a case 
which he might naturally expect, from his superior age and devotion to a free press, 
would have been committed to his care — he showed no mean jealousy ; he attended 
the trial, and, before retiring to bed that night, addressed a note to the young advo- 
cate expressing his warmest admiration of the defense, as " one of the most splendid 
monuments of genius, learning, and eloquence." 

Nine of Mr. Erskine's ablest arguments are given in this collection. It is unnec- 
essary here to dwell upon their merits or the circumstances out of which they sprung : 
these are detailed at large in the Introductions which precede the speeches, (The 
writer would only urge upon the general student in oratory not to pass over, as be- 
longing exclusively to the lawyer, the four great arguments of Erskine in the cases 
of Lord George Gordon, of the Dean of St. Asaph, of Hardy, and of Hadfield.] The 
technical terms are briefly explained in notes, so that no embarrassment need arise 
from this cause. As specimens of acute and powerful reasoning, enlivened occa- 
sionally by glowing eloquence, they are among the finest efforts of genius in our lan- 
guage. (Nothing can be more useful to our young orators of any profession, than to 
make themselves perfectly acquainted with these admirable specimens of reasoning, 
whatever toil it may cost them. Such productions, as Johnson said of a similar 
class of writings, " are bark and steel to the mind." ] 

Mr. Erskine, as already mentioned, came into Parliament in 1783, as the friend 
and supporter of Mr. Fox. He adhered to him in all his reverses, and at last shared 
in his success. "When Lord Grenville and Mr. Fox came into power in 1806, Er- 
skine was appointed Lord Chancellor, thus verifying a prediction which he made 
twenty-seven years before, just after he was called to the bar, and which (for he was 
inclined to be superstitious) he probably ascribed to some supernatural agency. 
" Willie," said he to his friend AVilliam Adam, after a long silence, as they were rid- 
ing together over a blasted heath between Lewes and Guilford, in 1779, " WilHe, the 
time will come when I shall be Lord Chancellor, and the Star of the Thistle shall 
blaze on my bosom I" His dream was now accoiTiplished. But the office of Lord 
Chancellor was one to which he was very little suited. All his practice had lain in 
another direction ; he M'as wholly unacquainted Avith the laws of property, so esscn- 



636 LORD ERSKINE. 

tial to the decision of cases in chancery ; and " the doctrines which prevail in the 
courts of equity," as Sir Samuel Romilly remarked, " were to him almost like the 
laws of a foreign country." He had always thrown contempt upon proceedings in 
these courts ; and was sometimes taunted with his pathetic appeal to Lord Kenyon, 
when recommending that his client should apply to chancery for redress : "Would 
your Lordship send a dog you loved there?" Still, he endeavored to gain what 
information he could on the subject at his period of life, and said humorously to Rom- 
illy, who excelled in this knowledge of these proceedings, " You must make me a 
chancellor now, that / 7nay afterward make you oner Though he added no honor 
to the office, he did not disgrace it. None of his decisions except one were ever 
called in question, and that was affirmed by the House of Lords. He presided with 
dignity, and when he retired from office, as he did at the end of thirteen months. 
Sir Arthur Pigot addressed him in the name of the bar, expressing "their grateful 
sense of the kindness shown them while he presided." 

The remainder of Erskine's life was saddened by poverty, and unworthy of his 
early fame. The usages of the profession forbade his returning to the bar ; the pen- 
sion on which he retired was small ; the property he had gained was wasted in 
speculations ; and his early sense of character was unhappily lost, to some extent, in 
the general wreck of his fortunes. He died on a visit to Scotland, at Almondell, the 
residence of his sister-in-law, on the 17th of November, 1823, in the seventy-third 
year of his age. 

The oratory of Erskine owed much of its impressiveness to his admirable delivery. 
He was of the medium height, with a slender but finely- turned figure, animated and 
graceful in gesture, with a voice somewhat shrill but beautifully modulated, a coun- 
tenance beaming with emotion, and an eye of piercing keenness and power. " Ju- 
ries," in the words of Lord Brougham, " have declared that they felt it impossible 
to remove their looks from him, when he had riveted, and, as it were, fascinated 
them by his first glance ; and it used to be a common remark of men who observed 
his motions, that they resembled those of a blood-Jiorse ; as light, as limber, as much 
betokening strength and speed, as free from all gross superfluity or encumbrance." 

His style was chaste, forcible, and harmonious, a model of graceful variety, with- 
out the slightest mannerism or straining after effect. His rhythmus was beautiful ; 
that of the passage containing his Indian Chief is surpassed by nothing of the kind 
in our language. His sentences were sometimes too long — a fault which arose from 
the closeness and continuity of his thought. 

The exordium with which Erskine introduced a speech was always natural, in- 
genious, and highly appropriate ; none of our orators have equaled him in this respect. 
The arrangement of the matter which followed was highly felicitous ; and he had 
this peculiarity, which gave great unity and force to his arguments, that " he pro- 
posed," in the words of another, " a great leading 2^ri7tciple, to which all his efforts 
were referable and subsidiary — which ran through the whole of his address, govern- 
ing and elucidating every part. As the principle was a true one, whatever might 
be its application to that particular case, it gave to his whole speech an air of hon- 
esty and sincerity which it was difficult to resist." 

2 The Rev. Dr. Emmons, one of the acutcst reasoners among the divines of New England, was ac- 
customed (as the writer is directly informed) to read the Massachusetts Reports as they came out, 
for the pleasure and benefit they afforded him as specimens of powerful reasoning. Would not our 
young divines find similar benefit from the study of great legal arguments like these of Erskine ? 



SPEECH 



OF MR. ERSKINE IN BEHALF OF LORD GEORGE GORDON WHEN INDICTED FOR HIGH TREASON, 
DELIVERED BEFORE THE COURT OF THE KING'S BENCH, FEBRUARY 5, 1781. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Lord George Gordon, a member of the House of Commons, was a young Scottish nobleman of weak 
intellect and enthusiastic feelings. He had been chosen president of the Protestant Association, whose 
object was to procure the repeal of Sir George Saville's bill in favor of the Catholics.' In this capacity, 
he directed the association to meet him in St. George's Fields, and proceed thence to the Parliament 
House with a petition for the repeal of the bill. Accordingly-, about forty thousand persons of the middling 
classes assembled on Friday, the 2d of June, 1780, and, after forming a procession, moved forward till 
they blocked up all the avenues to the House of Commons. They had no arms of any kind, and were 
most of them orderly in their conduct, though individuals among them insulted some members of both 
Houses who were passing into the building, requiring them to put blue cockades on their hats, and to cry 
" No Popery !" 

Lord George presented the petition, but the House refused to consider it at that time, by a vote of 192 
to 6. The multitude now became disorderly, and after the House adjourned, bodies of men proceeded 
to demolish the Catholic chapels at the residences of the foreign ministers. From this moment the whole 
affair changed its character. Desperate men, many of them thieves and robbers, took the lead. Not only 
were Catholic chapels set on fire, but the London prisons were broken open and destroyed; thirty-six 
fires were blazing at one time during the night; the town was for some days completely in the power 
of the multitude; Lord Mansfield's house was destroyed; the breweries and distilleries were broken 
open, and the mob became infuriated with liquor; and for a period there was reason to apprehend that 
the whole of the metropolis might be made one general scene of conflagi-ation. The military were at last 
called in from the country, and, after a severe conflict, the mob was put down ; but not until nearly five 
hundred persons had been killed or wounded, exclusive of those who perished from the effects of intoxi- 
cation. 

The government had been taken by surprise: no adequate provision was made to guard against vio- 
lence ; and, as the riots went on, all authority for a time seemed to be paralyzed or extinct. W hen order 
was at last restored, the magistrates, as is common with those who have neglected their duty, endeavored 
to throw the blame on others — they resolved to make Lord George Gordon their scapegoat. He was ac- 
cordingly an-aigned for high treason ; and such was the excitement of the public mind, such the eager- 
ness to have some one punished, that he was in imminent danger of being made the victim of public 
resentment. It was happy for him that, in addition to Mr. (afterward Lord) Kenyon, his senior counsel, 
a man of sound mind, but wholly destitute of eloquence, he had chosen Mr. Erskine, as a Scotchman, to 
aid in his defense. It was the means probably of saving his life. 

The Attorney General opened the case in behalf of the Crown, contending (1.) That the prisoner, in as- 
sembling the multitude round the two Houses of Parliament, was guilty of high treason, if he did so with 
a view to overawe and intimidate the Legislature, and enforce his purposes by numbers and violence (a 
doctrine fully confirmed by the court) ; and (2.), That the overt acts proved might be fairly construed into 
such a design, and wei-e the only evidence by which a traitorous intention, in such a case, could be shown. 
When the evidence for the Crown was received, Mr. Kenyon addressed the jury in behalf of Lord George 
Gordon, but in a manner so inefficient that, when he sat down, "the friends of Lord George were in an 
agony of apprehension." According to the usual practice, Mr. Erskine should now have followed, before 
the examination of his client's witnesses. But he adroitly changed the order, claimiue: as a privilege of 
the prisoner (for which he adduced a precedent) to have the evidence in his favor received at once. His 
object was, by meeting the evidence of the Crown with that of Lord George's witnesses as early as pos- 
sible, to open a way for being heard with more favor by the jury, and of commenting upon the evidence on 
both sides as compared together. The Rev. Mr. Middleton, a member of the Protestant Association, 
swore that he had watched the prisoner's conduct, and that he appeared to be always actuated by the 
greatest loyalty to the King and attachment to the Constitution— that his speeches at the meetings of 
the association, at Coachmakers' Hall, never contained an expression tending directly or indirectly to a 
repeal of the bill by/orce— that he desired the people not even to carry sticks in the procession, and 
begged that riotous persons might be dehvered to the constables. Mr. Evans, an eminent surgeon, de- 
dared that he saw Lord George Gordon in the center of one of the divisions in St. George's Fields, and 
that it appeared from his conduct and expressions that he wished and endeavored to prevent all disorder. 

I The reader has already seen Mr. Burke's admirable exposition of the reasons for Sir George Saville's 
bill, iu his speech at Bristol, pages 299-310. 



638 



MR. ERSKIXE 



[1781. 



This was confirmed by others ; and it was proved by decisive evidence that the bulk of the people round 
the Parliament House and in the lobby were not members of the Association, but idlers, vagabonds, and 
pickpockets, who had thrust themselves in ; so that the persons who insulted the members were of a totally 
different class from those who formed the original procession. The Earl of Lonsdale swore that he took 
the prisoner home from the House in his carriage ; that great multitudes surrounded Lord George, in- 
quiring the fate of the petition ; tliat he answered it was uncertain, and earnestly entreated them to retire 
to their homes and he quiet. 

The evidence was not closed until after midnight, when Mr. Erskine addressed the jury in the follow- 
ing speech. Lord Campbell says of it, " Regularly trained to the profession of the law — having practiced 
thirty years at the bar — having been Attorney General above seven years — having been present at many 
trials for high treason, and having conducted several myself— I again peruse, with increased astonishment 
and delight, the speech delivered on this occasion by him, who had recently thrown aside the scarlet uni- 
form of a subaltern in the army, which he had substituted for the blue jacket of a midshipman, thrust 
upon him while he was a school-boy. Here I find not only great acuteness, powerful reasoning, enthusi- 
astic zeal, and burning eloquence, but the most masterly view ever given of the English law of high trea- 
son, the foundation of all our liberties." — Lives of the Chancellors, vol vi., page 408. 



SPEECH, &c. 



Gentlemen of the Jury, — Mr. Kenyon hav- 

Exordium: Ing informed the court that we pro- 
Amount of evi- . 1, .1 .. .. . 

dence in favor pOSe tO Call HO Other WltnCSSB-S, it IS 

of the prisoner, j^q^ j^^y ^j^^y ^q address mjself to you 
as counsel for the noble prisoner at the bar, the 
whole evidence being closed. I use the word 
closed^ because it certainly is not finished, since 
I have been obliged to leave the seat in which I 
sat, to disentangle myself from the volumes of 
men's names, which lay there under my feet, 
whose testimony, had it been necessary for the 
defense, would have confirmed all the facts that 
are already in evidence before you.^ 

Gentlemen, I feel myself entitled to expect. 
Indulgence due both from you and from the court, the 
to the speaker, greatest indulgence and attention. I 
am, indeed, a greater object of your compassion 
than even my noble f'-iend whom I am defending. 
He rests secure in conscious innocence, and in the 
well-placed assurance that it can sufTer no stain in 
your hands. Not so with me . I stand before you 
a troubled, I am afraid a guilty man, in having 
presumed to accept of the awful task which I am 
now called upon to perform — a task which my 
learned friend who spoke before me, though he 
has justly risen, by extraordinary capacity and 

1 Mr. Erskine shows great dexterity in turning a 
shght circumstance at the opening of his speech, 
into a means of impressing the jury from the first 
with a sense of his client's innocence. He had sat 
thus far in the front row, with large files of papers 
at his feet, but he now stepped back to obtain great- 
er freedom of movement ; and this he represents as 
done to escape from " the volumes of men's names" 
who stood ready to confirm the evidence in favor of 
Lord Gordon ! So the next paragraph, though in form 
a plea for indulgence to himself as a young speaker, 
is in fact the strongest possible assumption of the 
prisoner's innocence, since the guilt referred to con- 
sisted in his venturing to endanger, by his inexpe- 
rience, the cause of one who stood secure himself 
" in conscious innocence." There is hardly any 
thing for which Mr. Erskine deserves more to be 
studied, than his thus making every circumstance 
conspire to produce the desired impression. All is so 
easy and natural, that men never think of it as the 
result of design or premeditation, and here lies his 
consummate skill ?»«? "n arlvncnto. 



experience, to the highest rank in his profession, 
has spoken of with that distrust and diffidence 
which becomes every Christian in a cause of 
blood. If Mr. Kenyon has such feelings, think 
what mine must be. Alas ! gentlemen, who am 
I ? A young man of little experience, unused to 
the bar of criminal courts, and sinking under the 
dreadful consciousness of my defects. I have, 
however, this consolation, that no ignorance nor 
inattention on my part can possibly prevent you 
from seeing, under the direction of the Judges, 
that the Crown has established no case of treason. 

Gentlemen, I did expect that the Attorney 
General, in opening a great and sol- Transition.- 
emn state prosecution, would have at J^^singU'e'itw 
least indulged the advocates for the o'' ^ealcn. 
prisoner with his notions on the law, as applied 
to the case before you, in less general terms.^ 
It is very common, indeed, in little civil actions, 
to make such obscure introductions by way of 
trap. But in criminal cases it is unusual and 
unbecoming ; because the right of the Crown to 
reply, even where no witnesses are called by the 
prisoner, gives it thereby the advantage of re- 
plying, without having given scope for observa- 
tions on the principles of the opening, with which 
the reply must be consistent. 

One observation he has, however, made on the 
subject, in the truth of which I heart- Greatness of 
ily concur, viz., that the crime of which ^''® ''■'■'"'^' 
the noble person at your bar stands accused, is 
the verif highest and most atrocious that a mem- 
ber of civil life can possibly commit ; because it 
is not, like all other crimes, merel}^ an injury to 
society from the breach of some of its reciprocal 
relations, but is an attempt utterly to dissolve and 
destroy society altogether. 

In nothing, therefore, is the wisdom and justice 
of our laws so strongly and eminently Hence it is mo.st 
manifested as in the rigid, accurate, ^"^"'^^''^ '"='°*^- 



2 The reader can not fail to remark how admira- 
bly one thought grows out of another in the transi- 
tion, all of them important and all preparing the mind 
to be deeply interested in the discussion of the sub- 
ject to which it leads, the nature of high treason. 
The same characteristic runs throughout the whole 
sneech. 



1781.] 



IN BEHALF OF LORD GEORGE GORDON. 



639 



cautious, explicit, unequivocal definition of what 
shall constitute this high offense. For, high 
treason consisting in the breach and dissolution 
of that allegiance which binds society together, 
if it were left ambiguous, uncertain, or undefined, 
all the other laws established for the personal se- 
curity of the subject would be utterly useless ; 
since this offense, which, from its nature, is so 
capable of being created and judged of by the 
rules of political expediency on the spur of the 
occasion, would be a rod at will to bi-uise the 
most virtuous members of the community, when- 
ever virtue might become troublesome or obnox- 
ious to a bad government. 

Injuries to the persons and properties of our 
Apotentengine "eighbors. Considered as individuals, 
oftyranny if wliich are the subjects of all other 

overstrained. . . , . •' , 

crimmal prosecutions, are not only 
capable of greater precision, but the powers of 
the state can be but rarely interested in strain- 
ing them beyond their legal interpretation. But 
if treason, where the government is directly of- 
fended, were left to the judgment of its ministers, 
without any boundaries — nay, without the most 
broad, distinct, and inviolable boundaries marked 
out by the law — there could be no public free- 
dom. The condition of an Englishman would be 
no better than a slave's at the foot of a Saltan ; 
since there is little difference whether a man dies 
by the stroke of a saber, without the forms of a 
trial, or by the most pompous ceremonies of jus- 
tice, if the crime could be made at pleasure by 
the state to fit the fact that was to be tried. 
Would to God, gentlemen of the jury, that this 
were an observation of theory alone, and that the 
page of our history was not blotted with so many 
melancholy, disgraceful proofs of its truth ! But 
these proofs, melancholy and disgraceful as they 
are, have become glorious monuments of the 
wisdom of our fathers, and ought to be a theme 
of rejoicing and emulation to us. For, from the 
mischiefs constantly arising to the state from ev- 
ery extension of the ancient law of treason, the 
ancient law of treason has been always restored, 
and the Constitution at different periods washed 
clean ; though, unhappily, with the blood of op- 
pressed and innocent men. 

I. When I speak of the ancient law of treason. 
High treason I mean the venerable statute of King 
defined. Edward the Third,* on which the in- 
dictment you are now trying is framed — a stat- 
ute made, as its preamble sets forth, for the more 
precise definition of this crime, which has not, 
by the common law, been sufliciently explained ; 
and consisting of different and distinct members, 
the plain unextended letter of which was thought 
to be a sufiicient protection to the person and 
honor of the Sovereign, and an adequate security 
to the laws committed to his execution. I shall 
mention only two of the number, the others not 
being in the remotest degree applicable to the 
present accusation.^ 

3 In this statement of the law of treason, perfectly 
fair and accurate as it is, there is one thing which 
marks the consuinmate skill of Mr. Erskiue. He 
shapes it throughout with a distinct reference to the 



(1.) To compass or imagine the death of the 
King : such imagination or purpose of the mind 
(visible only to its great Author) being mani- 
fested by some open act ; an institution obviously 
directed, not only to the security of his natural 
person, but to the stability of the government ; 
since the life of the Prince is so interwoven with 
the Constitution of the state, that an attempt to 
destroy the one is justly held to be rebellious 
conspiracy against the other. 

(2.) (which is the crime charged in the indict- 
ment) To levy ivar against him in his realm : a 
term that one would think could require no ex- 
planation, nor admit of any ambiguous construc- 
tion, among men who are willing to read laws 
according to the plain signification of the lan- 
guage in which they are written ; but which has, 
nevertheless, been an abundant source of that 
constructive cavil which this .sacred and valua- 
ble act was made expressly to prevent. The 
I'cal meaning of this branch of it, as it is bot- 
tomed in policy, reason, and justice ; a^ it is or- 
dained in plain unambiguous words ; as it is con- 
firmed by the precedents of justice, and illustrated 
by the writings of the great lights of the law in 
different ages of our history, I shall, before I sit 
down, impress upon your minds as a safe, uner- 
ring standard by which to measure the evidence 
you have heard. At present I shall only say, that 
far and wide as judicial decisions have strained 
the construction of levying war be3'ond the war- 
rant of the statute, to the discontent of some of 
the greatest ornaments of the profession, they 
hurt not me. As a citizen I may disapprove of 
them, but as advocate for the noble person at 
your bar, I need not im peach their authority. For 
none of them have said more than this, " that war 
may be levied against the King in his realm, not 
only by an insurrection to change or to destroy 
the fundamental Constitution of the government 
itself by rebellious war ; but, by the same war, to 
endeavor to suppress the execution of the laws it 
has enacted, or to violate and overbear the pro- 
tection they afford, not to individuals (which is a 
private wrong), but to any general class or de- 
scription of the community, by premeditated open 
acts of violence^ hostility, and force.'''' 

Gentlemen, I repeat these words, and call sol- 
emnly on the judges to attend to what criterion of 
I say, and to contradict me if I mis- i"si> treason. 
take the law, " By j)remeditated open acts of vio- 
lence, hostility, and force,''' nothing equivocal, 
nothing ambiguous, no intimidations or overaw- 
ings. which signify nothing precise or certain (be- 
cause what frightens one man or set of men may 
have no effect upon another), but that which 
compels and coerces — open violence and force. 

Gentlemen, this is not only the whole text ; but 
I submit it to the learned judges, under whose 
correction I am happy to speak, an accurate ex- 

facts of the case, as they were afterward to come 
out in evidence. The points made most prominent 
are the points he had occasion afterward to use. 
Thus the jury were prepared, without knowing it, 
to look at the evidence under aspects favorable to 
the prisoner. 



640 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1781. 



planation of the statute of treason, as far as it re- 
lates to the present subject, taken in its utmost 
extent of judicial construction ; and which you 
can not but see, not only in its letter, but in its 
most strained signification, is confined to acts 
which immediately, openly, and unambiguously 
strike at the very root and being of government, 
and not to any other offenses, however injurious 
to its peace. 

Such were the boundaries of high treason 
All attempts to uiarkcd out in the reign of Edward 
have "been w'Te' the Third ; and as often as the vices 
ly repressed. ^f \^q^^ princcs, assistcd by weak sub- 
missive Parliaments, extended state offenses be- 
yond the strict letter of that act, so often the vir- 
tue of better princes and wiser Parliaments 
brought them back again. A long list of new 
treasons, accumulated in the wretched reign of 
Richard the Second, from which (to use the lan- 
guage of the act that repealed them) " no man 
knew what to do or say for doubt of the pains of 
death," were swept away in the first year of 
Henry the Fourth, his successor ; and many more, 
which had again sprung up in the following dis- 
tracted arbitrary reigns, putting tumults and riots 
on a footing with armed rebellion, wei'e again lev- 
eled in the first year of Queen Mary, and the stat- 
ute of Edward made once mox-e the standard of 
treasons. The acts, indeed, for securing his pres- 
ent Majesty's illustrious House from the machi- 
nations of those very Papists, who are now so 
highly in favor, have, since that time, been added 
to the list. But these not being applicable to the 
present case, the ancient statute is still our only 
guide ; which is so plain and simple in its object, 
so explicit and correct in its terms, as to leave no 
room for intrinsic error; and the wisdom of its 
authors has shut the door against all extension 
of its plain letter ; declaring, in the very body of 
the act itself, that nothing out of that plain letter 
should be brought within the pale of treason by 
inference or construction^ but that, if any such 
cases happened, they should be referred to the 
Parliament. 

This wise restriction has been the subject of 
These restric- much just culogium by all the most 
by theTilhJsf celebrated writers on the criminal 
authority? 1^^ of England. Lord Coke says 
the Parliament that made it was on that account 
called Benedictimi^ or Blessed ; and the learned 
and virtuous Judge Hale, a bitter enemy and op- 
poser of constructive treason, speaks of this sa- 
cred institution with that enthusiasm which it 
can not but inspire in the breast of every lover 
of the just privileges of mankind. 

Gentlemen, in these mild days, when juries 
_ r ... are so free and judges so independent, 

Definition ap- ,, , , • . , 

plied to the perhaps all these observations mijiht 

present case. , . i -ri 

have been spared as unnecessary. But 
they can do no harm ; and this history of treason, 
so honorable to England, can not (even imper- 
fectly as I have given it) be unpleasant to En- 
glishmen. At all events, it can not be thought 
an inapplicable introduction to saying that Lord 
George Gordon, who stands before you indicted 
for that crime, is not, can not be guilty of it, un- 



less he has levied war against the King in his 
realm, contrary to the plain letter, spirit, and in- 
tention of the act of the twenty-fifth of Edward 
the Third — to be extended by no new or occa- 
sional construction, to be strained by no fancied 
analogies, to be measured by no rules of politic- 
al expediency, to be judged of by no theory, to 
be determined by the wisdom of no individual, 
however wise, but to be expounded by the sim- 
ple, genuine letter of the law. 

Gentlemen, the only overt act charged in the 
indictment, is the assembling the mul- ~, 

' IIP ^°^ prisoner 

titude, which we all of us remember responsible on- 

• ,11 • . n 1 . ly for the ori>- 

went up With the petition ot the As- inai object of 
sociated Protestants, on the second ^''^^«««'"biage. 
day of last June. In addressing myself to a hu- 
mane and sensible jury of Englishmen, sittino- in 
judgment on the life of a fellow-citizen, more 
especially under the direction of a court so filled 
as this is, I trust I need not remind you that the 
purposes of that multitude, as originally assem- 
bled on that day, and the purposes and acts of 
him who assembled them, are the sole objects 
of investigation. All the dismal consequences 
which followed, and w^hich naturally link them- 
selves with this subject in the firmest minds, 
must be altogether cut off", and abstracted from 
your attention, further than the evidence war- 
rants their admission. If the evidence had been 
co-extensive with these consequences : if it had 
been proved that the same multitude, under the 
direction of Lord George Gordon, had afterward 
attacked the Bank, broke open the prisons, and 
set London in a conflagration, I should not now 
be addressing you. Do me the justice to believe 
that I am neither so foolish as to imagine I could 
have defended him, nor so profligate to wish it 
if I could. But when it has appeared, not only 
by the evidence in the cause, but by the evidence 
of the thing itself — by the issues of life, which 
may be called the evidence of Heaven — that 
these dreadful events were either entii-ely un- 
connected with the assembling of that multitude 
to attend the petition of the Protestants, or, at 
the very worst, the unforeseen, undesigned, un- 
abetted, and deeply regretted consequences of 
it, I confess the seriousness and solemnitv of this 
trial sink and dwindle away. Only abstract from 
your minds all that misfortune, accident, and 
the wickedness of others have brought upon 
the scene, and the cause requires no advocate. 
When I say that it requires no advocate, I mean 
that it requires no argument to screen it from 
the guilt of treason. For though I am perfectly 
convinced of the purity of my noble friend's in- 
tentions, yet I am not bound to defend his pru- 
dence, nor to set it up as a pattern for imitation ; 
since you are not trying him for imprudence, for 
indiscreet zeal, or for want of foresight and pre- 
caution, but for a deliberate and malicious pre- 
determination to overpower the laws and govern- 
ment of his country, by hostile, rebellious force. 
The indictment, therefore, first charges that 
the multitude assembled on the 2d The indictment 
of June " were armed and arrayed they^were'*' 
in a warlike manner ;' 



1781.] 



IN BEHALF OF LORD GEORGE GORDON. 



641 



if it had omitted to charge, we should not have 
troubled you with any defense at all, because no 
judgment could have been given on so defective 
an indictment. For the statute never meant to 
put an unarmed assembly of citizens on a footing 
with armed rebellion ; and the crime, whatever 
it is, must always appear on the record to war- 
rant the judgment of the court. 

It is certainly true that it has been held to be 
wi.atconsti matter of evidence, and dependent on 
L"/dLv'j''in"^ circumstances, what numbers, or spe- 
^*'*''- cies of equipment and order, though 

not the regular equipment and order of soldiers, 
shall constitute an arm}^, so as to maintain the 
averment in the indictment of a warlike array ; 
and, likewise, what kind of violence, though not 
pointed at the King's person, or the existence 
of the government, shall be construed to be war 
against the King. But a? it has never yet been 
maintained in argument, in any court of the 
kingdom, or even speculated upon in theory, 
that a multitude, without either weapons offens- 
ive or defensive of any sort or kind, and yet not 
supplying the want of them by such acts of vio- 
lence as multitudes sufficiently great can achieve 
without them, was a hostile army within the 
statute ; as it has never been asserted by the 
wildest adventurer in constructive treason, that 
a multitude, armed wnth nothing, thi'catening 
nothing, and doing nothing, was an army levy- 
ing war ; I am entitled to say that the evidence 
does not support the first charge in the indict- 
ment ; but that, on the contrary, it is manifestly 
false — false in the knowledge of the Crown, 
which prosecutes it — false in the knowledge of 
every man in London, who was not bed-ridden 
on Friday the 2d of June, and who saw the 
peaceable demeanor of the Associated Protest- 
ants. 

But you will hear, no doubt, from the Solicit- 
„ ^TA c»»' General (for they have saved all 

Chse of Dama- ^ ~ 

re^ inappiici- their intelligence for the reply) that 
fury supplies arms; furor arma min- 
istrat ; and the case of Damaree'* wmII, I sup- 
pose, be referred to ; where the people assem- 
bled had no banners or arms, but only clubs and 
bludgeons : yet the ringleader, who led them on 
to mischief, was adjudged to be guilty of high 
treason for levying war. This judgment it is 
rtot my purpose to impeach, for I have no time 
for digression to points that do not press upon 
me. In the case of Damaree, the mob, though 
not regularly armed, were provided with such 
weapons as best suited their mischievous designs. 
Their designs were, besides, open and avowed, 
and all the mischief was done that could have 
been accomplished, if they had been in the com- 
pletest armor. They burned Dissenting meeting- 
houses protected by law, and Damaree was tak- 
en at their head, in flagrante delicto [in the crime 
itself], with a torch in his hand, not only in the 
very act of destroying one of them, but leading 



* In this case, a mob assembled for the purpose 
of destroying all the Protestant Dissenting meeting- 
houses, and actually pulled down two. — 8 State Tri- 
als, 218. Foster, 208. 



on his followers, in person^ to the avowed de- 
struction of all the rest. There could, therefore, 
be no doubt of his purpose and intention, nor any 
great doubt that the perpetration of such purpose 
was, from its generality, high treason, if perpe- 
trated by such a force as distinguishes a felonious 
riot from a treasonable levying of war.'' The 
principal doubt, therefore, in that case was, 
whether such an unarmed, riotous force was war, 
within the meaning of the statute ; and on that 
point very learned men have differed ; nor shall 
I attempt to decide between them, because in 
this one point they all agree. Gentlemen, I be- 
seech you to attend to me here. I say on this 
point they all agree, that it is the intention of 
assembling them which forms the guilt of trea- 
son. I \\'\\\ give you the words of high author- 
ity, the learned Foster, whose private opinions 
will, no doubt, be pressed upon you as a doctrine 
and law, and which, if taken together, as all 
opinions ought to be, and not extracted in smug- 
gled sentences to serve a shallow trick, I am 
contented to consider as authority. 

That great judge, immediately after support- 
ing the case of Damaree, as a levy- The intention 
ing war within the statute, against essence of the* 
the opinion of Hale in a similar case, *^'^"'"'- 
namely, the destruction of bawdy-houses,^ which 
happened in his time, says, " The true criterion, 
therefore, seems to be — Quo animo did the parties 
assemble ? — with what intention did they meet ?" 
On that issue, then, in which I am supported 
by the whole body of the criminal law of England, 
concerning which there are no practical prece- 
dents of the courts that clash, nor even abstract 
opinions of the closet that differ, I come forth 
with boldness to meet the Crown. For, even 
supposing that peaceable multitude — though not 
hostilely arrayed — though without one species of 
weapon among them — though assembled with- 
out plot or disguise by a public advertisement, 
exhorting, nay, commanding peace, and inviting 
the magistrates to be present to restore it, if 
broken — though composed of thousands who are 
now standing around you, unimpeached and un- 
reproved, yet who are all principals in treason, 
if such assembly was treason ; supposing, I say, 
this multitude to be, nevertheless, an army with- 
in the statute, still the great question would re- 
main behind, on which the guilt or innocence of 
the accused must singly depend, and which it is 
your exclusive province to determine, namely, 
whether they were assembled by my noble client 
for the traitorous purpose charged in the indict- 
ment ? For war must not only be levied, but it 
must be levied against the King in his realm ; i. 
c, either directly against his person to alter the 
Constitution of the government, of which he is 
the head, or to suppress the laws committed to 
his execution by rebellious force. You must find 
that Lord George Gordon assembled these men 



* To constitute a treasonable levying of war there 
must be an insurrection ; there must be force accom- 
pan3ang that insurrection; and it must be for an 
object of a general nature. Regina v. Frost, 9 Car- 
rington and Payne, 129. « 1 Hale, 132. 



642 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1781. 



with that traitoroas intention. You must find not 
merely a riotous, illegal petitioning — not a tu- 
multuous, indecent importunity to influence Pai*- 
liament, not the compulsion of motive, from see- 
ing so great a body of people united in sentiment 
and clamorous supplication — but the absolute, 
unequivocal compulsion of force, from the hostile 
acts of numbers united in rebellious conspiracy 
and arms. 

This is the issue you are to try, for crimes of 
all denominations consist wholly in the purpose 
of the human will producing the act. "Actus 
non facit reum nisi mens sit rea." The act does 
not constitute guilt, unless the mind be guilty. 
This is the great text from which the whole 
moral of penal justice is deduced. It stands at 
the top of the criminal page, throughout all the 
volumes of our humane and sensible laws, and 
Lord Chief Justice Coke, whose chapter on this 
crime is the most authoritative and masterly of 
all his valuable works, ends almost every sen- 
tence with an emphatical repetition of it. 

The indictment must charge an open act, be- 
The intention causc the purposc of the mind, which 
SroTbr' is the object of trial, can only be 
some open act. kuowu by actious. Or, again to use 
the words of Foster, who has ably and accurate- 
ly expressed it, " the traitorous purpose is the 
treason ; the overt act, the means made use of 
to efTectuate the intentions of the heart." But 
why should I borrow the language of Foster, or 
of any other man, when the language of the in- 
dictment itself is lying before our eyes ? What 
does it say ? Does it directly charge the overt 
act as in itself constituting the crime ? No ; it 
charges that the prisoner " maliciously and trai- 
torously did compass, imagine, and intend to 
raise and levy war and rebellion against the 
King ;^^ this is the malice prepense of treason; 
and that to fulfill and bring to effect such traitor- 
ous compassings and intentions, he did, on the 
day mentioned in the indictment, actually assem- 
ble them, and levy war and rebellion against the 
King. Thus the law, which is made to correct 
and punish the wickedness of the heart, and not 
the unconscious deeds of the body, goes up to 
the fountain of human agency, and arraigns the 
lurking mischief of the soul, dragging it to light 
by the evidence of open acts. The hostile mitid 
is the crime ; and, therefore, unless the matters 
that are in evidence before you do, beyond all 
doubt or possibility of error, convince you that 
the prisoner is a determined traitor in his heart, 
he is not guilty. 

It is the same principle which creates all the 
The same is vaHous dcgrccs of homicidc, from that 
icidtandoui". which is excusable to the malignant 
er erinie3. guilt of murdcr. The fact is the same 
in all. The death of the man is the imputed 
crime ; but the intention makes all the differ- 
ence ; and he who killed him is pronounced a 
murderer — a simple felon — or only an unfortu- 
nate man, as the circumstances, by which his 
mind has been deciphered to the jury, show it to 
have been cankered by deliberate wickedness, 
or stirred up by sudden passions. 



Here an immense multitude was, beyond all 
doubt, assembled on the second of These prmdpies 

June. But whether HE that assem- ^^fJ'^^the'JrV 
bled them be guilty of high treason, ""^'■• 
of a high misdemeanor, or only of a breach of 
the act of King Charles the Second^ against tu- 
multuous petitioning (if such an act still exists), 
depends wholly upon the evidence of his purpose 
in assembling them, to be gathered by you, and 
by you alone, from the whole tenor of his con- 
duct ; and to be gathered, not by inference, or 
probability, or reasonable presumption, but, in 
the words of the act, provably ; that is, in the 
full, unerring force of demonstration. You are 
called, upon your oaths, to say, not whether Lord 
George Gordon assembled the multitudes in the 
place charged in the indictment, for that is not 
denied ; but whether it appears, by the facts pro- 
duced in evidence for the Crown when confront- 
ed with the proofs which we have laid before 
you, that he assembled them in hostile array 
and with a hostile mind, to take the laws into 
his own hands by main force, and to dissolve the 
Constitution of the government, unless his peti- 
tion should be listened to by Parliament. 

That is your exclusive province to determine. 
The court can only tell you what acts the law, 
in its general theory, holds to be high treason, 
on the general assumption that such acts pro- 
ceed from traitorous purposes. But they must < 
leave it to your decision, and to yours alone, j 
whether the acts proved appear, in the present ' 
instance, under all the circumstances, to have 
arisen from the causes which form the essence 
of this high crime. ' 

Gentlemen, you have now heard the law of 
treason ; first, in the abstract, and sec- ^ 

'. ' ,. IP Summation. 

ondly, as it applies to the general leat- 
ures of the case ; and you have heard it with as 
much sincerity as if I had addressed you upon 
my oath from the bench where the judges sit. 
I declare to you solemnly, in the presence of 
that great Being at whose bar we must all here- 
after appear, that I have used no one art of an 
advocate, but have acted the plain unaffected part 
of a Christian man, instructing the consciences 
of his fellow-citizens to do justice. If I have 
deceived you on this subject, I am myself de- 
ceived ; and if I am misled through ignorance, 
my ignorance is incurable, for I have spared no ! 

^ By 13 Car. 11., st. 1, c. 5, passed in consequence 
of the tumults on the opening- of the memornble Par- 
liament of 1640, it is provided that no petition to the 
King or either House of Parliament, for any altera- 
tion in Church or State, shall be signed by above 
twenty persons, unless the matter thereof be ap 
proved by three justices of the peace, or the major 
part of the grand jury in the county; and in Lon- 
don by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Common 
Council: nor shall any petition be presented by 
more than ten persons at a time. But vnder these 
regulations, it is declared by the Bill of Rights, 1 
W. and M., st. 2, c. 2, that the subject hath a right 
to petition. Lord Mansfield told the jury that the 
court were clearly of opinion that this statute, 13 
Car. II.. was not in any degree affected by the Bill 
of Rights, but was still in force. Dougl., 571. 



1781.] 



IN BEHALF OF LORD GEORGE GORDON. 



643 



pains to understand it. I am not stiff in opin- 
ions ; but before I change any of those that I 
have given you to-day, 1 must see some direct 
monument of justice that contradicts them. For 
the law of England pays no respect to theories, 
hoM^ever ingenious, or to authors, however wise ; 
and therefore, unless you hear me refuted by a 
series of direct precedents, and not by vague 
doctrine, if you ivish to sleep in peace, folloio me. 

IL And now the most important part of our 
The evidence taslc begins, namely, the application 
teTfrthe" e'^ of thc cvidcncc to the doctrines I have 
, principles. Jajj clowu. For trial is nothing more 
than the reference of Aicts to a certain rule of 
action, and a long recapitulation of them only 
serves to distract and perplex the memory, with- 
out enlightening the judgment, unless the great 
standard principle by which they are to be meas- 
ured is fixed, and rooted in the mind. When 
that is done (which I am confident has been done 
by you), every thing worthy of observation falls 
naturally into its place, and the result is safe and 
certain. 

Gentlemen, it is already in proof before you 
Reasons of (indccd it is now a matter of history), 
ti(mron'the that an act of Parliament passed in the 
Catholics, session of 1778, for the repeal of cer- 
tain restrictions, which the policy of our ances- 
tors had imposed upon the Roman Catholic re- 
ligion, to prevent its extension, and to render its 
limited toleration harmless; restrictions, imposed 
not because our ancestors took upon them to 
pronounce that faith to be offensive to God, but 
because it was incoinpatible with good faith to 
man — being utterly inconsistent with allegiance 
to a Protestant government, from their oaths and 
obligations, to which it gave them not only a 
release, but a crown of glory, as the reward of 
treachery and treason. 

It was, indeed, with astonishment that I heard 
the Attorney General stigmatize those wise reg- 
ulations of our patriot ancestors with the title of 
factious and cruel impositions on the consciences 
and liberties of their fellow-citizens. Gentle- 
men, they were, at the time, wise and salutary 
regulations ; regulations to which this country 
owes its freedom, and his Majesty his crown — a 
crown which he wears under the strict entail of 
professing and protecting that religion which 
they were made to repress; and which I know 
my noble friend at the bar joins with me, and 
with all good men, in wishing that he and his 
posterity may wear forever.^ 

8 After the strong statements of Burke respecting 
this law (see p. 299), the reader will be surprised at 
these assertions of Mr. Erskine. He was probably in- 
fluenced by his feelings as a Scotchman whose ances- 
tors had been cruelly persecuted by the Catholics. 
Twenty-six years after, when Lord Chancellor, he 
was opposed to allowing Catholic officers in England 
to hold commissions in the army, as they had been 
permitted to do in Ireland since 1793 ; declaring that 
on this subject he thought " religiously and morally 
exactly as the King did." He here gives great 
prominence to bis views of the original necessity of 
the law, confirming them by pointed references in the 
next paragraph to the persecuting spirit of Popery, 



It is not my purpose to recall to your minds 
the fatal effects which bigotry has, in former 
days, produced in this island. I will not follow 
the example the Crown has set me, by making 
an attack upon your passions, on subjects foreign 
to the object before you. I will not call your at- 
tention from those flames, kindled by a villainou.s 
banditti (which they have thought fit. in defiance 
of evidence, to introduce), by bringing before 
your eyes the more cruel flames, in which the 
bodies of our expiring, meek, patient, Christian 
fathers were, little more than a century ago, 
consuming in Smithfield. I will not call up from 
the graves of martyrs all the precious holy blood 
that has been spilled in this land, to save its estab- 
lished government and its reformed religion from 
the secret villainy and the open force of Papists. 
The cause does not stand in need even of such 
honest arts ; and I feel my heart too big volunta- 
rily to recite such scenes, when I reflect that 
some of my own, and my best and dearest pro- 
genitors, from whom I glory to be descended, 
ended their innocent lives in prisons and in ex- 
ile, only because they were Protestants. 

Gentlemen, whether the great lights of sci- 
ence and of commerce, which, since These laws very 
those disgraceful times, have illu- ed b?s !r oXge 
minated Europe, may, by dispelling Saviiie's uiu. 
these shocking prejudices, have rendered the Pa- 
pists of this day as safe and trusty subjects as 
those who conform to the national religion estab- 
lished by law, I shall not take upon me to determ- 
ine. It is wholly unconnected with the pres- 
ent inquiry. We are not trying a question either 
of divinity or civil policy; and I shall, therefore, 
not enter at all into the motives or merits of the 
act that produced the Protestant petition to Par- 
liament. It was certainly introduced by per- 
sons who can not be named by any good citizen 
without affection and respect.'^ But this I will 
say, without fear of contradiction, that it was 
sudden and unexpected ; that it passed with un- 
common precipitation, considering the magni- 
tude of the object; that it underwent no discus- 
sion ; and that the heads of the Church, the con- 
stitutional guardians of the national religion, 
were never consulted upon it. Under such cir- 
cumstances, it is no wonder that many sincere 
Protestants were alarmed ; and they had a right 
to spread their apprehensions. It is the privi- 
lege and the duty of all the subjects of England 
to watch over their religious and civil liberties, 



in order to enforce his next leading thought ; name- 
ly, that the Protestant Association originated in just- 
ifiable feelings, a point which was important to the 
defense of bis client. This mode of shaping one 
part of his speech to prepare the way for and sup- 
port of another, is one of the most admirable quali- 
ties of Mr. Erskine, and is worthy of being studied 
with great attention by the young orator. 

^ The bill was brought in by Sir George Saville, 
and supported, among others, by Mr. Dunning, Mr. 
Thurlow, and Lord Beauchamp, and passed into an 
act without any opposition in the House of Com- 
mons, and with very slight opposition in the Lords, 
and the King was known to have been favorable 
to it. 



644 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1781. 



and to approach either their rei)resentativcs or 
the Throne with their fears and their complaints 
— a privilege which has been bought with the 
dearest blood of our ancestors, and which is con- 
firmed to us by law, as our ancient birth-right 
and inheritance. 

Soon after the repeal of the act, the Protest- 
Origin and ant Association began, and, from small 
Pmfe" "Int'^ beginnings, extended over England and 
Association. Scotland. A deed of association was 
signed, by all legal means to oppose the growth 
of Popery; and which of the advocates for the 
Crown will stand up and say that such an union 
was illegal ? Their union was perfectly consti- 
tutional ; there was no obligation of secrecy ; 
their transactions were all public ; a committee 
was appointed for regularity and correspondence; 
and circular letters were sent to all the dignita- 
ries of the Church, inviting them to join with 
them in the protection of the national religion. 

All this happened before Lord George Gordon 
was a member of, or the most distantly connect- 
ed with it; for it was not till November, 1779, 
that the London Association made him an offer 
of their chair, by a unanimous resolution, com- 
municated to him, unsought and unexpected, in 
a public letter, signed by the secretary in the 
name of the whole body ; and from that day, to 
Lnr.) Georoe ^^^ ^^y ^"^ '^^^'^ Committed to the Tow- 
GordoiiasTts er, I will lead him by the hand in your 

presjileiit .' •' .*' 

perf.tfy vicw, that you may see there is no 
blame in him. Though all his be- 
havior was unreserved and public, and though 
watched by wicked men for purposes of venge- 
ance, the Crown has totally failed in giving it 
such a context as can justify, in the mind of any 
reasonable man, the conclusion it seeks to estab- 
lish. 

This will fully appear hereafter; but let us 
. .. first attend to the evidence on the part 

Examination c \ r^ 

ofpvidencelor 01 the CrOWn. 

tlie Crown. n-'x n ^ • ^ ^ i • 

1 he first witness to support this 
prosecution is, 

William Hay — a bankrupt in fortune he ac- 
knowledges himself to be, and I am afraid he is 
a bankrupt in conscience. Such a scene of im- 
pudent, ridiculous inconsistency would have ut- 
terly destroyed his credibility in the most trifling 
civil suit ; and I am, therefore, almost ashamed 
to remind you of his evidence, when I reflect 
that you will never suffer it to glance across 
your minds on this solemn occasion. 

This man, whom I may now, without offense 
or slander, point out to you as a dark Popish 
spy, who attended the meetings of the London 
Association to pervert their harmless purposes, 
conscious that the discovery of his character 
would invalidate all his testimony, endeavored at 
first to conceal the activity of his zeal, by deny- 
ing that he had seen any of the destructive 
scenes imputed to the Protestants. Yet, almost 
in the same breath, it came out, by his own con- 
fession, that there was hardly a place, public or 
private, where riot had erected her standard, in 
which he had not been ; nor a house, prison, or 
chapel, that was destroyed, to the demolition of 



which he had not been a witness. He was at 
Newgate, the Fleet, at Langdale's, and at Cole- 
man Street ; at the Sardinian Embassador's, and 
in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Lin Fields. 
What took him to Coachmakers' Hall ? He 
went there, as he told us, to watch their pro- 
ceedings, because he expected no good from 
them ; and to justify his prophecy of evil, he said, 
on his examination by the Crown, that, as early 
as December, he had heard some alarming re- 
publican language. What language did he re- 
member? "W^hy, that the Lord Advocate of 
Scotland was called only Harry Dundas !*' Find- 
ing this too ridiculous for so grave an occasion, 
he endeavored to put some words about the 
breach of the King's coronation oath'° into the 
prisoner's mouth, as proceeding from himself; 
which it is notorious he read out of an old Scotch 
book, published near a century ago, on the abdi- 
cation of King James the Second. 

Attend to his cross-examination. He was sure 
he had seen Lord George Gordon at Greenwood's 
room in January ; but when Mr. Kenyon, who 
knew Lord George had never been there, advised 
him to recollect himself, he desired to consult 
his notes. First, he is positively sure, from his 
memory, that he had seen him there: then he 
says, he can not trust his memory without refer- 
ring to his papers. On looking at them, they 
contradict him ; and he then confesses that he 
never saw Lord George Gordon at Greenwood's 
room in January, when his note was taken, nor 
at any other time. But why did he take notes? 
He said it was because he foresaw what would 
happen. How fortunate the Crown is, gentle- 
men, to have such friends to collect evidence by 
anticipation! When did he begin to take notes? 
He said, on the 21st of February, which was the 
Jirst time he had been alarmed at what he had 
seen and heard, although, not a minute before, 
he had been reading a note taken at Greenwood's 
room in January, and had sworn that he had 
attended their meetings, from apprehensions of 
consequences, as early as December. 

Mr. Kenyon, who now saw him bewildered in 
a maze of falsehood, and suspecting his notes to 
have been a villainous fabrication to give the show 
of correctness to his evidence, attacked him with 
a shrewdness for which he was wholly unpre- 
pared. You remember the witness had said that 
he always took notes when he attended any meet- 
ings where he expected their deliberations might 
be attended with dangerous con.'jequences. " Give 
me one instance," says Mr. Kenyon, " in the 
whole course of your life, where you ever took 
notes before." Poor Mr. Hay was thunder- 
struck ; the sweat ran dov^-n his face, and his 
countenance bespoke despair — not recollection : 
" Sir, I mu.st have an instance ; tell me when and 
where ?" Gentlemen, it was now too late ; some 
instance he was obliged to give, and, as it was 
evident to every body that he had one still to 
choose, I think he might have chosen a better. 
" He had taken notes at the General Assembly of 

"* Hay swore that Lord Gordon had declared that 
the KiuL' had broken his coronation oath. 



1781.] 



IN BEHALF OF LORD GEORGE GORDON. 



645 



the Church of Scotland, six-and-twenty tjears be- 
fore ! 1^'' What! did he apprehend dangerous 
consequences from the deliberations of the grave 
elders of the Kirk? Were they levying war 
against the King ? At last, when he is called 
upon to say to whom he communicated the in- 
telligence he had collected, the spy stood con- 
fessed indeed. At first he refused to tell, saying 
he was his friend, and that he was not obliged to 
give him up : and when forced at last to speak, it 
came out to be Mr. Butler, a gentleman univer- 
sally known, and who. from what I know of him, 
I may be sure never employed him, or any other 
spy, because he is a man every way respectable, 
but who certainly is not only a Papist, but the 
person who was employed in all their proceed- 
ings, to obtain the late indulgences from Parlia- 
ment." He said Mr. Butler was his particular 
friend, yet profes.sed himself ignorant of his re- 
ligion. I am sure he could not be desired to 
conceal it. Mr. Butler makes no secret of his 
religion. It is no reproach to any man who lives 
the life he does. But Mr. Hay thought it of 
moment to his own credit in the cause, that he 
hini-self might be thought a Protestant, uncon- 
nected with Papists, and not a Popish spy. 

So ambitious, indeed, was the miscreant of 
being useful in this odious character, through ev- 
ery stage of the cause, that, after staying a little 
in St. Georges Fields, he ran home to his own 
house in St. Dunstan's church-yard, and got upon 
the leads, w^here he swore he saw the very same 
man carrying the very same Jlag he had seen in 
the fields. Gentlemen, whether the petitioners 
employed the same standard-man through the 
whole course of their peaceable procession is cer- 
tainly totally immaterial to the cause, but the cir- 
cumstance is material to show the wickedness of 
the man. "How," says Mr. Kenyon, "do you 
know that it was the same person you saw in 
the fields? Were you acquainted with him?" 
" No." " How then ?" " Why, he looked like 
a brewer's servant." Like a brewer's servant! 
" What, were they not all in their Sunday's 
clothes?" "Oh! yes, they were all in their 
Sunday's clothes." " Was the man with the flag 
then alone in the dress of his trade?" "No." 
" Then how do you know he was a brewer's serv- 
ant ?" Poor Mr. Hay ! — nothing but sweat and 
Qonfusion again ! At last, after a hesitation, 
which every body thought would have ended in 
his running out of court, he said, " he knew him 
to be a brewer's servant, because there was some- 
thing particular in the cut of his coat, the cut of 
his breeches, and the cut of his stockings .'" 

You see, gentlemen, by what strange means 
villainy is detected. Perhaps he might have es- 
caped from me, but he sunk under that shrewd- 
ness and sagacity, which ability, without long 
habits, does not provide. Gentlemen, you will 
not, I am sure, forget, whenever you see a man 
about vv'hose apparel there is any thing particu- 
lar, to set him down for a breiver^s servant. 

Mr. Hay afterward went to the lobby of the 



Mr. Charles Butle)-, author of the Reminiscences. 



House of Commons. What took him there ? 
He thought himself in danger; and therefore, 
says Mr. Kenyon, you thrust yourself voluntarily 
into the very center of danger. That would not 
do. Then he had a particular friend, whom he 
knew to be in the lobby, and whom he apprehend- 
ed to be in danger. " Sir, who was that partic- 
ular friend? Out with it. Give us his name in- 
stantly." All in confusion again. Not a word 
to say for himself; and the name of this person 
who had the honor of Mr. Hay's friendship, will 
probably remain a secret forever.'"^ 

It may be asked, are these circumstances ma- 
terial ? and the answer is obvious : they are 
material ; because, when you see a witness run- 
ning into every hole and corner of falsehood, and, 
as fast as he is made to bolt out of one, taking 
cover in another, you will never give credit to 
what that man relates, as to any possible matter 
which is to affect the life or reputation of a fel- 
low-citizen accused before you. God forbid that 
you should. I might, therefore, get rid of this 
wTetch altogether w^ithout making a single re- 
mark on xhat part of his testimony which bears 
upon the issue you are trying; but the Crown 
shall have the full benefit of it all. I will de- 
fraud it of nothing he has said. Notw^ithstand- 
ing all his folly and wickedness, let us for the 
present take it to be true, and see what it amounts 
to. What is it he states to have passed at Coach- 
makers' Hall ? That Lord George Gordon de- 
sired the multitude to behave with unanimity and 
firmness, as the Scotch had done. Gentlemen, 
there is no manner of doubt that the Scotch be- 
haved with unanimity and firmness in resisting 
the relaxation of the penal laws against Papists, 
and that by that unanimity and firmness they 
succeeded ;^^ but it was by the constitutional 
unanimity and firmness of the great body of the 
people of Scotland whose example Lord George 
Gordon recommended, and not by the riots and 
burning which they attempted to prove had been 
committed in Edinburgh in 1778. 

I will tell you myself, gentlemen, as one of the 
people of Scotland, that there then existed, and 
still exist, eighty-five societies of Protestants, who 
have been, and still are, uniformly firm in oppos- 
ing every change in that system of laws estab- 
lished to secure the Revolution; and Parliament 
gave way in Scotland to their united voice, and 
not to the fire-brands of the rabble. It is the duty 
of Parliament to listen to the voice of the people, 
for they are the servants of the people. And 
when the Constitution of church or state is be- 
lieved, whether truly or falsely, to be in danger, 
I hope there never will be wanting men (not- 
withstanding the proceedings of to-day) to desire 
the people to persevere and be firm. Gentlemen, 
has the Crown proved that the Protestant breth- 
ren of the London Association fired the mass- 

^^ Nothing could be finer than the way in which 
Mr. Erskine sifts this evidence and detects its false- 
hood. 

'3 The violent popular opposition manifested to- 
ward the proposed act extending the Roman Cath- 
olic Relief Bill to Scotland, caused it to be abondoned. 



646 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1781. 



houses in Scotland or acted in rebellious opposi- 
tion to law, so as to entitle it to wrest the pris- 
oner's expressions into an excitation of rebellion 
against the state, or of violence against the prop- 
erties of English Papists, by setting up their firm- 
ness as an example ? Certainly not. They have 
not even proved the naked fact of such violences, 
though such proof would have called for no resist- 
ance ; since to make it bear as rebellious advice 
to the Protestant Association of London, it must 
have been first shown that such acts had been 
perpetrated or encouraged by the Protestant so- 
cieties in the North. 

Who has dared to say this ? No man. The 
rabble in Scotland certainly did that which has 
since been done by the rabble in England, to the 
disgrace and reproach of both countries. But in 
neither country was there found one man of char- 
acter or condition, of any description, who abet- 
ted such enormities, nor any man, high or low, 
of any of the Associated Protestants, here or there, 
who were either convicted, tried, or taken on sus- 
picion. 

As to what this man heard on the. 29th of 
May, it was nothing more than the proposition 
of going up in a body to St. George's Fields to 
consider how the petition should be presented, 
with the same exhortations to firmness as before. 
The resolution made on the motion has been read, 
and when I come to state the evidence on the 
part of my noble friend, I will show you the im- 
possibility of supporting any criminal inference 
from what Mr. Hay afterward puts in his mouth 
in the lobby, even taking it to be true. I wish 
here to be accurate [looking on a card on which 
he had taken down his words]. He says : " Lord 
George desired them to continue steadfastly to 
adhere to so good a cause as theirs was ; prom- 
ised to persevere in it himself, and hoped, though 
there was little expectation at present from the 
House of Commons that they would meet with 
redress from their mild and gracious Sovereign, 
who, no doubt, would recommend it to his min- 
isters to repeal it." This was all he heard, and 
I will show you how this wicked man himself (if 
any belief is to be given to him) entirely over- 
turns and brings to the ground the evidence of 
Mr. Bowen,^^ on which the Crown rests singly 
for the proof of words which are more difficult to 
explain. Gentlemen, was this the language of 
rebellion? If a multitude were at the gates of 
the House of Commons to command and insist on 
a repeal of this law, why encourage their hopes 
by reminding them that they had a mild and gra- 
cious Sovereign ? If war was levying against 
him, there was no occasion for his mildness and 
graciousncss. If he had said, '' Be firm and per- 
severe, we shall meet with redress from the pru- 
dence of the Sovereign," it might have borne a 
different construction ; because, whether he was 
gracious or severe, his prudence might lead him 
to submit to the necessity of the times. The 
words sworn to were, therefore, perfectly clear 
and unambiguous — " Persevere in your zeal and 



The Chaplain of the House of Commons. 



supplications, and you will meet wuth redress from 
a mild and gracious King, who will recommend 
it to his ministers to repeal it." Good God ! if 
they were to wait till the King, whether from 
benevolence or fear, should direct his minister to 
influence the proceedings of Parliament, how- 
does it square with the charge of instant coercion 
or intimidation of the House of Commons ? If 
the multitude were assembled with the premed- 
itated design of producing immediate repeal by 
terror or arms, is it possible to suppose that their 
leader would desire them to be quiet, and refer 
them to those qualities of the Prince, which, how- 
ever eminently they might belong to him, never 
could be exerted on subjects in rebellion to his 
authority ? In what a labyrinth of nonsense and 
contradiction do men involve themselves, when, 
forsaking the rules of evidence, they would draw 
conclusions from words in contradiction to lan- 
guage and in defiance of common sense ? 

The next witness that is called to you by the 
Crown is Mr. Metcalf. He was not in the lobby, 
but speaks only to the meeting in Coachmakers' 
Hall, on the 29th of May, and in St. George's 
Fields. He says that at the former, Lord George 
reminded them that the Scotch had succeeded by 
their unanimity — and hoped that no one who had 
signed the petition would be ashamed or afraid 
to show himself in the cause ; that he was ready 
to go to the gallows for it ; that he would not 
present the petition of a lukewarm people ; that 
he desired them to come to St. George's Fields, 
distinguished with blue cockades, and that they 
should be marshaled in four divisions. Then he 
speaks to having seen them in the fields in the 
order which has been described ; and Lord George 
Gordon in a coach surrounded by a vast con- 
course of people, with blue ribbons, forming like 
soldiers, but was not near enough to hear wheth- 
er the prisoner spoke to them or not. Such is 
Mr. Metcalf 's evidence ; and after the attention 
you have honored me with, and which I shall have 
occasion so often to ask again on the same sub- 
ject, I shall trouble you with but one observation, 
namely, that it can not, without absurdity, be sup- 
posed that if the assembly at Coachmakers' Hall 
had been such conspirators as they are repre- 
sented, their doors would have been open to 
strangers, like this witness, to come in to report 
their proceedings. 

The next witness is Mr. Anstmther,'^ who 
speaks to the language and deportment of the 
noble prisoner, both at Coachmakers' Hall, on 
the 29th of May, and afterward on the 2d of 
June, in the lobby of the House of Commons. Ii 
will be granted to me, I am sure, even by the 
advocates of the Crown, that this gentleman, not 
only from the clearness and consistency of his 
testimony, but from his rank and character in the 
world, is infinitely more worthy of credit than 
Mr. Hay, who went before him. And from the 
circumstances of irritation and confusion under 
which the Rev. Mr. Bowen confessed himself to 
have heard and seen, what he told you he heard 

** This gentleman was a member of Parliament. 



1781.] 



IN BEHALF OF LORD GEORGE GORDON. 



647 



and saw, I may likewise assert, without any of- 
fense to the reverend gentleman, and without 
drawing any parallel between their credits, that 
where their accounts of this transaction differ, the 
preference is due to the former. Mr. Anstruther 
very properly prefaced his evidence w^ith this 
declaration : " I do not mean to speak accurately 
to words ; it is impossible to recollect them at 
this distance of time." I believe I have used his 
very expression, and such expression it well be- 
came him to use in a case of blood. But words, 
even if they could be accurately remembered, are 
to be admitted with great reserve and caution, 
when the purpose of the speaker is to be meas- 
ured by them. They are transient and fleeting ; 
frequently the effect of a sudden transport, easi- 
ly misunderstood, and often unconsciously mis- 
represented. It may be the fate of the most in- 
nocent language to appear ambiguous, or even 
malignant, when related in mutilated, detached 
passages, by people to whom it is not addressed, 
and who know nothing of the previous design 
either of the speaker or of those to whom he 
spoke. Mr. Anstruther says that he heard Lord 
George Gordon desire the petitioners to meet him 
on the Friday following, in St. George's Fields, 
and that if there were fewer than twenty thou- 
sand people, he would not present the petition, 
as it would not be of consequence enough ; and 
that he recommended to them the example of the 
Scotch, who, by their firmness, had carried their 
point. 

Gentlemen, I have already admitted that they 
did by firmness carry it. But has Mr. Anstru- 
ther attempted to state any one expression that 
fell from the prisoner to justify the positive, un- 
erring conclusion, or even the presumption, that 
the firmness of the Scotch Protestants, by which 
the point was carried in Scotland, was the re- 
sistance and riots of the rabble ? No, gentle- 
men ; he singly states the words, as he heard 
them in the hall on the 29th, and all that he aft- 
erward speaks to in the lobby, repels so harsh 
and dangerous a consti'uction. The words sworn 
to at Coachmakers' Hall are, '"that he recom- 
mended temperance and firmness." Gentlemen, 
if his motives are to be judged by words, for 
Heaven's sake let these words carry their popu- 
lar meaning in language. Is it to be presumed, 
without proof, that a man means one thing be- 
cause he says another? Does the exhortation 
to temperance and firmness apply most naturally 
to the constitutional resistance of the Protestants 
of Scotland, or to the outrages of ruffians who 
pulled down the houses of their neighbors ? Is 
it possible, with decency, to say, in a court of 
justice, that the recommendation of temperance 
is the excitation to villainy and frenzy ? But the 
words, it seems, are to be construed, not from 
their own signification, but from that which fol- 
lows them, viz., "by that the Scotch carried 
their point." Gentlemen, is it in evidence be- 
fore you that by rebellion the Scotch carried 
their point? or that the indulgences to Papists 
were not extended to Scotland because the rab- 
ble had opposed their extension ? Has the Crown 



authorized either the court or its law servants to 
tell you so ? Or can it be decently maintained 
that Parliament w^as so weak or infamous as to 
yield to a wretched mob of vagabonds at Edin- 
burgh what it has since refused to the 'earnest 
prayers of a hundred thousand Protestants of 
London ? No, gentlemen of the jury, Parlia- 
ment was not, I hope, so abandoned. But the 
ministers knew that the Protestants of Scotland 
were to a man abhorrent of that law. And though 
they never held out resistance, if government 
should be disposed to cram it down their throats 
by force, yet such violence to the united senti- 
ments of a whole people appeared to be a meas- 
ure so obnoxious, so dangerous, and withal so 
unreasonable, that it was wisely and judiciously 
dropped, to satisfy the general wishes of the na- 
tion, and not to avert the vengeance of those low 
incendiaries whose misdeeds have rather been 
talked of than proved. 

Thus, gentlemen, the exculpation of Lord 
George's conduct on the 29th of INIay is suffi- 
ciently established by the very evidence on which 
the Crown asks you to convict him. For, in 
recommending temperance and firmness after the 
example of Scotlarid, you can not be justified in 
pronouncing that he meant more than the firm- 
ness of the grave and respectable people in that 
country, to whose constitutional firmness the 
Legislature had before acceded, instead of brand- 
ing it with the title of rebellion ; and who, in my 
mind, deserve thanks from the King for temper- 
ately and firmly resisting every innovation which 
they conceived to be dangerous to the national 
religion, independently of which his Majesty 
(without a new limitation by Parliament) has no 
more title to the crown than I have. 

Such, gentlemen, is the whole amount of all 
my noble friend's previous communication with 
the petitioners, whom he afterward assembled to 
consider how their petition should be presented. 
This is all, not only that men of credit can tell 
you on the part of the prosecution, but all that 
even the worst vagabond who ever appeared in 
a court — the very scum of the earth — thought 
himself safe in saying, upon oath, on the present 
occasion. Indeed, gentlemen, when I consider 
my noble friend's situation, his open, unreserved 
temper, and his warm and animated zeal for a 
cause which rendered him obnoxious to so many 
wicked men — speaking daily and publicly to 
mixed multitudes of friends and foes, on a sub- 
ject which affected his passions — I confess I am 
astonished that no other expressions than those 
in evidence before you have found their way into 
this court. That they have not found their way 
is surely a most satisfactory proof that there was 
nothing in his heart which even youthful zeal 
could magnify into guilt, or that want of caution 
could betray. 

Gentlemen, Mr. Anstruther's evidence, when 
he speaks of the lobby of the House of Commons, 
is very much to be attended to. He says, " I 
saw Lord George leaning over the gallery," 
which position, joined with what he mentioned 
of his talking with the chaplain, marks the time, 



648 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1781. 



and casts a strong doubt on Boweu's testimony, 
which you will find stands, in this only material 
part of it, single and unsupported. " I then 
heard him," continues Mr. Anstruther, "tell 
them they had been called a mob in the House, 
and that peace-officers had been sent to disperse 
them (peaceable petitioners) ; but that by stead- 
iness and firmness they might carry their point; 
as he had no doubt his Majesty, who was a gra- 
cious prince, would send to his ministers to re- 
peal the act, when he heard his subjects were 
coming up for miles round, and wishing its re- 
peal." How coming up ? In rebellion and 
arms to compel it ? No ! all is still put on the 
graciousness of the Sovereign, in listening to the 
unanimous wishes of his people. If the multi- 
tude then assembled had been brought together 
to intimidate the House by their firmness, or to 
coerce it by their numbers, it was ridiculous to 
look forward to the King's influence over it, 
when the collection of future multitudes should 
induce him to employ it. The expressions were 
therefore quite unambiguous ; nor could malice 
itself have suggested another construction of 
them, were it not for the fact that the House was 
at that time surrounded, not by the petitioners, 
whom the noble prisoner had assembled, but by 
a mob who had mixed with them, and who, 
therefore, when addressed by him, were instant- 
ly set down as his followers. He thought he 
was addressing the sober members of the asso- 
ciation, who, by steadiness and perseverance, 
could understand nothing more than perseverance 
in that conduct he had antecedently prescribed, 
as steadiness signifies a uniformity, not a change 
of conduct ; and I defy the Crown to find out a 
single expression, from the day he took the chair 
at the association to the day I am speaking of, 
that justifies any other construction of steadiness 
and firmness than that which I put upon it be- 
fore. 

What would be the feelings of our venerable 
ancestors, who framed the statute of treasons 
to prevent their children being drawn into the 
snares of death, unless provably convicted by 
overt acts, if they could hear us disputing wheth- 
er it was treason to desire harmless, unarmed 
men to be firm and of good heart, and to trust 
to the graciousness of their King ? 

Here Mr. Anstruther closes his evidence, 
which leads me to Mr. Bowen, who is the only 
man — I beseech you, gentlemen of the jury, to 
attend to this circumstance — Mr. Bowen is the 
only man who has attempted, directly or indi- 
rectly, to say that Lord George Gordon uttered 
a .syllable to the multitude in the lobby concern- 
ing the destruction of the mass-houses in Scot- 
land. Not one of the Crown's witnesses; not 
even the wretched, abandoned Hay, who was 
kept, as he said, in the lobby the whole after- 
noon, from anxiety for his pretended friend, has 
ever glanced at any expression resembling it. 
They all finish with the expectation which he 
held out, from a mild and gracious Sovereign. 
Mr. Bowen alone goes on further, and speaks of 
the successful riots of the Scotch. But he 



speaks of them in such a manner, as. so far from 
conveying the hostile idea, which he seemed suf- 
ficiently desirous to convey, tends directly to 
wipe oflf the dark hints and insinuations which 
have been made to supply the place of proof 
upon that subject — a subject which should not 
have been touched on without the fullest support 
of evidence, and where nothing but the most un- 
equivocal evidence ought to have been received. 
He says, " his Lordship began by bidding them 
be quiet, peaceable, and steady" — not "siearfy" 
alone ; though, if that had been the expression, 
singly by itself, I should not be afraid to meet 
it ; but, " Be quiet, peaceable, and steady.'''' 
Gentlemen, I am indifferent what other expres- 
sions of dubious interpretation are mixed with 
these. For you are trying whether my noble 
friend came to the House of Commons with a 
decidedly hostile mind ; and as I shall, on the 
recapitulation of our own evidence, trace him in 
your view, without spot or stain, down to the very 
moment when the imputed words were spoken, 
you will hardly forsake the whole innocent con- 
text of his behavior, and torture your inventions 
to collect the blackest system of guilt, starting 
up in a moment, without being previously con- 
certed, or afterward carried into execution. 

First, what are the words by which you are 
to be convinced that the Legislature was to be 
frightened into compliance, and to be coerced if 
terror should fail ? "Be quiet, peaceable, and 
steady ; you are a good people ; yours is a good 
cause : his Majesty is a gracious monarch, and 
when he hears that all his people, ten miles 
round, are collecting, he will send to his minis- 
ters to repeal the act." By what rules of con- 
struction can such an address to unarmed, de- 
fenseless men be tortured into treasonable guilt ? 
It is impossible to do it without pronouncing, 
even in the total absence of all proof of fraud or 
deceit in the speaker, that quiet signifies tumult 
and uproar, and that peace signifies war and re- 
bellion. 

I have before observed that it was most im- 
portant for you to remember that, with this ex- 
hortation to quiet and confidence in the King, 
the evidence of all the other witnesses closed. 
Even Mr. Anstruther, who w^as a long time aft- 
erward in the lobby, heard nothing further ; so 
that if Mr. Bowen had been out of the case alto- 
gether, what would the amount have been ? 
Why, simply, that Lord George Gordon, having 
assembled an unarmed, inofTensive multitude in 
St. George's Fields, to present a petition to Par- 
liament, and finding them becoming tumultuous, 
to the discontent of Parliament and the discredit 
of the cause, desired them not to give it up, but 
to continue to show their zeal for the legal ob- 
ject in which they were engaged ; to manifest 
that zeal quietly and peaceably, and not to despair 
of success ; since, though the House was not 
disposed to listen to it, they had a gracious Sov- 
ereign, who would second the washes of his peo- 
ple. This is the sum and substance of the whole. 
They were not, even by any one ambiguous ex- 
pression, encouraged to trust to their numbers, as 



1781.] 



IN BEHALF OF LORD GEORGE GORDON. 



649 



sufficient to oN-erawe the House, or to their 
strength to compel it. or to the prudence of the 
state in yielding to neces.'^ity, but to the indulg- 
ence of the King, in compliance with the wishes 
of his people. Mr. Bowen, however, thinks 
proper to proceed ; and I beg that you will at- 
tend to the sequel of his evidence. He stands 
single in all the rest that he says, which might 
entitle me to ask you absolutely to reject it. But 
I have no objection to your believing every word 
of it, if you can : because, if inconsistencies prove 
any thing, they prove that there was nothing of 
that deliberation in the prisoner's expi'essions 
which can justify the inference of guilt. I mean 
to be correct as to his words [looking at his 
words ii'hich he had noted dow7i\. He says " that 
Lord George told the people that an attempt had 
been made to introduce the bill into Scotland, 
and that they had no redress till the mass-houses 
were pulled down. That Lord Weymouth''^ then 
sent official assurances that it should not be ex- 
tended to them." Gentlemen, why is Mr. Bow- 
en called by the Crown to tell you this? The 
reason is plain : because the Crown, conscious 
that it could make no case of treason from the 
rest of the evidence, in sober judgment of law ; 
aware that it had proved no purpose or act of 
force against the House of Commons, to give 
countenance to the accusation, much less to wai-- 
rant a conviction, found it necessary to hold up 
the noble prisoner as the wicked and cruel au- 
thor of all those calamities in w^hich every man's 
passions might be supposed to come in to assist 
his judgment to decide. They therefore made 
him speak in enigmas to the multitude : not tell- 
ing them to do mischief in order to succeed, but 
that by mischief in Scotland success had been 
obtained. 

But were the mischiefs themselves that did 
happen here of a sort to support such a conclu- 
sion ? Can any man living, for instance, believe 
that Lord George Gordon could possibly have 
excited the mob to destroy the house of that great 



If Mr. Bowen, therefore, had ended here, I can 
hardly conceive such a construction could be de- 
cently hazarded consistent with the testimony of 
the witnesses we have called. How much less, 
when, after the dark insinuations which such ex- 
pressions might otherwise have been argued to 
convey, the very same person, on whose veracity 
or memory they are only to be believed, and who 
must be credited or discredited in tolo, takes out 
the sting himself by giving them such an immedi- 
ate context and conclusion as renders the proposi 
tion ridiculous, wiiich his evidence is brought for- 
ward to establish ; for he says that Lord George 
Gordon instantly afterward addressed himself 
thus : " Beware of evil-minded persons who may 
mix among you and do mischief, the blame of 
w^hich will be imputed to you." 

Gentlemen, if you reflect on the slander which 
I told you fell upon the Protestants in Scotland 
by the acts of the rabble there, I am sure you 
will see the words are capable of an easy expla- 
nation. But as Mr. Bowen concluded with tell- 
ing you that he heard them in the midst of noi.se 
and confusion, and as I can only take them from 
hinij I shall not make an attempt to collect them 
into one consistent discourse, so as to give them 
a decided meaning in favor of my client, because 
I have repeatedly told you that words imperfectly 
heard and partially related can not be so recon- 
ciled. But this I will say — that he must be a ruf- 
fian, and not a lawyer, who would dare to tell an 
English jury that such ambiguous words, hemmed 
closely in between others not only innocent but 
meritorious, are to be adopted to constitute guilt, 
by rejecting both introduction and sequel, with 
which they are absolutely irreconcilable and in- 
consistent : For if ambiguous words, when coupled 
with actions, decipher the mind of the actor, so as 
to establish the presumption of guilt, will not such 
as are plainly innocent and unambiguous go as 
far to repel such presumption ? Is innocence 
more difficult of proof than the most malignant 
wickedness ? Gentlemen, I see your minds re- 



and venerable magistrate, who has presided so I volt at such shocking propositions. I beseech 
long in this high tribunal that the oldest of us do 
not remember him with any other impression 
than the awful form and figure of justice : a mag- 
istrate who had always been the friend of the 
Protestant Dissenters against the ill-timed jeal- 
ousies of the Establishment — his countryman, too 
— and, without adverting to the partiality not 
unjustly imputed to men of that country, a man 
of whom any country might be proud? No, 
gentlemen, it is not credible that a man of noble 
birth and liberal education (unless agitated by 
the most implacable personal resentment w^hich 
is not imputed to the prisoner) could possibly con- 
sent to the burning of the house of Lord Mans- 
field.^7 



*^ Then Secretary for the Southern Department. 

*'' This reference to Lord Mansfield, then seated 
on the bench as presiding judge at the age of eighty- 
six, is not only appropriate and beautiful in itself, 
but, as managed by Mr. Erskine, forms a most con- 
vincing proof in favor of Lord George Gordon. This 
was one of Mr. Erskine' s excellences, that he never 



you to forgive me. I am afraid that my zeal has 
led me to offer observations which 1 ought in jus- 
tice to have believed every honest mind would 
suggest to itself with pain and abhorrence with- 
out being illustrated and enforced. 

I now come more minutely to the evidence on 
the part of the prisoner. 

I before told you that it was not till November, 
1779, when the Protestant Associa- Exam.naiion of 
tion w^as already fully established, the evidence foi 

/-, 1 ' tbe prisoner. 

that Lord George Gordon was elect- 
ed President by the unanimous voice of the whole 
body, unlooked for and unsolicited. It is surely 
not an immaterial circumstance that at the very 
first meeting where his Lordship presided, a duti- 
ful and respectful petition, the same which was 
afterward presented to Parliament, was read and 
approved of: a petition which, so far from con- 
taining any thing threatening or ofTensive, con- 



went out of his case for an illustration or a picture 
which refreshed the mind, but he brought back with 
him an ars;ument. 



650 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1781. 



veyed not a very oblique reflection upon the be- 
navior of the people in Scotland. It states", that 
as England and that country wei'e now one, and 
as official assurances had been given that the law 
should not pass there, they hoped the peaceable and 
constitutional deportment of the English Protest- 
ants would entitle them to the approbation of 
Parliament. 

It appears by the evidence of Mr. Erasmus 
Middleton,^*^ a very respectable clergyman, and 
one of the committee of the Association, that a 
meeting had been held on the 4th of May, at 
which Lord George was not present ; that at that 
meeting a motion had been made for going up 
with the petition in a bod}^, but which not being 
regularly put from the chair, no resolution was 
come to upon it ; and that it was likewise agreed 
on, but in the same irregular manner, that there 
should be no other public meeting previous to the 
presenting the petition. That this last resolution 
occasioned great discontent, and that Lord George 
was applied to by a large and respectable num- 
ber of the Association to call another meeting, 
to consider of the most prudent and respectful 
method of presenting their petition : but it ap- 
pears that, before he complied with their request, 
he consulted with the committee on the propriety 
of compliance, who all agreeing to it except the 
Secretary, his Lordship advertised the meeting 
which was afterward held on the 29th of May. 
The meeting was, therefore, the act of the wliole 
Association. As to the original difference be- 
tween my noble friend and the committee on the 
expediency of the measure, it is totally immate- 
rial ; since Mr. Middleton, who was one of the 
number who differed from him on that subject 
(and whose evidence is, therefore, infinitely more 
to be relied on), told you that his whole deport- 
ment was so clear and unequivocal, as to entitle 
him to assure you on his most solemn oath, that 
he in his conscience believed his views were per- 
fectly constitutional and pure. This most re- 
spectable clergyman further swears that he at- 
tended all the previous meetings of the society, 
from the day the prisoner became President to 
the day in question ; and that, knowing they were 
objects of much jealousy and malice, he watched 
his behavior with anxiety, lest his zeal should 
furnish matter for misrepresentation ; but that he 
never heard an expression escape him which 
marked a disposition to violate the duty and sub- 
ordination of a subject, or which could lead any 
man to believe that his objects were different 
from the avowed and legal objects of the Asso- 
ciation. We could have examined thousands to 
the same fact, for, as I told you when I began to 
speak, I v^^as obliged to leave my place to disen- 
cumber myself from their names. 

This evidence of Mr. Middleton's as to the 
29th of May, must, I should think, convince ev- 
ery man how dangerous and unjust it is in wit- 
nesses, however perfect their memories, or how- 
ever great their veracity, to come into a criminal 
court where a man is standing for his life or 

^® The first witness called for the prisoner. 



death, retailing scraps of sentences which they 
had heard by thrusting themselves, from curiosi 
ty, into places where their business did not lead 
them ; ignorant of the views and tempers of both 
speakers and hearers, attending only to a part, 
and, perhaps innocently, misrepresenting that 
part, from not having heard the whole. 

The witnesses for the Crown all tell you that 
Lord George said he would not go up with the 
petition unless he was attended by twenty thou- 
sand people who had signed it. There they 
think proper to stop, as if he had said nothing 
further ; leaving you to say to yourselves, what 
possible purpose could he have in assembling 
such a multitude on the very day the House was 
to receive the petition ? Why should he urge it, 
when the committee had before thought it inex- 
pedient ? And why should he refuse to present 
it unless so attended ? Hear what Mr. Middle- 
ton says. He tells you that my noble friend in- 
formed the petitioners that if it was decided they 
were not to attend to consider how their petition 
should be presented, he would with the greatest 
pleasure go up with it alone. But that, if it was 
resolved they should attend it in person, he ex- 
pected twenty thousand at the least should meet 
him in St. George's Fields, for that otherwise the 
petition vi'ould be considered as a forgery ; it hav- 
ing been thrown out in the House and elsewhere 
that the repeal of the bill was not the serious 
wish of the people at large, and that the petition 
was a mere list of names on parchment, and not 
of men in sentiment. Mr. Middleton added, that 
Lord George adverted to the same objections 
having been made to many other petitions, and 
he, therefore, expressed an anxiety to show Par- 
liament how many were actually interested in its 
success, which he reasonably thought would be 
a strong inducement to the House to listen to it. 
The language imputed to him falls in most nat- 
urally with this purpose : " I wish Parliament to 
see who and what you are ; dress yourselves in 
your best clothes"' — which Mr. Hay (who, I sup- 
pose, had been reading the indictment) thought 
it would be better to call " Array yourselves." 
He desired that not a stick should be seen among 
them, and that, if any man insulted another, or 
was guilty of any breach of the peace, he was to 
be given up to the magistrates. Mr. Attorney 
Genera], to persuade you that this was all color 
and deceit, says, " How was a magistrate to face 
forty thousand men ? How were offenders in 
such a multitude to be amenable to the civil 
power ?" What a shameful perversion of a plain, 
peaceable purpose ! To be sure, if the multitude 
had been assembled to resist the magistrate, of- 
fenders could not be secured. But they them- 
selves were ordered to apprehend all offenders 
among them, and to deliver them up to justice. 
They themselves were to surrender their fellows 
to civil authority if they offended. 

But it seems that Lord George ought to have 
foreseen that so great a multitude xhe prisoner 
could not be collected without mis- c-m m.t i.e cen 

sureil without 

chiel. Gentlemen, we are not try- condemning tuo 
ing whether he might or ought to government. 



1781.] 



IN BEHALF OF LORD GEORGE GORDON. 



651 



have foreseen mischief, but whether he wickedly 
and traitorously preconcerted and designed it. 
But if he be an object of censure for not foresee- 
ing it, what shall we say to government, that 
took no step to prevent it, that issued no procla- 
mation, warning the people of the danger and 
illegality of such an assembly ? If a peaceable 
multitude, with a petition in their hands, be an 
army, and if the noise and confusion inseparable 
from numbers, though without violence or the 
purpose of violence, constitute war, what shall be 
said of that government which remained from 
Tuesday to Friday, knowing that an army was 
collecting to levy war by public advertisement, 
yet had not a single soldier, no, nor even a con- 
stable, to protect the state ? 

Gentlemen, I come forth to do that for gov- 
ernment which its ow^n servant, the Attorney 
General, has not done. I come forth to rescue it 
from the eternal infamy which would fall upon its 
head, if the language of its own advocate were 
to be believed. But government has an unan- 
swerable defense. It neither did nor could pos- 
sibly enter into the head of any man in authority 
to prophesy — human wisdom could not divine 
that wicked and desperate men, taking advant- 
age of the occasion w^hich, perhaps, an impru- 
dent zeal for religion had produced, would dis- 
honor the cause of all religions, by the disgrace- 
ful acts which followed. 

Why, then, is it to be said that Lord George 
Gordon is a traitor, who, without proof of any 
hostile purpose to the government of his coun- 
try, only did not foresee ivhat no body else foresaw 
— what those people whose business it is to fore- 
see every danger that threatens the state, and to 
avert it by the interference of magistracy, though 
they could not but read the advertisement, neither 
did nor could possibly apprehend ?^^ 

How are these observations attempted to be 
Answer to the ans wcrcd ? Only by asserting, with- 
pretenseofde- out evidence or even reasonable ar- 

ception on the , hi- i i 

part of the gumcut, that all this was color and 
prisoner. tJeccit. Gentlemen, I again say that 

it is scandalous and reproachful, and not to be 
justified by any duty which can possibly belong 
to an advocate at the bar of an English court of 
justice, to declare, without any proof or attempt 
at proof, that all a man's expressions, however 
peaceable, however quiet, however constitution- 
al, however loyal, are all fraud and villainy. 
Look, gentlemen, to the issues of life, which I 
before called the evidence of Heaven : I call 
them so still. Truly may I call them so, when, 
out of a book compiled by the Crown from the 
petition in the House of Commons, and contain- 
ing the names of all who signed it, and which 
was printed in order to prevent any of that num- 
ber being summoned upon the jury to try this 
indictment, not one criminal.^ or even a suspected 
name is to be found, among this defamed host of 
petitioners ! 

After this, gentlemen, I think the Crown ought, 
'3 This was the great turning-point of the case, 
and it would have been impossible to state it in 
more simple or more powerful terms. 



in decency, to be silent. I see the effect this cir- 
cumstance has upon you, and I know^ I am war- 
ranted in my assertion of the fact. If I am not, 
why did not the Attorney General produce the 
record of some convictions, and compare it with 
the list ? I thank them, therefore, for the pre- 
cious compilation, which, though they did not 
produce, they can not stand up and deny. 

Solomon [Job] says, " Oh that mine adversary 
had written a book!"' My adversary has writ- 
ten a book, and out of it I am entitled to pro- 
nounce, that it can not again be decently assert- 
ed that Lord George Gordon, in exhorting an in- 
nocent and unimpeached multitude to be peace- 
able and quiet, was exciting them to violence 
against the .state. 

What is the evidence, then, on which this con- 
nection with the mob is to be proved ? Only that 
they had blue cockades.'^^ Arc you or am I an- 
swerable for every man who wears a blue cock- 
ade ? If a man commits murder in my livery 
or in yours, without command, counsel, or con- 
sent, is the murder ours? In all cumulative, con- 
structive treasons, you are to judge from the 
tenor of a man's behavior, not from crooked and 
disjointed parts of it. " Nemo repente fuit tur- 
pissimus."^^ No man can possibly be guilty of 
this crime by a sudden impulse of the mind, as 
he may of some others; and, certainly. Lord 
George Gordon stands upon the evidence at 
Coachmakers' Hall as pure and white as snow. 
He stands so upon the evidence of a man who 
had differed wuth him as to the expediency of 
his conduct, yet who swears that from the time 
he took the chair till the period which is the sub- 
ject of inquiry, there was no blame in him. 

You, therefore, are bound as Christian men 
to believe that, when he came to St. George's 
Fields that morning, he did not come there with 
the hostile purpose of repealing a law by re- 
bellion. 

But still it seems all his behavior at Coach- 
makers' Hall was color and deceit. Let us see, 
therefore, whether this body of men, when as- 
sembled, answered the description of that which 
I have stated to be the purpose of him who as- 
sembled them. Were they a multitude arrayed 
for terror or force ? On the contrary, you have 
heard, upon the evidence of men whose veracity 
is not to be impeached^ that they were sober, 
decent, quiet, peaceable tradesmen ; that they 
were all of the better sort ; all well-dressed and 
well-behaved ; and that there was not a man 
among them w^ho had any one weapon, oflTensive 
or defensive. Sir Philip Jennings Clerke"^^ tells 



2° The members of the Association, at the meet- 
ing of St. George's Fields, were distinguished by 
wearing cockades, on which were inscribed the 
words "No Popery !" 

^^ No one has ever at once reached the extreme 
point of wickedness. 

^^ This gentleman, in giving evidence on behalf 
of the prisoner, deposed to the peaceable behavior 
of the members of the Association, who formed the 
original procession to carry up the petition, and 
whom he distinguished from the mob which after- 



652 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1781. 



you, he went into the Fields ; that he drove 
throufjh them, talked to many individuals among 
them, who all told him that it was not their wish 
to persecute the Papists, but that they were 
alarmed at the progress of their religion from 
their schools. Sir Philip further told you, that 
he never saw a more peaceable multitude in his 
life-, and it appears upon the oaths of all who 
were present,^^ that Lord George Gordon went 
round among them, desiring peace and quietness. 

Mark his conduct, when he heard from Mr. 
Evans'^'* that a low, riotous set of people were 
assembled in Palace Yard. Mr. Evans, being a 
member of the Protestant Association, and being 
desirous that nothing bad might happen from 
the assembly, went in his carriage with Mr. 
Spinage to St. George's Fields, to inform Lord 
George that there w^ere such people assembled 
(probably Papists), who were determined to do 
mischief. The moment he told him of what he 
heard, whatever his original plan might have 
been, he instantly changed it on seeing the im- 
propriety of it. " Do you intend," said Mr. Ev- 
ans, "to carry up all these men w-ith the petition 
to the House of Commons?" "Oh no! no! not 
by any means ; I do not mean to carry them all 
up." "Will you give me leave," said Mr. Ev- 
ans, "to go round to the different divisions, and 
tell the people it is not your Lordship's purpose ?" 
He answered, "By all means." And Mr. Evans 
accordingly went, but it was impossible to guide 
such a number of people, peaceable as they were. 
They were all desirous to go forward; and Lord 
George was at last obliged to leave the Fields, 
exhausted with heat and fatigue, beseeching 
them to be peaceable and quiet. Mrs. Whiting- 
ham set him down at the House of Commons ; 
and at the very time that he thus left them in 
perfect harmony and good order, it appears, by 
the evidence of Sir Philip Jennings Gierke, that 
Palace Yard was in an uproar, filled with mis- 
chievous boys and the lowest dregs of the peo- 
ple. 

Gentlemen, I have all along told you that the 
Crown was aware that it had no case of treason, 
without connecting the noble prisoner with con- 
sequences, which it was in some luck to find ad- 
vocates to state, without proof to support it. I 
can only speak for myself, that, small as my 
chance is (as times go) of ever arriving at high 



ward assembled tumultuously about the House of 
Commons. 

23 Sir James Lowther, another of the prisoner's 
witnesses, proved that Lord George Gordon and Sir 
Philip Jennings Gierke accompanied him in his car- 
riage from the House, and the former entreated the 
multitudes collected to disperse quietly to their 
homes. 

2* A surgeon, who also was examined for the de- 
fense, and deposed that he saw Lord George Gor- 
don in the midst of one of the companies in St. 
George's Fields, and that it appeared his wish at 
that time, from his conduct and expressions, that, to 
prevent all disorder, he should not be attended by 
the multitude across Westminster Bridge. This 
gentleman's evidence was confirmed by that of oth- 
er witnesses. 



office, I would not accept of it on the terms of 
being obliged to produce against a fellow-citizen 
that which I have been witness to this day. For 
Mr. Attorney General perfectly well knew the 
innocent and laudable motive with „ u 

. . . Paper given by 

which the protectio^i was given, that tiie prisoner to 

, 1 •! • 1 • 1 (••!-.- protect a house 

he exhibited as an evidence o( guilt;-'' ivom being 
yet it was produced to insinuate that ^"'■"'^'* 
Lord George Gordon, knowing himself to be the 
ruler of those villains, set himself up as a savior 
from their fury. We called Lord Stormont to 
explain this matter to you, who told you that 
Lord George Gordon came to Buckingham 
House, and begged to see the King, saying, he 
might be of great use in quelling the riots ; and 
can there be on earth a greater proof of con- 
scious innocence ? For if he had been the wick- 
ed mover of them, would he have gone to the 
King to have confessed it, by offering to recall 
his followers from the mischiefs he had provoked ? 
No ! But since, notwithstanding a public protest 
issued by himself and the Association, reviling 
the authors of mischief, the Protestant cause was 
still made the pretext, he thought his public ex- 
ertions might be useful, as they might tend to 
remove the prejudices which wicked men had 
diffused. The King thought so likewise, and 
therefore (as appears by Lord Stormont) refused 
to see Lord George till he had given the test of 
his loyalty by such exertions. But sure I am, 
our gracious sovereign meant no trap for inno- 
cence, nor ever recommended it as such to his 
servants. 

Lord George's language was simply this : 
"The multitude pretend to be perpetrating these 
acts, under the authority of the Protestant peti- 
tion ; I assure your Majesty they are not the 
Protestant Association, and I shall be glad to be 
of any service in suppressing them." I say, by 
God, that man is a ruffian who shall, after this, 
presume to build upon such honest, artless con- 
duct, as an evidence of guilt.^'' Gentlemen, if 



25 A witness, of the name of Richard Pond, called 
in support of the prosecution, had sworn that, hear- 
ing his house was about to be pulled down, he ap- 
plied to the prisoner for protection, and in conse- 
quence received the following document signed by 
him: "All true friends to Protestants, I hope, will 
be particular, and do no injury to the property of 
any true Protestant, as I am well assured the pro- 
prietor of this house is a staunch and worthy friend 
to the cause. — G. Gordon." 

2^ The effect produced on the jury and spectators 
by this sudden burst of feeling, is represented by 
eye-witnesses to have been such as to baffle all 
powers of description. It was wholly unpremedi- 
tated, the instantaneous result of that sympathy 
which exists between a successful speaker and his 
audience. In uttering this appeal to his Maker, Mr. 
Erskine's tone was one of awe and deep reverence, 
without the slightest approach toward the profane 
use of the words, but giving them all the solemnity 
of a judicial oath. The magic of his eye, gesture, 
and countenance beaming with emotion, completed 
the impression, and made it irresistible. It was a 
thing which no man could do but once in his life. 
Mr. Erskine attempted it again in the House of 
Commons, and utterly failed. 



1781] 



IN BEHALF OF LORD GEORGE GORDON. 



653 



Lord George Gordon had been guilty of high 
treason (as is assumed to-day) in the face of the 
whole Parliament, how are all its members to 
defend themselves from the misprision^'^ of suf- 
fering such a person to go at large and to ap- 
proach his sovereign ? The man who conceals 
the perpetration of treason is himself a traitor ; 
but they are all perfectly safe, for nobody thought 
of treason till fears arising from another quarter 
bewildered their senses. The King, therefore, 
and his servants, very wisely accepted his prom- 
ise of assistance, and he flew with honest zeal to 
fulfill it. Sir Philip Jennings Gierke tells you 
that he made use of every expression which it 
was possible for a man in such circumstances to 
employ. He begged them, for God's sake, to 
disperse and go home ; declared his hope that 
the petition would be granted, but that rioting 
was not the way to effect it. Sir Philip said he 
felt himself bound, without being particularly 
asked, to say every thing he could in protection 
of an injured and innocent man, and repeated 
again, that there was not an art which the pris- 
oner could possibly make use of, that he did not 
zealously employ; but that it was all in vain. 
"I began," says he, "to tremble for myself, 
when Lord George read the resolution of the 
House, which was hostile to them, and said their 
petition would not be taken into consideration 
till they were quiet." But did he say, "there- 
fore go on to burn and destroy?" On the con- 
trary, he helped to pen that motion, and read it 
to the multitude, as one which he himself had 
approved. After this he went into the coach 
with Sheriff Pugh, in the city; and there it was, 
in the presence of the very magistrate whom he 
was assisting to keep the peace, that he publicly 
signed the protection which has been read in 
evidence against him ; although Mr. Fisher, who 
now stands in my presence, confessed in the 
Privy Council that he himself had granted sim- 
ilar protections to various people — yet he was dis- 
missed^ as having done nothing but his duty. 

This is the plain and simple truth ; and for 
this just obedience to his Majesty's request, do 
the King's servants come to-day into his court, 
where he is supposed in person to sit, to turn 
that obedience into the crime of high treason, 
.and to ask you to put him to death for it. 

Gentlemen, you have noM' heard, upon the 
solemn oaths of honest, disinterested 
men, a faithful history of the conduct 
of Lord George Gordon, from the day that he 
became a member of the Protestant Association 
to the day that he was committed a prisoner to 
the Tower. And I have no doubt, from the at- 
tention with which I have been honored from the 
beginning, that you have still kept in your minds 
the principles to which I entreated you would 
apply it, and that you have measured it by that 
standard. 

You have, therefore, only to look back to the 



■Recapitulation. 



27 Misprision of treason consists in the bare knowl- 
edije and concealment of treason, without any degree 
of assent thereto, for any assent makes the partj' a 
principal traitor. — Blacksioite's Coinm.,W., 120. 



whole of it together ; to reflect on all you have 
heard concerning him ; to trace him in youi 
recollection through every part of the transac- 
tion ; and, considering it with one manly, liberal 
view, to ask your own honest hearts, whether 
you can say that this noble and unfortunate 
youth is a wicked and deliberate traitor, who 
deserves by your verdict to suffer a shameful and 
ignominious death, which will stain the ancient 
honors of his house forever. 

The crime which the Crown would have fixed 
upon him is, that he assembled the Protestant 
Association round the House of Commons, not 
merely to influence and persuade Parliament by 
the earnestness of their supplications, but actu- 
ally to coerce it by hostile, rebellious force ; that, 
finding himself disappointed in the success of 
that coercion, he afterward incited his followers 
to abolish the legal indulgences to Papists, viiiich 
the object of the petition was to repeal, by the 
burning of their houses of worship, and the de- 
struction of their property, which ended, at last, 
in a general attack on the property of all orders 
of men, religious and civil, on the public treas- 
ures of the nation, and on the very being of the 
government.^^ 

To support a charge of so atrocious and un- 
natural a complexion, the laws of the most arbi- 
trary nations would require the most incontro- 
vertible proof. Either the villain must have 
been taken in the overt act of wickedness, or, if 
he worked in secret upon others, his guilt must 
have been brought out by the discovery of a con- 
spiracy, or by the consistent tenor of criminality. 
The very worst inquisitor that ever dealt in blood 
would vindicate the torture, by plausibility at 
least, and by the semblance of truth. 

What evidence, then, will a jury of English- 
men expect from the servants of the Crown of 
England, before they deliver up a brother accused 
before them to ignominy and death ? What 
proof will their consciences require ? What will 
their plain and manly understandings accept of? 
What does the immemorial custom of their fa- 
thers, and the written law of this land, warrant 
them in demanding? Nothing less, in any case 
of blood, than the clearest and most unequivocal 
conviction of guilt. But in this case the Act has 
not even trusted to the humanity and justice of 
our general law, but has said, in plain, rough, 
expressive terms — -provably ; that is, says Lord 
Coke, not upon conjectural presumptions, or in- 
ferences, or strains of ivit, but upon direct and 
plain proof. " For the King, Lords, and Com- 
mons," continues that great lawyer, "did not 
use the word probably, for then a comnion argu- 
ment might have served, but provably, which 
signifies the highest force of demonstration." 
And what evidence, gentlemen of the jury, does 
the Crown offer to you in compliance with these 
sound and sacred doctrines of justice ? A few 

^^ At the time of the interference of the military^ 
the mob had attacked the Pay Office, and were at- 
tempting: to break into the Bank; and. to aid the 
work of the incendiaries, a large party had been 
sent to cut the pipes of the New River. 



654 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1781. 



broken, interrupted, disjointed words, without 
context or connection — uttered by the speaker 
in agitation and heat — heard, by those who relate 
them to you, in the midst of tumult and confu- 
sion — and even those words, mutilated as they 
are, in direct opposition to, and inconsistent with 
repeated and earnest declarations delivered at 
the very same time and on the very same occa- 
sion, related to you by a much greater number 
of persons, and absolutely incompatible with the 
whole tenor of his conduct. Which of us all, 
gentlemen, would be safe, standing at the bar 
of God or man, if we were not to be judged by 
the regular current of our lives and conversa- 
tions, but by detached and unguarded expres- 
sions, picked out by malice, and recorded, with- 
out context or circumstances, against us ? Yet 
such is the only evidence on which the Crown 
asks you to dip your hands, and to stain your 
consciences, in the innocent blood of the noble 
and unfortunate youth who stands before you — 
on the single evidence of the words you have 
heard from their witnesses (for of what but words 
have you heard ?), which, even if they had stood 
uncontroverted by the proofs that have swallowed 
them up, or unexplained by circumstances which 
destroy their malignity, could not, at the very 
worst, amount in law to more than a breach of 
the Act against tumultuous petitioning (if such 
an act still exists) ; since the worst malice of 
his enemies has not been able to bring up one 
single witness to say that he ever directed, coun- 
tenanced, or approved rebellious force against the 
Legislature of this country. It is, therefore, a 
matter of astonishment to me that men can keep 
the natural color in their cheeks when they ask 
for human life, even on the Crown's original 
case, though the prisoner had made no defense. 
But will they still continue to ask for it after 
what they have heard ? I will just remind the 
Solicitor General, before he begins his reply, 
what matter he has to encounter. He has to 
encounter this : That the going up in a body 
was not even originated by Lord George, but by 
others in his absence — that when proposed by 
him officially as chairman, it was adopted by the 
whole Association, and consequently was their 
act as much as his — that it was adopted, not in 
a conclave, but with open doors, and the resolu- 
tion published to all the world — that it was 
known, of course, to the ministers and magis- 
trates of the country, who did not even signify 
to him, or to any body else, its illegality or dan- 
ger — that decency and peace were enjoined and 
commanded — that the regularity of the proces- 
sion, and those badges of distinction, which are 
now cruelly turned into the charge of an hostile 
array against him, were expressly and publicly 
directed for the preservation of peace and the 
prevention of tumult — that while the House was 
deliberating, he repeatedly entreated them to be- 
have with decency and peace, and to retire to 
their houses, though he knew not that he was 
speaking to the enemies of his cause — that when 
they at last dispersed, no man thought or imag- 
ined that treason had been committed — that he 



retired to bed, where he lay unconscious that 
i-uffians were ruining him by their disorders in 
the night — that on Monday he published an ad- 
vertisement, reviling the authors of the riots ; 
and, as the Protestant cause had been wickedly 
made the pretext for them, solemnly enjoined all 
who wished well to it to be obedient to the laws 
(nor has the Crown even attempted to prove 
that he had either given, or that he afterward 
gave secret instructions in opposition to that 
public admonition) — that he afterward begged 
an audience to receive the King's commands — 
that he waited on the ministers — that he attend- 
ed his duty in Parliament — and when the multi- 
tude (among whom there was not a man of the 
associated Protestants) again assembled on the 
Tuesday, under pretense of the Protestant cause, 
he offered his services, and read a resolution of 
the House to them, accompanied with every ex- 
postulation which a zeal for peace could possibly 
inspire — that he afterward, in pursuance of the 
King's direction, attended the magistrates in 
their duty ; honestly and honorably exerting all 
his powers to quell the fury of the multitude ; a 
conduct which, to the dishonor of the Crown, has 
been scandalously turned against him, by crim- 
inating him with protections granted publicly in 
the coach of the Sheriff of London, whom he was 
assisting in his office of magistracy ; although 
protections of a similar nature were, to the 
knowledge of the whole Privy Council, granted 
by Mr. Fisher himself, M'ho now stands in my 
presence unaccused and unreproved, but who, if 
the Crown that summoned him durst have called 
him, would have dispersed to their confusion the 
slightest imputation of guilt. 

What, then, has produced this trial for high 
treason, or given it, when produced, cause of the 
the seriousness and solemnity it wears ? P^secution. 
What but the inversion of all justice, by judging 
from consequences, instead of from causes and de- 
signs ? What but the artful manner in which the 
Crown has endeavored to blend the petitioning 
in a body, and the zeal with which an animated 
disposition conducted it, with the melancholy 
crimes that followed ? crimes which the shame- 
ful indolence of our magistrates — which the to- 
tal extinction of all police and government suf- 
fered to be committed in broad day, and in the 
delirium of drunkenness, by an unarmed banditti, 
without a head — without plan or object — and 
without a refuge from the instant gripe of jus- 
tice : a banditti with whom the associated Prot- 
estants and their president had no manner of 
connection, and whose cause they overturned, 
dishonored, and ruined. 

How unchristian, then, is it to attempt, with- 
out evidence, to infect the imaginations of men 
who are sworn, dispassionately and disinterest- 
edly, to try the trivial offense of assembling a 
multitude with a petition to repeal a law (which 
has happened so often in all our memories), by 
blending it with the fatal catastrophe, on which 
every man's mind may be supposed to retain 
some degree of irritation ! O fie ! O fie ! Is 
the intellectual scat of justice to be thus impious- 



1784.] 



ON THE RIGHTS OF JURIES. 



655 



ly shaken ? Are your benevolent propensities 
to be thus disappointed and abused ? Do they 
wish you. while you are listening to the evidence, 
to connect it with unforeseen consequences, in 
spite of reason and truth? Is it their object to 
hani^ the millstone of prejudice around his inno- 
cent neck to sink him ? If there be such men, 
may Heaven forgive them (or the attempt, and 
inspire you with fortitude and wisdom to dis- 
charge your duty with calm, steady, and reflect- 
ing minds ! 

Gentlemen, I have no manner of doubt that 
vou will.^^ I am sure you can not but 

Peroration. •' . , t .1 -i-. 

see, notv.'ithstandmg my great uiability, 
increased by a perturbation of mind ( arising, 
thank God ! from no dishonest cause), that there 
has been not only no evidence on the part of the 
Crown to fix the guilt of the late commotions 
upon the prisoner, but that, on the contrary, we 
have been able to resist the probability, I might 
almost say the possibility of the charge, not only 
by living witnesses, whom we only ceased to call 
because the trial would never have ended, but by 
the evidence of all the blood that has paid the 
forfeit of that guilt already ; an evidence that I 
will take upon me to say is the strongest and 
most unanswerable which the combination of 
natural events ever brought together since the 
beo^inning of the world for the deliverance of the 
oppressed : since, in the late numerous trials for 
acts of violence and depredation, though con- 
ducted by the ablest servants of the Crown, with 
a laudable eye to the investigation of the subject 
which now engages us, no one fact appeared 
which showed any plan, any object, any leader ; 
since, out of forty-four thousand persons who 
signed the petition of the Protestants, not one 
was to be found among those who were convict- 
ed, tried, or even apprehended on suspicion ; and 
since, out of all the felons who were let loose 
from prisons, and who assisted in the destruction 
of our property, not a single wretch was to be 



found who could even attempt to save his own 
life by the plausible promise of giving evidence 
to-day. 

What can overturn such a proof as this ? 
Surely a good man might, without superstition, 
believe that such a union of events was some- 
thing more than natural, and that a Divine Prov- 
idence was watchful for the protection of inno- 
cence and truth. 

I may now, therefore, relieve you from the 
pain of hearing me any longer, and be myself 
relieved from speaking on a subject which agi- 
tates and distresses me. Since Lord George 
Gordon stands clear of every hostile act or pur- 
pose against the Legislature of his country, or 
the properties of his fellow-subjects — since the 
whole tenor of his conduct repels the belief of 
the traitorous intention charged b}'- the indict- 
ment — my task is finished. I shall make no 
address to your passions. I will not remind you 
of the long and rigoi'ous imprisonment he has 
suffered ; I will not speak to you of his great 
youth, of his illustrious birth, and of his uniform- 
ly animated and generous zeal in Parliament for 
the Constitution of his country. Such topics 
might be useful in the balance of a doubtful case ; 
yet, even then, I should have trusted to the hon- 
est hearts of Englishmen to have felt them with- 
out excitation. At present, the plain and rigid 
rules of justice and truth are sufficient to entitle 
me to your verdict. 



The jury, after being charged by Lord Mans- 
field, withdrew at three o'clock in the morning, 
and speedily returned with the verdict — Not 
Guilty. The decision was satisfactory, in a 
high degree, to all reflecting men. Even those 
who considered his conduct as deeply criminal, 
felt with Dr. Johnson : " I am glad Lord George 
Gordon has escaped, rather than a precedent 
should be established of hanging a man for con- 
structive treason." 



SPEECH 



OF Mrt.ERSKINE ON THE RIGHTS OF JURIES, DELIVERED BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH, 
IN THE CASE OF THE DEAN OF ASAPH, NOVEMBER 15, 1784. 



INTRODUCTION. 
Sir William Jones, just before be went to India iu 1783, wrote a small tract in favor of Parliament- 
ary Reform, entitled a "Dialogue between a Gentleman and a Farmer," which was published by his 
brother-in-law Dr. Shipley, dean of St. Asaph, with an advertisement stating his reasons for so doing'. 
Though harmless iu its tendency, it gave umbrage to some high Tories of the neighborhood, and the 
Dean was indicted, at their instance, for printing a seditious libel. The trial came on at Shrewsbury, 
August 6th, 1784, and Mr. Bearcroft, counsel for the prosecution, satisfied that no English jury would 
ever find it a libel (as the court, iu fact, afterward declared there was nothing in it illegal) took the 



2' This peroration is remarkable for the quiet and 
subdued tone which reigns throughout it. A less 
skillful advocate would have closed with a powerful 
appeal to the feelings of the jury. But Mr. Erskine, 
with that quick instinct which enabled him to read 
the emotions of men in their countenances, saw that 
his cause was gained. He chose, therefore, to 
throw over his concluding remarks the appearance 



of a perfect understanding between him and the 
jury, that the verdict of acquittal was already made 
up in their minds, so that any appeal to their feel- 
ings would be wholly out of place. His allusion to 
the providence of God as watching over the inno- 
cent, beautifully coincides with this sentiment; and 
iu his closing sentence he does not ask a decision 
iu his favor, but takes it as a matter of course. 



656 MR. ERSKINE [1784. 

ground that this was no gvestion for them to decide — that they were bound to find the defendant guilty 
if the}^ believed he had caused it to be published, and that it was "o/"and concerning the King and his 
government"' — leaving him to move the court in arrest of judgment, or to bring a writ of error if its sen- 
timents and language were claimed to be innocent. Mr. Erskine, for the defendant, argued the question 
to the jury on the supposition of their having a right to judge whether it was a libel or not. But Mr. 
Justice Buller charged the jury in accordance with the claim of Mr. Bearcroft, telling them, as Lord 
Mansfield had done in the case of Woodfall, that they must bring in the defendant guilty if they were 
satisfied he had published the tract, leaving the question whether it was libelous or not for the court to 
decide. The jury, howevei", gave their verdict " guilty of publishing only," which would have been tan-^ 
tamount to an acquittal. But the Judge having objected strongly to this finding, the jury withdrew, and 
returned with a verdict, " Guilty of publishing, but whether a libel or not we do not find." 

In Michaelmas term following, November 8th, 1784, Mr. Erskine moved for a new trial on the ground 
of misdirection on the part of the judge. A rule nixi having been granted, the case came on for argu- 
ment on the 15th, when he made the following speech. Lord Campbell says, " Erskine's addresses to 
the court in moving, and afterward in supporting his rule, display beyond all comparison the most per- 
fect union of argument and eloquence ever exhibited in Westminster Hall. He laid down five proposi- 
tions most logically framed and connected — which, if true, completely established his case — and he sup- 
ported them with a depth of learning which would have done honor to Selden or Hale, while he was 
animated by an enthusiasm which was peculiarly his own. Though appealing to judges who heard him 
with aversion or indifference, he was as spirited as if the decision had depended on a favorable jury, 
whose feelings were entirely under his control. So thoroughly had he mastered the subject, and so clear 
did he make it, that he captivated alike old black-letter lawyers and statesmen of taste and refinement." 
— Lives of the Lord Chancellors, vol. vi., 433-4. 

The following are the five propositions mentioned by Lord Campbell, which had been previously de- 
livered to the judges in nearly the same terms : 

I. "That when a bill of indictment is found, or an information filed, charging any crime or misdemeanor 
known to the law of England, and the party accused puts himself upon the country by pleading the gen- 
eral issue — Not Guilty; the jury are generally charged with his deliverance from that crime, and not 
SPECIALLY from the fact or facts, in the commission of which the indictment or information charges the crime 
to consist; much less from any single fact, to the exclusion of others charged upon the same record." 

IL " That no act, which the law in its general theory holds to be criminal constitutes in itself a crime, 
abstracted from the mischievous intentioyi of the actor ; and that the intention (even where it becomes a 
simple inference of legal I'eason from a fact established) may and ought to be collected by the jury, 
with the Judge's assistance ; because the act charged, though established as a fact in a trial on the gen- 
eral issue, does not necessarily and unavoidably establish the criminal intention by any abstract conclu- 
sion of law — the establishment of the fact being still no more than full evidence of the crime, but not the crime 
itself; unless the jury render it so themselves, by referring it voluntarily to the court by special verdict." 

in. "That the case of a libel forms no legal exception to the general principles which govern the trial 
of all other crimes ; that the argument for the difference, namely, because the whole charge [in the prose- 
cution for a libel] always appears on the record — is false in fact, and that, even if true, it would fomi no 
substantial difference in law." 

IV. "That where a writing indicted as a libel neither contains, nor is averred by the indictment to con- 
tain, any slander of an individual (so as to fall within those rules of law which protect personal reputa- 
tion), but whose criminality is charged to consist (as in the present instance) in its tendency to stir up 
general discontent — the trial of such an indictment neither involves, nor can in its obvious nature involve, 
any abstract question of law for the judgment of a court, but must wholly depend upon the judgment of 
the jury on the tendency of the writing itself to produce such consequences, when connected with all the 
circumstances which attended its publication." 

V. " That in all cases where the mischievous intention (which is agreed to be the essence of the crime) 
can not be collected by simple inference from the fact charged, because the defendant goes into evidence 
to rebut such inference, the intention then becomes a pure, unmixed question of fact, for the considera- 
tion of the jury." 

This speech has a peculiar interest for the lawyer, but the general reader will be amply repaid for 
giving it the closest attention. The young orator of any profession will find the study of it one of the 
best means of mental discipline, and will rise from the perusal of it with increased admiration of Lord 
Erskine as a logician and an orator. 

SPEECH, &c. 



I AM now to have the honor to address myself 
to your Lordship in support of the rule granted 
to nie by the court upon Monday last ; which, 
as Mr. Bearcroft has truly said, and seemed to 



rule for a new trial. Much of my argument, ac- 
cording to his notion, points another way ; wheth- 
er its direction be true, or its force adequate to 
the object, it is now my business to show. 



mark the observation with peculiar emphasis, is a In rising to speak at this time, I feel all the 



1784.] 



ON THE RIGHTS OF JURIES. 



657 



advantage conferred by the reply over those 
Ncceidityofa whose arguments are to be answered ; 
1 d«7of"rgu°'^ but I feel a disadvantage likewise, 
I- laent. which niust suggest itself to every in- 

telligent mind. In following the objections of 
so many learned persons, offered under different 
arrangements upon a subject so complicated and 
comprehensive, there is much danger of being 
drawn from that method and order which can 
alone fasten conviction upon unwilling minds, or 
drive them from the shelter which ingenuity 
never fails to tind in the labyrinth of a desultory 
discourse. The sense of that danger, and my own 
inability to struggle against it, led me originally 
to deliver up to the court certain written and 
maturely considered propositions, from the es- 
tablishment of which 1 resolved not to depart, 
nor to be removed, either in substance or in or- 
der, in any stage of the proceedings, and by 
which I must therefore this day unquestionably 
stand or fall. 

Pursuing this system, I am vulnerable two 
Only two pos- ways, and in two ways only. Either 
evading iu °^ it must bc shown that my propositions 
force. Q^y-Q i^Qt valid in law, or, admitting 

their validity, that the learned judge's charge to 
the jury at Shrewsbury was not repugnant to 
them : there can be no other possible objections 
to my application for a new trial. My duty to- 
day is, therefore, obvious and simple : it is, first, 
to re-maintain those propositions, and then to 
show that the charge delivered to the jury at 
Shrewsbury was founded upon the absolute de- 
nial and reprobation of them. 

I. I begin, therefore, by saying again, in my 
Firtt Prop- own Original words, That when a bill 
'***'•*'"• of indictment is found, or an informa- 
tion filed, charging any crime or misdemeanor 
known to the law of England, and the party ac- 
cused puts himself upon the country by pleading 
the general issue — not guilty ; the jury are gen- 
erally charged with his delivei-ance from that 
crime, and not specially from the ^aci or facts, 
in the commission of which the indictment or in- 
formation charges the crime to consist ; much 
less from any single fact, to the exclusion of oth- 
ers charged upon the same record. 

II. That no act, which the law in its general 
Sfcoiid theory holds to be criminal, constitutes 
PropoMon. j^ j^ggjf ^ crime, abstracted from the 
mischievous intention of the actor ; and that the 
intention (even where it becomes a simple infer- 
ence of legal reasons from a fact or facts estab- 
lished), may and ought to be collected by the 
JURY, with the judge's assistance ; because the 
act charged, though established as a fact in a trial 
on the general issue, does not necessarily and 
unavoidably establish the criminal intention by 
any abstract conclusion of the law : the estab- 
lishment of the fact being still no more than full 
evidence of the crime, but not the crime itself; 
unless the jury render it so themselves, by refer- 

" ring it voluntarily to the court by special verdict. 
These two propositions, though worded with 
cautious precision, and in technical language, to 
prevent the subtlety of legal disputation in oppo- 
T T 



sition to the plain understanding of the world, 
neither do nor were intended to con- n^tateraont 
vev any other sentiment than this, of tiies.- prop- 
namely, that in all cases where the 
law either directs or permits a person accused 
of a crime to throw himself upon a jury for de- 
liverance, by pleading generally that he is not 
guilty ; the jury, thus legally appealed to, may 
deliver him from the accusation by a general 
verdict of acquittal founded (as in common sense 
it evidently must be) upon an investigation as 
general and comprehensive as the charge itself 
from which it is a general deliverance. 

Having said this, I freely confess to the court 
that I am much at a loss for any fur- The recent lim 
ther illustration of my subject, be- Hgi,'°s"of juVes 
cause I can not find any matter by j^ronj'orig'nt,) 
which it might be further illustrated, "sage. 
so clear or so indisputable, either in fact or in 
law, as the very proposition itself upon which 
this trial has been brought into question. Look- 
ing back upon the ancient Constitution, and ex- 
amining with painful research the original juris- 
dictions of the country, I am utterly at a loss to 
imagine from what som-ccs these novel limita- 
tions of the rights of juries are derived. Even 
the bar is not yet trained to the discipline of 
maintaining them. My learned friend Mr. Bear- 
croft^ solemnly abjures them. He repeats to-day 
what he avowed at the trial, and is even jealous 
of the imputation of having meant less than he 
expressed. For, when speaking this f,„^^^^,-,„ ^r, 
morning of the right of the jury to oi-posing conn- 
judge of the whole charge, your Lord- 
ship corrected his expression, by telling him he 
meant the power, and not the right ; he caught 
instantly at your words, disavowed your expla- 
nation, and, with a consistency which does him 
honor, declared his adherence to his original ad- 
mission in its full and obvious extent. " I did 
not mean," said he, "merely to acknowledge 
that the jury have the power, for their power 
nobody ever doubted. If a judge was to tell 
them they had it not, they would only have to 
laugh at him, and convince him of his error, by 
finding a general verdict, which must be re- 
corded : I meant, therefore, to consider it as a 
right, as an important privilege, and of great 
value to the Constitution." Thus Mr. Bearcroft 
and I are perfectly agreed; I never contended 
for more than he has voluntarily conceded. I 
have now his express authority for repeating, in 
my own former words, that the jury have not 
merely the power to acquit, upon a view of the 
whole charge, without control or punishment, 
and without the possibility of their acquittal be- 
ing annulled by any other authority ; but that 
they have a constitutional, legal right to do it ; 
a right fit to be exercised; and intended, by the 
wise founders of the government, to be a protec- 
tion to the lives and liberties of Englishmen, 
against the encroachments and perversions of 
authority in the hands of fixed magistrates. 

But this candid admission on the part of Mr. 



One of the eounsei for the prosecution. 



658 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1784. 



Bearcroft, though very honorable to himself, is 
The court imv- "^^ ^^ importance to me ; since, from 
ing expressed what has already fallen from your 

another opin- t , , . t 

ion, their atten- Loruship, I am not to expect a rat- 

tion claimed. -^f^^^^-^^ ^j- -^ f^.^^ ^j^^ ^^^urt : it is 

therefore my duty to establish it. I feel all the 
importance of my subject, and nothing shall lead 
me to-day to go out of it. I claim all the atten- 
tion of the court, and the right to state every 
authority which applies, in my judgment, to the 
argument, without being supposed to introduce 
them for other purposes than my duty to my cli- 
ent and the Constitution of my country warrants 
and approves. 

It is not very usual, in an English court of 
justice, to be driven back to the ear- 

Therightofa ,. . i •' j • • i i * r 

jury to decide licst history and origmal elements oi 
weM as'tos'in the Coustitution, in order to estab- 
o'^f-maTV^rhici- ^^^^ t^® ^^^^ principles which mark 
pie°of English and distinguish Enorlish law : they 

jurisprudence. ° '^ i i.i 

are always assumed, and, like ax- 
ioms in science, are made the foundations of 
reasoning without being proved. Of this sort 
our ancestors, for many centuries, must have 
conceived the right of an English jury to decide 
upon every question which the forms of the law 
submitted to their final decision ; since, though 
they have immemorially exercised that supreme 
jurisdiction, we find no trace in any of the an- 
cient books of its ever being brought into ques- 
tion. It is but as yesterday, when compared 
with the age of the law itself, that judges, un- 
warranted by any former judgments of their 
predecessors, without any new commission from 
the Crown, or enlargement of judicial authority 
from the Legislature, have sought to fasten a 
limitation upon the rights and privileges of ju- 
rors, totally unknown in ancient times, and pal- 
pably destructive of the very end and object of 
their institution. 

No fact, my Lord, is of more easy demonstra- 
tion ; for the history and laws of a free country 
lie open, even to vulgar inspection. 

During the whole Saxon era, and even long 
(1.) The low- after the establishment of the Norman 
bftirBaron govcmmeut, the whole administration 
and Leet. of justicc. Criminal and civil, was in 
the hands of the people, without the control or 
intervention of any judicial authority, delegated 
to fixed magistrates by the Crown. The ten- 
ants of every manor administered civil justice to 
one another in the Court Baron of their Lord ; 
and their crimes were judged of in the Leet," ev- 
ery suitor of the manor giving his voice as a ju- 
ror, and the steward being only the rcgistrai', 
and not the judge. 

On appeals from these domestic jurisdictions 
,^.^^ ^ to the county court, and to the tourn 

(2.)ThoCoun- •';„.. 

ty and sherira (circuit) of the sherili, or m suits and 

prosecutions originally commenced in 

either of them, the sheriff"'s authority extended 

2 The Court Baron belonged more particularly to 
a manor, and the Court Leet to a hundred, which 
was the smallest civil division in Saxon times. — See 
Jacobs's Law Dictionary. 



no further than to summon the jurors, to compel 
their attendance, ministerially to regulate their 
proceedings, and to enforce their decisions. And 
even where he was specially empowered bv the 
King's writ oi justicies^ to proceed in causes of 
superior value, no judicial authority was thereby 
conferred upon himself, but only a more enlarged 
jurisdiction on the jurors, who were to try 
the cause mentioned in the writ. It is true that 
the sheriff" can not now intermeddle in pleas of 
the Crown ; but with this exception, which brinfj-s 
no restrictions on juries, these jurisdictions re- 
main untouched at this day : intricacies of prop- 
erty have introduced other forms of proceeding, 
but the Constitution is the same. 

This popular judicature was not confined to 
particular districts, or to inferior suits (3.) The King's 
and misdemeanors, but pervaded the .^mtiie c^'-'" 
whole legal Constitution. For, when q^^ror. 
the Conqueror, to increase the influence of his 
crown, erected that great superintending court 
of justice in his own palace to receive appeals 
criminal and civil from every court in the king- 
dom, and placed at the head of it the capitalis 
justiciarius totius Anglice [Chief Justiciary of all 
England], of whose original authority the Chief 
Justice of this court is but a partial and feeble 
emanation : even that great magistrate was in 
the Aula Regis [King's Court] merely ministerial ; 
every one of the King's tenants, who owed him 
service in right of a. barony, had a seat and a voice 
in that high tribunal ; and the office of justiciar 
was but to I'ecord and to enforce their judg- 
ments.'' 

In the reign of King Edward the First, when 
this great office was abolished, and the ,^ , ^^^^ ^^^^^^ 
present courts at Westminster estab- of Lords as a 
lished by a distribution of its powers,'^ 
the barons preserved that supreme superintend- 
ing jurisdiction which never belonged to the Jus- 
ticiar, but to themselves only as the jurors in the 
King's Court — a jurisdiction which, when nobil- 
ity, from being territorial and feudal, became 
personal and honorary, was assumed and exer- 

^ The Writ of Justicies was a writ directed to 
the sheriff in some special cases, by virtue of which 
he might hold plea of debt in his county court for a 
large sura, whereas, by his ordinary power, he was 
limited to sums under forty shillings. 

* The King's Court was composed of the Chief 
Justiciary, the Chancellor, the Constable, Marshal, 
Chamberlain, Steward, and Treasurer, with any oth- 
ers whom the King might appoint. The Court of 
Exchequer, in which all revenue matters were trans- 
acted, formed a branch of this court. The Chief 
Justiciary was the greatest subject in England: be- 
sides presiding in the King's Court, and in the Ex- 
chequer, he was originally, by virtue of his office, 
the Regent of the kingdom during the absence of 
the Sovereign. 

5 Though Edward settled the jurisdiction of the 
several courts, the separation of the Exchequer first, 
and afterward the Common Pleas, from the King's 
Court, took place long before. The detachment of 
the latter had its beginning, in Madox's opinion, as 
early as in the reign of Richard the First ; but it was 
completely established by the Magna (yharta of 17 
John, and then first made stationary at Westminster 



1784.] 



ON THE RIGHTS OF JURIES. 



659 



cised by the peers of England, who, without any 
delegation of judicial authority from the Crown, 
form to this day the supreme and final court of 
English law, judging in the last resort for the 
whole kingdom, and sitting upon the lives of the 
peerage, in their ancient and genuine character, 
as the pares of one another.*" 

When the courts at Westminster were estab- 
witiitiieadvance lishcd in their present forms, and 
jur'y'^eal'e^dVbe when thc civilization and commerce 
incin^nc^JsTi of ^hc nation had introduced more 
property, intricate questions of justice, the ju- 

dicial authority in civil cases could not but en- 
large its bounds. The rules of property in a 
cultivated state of society became by degrees be- 
yond the compass of the unlettered multitude, 
and with certain well-known restrictions undoubt- 
edly fell to the judges ; yet more, perhaps, from 
necessity than by consent, as all judicial proceed- 
ings were artfully held in the Norman language, 
to which the people were strangers.'^ Of these 
changes in judicature, immemorial custom, and 
the acquiescence of the Legislature, are the evi- 
dence which establish the jurisdiction of the 
courts on the true principle of English law, and 
measure the extent of it by their ancient prac- 
tice. 

But no such evidence is to be found of the least 
but not incases relinquishment or abridgment of pop- 
of crimes. ular judicaturc, in cases of crimes ; on 
the contrary, every page of our history is filled 
with the struggles of our ancestors for its pres- 
ervation. 

The law of property changes w^ith new objects. 
Reasons for the and bccomcs intricate as it extends 
distinction. -^^ dominion ; but crimes mu.st ever 
be of the same easy investigation. They consist 
wholly in intention, and the more they are mul- 
tiplied by the policy of those who govern, the 
more absolutely the public freedom depends upon 
the people's preserving the entire administration 
of criminal justice to themselves. In a question 
of property between two private individuals, the 
Crown can have no possible interest in preferring 
the one to the other ; but it may have an interest 
in crushing both of them together, in defiance of 
every principle of humanity and justice, if they 
should put themselves forward in a contention for 
public liberty, against a government seeking to 
emancipate itself from the dominion of the laws. 
No man in the least acquainted with the history 
of nations or of his own country, can refuse to 
acknowledge, that if the administration of crim- 
inal justice were left in the hands of the Crown 
or its deputies, no greater freedom could possibly 
exist than government might choose to tolerate 
from the convenience or policy of the day. 



This distinction 
confirnied by 
Ulackatooe, 



^ During a trial before the House of Peers, every 
peer present on the trial has always been judge both 
of the law and the fact. Hence no special verdict 
can be given on the trial of a peer. 

'' All pleadings were, by order of William the 
Conqueror, conducted in Norman-French. By act 
36 Edward III., cap. 15 (A. D. 1363). the use of the 
French language in legal proceedings was abol- 
ished. 



My Lord, this important truth is no discovery 
or assertion of mine, but is to be found 
in every book of the law : Whether we 
go up to the most ancient authorities, 
or appeal to the writings of men of our own times, 
we meet with it alike in the most emphatical lan- 
guage. Mr. Justice Blackstone, by no means 
biased toward democratical government, having 
in the third volume of his Commentaries explain- 
ed the excellence of the trial by jury in civil 
cases, expresses himself thus (vol. iv., p. 349) : 
" But it holds much stronger in criminal cases, 
since, in times of difficulty and danger, more is 
to be apprehended from the violence and partial- 
ity of judges appointed by the Crown, in suits be- 
tween the King and the subject, than in disputes 
between one individual and another, to settle the 
boundaries of private property. Our law has, 
therefore, wisely placed this strong and two-fold 
barrier of a presentment and trial by jury be- 
tween the liberties of the people and the preroga- 
tive of the Crown. Without this barrier, justices 
of oyer and terminer named by the Crown might, 
as in France or in Turkey, imprison, dispatch, or 
exile any man that was obnoxious to government, 
by an instant declaration that such was their will 
and pleasure. So that the liberties of England 
can not but subsist so long as this palladium re- 
mains sacred and inviolate, not only from all open 
attacks, which none will be so hardy as to make, 
but also from all secret machinations which may 
sap and undermine it." 

But this remark, though it derives new force 
in being adopted by so great an au- 

. " ^ •' * .... and by Bracton. 

thority, was no more an original in 
Mr. Justice Blackstone than in me : the institu- 
tion and authority of juries is to be found in Brac- 
ton, who wrote about five hundred years before 
him. " The curia [court] and the pares [jury]," 
says he, " were necessarily the judges in all ca- 
ses of life, limb, crime, and disherison of the heir 
in capite. The King could not decide, for then 
he would have been both prosecutor and judge ; 
neither could his justices, for they represent him." 
Notwithstanding all this, the learned judge 
[Mr. Buller] was pleased to say at ^..^her evidence 
the trial, that there was no ditFer- "fan entire dia- 

' 1 • . 1 tinclion between 

ence between cfvil and cruninal ca- civiiand cnmmai 
ses.^ I say, on the contrary, inde- 
pendent of these authorities, that there is not, 
even to vulgar observation, the remotest simili- 
tude between them. 

^ In his charge to the jury, in the case of the Dean 
I of St. Asaph, Mr. Justice Buller had said, "The law 
acts equally and justly, as the pam[)hlet itself statesj, 
it is equal between the prosecutor and defendaux; 
and whatever appears upon the record is not for our 
decision here, but may be thc subject of future con- 
sideration in the court out of which the record comes : 
and afterward, if either party thinks fit, they have a 
right to carry it to the dernier resort, and have the 
opinion of the House of Lords upon it ; and, therefore, 
that has been the uniform and established answer, 
7wt only in criminal hv.t civil cases. The law is the 
same in both, and there is not a gentleman round 
this table n-ho does not know that is the constant and 
uniform ansicer uhich is given in such cases." 



MR. ERSKLNE 



[1784. 



There are four capital distinctions between 
prosecutions for crimes and civil actions, every 
one of which deserves consideration : 

First, in the jurisdiction necessary to found the 
charge. 

Secondly, in the manner of the defendant's 
pleading it. 

Thirdly, in the authority of the verdict which 
discharges him. 

Fourthly, in the independence and security of 
the jury from all the consequences in giving it. 

(1.) As to the first, it is unnecessary to remind 
your Lordships that, in a civil case, the 

Jurisdiction. •' , • i • ir • i 

party who conceives himsell aggrieved 
states his complaint to the court — avails him- 
self at his own pleasure of its process — compels 
an answer from the defendant by its authority — 
or, taking the charge pro confesso against him on 
his default, is entitled to final judgment and exe- 
cution for his debt, without any interposition of a 
jury. But in criminal cases it is otherwise ; the 
court has no cognizance of them, without leave 
from the people forming a grand inquest. If a 
man were to commit a capital offense in the face 
of all the judges of England, their united author- 
ity could not put him upon his trial. They could 
file no complaint against him, even upon the rec- 
ords of the supreme criminal court, but could 
only commit him for safe custody, which is equal- 
ly competent to every common justice of the 
peace. The grand jury alone conld arraign him, 
and in their discretion might likewise finally dis- 
charge him, by throwing out the bill, the names 
of all your Lordships as witnesses on the back of 
it. If it shall be said that this exclusive power 
of the grand jury does not extend to lesser mis- 
demeanors, which may be prosecuted by inform- 
ation ; I answer, that for that very reason it be- 
comes doubly necessary to preserve the power of 
the other jury which is left. In the rules of 
pleading, there is no distinction between capital 
and lesser offenses ; and the defendant's plea of 
not guilty (which universally prevails as the le- 
gal answer to every information or indictment, as 
opposed to special pleas to the court in civil ac- 
tions), and the necessity imposed upon the Crown 
to join the general issue, are absolutely decis- 
ive of the present question [i. e., as to jurisdic- 
tion]. 

(2.) Every lawyer must admit that the rules 
Manner of the of pleading werc originally establish- 

defendant'8 ,' *? , ^ " .i j- 

pieadin- This cd to mark and to preserve the dis- 
faw'fromtheju- tiuct jurisdictions of the court and the 
ryiri civil cases, jury, by a Separation of the law from 
the fact, wherever they were intended to be sep- 
arated. A person charged with owing a debt, 
or having committed a trespass, &c., &c., if he 
could not deny the facts on which the actions 
were founded, was obliged to submit his justifica- 
tion for matter of law by a special plea to the 
court upon the record ; to which plea the plain- 
tiff might demur^^ and submit the legal merits to 



' I. e., might allege that, admitting the facts, the 
justification set up is not sufficient in law, which 
would be a question for the decision of the court, 
and not of the jury. 



the judges. By this arrangement, no power was 
ever given to the jury, by an issue joined before 
them, but when a right of decision, as compre- 
hensive as the issue, went along with it. If a de- 
fendant in such civil actions pleaded the general 
issue instead of a special plea, aiming at a general 
deliverance from the charge, by showing his jus- 
tification to the jury at the trial, the court pro- 
tected its own jurisdiction, by refusing all evi- 
dence of the facts on which such justification was 
founded. The extension of the general issue be- 
yond its ancient limits, and in deviation from its 
true principle, has, indeed, introduced some con- 
fusion into this simple and harmonious system ; 
but the law is substantially the same. No man, 
at this day, in any of those actions where the an- 
cient forms of our jurisprudence are still wisely 
preserved, can possibly get at the opinion of a jury 
upon any question not intended by the Constitu- 
tion for their decision. In actions of debt, det- 
inue, breach of covenant, trespass, or replevin, the 
defendant can only submit the mere fact to the 
jury, the law must be pleaded to the court. If. 
dreading the opinion of the judges, he conceals his 
justification under the cover of a general plea, 
in hopes of a more favorable construction of his 
defense at the trial, its very existence can never 
even come within the knowledge of the jurors. 
Every legal defense must arise out of the facts ; 
and the authority of the judge is interposed to 
prevent their appearing before a tribunal which, 
in such cases, has no competent jurisdiction over 
them. 

By impo-sing this necessity of pleading every 
legal justification to the court, and by this ex- 
clusion of all evidence on the trial beyond the ne- 
gation of the fact, the courts indisputably intend- 
ed to establish, and did in fact eflTectually secure, 
the judicial authority over legal questions fi*om 
all encroachment or violation. And it is impos- 
sible to find a reason in law or in common sense, 
why the same boundaries between the fact and 
the law should not have been at the same time 
extended to criminal cases by the same rules of 
pleading, if the jurisdiction of the jury had been 
designed to be limited to the fact, as in civil ac- 
tions. 

But no such boundary was ever made or at- 
tempted — on the contrary, every person ^^^ ^^^^^ 
charged with any crime by an indict- in criminal 
ment or information has been in all 
times, from the Norman Conquest to this hour, 
not only permitted, but even bound, to throw 
himself upon his country for deliverance, by the 
general plea of "Not guilty," and may submit 
his whole defense to the jury, whether it be a 
negation of the fact or a justification of it in law. 
The judge has no authority, as in a civil case, 
to refuse such evidence at the trial as out of the 
issue, and as coram non judice [not before the 
judge] — an authority which in common sense he 
certainly would have, if the jury had no higher 
jurisdiction in the one case than in the other. 
The general plea thus sanctioned by immemo- 
rial custom, so blends the law and the fact to- 
gether, as to be inseparable but by the voluntary 



1784] 



ON THE RIGHTS OF JURIES. 



E61 



act of the jury in finding a special verdict.^" The 
jreneral investigation of the whole charge is, 
tlierefore, before them ; and although the defend- 
ant admits the fact laid in the information or in- 
dictment, he nevertheless, under his general plea, 
gives evidence of others which are collateral, i"e- 
ferring them to the judgment of the jury as a 
legal excuse or justification, and receives from 
their verdict a complete, general, and conclusive 
deliverance. Mr. Justice Blackstone, in the 
fourth volume of his Commentaries, page 339, 
says : " The traitorous or felonious intent are 
the points and very gist of the indictment, and 
must be answered directly by the general nega- 
tive, 'Not guilty;' and the jury will take notice 
of any defensive matter, and give their verdict 
accordingly, as efTectually as if it were specially 
pleaded." This, therefore, says Sir Matthew 
Hale, in his Pleas of the Crown, page 258. is, 
upon all accounts, the most advantageous plea 
for the defendant : "It would be a most unhap- 
py case for the judge himself, if the prisoner's 
fate depended upon his directions — unhappy also 
for the prisoner ; for if the judge's opinion must 
rule the verdict, the trial by jury would be use- 
less." 

(3 and 4.) My Lord, the conclusive operation 
_, ., .. of the verdict when given [in a crim- 

Tlie authority f' i- 

of tiie verdict, inal casel, and the security of the lury 

andtl.eprotec- ,. ,, ■" .•'..■'.•' 

tionofii.ejury Irom all conscquences m giving it, 
in giving iL i-ender the contrast between criminal 
and civil cases striking and complete. No new 
trial can be granted, as in a civil action. Your 
Lordships, however you may disapprove of the 
acquittal, have no authority to award one ; for 
there is no precedent of any such upon record ; 
and the discretion of the court is circumscribed 
by the law. Neither can the jurors be attainted 
by the Crown. ^^ In Bushel's case, Vaughan's 
Reports, page 146, that learned and excellent 
judge expressed himself thus : " There is no 
ca-se in all the law of an attaint for the King, 
nor any opinion but that of Thyrning's, 10th of 
Henry IV., title Attaint, 60 and 64, for which 
there is no warrant in law, though there be oth- 
er specious authority against it, touched by none 
that have argued this case." 

Lord Mansfield. To be sure it is so, 
Mr. Erskine. Since that is clear, my Lord, 
I shall not trouble the court further upon it. In- 
deed, I have not been able to find any one au- 
thority for such an attaint, but a dictum in Fitz- 
herbert's Natura Brevium, page 107; and on 
the other hand, the doctrine of Bushel's case is 
expressly agreed to in very modern times : vide 
Lord Raymond's Reports, vol. i., page 469. 

If, then, your Lordships reflect but for a mo- 
ment upon this comparative view of criminal and 



'^ A special verdict is one in which the jury find 
only the facts, and leave the law to be decided by 
the court. 

'^ An attaint is a writ to inquire whether a jury 
of twelve men gave a false verdict (Finch, 484), that 
so the judgment following thereupon may be re- 
versed, and the jury punished. Very few instances 
of attaints appear later than the sixteenth century. 



civil cases which I have laid before you, how can 
it be seriously contended, not merely 

, , . •' ,.~ ' , . •' Recapitulation 

that there is no diilerence, but that of n.e points uf 
there is any the remotest similarity twe"n "iTu Tna 
between them ? In the one case, the """'"''' ^'"*''- 
power of accusation begins from the court ; in 
the other, from the people only, forming a grand 
jury. In the one, the defendant must plead a 
special justification, the merits of which can only 
be decided by the judges ; in the other, he may 
throw himself for general deliverance upon his 
country. In the first, the court may award a 
new trial, if the verdict for the defendant be con- 
trary to the evidence or the law ; in the last, it 
is conclusive and unalterable. And, to crown 
the whole, the King never had that process of 
attaint which belonged to the meanest of his 
subjects. 

When these things are attentively considered, 
I might ask those who are still dis- ^ 

r 1 1 • 1 ,■ • Genernl infer- 

posed to deny the right ot the jury to ence as to the 
investigate the whole charge, whether kfcriminar^' 
such a solecism can be conceived to '^^^^' 
exist in any human government, much less in 
the most refined and exalted in the world, as 
that a power of supreme judicature should be 
conferred [on the jury] at random by the blind 
forms of the law, where no right was intended 
to pass with it, and which was upon no occa- 
sion and under no circumstance to be exercised — 
which, though exerted notwithstanding in every 
age and in a thousand instances to the confusion 
and discomfiture of fixed magistracy, should nev- 
er be checked by authorit}', but should continue 
on, from century to century, the revered guardi- 
an of liberty and of life, arresting the arm of the 
most headstrong government in the worst of 
times ; without any power in the Crown or its 
judges to touch, without its consent, the mean- 
est wretch in the kingdom, or even to ask the 
reason and principle of the verdict which acquits 
him. That such a system should prevail in a 
country like England, without either the original 
institution or the acquiescing sanction of the Leg- 
islature, is impossible. Believe me, my Lord, 
710 talents can reconcile, no authority can sanction 
such an absurdity : the common sense of the world 
revolts at it. 

Having established this important right in the 
jury, beyond all possibility of cavil or viewsof jns- 
controversy, I will now show your ^""^ *""^'*''- 
Lordships that its existence is not merely con- 
sistent with the theory of the law, but is illus- 
trated and confirmed by the universal practice 
of all judges ; not even excepting Mr. Justice 
Foster himself, whose writings have been cited 
in support of the contraiy opinion. How a man 
expresses his abstract ideas is of but little import- 
ance when an appeal can be made to his plain 
directions to others, and to his own particular 
conduct ; but even none of his expressions, when 
properly considered and understood, militate 
against my position. 

In his justly celebrated book on the Criminal 
Law, page 256, he expresses himself thus : " The 
construction which the law putteth upon fact 



662 



MR. ERSKFNE 



[1784. 



STATED AND AGREED OR FOUND by a jury, ts in 
all cases undoubtedly the proper province of the 
court.^^ Now, if the adversary is disposed to 
stop here, thoutrh the author never intended he 
His doctrine, should, as is evident from the rest of 
tbe'oCsfje, the sentence, yet I am willing to stop 
K^FoT'' "^'^^'i '^•"^' ^"^ ^^ ^^^^ '^ ^^ ^ substan- 
verUicts. tive proposition ; for the slightest at- 

tention must discover that it is not repugnant to 
any thing which I have said. Facts stated and 
agreed, or iacts found by a jury (which amount 
to the same thing), constitute a special verdict ; 
and who ever supposed that the law upon a spe- 
cial verdict was not the province of the court ? 
Where, in a trial upon a general issue, the par- 
ties choose to agree upon facts and to state them, 
or the jury choose voluntarily to find them with- 
out drawing the legal conclusion themselves, 
who ever denied that in such in.stances the court 
is to draw it ? That Foster meant nothing 
more than that the court was to judge of the 
law, when the jury thus voluntarily prays its as- 
sistance by special verdict, is evident from his 
words which follow, for he immediately goes on 
to say : " In cases of doubt and real difficulty, it is 
therefore commonly recommended to the jury to 
state facts and circumstances in a special verdict.'^ 
But neither here, nor in any other part of his 
works, is it said or insinuated that they are bound 
to do so, but at their own free discretion. In- 
deed, the very term recommended admits the con- 
trary, and requires no commentary. I am sure 
I shall never dispute the wisdom or expediency 
of such a recommendation in those cases of doubt, 
because the more I am contending for the exist- 
ence of such an important right, the less it would 
become me to be the advocate of rashness and 
precipitation in the exercise of it. It is no de- 
nial of jurisdiction to tell the greatest magistrate 
upon earth to take good counsel in cases of real 
doubt and difficulty. Judges upon trials, whose 
authority to state the law is indisputable, often 
refer it to be more solemnly argued before the 
court. And this court itself often holds a meet- 
ing of the twelve judges before it decides on a 
point upon its own records, of which the others 
have confessed no cognizance till it comes before 
them by the writ of error of one of the parties. 
These instances are monuments of wisdom, in- 
tegrity, and discretion; but they do not bear, in 
the remotest degree, upon jurisdiction. The 
sphere of jurisdiction is measured by what may 
or may not be decided by any given tribunal 
with legal effect, not by the rectitude or error 
of the decision. If the jury, according to these 
authorities, may determine the whole matter by 
their verdict, and if the verdict, when given, is 
not only final and unalterable, but must be en- 
forced by the authority of the judges, and exe- 
cuted, if resisted, by the whole power of the 
state — upon what principle of government or 
reason can it be argued not to be law? That 
the jury are in this exact predicament is con- 
fessed by Foster, for he concludes with saying 
that when the law is clear, the jury, under the di- 



they are well advised will, always find a general 
verdict conformably to such directions. 

This is likewise consistent with my position. 
If the law be clear, we may presume that the 
judge states it clearly to the jury ; and if he 
does, undoubtedly the jury, if they are well ad- 
vised, will find according to such directions. 
For they have not a capricious discretion to make 
law at their pleasure, but are bound in con- 
science, as well as judges are, to find it truly ; 
and, generally speaking, the learning of the judge 
who preside-> at the trial afiTords them a safe 
support and direction. 

The same practice of judges in stating the 
law to the jury, as applied to the „ t . 

•> •! ' ' t Case in Lord 

particular case before them, ap- Haymond .^imws 

,., . . ^, r- .1 that thp jury have 

pears likewi.se in the case of the the rigi,t of deed- 
King again.st Oneby, 2d Lord Ray- -s - to the /«... 
mond, page 1494. " On the trial the judge di- 
rects the jury thus: 'If you believe such and 
such witnesses who have sworn to such and such 
facts, the killing of the deceased appears to be with 
malice prepense ; but if you do not believe them, 
then you ought to find him guilty of manslaugh- 
ter ; and the jury may, if they think proper, give 
a general verdict of murder or manslaughter: 
but if they decline giving a general verdict, and 
will find the facts specially, the court is then to 
form their judgment from the facts found, wheth- 
er the defendant be guilty or not guilty, that is, 
whether the act was done with malice and de- 
liberation or not.' " Surely language can ex- 
press nothing more plainly or unequivocally, 
than that, where "the general issue" is pleaded 
to an indictment, the laiv and the fact are both 
before the jury ; and that the former can never 
be separated from the latter, for the judgment 
of the court, unless by their oum spontaneous act 
For the words are, " if they decline giving a gen 
eral verdict, and will find the facts specially, the 
court is then to form their judgment from the 
facts found." So that, after a general issue 
joined, the authority of the court only commen- 
ces when the jury chooses to decline the decis- 
ion of the law by a general verdict — the right 
of declining which legal determination, is a priv- 
ilege conferred on them by the statute of West- 
minster 2d, and b}' no means a restriction of 
their powers. 

But another very important view of the sub- 
ject remains behind. Supposing I had Rpi.t„„n„r 
failed in establishing that contrast be- pumentocjus- 

. . , 1 • ■! , • , tire Duller. 

tween criminal and civil cases, which 
is now too clear not only to require, but even to 
justify another observation, the argument would 
lose nothing by the failure. The similarity be- 
tween criminal and civil cases derives all its 
application to the argument from the learned 
judge's supposition, that the jurisdicticn of the 
jury over the law was never contended for in the 
latter, and consequently, on a principle of equal- 
ity, could not be supported in the former — where- 
as I do contend for it, and can incontestably es 
tablish it in both. This application of the arirn- 
ment is plain from the words of the charge : ''It 



rection of the court, in point of law may, and if \ the jury could find the law, it would undcubtedly 



17S4.] 



ON THE RIGHTS OF JURIES. 



663 



hold in civil cases as well as criminal ; but was 
it ever supposed that a jury was competent to say 
the operation of a fine, or a recovery, or a war- 
ranty, which are mere questions of law ?'"'^ 

To this question I answer, that the competen- 
cy of the jury in such cases is contended for to 
the full extent of my principle, both by Lyttle- 
ton and by Coke. They can not, indeed, decide 
upon them de piano [in the abstract, or aside from 
llie facts], which, as Vaughan truly says, is un- 
intelligible, because an unmixed question of law 
can by no possibility come before them for decis- 
ion. But whenever (which very often happens) 
the operation of a fine, a recovery, a warranty, 
or any other record or conveyance known to the 
law of England comes forward, mixed with the 
fact on the general issue, the jury have then most 
unquestionably a right to determine it. And 
what is more, no other authority possibly can ; 
because, when the general issue is permitted by 
law, these questions can not appear on the rec- 
ord for the judgment of the court, and although 
it can grant a new trial, yet the same question 
must ultimately be determined by another jury. 
This is not only self-evident to every lawyer, but, 
as I said, is expressly laid down by Lyttleton in 
the 368ih section : " Also in such case where 
the inquest may give their verdict at large, if 
they will take upon them the knowledge of the 
law upon the matter, they may give their verdict 
generally as it is put in their charge ; as in the 
case aforesaid they may well say that the lessor 
did not disseize the lessee, if they will." Coke, 
in his commentary on this action, confirms Lyt- 
tleton, saying that in doubtful cases they should 
find specially for fear of an attaint. And it is 
plain that the statute of Westminster the 2d was 
made either to give or to confirm the right of the 
jury to find the matter specialh^ leaving their 
jurisdiction over the law as it stood by the com- 
mon law. The words of the statute of West- 
minster 2d, chapter 30th, are, " Ordinatum est 
quodjustiliarii ad assisas capiendas assignati, non 
coMPELLANT juratores dicere precise si sit dissei- 
sina vel non : dummodo voluerint dicere veritatem 
facti et petcre auxiliumjustitiariorum."'^^ From 

'^ A fine was an amicable composition (originally 
of an actual, and afterward of a fictitious suit) adopt- 
ed principally as a mode of putting an end [finis) to 
all controversies respecting certain tenures or es- 
tates. A common recovery was a judgment recov- 
ered in a fictitious suit, and its principal use was to 
enable a tenant in tail to bar not only the estate 
tail, but also all remainders over, and to acquire an 
absolute estate in fee simple. Fines and recoveries 
are now abolished by 3 and 4 Wni. IV., c. 74, and 
more simple modes of assurance employed to effect 
their objects. A warranty was a covenant real an- 
nexed to lands, whereby the grantor of the estate, 
for himself and his heirs, did warrant and secure to 
the grantee the estate so granted, and covenanted 
to yield other lands and tenements equal to the val- 
ue of the estate granted, in case of the grantee be- 
ing evicted. 

'3 Be it enacted, that the justices for holding the 
assizes shall not compel the jury to say decisively 
whether there is a disseizin or not, provided they 
are willing to find the truth of the fact, and ask the 



these words it should appear that the jurisdiction 
of the jury over the law, when it came before 
them on the general issue, was so vested in them 
by the Constitution, that the exercise of it in all 
cases had been considered to be compulsory upon 
them, and that this was a legislative relief from 
that compulsion in the case of an assize of dis- 
seizin. It is equally plain, from the remaining 
words of the act, that their jurisdiction remained 
as before : " Sed si sponte velint dicere quod dis- 
seisina est vel 7ion, admittatur eorum veredictum 
sub suo periculo.''^* 

But the most material observation upon this 
statute, as applicable to the present subject, is, 
that the terror of the attaint from which it was 
passed to relieve them, having (as has been 
shown) no existence in cases of crime, the act 
only extended to relieve the jury, at their discre- 
tion, from finding the law in civil actions. Con- 
sequently, it is only from custom, and not from 
positive law, that they are not even compellable to 
give a general verdict involving a judgment of 
law on every criminal trial. 

These principles and authorities certainly es- 
tablish, that it is the duty of the judge. General ron- 
.•11 .1 1 • elusion as to 

on every trial where the general issue the duty of the 
is pleaded, to give to the jury his opin- ^j'l.t,f''J-"lie''* 
ion on the law as applied to the case J"o- 
before them ; and that they must find a general 
verdict, comprehending a judgment of law, un- 
less they choose to refer it specially to the court. 
But we are here in a case where it is con- 
tended that the duty of the judge is yei the judge, 
the direct contrary of this: that he is j" t^is case.Vo- 

. . •' ' . lates that duty 

to give no opinion at all to the ury and these rights, 

*' , , ^ ,. , , and still de- 

Upon the law as applied to the case mands a general 

before them: that they likewise are ^'^'"'^"'^ 
to refrain from all consideration of it, and yet that 
the very same general verdict, comprehending 
both fact and law, is to be given by them as if 
the whole legal matter had been summed up by 
the one, and found by the other. 

I confess I have no organs to comprehend the 
principle on which such a practice proceeds. I 
contended for nothing more at the trial than the 
very practice recommended by Foster and Lord 
Raymond. I addressed myself to the jury upon 
the law with all possible respect and deference, 
and, indeed, with very marked personal attention 
to the learned judge. So far from urging the jury 
dogmatically to think for themselves without his 
constitutional assistance, I called for his opinion on 
the question of libel. I said that if he should tell 
them distinctly the paper indicted was libelous, 
though I should not admit that they were bound 
at all events to give eflect to it if they felt it to 
be innocent, yet I was ready to agree that they 
ought not to go against the charge without great 
consideration ; but that if he should shut himself 



aid of the court. — A disseizin is the act of wrongful- 
ly depriving a person of land or certain other kinds 
of property, of which he was actually seized or in 
possession. 

'* But if they choose to say of their own accord, 
that there is or is not a disseizin, let their verdict be 
received at their own risk. 



664 



MR. ERSKINE 



11734. 



up in silence, giving no opinion at all upon the 
criminality of the paper, Ironi which alone any 
guilt could be fastened on the publisher, and 
should narrow their consideration to the publica- 
tion^ I entered my protest against their finding a 
verdict affixing the epithet of guilty to the mere 
fact of publishing a paper, the guilt of which had 
not been investigated. If, after this address to 
the jury, the learned judge had told them that in 
his opinion the paper was a libel, but still leav- 
ing it to their judgments, and likewise the defend- 
ant's evidence to their consideration, had further 
told them that he thought it did not exculpate 
the publication ; and if in consequence of such 
directions the jury had found a verdict for the 
Crown, I should never have made my present 
motion for a new trial ; because I should have 
considered such a verdict of " guilty" as founded 
upon the opinion of the jury on the whole matter 
as left to their consideration, and must have 
sought my remedy by arrest of judgment on the 
record. 

But the learned judge took a directly contrary 
course. He gave no opinion at all on the guilt 
or innocence of the paper ; he took no notice of 
the defendant's evidence of intention ; he told the 
jury, in the most explicit terms, that neither the 
one nor the other was within their jurisdiction. 
Upon the mere fact of publication^ he directed a 
general verdict comprehending the epithet of 
guilty^ after having expressly withdrawn from 
the jury every consideration of the merits of the 
paper published or the intention of the publisher, 
from which it is admitted on all hands the guilt 
of publication could alone have any existence. 

My motion is, therefore, founded upon this ob- 
Groundofmo- "v^ous and simplc principle — that the 
tiouioranew defendant has had, in fact, no trial, 

trial. . ' ' ' 

havmg been found guilty without any 
investigation of his guilty and without any power 
left to the jury to take cognizance of his inno- 
cence. I undertake to show that the jury could 
not possibly conceive or believe, from the judge's 
charge, that they had diwy jurisdiction to acquit 
him, however they might have been impressed 
even with the merit of the publication, or con- 
vinced of his meritorious intention in publishing 
it. Nay, what is worse, while the learned judge 
totally deprived them of their whole jurisdiction 
over the question of libel, and the defendant's se- 
ditious intention, he, at the same time, directed 
a general verdict of guilty, which comprehend- 
ed a judgment upon both ! 

When I put this construction on the learned 
Founded on the judgc's dircctiott, I found myself 
I'llejudT's'"'^ wholly on the language in which it 
charge. ^,q^^ commuuicatcd ; and it will be 

no answer to such construction that no such re- 
straint was meant to be conveyed by it. If the 
learned judge's intentions were even the direct 
contrary of his expression.?, yet if, in consequence 
of that which was expressed, though not intended, 
the jury were abridged of a jurisdiction which be- 
longed to them by law, and in the exercise of 
which the defendant had an interest, he is equally 
a sufferer, and the verdict given under such mis- 



conception of authority is equally void : my ap- 
plication ought, therefore, to stand or fall by the 
charge itself, upon which I disclaim all disingen- 
uous caviling. I am certainly bound to show 
that, from the general result of it, fairly and lib- 
erally interpreted, the jury could not conceive 
that they had any right to extend their consider- 
ation beyond the bare fact of publication, so as to 
acquit the defendant by a judgment on the leiial- 
ity of the Dialogue, or the honesty of the intention 
in publishing it. 

In order to understand the learned judge's di- 
rection, it must be recollected that it ivoorthattbe 



me, who had contended for nothing couMnotm-qua 
more than that these two considera- •' ''■•-.v /""ihI tue 

tact ol puulica- 

tions ought to rule the verdict ; and it ti""- 
will be seen that the charge, on the contrary, not 
only excluded both of them by general inference, 
but by expressions, arguments, and illustrations 
the most studiously selected to convey that ex- 
clusion, and to render it binding on the con- 
sciences of the jury. After telling them, in the 
very beginning of his charge, that the single 
question for their decision was, whether the de- 
fendant had published the pamphlet, he declared 
to them that it was not even allowed to him^ as the 
judge trying the cause, to say w^iether it was or 
was not a libel ; for that if he should say it was 
no libel, and they, following his direction, should 
acquit the defendant, they would thereby deprive 
the prosecutor of his wiit of error upon the rec- 
ord, which was one of his dearest birthrights. 
The law, he said, was equal between ^^ ,„,j j,,^,^ 
the prosecutor and the defendant ; that J'^'^^^l'i ti?^ 
a verdict of acquittal would close the i-arues lorbade 
matter forever, depriving him of his 
appeal ; and that whatever, therefore, was upon 
the record was not for their decision, but might 
be carried, at the pleasure of either party, to the 
House of Lords. Surely, language could not 
convey a limitation upon the right of the jury 
over the question of libel, or the intention of the 
publisher, more positive or more universal. It 
was positive, inasmuch as it held out to them 
that such a jurisdiction could not be entertained 
without injustice. It was universal, because the 
principle had no special application to the par- 
ticular circumstances of that trial ; but subject- 
ed every defendant, upon every prosecution for 
a libel, to an inevitable conviction on the mere 
proof of publishing any thing, though both judge 
and jury might be convihced that the thing pub- 
lished was innocent, and even meritorious. 

My Lord, I make this commentary without the 
hazard of contradiction from any man ^„. 

• . 1- 1 1 1- Kflectofth.s. 

whose reason is not disordered, ror 
if the prosecutor, in every case, has a birthright 
by law to have the question of libel left oi)en 
upon the record, which it can only be by a ver- 
dict of conviction on the single fact of publishing ; 
no legal right can at the same time exist in the 
jury to shut out that question by a verdict of ac- 
quittal founded upon the merits of the publica- 
tion, or the innocent mind of the publisher. 
Rights that are repugnant and contradictory can 



1784.] 



ON THE RIGHTS OF JURIES. 



665 



not be coexistent. The jury can never have a 
constitutional right to do an act beneficial to the 
defendant which, when done, deprives the pros- 
ecutor of a right which the same Constitution has 
vested in him. No right can belong to one per- 
son, the exex'cise of which, in every instance^ must 
necessarily work a wrong to another. If the 
prosecutor of a libel has, in every instance, the 
privilege to try the merits of his prosecution be- 
fore the judges, the jury can have no right, in 
any instance, to preclude his appeal to them, by 
a general verdict for the defendant. 

The jury, therefore, from this part of the 
charge, must necessarily have felt themselves ab- 
solutely limited (I might say even in their pow- 
ers) to the fact of publication ; because the high- 
est restraint upon good men is to convince them 
that they can not break loose from it without in- 
justice ; and the power of a good subject is nev- 
er more effectually destroyed than when he is 
made to believe that the exercise of it will be a 
breach of his duty to the public, and a violation 
of the laws of his country. 

But since equal justice between the prosecutor 
and the defendant is the pretense for 

This pretense „..,.'. 

of equality ex- this abridgment of jurisdiction, let us 
examine a little how it is affected by 
it. Do the prosecutor and the defendant really 
stand upon an equal footing bv this mode of pro- 
ceeding ? With what decency this can be al- 
leged, I leave those to answer who know that it 
is only by the indulgence of Mr. Bearcroft, of 
counsel for the prosecution, that my reverend cli- 
ent is not at this moment in prison, while we are 
discussing this notable equality !'^ Besides, my 
Lord, the judgment of this court, though not final 
in the Constitution, and therefore not binding on 
the prosecutor, is absolutely conclusive on the 
defendant. If your Lordships pronounce the rec- 
ord to contain no libel, and arrest the judgment 
on the verdict, the prosecutor may carry it to the 
House of Lords, and, pending his writ of error. 
It remains untouched by your Lordship's decis- 
ion. But if judgment be against the defendant, 
it is only at the discretion of the Crown (as it is 
said), and not of right, that he can prosecute any 
writ of error at all. And even if he finds no ob- 
struction in that quarter, it is but at the best an 
appeal for the benefit of public liberty, from which 
he himself can have no personal benefit; for the 
writ of error being no supersedeas, the punish- 
ment is inflicted on him in the mean time. In 
the case of Mr. Horne,^*' this court imprisoned 
him for publishing a libel upon its own judgment, 
pending his appeal from its justice : and he had 
suflTered the utmost rigor which the law imposed 
upon him as a criminal, at the time that the House 



" Lord Mansfield ordered the Dean to be commit- 
ted to prison on tbe motion for the new trial, and 
said he had no discretion to sufter him to be at large, 
witbout consent, after bis appearance in court, on 
conviction. Upon which, Mr. Bearcroft gave his 
consent that the Dean should remain at large upon 
bail. 

16 Afterward Mr. Home Tooke. For the circum- 
stances of that case, see note 28 of this speech. 



of Lords, with the assistance of the twelve judges 
of England, were gravely assembled to determ- 
ine whether he had been guilty of any crime. I 
do not mention this case as hard or rigorous on 
Mr. Home as an individual — it is the general 
course of practice ; but surely that practice ought 
to put an end to this argument of equality be- 
tween prosecutor and prisoner ! It is adding in- 
sult to injury, to tell an innocent man who is in 
a dungeon, pending his writ of error, and of whose 
innocence both judge and jury were convinced at 
the trial, that he is in equal scales with his pros- 
ecutor, who is at large, because he has an oppor- 
tunity of deciding, after the expiration of his pun- 
ishment, that the prosecution had been unfounded 
and his suflTerings unjust. By parity of reason- 
ing, a prisoner in a capital case might be hanged 
in the mean time, for the benefit of equal justice, 
leaving his executors to fight the battle out with 
his prosecutor upon the record, through every 
court in the kingdom ; by which at last his at- 
tainder might be reversed, and the blood of his 
posterity remain uncorrupted. What justice can 
be more impartial or equal? 

So much for this right of the prosecutor of a 
libel to compel a jury, in every case, generally to 
convict a defendant on the fact of publication, or 
to find a special verdict — a right unheard of be- 
fore since the birth of the Constitution — not even 
founded upon any equality in fact, even if such a 
shocking parity could exist in law, and not even 
contended to exist in any other case, where pri- 
vate men become the prosecutors of crimes for 
the ends of public justice. It can have, gen- 
erally speaking, no existence in any prosecution 
for felony ; because the general description of the 
crime in such indictments, for the most part, 
shuts out the legal question in the particular in- 
stance from appearing on the record. For the 
same reason, it can have no place even in appeals 
of death, &c., the only cases where prosecutors 
appear as the revengers of their own private 
wrongs, and not as the representatives of the 
Crown. 

The learned judne proceeded next to establish 
the same universal limitation upon the Ti.e judge also 
power of the jury, from the history timt e ' tal'iiiiied 
of different trials, and the practice of l^fe^S to"' 
former judges who presided at them ; ^'"' "'r'"'"n';.^*- 

, .. y ' ' ti"i' "( publica- 

and while I am complaining of what t;oii. 
I conceive to be injustice, I must take care not 
to be unjust myself. I certainly do not. nor ever 
did, consider the learned judge's misdirection in 
his charge to be peculiar to himself. It was only 
the resistance of the defendant's evidence, and 
what passed after the jury returned into court 
with the verdict, that I ever considered to be a 
departure from all precedents. The rest had un- 
doubtedly the sanction of several modern cases ; 
and I wish, therefore, to be distinctly under- 
stood that I partly found my motion for a new 
trial in opposition to these decisions. It is my 
duty to speak with deference of all the judgments 
of this court ; and I feel an additional respect for 
some of those I am about to combat, because they 
are your Lordship's ; but, comparing them with 



666 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1784. 



the judgments of your predecessors for ages, 
which is the highest evidence of English law, I 
must be forgiven if I presume to question their 
authority. 

My Lord, it is necessary that I should take 
Discussion of notice of some of them as they occur 
precedenu. ^^ jj^g leamcd judge's charge. For, 
although he is not responsible for the rectitude of 
those precedents which he only cited in support 
of it, yet the defendant is unquestionably entitled 
to a new trial, if their principles are not ratified 
by the court ; for whenever the learned judge 
cited precedents to warrant the limitation on the 
province of the jury imposed by his own author- 
ity, it was such an adoption of the doctrines they 
contained as made them a rule to the jury in their 
decision. 

First, then, the learned judge, to overturn my 
(i.)LorJMans- argument with the jury for their ju- 
fieid's decisions, rigdictiou ovcr the whole charge, op- 
posed your Lordship's established practice for 
eight-and-twenty years ; and the weight of this 
great authority was increased by the general 
manner in which it was stated ; for I find no ex- 
pressions of your Lordship's, in any of the report- 
ed cases, which go the length contended for. I 
find the practice, indeed, fully warranted by them ; 
but I do not meet with the principle, which can 
alone vindicate that practice, fairly and distinctly 
avowed. 

The learned judge then referred to the charge 
{%) Lord Ray- o^ Chicf Justicc Raymond, in the case 
mond's. of the King and Franklin, in which the 

universal limitation contended for is, indeed, laid 
down, not only in the most unequivocal expres- 
sions, but the ancient jurisdiction of juries, rest- 
ing upon all the authorities I have cited, treated 
as a ridiculous notion which had been just taken 
up, a little before the year 1731, and which no 
man living had ever dreamed of before. The 
learned judge observed, that Lord Raymond stat- 
ed to the jury on Franklin's trial that there were 
three questions : the first was, the fact of pub- 
lishing the " Craftsman ;" secondly, whether the 
averments in the information were true ; but that 
the third, viz., whether it was a libel, was merely 
a question of law, with which the jury had noth- 
ing to do, as had been then of late thought by 
some people who ought to have known better. 
This direction of Lord Raymond's was fully rat- 
ified and adopted in all its extent, and given to 
the jury on the present trial, with several others 
of the same import, as an unerring guide for their 
conduct. And surely human ingenuity could not 
frame a more abstract and universal limitation 
upon their right to acquit the defendant by a gen- 
eral verdict: for Lord Raymond's expressions 
amount to an absolute denial of the right of the 
jury to find the defendant not guilty, if the publi- 
cation and innuendos are proved. " Libel or no 
libel, is a question of law, with which you, the 
jury, have nothing to do." How, then, can they 
have any right to give a general verdict consist- 
ently with this declaration? Can any man in 
his senses collect that he has a right to decide 
on that with which he has nothing to do ? But 



it is needless to comment on these expressions, 
for the jury were likewise told by the learned 
judge [BuUer] himself that, if they believed the 
fact of publication, they were bowid to find the 
defendant guilty ; and it will hardly be contended 
that a man has a right to refrain from doing that 
which he is bound to do. 

Mr. Cowper, as counsel for the prosecution 
[against the Dean of St. Asaphl took _ , ,. . 

■• * 'I Explanation of 



, tlie counsel for 

and 1 seek tor no ti.e prosecu- 
" The learned 



by this expression ; 
other construction : 
judge," said he, " did not mean to deny the right 
of the jury, but only to convey that there was a 
religious and moral obligation upon them to re 
frain from the exercise of it." Now — if the 
principle which imposed that obligation had been 
alleged to be special, applying only to the partic- 
ular case of the Dean of St. Asaph, and conse- 
quently consistent with the right of the jury to a 
more enlarged jurisdiction in other instance.s — 
telling the jury that they were bound to convict, 
on proof of publication, might be plausibly con- 
strued into a recommendation to refrain from the 
exercise of their right in that case, and not to a 
general denial of its existence. But the moment 
it is recollected that the principle which bound 
them was not particular to the instance, but ab- 
stract and universal, binding alike in every pio.s- 
ecution for a libel, it requires no logic to pro- 
nounce the expression to be an absolute, un- 
equivocal, and universal denial of the right. 
Common sen.se tells every man that to speak of 
a person's right to do a thing, which yet, in ev- 
ery possible instance where it might be exerted 
he is religiously and morally bound not to exert, 
is not even sophistry, but downright vulgar non- 
sense. But the jury were not only limited by 
these modern precedents, which certainly have 
an existence, but were, in my mind, limited with 
still greater effect by the learned judge's decla- 
ration, that some of those ancient authorities on 
which I had principally relied for the establish- 
ment of their jurisdiction, had not mereh' been 
overruled, but were altogether inapplicable. I 
particularly observed how much ground I lost 
with the jury, when they were told from the 
bench that even in Bushel's case, on which I had 
so greatly depended, the very reverse of my doc- 
trine had been expressly established — the court 
having said unanimously in that case, according 
to the learned judge's statement, that if the jury 
be asked what the law is, they can not say, and 
having likewise ratified in express terms the 
maxim, ^d qucestioncm Icgis non respondent ju- 
rat ores}'' 

My Lord, this declaration from the bench, 
which I confess not a little stairgered „ , „ 
and surprised me, rendered it niydu- misstated by 

', . . ^r y , Justice Duller. 

ty to look airain into v aughan, where 
Bushel's case is reported. I have })crforraed that 
duty, and now take upon me positively to say 
that the words of Lord Chief Justice Vaughan, 
which the learned judge considered as a judge 



'■^ The jury do not decide the question of law. 



1784.1 



ON THE RIGHTS OF JURIES. 



667 



ment of the court, denying the jurisdiction of the 
jury over the law, where a general issue is joined 
before them, were, on the contrary, made use of 
by that learned and excellent person to expose 
the fallaaj of such a misapplication of the max- 
im alluded to by the counsel against Bushel ; de- 
claring that it had no reference to any case where 
the law and the fact were incorporated by the 
plea of not guilty, and confirming the right of 
the jury to find the law upon every such issue, in 
terms the most emphatical and expressive. This 
is manifest from the whole report. 

Bushel, one of the jurors on the trial of Penn 
statementof ^■"d Mead, had been committed by the 
tue case. court for finding the defendant not guil- 
ty, against the direction of the court in matter of 
law ; and being brought before the court of Com- 
mon Pleas by habeas corpus^ this cause of com- 
mitment appeared upon the face of the return to 
the writ. It was contended by the counsel 
against Bushel, upon the authority of this max- 
im, that the commitment was legal, since it ap- 
peared by the return that Bushel had taken upon 
him to find the law against the direction of the 
judge, and had been, therefore, legally impris- 
oned for that contempt. It was upon that occa- 
sion that Chief Justice Vaughan, with the con- 
currence of the whole court, repeated the max- 
im, jld qucEStionem legis non respondent juratorcs, 
as cited by the counsel for the Crown, but de- 
nied the application of it to impose any restraint 
upon jurors trying any crime upon the general 
issue. His language is too remarkable to be for- 
gotten, and too plain to be misunderstood. Tak- 
ing the words of the return to the habeas corpus, 
viz., " That the jury did acquit against the direc- 
tion of the court in matter of law'' — " These 
words," said this great lawyer, "taken literally 
and de piano, are insignificant and unintelligible ; 
for no issue can be joined of matter of law ; no 
jury can be charged with the trial of matter of 
law. barely. No evidence ever was or can be 
given to a jury of what is law or not ; nor any 
oath given to a jury to try matter of law alone ; 
nor can any attaint lie for such a false oath. 
Therefore we must take off this vail and color of 
words, which make a show of being something, 
but are in fact nothing; for if the meaninir of 
these words, ' Finding against the direction of 
the court in matter of law,'' be, that if the judge, 
having heard the evidence given in court (for he 
knows no other), shall tell the jury, upon this ev- 
idence, that the law is for the plaintiff or the de- 
fendant, and they, under the pain of fine and im- 
prisonment, are to find accordingly, every one 
sees that the jury is but a troublesome delay, 
great charge, and of no use in determining right 
and wrong ; which were a strange and new-found 
conclusion, after a trial so celebrated for many- 
hundreds of years in this country." 

Lord Chief Justice Vaughan's argument is, 
vau^i.Ws therefore, plainly this: Advening to the 
nr-iiment. argumcnts of the counsel, he says, " You 
talk of the maxim ad qucestionem legis non re- 
spondent juratores, but it has no sort of applica- 
tion to your subject. The words of your return. 



viz., that Bushel did acquit against the direction 
of the court in matter of law, are unintelligible, 
and, as applied to the case, impossible. The jury 
could not Idc asked, in the abstract, what was the 
law; they could not have an issue of the law 
joined before them ; they could not be sworn to 
try it. Ad qucestionem legis non respondent ju- 
ratores ; therefore, to say literally and de piano 
that the jury found the law against the judge's 
direction, is absurd. They could not be in a sit- 
uation to find it — an unmixed question of law 
could not be before them — the judge could not 
give any positive directions of law upon the 
trial, for the law can only arise out of facts, and 
the judge can not know what the facts are till 
the jury have giv^en their verdict. There- 
fore," continued the Chief Justice, "let us take 
off this vail and color of words, which make a 
show of being something, but are in fact nothing; 
let us get rid of the fallacy of applying a max- 
im, which truly describes the jurisdiction of the 
courts over issues of law, to destroy the jurisdic- 
tion of jurors, in cases where law and fact are 
blended together upon a trial ; since, if the jury 
at the trial are bound to receive the law from 
the judge, every one sees that it is a mere mock- 
ery, and of no use in determining right and 
wrong." 

This is the plain common sense of the argu- 
ment ; and it is impossible to suggest a distinc- 
tion between its a()plication to Bushel's case and 
to the present, except that the right of imprison- 
ing the jurors was there contended for, in order 
to enforce obedience to the directions of the 
judge. But this distinction, if it deserves the 
name, though held up by Mr. Bearcroft as very 
important, is a distinction without a difference. 
For if, according to Vaughan, the free agency 
of the jury over the whole charge, uncontrolled 
by the judge's direction, constitutes the whole 
of that ancient mode of trial, it signifies nothing 
by what means that free agency is destroyed ; 
whether by the imprisonment of conscience or 
of body ; by the operation of their virtues or of 
their fears. Whether they decline exerting their 
jurisdiction, from being told that the exertion of 
it is a contempt of religious and moral order, or 
a contempt of the court punishable by imprison- 
ment, their jurisdiction is equally taken awa3^ 

My Lord, I should be very sorry improperly 
to waste the time of the court; but I uestatPinent: 
can not help repeating once again, f,',^t t^j „!;'"' 
that if, in consequence of the learned »■■'•''■ 
judge's directions, the jury, from a just defer- 
ence to learninfT and authority, from a nice and 
modest sense of duty, felt themselves not at lib- 
erty to deliver the defendant from the whole in- 
dictment, HE HAS NOT BEEN TRIED. BccaUSC, 

though he was entitled by law to plead gener- 
ally that he was not guilty, though he did, in fact, 
plead it accordingly, and went down to trial upon 
it, the jury have not been permitted to try that 
issue, but have been directed to find, at all events, 
a general verdict of guilty, with a positive in- 
junction not to investigate the guilt, or even to 
listen to any evidence of innocence. 



668 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1784. 



My Lord, I can not help contrasting this trial 
Argument with that of Coloncl Gordon's but a 
B'uiief/BHron few scssions past in London. I had 
i^^iire*case of'" ^" ^Y ^'^"^ ^ut this momcnt an ac- 
Gordon. curatc notc of Mr. Baron Eyre's 

charge to the jury on that occasion ; but I will 
not detain the court by looking for it among my 
papers, because I believe I can correctly repeat 
the substance of it. 

Lord Mansfield. The case of the King against 
Cosmo Gordon ? 

Mr. Erskine. Yes, my Lord : Colonel Gordon 
statement was indictcd for the murder of General 
of the case, ^homas, whoni he had killed in a duel, 
and the question was whether, if the jury were 
satisfied of that fact, the prfsoner was to be con- 
victed of murder ? That was, according to Fos- 
ter, as much a question of law as libel or no li- 
bel, but Mr. Baron Eyre did not, therefore, feel 
himself at liberty to withdraw it from the jury. 
After stating (greatly to his honor) the hard con- 
dition of the prisoner, who was brought to trial 
for life in a case where the positive law and the 
prevailing manners of the times were so strongly 
in opposition to one another, that he was afraid 
the punishment of individuals would never be 
able to beat down an offense so sanctioned, he 
addressed the jury nearly in these words : " Nev- 
ertheless, gentlemen, I am bound to declare to 
you what the law is as applied to this case, in 
all the different views in which it can be consid- 
ered by you upon the evidence. Of this law and 
of the facts as you shall find them, your verdict 
must be compounded ; and I persuade myself that 
it will be such an one as to give satisfaction to 
your own consciences." 

Now, if Mr. Bai-on Eyre, instead of telling the 
jury that a duel, however fair and honorably 
fought, was mui-der by the law of England, and, 
leaving them to find a general verdict under that 
direction, had said to them, that whether such a 
duel was murder or manslaughter, was a ques- 
tion with which neither he nor they had any 
thing to do, and on which he should, therefore, 
deliver no opinion, and had directed them to find 
that the prisoner was truilty of killing the de- 
ceased in a deliberate duel, telling them that the 
court would settle the rest, that would have been 
directly consonant to the case of the Dean of St. 
Asaph's. By this direction the prisoner would 
have been in the hands of the court, and the 
judges, not the jury, w^ould have decided upon 
the life of Colonel Gordon. 

But the two learned judges differ most essen- 
tially indeed. Mr. Baron Eyre con- 
betwf-en Kjre ccivcs huTfiselt bound m duty to state 
the law as applied to the particular 
facts, and to leave it to the jury. Mr. Justice 
Buller says he is not bound, nor even allowed so 
to state or apply it, and withdraws it entirely 
from their consideration. Mr. Baron Eyre tells 
the jury that their verdict is to be compounded 
of the fact and the law. Mr. Justice Buller, on 
the contrary, that it is to be confined to the fact 
onl}'^, the law being the exclusive province of the 
court. My Lord, it is not for me to settle dif- 



ferences of opinion between the judges of En- 
gland, nor to pronounce which of them is wrong ; 
but since they are contradictory and inconsistent, 
I may hazard the assertion that they can not 
both be right. The authorities which I have 
cited, and the general sense of mankind which 
settles every thing else, must determine the rest. 

My Lord, I come now to a very important 
part of the case, untouched, I believe, before in 
any of the arguments on this occasion. 

I mean to contend that the learned judge's 
charge to the jury can not be sup- j,,,,,,^^,,^ 
ported even upon its own principles, wrong in h.s 

T-i . , ^ r ■ charge, even 

b or, supposmg the court to be ot opm- on hiy own 
ion that all I have said in opposition i"''"'^'p''^^ 
to these principles is inconclusive, and that the 
question of libel, and the intention of the pub- 
lisher, were properly withdrawn from the con- 
sideration of the jury, still I think I can make it 
appear that such a judgment would only render 
the misdirection more palpable and striking. 

I may safely assume that the learned judge 
must have meant to direct the jury Everv veniict 
either to find a general or a special ;;r;,';;,o;'"' 
verdict; or, to speak more generally, ^p^^""'^- 
that one of these two verdicts must be the ob- 
ject of every charge ; because I venture to af- 
firm that neither the records of the courts, the 
reports of their proceedings, nor the writings of 
lawyers, furnish any account of a third. There 
can be no middle verdict between both : the jury 
must either try the whole issue generally, or find 
the facts specially, referring the legal conclusion 
to the court. 

I may affirm, with certainty, that the general 
verdict ex vi termini is universally as v.very ,ce„erai 
comprehensive as the issue, and that, breM',e«ensiVe 
consequently, such a verdict on an with tiie issue. 
indictment, upon the general issue " not guilty," 
universally and unavoidably involves a judgment 
of law as well as fact, because the charge 
comprehends both, and the verdict, as has been 
said, is coextensive with it. Both Coke and 
Lyttleton give this precise definition of a general 
verdict ; for they both say, that if the jury will 
find the law, they may do it by a general ver- 
dict, which is ever as large as the issue. If this 
be so, it follows by necessary consequence that 
if the judge means to direct the jury to find gen- 
erally against a defendant, he must leave to their 
consideration every thing which goes to the con- 
stitution of such a general verdict, and is there- 
fore bound to permit them to come to, and to 
direct them how to form, that general conclu- 
sion from the law and the fact, which is in- 
volved in the term "guilty." For it is ridicu- 
lous to say that guilty is a. fact ; it is a conclu- 
sion of law from a fact, and therefore can have 
no place in a special verdict, where the legal 
conclusion is by the court. 

In this case the defendant is charged, not with 
having published this pamphlet^ but The issue in t).is 

.,','. 1 ,. , 1 \ ■ case was not the 

With having published a certain mere nict of pub- 
false, scandalous, and wicked libel, dr,in2"s'o'''w,i'ifa 
with a seditious and libelous inten- I'^eioim intent. 
tion. He pleads that he is not guilty in manner 



1784.] 



ON THE RIGHTS OF JURIES. 



669 



and form as he is accused ; which plea is admit- 
ted on all hands to be a denial of the whole 
charge, and consequently does not merely put in 
issue the fact of publishing the pamphlet, but 
the truth of the whole indictment, that is, the 
publication of the libel set forth in it, with the 
intention charged by it. When this issue comes 
down for trial, the jury must either find the 
whole charge or a part of it ; and admitting, for 
argument' sake, that the judge has a right to 
dictate either of these two courses, he is un- 
doubtedly bound in law to make his direction to 
the jury conformable to the one or the other. 
If he means to contine the jury to the fact of 
publishing, considering the guilt of the defend- 
ant to be a legal conclusion for the court to 
draw from that fact, specially found on the rec- 
ord, he ought to direct the jury to find that fact 
without ailixing the epithet of " guilty" to the 
finding. But if he will have a general verdict 
of "guilty," which involves a judgment of law 
as well as fact, he must leave the law to the 
consideration of the jury. For when the word 
"guilty" is pronounced by them, it is so well 
understood to comprehend every thing charged 
by the indictment, that the associate or his clerk 
instantly records that the defendant is guilty '" in 
manner and form as he is accused" — that is, not 
simply that he has published the pamphlet con- 
tained in the indictment, but that he is guilty of 
publishing the libel with the wicked intentions 
charged on him by the record. 

Now, if this effect of a general verdict of 
Effect of a sen. " guilty" is reflected on for a mo- 
%tii,7la suc\L ment, the illegality of directing one 
^''^'^- upon the bare fact of publishing, will 

appear in the most glaring colors. The learned 
judge says to the jury, " Whether this be a libel 
is not for your consideration. I can give no opin- 
ion on that subject without injustice to the pros- 
ecutor ; and as to what Mr. Jones swore '*^ con- 
cerning the defendant's motives for the publica- 
tion, that is likewise not before you ; for if you 
are satisfied in point of fact that the defendant 
published this pamphlet, you are bound to find 
him guilty.'''' Why guiltv, my Lord, when the 
consideration of guilt is withdrawn ? He con- 
fines the jury to the finding of a fact, and enjoins 
them to leave the legal conclusion from it to the 



1^ Mr. Edward Jones was called for the defense, 
and deposed that he was ameniber of the Flintshire 
Committee ; that it was intended by them to print 
the Dialogue in Welsh; that the Deau said he had 
received the pamphlet so late from Sir William 
Jones that he had not had time to read it ; that he 
told the Dean that he had collected the opinions of 
gentlemen, which were, that it might do harm; and 
that, thereupon, the Dean told him that he was 
obliged to him for his information ; that he should 
be sorry to publish any thing that tended to sedi- 
tion ; and it was for that reason that it was not pub- 
lished in Welsh. He further stated that it was not 
till after the Dialogue had been spoken of in very 
opprobrious terms, and the Dean's character reflect- 
ed on, that the Dean stated he felt bound to show 
that it was not seditious, and therefore determined 
to publish it. 



court. Yet, instead of directing them to make 
that fact the subject of a special verdict, he de- 
sires them in the same breath to find a general 
one — to draw the conclusion without any atten- 
tion to the premises ; to pronounce a verdict 
which, upon the face of the record, includes a 
j judgment upon their oaths that the paper is a 
libel, and that the publisher's intentions in pub- 
lishing it were wicked and seditious, although 
neither the one nor the other made any part of* 
their consideration ! My Lord, such a verdict 
is a monster in law, without precedent in former 
times, or root in the Constitution. If it be true, 
on the principle of the charge itself, that the fact 
of publication was all that the jury were to find, 
and all that was necessary to establish the de- 
fendant's guilt — if the thing published be a libel, 
why was not that lact found, like all other facts, 
upon special verdicts? Why was an epithet, 
which is a legal conclusion from the fact, extort- 
I ed from a jury who were restrained from form- 
! ing it themselves? The verdict must be taken 
to be general or special : if general, it has found 
I the whole issue without a coextensive examina- 
tion : if special, the \vord ''guilty," which is a 
'' conclusion from facts, can have no place in it. 
: Either this word '"guilty" is operative, or unes- 
1 sential ; an epithet of substance, or of form. It 
' is impossible to controvert that proposition, and 
j I give the gentlemen their choice of the alterna- 
tive. If they admit it to be operative and of 
j real substance — or, to speak more plainly, that 
I the fact of publication found specially., without 
I the epithet of "guilty," would have been an im- 
I perfect verdict, inconclusive of the defendant's 
i guilt, and on which no judgment could have fol- 
j lowed — then it is impo.ssible to deny that the de- 
j fendant has suffered injustice. For such an ad- 
j mi-ssion confesses that a criminal conclusion from 
j a fact has been obtained from the jury, without 
j permitting them to exercise that judgment which 
I might have led them to a conclusion of inno- 
I cence : and that the word " guilty" has been ob- 
1 tained from them at the trial as a mere matter 
I (ifforni, although the verdict without it, stating 
j only the fact of publication which they were di- 
I rected to find, to which they thought the finding 
alone enlarged, and beyond which they had nev- 
er enlarged their inquiry, would have been an 
absolute verdict of acquittal. If, on the other 
hand, to avoid this insuperable objection to the 
j charge, the word "guilty" is to be reduced to a 
mere word of form, and it is to be contended 
! that the fact of publication, found specially, 
would have been tantamoimt ; be it so. Let the 
verdict be so recorded; let the word "guilty" 
be expunged from it, and I instantly sit down. 
I trouble your Lordships no further. I withdraw 
my motion for a new trial, and I will maintain, 
in arrest of judgment, that the Dean is not con- 
victed. But if this is not conceded to me, and 
the word "guilty," though argued to be but 
form, and though, as such, obtained from the 
jury, is still preserved upon the record, and 
made use of against the defendant as substance, 
it will then become us (independently of all con- 



670 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1784. 



siderations as lawyers) to consider a little how 
that artrument is to be made consistent with the 
honor of gentlemen, or that fairness of dealing 
which can not but have place wherever justice is 
administered. 

But in order to establish that the word " guil- 
TLe word guilty if is a word of essential substance ; 
one'^l^meJJrorm that the vcrdict would have been im- 
facuD'fn'T Pei-fcct without it ; and that, there- 
iptcia/ verdict, forc. the defendant suffers by its in- 
sertion ; I undertake to show your I^ordship, 
upon every principle and authority of law, that 
if the fact of publication (which is all that was 
left to the jury) had been found by special ver- 
dict, no judgment could have been given on it. 
My Lord, I will try this by taking the fullest 
finding which the facts in evidence could possibly 
have warranted. Supposing, then, for instance, 
that the jury had found that the defendant pub- 
lished the paper according to the tenor of the in- 
dictment ; that it was written of and concerning 
the King and his government ; and that the innu- 
endoes were likewise as averred, K. meaning the 
present King, and P. the present Parliament of 
Great Britain ; on such a finding, no judgment 
could have been given by the court, even if the 
record had contained a complete charge of a li- 
bel. No princi[)le is more unquestionable, than 
that to warrant any judgment upon a special 
verdict, the court which can presume nothing 
that is not visible on the record, must see .suffi- 
cient matter upon the face of it, which, if taken 
to be true, is conclusive of the defendant's guilt. 
They must be able to say, " If this record be true, 
the defendant can not he innocent of the crime 
which it charges on him." But from the facts 
of such a verdict the court could arrive at no such 
legitimate conclusion ; for it is admitted on all 
hands, and, indeed, expressly laid down by your 
Lordship, in the case of the King against Wood- 
fall, that the publication even of a libel is not con- 
clusive evidence of guilt ; for that the defendant 
may give evidence of an innocent publication.^^ 
Looking, therefore, upon a record containing 
a ffood indictment of a libel, and a 

The word g-»i7(.y, i- ^ c r .\. ^ ^\. j r j * 

therefore, essen- vcrdict findmg that thc delcndant 

tialtoconvicUon. p.^^lj^hed it, but withoUt the Cpithct 

of " guilt}'-," the court could not pronounce that 
he published it with the malicious intention which 
is the essence of the crime. ^" They could not 
say what might have passed at the trial ; for any 
thing that appeared to them, he might have giv- 
en such evidence of innocent motive, necessity, 
or mistake, as might have amounted to excuse 
or justification. They would say that the facts 

19 Lord Mansfield's words were, "There may be 
cases where the fact of the publication even of a libel, 
may be justified, or excused as lawful or innocent; 
for no fact which is not criminal, even though the 
paper be a libel, can amount to a publication of 
which a defendant ought to be found guilty. 

20 A libel is defined to be a malicious defamation 
expressed in printing, or writing, or by signs and 
pictures, &c., tending to injure the reputation of aji 
other, and thereby exposing such person to public 
hatred, contempt, or ridicule. 



stated upon the verdict w^ould have been fully 
sufficient, in the absence of a legal defense, to 
have warranted the judge to have directed, and 
the jury to have given a general verdict of guil- 
ty, comprehending the intention which constitutes 
the crime ; but that to warrant the bench, which 
is ignorant of every thing at the trial, to presume 
that intention, and thereupon to pronounce judg- 
ment on the record, the jury must not merely 
find full evidence of the crime, but such facts as 
compose its legal definition. This wise princi- 
ple is supported by authorities which are perfect- 
ly familiar. 

If, in action of trover,^^ the plaintiff proves 
property in himself, possession in the 
defendant, and a demand and refusal of special ver- 
of the thing charged to be converted ; '^"^'' 
this evidence unanswered is full proof of a con- 
version ; and if the defendant could not show to 
the jury why he had refused to deliver the plain- 
tiff's property on a legal demand of it, the judge 
would direct them to find him guilty of the con- 
version. But on the same facts found by spe- 
cial verdict, no judgment could be given by the 
court. The judges would say, '' If the special 
verdict contains the whole of the evidence given 
at the trial, the jury should have found the de- 
fendant guilty ; for the conversion was fully 
proved ; but we can not declare these facts to 
amount to a conversion, for the defendant's in- 
tention was a fact which the jury should have 
found from the evidence, over which we have 
no jurisdiction." So, in the case put by Lord 
Coke — I believe in his first Institute 115 — if a 
modus is found to have existed beyond memory 
till within thirty years before the trial, the court 
can not, upon such facts found by special verdict, 
pi'onounce against the modus :^^ but any one of 
your Lordships vk'ould tell the jury, that upon 
such evidence they were warranted in finding 
against it. In all cases of prescription, the uni- 
versal practice of judges is to direct juries, by 
analogy to the statute of limitations, to decide 
against incorporeal rights, which for many years 
have been relinquished; but such modern relin- 
quishments, if stated upon the record by special 
verdict, would in no instance warrant a judgment 
against any prescription. The prin- „ . . , 

? , P i \rr ■ i_ • 1 Pniiriple on 

ciple of the dinerence is obvious and which the dia- 
universal. The court lookinij at a rec- 



tinrtion rests. 



^' Trover is an action which may be maintained 
by any person who has either an absohite or special 
property in goods, for recovering the value of such 
goods from another, who having, or being supposed 
to have, obtained possession of such goods by lawful 
means, has wrongfully converted them to his own use. 

=*2 A modus decimandi [mode of taking tithes], 
commonly called a modus only, is where there is, by 
custom, a particular manner of titliing allowed, dif- 
ferent from the general law of taking tithes in kind, 
which are the actual tenth part of the annual in- 
crease. By 2 and 3 Wm. IV., c. 100, the time re- 
quired to establish a modus is now much shortened ; 
but previously to tliis act, a modus, to be good, must 
have been proved to have existed from the time of 
legal memory, that is, from the first year of Richard 
the First, a!d. 1189. 



178-i.] 



ON THE RIGHTS OF JURIES. 



671 



Decided in Hu§ 
gins's CHse tliat 
whenever inien 
(ion euterd iiito 
tlie cliarj;e it is 
involved ;;i tlie 
verdict of guilty. 



ord can presume nothing ; it has nothing to do 
with reasonable probabilities, but is to establish 
legal certainties by its judgments. Every crime 
is, like every other complex idea, capable of a 
legal definition. If all the component parts 
which go to its formation are put as facts upon 
the record, the court can pronounce the perpe- 
trator of them a criminal ; but if any of them are 
wanting, it is a chasm in fact, and can not be sup- 
plied. Wiierever intention goes to 
the essence of the charge, it must be 
found by the Jury — it must be either 
C07nprehendcd under the word guilty 
in the general verdict, or specifical- 
ly found as a fact by the special verdict. This 
was solemnly decided by the court in Huggins's 
ease, in 2d Lord Raymond, 1581, which was a 
special verdict of murder from the Old Bailey. 
It was an indictment against John Hnggins and 
James Barnes, for the murder of Edward Arne. 
The indictment charged that Barnes made an as- 
sault upon Edward A.rne, being in the custody 
of the other prisoner Huggins, and detained him 
for six weeks in a room newly built over the com- 
mon sewer of the prison, where he languished 
and died ; the indictment further charged, that 
Barnes and Huggins well knew that the room 
was unwholesome and dangerous ; the indict- 
ment then charged that the prisoner Huggins, 
of his malice aforethought, was present, aiding 
and abetting Barnes to commit the murder afore- 
said. This was the substance of the indictment. 
The special verdict found that Huggins was 
warden of the Fleet by letters patent ; that the 
other prisoner Barnes was servant to Huggins, 
deputy in the care of all the prisoners, and of 
the deceased, a prisoner there. That the pris- 
oner Barnes, on the 7th of September, put the 
deceased Arne in a room over the common sew- 
er, which had been newly built, knowing it to be 
newly built and damp, and situated as laid in the 
indictment ; and that, fifteen days before the pris- 
oner's death, Huggins likewise ivell knew that the 
room ivas new built, damp, and situated as laid. 
They found that, fifteen days before the death of 
the prisoner. Huggins was present in the room, 
and saw him there under duress of imprisonment, 
but then and there turned away, and Barnes 
locked the door, and that from that time till his 
death the deceased remained locked up. 

It was argued before the twelve judges, in 
Sergeants' Inn, whether Huggins was guilty of 
murder. It was agreed that he was not answer- 
able criminally, for the act of his deputy, and 
could not be guilty, unless the criminal intention 
was brought personally home to himself. And 
it is remarkable how strongly the judges required 
the fact of knowledge and malice to be stated on 
the face of the verdict, as opposed to evidence of 
intention, and inference from a fact. 

The court said, '' It is chiefly relied on that 
Huggins was present in the room, and saw Arne 
sub duritie itnprisonamenti, et se avertit [under 
duress of imprisonment, and turned away] ; but 
he might be present, and not know all the cir- 
cumstances ; the words are vidit sub duritie [he 



saw under duress] ; but he might see him under 
duress, and not know he was under duress ; it 
was answered that, seeing him under duress, ev- 
idently means, he knew he was under duress. 
But, says the court, '" We can not take things by 
inference in this manner; h.s seeing is but evi- 
dence of his knowledge of these things; and, 
therefore, the jury, if the fact would have borne 
it, should have found that Huggins knew he was 
there without his consent ; which not being done, 
we can not intend these things nor infer them ; 
we must judge of facts, and not from the evi- 
dence of facts ;" and cited Kelynge, 78 ; that 
whether a man be aiding and abetting a murder 
is matter of fact, and ought to be expressly found 
by a jury. 

The application of these last principles and 
authorities to the case before the court 

I • 1-1 rr,, • • 1 I'r'nciple ap- 

is obvious and simple. i he criminal piiedtotUis 

intention is a. fact, and must be found 
by the jury ; and that finding can only be ex- 
pressed upon the record by the general verdict 
of guilty which comprehends it, or by the special 
enumeration of such facts as do not merely amount 
to evidence of, but which completely and conclu- 
sively constitute the crime. But it has been 
shown, and is indeed admitted, that the publica- 
tion of a libel is on\y prima facie evidence of the 
complex charge in the indictment, and not such 
a fact as amounts in itself, when specially stated, 
to conclusive guilt. For, as the judges can not 
tell how the criminal inference from the fact of 
publishing a libel, might have been rebutted at 
the trial ; no judgment can follow from a special 
finding that the defendant published the paper in- 
dicted, according to the tenor laid in the indict- 
ment. It follows from this, that if the jury had 
only found the fact of publication (which was all 
that was left to them) without affixing the epithet 
of guilty (which could only be legally affixed by 
an investigation not permitted to them) ; a venire 
facias de novo [a writ for a new trial] must have 
been awarded because of the uncertainty of the 
verdict as to the criminal intention : Whereas, it 
will now be argued, that if the court shall hold 
the Dialogue to be a libel, the defendant is fully 
convicted ; because the verdict does not merely 
find that he published, which is a finding con- 
sistent with innocence, but finds him guilty of 
publishing, which is a finding of the criminal pub- 
lication charged by the indictment. 

My Lord, how I shall be able to defend my in- 
nocent client against such an argument, ,^, 

r .1 T r 1 I The extreme 

i am not prepared to say. J icel all injustice of 
the weight of it ; but that feeling sure- 
ly entitles me to greater attention, when I com- 
plain of that which subjects him to it, without the 
warrant of the law. It is the weight of such an 
argument that entitles me to a new trial ; for the 
Dean of St. Asaph is not only found guilty, with- 
out any investigation of his guilt by the jury, but 
without that question being even open to your 
Lordships on the record ! Upon the record the 
court can only say the Dialogue is, or is not, a 
libel ; but if it should pronounce it to be one, the 
criminal intention of the defendant in publishing 



; 



672 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1784. 



it is taken for granted by the word guilty ; al- 
though it has not only not been tried, but evi- 
dently appears, from the verdict itself, not to have 
been found by the jury. Their verdict is, " Guilty 
of publishing ; but whether a libel or not, they 
do not find." And it is, therefore, impossible to 
say that they can have found a criminal motive in 
publishing a paper, on the criminality of which 
they have formed no judgment. Printing and 
publishing that which is legal, contains in it no 
crime. The guilt must arise from the publica- 
tion of a libel ; and there is, therefore, a palpa- 
ble repugnancy on the face of the verdict itself, 
which first finds the Dean guilty of publishing, 
and then renders the finding a nullity by pro- 
nouncing ignorance in the jury whether the thing 
published comprehends any guilt / 

To conclude this part of the subject, the epi- 
thet of guilty — as I set out with at first — must 
either be taken to be substance or form. If it be 
substance, and, as such, conclusive of the crim- 
inal intention of the publisher, should the thing 
published be hereafter adjudged to be a libel, I 
ask a new trial, because the defendant's guilt in 
that respect has been found without having been 
tried ; if, on the other hand, the word guilty is 
admitted to be but a word of form, then let it be 
expunged, and I am not hurt by the verdict. 

III. Having now established, according to my 
Third Proposi- first two Propositious, that the jury 
Remarks on the upon cvcry general issue, joined in a 
distinction set criminal case, have a constitutional 

up to rebut tins ' 

doctrine. jurisdiction over the whole charge ; I 

am next, in support of my Third, to contend. That 
the case of a libel forms no legal exception to 
the general principles which govern the trial 
of all other crimes ; that the argument for the 
difference, namely, because the whole charge [in 
a prosecution for a libel] always appears on the 
record — is false in fact, and that, even if true, it 
would form no substantial difference in law. 

As to the first, I still maintain that the whole 
(i.)Thedi«tinc- case docs by no means necessarily 
-a"panoniy'of appear on the record. The Crown 
ma"'betndict- ^^7 i'^dict part of the publication, 
ed. wh^ch may bear a criminal construc- 

tion when separated from the context, and the 
context omitted having no place in the indict- 
ment, the defendant can neither demur to it, nor 
arrest the judgment after a verdict of guilty ; be- 
cause the court is absolutely circumscribed by 
wnat appears on the record, and the record con- 
tains a legal charge of a libel. 

I maintain, likewise, that, according to the 
« the defendant principlcs adopted upon this trial, he 
could read the jg equallv shut out from such de- 

otlier facts, tins „ , ^ , . -n i i 

wouiddohimno fense before the jury. Jor though 
fir""princi-* he may read the explanatory con- 
^'*'* text in evidence, yet he can derive 

no advantage from reading it, if they are tied 
down to find him guilty of publishing the matter 
which is contained in the indictment, however 
its innocence may be established by a view of 
the whole work. The only operation which, 
looking at the context, it can have upon a jury, 
is to convince them that the matter upon the 



record, however libelous when taken by itself, 
was not intended to convey the meaning which 
the words indicted import in language, when sep- 
arated from the general scope of the writing. 
But upon the principle contended for, they could 
not acquit the defendant upon any such opinion, 
for that would be to take upon them the prohib- 
ited question of libel, which is said to be matter 
of law for the Court. 

My learned friend, Mr. Bearcroft, appealed to 
his audience with an air of triumph. Reply to air. 
whether any sober man could believe J^^-arcroft. 
that an English jury, in the case I put from Al- 
gernon Sidney, would convict a defendant of pub- 
lishing the Bible, should the Crown indict a mem- 
ber of a verse which was blasphemous in itself 
if separated from the context." My Lord, if my 
friend had attended to me, he would have found 
that, in considering such supposition as an ab- 
surdity, he was only repeating my own words ! I 
never supposed that a jury would act so wicked- 
ly, or so absurdly, in a case where the principle 
contended for by my friend Mr. Bearcroft car- 
ried so palpable a face of injustice, as in the in- 
stance which I selected to expose it^ and which 
I, therefore, selected to show that there were 
cases in which the supporters of the doctrine 
were ashamed of it, and obliged to deny its op- 
eration. For it is impossible to deny if the jury can 
that, if the jury can look at the con- vi^ewofiiiTrm 
text, in the case put by Sidney, and °hu subvert* 
acquit the defendant on the merits of the principle of 

1 _ the opposing 

the thing published, they may do it counsel. 
in cases which will directly operate against the 
principle he seems to support. This will appear 
from other instances, where the injustice is equal, 
but not equally striking. Suppose the Crown 
were to select some passages from Locke upon 
government ; a.s, for instance, " that there is no 
difference between the King and the Constable^ 
when either of them exceeds his authority ^ That 
assertion, under certain circumstances, if taken 
by itself, without the context, might be highly 
seditious, and the question, therefore, would be, 
quo animo it was written. Perhaps the real 
meaning of the sentence might not be discovera- 
ble by the immediate context without a view of 
the whole chapter — perhaps of the whole book. 
Therefore — to do justice to the defendant, upon 
the very principle by which Mr. Bearcroft, in 
answering Sidney's case, can alone acquit the 
publi.sher of his Bible — the jury must look into 

2' The case supposed a bookseller having publish- 
ed the Bible, and being indicted thus, " That, intend- 
ing to promote atheism and irreligion, he had blas- 
phemously printed and published the following false 
and profane libel — ' There is no God ;' " and, in mov- 
ing for the rule Nisi, Mr. Erskine argued, that con- 
sistently with the principles which governed the 
judge, in the Dean of St. Asaph's case, the court 
would in such a case forbid the jury looking at the 
context; by which it would appear that the words 
formed part only of a verse in the Psalms, " The fool 
hath said in his heart, there is no God," and would 
direct them only to consider the fact, whether the 
defendant published the words last in the indict- 
ment. 



784.] 



ON THE RIGHTS OF JURIES. 



678 



the whole Essay on Government, and form a judg- 
ment of the design of the author, and the mean- 
ing of his work. 

Lord Mansfield. To be sure, they may judge 
from the whole work. 

Mr. Erskine. And what is this, my Lord, but 
For if so, determining the question of libel which 
Ju?ti^any" IS denied to-day? For if a jury may 
andaiicaseg. acquit the publisher of any part of Mr. 
Locke on Government, from a judgment arising 
out of a view of the whole book, though there 
be no innuendoes'^^ to be filled up as facts in the 
indictment, what is it that bound the jury to con- 
vict the Dean of St. Asaph, as the publisher of 
Sir William Jones's Dialogue, on the bare fact of 
publication^ without the right of saying that his 
observations, as well as Mr. Locke's, were spec- 
ulative, abstract, and legal? 

Lord Mansfield. They certainly may, in all 
cases, go into the whole context. 

Mr. Erskine. And why may they go into the 
context ? Clearly, my Lord, to enable them to 
form a correct judgment of the meaning of the 
part indicted, even though no particular meaning 
be submitted to them by averments in the indict- 
ment. And, therefore, the very permission to 
look at the context for such a purpose (where 
there are no innuendoes to be filled up by them 
as facts) is a plausible admission of all I am con- 
tending for, namely, the right of the jury to judge 
of the merits of the paper, and the intention of 
its author. 

But it is said, that though a jury have a right 
Absurdity of say. ^^ ^ecidc that a paper, criminal as 
ing that they can far as it appcavs on the record, is, 

uot acquit be- , i i i i i • i 

cause the w/io/e nevertheless, legal when explamed 

work is indicted, i ^i i i' " i c i • i -i • 

by the whole work ol which it is a 
part ; yet that they shall have no right to say 
that the whole work itself, if it happens to be all 
indicted, is innocent and legal. This proposition, 
my Lord, upon the bare stating of it, seems too 
preposterous to be seriously entertained ; yet 
there is no alternative between maintaining it in 
its full extent, and abandoning the whole argu- 
ment. If the defendant is indicted for publish- 
ing part of the verse in the Psalms, " There is 
no God," it is asserted that the jury 7nay look at 
the context, and, seeing that the whole verse did 
not maintain that blasphemous proposition, but 
only that the fool had said so in his heart, may 
acquit the defendant upon a judgment that it is 
no libel to impute such imagination to a fool ; 
but if the whole verse had been indicted, name- 
ly, " The fool has said in his heart, There is no 

2* By an innuendo in indictments and other plead- 
ings i- meant an explanation of something supposed 
to be implied in what is published or given to the 
world. In the legal sense, it is a statement of the 
covert meaning contained in some word, phrase, &c. 
Thus, in an action against a man for the words " He 
is a thief," if, in any previous part of the record, the 
words had been charged to have been spoken of 
and concerning the plaintiff, in any subsequent part 
the defendant'.? meaning in the use of the word 
" He." in "He is a thief," may be explained by in- 
nuendo, "thereby meaning^ the said plaintiff ." 
Uu 



God," the jury, on the principle contended for, 
would be restrained from the same judgment of 
its legality, and must convict of blasphemy on 
the fact of publishing, leaving the question of 
libel untouched on the record. 

If, in the same manner, only part of this very 
dialogue had been indicted instead of 
the whole, it is said, even by your Lord- to^^Jpres" 
ship, that the jury might have read the ^"^*^'*''^- 
context, and then, notwithstanding the fact of 
publishing, might have collected from the whole 
its abstract and speculative nature, and have ac- 
quitted the defendant upon that judgment of it. 
And yet it is contended that they have no right 
to form the same judgment of it upon the pres- 
ent occasion, although the whole be before them 
upon the face of the indictment, but are bound 
to convict the defendant upon the fact of pub- 
lishing, notwithstanding they should have come 
to the same judgment of its legality, which it is 
admitted they might have come to on trying an 
indictment for the publication of a part ! ! Real- 
ly, my Lord, the absurdities and gross departures 
from reason, which must be hazarded to support 
this doctrine, are endless. 

The criminality of the paper is said to be a 
question of law, yet the meanina; of it, 

c ,.,'•',, ,.* ' Absurdity 

Irom which alone the legal interpreta- stiii further 
tion can arise, is admitted to be a ques- ''''^''^'"^• 
tion of fact ! If the text be so perplexed and du- 
bious as to require innuendoes to explain, to point 
out and to apply obscure expression or con- 
struction, the jury alone, as judges of fact, are 
to interpret and to say what sentiments the au- 
thor must have meant to convey by his writing. 
Yet, if the writing be so plain and intelligible 
as to require no averments of its meaning, it 
then becomes so obscure and mysterious as to 
be a question of law, and beyond the reach of 
the very same men, who, but a moment before, 
were interpreters for the judges; and though its 
object be most obviously peaceable, and its au- 
thor innocent, they are bound to say, upon their 
oaths, that it is wicked and seditious, and the 
publisher of it guilty ! As a question of fact, 
the jury are to try the real sense and construc- 
tion of the words indicted, by comparing them 
with the context ; and yet, if that context itself, 
which affords the comparison, makes part of the 
indictment, the whole becomes a question of law, 
and they are then bound down to convict the 
defendant on the fact of publi.shing it, without 
any jurisdiction over the meaning ! To com- 
plete the juggle, the intention of the publisher 
may likewise be shown as a fact by the evidence 
of any extrinsic circumstances^ such as the con- 
text, to explain the writing, or the circumstances 
of mistake or ignorance under which it was pub 
lished ; and yet, in the same breath, the intention 
is pronounced to be an inference of law from the 
act of publication, which the jury can not ex- 
clude, but which must depend upon the future 
judgment of the court ! 

But the danger of this system is no less obvi- 
ous than its absurdity. I do not believe that its 
authors ever thought of inflicting death upon En- 



674 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1784 



glishmen, without the interposition of a JU17 ; yet 
The danger equal i^s establishment would unquestion- 
to tiie absurdity, ablv extcnd to annihilate the sub- 
as shown m a sup- •' , , ... 
posed prosecu- stancc of that trial in every prose- 

t.on for treason. ^^^.^^ ^^^^ ^.^^ ^^^^^^^^^ ^^,^^^^.^ ^^^ 

publication of any writing was laid as the overt 
act. I illustrated this by a case, when I moved 
for a rule, and called upon my friends for an an- 
swer to it ; but no notice has been taken of it by 
any of them. This was just what I expected : 
when a convincing answer can not be found to 
an objection, those who understand controversy 
never give strength to it by a weak one. I said, 
and I again repeat, that if an indictment charges 
that a defendant did traitorously intend, compass, 
and imagine the death of the King, and, in order 
to carry such treason into execution, published 
a paper, which it sets out literatim on the face 
of the record, the principle which is laid down 
to-day would subject that person to the pains 
of death by the single authority of the judges, 
without leaving any thing to the jury, but the 
bare fact of publishing the paper. For if that 
fact were proved, and the defendant called no 
witnesses, the judge who tried him would be 
warranted, nay bound in duty by the principle 
in question, to say to the jury, " Gentlemen, the 
overt act of treason charged upon the defendant 
is the publication of this paper, intending to com- 
pass the death of the King ; the fact is proved, 
and you are, therefore, bound to convict him : the 
treasonable intention is an inference of law from 
the act of publishing ; and if the thing published 
does not, upon a future examination, intrinsically 
support that inference, the court will arre.st the 
judgment, and your verdict will not aflfect the 
prisoner." 

My Lord, I will rest my whole argument upon 
The two cases the analogy bctwecn thesc two cases, 
compared. ^^^^ gj^.g ^^p gygj-y objection to the 

doctrine when applied to the one, if, upon the 
strictest examination, it shall not be found to ap- 
ply equally to the other. If the seditious inten- 
tion be an inference of law, from the fact of pub- 
lishing the paper which this indictment charges 
to be a libel, is not the treasonable intention 
equally an inference from the fact of publishing 
that paper, which the other indictment charges 
to be an overt act of treason ? In the one case, 
as in the other, the writing or publication of a 
paper is the whole charge; and the substance 
of the paper so written or published makes all 
the difference between the two oiFenses. If that 
substance be matter of law where it is a seditious 
libel, it must be matter of law where it is an act 
of treason ; and if, because it is law, the jury 
are excluded from judging it in the one instance, 
their judgment must sufler an equal abridgment 
in the other. 

The consequence is obvious. If the jury, by 
Tiie doctrine con- an appeal to their consciences, are 
Tmwn [mtsthe'^ to bc thus limited in the free exer- 
re'l'u'e'Lnds ^isc of that right which was given 
tfti,e judges. them by the Constitution, to be a 
protection against judicial authority, where the 
rt-ciuht and majesty of the crown is put into the 



scale against an obscure individual, the freedom 
of the press is at an end. For how can it be 
said that the press is free because every thing 
may be published without a previous license, if 
the publisher of the most meritorious woi'k which 
the united powers of genius and patriotism ever 
gave to the world may be prosecuted by inform- 
ation of the King's Attorney General, without 
the consent of the grand jury — may be con- 
victed by the petty jury, on the mere fact of 
publishing (who, indeed, without perjuring them- 
selves, must on this system inevitably convici 
him), and must then depend upon judges, who 
may be the supporters of the very administration 
whose measures are questioned by the defend- 
ant, and who must, therefore, either give judg- 
ment against him or against themselves. 

To all this Mr. Bearcroft shortly answers, Are 
you not in the hands of the same The case is dif- 
judges, with respect to your proper- jlctlntAi?" 



ty, and even to your life, when spe- °^^^" 
cial verdicts are found in murder, felony, and 
treason ? In these cases do prisoners run any 
hazard from the application of the law by the 
judges, to the facts found by the juries? Where 
can you possibly be safer ? 

My Lord, this is an argument which I can 
answer without indelicacy or offense, because 
your Lordship's mind is much too liberal to sup- 
pose that I insult the court by general observa- 
tions on the principles of our legal government. 
However safe we might be, or might think our- 
selves, the Constitution never intended to invest 
judges with a discretion which can not be tried 
and measured by the plain and palpable standard 
of law ; and in all the cases put by Mr. Bearcroft, 
no such loose discretion is exercised as must be 
entertained by a judgment on a seditious libel, 
and therefore the cases are not parallel. 

On a special verdict for murder, the life of the 
prisoner does not depend upon the religious, 
moral, or philosophical ideas of the judges, con- 
cerning the nature of homicide. No ; prece- 
dents are searched for, and if he is condemned 
at all, he is judged exactly by the same rules as 
others have been judged by before him. His 
conduct is brought to a precise, clear, intelligible 
standard, and cautiously measured by it ; it is the 
law, therefore, and not the judge, which condemns 
him. It is the same in all indictments or civil 
actions for slander upon individuals. 

Reputation is a personal right of the subject 
— indeed, the most valuable of any — and it is, 
therefore, secured by law, and all injuries to it 
clearly ascertained. Whatever slander hurts a 
man in his trade — subjects him to danger of life, 
liberty, or loss of property — or tends to render 
him infamous — is the subject of an action, and, 
in some instances, of an indictment.^^ But in all 
these cases where the malus animus is found by 
the jury, the judges are in like manner a safe 
repository of the legal consequence ; because 

^* The genera] rule is, that wherever an action 
will lie for slander, without laying special damages, 
an indictment will lie for the same words, if reduced 
to writing and published. 



1784.] 



ON THE RIGHTS OF JURIES. 



675 



such libels may be brought to a well-known 
standard of strict and positive law : they leave no 
discretion in the judges. The determination of 
what words, when written or spoken of another, 
are actionable, or the subject of an indictment, 
leaves no more latitude to a court sitting in judg- 
ment on the record, than a question of title does 
in a special verdict in ejectment. 

But I beseech your Lordship to consider by 
what rule the legality or illegality of this Dia- 
logue is to be decided by the court as a question 
of law upon the record. Mr. Bearcroft has ad- 
mitted in the most unequivocal terms — what, in- 
deed, it was impossible for him to deny — that ev- 
ery part of it, when viewed in the abstract, was 
legal ; but he says, there is a great distinction to 
be taken between speculation and exhortation, 
and that it is this latter which makes it a libel. 
I readily accede to the truth of the observation ; 
but how your Lordship is to determine that dif- 
ference as a question of law, is past my compre- 
hension. For if the Dialogue, in its phrase and 
composition, be general, and its libelous tenden- 
cy arises from the purpose of the writer to raise 
discontent by a seditious application of legal doc- 
trines, that purpose is surely a question of fact, 
if ever there was one, and must, therefore, be 
distinctly averred in the indictment, to give the 
cognizance of it as a fact to the jury, without 
which no libel can possibly appear upon the rec- 
ord. This is well known to be the only office of 
the innuendo; because the judges can presume 
nothing which the .strictest rules of grammar do 
not warrant them to collect intrinsically from the 
writing itself. 

Circumscribed by the record, your Lordship 
can form no judgment of the tendency of this Di- 
alogue to excite sedition by any thing but the 
mere words. You must look at it as if it was an 
old manuscript dug out of the ruins of Hercula- 
neum. You collect nothing from the time when, 
Qr the circumstances under which, it vv'as pub- 
lished — the person by whom, and those among 
whom, it w^as circulated. Yet these may ren- 
der a paper, at one time and under some circum- 
stances, dangerously wicked and seditious, which, 
at another time and under different circumstan- 
ces, might be innocent and highly meritorious. If 
puzzled by a task so inconsistent with the real 
sense and spirit of judicature, your Lordship 
should spurn the fetters of the record, and, judg- 
ing with the reason rather than the infirmities of 
men, should take into your consideration the state 
of men's minds on the subject of equal represent- 
ation at this moment, and the great disposition of 
the present times to revolution in government — 
if, reading the record with these impressions, your 
Lordships should be led to a judgment not war- 
ranted by an abstract consideration of the record 
— then, besides that such a judgment would be 
founded on facts not in evidence before the court, 
and not within its jurisdiction if they were, let me 
further remind your Lordships that, even if those 
objections to the premises were removed, the con- 
clusion would be no conclusion of laiv. Your de- 
cision on the subject might be very sagacious as 



politicians, as moralists, as philosophers, or as li- 
censers of the press ; but they would have no re- 
semblance to the judgments of an English court 
of justice, because it could have no warrant from 
the act of your predecessors, nor afford any prec- 
edent to your successors. 

But all these objections are perfectly removed, 
when the seditious tendency of 
per is considered as 



Transition to the 

a question of fourth proposi- 
fact. We are then relieved from the ges of adopting 



It. 



absurdity of legal discussion, sepa- 
rated from all the facts from which alone the law 
can arise. The jury can do what (as I observed 
before) your Lordships can not do in judging by 
the record — they can examine by evidence all 
those circumstances that tend to establish the se- 
ditious tendency of the paper, from which the 
court is shut out — they may know themselves, or 
it may be proved before them, that it has excited 
sedition already — they may collect from witness- 
es that it has been widely circulated and sedi- 
tiously understood — or, if the prosecution (as is 
wisest) precedes these consequences, and the rea- 
soning must be a priori, surely gentlemen living 
in the country are much better judges than your 
Lordship, what has or has not a tendency to dis- 
turb the neighborhood in which they live, and 
that very neighborhood is the forum of criminal 
trial. 

If they know that the subject of the paper is 
the topic that agitates the country around them 
— if they see danger in that agitation, and have 
reason to think that the publisher must have in- 
tended it — they say he is guilty. If, on the 
other hand, they consider the paper to be legal, 
and enlightened in principle, likely to promote a 
spirit of activity and liberty in times when the 
activity of such a spirit is essential to the public 
safety, and have reason to believe it to be writ- 
ten and published in that spirit, the)'^ say, as they 
ought to do, that the writer or the publisher is not 
guilty. Whereas your Lordships' judgment upon 
the language of the record must ever be in the 
pure abstract: operating blindly and indiscrim- 
inately upon all times, circumstances, and inten- 
tions ; making no distinction between the glori- 
ous attempts of a Sidney or a Russell, struggling 
against the terrors of despotism under the Stuarts, 
and those desperate adventurers of the year forty- 
five, who libeled the person, and excited rebell- 
ion against the mild and gracious government of 
our late excellent sovereign King George the 
Second. 

My Lord, if the independent gentlemen of En- 
gland are thus better qualified to decide Ti,e jury as 
from cause of knowledge, it is no of- •'''«'iy as the 
lense to the court to say that they are cide w.th 
full as likely to decide with impartial J"^'"-*^- 
justice as judges appointed by the Crown. Your 
Lordships have but a life interest in the public 
property, but they have an inheritance in it for 
their children. Their landed property depends 
upon the security of the government, and no man 
who wantonly attacks it can hope or expect to es- 
cape from the selfish lenity of a jury. On the first 
principles of human action they must lean heavily 



676 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1784. 



against him. It is only when the pride of En- 
glishmen is insulted by such doctrines as I am 
opposing to-day, that they may be betrayed into 
a verdict delivering the guilty, rather than sur- 
render the rights by which alone innocence in 
the day of danger can be protected. 

IV. I venture, therefore, to say, in support of 
FourihProp. onc of my original Propositions, That 
oittio,,. where a writing indicted as a libel 

neither contains, nor is averred by the indictment 
to contain, any slander of an individual, so as to 
fall within those rules of law which protect per- 
sonal reputation, but whose criminality is charg- 
ed to consist, as in the present instance, in its tend- 
ency to stir up general discontent — the trial of 
such an indictment neither involves, nor can in 
its obvious nature involve, any abstract question 
of law for the judgment of a court, but must 
wholly depend upon the judgment of the jury on 
the tendency of the writing itself to produce such 
consequences, when connected M'ith all the cir- 
cumstances which attended its publication. 

It is unnecessary to push this part of the ar- 
This proposi- gument further, because I have heard 
BUemptTdi'^ nothing from the bar against the po- 
rectiy 10 refute, gition which it maintains. None of 
the gentlemen have, to my recollection, given the 
court any one single reason, good or bad, why 
the tendency of a paper to stir up discontent 
against government, separated from all the cir- 
cumstances which are ever shut out from the rec- 
ord, ought to be considered as an abstract ques- 
tion of law. They have not told us where we are 
to find any matter in the books to enable us to ar- 
gue such questions before the court, or where 
your Lordships yourselves are to find a rule for 
your judgments on such subjects. I confess that 
to me it looks more like legislation or arbitrary 
power than English judicature. If the court can 
say this is a criminal writing — not because we 
know that mischief was intended by its author, 
or is even contained in itself, but because fools, 
believing the one and the other, may do mischief 
in their folly — the suppression of such writing.s, 
under particular circumstances, may be wise pol- 
icy in a state ; but upon what principle it can be 
criminal law in England, to be settled in the ab- 
stract by judges, I confess with humility that I 
have no organs to understand. 

Mr. Leycester [counsel for the Crown] felt the 

difficulty of maintaining such a prop- 
Answer to an ... "■ » r 1 i 

iniirect Hixempt osition by any argument ol law, and 
at refutation. therefore had recourse to an argu- 
ment of fact. " If," says my learned friend, 
" what is or is not a seditious libel, be not a ques- 
tion of law for the court, but of fact for the jury, 
upon what principle do defendants, found guilty 
of such libels by a general verdict, defeat the 
judgment for error on the record ; and what is 
still more in point, upon what principle does Mr. 
Erskine himself, if he fails in his present motion, 
mean to ask your Lordships to arrest this very 
judgment by saying that the Dialojivie is not a 
iibel?" 

My Lord, the observation is very ingenious, 
and God knows the argoment requires that it 



should be ; but it is nothing more. The arrest 
of judgment which follows after a verdict of 
guilty for publishing a writing, which, on inspec- 
tion of the record, exhibits to the court no spe- 
cific offense against the law, is no impeachment of 
my doctrine. I never denied such a jurisdiction 
to the court. My position is, that no man shall 
be punished for the criminal breach of any law, 
until a jury of his equals have pronounced him 
guilty in niiiid as well as in act. Actus nonfa- 
vit reum nisi mens sit rea.^^ 

But I never asserted that a jury had the pow- 
er to make criminal law, as well as to adminis- 
ter it ; and, therefore, it is clear that they can not 
deliver over a man to punishment, if it appears 
by the record of his accusation — which it is the 
office of judicature to examine — that he has not 
offended against any positive law ; because, how- 
ever criminal he may have been in his disposi- 
tion, which is a fact established by the verdict, 
yet statute and precedents can alone decide what 
is by law an indictable offense. 

If. for instance, a man were charged by an in- 
dictment with having held a discourse in words 
highly seditious, and were found guilty by the 
jury, it is evident that it is the province of the 
court to arrest that judgment. Why ? Because, 
though the jury have found that he spoke the 
words as laid in the indictment, with the sedi- 
tious intention charged upon him, which they, 
and they only, could find ; yet, as the words are 
not punishable by indictment, as when committed 
to writing, the court could not pronounce judg- 
ment. The declaration of the jury, that the de- 
fendant was guilty in manner and form as ac- 
cused, could evidently never warrant a judgment, 
if the accusation itself contained no charge of 
an offense against the law. 

In the same manner, if a butcher were indict- 
ed for privately putting a sheep to causeless and 
unnecessary torture in the exercise of his trade, 
but not in public view, so as to be productive of 
evil example, and the jury should find him guilty, 
I am afraid no judgment could follow ; because, 
though done 7nalo animo. yet neither statute nor 
precedent have, perhap.s determined it to be an 
indictable offense ; it would be difficult to draw 
the line. An indictment would not lie for every 
inhuman neglect of the sufferings of the smallest 
innocent animals which Providence has subjected 
to us: 

"Yet the poor beetle whi(;b we tread upon, 
In corporeal suffering feels a pang as great 
As when a giant dies." 

A thousand other instances might be brought 
of acts base and immoral, and prejudicial in their 
consequences, which are yet not indictable by 
law. 

In the case of the King against Brewer, in 
Cowper's Reports, it was held that knowingly 
exposing to sale and selling gold under sterling 
for standard gold is not indictable ; because the 
act refers to goldsmiths only, and private cheat- 



26 It is not the act which makes a man guilty, but 
the intention. 



1784.] 



ON THE RIGHTS OF JURIES. 



677 



ing is not a common-law offense." Here, too, 
the declaration of the jury that the defendant is 
guilty in manner and form as accused, does not 
change the nature of the accusation. The ver- 
dict does not go beyond the charge ; and if the 
charge be invalid in law, the verdict must be in- 
valid also. All these cases, therefore, and many 
similar ones which might be put, are clearly 
consistent with my principle. I do not seek to 
erect jurors into legislators or judges. There 
must be a rule of action in every society, which 
it is the duty of the Legislature to create, and 
of judicature to expound when created. I only 
support their right to determine guilt or inno- 
cence where the crime charged is blended by the 
general issue with the intention of the criminal ; 
more especially when the qualit}'^ of the act it- 
self, even independent of that intention, is not 
measurable by any precise principle or precedent 
of law, but is inseparably connected with the 
time when, the place where, and the circum- 
stances under which the defendant acted. 

My Lord, in considering libels of this nature, 
Pro cutingof- as opposcd to slandcr on individuals, 

ficers do com- ^ , .. p p ^ * 

moniy a. t on to bc mcrc qucstious ol tact, or, at 
tl;f.rr"PosiUo°[ all events, to contain matter fit for 
in their arau- tj^g determination of the jury. I am 

ments to the J J - 

jury. supported not only by the general 

practice of courts, but even of those very prac- 
ticers themselves, who, in prosecuting for the 
Crown, have maintained the contrary doctrine. 
Your Lordships will, I am persuaded, admit that 
the general practice of the profession — more es- 
pecially of the very heads of it, prosecuting too, 
for the public — is strong evidence of the law. 
Attorneys-general have seldom entertained such 
a jealousy of the King's judges in state prosecu- 
tions as to lead them to make presents of juris- 
diction to juries, which did not belong to them 
of right by the Constitution of the country. Nei- 
ther can it be supposed that men in high office 
and of great experience should in every instance, 
though differing from each other in temper, char- 
acter, and talents, uniformly fall into the same 
absurdity of declaiming to juries upon topics to- 
tally irrelevant, when no such inconsistency is 
found to disfigure the professional conduct of the 
same men in other cases. Yet I may appeal to 
your Lordship's recollection, without having re- 
course to the state trials, whether, upon every 
prosecution for a seditious libel within living 
memory, the Attorney General has not uniformly 
stated such writings at length to the jury, point- 
ed out their seditious tendency which rendered 
them criminal, and exerted all his powers to 
convince them of their illegality, as the very 
point on which their verdict for the Crown was 
to be founded. 

On the trial of Mr. Home, for publishing an 
Cases in advertisement in favor of the widows of 
point. those American subjects who had been 
murdered by the King's troops at Lexington,^^ 

*^ But cheating has since been made a statuta- 
ble ofFense, particularly by 7 and 8 Geo. IV. 

2^ Mr. Horue (afterward Home Tooke), in 1775, 
being a member of tlie " Society for Constitutional 



did the present Chancellor [Lord Thurlow], then 
Attorney General, content himself with saying 
that he had proved the publication, and that the 
criminal quality of the paper which raised the 
legal inference of guilt against the defendant, 
was matter for the court ? No, my Lord ; he 
went at great length into its dangerous and per- 
nicious tendency, and applied himself with skill 
and ability to the understandings and the con- 
sciences of the jurors. This instance is in itself 
decisive of his opinion. That great magistrate 
could not have acted thus upon the principle con- 
tended for to-day. He never was an idle de- 
claimer : close and masculine argument is the 
characteristic of his imderstanding. 

The character and talents of the late Lord 
Chief Justice De Grey no less entitle me to infer 
his opinion from his uniform conduct. In all 
such prosecutions, while he was in office, he 
held the same language to juries ; and particu- 
larly in the case of the King against Woodfall^^ 
— to use the expression of a celebrated writer 
on the occasion [Junius] — " he tortured his fac- 
ulties for more than an hour, to convince thera 
that Junius's letter was a libel. "^° 

The opinions of another Crown lawyer, who 
has since passed through the first offices of the 
law, and filled them with the highest reputation, 
I am not driven to collect alone from his lan- 
guage as an Attorney General, because he car- 
ried them with him to the seat of justice. Yet 
one case is too remarkable to be omitted. Lord 
Camden, prosecuting Dr. Shebbeare, told the 
jury that he did not desire their verdict upon any 
other principle than their solemn conviction of 
the truth of the information, which charged the 
defendant with a wicked design to alienate the 
hearts of the subjects of this country from their 
king upon the throne. 

To complete the account : my learned friend 
Mr. Bearcroft, though last, not least in favor, 
upon this very occasion, spoke above an hour to 
the jury at Shrewsbur}', to convince them of the 
libelous tendency of the Dialogue, which soon 
afterward the learned judge desired them wholly 
to dismiss from their consideration, as matter 
with which they had no concern ! The real fact 

Information," and eager for celebrity, moved, at a 
meeting of that society, "That a subscription be 
raised for the widows, orphans, and aged parents 
of their American fellow-subjects, who, preferring 
death to slavery, were, for this reason only, muj-- 
dered by the King's troops at Lexington and Con- 
cord, on the 19th of April, 1775." The sum of £100 
was voted, and Mr. Home took on himself the re- 
sponsibility of signing the order for transmitting it to 
Dr. Franklin ; in consequence of which he was pros- 
ecuted, and sentenced to pay £200, to be imprison- 
ed one year, and to find securities for three. 

2' Woodfall, the printer, was prosecuted in 1770 
for the publication of the celebrated Letter of Ju 
nius to the King. On the trial before Lord Mans- 
field, in consequence of his Lordship's direction to 
the jury, excluding from them the question of the 
letter being a libel or not, a verdict was returned 
of " Guilty oi printing and publishing onlyy 

3° See the Preface to "Junius's Letters " 



678 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1784. 



is that the doctrine is too absurd to be acted 
upon — too distorted in principle to admit of con- 
sistency in practice. It is contraband in law, 
and can only be smuggled by those who intro- 
duce it. It requires great talents and great ad- 
dress to hide its deformity ; in vulgar hands it 
becomes contemptible. 

Having supported the rights of juries, by the 
Practice of Uniform practice of Crown lawyers, let 
the courta. jjg ^q^. examine the question of author- 
ity, and see how this court itself, and its judges, 
have acted upon trials for libels in former times ; 
for, according to Lord Raymond, in Franklin's 
case,^^ as cited by Mr. Justice Buller, at Shrews- 
bury, the principle I am supporting had, it seems, 
been only broached about the year 1731, by 
some men of party spirit, and then, too, for the 
very first time. My Lord, such an observation 
in the mouth of Lord Raymond proves how dan- 
gerous it is to take up as doctrine every thing 
flung out at Nisi Prius ; above all, upon subjects 
which engage the passions and interests of gov- 
ernment. The most solemn and important trials 
with which history makes us acquainted, dis- 
cussed, too, at the bar of this court, when filled 
with judges the most devoted to the Crown, af- 
ford the most decisive contradiction to such an 
unfounded and unguarded assertion. 

In the famous case of the seven bishops,^-^ the 
Case of the qucstiou of libcl or no libel was held 
seven bishops, unanimously by the Court of King's 
Bench trying the cause at the bar, to be matter 
for the consideration and determination of the 
jury ; and the bishops' petition to the King, 
which was the subject of the information, was 
accordingly delivered to them, when they with- 
drew to consider of their verdict. 

Thinking this case decisive, I cited it at the 
trial, and the answer it received from Mr. Bear- 
croft was, that it had no relation to the point in 
dispute between us, for that the bishops were 
acquitted, not upon the question of libel, but be- 
cause the delivery of the petition to the King 
was held to be no publication. 

I was not a little surprised at this statement, 
but my turn of speaking was then past. Fortu- 
nately, to-day it is my privilege to speak last, 
and I have now lying before me the fifth volume 
of the State Trials, where the case of the bish- 
ops is printed, and where it appears that the 
publication was expressly proved — that nothing 
turned upon it in the judgment of the court, and 
that the charge turned wholly upon the question 
of libel, which was expressly left to the jury by 
every one of the judges. Lord Chief Justice 
Wright, in summing up the evidence, told them 
that a question had at first arisen about the pub- 
lication, it being insisted on that the delivery of 
the petition to the King had not been proved ; 
that the court was of the same opinion ; and that 

31 See ance, p. C66. 

^2 Committed to the Tower by James II., A.D. 
1688, and prosecuted for petitioning the King against 
their being required to promulgate his second dec- 
laration of indulgence in favor of the Roman Catho- 
lics. 



he was just going to direct them to find the bish- 
ops not guilty, when in came my Lord Presi- 
dent (such sort of witnesses were, no doubt, al- 
ways at hand when wanted), who proved the 
delivery to his Majesty. "Therefore," contin- 
ued the Chief Justice, " if you believe it was the 
same petition, it is a publication sufficient, and 
we must, therefore, come to inquire whether it 
be a libel." He then gave his reasons for thinking 
it within the case de libeliis famosis [defamatory 
libels], and concluded by saying to the jury, "In 
short, I must give you my opinion : I do take it 
to be a libel ; if my brothers have any thing to 
say to it, I suppose they will deliver their opin- 
ion." What opinion ? not that the jury had no 
jurisdiction to judge of the matter, but an opin- 
ion for the express purpose of enabling them to 
give that judgment which the law required at 
their hands. 

Mr. Justice HoUoway then followed the Chief 
Justice ; and so pointedly was the question of 
libel or no libel, and not the publication, the only 
matter which remained in doubt, and which the 
jury, w^ith the assistance of the court, were to 
decide upon, that when the learned judge went 
into the facts which had been in evidence, the 
Chief Justice said to him, " J^ook you ; by-the- 
way, brother, I did not ask you to sum up the 
evidence, but only to deliver your opinion to the 
jury, w^hether it be a libel or no." The Chief 
Justice's remark, though it proves my position, 
was, however, very unnecessary ; for, but a mo- 
ment before, Mr. Justice Holloway had declared 
he did not think it was a libel, but, addressing 
himself to the jury, had said, " It is left to you, 
gentlemen.'''' 

Mr. Justice Powell, who likewise gave his opin 
ion that it was no libel, said to the jury, ^'But the 
matter of it is before you^ and I leave the issue of it 
to God and your own consciences.'''' And so little 
was it in the idea of any one of the court that the 
jury ought to found their verdict solely upon the 
evidence of the publication, without attending to 
the criminality or innocence of the petition, that 
the Chief Justice himself consented, on their with- 
drawing from the bar, that they should carry with 
them all the materials for coming to a judgment 
as comprehensive as the charge ; and, indeed, ex- 
pressly directed that the information, the libel, the 
declarations under the great seal, and even the 
statute book, should be delivered to them. 

The happy issue of this memorable trial, in 
the acquittal of the bishops by the jury, exercis- 
ing jurisdiction over the whole charge, freely 
granted to them as legal, even by King James's 
judges, is admitted by two of the gentlemen [for 
the Crown] to have prepared and forwarded the 
glorious era of the Revolution. Mr. Bower, in 
particular, spoke with singular enthusiasm con- 
cerning this verdict, choosing — for i-easons suffi- 
ciently obvious — to ascribe it to a special mira- 
cle wrought for the safety of the nation, rather 
than to the right lodged in the jury to save it by 
its laws and Constitution ! 

My learned friend, finding his argument like 
nothing upon the earth, was obliged to ascend 



1784.] 



ON THE RIGHTS OF JURIES. 



679 



to heaven to support it. Having admitted that 
„ „ the jury not only acted like just men 

Mr. Bower on -J .' •' J . . 

t!ie case of the toward the bishops, but as patriot cit- 
is ops. izens toward their country, and not 

being able, without the surrender of his whole 
argument, to allow either their public spirit or 
their private justice to have been consonant to 
the laws, he is driven to make them the instru- 
ments of divine Providence to bring good out of 
evil ; and holds them up as men inspired by God 
to perjure themselves in the administration of 
justice, in order, by-the-by, to defeat the effects 
of that wretched system of judicature, which he 
is defending to-day as the Constitution of En- 
gland ! For if the King's judges could have de- 
cided the petition to be a libel, the Stuarts might 
yet have been on the throne. 

My Lord, this is an argument of a priest, not 
of a lavA'yer ; and even if faith, and not law, were 
to govern the question, I should be as far from 
subscribing to it as a religious opinion. No man 
believes more firmly than I do, that God governs 
the whole universe by the gracious dispensations 
of his providence, and that all the nations of the 
earth rise and fall at his command ; but, then, 
this wonderful system is carried on by the nat- 
ural, though, to us, the often hidden, relation be- 
tween effects and causes, which wisdom adjusted 
from the beginning, and which foreknowledge at 
the same time rendered sufficient, without dis- 
turbing either the laws of nature or of civil soci- 
ety. The prosperity and greatness of empires 
ever depended, and ever must depend, upon the 
use their inhabitants make of their reason in de- 
vising wise laws, and the spirit and virtue with 
which they watch over their just execution ; 
and it is impious to suppose that men who have 
made no provision for their own happiness or se- 
curity in their attention to their government, are 
to be saved by the interposition of Heaven in turn- 
ing the hearts of their tyrants to protect them. 

But if every case in which judges have left 
Chief Justice ihc qucstiou of libel to juries in oppo- 
^seo'fTutch- sition to law, is to be considered as a 
'"• miracle, England may vie with Pales- 

tine ; and Lord Chief Justice Holt steps next 
into view as an apostle ; for that great judge, in 
Tutchin's case, left the question of libel to the 
jury, in the most unambiguous terms. After 
summing up the evidence of writing and pub- 
lishing, he said to them as follows: "You have 
now heard the evidence, and you are to consider 
whether Mr. Tutchin be guilty. They say they 
are innocent papers, and no libels ; and they say 
nothing is a libel but what reflects upon some 
particular person. But this is a very strange 
doctrine — to say it is not a libel reflecting on 
the government, endeavoring to po.ssess the peo- 
ple, that the government is maladministercd by 
corrupt persons, that are employed in such or 
such stations, either in the navy or army. To 
say that corrupt officers are appointed to admin- 
ister affairs, is certainly a reflection on the gov- 
ernment. If people should not be called to ac- 
count for possessing the people with an ill opinion 
of the government, no government can subsist. 



For it is very necessary for all governments that 
the people should have a good opinion of it ; and 
nothing can be worse to any government than to 
endeavor to procure animosities as to the man- 
agement of it ; this has always been looked upon 
as a crime, and no government can be safe with- 
out it be punished." 

Having made these observations, did the Chief 
Justice tell the jury that whether the publication 
in question fell within that principle, so as to be 
a libel on government was a matter of law for 
the court, with which they had no concern ? 
Quite the contrary : he considered the seditious 
tendency of the paper as a question for their sole 
determination, saying to them, 

" Now you are to consider whether these 
words I have read to you do not tend to beget 
an ill opinion of the administration of govern- 
ment ; to tell us that those that are emplo3^ed 
know nothing of the matter, and those that do 
know are not employed. Men are not adapted 
to offices, but offices to men, out of a particular 
regard to their interest, and not to their fitness for 
the places. This is the purport of these papers." 

In citing the words of judges in judicature, I 
have a right to suppose their discourse comparison 
to be pertinent and relevant, and that, "fa^thorities. 
when they state the defendant's answer to the 
charge, and make remarks on it, they mean that 
the jury should exercise a judgment under their 
direction. This is the practice we must certainly 
impute to Lord Holt, if we do him the justice to 
suppose that he meant to convey the sentiments 
which he expressed. So that, when we come to 
sum up this case, I do not find myself so far be- 
hind the learned gentleman, even in point of ex- 
press authority ; putting all reason, and the anal- 
ogies of law which unite to support me, wholly 
out of the question. There is Court of King's 
Bench against Court of King's Bench ; Chief 
Justice Wright against Chief Justice Lee ; and 
Lord Holt against Lord Raymond. As to living 
authorities, it would be invidious to class them ; 
but it is a point on which I am satisfied myself, 
and on which the world will be satisfied likewise, 
if ever it comes to be a question. ^^ 

But even if I should be mistaken in that par- 
ticular, I can not consent implicitly to receive 
any doctrine as the law of England, though pro- 
nounced to be such by magistrates the most re- 
spectable, if I find it to be in direct violation of 
the very first principles of English judicature. 
The great jurisdictions of the country are unal- 
terable except by Parliament, and, until they are 
changed by that authority, they ought to remain 
sacred : the judges have no power over them. 
What parliamentary abridgment has been made 
upon the rights of juries since the trial of the 
bishops, or since Tutchin's case, when they were 
fully recognized by this court? None. Lord 
Raymond and Lord Chief Justice Lee ought, 
therefore, to have looked there — to their prede- 
cessors — for the law, instead of setting up a new 
one for their successors. 

33 Lord Camden is the one here opposed to Mans- 
field. 



680 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1784. 



But supposing the court should deny the le- 
gality of all these propositions, or, admitting their 
legality, should resist the conclusions I have 
drawn from them : then I have recourse to my 
last proposition, in which I am supported even 
by all those authorities, on which the learned 
judge relies for the doctrines contained in his 
charge ; to wat : 

V. "That, in all cases where the mischievous 
Fifih Pvopo. intention, which is agreed to be the es- 
*^'''"- sence of the crime, can not be collected 

by simple inference from the fact charged, be- 
cause the defendant goes into evidence to rebut 
such inference, the intention then becomes a pure 
unmixed question of fact, for the consideration of 
the jury." 

I said the authorities of the King against 
Authorities Woodfall and Almon were with me. In 
ih/^propo^ the first, which is reported in fifth Bur- 
sition. row, your Lordship expressed yourself 
thus : "Where an act, in itself indifferent, becomes 
criminal when done with a particular intent, there 
the intent must be proved and found. But where 
the act itself is unlawful, as in the case of a libel, 
the PROOF of justification or excuse lies on the 
defendant ; and in failure thereof the law implies 
a criminal intent." Most luminously expressed 
to convey this sentiment, namely, that when a 
man publishes a libel, and has nothing to say for 
himself — no explanation or exculpation — a crim- 
inal intention need not be proved. I freely ad- 
mit that it need not ; it is an inference of common 
sense, not of law. But the publication of a libel 
does not exclusively show criminal intent, but is 
only an implication of law, in failure of the de- 
sendant's proof. Your Lordship immediately aft- 
erward, in the same case, explained this further. 
"There may be cases where the publication may 
be justified or excused as lawful or innocent ; for 
NO FACT WHICH IS NOT CRIMINAL, though the pa- 
per BE A LIBEL, can amouut to such a publica- 
tion of which a defendant ought to be found 
guilty." But no question of that kind arose at 
the trial, that is, at the trial of Woodfall. Why ? 
Your Lordship immediately explained why — ''''Be- 
cause the defendant called no witnesses ;'''' express- 
ly saying, that the publication of a libel is not in 
itself a crime, unless the intent be criminal ; and 
that it is not merely in mitigation of punishment, 
but that such a publication does not warrant a 
verdict of guilty. 

In the case of the King against Almon, a 
magazine, containing one of Junius's letters, was 
sold at Almon's shop : there was proof of that 
sale at the trial. Mr. Almon called no witness- 
es, and was found guilty. To found a motion 
for a new trial, an affidavit was offered from Mr. 
Almon that he was not privy to the sale, nor 
knew his name was inserted as a publisher ; and 
that this practice of booksellers being inserted as 
publishers by their correspondents, without no- 
tice, was common in the trade. 

Your Lordship said, " Sale of a book in a book- 
seller's shop, is prima facie evidence of publica- 
tion by the master, and the publication of a libel 
is prima facie evidence of criminal intent : it 



stands good, till answered by the defendant : it 
must stand till contradicted or explained ; and if 
not contradicted., explained., or exculpated., becomes 
tantamount to conclusive., when the defendant calls 
no witnesses." 

Mr. Justice Aston said, " Prima facie evi- 
dence not answered., is sufficient to ground a ver- 
dict upon : if the defendant had a sufficient ex- 
cuse, he might have proved it at the trial : his 
having neglected it where there was no surprise, 
is no ground for a new one." Mr. Justice Willes 
and Mr. Justice Ashurst agreed upon those ex- 
press principles. 

These cases declare the law, beyond all con- 
troversy, to be, that publication, even of a libel, 
is no conclusive proof of guilt, but only prima 
facie evidence of it till answered ; and that, if 
the defendant can show that his intention was not 
criminal, hQ^completely rebuts the inference aris- 
ing from the publication ; because, though it re- 
mains true that he published, yet, according to 
your Lordship's express words, it is not such a 
publication of which a defendant ought to be found 
guilty. Apply Mr. Justice Buller's summing up 
to this law, and it does not require even a legal 
apprehension to distinguish the repugnancy. 

The advertisement was proved to convince the 
jury of the Dean's motive for publishing ; Mr. 
Jones's testimony went strongly to aid it f* and 
the evidence to character, though not sufficient 
in itself, was admissible to be thrown into the 
scale. But not only no part of this was left to 
the jury, but the whole of it was expressly re- 
moved from their consideration, although, in the 
cases of Woodfall and Almon, it was as express- 
ly laid down to be within their cognizance, and a 
complete answer to the charge, if satisfactory, to 
the minds of the jurors. 

In support of the learned judge's charge, 
there can be, therefore, but the two oniytwoargu- 
arguments, which 1 stated on moving [Tf^u^snce^Bui 
for the rule. Either that the defend- '^^'^ "^''^'s*- 
ant's evidence, namely, the advertisement — Mr. 
Jones's evidence in confirmation of its being bona 
fide — and the evidence to character, to strength- 
en that construction — were not sufficient proof 
that the Dean believed the publication meritori- 
ous, and published it in vindication of his honest 
intentions ; or else that, even admitting it to es- 
tablish that fact, it did not amount to such an 
exculpation as to be evidence on Not Guilty, so 
as to warrant a verdict. I still give the learned 
judge the choice of the alternative. 

As to the first, namely, whether it showed 
honest intention in point of fact, that Remarks on 
was a question for the jury. If the 'hefif^t. 
learned judge had thought it was not sufficient 
evidence to warrant the jury's believing that the 
Dean's motives were such as he had declared 
them, I conceive he should have given his opin- 
ion of it as a point of evidence, and left it there. 
I can not condescend to go farther ; it would be 
ridiculous to argue a self-evident proposition. 
As to the second, namelv, that even if the 



3* Tor Mr. Jones's testimony, see note 18. 



1784.] 

jury had believed, from the evidence, that the 
Remarks on Dcaii's intentioti was wholly innocent, 
the second, jj y^-Quij ^ot havc Warranted them in 
acquitting, and, therefoi'e, should not have been 
left to them upon Not Guilty. That argument 
can never be supported. For if the jury had de- 
clared, '' We find that the Dean published this 
pamphlet ; whether a libel or not, we do not find : 
and we find further, that, believing it in his con- 
science to be meritorious and innocent, he, bona 
fide, published it with the prefixed advertisement, 
as a vindication of his character from the reproach 
of seditious intentions, and not to excite sedition :" 
it is impossible to say, without ridicule, that on 
such a special verdict the court could have pro- 
nounced a criminal judgment. 

Then why was the consideration of that evi- 
dence, by which those facts might have been 
found, withdrawn from the jury, after they 
brought in a verdict guilty of publishing only, 
which, in the King against Woodfall, was simply 
said not to negative the criminal intention, be- 
cause the defendant called no witnesses ? Why 
did the learned judge confine his inquiries to the 
innuendoes, and finding them agreed in, direct 
the epithet of guilty, M'ithout asking the jury if 
they believed the defendant's evidence to rebut 
the criminal inference ? Some of them positive- 
ly meant to negative the criminal inference by 
adding the word only, and all would have done 
it, if they had thought themselves at liberty to 
enter upon that evidence. But they were told 
expressly that they had nothing to do with the 
consideration of that evidence, which, if believed, 
would have warranted that verdict. The con- 
clusion is evident ; if they had a right to consider 
it, and their consideration might have produced 
such a verdict, and if such a verdict would have 
been an acquittal, it must be a misdirection. 

"But," says Mr. Bower, '"if this advertise- 
AnswertoMr "^^^^ prefixed to the publication, by 
Eowerastotiie which the Dean professed his innocent 

advertisement . . . i i- i • v, i i i i 

mtention m pubhshmg it, should have 
been left to the jury as evidence of that intention, 
to found an acquittal on, even taking the Dia- 
logue to be a libel, no man could ever be con- 
victed of publishing any thing, however danger- 
ous ; for he would only have to tack an adver- 
tisement to it by way of preface, professing the 
excellence of its principles and the sincerity of 
its motives, and his defense would be complete." 
My Lord, I never contended for any such posi- 
tion. If a man of education, like the Dean, were 
to publish a writing so palpably libelous that no 
ignorance or misapprehension imputable to such 
a person could prevent his discovering the mis- 
chievous design of the author, no jury would be- 
lieve such an advertisement to be bona fide, and 
would, therefore, be bound in conscience to reject 
it, as if it had no existence. The effect of such 
evidence must be to convince the jury of the de- 
fendant's purity of mind, and must, therefore, de- 
pend upon the nature of the writing itself, and 
all the circumstances attending its publication. 
If, upon reading the paper, and considering the 
whole of the evidence, they have reason to think 



ON THE RIGHTS OF JURIES. 



681 



that the defendant did not believe it to be illegal, 
and did not publish it with the seditious purpose 
charged by the indictment, he is not guilty upon 
any principle or authority of law, and would have 
been acquitted even in the Star Chamber ; for it 
was held by that court, in Lambe's case, in the 
eighth year of King James the First, as reported 
by Lord Coke, who then presided in it, that ev- 
ery one who should be convicted of a libel must 
be the writer or contriver, or a malicious publish- 
er, knowing it to be a libel. 

This case of Lambe being of too high author- 
ity to be opposed, and too much in Mr. Bower's at- 

point to be passed over, Mr. Bower u,e"Cnf'"^^ 
endeavors to avoid its force by giving Lambe's case, 
it a new construction of his own : He says, that 
not knowing a writing to be a libel, in the sense 
of that case, means, not knowing the contents of 
the thing published ; as by conveying papers 
sealed up, or having a sermon and a libel, and 
delivering one by mistake for the other. In such 
cases, he says, ignorantia facti excusat, because 
the mind does not go wnth the act ; sed ignoran- 
tia legis non excusat ;^^ and, therefore, if the party 
knows the contents of the paper which he pub- 
lishes, his mind goes with the act of publication, 
though he does not find out any thing criminal, and 
he is bound to abide by the legal consequences. 

This is to make criminality depend upon the 
consciousness of an act, and not upon Reply: inten- 
the knowledge of its quality, which TeTe^ceT 
would involve lunatics and children in f'ecrmie. 
all the penalties of criminal law ; for whatever 
they do is attended with consciousness, though 
their understanding does not reach to the con- 
sciousness of oflTense. The publication of a libel, 
not believing it to be one after having read it, is 
a much more favorable ease than publishing it 
unread by mistake ; the one, nine times in ten, is 
a culpable negligence, which is no excuse at all. 
For a man can not throw papers about the world 
without reading them, and afterward say he did 
not know their contents were criminal. But if 
a man reads a paper, and not believing it to con- 
tain any thing seditious, having collected nothing 
of that tendency himself, publishes it among his 
neighbors as an innocent and useful work, he can 
not be convicted as a criminal publisher. How 
he is to convince the jury that his purpose was 
innocent, though the thing published be a libel, 
must depend upon circumstances — and these cir- 
cumstances he may, on the authority of all the 
cases, ancient and modern, lay before the jury in 
evidence ; because, if he can establish the inno- 
cence of his mind, he negatives the very gist of 
the indictment. 

"In all crimes," says Lord Hale, in his Pleas 
of the Crown, " the intention is the principal con- 
sideration ; it is the mind that makes the taking 
of another's goods to be felony, or a bare tres- 
pass only : it is impossible to prescribe all the 

^^ This old adage, "Ignorance of b. fact may ex- 
case, bat not of laui," proceeds on the principle that 
men are bound to know the law of their country, but 
not every fact that may be connected with their 
conduct and actions. 



682 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1784. 



circumstances evidencing a felonious iutent, or 
the contrary ; but the same must be left to the 
attentive consideration of judge and jury : where- 
in the best rule is, in dubiis^ rather to incline to 
acquittal than conviction." 

In the same work, he says, " By the statute of 
Philip and Mary, touching importation of coin 
counterfeit of foreign money, it must, to make it 
treason, be with the intent to utter and make 
payment of the same ; and the intent in this case 
may be tried and found by circumstances of 
FACT, by words, letters, and a thousand evi- 
dences besides the bare doing of the fact." 

This principle is illustrated by frequent prac- 
tice, where the intention is found by the jury as 
a fact in a special verdict. It occurred, not 
above a year ago, at East Grinstead, on an indict- 
ment for burglary, before Mr. Justice Ashurst, 
where I was myself counsel for the prisoner. It 
was clear upon the evidence that he had broken 
into the house by force, in the night, but I con- 
tended that it appeared from proof that he had 
broken and entered with an intent to rescue his 
goods, which had been seized that day by the offi- 
cers of excise ; which rescue, though a capital fel- 
ony by modern statute, was but a trespass, temp. 
Henry VIII.., and consequently not a burglary. 
Mr. Justice Ashurst saved this point of law, 
which the twelve judges afterw^ard determined 
for the prisoner. But in order to create the point 
of law, it was necessary that the prisoner's in- 
tention should be ascertained as a fact : and, for 
this purpose, the learned judge directed the jury 
to tell him with what intention they found that 
the prisoner broke and entered the house, w^hich 
they did by answering, "To rescue his goods," 
which verdict was recorded. 

In the same manner, in the case of the King 
against Pierce, at the Old Bailey, the intention 
w^as found by the jury as a fact in the special 
verdict. The prisoner, having hired a horse and 
afterward sold him, was indicted for felony ; 
but the judges, doubting whether it w^as more 
than a fraud, unless he originally hired him in- 
tending to sell him, recommended it to the jury 
to find a special verdict, comprehending their 
judgment of his intention, from the evidence. 
Here the quality of the act depended on the in- 
tention, which intention it was held to be the 
exclusive province of the jury to determine, be- 
fore the judges could give the act any legal de- 
nomination. 

My Lord, I am ashamed to have cited so many 
The error ari-ies authorities to establish the first ele- 
forcivS'"^" ments of the law ; but it has been 
cnminai cases, ^y f^tg to find them dlsputed. The 
w^hole mistake arises from confounding criminal 
wnth civil cases. If a printer's servant, without 
his master's consent or privity, inserts a slander- 
ous article against me in his newspaper, I ought 
not in justice to indict him ; and if I do, the jury 
on such proof should acquit him ; but it is no 
defense against an action, for ho is responsible to 
me civiliter for the damage which I have sustained 
from the newspaper, which is his property. Is 
there any thing new in this principle ? So far 



from it, that every student knows it is as appli- 
cable to all other cases. But people are resolved, 
from some fatality or other, to distort every prin- 
ciple of law into nonsense, when they come to 
apply it to printing ; as if none of the rules and 
maxims which regulate all the transactions of 
society had any i-eference to it. 

If a man, rising in his sleep, walks into a 
china shop, and breaks every thing about him, 
his being asleep is a complete answer to an in- 
dictment for a trespass ; but he must answer in 
an action for every thing he has broken. 

If the proprietor of the York coach, though 
asleep in his bed at that city, has a drunken 
servant on the box at London, who drives over 
my leg and breaks it, he is responsible to me in 
damages for the accident ; but I can not indict 
him as the criminal author of my misfortune. 
What distinction can be more obvious and sim- 
ple ? 

Let us only, then, extend these principles, 
which were never disputed in other criminal 
cases, to the crime of publishing a libel ; and let 
us, at the same time, allow to the jury, as our 
forefathers did before us, the same jurisdiction 
in that instance which we agree in rejoicing to 
allow them in all others, and the system of En- 
glish law will be wise, harmonious, and complete. 

My Lord, I have now finished my argument, 
having answered the several objections 

"„ • • 1 • • 1 Peroration. 

to my five origmal propositions, and es- 
tablished them by ail the principles and authori- 
ties which appear to me to apply, or to be nec- 
essary for their support. In this process I have 
been unavoidably led into a length not more in- 
convenient to the court than to myself, and have 
been obliged to question several judgments which 
had been before questioned and confirmed. 

They, however, who may be disposed to cen- 
sure me for the zeal which has animated me in 
this cause, will at least, I hope, have the candor 
to give me credit for the sincerity of my inten- 
tions. It is surely not my interest to stir up op- 
position to the decided authorities of the court in 
which I practice. With a seat here within the 
bar, at my time of life, and looking no further 
than myself, I should have been contented with 
the law as I found it, and have considered how 
little might be said with decency, rather than 
how much ; but feeling as I have ever done upon 
the subject, it was impossible I should act other- 
wise. It w^as the first command and counsel to 
my youth, always to do w^hat my conscience told 
me to be my duty, and to leave the consequences 
to God. I shall carry with me the memor}-, and, 
I hope, the practice, of this parental lesson to 
the grave. I have hitherto follow^ed it, and have 
no reason to complain that the adherence to it 
has been even a temporal sacrifice : I have found 
it, on the contrary, the road to prosperity and 
w^ealth, and shall point it out as such to my chil- 
dren. It is impossible, in this country, to hurt 
an honest man ; but even if it were possible, I 
should little deserve that title, if I could, upon 
any principle, have consented to tamper or tem- 
porize with a question which involves, in its de- 



1789.] 



IN BEHALF OF STOCKDALE. 



683 



termination and its consequences, the liberty of 
the press, and. in that liberty, the veiy existence 
of every part of the public freedom. 



Notwithstanding this powerful argument, the 
court, through Lord Mansfield, gave a unani- 
mous decision in favor of Justice Buller's doc- 
trine, and discharged the rule for a new trial.-''^ 
But they afterward allowed an arrest of judg- 
ment, finding, on examination, that there was 
nothing illegal in the Dialogue. Mr. Erskine, 
referring to the subject in his speech on the trial 
of Paine, said : " I ventured to maintain this very 
right of a jury over questions of libel before a 
noble and i-evered magistrate of the most exalt- 
ed understanding, arfd the most uncorrupted in- 
tegrity. He treated me, not with contempt, in- 
deed, for of that his nature was incapable ; but 
he put me aside with indulgence, as you do a 



of libel or no libel was one for the judges alone 
to decide — thus putting the liberty of the press 
beyond the reach of a jury, in the hands of the 
court. The public mind became greatly agita- 
ted on the subject. Mr. Erskine's argument 
was written out and widely circulated ; and a 
way was thus prepared for a declaratory law, 
affirming the right of the jury "to give their 
verdict on the lohole matter in issue," and order- 
ing that "they shall not be required or directed 
by the court to find the defendant or defendants 
guilty merely on the proof of the publication by 
such defendant or defendants, of the papers 
charged to be a libel." Mr. Fox introduced a 
bill to this effect into the House of Commons, in 
1791. When passed there, it was once defeated 
and again resisted by Thurlow, Kenyon, Bath- 
urst, and all the judges in the House of Lords, 
but was finally passed, June 1st, 1792, chiefly 
through the exertions of Lord Camden. "I 
have said," says the distinguished jurist already 



child when it is lisping its prattle out of season." 
At the present day, however, most lawyers agree mentioned, "and I still think, that this great con- 
in the opinion expressed by Lord Campbell, that stitutional triumph is mainly to be ascribed to 
the doctrine of Mansfield, thousfh it had obtained Lord Camden, who had been fifjhting in the 



in the courts for a century, was a departure from 
the original principles of the English common 
law on this subject. 

The decision now made, confirming that in 
the case of Woodfall, was considered as finally 
establishing the fatal principle, that the question 



for half a century, and uttered his last 
in the House of Lords in its support : but 



cause 

words 

without the invaluable assistance of Erskine, 

as counsel of the Dean of St. Asaph, the Star 

Chamber might have been re-established in this 

country." 



SPEECH 



OF MR. ERSKINE IN BEHALF OF JOHN STOCKDALE WHEN TRIED FOR A LIBEL ON THE HOUSE 
OF COMMONS, DELIVERED BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH, DECEMBER 9, 1789. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Mr. Stockdale was a London bookseller, who published a pamphlet, written by a Scottish clergyman 
named Logan, while the trial of Warren Hastings was going on, reflecting severely on the House of 
Commons for their proceedings therein. Mr. Fox, one of the managers of the impeachment, brought this 
publication before the House, as impugning the motives of those who had proposed the trial, and moved 
that the Attorney General be directed to prosecute the author and publisher of the pamphlet for a libel 
on the Commons. The fact of publication was admitted, and the case, therefore, turned on the true nature 
of the crime alleged. 

In this speech Mr. Erskine has stated, with admirable precision and force, the great principles involved 
in the law of libel: namely, that every composition of this kind is to be taken as a whole, and not judged 
of by detached passages ; that if its general spirit and intention are good, it is not to be punished for hasty 
or rash expressions thrown off in the heat of discussion, and which might even amount to libels when con- 
sidered by themselves ; that the interests of society demand great freedom in canvassing the measures 
of goverament ; and that if a publication is decent in its language and peaceable in its import, much in- 
dulgence ought to be shown toward its author, when his real design is to discuss the subject, and not to 
bring contempt on the government — though in doing so he may be led, by the strength of his feelings, to 
transcend the bounds of candor and propriety. 



^^ It is curious that so accurate a man as Lord 
Mansfield should have made so entire a mistake 
upon one point embraced in his decision. In main- 
taining that, from the time of the Revolution of 
1688, the doctrine of Justice BuUer had been uni- 
versally received and acknowledged he quoted the 
following lines from a ballad by Mr. Pulteney con- 
cerning Sir PhiHp Yorke, the Attorney General, to 
prove that even "the popular party, in those days, 
had no idea of assuming that the jury had a right 
to determine upon a question of law." 



For Sir Philip well knows 

That his innuendoes 

Will serve him no long'cr 

In verse or in prose ; 
For twelve honest men have decided the cause, 
Who are judges o[fact, though not judges oUaics. 

Now it happens that the last line was written and 
pubUshed thus by Pulteney in the Craftsman: 

Who are judges alike of the facts and the laws ! 

—See Erskine's Speeches, vol. i., p. 216, New York. 



684 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1789. 



This is universally considered the finest of Mr. Erskine's speeches, " whether we regard the wonderful 
skill with which the argument is conducted — the soundness of the principles laid down, and their happy 
application to the case— the exquisite fancy with which they are embellished and illustrated— or the 
powerful and touching language in which they are conveyed. It is justly regarded by all English law- 
yers as a consummate specimen of the art of addressing a jury — as a standard, a sort of precedent for 
treating cases of libel, by keeping which in his eye a man may hope to succeed in special pleading his 
client's case within its principle, who is destitute of the talent required even to comprehend the other and 
higher merits of his original. By these merits it is recommended to lovers of pure diction — of copious and 
animated description — of lively, picturesque, and fanciful illustration — of all that constitutes, if we may so 
speak, the poetry of eloquence." — Edinburgh Review, vol. xvi., p. 109. 



SPEECH, &c. 



Gentlemen of the Jury, — Mr. Stockdale, 
, who is brouorht as a criminal before 

Extraordinary o _ _ 

confiiieme re you for the publication of this book, 

posed ill the •( ^ . i . i 

speaker by the has, by employing me as his advocate, 
defendant. reposcd what must appear to many 
an extraordinary degree of confidence ; since, 
although he well knows that I am personally 
connected in friendship with most of those whose 
conduct and opinions are principally arraigned 
by its author,^ he nevertheless commits to my 
hands his defense and justification. 

From a trust apparently so delicate and sin- 
This created by gular, Vanity is but too apt to whis- 
ortie'EngHsh^ P®'' ^" application to some fancied 
•'*'■• merit of one's own ; but it is proper, 

for the honor of the English bar, that the world 
should know that such things happen to all of us 
daily, and of course ; and that the defendant, 
without any knowledge of me, or any confidence 
that was personal, was only not afraid to follow 
up an accidental retainer, from the knowledge 
he has of the general character of the profession. 
Happy, indeed, is it for this country that, what- 
ever interested divisions may characterize other 
places, of which I may have occasion to speak 
to-day, however the counsels of the highest de- 
partments of the state may be occasionally dis- 
tracted by personal considerations, they never 
enter these walls to disturb the administration 
of justice. Whatever may be our public prin- 
ciples, or the private habits of our lives, they 
never cast even a shade across the path of our 
What impartial- pvofcssional dutics. If this be the 
ity, tiien, m:.y characteristic even of the bar of an 

we not expect t-i i- i 

ofthecourtand English court of justice, v^'hat sacred 
■'"'^ impartiality may not every man ex- 

pect from its jurors and its bench ? 

As, from the indulgence which the court was 
^^1 . yesterday pleased to give to my in- 
■piica- disposition, this information was not 
proceeded on when you were attend- 
ing to try it, it is probable you were not alto- 
gether inattentive to what passed at the trial of 
the other indictment, prosecuted also by the 
House of Commons. Without, therefore, a re- 
statement of the same principles, and a similar 
quotation of authorities to support them, I need 
only remind you of the law applicable to this 
subject, as it was then admitted by the Attorney 

^ Mr. Erskine was not only a great admirer of 
Mr. Burke, but he was in the constant habit of refer- 
ring to his productions in terms of the highest ad- 
miration. 



Admitted 

riples a 

ble to the case. 



General, in concession to my propositions, and 
confirmed by the higher authority of the court, 
namely, that every information or indictment 
must contain such a description of the crime that, 

First, the defendant may know what crime it 
is which he is called upon to answer. 

Second]}', the jury may appear to be warrant- 
ed in their conclusion of guilty or not guilty. 

And, thirdly, the court may see such a pre- 
cise and definite transgression upon the record, 
as to be able to apply the punishment which ju- 
dicial discretion may dictate, or which positive 
law may inflict. 

It was admitted also to follow as a mere cor- 
ollary from the.se propositions, that where an in- 
formation charges a writing to be composed or 
published of and concerning the Commons of Great 
Britain, with an intent to bring that body into 
scandal and disgrace w4th the public, the author 
can not be brought within the .scope of such a 
charge, unless the jury, on examination and com- 
parison of the whole matter written or published, 
shall be satisfied that the particular passages 
charged as criminal, when explained by the con- 
text, and considered as part of one entire work, 
were meant and intended by the author to viUfy 
the House of Commons as a body, and were 
written of and concerning them in parliament 

ASSEMBLED. 

These principles being .settled, we are now to 
see what the present information is. 

It charges that the defendant — "unlawfully, 
wickedly, and maliciously devising, con- jbe crime 
triving, and intending to asperse, scan- ^'^»=*'^s^'^- 
dalize, and vilif}' the Commons of Great Britain 
in Parliament assembled ; and most wickedly 
and audaciously to represent their proceedings 
as corrupt and unjust, and to make it believed 
and thought as if the Commons of Great Britain 
in Parliament assembled were a most wicked, 
tyrannical, base, and corrupt set of persons, and 
to bring them into disgrace with the public — 
the defendant published — What ? Not those 
latter ends of sentences which the Attorney Gen- 
er-al has read from his brief, as if they had fol- 
lowed one another in order in this book. Not 
those scraps and tails of passages which are 
patched together upon this record, and pro- 
nounced in one breath, as if they existed without 
intermediate matter in the same page, and with- 
out context any where. No ! This is not the 
accusation, even mutilated as it is ; for the in- 
formation charges Ihat^ with intention to vilify 



1789.] 



IN BEHALF OF STOCKDALE. 



685 



the House of Commons^ the defendant published 
the whole book, describing it on the record by 
ji its title : '* A Review of the Principal Charges 
against Warren Hastings, Esq., late Governor 
General of Bengal :" in which, among other 
things, the matter particularly selected is to be 
found. ^ 

Your inquiry, therefore, is not confined to this, 
. whether the defendant published those 
the jury to selcctcd parts of it ; and whether, look- 
ing at them as they are distorted by 
the information, they carry, in fair construction, 
the sense and meaning w^hich the innuendoes put 
upon them ; but whether the author of the entire 
work — I say the author^ since, if he could de- 
fend himself, the publisher unquestionably can — 
whether the author wrote the volume which I 
hold in my hand, as a free, manly, bond fide dis- 
quisition of criminal charges against his fellow- 
citizen. Or whether the long, eloquent discus- 
sion of them, which fills so many pages, was a 
mere cloak and cover for the introduction of the 
supposed scandal imputed to the selected passa- 
ges ; the mind of the writer all along being in- 
tent on traducing the House of Commons, and 
not on fairly answering their charges against 



Mr. Hastir 



This, gentlemen, is the princi- 



pal matter for your consideration. And there- 
fore, if, after you shall have taken the book itself 
into the chamber which will be provided for you, 
and shall have read the whole of it with impar- 
tial attention — if, after the performance of this 
duty, you can return here, and with clear con- 
sciences pronounce upon your oaths that the im- 
pression made upon you by these pages is, that 
the author wrote them with the wicked, sedi- 
tious, and corrupt intentions charged by the in- 
formation — you have then my full permission to 
find the defendant guilty. But if, on the other 
hand, the general tenor of the composition shall 
impress you wnth respect for the author, and 
point him out to you as a man mistaken, perhaps, 
hiniself, but not seeking to deceive others — if 
every line of the work shall present to you an 
intelligent, animated mind, glowing with a Chris- 
tian compassion toward a fellow-man, whom he 
believed to be innocent, and with a patriot zeal 
for the liberty of his country, which he consid- 
ered as wounded through the sides of an op- 
pressed fellow-citizen — if this shall be the im- 
pression on your consciences and understandings, 
when you are called upon to deliver your ver- 
dict — then hear from me that you not only work 
private injustice, but break up the press of En- 
gland, and surrender her rights and liberties for- 
ever, if you convict the defendant. 

Gentlemen, to enable you to form a true judg- 
charge made mcut of the mcauiug of this book and 
pasiaKesI^nd"^ of thc intention of its author, and to 
teTiefemat"" ^xposc the miserable juggle that is 

I 'er. " played off in the information, by the 

combination of sentences which, in the work it- 

i self, having no bearing upon one another, I will 

2 -phe principal parts selected by the Attorney 
General are specified and commented on by Mr. Er- 
K'wiie ill n subse(iueiit part of this speech. 



first give you the publication as it is charged 
upon the record, and presented by the Attorney 
General in opening the case for the Crown ; and 
I will then, by reading the interjacent matter, 
which is studiously kept out of view, convince 
you of its true interpretation. 

The information, beginning with the first page 
of the book, charges as a libel upon the House 
of Commons the following sentence : " The House 
of Commons has now given its final decision with 
regard to the merits and demerits of Mr. Hast- 
ings. The Grand Inquest of England have de- 
livered their charges, and preferred their im- 
peachment ; their allegations are referred to 
proof; and from the appeal to the collective wis- 
dom and justice of the nation in the supreme tri- 
bunal of the kingdom, the question comes to be 
determined whether JMr. Hastings be guilty or 
not guilty?*' 

It is but fair, however, to admit that this first 
.sentence, which the most ingenious malice can 
not torture into a criminal construction, is charg- 
ed by the information rather as introductory to 
what is made to follow it than as libelous in it- 
.self. For the Attorney General, from this intro- 
ductory passage in the first page, goes on at a 
leap to page thirteenth, and reads — almost with- 
out a stop, as if it immediately followed the oth- 
er — this sentence : " What credit can w^e give 
to multiplied and accumulated charges, when we 
find that they originate from misrepresentation 
and falsehood?" 

From these two passages thus standing to- 
gether, without the intervenient matter which 
occupies thirteen pages, one would imagine that 
— instead of investigating the probability or im- 
probability of the guilt imputed to Mr. Hastings 
— instead of carefully examining the charges of 
the Commons, and the defense of them which 
had been delivered before them, or which was 
preparing for the Lords — the author had imme- 
diately, and in a moment after stating the mere 
fact of the impeachment, decided that the act of 
the Commons originated from misrepresentation 
and falsehood. 

Gentlemen, in the same manner a vail is cast 
over all that is written in the next seven pages ; 
for, knowing that the context w^ould help to the 
true construction, not only of the passages 
charged before, but of those in the sequel of ihis 
information, the Attorney General, aware that it 
would convince every man who read it that there 
was no intention in the author to calumniate the 
House of Commons, passes over, by another leap, 
to page twenty ; and in the same manner, with- 
out drawing his breath, and as if it directly fol- 
lowed the two former sentences in the first and 
thirteenth pages, reads from page twentieth : 
" An impeachment of error in judgment with 
regai'd to the quantum of a fine, and for an in- 
tention that never was executed and never 
known to the oflTcnding party, characterizes a tri- 
bunal of inquisition rather than a Court of Par- 
liament." 

From this passage, by another vault, he leaps 
over one-and-thirty pages more, to page fifty- 

\ 



JHJ^^JWUi. 



I . P ..."JJL.. 



686 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1789. 



one, where he reads the following sentence, 
which he mainly relies on, and upon w^hich I 
shall by-and-by trouble you with some observa- 
tions : "Thirteen of them passed in the House 
of Commons, not only without investigation, but 
without being read ; and the votes were given 
without inquir}^, argument, or conviction. A 
majority had determined to impeach ; opposite 
parties met each other, and 'jostled in the dark, 
to perplex the political drama, and bring the 
hero to a tragic catastrophe.' " 

From thence, deriving new vigor from every 
exertion, he makes his last grand stride over 
forty-four pages more, almost to the end of the 
book, charging a sentence in the ninety-fifth 
page. 

So that out of a volume of one hundred and ten 
Any book might pages, thc defendant is only charged 
convict^d^o'rer- "^ith a fcw scattcrcd fragments of 
'■"'■■ sentences, picked out of three or four. 

Out of a work consisting of about two thousand 
five hundred and thirty lines, of manly, spirited 
eloquence, only forty or fifty lines are culled 
from different parts of it, and artfully put togeth- 
er, so as to rear up a libel, out of a false context, 
by a supposed connection of sentences with one 
another, which are not only entirely independ- 
ent, but which, when compared with their ante- 
cedents, bear a totally different construction. In 
this manner, the greatest works upon govern- 
ment, the most excellent books of science, the 
sacred Scriptures themselves, might be distort- 
ed into libels, by forsaking the general context, 
and hanging a meaning upon selected parts. 
Thus, as in the text put by Algernon Sidney, 
" The fool hath said in his heart, there is no 
God," the Attorney General, on the principle of 
the present proceeding against this pamphlet, 
might indict the publisher of the Bible for blas- 
phemously denying the existence of heaven, in 
printing, " There is no God," for these words 
alone, without the context, would be selected by 
the information, and the Bible, like this book, 
would be underscored to meet it. Nor could the 
defendant, in such a case, have any possible de- 
fense, unless the jury were permitted to see, by 
the book itself^ that the verse, instead of denying 
the existence of the Divinity, only imputed that 
imagination to a. fool. 

Gentlemen, having now gone through the At- 
Preiiminary to^ncy General's reading, the book shall 
consictera- prcscntlv comc forward and speak for 

tions before -^ ir- V. ^ i r t 

taking up itseli. But beiorc 1 can venture to lay 
it before you, it is proper to call your 
attention to how matters stood at the time of its 
publication : without which the author's meaning 
and intention can not possibly be understood.^ 



^ One of the most admirable things in this defense 
was the introduction of this preliminary matter. Be- 
fore comparing the book with the charges, Mr. Er- 
skine here brings forward the character sustained 
by the Commons, and the error they committed in 
allowing the charges against Hastings to be pub- 
lished to the world. He thus shows the necessity 
of some defense on the part of the accused. He 
next awakens sympathy in his favor by a powerful 



The Commons of Great Britain, in Parliament 
assembled, had accused Mr. Hastings, (,^ character 
as Governor General of Bengal, of hiofh ^"'^ conductor 

, . , , , . the House in 

crimes and misdemeanors ; and their impeaching Mr. 
jurisdiction, for that high porpose of "^*""S'- 
national justice, was unquestionably competent. 
But it is proper you should know the nature of 
this inquisitorial capacity. The Commons, in vot- 
ing an impeachment, may be compared to a grand 
jury finding a bill of indictment for the Crown. 
Neither the one nor the other can be supposed 
to proceed but upon the matter which is brought 
before them ; neither of them can find guilt with- 
out accusation, nor the truth of accusation with- 
out evidence. When, therefore, we speak of the 
"accuser," or "accusers," of a person indicted 
for any crime, although the grand jui'y are the 
accusers inform^ by giving eff(3Ct to the accusa- 
tion, yet, in common parlance, we do not consider 
ihe?n as the responsible authors of the prosecu- 
tion. If I were to write of a most wicked in- 
dictment, found against an innocent man, which 
was preparing for trial, nobody who read it would 
conceive I meant to stigmatize the grand jury 
that found the bill ; but it would be inquired im- 
mediately, who was the prosecutor, and who were 
the witnesses on the back of it ? In the same 
manner, I mean to contend, that if this book is 
read with only common attention, the whole 
scope of it will be discovered to be this : That, 
in the opinion of the author, Mr. Hastings had 
been accused of maladministration in India, from 
the heat and spleen of political divisions in Par- 
liament, and not from any zeal for national honor 
or justice ; that the impeachment did not origin- 
ate from government, but from a faction banded 
against it, which, by misrepresentation and vio- 
lence, had fastened it on an unwilling House of 
Commons ; that, prepossessed with this sentiment 
(which, however unfounded, makes no part of the 
present business, since the publisher is not called 
before you for defaming individual members of 
the Commons, but for a contempt of the Commons 
as a body), the author pursues the charges, ar- 
ticle by article ; enters into a warm and animated 
vindication of Mr. Hastings, by regular answei's 
to each of them ; and that, as far as the mind and 
soul of a man can be visible, I might almost say 
embodied in his writings, his intention through- 
out the whole volume appears to have been to 
charge with injustice the private accusers of Mr. 
Hastings, and not the House of Commons as a 
body ; which undoubtedly rather reluctantly gave 
way to, than heartily adopted the impeachment.^ 
This will be found to be the palpable scope of 
the book; and no man who can read English, 
and who, at the same time, will have the candor 
and common sense to take up his impressions 
from what is written in it, instead of bringing his 

description of the trial, and of the talent arrayed 
against his client in "Westminster Hall. 

* This distinction between the individual oppo- 
nents of Mr. Hastings and the House to which they 
belonged, was one of the turning-points of the case, 
and was used by Mr. Erskine with great cfFoct when 
ho came to comment on the pamphlet. 



1789] 



IN BEHALF OF STOCKDALE. 



687 



own along with hina to the reading of it, can pos- 
sibly understand it otherwise. 

But it may be said, that admitting this to be 
(2.) The House ^hc scope and design of the author, 
provoked this ^y^at right had he to canvass the 

attack hy allow- _ o 

ing the charges mcrits ot an accusatiou upon the rec- 

against Hast- i p i /~i 

ings to be pub ords 01 the Commons, more espe- 
^^^'^' cially while it was in the course of 

legal procedure ? This, I confess, might have 
been a serious question, but the Commons, as 
prosecutors of this information, seem to have 
waived or forfeited their right to ask it. Before 
they sent the Attorney General into this place, 
to punish the publication of answers to their 
charges, they should have recollected that their 
own want of circumspection in the maintenance 
of their privileges, and in the pi'otection of per- 
sons accused before them, had given to the pub- 
lic the charges themselves, which should have 
been confined to their own journals. The course 
and practice of Parliament might warrant the 
printing of them for the use of their own mem- 
bers ; but there the publication should have stop- 
ped, and all further progress been resisted by 
authority. If they were resolved to consider 
answers to their charges as a contempt of their 
privileges, and to punish the publication of them 
by such severe prosecutions, it would have well 
become them to have begun first with those 
printers who, by publishing the charges them- 
selves throughout the whole kingdom, or rather 
throughout the whole civilized woi'ld, were an- 
ticipating the passions and judgments of the pub- 
lic against a subject of England upon his ti'ial, 
so as to make the publication of answers to them 
not merely a privilege, but a debt and duty to 
humanity and justice. The Commons of Great 
Britain claimed and exercised the privileges of 
questioning the innocence of Mr. Hastings by 
their impeachment : but as, however questioned, 
it was still to be presumed and protected, until 
guilt was established by a judgment, he whom 
they had accused had an equal claim upon their 
justice, to guard him from prejudice and mis- 
representation until the hour of trial. 

Had the Commons, therefore, by the exercise 
Such a pro- of their high, necessary, and legal priv- 
"aryToa'li'ju- i^egcs, kept the public aloof from all 
diciai usage, canvass of their proceedings, by an 
early punishment of printers, who, without re- 
serve or seci-ecy, had sent out the charges into the 
world from a thousand presses in every form of 
publication, they would have then stood upon 
ground to-day from whence no argument of pol- 
icy or justice could have removed them ; because 
nothing can be more incompatible with either 
than appeals to the many upon subjects of judi- 
cature, which, by common consent, a few are ap- 
pointed to determine, and which must be determ- 
ined by facts and principles, which the multitude 
have neither leisure nor knowledge to investigate. 
But then, let it be remembered that it is for those 
who have the authority to accuse and punish, to 
set the example of, and to enforce this reserve, 
which is so necessary for the ends of justice. 
Courts of law, therefore, in England, never en- 



dure the publication of their records. A pros- 
ecutor of an indictment would be attached for 
such a publication ; and, upon the same principle, 
a defendant would be punished for anticipating 
the justice of his country, by the publication of 
his defense, the public being no party to it, until 
the tribunal appointed for its determination be 
open for its decision. 

Gentlemen, you have a right to take judicial 
notice of these matters, without the xi.ese thin-s 
proof of them by witnesses. For ti'^uR'" "o^"'" 

\ 1 • 1 ■ evidence, are 

jurors may not only, without evi- properly before 

dence, found their verdicts on facts ^^^'^^' 
that are notorious, but upon what they know pri- 
vately themselves, after revealing it upon oath to 
one another. Therefore, you are always to re- 
member that this book was written when the 
charges against Mr. Hastings, to which it is an 
answer, were, to the knowledge of the Commons 
(for we can not presume our watchmen to have 
been asleep), publicly hawked about in every 
pamphlet, magazine, and newspaper in the king- 
dom. You well know with what a curious ap- 
petite these charges were devoured by the whole 
public, interesting as they were, not only from 
their importance, but from the merit of their 
composition ; certainly not so intended by the 
honorable and excellent composer to oppress the 
accused, but because the commonest subjects 
swell into eloquence under the touch of his sub- 
lime genius. Thus, by the remissness of the 
Commons, who are now the prosecutors of this 
information, a subject of England, who was not 
even charged with contumacious resistance to 
authority, much less a proclaimed outlaw, and 
therefore fully entitled to every protection which 
the customs and statutes of the kingdom hold out 
for the protection of British liberty, saw himself 
pierced with the airows of thousands and ten 
thousands of libels. 

Gentlemen, before I venture to lay the book 
before you, it must be yet further remembered 
(for the fact is equally notorious) that under these 
inauspicious circumstances the trial of Mr. Hast- 
ings at the bar of the Lords had actually com- 
menced long before its publication. 

There the most august and striking spectacle 
was daily exhibited which the world (3 ^ Description 
ever witnessed. A vast stage of jus- "'"^•^^ ^'"'*'- 
tice was erected, awful from its high authority, 
splendid from its illustrious dignity, venerable 
from the learning and wusdom of its judges, cap- 
tivating and affecting from the mighty concourse 
of all ranks and conditions which daily flocked 
into it, as into a theater of pleasure. There, when 
the whole public mind was at once awed and 
softened to the impression of every human affec- 
tion, there appeared, day after day, one after an- 
other, men of the most powerful and exalted tal- 
ents, eclipsing by their accusing eloquence the 
most boasted harangues of antiquity ; rousing the 
pride of national resentment by the boldest in- 
vectives against broken faith and violated treaties, 
and shaking the bosom with alternate pity and 
horror by the most glowing pictures of insulted 
nature and humanity ; ever animated and ener- 



^U .J^ ,Jl.- .. ^iXLli 



f^T" 



688 



MR. ERSKirTE 



[1789. 



getic, from the love of fame, which is the inhe- 
rent passion of genius ; firm and itidefatigable, 
from a strong prepossession of the justice of their 
cause. 

Gentlemen, when the author sat down to write 
the book now before you, all this terrible, un- 
ceasing, exhaustless artillery of warm zeal, 
matchless vigor of understanding, consuming 
and devouring eloquence, united with the high- 
est dignity, was daily, and without prospect of 
conclusion, pouring forth upon one private unpro- 
tected man, who was bound to hear it, in the face 
of the whole people of England, with reverential 
submission and silence. I do not complain of this, 
as I did of the publication of the charges, be- 
cause it is what the law allowed and sanctioned 
in the course of a public trial. But when it is re- 
membered that we are not angels, but weak, fal- 
lible men, and that even the noble judges of that 
high tribunal are clothed beneath their ermines 
with the common infirmities of man's nature, it 
will bring us all to a proper temper for consider- 
ing the book itself, which will in a few moments 
be laid before you. But first, let me once more 
remind you, that it was under all these circum- 
stances, and amid the blaze of passion and prej- 
udice, which the scene I have been endeavoring 
faintly to describe to you might be supposed likely 
to produce, that the author, whose name I will 
now give to you, sat down to compose the book 
which is prosecuted to-day as a libel. 

The history of it is very short and natural. 

The Rev. Mr. Logan, minister of the Gospel 
Origin of the ^t Lcith, in Scotlaud, a clergyman of the 
pamphlet, purcst morals, and, as you will see by- 
and-by, of very superior talents, well acquainted 
with the human character, and knowing the dif- 
ficulty of bringing back public opinion after it is 
settled on any subject, took a wai'm, unbought, 
unsolicited interest in the situation of Mr. Hast- 
ings, and determined, if possible, to arrest and 
suspend the public judgment concerning him. 
He felt for the situation of a fellow-citizen ex- 
posed to a trial which, whether right or wrong, 
is undoubtedly a severe one — a trial certainly not 
confined to a few criminal acts like those we are 
accustomed to, but comprehending the transac- 
tions of a whole life, and the complicated policies 
of numerous and distant nations — a trial which 
had neither visible limits to its duration,"^ bounds 
to its expense, nor circumscribed compass for the 
grasp of memory or understanding — a trial which 
had, therefore, broke loose from the common form 
of decision, and had become the universal topic 
of discussion in the world, superseding not only 
every other grave pursuit, but every fashionable 
dissipation. 

Gentlemen, the question you have, therefore, 
to try upon all this matter is extremely simple. 
It is neither more nor less than this : At a time 

5 The trial began 13th February, 1788; and was 
protracted until 17th April, 1795 (oct^upying one 
hundred and forty-eia^ht days), wlien Mr. Hastings 
was acquitted by a large majority on every separate 
article charged against theui. Tlie costs of the de- 
fense amounted to £76,080. 



when the charges against Mr. Hastings were, by 
the implied consent of the Commons, Question for 
in every hand, and on every table — adeinview*^of 
when, by their managers, the light- these n«ci8. 
ning of eloquence was incessantly consuming 
him, and flashing in the eyes of the public — when 
every man was with perfect impunity saying, and 
writing, and publishing, just what he pleased of 
the supposed plunderer and devastator of nations 
— would it have been criminal in Mr. Hastings 
himself to have reminded the public that he was 
a native of this free land, entitled to the common 
protection of her justice, and that he had a de- 
fense, in his turn, to offer to them, the outlines of 
which he implored them, in the mean time, to re- 
ceive as an antidote to the unlimited and unpun- 
ished poison in circulation against him ? This 
IS, without color or exaggeration, the true ques- 
tion you are to decide. For I assert, without 
the hazard of contradiction, that if Mr. Hastings 
himself could have stood justified or excused in 
your eyes for publishing this volume in his own 
defense, the author, if he wrote it bona fide to de- 
fend him. must stand equally excused and justi- 
fied ; and if the author be justified, the publisher 
can not be criminal, unless you have evidence that 
it was published by him, with a different spirit 
and intention from those in which it was written. 
The question, therefore, is correctly what I just 
now stated it to be : Could Mr. Hastings have 
been condemned to infamy for writing this book? 

Gentlemen, I tremble with indignation, to be 
driven to put such a question in En- Ground of 
gland. Shall it be endured, that a sub- »''^ '''=''-^"««- 
ject of this country (instead of being arraigned 
and tried for some single act in her ordinary 
courts, where the accusation, as soon, at least, as 
it is made public, is followed within a few hours 
by the decision) may be impeached by the Com- 
mons for the transactions of twenty years — that 
the accusation shall spread as wide as the region 
of letters — that the accused shall stand, day after 
day, and year after year, as a spectacle before the 
public, which shall be kept in a perpetual state 
of inflammation against him ; yet that he shall 
not, without the severest penalties, be permitted 
to submit any thing to the judgment of mankind 
in his defense ? If this be law (which it is for 
you to-day to decide), such a man has no trial ! 
That great hall, built by our fathers for English 
justice, is no longer a court, but an altar; and 
an Englishman, instead of being judged in it by 
God and his country, is a victim and a sac- 
rifice !^ 

You will carefully remember that I am not 



6 In the next paragraph Mr. Erskine shows that 
peculiar caution which he always maintained in his 
boldest lliglits. He instantly comes back to the 
rights of the House, and the propriety with which 
the managers had conducted. He thus took care to 
impress his hearers, in his most impassioned passa- 
ges, with the feeling that all he said was in the ex- 
ercise of the severest judgment — that he was never 
borne away by mere emotion in his most fervent ap- 
peals. This gave great weight to his more glowing 
passages. 



/789.] 



IN BEHALF OF STOCKDALE. 



presuming to question eithei- the right or duty of 
the Commons of Great Britain to impeach ; nei- 
ther am I arraigning the propriety of their se- 
lecting, as they have done, the most extraordina- 
ry persons for ability which the age has produced, 
to manage their impeachment. JNIuch less am I 
censuring the managers themselves, charged with 
the conduct of it before the Lords, who are un- 
doubtedly bound, by their duty to the House and 
to the public, to expatiate upon the crimes of the 
persons whom they had accused. None of these 
points are questioned by me, nor are in this place 
questionable. I only desire to have 

Recapitulation. .-^ , . , , , , -c ^ n 

It decided whether, it the Commons, 
when national expediency happens to call in their 
judgment for an impeachment, shall, instead of 
keeping it on their own records, and carrying it 
with due solemnity to the Peers for trial, permit 
it, without censure and punishment, to be sold like 
a common newspaper in the shop of my client, 
so crowded with their own members that no plain 
man, without privilege of Parliament, can hope 
even for a sight of the fire in the winter's day, 
every man buying it, reading it, and commenting 
upon it — the gentleman himself who is the ob- 
ject of it, or his friend in liis absence, may not, 
without stepping beyond the bounds of English 
freedom, put a copy of what is thus published into 
bis pocket, and send back to the very same shop 
for publication a bona fide, rational, able answer 
to it, in order that the bane and antidote may 
circulate together, and the public be kept straight 
till the day of decision. If you think, gentlemen, 
that this common duty of self-preservation to the 
accused himself, which nature writes as a law 
upon the hearts of even savages and brutes, is 
nevertheless too high a privilege to be enjoyed by 
an impeached and suffering Englishman ; or if 
you think it beyond the offices of humanity and 
justice, when brought home to the hand of a 
brother or a friend, you will say so by your ver- 
dict of guilty ; the decision will then be yours ; 
and the consolation mine, that I have labored to 
avert it. A very small part of the miseiy which 
will follow from it is likely to light upon me ; 
the rest will be divided among yourselves and your 
children. 

Gentlemen, I observe plainly and with infinite 
. . , satisfaction, that you are shocked and 

Transition to an rr~ t i • • 

examination of offcudcd at my CVCU SUppOSing it 
the pamphlet. ., , i i i ^ i 

possible you should pronounce such 
a detestable judgment ; and that you only require 
of me to make out to your satisfaction, as I prom- 
ised, that the real scope and object of this book 
is a bona fide defense of Mr. Hastings, and not a 
cloak and cover for scandal on the House of Com- 
mons. I engage to do this, and I engage for 
nothing more. I shall make an open, manly de- 
fense. I mean to torture no expressions from 
their natural constructions, to dispute no innuen- 
does on the record, should any of them have a 
fair application ; nor to conceal from your notice 
any unguarded, intemperate expressions, which 
may, perhaps, be found to chequer the vigorous 
and animated career of the work. Such a con- 
duct might, by accident, shelter the defendant ; 
Xx 



but it would be the surrender of the very princi- 
ple on which alone the liberty of the English 
press can stand ; and I shall never defend any 
man from a temporary imprisonment by the per- 
manent loss of my own liberty, and the ruin of 
my country. I mean, therefore, to submit to you 
that though you should find a few lines in page 
thirteen or twenty-one ; a few more in page fifty- 
one, and some others in other places ; containing 
expressions bearing on the House of Commons, 
even as a body, which, if written as independent 
paragraphs by themselves, would be indefensible 
libels, yet, that you have a right to pass them 
over in judgment, provided the substance clearly 
appears to be a bo7ia fide conclusion, arising from 
the honest investigation of a subject which it 
was lawful to investigate, and the questionable 
expressions, the visible effusion of a zealous tem- 
per, engaged in an honorable and legal pursuit. 
After this preparation, I am not afraid to lay the 
book in its genuine state before you. 

The pamphlet begins thus : " The House of 
Commons has now given its final decis- comments 
ion with regard to the merits and de- ^''^'^^o"- 
merits of JMr. Hastings. The Grand Liquest of 
England have delivered their charges, and pre- 
ferred their impeachment ; their allegations are 
referred to proof; and, from the appeal to the 
collective wisdom and justice of the nation in 
the supreme tribunal of the kingdom, the ques- 
tion comes to be determined, whether Mr. Hast- 
ings be guilty or not guilty?" 

Now if, immediately after what I have just 
read to you — which is the first part charged by 
the information — the author had said, "Will ac- 
cusations, built on such a baseless fabric, prepos- 
sess the public in favor of the impeachment? 
What credit can we give to multiplied and ac- 
cumulated charges, when we find that they orig- 
inate from misrepresentation and falsehood?" 
every man would have been justified in pro- 
nouncing that he was attacking the House of 
Commons ; because the groundless accusations 
mentioned in the second sentence could have no 
reference but to the House itself mentioned by 
name in the first and only sentence which pre- 
ceded it. 

But, gentlemen, to your astonishment I will 
now read ivhat intervenes between these two 
passages. From this you will see, beyond a 
possibility of doubt, that the author never meant 
to calumniate the House of Commons, but to 
say that the accusations of Mr. Hastings before 
the whole House grew out of a Committee of 
Secrecy established some years before, and was 
afterward brought forward by the spleen of pri- 
vate enemies and a faction in the government. 
This will appear not only from the grammatical 
construction of the words, but from what is bet- 
ter than words, from the meaning which a per- 
son writing as a friend of Mr. Hastings must be 
supposed to have intended to convey. Why 
should such a friend attack the House of Com- 
mons ? Will any man gravely tell me that the 
House of Commons, as a body, ever wished to 
impeach Mr. Hastings ? Do we not all know 



^v ■.»■> tM .- ^.iJLJ, - 



690 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1789 



that they constantly hung back from it, and hard- 
ly knew where they were, or what to do when 
they found themselves entangled with it ? My 
learned friend, the A.ttorney General, is a mem- 
ber of this Assembly : perhaps he may tell you 
by-and-by what he thought of it, and whether he 
ever marked any disposition in the majority of 
the Commons hostile to Mr. Hastings. But why 
should I distress my friend by the question ? the 
fact is sufficiently notorious ; and what I am go- 
ing to read from the book itself — which is left 
out in the information — is too plain for contro- 
versy. 

" Whatever may be the event of the impeach- 
ment, the proper exercise of such power is a 
valuable privilege of the British Constitution, a 
formidable guardian of the public liberty and 
the dignity of the nation. The only danger is, 
that, from the influence of faction, and the awe 
which is annexed to great names, they may be 
prompted to determine before they inquire, and to 
pronounce judgment without examination.'''' 

Here is the clue to the whole pamphlet. The 
author trusts to, and respects, the House of Com- 
mons, but is afraid their mature and just exam- 
ination may be disturbed by faction. Now, does 
he mean government by faction ? Does he mean 
the majority of the Commons by faction ? Will 
the House, which is the prosecutor here, sanc- 
tion that application of the phrase ; or will the 
Attorney General admit the majority to be the 
true innuendo o^ faction? I wish he would ; I 
should then have gained something at least by 
this extraordinary debate. But I have no ex- 
pectation of the sort ; such a concession would 
be too great a sacrifice to any prosecution, at a 
time when every thing is considered as faction 
that disturbs the repose of the minister in Par- 
liament. But, indeed, gentlemen, some things 
are too plain for argument. The author cer- 
tainly means my friends, who, whatever qualifi- 
cations may belong to them, must be contented 
with the appellation of faction, while they op- 
pose the minister in the House of Commons ; 
but the House having given this meaning to the 
phrase of faction for its own purposes, can not 
in decency change the interpretation, in order to 
convict my client. I take that to be beyond the 
privilege of Parliament. 

The same bearing upon individual members 
of the Commons, and not on the Commons as a 
body, is obvious throughout. Thus, after saying, 
in page ninth, that the East India Company had 
thanked Mr. Hastings for his meritorious serv- 
ices — which is unquestionably true — he adds, 
" that mankind would abide by their deliberate 
decision, rather than by the intemperate asser- 
tion of a committee.'''' 

This he writes after the impeachment was 
found by the Commons at large. But he takes 
no account of their proceedings ; imputing the 
whole to the original committee — that is, the 
^Committee of Secreci/ — so called, I suppose, from 



^ The Secret Committee and the Select Commit- 
tee for inquiring into the general management of the 
state of affairs in India were first appointed in 1781. 



their being the authors of twenty volumes in fo- 
lio, which will remain a secret to all posterity, 
as nobody will ever read them. The same con- 
struction is equally plain from w^hat immediately 
follows : " The report of the Committee of Secrecy 
also states that the happiness of the native inhab- 
itants of India has been deeply affected, their con- 
fidence in English faith and lenity shaken and im- 
paired, and the character of this nation wantonly 
and wickedly degraded." 

Here, again, you are grossly misled by the 
omission of nearly twenty-one pages. For the 
author, though he is here speaking of this com- 
mittee by name, which brought forward the 
charges to the notice of the House, and which 
he continues to do onward to the next selected 
paragraph, yet, by arbitrarily sinking the whole 
context, he is taken to be speaking to the House 
as a body, when, in the passage next charged by 
the information, he reproaches the accusers of Mr. 
Hastings ; although, so far is he from consider- 
ing them as the House of Commons, that in the 
very same page he speaks of the articles as the 
charges not even of the committee, but of Mr. 
Burke alone, the most active and intelligent mem- 
ber of that body, having been circulated in India 
by a relation of that gentleman : " The charges 
of Mr. Burke have been carried to Calcutta, and 
carefully circulated in India." 

Now if we were considering these passages 
of the work as calumniating a body of gentlemen, 
many of whom I must be supposed highly to re- 
spect, or as reflecting upon my worthy friend 
whose name I have mentioned, it would give rise 
to a totally different inquiry, which it is neither 
my duty nor yours to agitate. But surely, the 
more that consideration obtrudes itself upon us, 
the more clearly it demonstrates that the author's 
whole direction was against the individual accus- 
ers of Mr. Hastings, and not against the House 
of Commons, which merely trusted to the matter 
they had collected. 

Although, from a caution which my situation 
dictates, as representing another, I have thought 
it my duty thus to point out to you the real in- 
tention of the author, as it appears by the fair 
construction of the work, yet I protest, that in my 
own apprehension it is very immaterial whether 
he speaks of the committee or of the House, pro- 
vided you shall think the whole volume a bona 
fide defense of Mr. Hastings. This is the great 
point I am, by all my observations, endeavoring 
to establish, and which, I think, no man who reads 
the following short passages can doubt. Very in- 
telligent persons have, indeed, considered them, 
if founded in facts, to render every other ampli- 
fication unnecessary. The first of them is as 
follows : "It was known at that time that Mr. 
Hastings had not only descended from a public 
to a private station, but that he was persecuted 



In 1782, the committees having made their reports, 
which were exceedingly voluminous, Mr. Dundas, 
the chairman of the Secret Committee, moved no 
less than one hundred and eleven resolutions, and 
concluded with a censure on the conduct of Warren 
Hastings. 



1789.] 



IN BEHALF OF STOCKDALE. 



with accusations and impeachments. But none 
of these suffering millions have sent their com- 
plaints to this country ; not a sigh nor a groan 
has been wafted from India to Britain. On the 
contrary, testimonies the most honorable to the 
character and merit of Mr. Hastings have been 
transmitted by those very princes whom he has 
been supposed to have loaded with the deepest 
injuries." 

Here, gentlemen, we must be permitted to 
pause together a little ; for, in examining wheth- 
er these pages were written as an honest answer 
to the charges of the Commons, or as a prosti- 
tuted defense of a notorious criminal, whom the 
writer believed to be guilty, truth becomes ma- 
terial at every step. For if, in any instance, he 
be detected of a willful misrepresentation, he is 
no longer an object of your attention. 

Will the Attorney General proceed, then, to 
Comparison dctcct the hypocrisy of our author, by 
Haltfn£Twii°h giving US somc details of the proofs 
that of verres. ^^y -^rj^jch tlicsc personal enormities 
have been established, and which the writer must 
be supposed to have been acquainted with ? I 
ask this as the defender of Mr. Stockdale, not of 
Mr. Hastings, with whom I have no concern. I 
am sorry, indeed, to be so often obliged to repeat 
this protest ; but I really feel myself embarrassed 
with those repeated coincidences of defense which 
thicken on me as I advance, and which were, no 
doubt, overlooked by the Commons when they di- 
rected this interlocutory inquiry into his conduct. 
I ask, then, as counsel for Mr. Stockdale, wheth- 
er, when a great state criminal is brought for 
justice at an immense expense to the public, 
accused of the most oppressive cruelties, and 
charged with the robbery of princes and the de- 
struction of nations, it is not open to any one to 
ask. Who are his accusers ? What are the sour- 
ces and the authorities of these shocking com- 
plaints ? Where are the embassadors or memo- 
rials of those princes whose revenues he has 
plundered ? Where are the witnesses for those 
unhappy men in whose persons the rights of hu- 
manity have been violated ? How deeply buried 
is the blood of the innocent, that it does not rise 
up in retributive judgment to confound the guilty ! 
These, surely, are questions which, when a fel- 
low-citizen is upon a long, painful, and expensive 
trial, humanity has a right to propose ; which the 
plain sense of the most unlettered man may be 
expected to dictate, and which all history must 
pi-ovoke fi-om the more enlightened. When Cic- 
ETvO impeached Vkkres^ before the great tribu- 
nal of Rome, of similar cruelties and depredations 
in her provinces, the Roman people were not left 
to such inquiries. All Sicily surrounded the Fo- 
rum, demanding justice upon her plunderer and 



** Verres, as praetor and governor of Sicily, was 
guilty of such extortion and oppression, that the 
»Sicilian people brought an accusation against him 
in the Senate, and Cicero conducted the impeach- 
ment. Verres was defended by Hortensius, the 
celebrated Roman orator; but, aware of the justice 



spoiler, with tears and imprecations. It was not 
by the eloquence of the orator, but by the cries 
and tears of the miserable, that Cicero prevailed 
in that illustrious cause. Verres fled from the 
oaths of his accusers and their witnesses, and not 
from the voice of Tully. To preserve the fame 
of his eloquence, he composed his five celebrated 
speeches, but they were never delivered against 
the criminal, because he had fled from the city, 
appalled with the sight of the persecuted and the 
oppressed. It may be said that the cases of Sic- 
ily and India are widely difl'erent ; perhaps tltey 
may be ; whether they are or not, is foreign to 
my purpose. I am not bound to deny the possi- 
bility of answers to such questions ; I am only 
vindicating the right to ask them.^ 

Gentlemen, the author, in the other passage 
which I marked out to your attention, goes on 
thus : " Lord Cornwallis and Sir John Macpher- 
son, his successors in office, have given the same 
voluntary tribute of approbation to his measures 
as Governor General of India. A letter from the 
former, dated the 10th of August, 1786, gives 
the following account of our dominions in Asia : 
' The native inhabitants of this kingdom are the 
happiest and best protected subjects in India ; our 
native allies and tributaries confide in our pro- 
tection ; the countiy powers are aspiring to the 
friendship of the English ; and from the King of 
Tidore, toward New Guinea, to Timur Shah, on 
the banks of the Indus, there is not a state that 
has not lately given us proofs of confidence and 
respect.' " 

Still pursuing the same test of sincerity, let us 
examine this defensive allegation. 

Will the Attorney General say that he does 
not believe such a letter from Lord Cornwallis 
ever existed ? No : for he knows that it is as 
authentic as any document from India upon the 
table of the House of Commons. What, then, 
is the letter ? " The native inhabitants of this 
kingdom, says Lord Cornwallis (writing from the 
very spot), are the happiest and best protected 
subjects in India," &c., &c., &c. The inhabitants 
of this kingdom I Of lohat kingdom ? Of the 
very kingdom which Mr. Hastings has just re- 
turned from governing for thirteen years, and for 
the misgovernment and desolation of which he 
stands every day as a criminal, or rather as a 
spectacle, before us. This is matter for serious 
reflection, and fully entitles the author to put the 
question which immediately follows : " Does this 
authentic account of the administration of Mr. 
Hastings, and of the state of India, correspond 
with the gloomy picture of despotism and despair 
drawn by the Committee of Secrecy .?" 

Had that picture been even drawn by the 
House of Commons itself, he would have been 



^ This passage was probably suggested by one in 
Mr. Sheridan's speech on the Begum Charge (page 
409), where he is showing the difficulties under 
which the Managers labored in procuring their evi- 
dence. Nothing could be happier than Mr. Erskine's 
application of the case of Verres to illustrate the 



of the accusation, he left Rome without waiting the | point — nothing more vivid than his picture of the 
result. I scene. 



692 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1789. 



fully justified in asking this question ; but you 
observe it has no bearing on it ; the last words not 
only entirely destroy that interpretation, but also 
the meaning of the very next passage, which is 
selected by the information as criminal, namely, 
" What credit can we give to multiplied and ac- 
cumulated charges, when we find that they orig- 
inate from misrepresentation and falsehood ?" 

This passage, which is charged as a libel on 
the Commons, when thus compared with its im- 
mediate antecedent, can bear but one construc- 
tion. It is impossible to contend that it charges 
misrepresentation on the House that found the 
impeachment, but upon the Committee of Secre- 
cy just before adverted to, who were supposed to 
have selected the matter, and brought it before 
the whole House for judgment. 

I do not mean, as I have often told you, to vin- 
dicate any calumny on that honorable committee, 
or upon any individual of it, any more than upon 
the Commons at large; but the defendant is 

NOT CHARGED BY THIS INFORMATION WITH ANY 
SUCH OFFENSES. 

Let me here pause once more to ask you, 
whether the book in its genuine state, as far as 
we have advanced in it, makes the same impres- 
sion on your minds now as when it was first read 
to you in detached passages ; and whether, if I 
were to tear off" the first part of it which 1 hold 
in my hand, and give it to you as an entire work, 
the first and last passages, which have been se- 
lected as libels on the Commons, would now ap- 
pear to be so, when blended with the interjacent 
parts ? I do not ask your answer ; I shall have 
it in your verdict. The question is only put to 
direct your attention in pursuing the remainder 
of the volume to this main point — Is it an hon- 
est, SERIOUS DEFENSE ? For this purposc, and 
as an example for all others, I will read the au- 
thor's entire answer to the first article of charge 
concerning Cheyte Sing, the Zemindar of Bena- 
res, and leave it to your impartial judgments to 
determine whether it be a mere cloak and cover 
for the slander imputed by the information to the 
concluding sentence of it, which is the only part 
attacked : or whether, on the contrary, that con- 
clusion itself, when embodied with what goes 
before it, does not stand explained and justified ? 

" The first article of impeachment," continues 
Case of our author, "is concerning Cheyte 
Cheyte Sing, gj^g, the Zemindar of Benares. Bul- 
wart Sing, the father of this Rajah, was merely an 
aumil^ or farmer and collector of the revenues for 
Sujah ul Dowlah, Nabob of Oude, and Vizier of 
the Mogul empire. When, on the decease of his 
father, Cheyte Sing was confirmed in the office 
of collector for the Vizier, he paid c£ 200, 000 as 
a gift, or nuzzeranah, and an additional rent of 
<£30,000 per annum." 

" As the father was no more than an aumil 
[agent], the son succeeded only to his rights and 
pretensions. But by a sunnud [decree] granted 
to him by the Nabob Sujah Dowlah in Septem- 
ber, 1773, through the influence of Mr. Hast- 
ing.s, he acquired a legal title to property in the 
land, and was raised from the office of aumil to 



the rank of Zemindar. About four years after 
the death of Bulwart Sing, the Governor General 
and council of Bengal obtained the sovereignty 
paramount of the province of Benares. On the 
transfer of this sovereignty the governor and 
council proposed a new grant to Cheyte Sing, 
confirming his former privileges, and conferring 
upon him the addition of the sovereign rights of 
the Mint, and the powers of criminal justice with 
regard to life and death. He was then recog- 
nized by the Company as one of their Zemindars : 
a tributary subject, or feudatory vassal, of the 
British empire in Hindostan. The feudal system, 
which was formerly supposed to be peculiar to 
our Gothic ancestors, has always prevailed in the 
East. In every description of that form of gov- 
ernment, notwithstanding accidental variations, 
there are two associations expressed or under- 
stood ; one for internal security, the other for ex 
ternal defense. The King or Nabob confers pro- 
tection on the feudatory baron as tributary prince, 
on condition of an annual revenue in the time of 
peace, and of military service, partly commuta- 
ble for money, in the time of war. The feudal 
incidents in the Middle Ages in Europe, the fine 
paid to the superior on marriage^ wardship^ reliefs 
&c., correspond to the annual tribute in Asia. 
Military service in war, and extraordinary aids 
in the event of extraordinary emergencies, were 
common to both." 

" When the Governor General of Bengal, in 
1778, made an extraordinary demand on the 
Zemindar of Benares for five lacks of rupees, 
the British empire, in that part of the world, 
was surrounded with enemies which threatened 
its destruction. In 1779, a general confederacy 
was formed among the great powers of Hindos- 
tan for the expulsion of the English from their 
Asiatic dominions. At this crisis the expectation 
of a French armament augmented the general ca- 
lamities of the country. Mr. Hastings is charged 
by the committee with making his first demand 
under the false pretense that hostilities had com- 
menced with France. Such an in.sidious attempt 
to pervert a meritorious action into a crime is 
new, even in the history of impeachments. On 
the 7th of July, 1778, Mr. Hastings received 
private intelligence from an English merchant 
at Cairo, that war had been declared by Great 
Britain on the 23d of March, and by France on 
the 30th of April. Upon this intelligence, con- 
sidered as authentic, it was determined to attack 
all the French settlements in India. The inform- 
ation was afterward found to be premature ; but 
in the latter end of August a secret dispatch was 
received from England, authorizing and appoint- 
ing Mr. Hastings to take the measures which he 
had already adopted in the preceding month. 
The Directors and the Board of Control have 
expressed their approbation of this transaction 
by liberally rewarding Mr. Baldwyn, the mer- 
chant, for sending the earliest intelligence he 
could procure to Bengal. It was two days after 
Mr. Hastings's information of the French war, 
that he formed the resolution of exacting the 
five lacks of rupees from Cheyte Sing, and would 



1789.] 



IN BEHALF OF STOCKDALE. 



693 



have made similar exactions from all the depend- 
encies of the company in India, had they been 
in the same circumstances. The fact is, that 
the great Zemindars of Bengal pay as much to 
government as their lands can afford. Cheyte 
Sing's collections were above fifty lacks, and his 
rent not twenty -four." 

" The right of calling for extraordinary aids 
and military service in times of danger being 
universally established in India, as it w^as form- 
erly in Europe during the feudal times, the sub- 
sequent conduct of Mr. Hastings is explained 
and vindicated. The Governor General and 
Council of Bengal having made a demand upon 
a tributary Zemindar for three successive years, 
and that demand having been resisted by their 
vassal, they are justified in his punishment. The 
necessities of the company, in consequence of 
the critical situation of their affairs in 1781, 
calling for a high fine — the ability of the Ze- 
mindar, w^ho possessed near two crores of ru- 
pees in money and jewels, to pay the sum re- 
quired — his backwardness to comply with the 
demands of his superiors — his disaffection to the 
English interest, and desire of revolt, which 
even then began to appear, and were afterward 
conspicuous, fully justify Mr. Hastings in every 
subsequent step of his conduct. In the whole 
of his proceedings, it is manifest that he had not 
early formed a design hostile to the Zemindar, 
but was regulated by events which he could 
neither foresee nor control. When the necessa- 
ry measures which he had taken for supporting 
the authority of the company, by punishing a 
refractory vassal, were thwarted and defeated 
by the barbarous massacre of the British troops, 
and the rebellion of Cheyte Sing, the appeal was 
made to arms, an unavoidable revolution took 
place in Benares, and the Zemindar became the 
author of his own destruction." 

Here follows the concluding passage, which 
is arraigned by the information : 

' " The decision of the House of Commons on 
this charge against Mr. Hastings is one of the 
most singular to be met with in the annals of 
Parliament. The minister, who was followed 
by the majority, vindicated him in every thing 
that he had done, and found him blamable only for 
what he intended to do; justified every step of 
his conduct, and only criminated his proposed 
intention of converting the crimes of the Zemin- 
dar to the benefit of the state, by a fine of fifty 
lacks of rupees. An impeachment of error in 
judgment with regard to the quantum of a fine, 
and for an intention that never was executed, 
and never known to the offending party, charac- 
terizes a tribunal of inquisition rather than a 
court of Parliament." 

Gentlemen, I am ready to admit that this sen- 
timent might have been expressed in language 
more reserved and guarded ; but you will look 
to the sentiment itself, rather than to its dress — 
to the mind of the writer, and not to the blunt- 
ness with which he may happen to express it. 
It is obviously the language of a warm man, en- 
gaged in the honest defense of his friend, and 



who is brought to what he thinks a just coni.-iu- 
sion in argument, which, perhaps, becomes offens- 
ive in proportion to its truth. Truth is undoubt- 
edly no warrant for writing what is reproachful 
of any private man. If a member of society lives 
within the law, then, if he offends, it is against 
God alone, and man has nothing to do with him ; 
and if he transgress the laws, the libeler should 
arraign him before them, instead of presuming to 
try him himself. But as to writings on general 
subjects, which are not charged as an infringe- 
ment on the rights of individuals, but as of a se- 
ditious tendency, it is far otherwise. "When, in 
the progress either of legislation or of high na- 
tional justice in Parliament, they who are amen- 
able to no law are supposed to have adopted, 
through mistake or en-or, a principle which, if 
drawn into precedent, might be dangerous to the 
public, I shall not admit it to be a libel in the 
course of a legal and bona fide publication, to 
state that such a principle had in fact been 
adopted. The people of England are not to be 
kept in the dark touching the proceedings of 
their own representatives. Let us, therefore, 
coolly examine this supposed offense, and see 
what it amounts to. 

First, was not the conduct of the right honor- 
able gentleman, whose name is here mentioned, 
exactly what it is represented ? Will the At- 
torney General, who was present in the House 
of Commons, say that it was not ? Did not the 
minister vindicate Mr. Hastings in what he had 
done,^'^ and was not his consent to that article of 
the impeachment founded on the inteoition only 
of levying a fine on the Zemindar for the service 
of the state, beyond the quantum which he, the 
minister, thought reasonable ? What else is this 
but an impeachment of error in judgment in the 
quantum of a fine ? 

So much for the first part of the sentence, 
which, regarding Mr. Pitt only, is foreign to our 
purpose. And as to the last part of it, which 
imputes the sentiments of the minister to the 
majority that followed him with their votes on 
the question, that appears to me to be giving 
handsome credit to the majority for having vot- 
ed from conviction, and not from courtesy to the 
minister. To have supposed otherwise, I dare 
not say, would have been a more natural libel, 
but it w^ould certainly have been a greater one. 
The sum and substance, therefore, of the para- 
graph is only this — that an impeachment for an 
error in judgment is not consistent with the the- 
ory or the practice of the English government. 
So say I. I say, without reserve, speaking mere- 
ly in the abstract, and not meaning to decide 
upon the merits of Mr. Hastings's cause, that an 
impeachment for an error in judgment is contra- 
ry to the whole spirit of English criminal justice, 
which, though not binding on the House of Com- 
mons, ought to be a guide to its proceedings. I 
say that the extraordinary jurisdiction of impeach- 

^° Mr. Pitt expressed his opinion that, admitting 
the right of Mr. Hastings to tax the Zemindar, his 
general conduct in the business had been unneces- 
sarily severe. 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1789. 



ment ought never to be assumed to expose error 
or to scourge misfortune, but to hold up a terri- 
ble example to corruption and willful abuse of 
authority by extra legal pains. If public men 
are always punished with due severity when the 
source of their misconduct appeai-s to have been 
selfishly corrupt and criminal, the public can 
never suffer when their errors are treated with 
gentleness. From such protection to the mag- 
istrate, no man can thuik lightly of the charge 
of magistracy itself, when he sees, by the lan- 
guage of the saving judgment, that the only title 
to it is an honest and zealous intention. If at 
this moment, gentlemen, or indeed in any other 
in the whole course of our history, the people of 
England were to call upon every man in this im- 
peaching House of Commons who had given his 
voice on public questions, or acted in authority, 
civil or military, to answer for the issues of our 
councils and our wars, and if honest single in- 
tentions for the public sei'vice were refused as 
answers to impeachments, we should have many 
relations to mourn for, and many friends to de- 
plore. For my own part, gentlemen, I feel, I 
hope, for my country as much as any man that 
inhabits it ; but I w^ould rather see it fall, and be 
buried in its ruins, than lend my voice to wound 
any minister, or other responsible person, how- 
ever unfortunate, who had fairly followed the 
lights of his understanding and the dictates of his 
conscience for their preservation. 

Gentlemen, this is no theory of mine ; it is 
the language of English law, and the protection 
w^hich it affords to every man in office, from the 
highest to the lowest trust of government. In 
no one instance that can be named, foreign or 
domestic, did the Court of King's Bench ever in- 
terpose its extraordinaiy jurisdiction, by inform- 
ation, against any magistrate for the widest de- 
parture from the rule of his duty, without the 
plainest and clearest proof of corruption. To 
every such application, not so supported, the con- 
stant answer has been, Go to a grand jury with 
your complaint. God forbid that a magistrate 
should suffer from an error in judgment, if his 
purpose was honestly to discharge his trust. We 
can not stop the ordinary course of justice; but 
wherever the court has a discretion, such a mag- 
istrate is entitled to its protection. I appeal to 
the noble judge, and to every man who hears me, 
for the truth and universality of this position. 
And it would be a strange solecism, indeed, to 
assert that, in a case where the supreme court 
of criminal justice in the nation w^ould refuse to 
interpose an extraordinary though a legal juris- 
diction, on the principle that the ordinary exe- 
cution of the laws should never be exceeded, but 
for the punishment of malignant guilt, the Com- 
mons, in their higher capacity, growing out of 
the same Constitution, should reject that princi- 
ple, and stretch them still further by a jurisdic- 
tion still more eccentric. Many impeachments 
have taken place, because the law could not ade- 
quately punish the objects of them ; but who ever 
heard of one being set on foot because the lav/, 
upon principle, would not punish them ? Many 



impeachments have been adopted for a higher ex- 
ample than a prosecution in the ordinary courts, 
but surely never for a different example. The 
matter, therefore, in the offensive paragraph is 
not only an indisputable truth, but a truth in 
the propagation of which we are all deeply con- 
cerned. 

Whether Mr. Hastings, in the particular in- 
stance, acted from corruption or from zeal for his 
employers, is what I have nothing to do with ; it 
is to be decided in judgment ; my duty stops with 
wishing him, as I do, an honorable deliverance. 
Whether the minister or the Commons meant to 
found this article of the impeachment on mere 
error, without corruption, is likewise foreign to 
the purpose. The author could only judge from 
what was said and done on the occasion. He 
only sought to guard the principle, which is a 
common interest, and the rights of Mr. Hastings 
under it. He was, therefore, justified in publish- 
ing that an impeachment, founded in error in 
judgment, was, to all intents and purposes, ille- 
gal, unconstitutional, and unjust. 

Gentlemen, it is now time for us to return again 
to the work under examination. The author hav- 
ing discussed the whole of the first article through 
so many pages, without even the imputation of an 
incorrect or intemperate expression, except in the 
concluding passage (the meaning of which I trust 
I have explained), goes on with the same earnest 
disposition to the discussion of the second charge 
respecting the princesses of Oude, which occupies 
eighteen pages, not one syllable of which the At- 
torney General has read, and on which there is not 
even a glance at the House of Commons. The 
whole of this answer is, indeed, so far from be- 
ing a mere cloak for the introduction of slander, 
that I aver it to be one of the most masterly 
pieces of writing I ever read in rny life. From 
thence he goes on to the charge of contracts and 
salaries, which occupies^re pages more, in which 
there is not a glance at the House of Commons, nor 
a word read by the Attorney General. He aft- 
erward defends Mr. Hastings against the charges 
respecting the opium contracts. Not a glance at 
the House of Commons ; not a w^ord by the Attor- 
ney General. And, in short, in this manner he 
goes on with the others, to the end of the book. 

Now, is it possible for any human being to be- 
lieve that a man, having no other intention than to 
vilify the House of Commons (as this information 
charges), should yet keep his mind thus fixed and 
settled as the needle to the pole, upon the serious 
merits of Mr. Hastings's defense, without ever 
straying into matter even questionable, except in 
the two or three selected parts out of two or 
three hundred pages ? This is a forbearance 
which could not have existed, if calumny and 
detraction had been the malignant objects which 
led him to the inquiry and publication. The 
whole fallacy, therefore, arises from holding up 
to view a few detached passages, and carefully 
concealing the general tenor of the book. 

Having now finished most, if not all of these 
critical observations, which it has been my duty 
to make upon this unfair mode of prosecution, it is 



1789.] 



IN BEHALF OF STOCKDALE. 



695 



but a tribute of common justice to the Attorney 
General (and which my personal regard for him 
makes it more pleasant to pay), that none of my 
commentaries reflect in the most distant manner 
upon him ; nor upon the Solicitor for the Crown, 
who sits near me, who is a person of the most 
correct honor ; far from it. The Attorney Gen- 
eral having orders to prosecute, in consequence 
of the address of the House to his Majesty, had 
no choice in the mode — no means at all of keep- 
ing the prosecutors before you in countenance, but 
by the com-se which has been pursued. But so 
far has he been from enlisting into the cause those 
prejudices, which it is not difficult to slide into a 
business originating from such exalted authority, 
he has honorably guarded you against them ; 
pressing, indeed, severely upon my client \\-ith 
the weight of his ability, but not with the glare 
and trappings of his high office. 

Gentlemen, I wish that ray strength would en- 
able me to convince you of the author's single- 
ness of intention, and of the merit and ability of 
his work, by reading the whole that remains of 
it. But my voice is already nearly exhausted ; 
I am sorry my client should be a sufferer by my 
infirmity. One passage, however, is too striking 
and important to be passed over ; the rest I must 
trust to your private examination. The author 
having discussed all the charges, article by arti- 
cle, sums them all up with this striking appeal to 
his readers : 

" The authentic statement of facts which has 
been given, and the arguments which have been 
employed, are, I think, sufficient to vindicate the 
character and conduct of Mr. Hastings, even on 
the maxims of European policy. When he was 
appointed Governor General of Bengal, he was 
invested with a discretionary power to promote 
the interests of the India Company, and of the 
British empire in that quarter of the globe. The 
general instructions sent to him from his constit- 
uents were, ' That in all your deliberations and 
resolutions^ you make the safety and prosperity 
of Bengal your principal object, and fix your at- 
tention on the security of the possessions and rev- 
emies of the company.^ His superior genius 
sometimes acted in the spirit, rather than com- 
plied with the letter of the law ; but he discharged 
the trust, and preserved the empire committed to 
his care, in the same way, and with greater 
splendor and success than any of his predecessors 
in office ; his departure from India was marked 
with the lamentations of the natives and the grat- 
itude of his countrymen ; and, on his return to 
England, he received the cordial congratulations 
of that numerous and I'espectable society, whose 
interests he had promoted, and whose dominions 
he had protected and extended." 

Gentlemen of the jury — if this be a willfully 
Collateral defense ^^^^^c account of the instructions giv- 
of Mr. Hastmgs. en to Mr. Hastings for his govern- 
ment, and of his conduct under them, the author 
and publisher of this defense deserves the sever- 
est punishment, for a mercenary imposition on 
the public. But if it be true that he was direct- 
ed to make the safety and prosperity of Bengal 



the first object of his attention, and that, under 
his administration, it has been safe and prosper- 
ous ; if it be true that the security and preserva- 
tion of our possessions and revenues in Asia were 
marked out to him as the great leading principle 
of his government, and that those possessions and 
revenues, amid unexampled dangers, have been 
secured and preserved ; then a question may be 
unaccountably mixed with your consideration, 
much beyond the consequence of the present 
prosecution, involving, perhaps, the merit of the 
impeachment itself which gave it birth — a ques- 
tion which the Commons, as prosecutors of Mr. 
Hastings, should, in common prudence, have 
avoided ; unless, regretting the unwieldy length 
of their proceedings against him, they wish to af- 
ford him the opportunity of this strange anoma- 
lous defense. For, although I am neither his 
counsel, nor desire to have any thing to do with 
his guilt or innocence ; yet, in the collateral de- 
fense of my client, I am driven to state matter 
which may be considered by many as hostile to 
the impeachment. For if our dependencies have 
been secured, and their interests promoted, I am 
driven, in the defense of my client, to remark, that 
it is mad and preposterous to bring to the stand- 
ard of justice and humanity the exercise of a do- 
minion founded upon violence and terror. It may 
and must be true that Mr. Hastings has repeat- 
edly offended against the rights and privileges of 
Asiatic government, if he was the faithful deputy 
of a power which could not maintain itself for an 
hour without trampling upon both. He may and 
must have offended against the laws of God and 
nature, if he was the faithful viceroy of an em- 
pire wrested in blood from the people to M'hom 
God and nature had given it. He may and must 
have preserved that unjust dominion over timor- 
ous and abject nations by a terrifying, overbear- 
ing, insulting superiority, if he was the faithful 
administrator of your government, which, having 
no root in consent or affection — no foundation in 
similarity of interests — no support from any one 
principle which cements men together in society, 
could only be upheld by alternate .stratagem and 
force. The unhappy people of India, feeble and 
effeminate as they are from the softness of their 
climate, and subdued and broken as they have 
been by the knavery and strength of civilization, 
still occasionally start up in all the vigor and in- 
telligence of insulted nature. To be governed 
at all, they must be governed with a rod of iron ; 
and our empire in the East would, long since, 
have been lost to Great Britain, if civil skill and 
military prowess had not united their efforts to 
support an authority — which Heaven never gave 
— bv means which it never can sanction. ^^ 



11 Mr. Hastings was unquestionably guilty of near- 
ly all the acts charged upon him by Mr. Burke. Still 
it was felt by the court, and at last by the public at 
large, that great allowance ought to be made for him 
when it was remembered that be completely restor- 
ed the finances of the country, which he found in the 
utmost disorder; that he established the British em- 
pire in India on a firm basis, at a time when, under 
a less enerc:etic government than his own, it would 



■^•m 



_^i -Hw -.J. 



TTTj 



696 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1789. 



Gentlemen, I think I can observe that you are 
touched with this way of considerinii the subject, 
and I can account for it. I have not been con- 
sidering it through the cold medium of books, 
but have been speaking of man and his nature, 
and of human dominion, from what I have seen 
of them myself among reluctant nations submit- 
ting to our authority. I know what they feel, 
and how such feelings can alone be repressed. 
1 have heard them in my youth from a naked 
The Indian savagc, in the indignant character of a 
Chief. prince surrounded by his subjects, ad- 
dressing the governor of a British colony, hold- 
ing a bundle of sticks in his hand, as the notes 
of his unlettered eloquence. "Who is it," said 
the jealous ruler over the desert, encroached 
upon by the restless foot of English adventure — 
"who is it that causes this river to rise in the 
high mountains, and to empty itself into the 
ocean ? Who is it that causes to blow the loud 
winds of winter, and that calms them again in 
summer? Who is it that rears up the shade of 
those lofty forests, and blasts them with the 
quick lightning at his pleasure? The same Be- 
ing who gave to you a country on the other side 
of the waters, and gave ours to us ; and by this 
title we will defend it," said the warrior, throwing 
down his tomahawk upon the ground, and rais- 
ing the war-sound of his nation. These are the 
feelings of subjugated man all round the globe ; 
and depend upon it, nothing but fear will control 
where it is vain to look for affection. ^"-^ 

These reflections are the only antidotes to 
those anathemas of superhuman eloquence which 
have lately shaken these walls that surround us, 
but which it unaccountably falls to my province, 
whether I will or no, a little to stem the torrent 
of, by reminding you that you have a mighty 
sway in Asia, which can not be maintained by 
the finer sympathies of life, or the practice of its 
charities and affections. What will ihey do for 
you when surrounded by two hundred thousand 
men with artillery, cavalry, and elephants, call- 
ing upon you for their dominions which you have 
robbed them of? Justice may, no doubt, in such 
a case forbid the levying of a fine to pay a re- 
voltinor soldiery ; a treaty may stand in the way 
of increasing a tribute to keep up the very ex- 
istence of the government ; and delicacy for 
women may forbid all entrance into a Zenana 

inevitably have fallen altogether; and, in addition to 
X\ns, he was constantly pressed by the Directors of 
the East India Company for remittances of money, 
which could only be extorted by oppression. Al- 
though his government was arbitrary, yet it was 
popular among the natives, being milder and more 
just than that of their own princes ; while he him- 
self was respected for the unusual regard which he 
paid to native prejudices and customs, and his pat- 
ronage of literature and the fine arts. 

'^ The reader will be struck with the rapid flow of 
the rhythmus in this speech of the Indian chief, so 
admirably corresponding in its iambic structure 
with the character of the speaker. It should be 
read aloud in connection with a coiTespondent pas- 
sage of Mr. Grattan, already remarked upon for its 
Blow and majestic movement. See page 390. 



for money, whatever may be the necessity for 
taking it.^^ All these things must ever be oc- 
curring. But under the pressure of such con- 
stant difficulties, so dangei-ous to national honor, 
it might be better, perhaps, to think of effectually 
securing it altogether, by recalling our troops 
and our merchants, and abandoning our Oriental 
empire. Until this be done, neither religion nor 
philosophy can be pressed very far into the aid 
of reformation and punishment. If England, 
from a lust of ambition and dominion, will insist 
on maintaining despotic rule over distant and 
hostile nations, beyond all comparison more nu- 
merous and extended than herself, and gives 
commission to her viceroys to govern them with 
no other instructions than to preserve them, and 
to secure permanently their revenues, with what 
color of consistency or reason can she place her- 
self in the moral chair, and affect to be shocked 
at the execution of her own orders ; advei'ting 
to the exact measure of wickedness and injus- 
tice necessary to their execution, and complain- 
ing only of the excess as the immorality, consid- 
ering her authority as a dispensation for break- 
ing the commands of God, and the breach of 
them as only punishable when contrary to the 
ordinances of man ? 

Such a proceeding, gentlemen, begets serious 
reflection. It would be better, perhaps, for the 
masters and the servants of all such governments 
to join in supplication, that the great Author of 
violated humanity may not confound them to- 
gether in one common judgment. 

Gentlemen, I find, as I said before, I have not 
sufficient strength to go on with the remaining 
parts of the book. I hope, however, that not- 
withstanding my omissions, you are now com- 
pletely satisfied that, whatever errors or miscon- 
ceptions may have misled the writer of these 
pages, the justification of a person whom he be- 
lieved to be innocent, and whose accusers had 
themselves appealed to the public, was the sin- 
gle object of his contemplation. If I have suc- 
ceeded in that object, every purpose which I had 
in addressing you has been answered. 

It only now remains to remind you that an- 
other consideration has been strong- inhe writer 
Iv pressed upon you, and, no doubt, was honest in 

J i I J ' ■ ' his intentions, 

will be insisted on in reply. You will I'e ought not 

1 111 1 1-iTi to be punislied 

be told that the matters which 1 have for an occa. 
been justifying as legal, and even mer- ^'°"^ excess. 
itorious, have therefore not been made the sub- 
ject of complaint ; and that whatever intrinsic 
merit parts of the book may be supposed or even 
admitted to possess, such merit can afford no 
justification to the selected passages, some of 
which, even with the context, carry the meaning 
charged by the information, and which are inde- 
cent animadversions on authority. To this I 
would answer (still protesting as I do against 
the application of any one of the innuendoes), 
that if you are firmly persuaded of the single- 
ness and purity of the author's intentions, you 



" See introduction to Mr. Sheridan's speech, p. 
405-6. 



1789.] 



IN BEHALF OF STOCKDALE. 



(597 



are not bound to subject him to infamy, because, 
in the zealous career of a just and animated 
composition, he happens to have tripped with 
his pen into an intemperate expression in one or 
two instances of a long work. If this severe 
duty were binding on your consciences, the lib- 
erty of the press would be an empty sound, and 
no man could venture to write on any subject, 
however pure his purpose, without an attorney 
at one elbow and a counsel at the other. 

From minds thus subdued by the terrors of 
Evils of too punishment, there could issue no works 
strictbnon" of gcnius to expand the empire of hu- 
tue press. j^g^,j reason, nor any masterly composi- 
tions on the general nature of government, by 
the help of which the great commonwealths of 
mankind have founded their establishments ; 
much less any of those useful applications of 
them to critical conjunctures, by which, from 
time to time, our own Constitution, by the exer- 
tion of patriot citizens, has been brought back to 
its standard. Under such terrors, all the great 
lights of science and civilization must be extin- 
guished ; for men can not communicate their free 
thoughts to one another with a lash held over 
their heads. It is the nature of every thing that 
is great and useful, both in the animate and in- 
animate world, to be wild and irregular, and we 
must be contented to take them with the alloys 
which belong to them, or live without them. 
Genius breaks from the fetters of criticism, but 
its wanderings are sanctioned by its majesty and 
wisdom when it advances in its path : subject it to 
the critic, and you tame it into dullness. Mighty 
rivers break down their banks in the winter, 
sweeping away to death the flocks which are 
fattened on the soil that they fertilize in the sum- 
mer : the few may bo saved by embankments 
from drowning, but the flock must perish for hun- 
ger. Tempests occasionally shake our dwellings 
and dissipate our commei'ce ; but they scourge 
before them the lazy elements, which without 
theni would stagnate into pestilence.^* ^n like 
manner, Liberty herself, the last and best gift of 
God to his creatures, must be taken just as she 
is : you might pare her down into bashful reg- 
ularity, and shape her into a perfect model of 
severe, scrupulous law, but she would then be 
Liberty no longer ; and you must be content 
to die under the lash of this inexorable justice 



^* This is one of the finest aiiiplifications in En- 
glish oratory, beautiful in itself, justified by the im- 
portance of the subject which it enforces, and ad- 
mirably suited to produce the designed impression. 
The seminal idea was probably suggested by a re- 
mark of Burke, whose writings Mr. Erskine inces- 
santly studied. " It is the nature of all greatness 
not to be exact." — See page 2.52. We see in this 
case, how a man of genius may boiTow from anoth- 
er, without detracting in the least from the fresh- 
ness and originality with which his ideas are ex- 
pressed and applied. At the present day, there can 
be very little of that originality which presents an 
idea/or thefrst time. All that can be expected is, 
that we make it our own, and apply it to new pur- 
poses. 



which you had exchanged for the banners of 
FreedoiiTN 

If it be asked where the line to this indulgence 
and impunity is to be drawn, the an- General prin- 
swcr is easy. The liberty of the press, libertror'uie 
on general subjects, comprehends and i"^''*''*- 
implies as much strict observance of positive law 
as is consistent with perfect purity of intention, 
and equal and useful society. What that lati- 
tude is. can not be promulgated in the abstract, 
but must be judged of in the particular instance, 
and consequently, upon this occasion, must be 
judged of by you, without forming any possible 
precedent for any other case ; and where can 
the judgment be possibly so safe as with the 
members of that society which alone can suffer, 
if the writing is calculated to do mischief to the 
public ? You must, therefore, try the book by 
that criterion, and say whether the publication 
was premature and offensive, or, in other words, 
whether the publisher is bound to have suppress- 
ed it until the public ear was anticipated and 
abused, and every avenue to the human heart or 
understanding secured and blocked up ? I see 
around me those by whom, by-and-by, Mr. Hast- 
ings will be most ably and eloquently defend- 
ed ;^^ but I am sorry to remind my friends that, 
but for the right of suspending the public judg- 
ment concerning him till their season of exer- 
tion comes round, the tongues of angels would 
be insufficient for the task. 

Gentlemen, I hope I have now performed my 
duty to my client : I sincerely hope that I have ; 
for, certainl}', if ever there was a man pulled the 
other way by his interests and affections — if ever 
there was a man who should have trembled at 
the situation in which I have been placed on this 
occasion, it is myself, who not only love, honor, 
and respect, but whose future hopes and prefer- 
ments are linked, from free choice, with those 
who, from the mistakes of the author, are treat- 
ed with great severity and injustice. These are 
strong retardments ; but I have been urged on 
to activity by considerations which can never be 
inconsistent with honorable attachments, either 
in the political or social woi'ld — the love of jus- 
tice and of liberty, and a zeal for the Constitu- 
tion of my country, which is the inheritance of 
our posterity, of the public, and of the world. 
These are the motives which have animated me 
in defense of this person, who is an entire stran- 
ger to me — whose shop I never go to — and the 
author of whose publication, as well as Mr. Hast- 
ings, who is the object of it, I never spoke to in 
my life. 

One word more, gentlemen, and I have done. 
Every human tribunal ought to take a re-,ir(i to hu- 
care to administer justice, as we look man ivaiity to 

, J _ ', . . , be ohserved in 

hereaiter to have justice admmistered a^imnutering 
to ourselves. Upon the principle on ''"'" "^^' 
which the Attorney General prays sentence upon 
my client — God have mercy upon us ! Instead 
of standing before him in judgment with the 



1* Mr. Law (afterward Lord EUenborough), Mr. 
Plumer, and Mr. Dallas. 



698 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1793. 



hopes and consolations of Christians, we must 
call upon the mountains to cover us ; for which 
of us can present, for omniscient examination, a 
pure, unspotted, and faultless course ? But I 
humbly expect that the benevolent Author of our 
being will judge us as I have been pointing out 
for your example. Holding up the great volume 
of our lives in his hands, and regarding the gen- 
eral scope of them ; if he discovers benevolence, 
charity, and good-will to man beating in the 
heart, where he alone can look ; if he finds that 
our conduct, though often forced out of the path 
by our infirmities, has been in general well di- 
rected ; his all-searching eye will assuredly nev- 
er pursue us into those little corners of our lives, 
much less will his justice select them for punish- 
ment, without the general context of our exist- 
ence, by which faults may be sometimes found 
to have grown out of virtues, and very many of 
our heaviest offenses to have been grafted by hu- 
man imperfection upon the best and kindest of 
our affections. No, gentlemen, believe me, this 
is not the course of divine justice, or there is no 
truth in the Gospels of Heaven. If the general 
tenor of a man's conduct be such as I have rep- 
resented it, he may walk through the shadow of 
death, with all his faults about him, with as much 
cheerfulness as in the common paths of life; be- 
cause he knows that, instead of a stern accuser 
to expose before the Author of his nature those 
frail passages which, like the scored matter in 
the book before you, checkers the volume of the 
brightest and best-spent life, his mercy will ob- 
scure them from the eye of his purity, and our 
repentance blot them out forever. 

All this would, I admit, be perfectly foreign 
and irrelevant, if you were sitting hex-e in a case 
of property between man and man, where a strict 
rule of law must operate, or there would be an 
end of civil life and society. It would be equal- 
ly foreign, and still more irrelevant, if applied to 
those shameful attacks upon private reputation 
which are the bane and disgrace of the press ; 



by which whole families have been rendered un- 
happy during life, by aspersions, cruel, scandal- 
ous, and unjust. Let such libelers remember 
that no one of ray principles of defense can, at 
any time or upon any occasion, ever apply to 
shield THEM from punishment ; because such 
conduct is not only an infringement of the rights 
of men, as they are defined by strict law, but is 
absolutely incompatible with honor, honesty, or 
mistaken good intention. On such men let the 
Attorney General bring forth all the artillery of 
his office, and the thanks and blessings of the 
whole public will follow him. But this is a to- 
tally different case. Whatever private calumny 
may mark this work, it has not been made the 
subject of complaint, and we have therefore noth- 
ing to do with that, nor any right to consider it. 
We are trying whether the public could have 
been considered as offended and endangered if 
Mr. Hastings himself, in whose place the author 
and publisher have a right to put themselves, 
had, under all the circumstances which have been 
considered, composed and published the volume 
under examination. That question can not, in 
common sense, be any thing resembling a ques- 
tion of LAW, but is a pure question of fact, to be 
decided on the principles which I have humbly 
recommended. I, therefore, ask of the court that 
the book itself may now be delivered to you. 
Read it with attention, and as you shall find it, 
pronounce your verdict. 



This trial took place befox'e the passing of Mr 
Fox's Libel Bill; and Lord Kenyon charged the 
jury that they were not to consider whether the 
pamphlet was libelous, but simply whether it had 
been published by the defendant. Under these 
circumstances, thej'^ spent two hours in delibera- 
tion, but finally broke through the instructions of 
the court, and found the defendant not guilty, 
thus anticipating the rights soon after secured to 
juries by an act of Parliament. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. ERSKINE IN BEHALF OF JOHN FROST, WHEN INDICTED FOR UTTERING SEDITIOUS WORDS, 
DELIVERED BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH, MARCH, 1793. 



INTRODUCTION. 
This was the first trial under what has been called the "Reign of Terror." Mr. Frost was a London 
attorney of eminence, who had jast returned from a visit to France, at that time under the government 
of the Convention, and hastening toward the revolutionary crisis. He dined with an agi'icultural societj^ 
at a coffee-house, on the 6th of November, 1792. On his coming down from the private room, where he 
had been dining, into the public coffee-room, between nine and ten in the evening, he was addressed by 
a person of the name of Yatman, who, knowing Mr. Frost, and that he had just returned from the conti- 
nent, said to him, "Well, how do they go on in France ?" Upon which Mr. Frost, who was much heated 
with wine, exclaimed, "I am for equality, and no King." Mr. Yatman replied, " What ! no King in this 
connti-y ?" and Mr. Frost then repeated, "Yes, no King; there ought to be no King." And it was for the 
use of this language, and for nothing beyond this, that the indictment was preferred. 



SPEECH, &c. 



d^ENTLEMEN OF THE JuRY, — I risc to addrcss 
you under circumstances so peculiar, that I con- 



sider myself entitled, not only for the defendant 
arraigned before you, but personally for myself, 



1793] 



IN BEHALF OF FROST. 



699 



to the utmost indulgence of the court. I came 
down this morning with no other notice of the 
duty cast upon me in this cause, nor any other 
direction for the premeditation necessary to its 
performance, than that which I have ever con- 
sidered to be the safest and the best — namely, 
the records of the court, as they are entered here 
for trial, where, for the ends of justice, the charge 
must always appear with the most accurate pre- 
cision, that the accused may know what crime 
he is called upon to answer, and his counsel how 
Embarrassment he may defend him. Finding, there- 
crown 'haWn''^ ^^^^i upou the rccord w^hich arraigns 
traveled out of the defendant, a simple, unqualified 
charge of seditious words, unconnect- 
ed, and uncomplicated with any extrinsic events, 
I little imagined that the conduct of my client 
was to receive its color and construction from 
the present state of France, or rather of all Eu- 
rope, as affecting the condition of England. I 
little dreamed that the 6th of November (which, 
reading the indictment, I had a right to consider 
like any other day in the calendar) was to turn 
out an epoch in this country (for so it is styled in 
the ai-gument) ; and that, instead of having to 
deal with idle, thoughtless words, uttered over 
wine, through the passage of a coffee-house, with 
whatever at any time might belong to them, I 
was to meet a charge of which I had no notice 
or conception, and to find the loose dialogue, 
which, even upon the face of the record itself, 
. exhibits nothing more than a casual sudden con- 
versation, exalted to an accusation of the most 
premeditated, serious, and alarming nature — 
verging upon high treason itself, by its connec- 
tion with the most hostile purposes to the state, 
and assuming a shape still more interesting from 
its dangerous connection with certain mysterious 
conspiracies, which, in confederacy with French 
republicans, threaten, itseems, the Constitution of 
our once happy country. 

Gentlemen, I confess myself much unprepared 
Unjust to involve for a discussion of this nature, and 
rendauTwith'^ ^ ^ little disconccrted at being so. 
French politics, -pov although, as I havc said, I had 
no notice from the record that the politics of 
Europe were to be the subject of discourse, yet 
experience ought to have taught me to expect 
it ; for what act of government has, for a long 
time past, been carried on by any other means ? 
When or ivhere has been the debate, or ivhat has 
been the object of authority, in which the affairs 
of France have not taken the lead ? The affairs 
of France have, indeed,become the common stalk- 
ing-horse for all state purposes. I know the 
honor of my learned friend,^ too well to impute to 
him the introduction of them for any improper 
or dishonorable purpose. I am sure he connects 
them in his own mind with the subject, and thinks 
them legally before you : I am bound to think so, 
because the general tenor of his address to you 
has been manly and candid. But I assert that 
neither the actual condition of France, nor the 
supposed condition of this country, are, or can 

^ The Attorney General, Sir A. Macdonald. 



be, in any shape, before you; and that upon the 
trial of this indictment, supported only by the evi- 
dence you have heard, the words must be judged 
of as if spoken by any man or woman in the king- 
dom, at any time from the Norman Conquest to 
the moment I am addressing you. 

I admit, indeed, that the particular time in 
which words are spoken, or acts com- if ^.e^,. „„e 
mitted, may most essentially alter i^^nnected with 

' .' _J the crime, they 

their quality and construction, and siiouia have 

•' . , , • 1 been included 

give to expressions or conduct, which in the indict- 
in another season might have been '"'^"^ 
innocent, or at least indifferent, the highest and 
most enormous guilt. But, for that very reason, 
the supposed particularity of the present times, 
as applicable to the matter before you, is abso- 
lutely shut out from your consideration — shut 
out upon the plainest and most obvious principle 
of justice and law ; because, wherever time or 
occasion mix with an act, affect its quality, and 
constitute or enhance its criminality, they then 
become an essential part of the misdemeanor it- 
self, and must consequently be charged as such 
upon the record. I plainly discover I have his 
Lordship's assent to this proposition. If, there- 
fore, the Crown had considered this cause origin- 
ally in the serious light in which it considers it 
to-day, it has wholly mistaken its course. If it 
had considered the government of France as act- 
ively engaged in the encouragement of disaffec- 
tion to the monarchy of England, and that her 
newly-erected republic was set up by her as the 
great type for imitation and example here; if it 
had considered that numbers, and even classes 
of our countrymen, were ripe for disaffection, if 
not for rebellion ; and that the defendant, as an 
emissary of France, had spoken the words with 
the premeditated design of undermining our gov- 
ernment — this situation of things might and ought 
to have been put as facts upon the record^ and as 
facts established by evidence, instead of resting, 
as they do to-day, upon assertion. By such a 
course the crime, indeed, would have become of 
the magnitude represented ; but, on the other 
hand, as the conviction could only have followed 
from the proof, the defendant, upon the evidence 
of to-day, must have an hour ago been acquitted. 
Not a syllable has been proved of any emissaries 
from France to debauch our monarchical princi- 
ples ; not even an insinuation in evidence that, if 
there were any such, the defendant was one of 
them ; not a syllable of proof, either directly or 
indirectly, that the condition of the country, when 
the words were uttered, differed from its ordinary 
condition in times of prosperity and peace. It 
is, therefore, a new and most compendious mode 
of justice, that the facts which wholly constitute, 
or, at all events, lift up the dignity and danger 
of the offense, should not be charged upon record, 
because they could not be proved^ but are to be tak- 
en for granted in the argument, so as to produce 
the same effect upon the trial and in the punish- 
ment, as if they had been actually charged and 
completely established. If the affairs of France, 
as they are supposed to affect this country, had 
been introduced without a warrant from the 



700 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1793 



charge or the evidence, I should have been whol- 
1}' silent concerning them ; but as they have been 
ah-eady mixed with the subject, in a manner so 
eloquent and affecting as, too probably, to have 
made a strong impression, it becomes my duty to 
endeavor at least to remove it. 

The late revolutions in France have been rep- 
, resented to you as not only ruinous 

Views expressed . / i • i i • 

by the counsel to their authors, and to the inhabit- 

for the Crown. , c ^t ^ ^ i ^ i-i i ^ 

ants oi that country, but as likely to 
shake and distui-b the principles of this and all 
other governments. You have been told, that 
though the English people are generally vi'cll af- 
fected to their government — ninety-nine out of 
one hundred, upon Mr. Attorney General's own 
statement — yet that wicked and designing men 
have long been laboring to overturn it ; that noth- 
ing short of the wise and spirited exertions of 
the present government (of which this prosecu- 
tion is, it seems, one of the instances) have hith- 
erto averted, or can continue to avert, the dan- 
gerous contagion which misrule and anarchy are 
spreading over the world ; that bodies of English- 
men, forgetting their duty to their own country 
and its Constitution, have congratulated the Con- 
vention of France upon the formation of their 
monstrous government ; and that the conduct of 
the defendant must be considered as a part of a 
deep-laid system of disaffection, which threatens 
the establishments of this kingdom. 

Gentlemen, this state of things having no sup- 

These things not V^^'^ whatCVCr from any evidence be- 
before the jury fore vou, and resting only upon opin- 
io evidence. . i i i • i • 

ion, I have an equal right to mine; 
having the same means of observation with other 
people of what passes in the world ; and as I have 
a very clear one upon this subject, I will give it 
you in a few words. 

I am of opinion, then, that there is not the 
„ ^ , . , smallest foundation for the alarm which 

Mr. Erskine's , , • i ■ i i 

views direct- Ims bccu SO industriously propagated ; 

ly the reverse. • ^i • t r p i • 

in this I am so tar Irom being singu- 
lar, that I verily believe the authors of it are 
themselves privately of the same way of think- 
ing. But it was convenient for certain persons, " 
who had changed their principles, to find some 
plausible pretext for changing them. It was 
convenient for those M^ho, when out of power, 
had endeavored to lead the public mind to the ne- 
cessity of reforming the corruptions of our own 
government, to find any reasons for their contin- 
uance and confirmation, when they operate as 
engines to support themselves in the exercise of 
powers which were only odious when in other 
hands. For this honorable purpose, the sober, re- 
flecting, and temperate character of the English 
nation was to be represented as fermenting into 
sedition, and into an insane contempt for the re- 
vered institutions of their ancestors. For this 
honorable purpose, the wisest men — the most em- 
inent for virtue — the most splendid in talents — 
the most independent for rank and property in the 



=* Among the principal were Mr. Burke, the Prince 
of Wales, the Duke of Portland, and Lords Spencer, 
Mansfield, Fitzwilliam, and Loughborough. 



country, were, for no other crime than their per- 
severance in those sentiments which certain per- 
sons had originated and abandoned,^ to be given 
up to the licentious pens and tongues of hired 
defamation ; to be stabbed in the dark by anony- 
mous accusations ; and to be held out to England 
and to the whole world, as conspiring, under the 
auspices of cut-throats, to overturn every thing 
sacred in religion, and venerable in the ancient 
government of our country. Certain it is, that 
the whole system of government, of which the 
business we are now engaged in is no mean spec- 
imen, came upon the public with the suddenness 
of a clap of thunder, without one act to give it 
foundation, from the very moment that notice was 
given of a motion in Parliament to reform the 
representation of the people."* Long, long, be- 
fore that time the " Rights of Man," and other 
books, though not complained of, had been writ- 
ten ; equally long before it, the addresses to the 
French government, which have created such a 
panic, had existed ; but as there is a " give and 
take" in this world, they passed unregarded. 
Leave but the practical corruptions, and they are 
contented to wink at the speculations of theorists, 
and the compliments of public-spirited civility. 
But the moment the national attention was awak- 
ened to look at things in practice, and to seek to 
reform corruptions at home, from that moment, 
as at the ringing of a bell, the whole hive began 
to swarm, and every man in his turn has been 
stung. 

This, gentlemen, is the real state of the case ; 
and I am so far from pushing the ob- The defendant 
servation beyond its bearing for the ciRt™"w,th mV. 
defense of a client, that I am ready to ^'^^^l^ '"'■'^'"* 

' "^ 01 parliament- 

admit Mr. Frost, in his conduct, has ary reform. 
not been wholly invulnerable, and that, in some 
measure, he has brought this prosecution upon 
himself. Gentlemen, Mr. Frost must forgive me, 
if I take the liberty to say that, with the best in- 
tentions in the world, he formerly pushed his ob- 
servations and conduct respecting government 
further than many would be disposed to follow 
him. I can not disguise or conceal from you, that 
I find his name in this green-book, as associated 
wuth Mr. Pitt and the Duke of Richmond, at the 
Thatched House Tavern, in St. James's Street.^ 
I find him, also, the correspondent of the former ; 
and that I discover in their publications on the 
structure and conduct of the House of Commons, 
expressions which, however merited, and in my 



^ In allusion to Mr. Pitt's altered opinions as to 
parliamentary reform. 

* Mr. Charles Grey, at the request of the Society 
of "The Friends of the People," on the 30th April, 
1792, gave notice of his intention to bring forward, 
in the ensuing session, a motion to this effect. 

5 Mr. Erskine read the minute (in Mr. Pitt's own 
handwriting) of a meeting of members of Parliament, 
and of members of several committees of counties 
and cities, held at the Thatched House Tavern, at 
which Mr. Frost was present, on the 18th of May, 
1782, and at which resolutions were passed in ap- 
probation of Mr. Pitt's motion, on the 7th of May pre- 
vious, on the subject of the representation of the 
people in Parliament. 



1793.] 



IN BEHALF OF FROST. 



701 



opinion commendable, would now be considered, 
not merely as intemperate and unguarded, but 
as highly criminal.*^ 

Gentlemen, the fashion of this world speedily 
for his P^^-^^^^l^ away. We find these glori- 



now being pros- ous rcstorcrs of cqual representation 
determined, as ministers, that, so far 
from every man being an elector, the metropolis 
of the kingdom should have no election at all ; 
but should submit to the power, or to the softer 
allurements, of the Crown. Certain it is, that, 
for a short season, Mr. Frost being engaged pro- 
fessionally as agent for the government candidate, 
did not (indeed, he could not) oppose this incon- 
sistency between the doctrine and practice of his 
friends ; and in this interregnum of public spirit, 
he was, in the opinion of government, a perfect 
patriot, a faithful friend to the British Constitu- 
tion. As a member of the law, he was, there- 
fore, trusted with government business in matters 
of revenue, and was, in short, what all the friends 
of government, of course, are, the best and most 
approved — to save words, he was like the rest of 
them, jitst what he should be. But the election 
being over, and, with it, professional agency, and 
Mr. Fi-ost, as he lawfully might, continuing to hold 
his former opinions (which were still avowed and 
gloried in, though not acted on, by his ancient 
friends), he, unfortunately, did not change them 
the other day, when they were thrown off by 
others. On the contrary, he rather seems to 
have taken fire with the prospect of reducing 
them to practice ; and being, as I have shown 
you, bred in a school which took the lead in bold- 
ness of remonstrance of all other reformers be- 
fore or since, he fell, in the heat and levity of 
wine, into expressions which have no correspond- 
ence with his sober judgment ; which would have 
been passed over or laughed at in you or me, but 
which, coming from him, were never to be for- 
given by government. This is the genuine his- 
tory of his offense. For this he is to be the sub- 

^ The following are copies of Mr. Pitt's letters : 
" Lincoln's Inn, Friday, May 10th. 

" Dear Sir, — I am extremely sorry that I was not 
at home when you and the other gentlemen from 
the Westminster Committee did me the honor to 
call. 

"May I beg the favor of you to express that I am 
traly happy to find that the naotion of Tuesday last 
has the approbation of such zealous friends to the 
public, and to assure the committee that my exer- 
tions shall never be wanting in support of a meas- 
ure, which I agree vritli them in thinhmg essentially 
necessary to the independence of Parliament and the 
liberty of the people. 

•' I have the honor to be, with great respect and 
esteem, sir, your most obedient and most humble 
servant, W. Pitt. 

"John Frost, Esq., Percy Street." 

"Lincoln's Inn, May 12th, 1782. 

" Sir, — I have received the favor of your note, and 
shall be proud to receive the honor intended me by 
the gentlemen of the Middlesex Committee, at the 
time you mention. 

"I am, with great regard, sir, your most humble 
servant, W. Pitt. 

"John Frost, Esq., Percy Street." 



ject of prosecution — not the prosecution of my 
learned friend — not the prosecution of the At- 
torney General — not the prosecution of his Maj- 
esty ; but the prosecution of Mr. Yatman, who 
wishes to show you his great loyalty to the state 
and Constitution, which were in danger of falling, 
had it not been for the drugs of this worthy 
apothecary. 

With regard to the new government of France, 
since the subject has been introduced, „ 

•'. ' Remarks on the 

all 1 can say ot it is this, that the good Frenuii Revoiu- 
or evil of it belongs to themselves. 
They had a right, like every other people upon 
earth, to change their government ; the system 
destroyed w^as a system disgraceful to free and 
rational beings ; and if they have neither substi- 
tuted, nor shall hereafter substitute, a better in 
its stead, they must eat the bitter fruits of their 
own errors and crimes. As to the horrors which 
now disfigure and desolate that fine country, all 
good men must undoubtedly agree in condemn- 
ing and deploring them, but they may differ, nev- 
ertheless, in deciphering their causes. Men to 
the full as wise as those who pretend to be wiser 
than Providence, and stronger than the order of 
things, may, perhaps, reflect that a great fabric 
of unwarrantable power and corruption could not 
fall to the ground w^ithout a mighty convulsion — 
that the agitation must ever be in proportion to 
the surface agitated — that the passions and errors 
inseparable from humanity must heighten and 
swell the confusion ; and that, perhaps, the crimes 
and ambition of other nations, under the mask of 
self-defense and humanity, may have contributed 
not a little to aggravate them — may have tended 
to imbitter the spirits and to multiply the evils 
which they condemn — to increase the misrule and 
anarchy which they seek to disembroil, and in the 
end to endanger their own governments, which 
by carnage and bloodshed, instead of by peace, 
improvement, and wise administration, they pro- 
fess to protect from the contagion of revolution. 
As to the part which bodies of men in England 
have taken, though it might, in some , , , ,'. 

, . '^ ^ = , .' and tlie feelings 

instances, be imprudent and irregular, ithad awaken- 

i T ^1 • , 1 ed in England. 

yet 1 see nothing to condemn, or to 
support, the declamation which we daily hear 
upon the subject. The congratulations' o^. En- 
glishmen were directed to the fall of corrupt and 
despotic power in France, and were animated by 
a wish of a milder and freer government — hap- 
pier for that country, and safer for this. They 
were, besides, addressed to France when she was 
at peace with England, and when no law was, 
therefore, broken by the expression of opinion or 
satisfaction. They w^ere not congratulations on 
the murders which have since been committed, 
nor on the desolations which have since over- 
spread so large a portion of the earth, neither 
were they traitorous to the government of thi.s 

'' Mr. Erskine alluded to the addresses sent from 
several political societies in England to the French 
National Assembly, which, in the expressions of 
their warm approbation of the new government es- 
tablished in France, bordered closely on sedition 
against the English e-overnraent. 



702 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1793. 



country. This we may safely take in trust, since 
not one of them, even in the rage of prosecution, 
has been brought before a criminal court. For 
myself, I never joined in any of these addresses, 
but what I have delivered concerning them is all 
I have been able to discover ; and government it- 
self, as far as evidence extends, has not been 
more successful. I would, therefore, recommend 
it to his Majesty's servants, to attend to the re- 
flections of an eloquent writer [Mr. Burke] at 
present high in their confidence and esteem, who 
has admirably exposed the danger and injustice 
of general accusations. " This way of proscrib- 
ing the citizens by denominations and general 
descriptions, dignified by the name of reason of 
state, and security for Constitutions and common- 
wealths, is nothing better at bottom than the mis- 
erable invention of an ungenerous ambition, which 
would fain hold the sacred trust of power, with- 
out any of the virtues or enei'gies that give a ti- 
tle to it ; a receipt of policy, made up of a detest- 
able compound of malice, cowardice, and sloth. 
They would govern men against their will ; but 
in that government would be discharged from the 
exercise of vigilance, providence, and fortitude ; 
and, therefore, that they may sleep on their watch, 
consent to take some one division of the society 
into partnership of the tyranny over the rest. 
But let government, in whatever form it may be, 
comprehend the whole of its justice, and restrain 
the suspicious by its vigilance ; let it keep watch 
and ward ; let it discover by its sagacity, and 
punish by its firmness, all delinquency against its 
power, whenever it exists in the overt acts, and 
then it will be as safe as God and nature intend- 
ed it should be. Crimes are the acts of individ- 
uals, and not of denominations ; and, therefore, 
arbitrarily to class men under general descrip- 
tions, in order to proscribe and punish them in 
the lump for a presumed delinquency, of which, 
perhaps, but a part — perhaps none at all — are 
guilty, is, indeed, a compendious method, and 
saves a world of trouble about proof; but such a 
method, instead of being law, is an act of unnat- 
ural rebellion against the legal dominion of rea- 
son and justice ; and a vice, in any Constitution 
that entertains it, which at one time or other will 
certainly bring on its ruin.'"* 

Gentlemen, let us now address ourselves to 
, the cause, disembarrassed by foreign 

Crime charged ' . , 

upon the de- considerations; let us examme what 
the charge upon the record is, and see 
how it is supported by the proofs. For, unless 
the whole indictment, or some one count of it, be 
in form and substance supported by the evidence, 
the defendant must be acquitted, however in 
other respects you may be dissatisfied with his 
imprudence and indiscretion. The indictment 
charges, " That the defendant being a person of 
an impious, depraved, seditious disposition, and 
maliciously intending to disturb the peace of the 
kingdom ; to bring our most serene Sovereign 
into hatred and contempt with all the subjects of 
the realm, and to excite them to discontent against 



the government ; he the said defendant, his afore- 
said wicked contrivances and intentions to com- 
plete, perfect, and render effectual, on the 6th 
day of November," spoke the words imputed to 
him by the Crown. This is the indictment, and 
it is drawn with a precision which marks the true 
principle of English criminal law. It does not 
merely charge the speaking of the words, leaving 
the wicked intention to be supplied and collected 
by necessary and unavoidable inference, because 
such inference may or may not follow from the 
words themselves, according to circumstances, 
which the evidence alone can disclose. It charges 
therefore the wicked intention as a fact, ^ . . 

. . ' Intention is 

and as constituting the very essence of esseuUai to 

. . ^ . " . ■' the crime. 

the crime, stating, as it must state, to 
apprise the defendant of the crime alleged against 
him, the overt act, by which such malicious pur- 
pose was displayed, and by which he sought to 
render it effectual. No man can be criminal 
without a criminal intention — actus non facit 
rcum nisi mens sit rea.^ God alone can look into 
the heart, and man, could he look into it, has no 
jurisdiction over it, until society is disturbed by 
its actions ; but the criminal mind being the source 
of all criminality, the law seeks only to punish ac- 
tions which it can trace to evil disposition — it 
pities our errors and mistakes — makes allow- 
ances for our passions, and scourges only our 
crimes. 

Gentlemen, my learned friend the Attorney 
General, in the conclusion of his ad- ^ . . 

' Concessions of 

dress to you, did more than ratify the counsel for 
these propositions. With a liberality ^'^ 
and candor very honorable to himself, and highly 
advantageous to the public which he represents, 
he said to you, that if the expressions charged 
upon the defendant should turn out, in your opin- 
ion, to be unadvised and unguarded, arising on 
the sudden, and unconnected with previous bad 
intention, he should not even insist upon the 
strictness of the law, whatever it might be, nor 
ask a verdict, but such as between man and man, 
acting upon moral and candid feelings, ought to 
be asked and expected. These were the sug- 
gestions of his own just and manly disposition, 
and he confirmed them by the authority of Mr. 
Justice Foster, whose works are so deservedly 
celebrated. But judging of my unfortunate cli- 
ent, not from his own charity, but from the false 
information of others, he puts a construction upon 
an expression of this great author which destroys 
much of the intended effect of his doctrine — a 
doctrine which I will myself read again to you, 
and by the right interpretation of which I desire 
the defendant may stand or fall. In the passage 
read to you, Foster says, " As to mere words, 
they difler widely from writings in point of real 
malignity and proper evidence ; they are often 
the effect of mere heat of blood, which in some 
natures, otherwise well disposed, carrieth the 
man beyond the bounds of prudence ; they are 
always liable to great misconstruction, from the 



8 Mr. Burke's speech at Bristol. See page 308. 



9 This act does not make a man guilty without the 
intention. 



1793] 



IN BEHALF OF FROST. 



703 



ignorance or inattention of the hearers, and too 
olten from a motive truly criminal." Foster 
afterward goes on to contrast such loose words, 
^^ not relative to any act or dcsign^^^ for so he ex- 
presses himself, w4th '" words of advice and per- 
suasion in coyitcmplation of some traitorous pur- 
pose actually on foot or intended, and in prosecu- 
tion of it.^'' Comparing this rule of judgment 
with the evidence given, one would have expect- 
ed a consent to the most favorable judgment — 
one would have almost considered the quotation 
as a tacit consent to an acquittal. But Mr. At- 
torney General; still looking through the false 
medium of other men's prejudices, lays hold of 
the words "otherwise \vell disposed," and in- 
grafts upon them this most extraordinary requi- 
Modeofevad- sition. Show me, he says, that Mr. 
J^encesT 'this Frost is Otherwise well disposed. Let 
concession. jji^i bring himsclf within the meaning 
of Foster, and then I consent that he shall have 
the fullest benefit of his indulgent principle of 
judgment. Good God, gentlemen, are we in an 
English court of justice ? Are w^e sitting in 
judgment before the Chief Justice of England, 
with the assistance of a jury of Englishmen ? 
And am I in such a presence to be called upon 
to prove the good disposition of my client, before 
I can be entitled to the pi-otection of those rules 
of evidence which apply equally to the just and 
to the unjust, and by which an evil disposition 
must be proved before it shall even be suspect- 
ed ? I came here to resist and to deny the ex- 
istence of legitimate and credible proof of disloy- 
alty and disaffection ; and am I to be called upon 
to prove that my client has not been, nor is, dis- 
loyal or disaffected ? Are we to be deafened with 
panegyrics upon the English Constitution, and yet 
to be deprived of its first and distinguishing feat- 
ure, that innocence is to be presumed until guilt 
be established ? Of what avail is that sacred 
maxim, if, upon the bare assertion and imputa- 
tion of guilt, a man may be deprived of a rule of 
evidence, the suggestion of wisdom and human- 
ity, as if the rule applied only to those who need 
no protection, and w'ho were never accused ? If 
Mr. Frost, by any previous overt acts, by which 
alone any disposition, good or evil, can be proved, 
had shown a disposition leading to the offense in 
question, it was evidence for the Crown. Mr. 
Wood,^° whose learning is unquestionable, un- 
doubtedly thought so, when, with the view of 
crimination, he asked where Mr. Frost had been 
before the time in question, for he is much too 
correct to have put an irregular and illegal ques- 
tion in a criminal case : I must, therefore, sup- 
pose his right to ask it appeared to him quite 
clear and established, and I have no doubt that it 
was so. Why, then, did he not go on and follow 
it up, by asking what he had done in France — 
what declarations he had made there — or what 
part he proposed to act here, upon his return ? 
The charge upon the record is, that the words 
were uttered with malice and premeditation ; 
and Mr. Attorney General properly disclaims a 



One of the counsel for the prosecution. 



conviction upon any other footing. Surely, then, 
it was open to the Crown, upon every principle 
of common sense, to have proved the previous 
malice by all previous discourses and previous 
conduct connected tvith the accusation. And yet, 
after having wholly and absolutely failed in this 
most important part of the proof, we are gravely 
told that the Crown having failed in the affirma- 
tive, we must set about establishing the negative ! 
for that otherwise we are not within the pale or 
protection of the very first and paramount prin- 
ciples of the law and govei-nment of the country ! 

Having disposed of this stumbling-block in the 
way of sound and indulgent judgment, we may 
now venture to examine this mighty offense as 
it is proved by the witnesses for the Crown, sup- 
posing the facts neither to have been misstated 
from misapprehension, nor willfully exaggerated. 

Mr. Frost, the defendant, a gentleman who, 
upon the evidence, stands wholly unimpeached 
of any design against the public peace. Evidence 
or any indisposition to the Constitution [Iffinjant^ 
of the kingdom, appears to have dined examined, 
at the tavern over the Percy coffee-house. This 
he did not with a company met upon any polit- 
ical occasion, good or evil, but, as has been ad- 
mitted in the opening, with a society for the en- 
couragement of agriculture, consisting of most 
reputable and inoffensive persons, neither talking 
nor thinking about government, or its concerns : 
so much for the preface to this dangerous con- 
spiracy. The company did not retire till the 
bottle had made many merry circles ; and it ap- 
pears, upon the evidence for the Crown, that Mr. 
Frost, to say the least, had drunk very freely. 
But was it with the evil intention imputed to 
him that he went into this coffee-house to cir- 
culate his opinions, and to give effect to designs 
he had premeditated ? He could not possibly 
go home icithout passing through it ; for it is 
proved that there was no other passage into the 
street fi-om the room where he had dined. But 
having got there by accident, did he even then 
stop by design, and collect an audience to .scatter 
sedition ? So far from it, that Mr. Yatman, the 
very witness against him, admits that he intcr- 
riipted him as he passed in silence towai-d the 
street, and fastened the subject of France upon 
him. Eveiy word which passed (for the whole 
is charged upon the very record as a dialogue 
with this witness) was in answer to his entrap- 
ping questions, inti'oduced with the familiarity 
of a very old acquaintance, and in a sort of ban- 
ter, too, w^hich gave a turn to the conversation 
that renders it ridiculous, as well as wicked, 
to convert it into a serious plan of mischief: 
" Well," says Mr. Yatman, ''well, Mr. Equality, 
so you have been in France — when The defendant's 
did you arrive ? I suppose you are I-ed'to''Fra'ifcer 
for equality, and no Kings?" "O »"t to England, 
yes," says Mr. Frost, "certainly I am for equal- 
ity ; I am for no Kings." Now, beyond all ques- 
tion, when this answer was made, whether in 
jest or in earnest, whether when drunk or sob- 
er, it neither had, nor could have, the remotest 
relation to England or its government. France 



TTtrrr^ 



r^artTTrrarrrw 



704 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1793. 



had just abolished its new Constitution of mon- 
archy, and set up a republic. She was at that 
moment divided and in civil confusion on the sub- 
ject ; the question, therefore, and the answer, as 
they applied to France, were sensible and rele- 
vant ; but to England or to English affairs they 
had not (except in the ensnaring sequel) the re- 
motest application. Had Yatman, therefore, end- 
ed here, the conversation would have ended, and 
Mr. Frost would have been the next moment in 
the street. But still the question is forced upon 
him, and he is asked, "What! no Kings in En- 
gland?" although his first answer had no con- 
nection with England ; the question, therefore, 
was self-evidently a snare, to which he answered, 
" No Kings in England ;" which seemed to be all 
that was wanted, for in a moment every thing 
was confusion and uproar. JMr. Frost, who had 
neither delivered nor meant to deliver any seri- 
ous opinion concerning government, and finding 
himself injuriously set upon, wished, as was most 
natural, to explain himself, by stating to those 
around him what I have been just stating to you. 
But all in vain ; they were in pursuit of the im- 
mortal fame of the very business we are engaged 
in at this moment, and were resolved to hold their 
advantage. His voice was immediately drowned 
by the clamors of insult and brutality ; he was 
baited on all sides like a bull, and left the coffee- 
house without the possibility of being heard either 
in explanation or defense. An indictment was 
immediately preferred against him, and from that 
moment the public ear has been grossly and 
wickedly abused upon the subject, his character 
shamefully calumniated, and his cause prejudged 
before the day of trial. 

Gentlemen it is impossible for me to form any 
To accuse under o^licr judgment of the impressiou 
such circumstan- which such a proceeding altogether 

ces destructive . ,., , , ■ , 

ofaii human con- IS likely to make upon your ninids, 
Bdeuce. ^^^ ^^.^^^ ^^^^^ which it makcs upon 

my own. In the first place, is society to be pro- 
tected by the breach of those confidences, and in 
the destruction of that security and tranquillity 
which constitute its very essence every where, but 
which, till of late, most emphatically character- 
ized the life of an Englishman? Is government 
to derive dignity and safety by means which ren- 
der it impossible for any man who has the least 
spark of honor to step forward to serve it ? Is 
the time come when obedience to the law and 
correctness of conduct are not a sufficient pro- 
tection to the subject, but that he must measure 
his steps, select his expressions, and adjust his 
very looks in the most common and private in- 
tercourses of life ? Must an English gentleman 
in future fill his wine by a measure, lest, in the 
openness of his soul, and while believing his 
neighbors are joining with him in that happy 
relaxation and freedom of thought which is the 
prime blessing of life, he should find his charac- 
ter blasted, and his person in a prison ? Does 
any man put such constraint upon himself in the 
most private moment of his life, that he would be 
contented to have his loo.scst and lightest words 
recorded, and set in array against him in a court 



of justice ? Thank God, the world lives very 
differently, or it would not be worth living in. 
There are moments when jarring opinions may 
be given without inconsistency — when Truth 
herself may be sported with without the breach 
of veracity — and where well-imagined nonsense 
is not only superior to, but is the very index to 
wit and wisdom. I might safely assert — taking, 
too, for the standard of my assertion the most 
honorably correct and enlightened societies in 
the kingdom — that if malignant spies were prop- 
erly posted, scarcely a dinner would end without 
a duel and an indictment. 

When I came down this morning, and found, 
contrary to my expectation, that we illustration from 
were to be stuffed into this misera- case supposed. 
ble hole in the wall,^^ to consume our constitu- 
tions : suppose I had muttered along through 
the gloomy passages — " What, is this cursed tri- 
al of Hastings going on again ? Are we to have 
no respite ? Are we to die of the asthma in this 
damned corner? I wish to God that the roof 
would come down and abate the impeachment, 
Lords, Commons, and all together." Such a 
wish, proceeding from the mind, would be des- 
perate wickedness, and the serious expression of 
it a high and criminal contempt of Parliament. 
Perhaps the bare utterance of such words, even 
without meaning, would be irreverent and foolish. 
But still, if such expressions had been gravely 
imputed to me as the result of a malignant mind, 
seeking the destruction of the Lords and Com- 
mons of England, how would they have been 
treated in the House of Commons on a motion for 
my expulsion? How ! The witness would have 
been laughed out of the House before he had half 
finished his evidence, and would have been voted 
to be too great a blockhead to deserve a worse 
character. Many things are, indeed, wrong and 
reprehensible, that neither do nor can become the 
objects of criminal justice, because the happiness 
and security of social life, which are the very 
end and object of all law and justice, forbid the 
communication of them ; because the spirit of a 
gentleman, which is the most refined morality, 
either shuts men's ears against what should not 
be heard, or closes their lips with the sacred seal 
of honor. 

This tacit but well-understood and delightful 
compact of social life is perfectly con- society in m. 
sistent with its safety. The security eraift^ on'thii**" 
of free governments, and the unsus- subject. 
pecting confidence of every man who lives under 
them, are not only compatible, but inseparable. 
It is easy to disiniguish where the pub'ic duty 
calls for the violation of the private one. Crim 
inal intention, but not indecent levities — not even 
grave opinions unconnected with conduct, are to 
be exposed to the magistrate ; and when men 
(which happens but seldom), without the honor or 
the .sense to make the due distinctions, force com- 
plaints upon governments which they can neither 
approve of nor refuse to act upon, it becomes the 



1' The King's Bench sat in the small Court of Com- 
mon Pleas. 



1793] 



IN BEHALF OF FROST. 



705 



office of juries — as it is yours to-day — to draw 
the true line in their judgments, measuring men's 
conduct by the safe standards of human life and 
experience. 

Gentlemen, the misery and disgrace of society, 
under the lash of informers, running before the 
law and hunting men through the privacies of 
domestic life, is described by a celebrated speak- 
er [Mr. Burke] with such force and beauty of 
eloquence, that I will close my observations on 
this part of the subject by repeating what can 
not, I am persuaded, be uttered among English- 
men without sinking deep into their hearts : "A 
mercenary informer knows no distinction. Under 
such a system, the obnoxious people are slaves, 
not only to the government, but they live at the 
mercy of every individual ; they are at once the 
slaves of the whole community and o\ every part 
of it ; and the worst and most unmerciful men are 
those on whose goodness they must depend. In 
this situation men not only shrink from the frowns 
of a stern magistrate, but are obliged to fly from 
their very species. The seeds of destruction are 
sown in civil intercourse, and in social habitudes. 
The blood of wholesome kindred is infected. 
Their tables and beds are surrounded with snares. 
All the means given by Providence to make life 
safe and comfortable are perverted into instru- 
ments of terror and torment. This species of 
universal subserviency, that makes the very serv- 
^ant who waits behind your chair the arbiter of 
your life and fortune, has such a tendency to de- 
grade and abase mankind, and to deprive them 
of that assured and liberal state of mind wiiich 
alone can make us what we ought to be, that I 
vow to God, I would sooner bring myself to put 
a man to immediate death for opinions I disliked, 
and so to get rid of the man and his opinions at 
once, than to fret him with a feverish being, 
tainted with the jail distemper of a contagious 
servitude, to keep him above ground, an anima- 
ted mass of putrefaction, corrupted himself, and 
corrupting all about him."^^ 

If these sentiments apply so justly to the rep- 
Aii private es- fobatiou of persccution for opinions 
pioiiage pecui- — evcu for opinious which the laws, 
English irisUtu- howcvcr absurdly, inhibit — for opin- 
ions though certainly and maturely en- 
tertained — though publicly professed, and though 
followed up by corresponding conduct ; how ir- 
resistibly do they devote to contempt and exe- 
cration all eaves-dropping attacks upon loose con- 
versations, casual or convivial, more especially 
when proceeding from persons conforming to all 
the religious and civil institutions of the state, 
unsupported by general and avowed profession, 
and not merely unconnected with conduct, but 
scarcely attended with recollection or conscious- 
ness ! Such a vexatious system of inquisition, 
the disturber of household peace, began and end- 
ed with the Star Chamber. The venerable law 
of England never knew it. Her noble, dignified, 
and humane policy soars above the little irregu- 
larities of our lives, and disdains to enter our clos- 



es See Mr. Burke's speech at Bristol, page 301. , 

Y Y 



ets without a warrant founded upon complaint. 
Constructed by man to regulate human infirmi- 
ties, and not by God to guard the purity of angels, 
it leaves to us our thoughts, our opinions, and 
our conversations, and punishes only overt acts 
of contempt and disobedience to her authority. 

Gentlemen, this is not the specious phrase of 
an advocate for his client: it is not ^ ., 

,, , . . „ Evidence of tlua 

even my exposition oi the spirit oi from tiie provi 
our Constitution ; but it is the phrase ^'°"* ° 
and letter of the law itself. In the most critical 
conjunctures of our history, when government 
was legislating for its own existence and con- 
tinuance, it never overstepped this wise modera- 
tion. To give stability to establishments, it oc- 
casionally bridled opinions concerning them, but 
its punishments, though sanguinary, laid no snares 
for thoughtless life, and took no man by surprise. 

Of this the act of Queen Anne,^^ which made 
it high treason to deny the right of Parliament 
to alter the succession, is a striking example. 
The hereditary descent of the Crown had been 
recently broken at the Revolution by a minority 
of the nation, with the aid of a foreign force, and 
a new inheritance had been created by the au- 
thority of the new establishment, which had but 
just established itself. Queen Anne's title, and 
the peaceable settlement of the kingdom under 
it, depended wholly upon the constitutional pow- 
er of Parliament to make this change. The su- 
perstitions of the world and reverence for an- 
tiquity, which deserves a better name, were 
against this power and the use which had been 
made of it ; the dethroned King of England was 
living in hostile state at our very doors, support- 
ed by a powerful monarch at the head of a rival 
nation — and our own kingdom itself full of fac- 
tious plots and conspiracies, which soon after 
showed themselves in open rebellion. 

If ever, therefore, there was a season when a 
narrow jealousy could have been excusable in a 
government — if ever there was a time when the 
sacrifice of some private liberty to common se- 
curity would have been prudent in a people, it 
was at such a conjuncture. Yet mark the re- 
serve of the crown, and the prudence of our an- 
cestors in the wording of the statute. Although 
the denial of the right of Parliament to alter the 
succession was tantamount to the denial of all 
legitimate authority in the kingdom, and might 
be considered as a sort of abjuration to the laws, 
yet the statute looked at the nature of man, and 
to the private security of individuals in society, 
while it sought to support the public society 
itself. It did not, therefore, dog men into tav- 
erns and cofTee-houses, nor lurk for them at cor- 
ners, nor watch for them in their domestic en- 
joyments. The act provides, " That every per- 
son who should maliciously, advisedly, and di- 
rectly, by writing or printings affirm that the 
Queen was not the rightful Queen of these 
realms, or that the Pretender had any right or 
title to the Crown, or that any other person had 
any right or title, otherwise than according to 

^^ Sixth Anne, c. 7. 



706 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1793. 



the acts passed since the Revolution for settling 
the succession, or that the Legislature hath not 
sufRcient authority to make laws for limiting the 
succession, should be guilty of high treason, and 
suffer as a traitor ;" and then enacts, " That if 
any person shall maliciously^ and directly^ by 
preaching, teaching, or advised speaking, declare 
and maintain the same, he shall incur the penal- 
ties of a prcemunire.'''' 

"I will make a short observation or two," 
Remarks says Fostcr, " ou the act. First. The 
of Foster, positions Condemned by them had as di- 
rect a tendency to involve these nations in the 
miseries of an intestine war, to incite her Maj- 
esty's subjects to withdraw their allegiance from 
her, and to deprive her of her crown and royal 
dignity, as any general doctrine, any declaration 
not relative to actions or designs, could possibly 
have ; and yet in the case of bare words, posi- 
tions of this dangerous tendency, though main- 
tained maliciously, advisedly, and directly, and 
even in the solemnities of preaching and teach- 
ing, are not considered as overt acts of treason. 

" Secondly. In no case can a man be argued 
into the penalties of the act by inferences and 
conclusions drawn from what he hath affirmed ; 
the criminal position must be directly maintained 
to bring him within the compass of the act. 

" Thirdly. Nor will every rash, hasty, or un- 
guarded expression, owing, perhaps, to natural 
warmth, or thrown out in the heat of disputation, 
render any person ci'iminal within the act ; the 
^criminal doctrine must be maintained malicious- 
ly and advisedly. ^^ 

He afterward adds, " Seditious writings are 
permanent things, and if published, they scatter 
the poison far and wide. They are acts of de- 
liberation, capable of satisfactory proof, and not 
ordinarily liable to misconstruction ; at least, 
they are submitted to the judgment of the court, 
naked and undisguised, as they came out of the 
author's hands. Words are transient and fleet- 
ing as the wind ; the poison they scatter is, at 
the worst, confined to the narrow circle of a few 
hearers ; they are frequently the effect of a sud- 
den transport, easily misunderstood, and often 
misreported." 

Gentlemen, these distinctions, like all the dic- 
. . , tates of sound policy, are as obvious 

Hi3 principles i 

founded in the to rcason as they are salutary m 
nature of things. ^^^^^^^^ ^j^at a man tcrites that 
is criminal and pernicious, and what he dissem- 
inates when written, is conclusive of his purpose. 
He manifestly must have deliberated on what he 
wrote, and the distribution is also an act of de- 
liberation. Intention in such cases is not, there- 
fore, matter of legal proof, but of reasonable in- 
ference, unless the accused, by proof on his side, 
can rebut what reason must otherwise infer : 
since he who writes to others undoubtedly seeks 
to bring over other minds to assimilate with his 
own. So he who advisedly speaks to others upon 
momentous subjects, may be presumed to have 
the same intention. Yet so frail is memory — so 
imperfect are our natures — so dangerous would 
it be to place words, which, to use the language 



of Foster, are transient and fleeting, upon a 
footing with deliberate conduct, that the crimin- 
ating letter of the law itself interposes the check, 
and excludes the danger of a rash judgment, by 
curiously selecting from the whole circle of lan- 
guage an expression which can not be mistaken ; 
for nothing said upon the sudden, without the 
evidence of a context, and sequel in thought or 
conduct, can in common sense deserve the title 
of advised speaking. Try the matter before you 
upon the principle of the statute of Queen Anne, 
and examine it with the caution of Foster. 

Supposing, then, that instead of the words im- 
puted by this record, the defendant. Application of 
coming half drunk through this coffee- JJeTto^^LT" 
house, had, in his conversation with present case. 
Yatman, denied the right of Parliament to alter 
the succession, could he have been adjudged to 
suffer death for high treason under the statute of 
Queen Anne ? Reason and humanity equally 
revolt at the position, and yet the decision asked 
from you is precisely that decision. For if you 
could not have found [his language] ^^ advised 
speaking''' to bring it within that statute of trea- 
son, so neither can you find it as the necessary evi- 
dence of the intention charged by the present in- 
dictment, which intention constitutes the misde- 
meanor. 

If any thing were wanting to confirm these 
principles of the law and the commentaries of its 
ablest judges, as applicable to words — it is in an- 
other way emphatically furnished by the instance 
before us. In the zeal of these coffee-house pol- 
iticians to preserve the defendant's expressions, 
they were instantly to be put down in writing, 
and signed by the persons present. Yet the pa- 
per read by Colonel Bullock,^'* and written, as he 
tells you, at the very moment with that intention, 
contains hardly a single word, from the begin- 
ning to the end of it, either in meaning or expres- 
sion, the same as has been related by the witness- 
es. It sinks, in the first place, the questions put 
to the defendant, and the whole dialogue, which 
is the best clue to the business, and records, 
" that Mr. Frost came into the coffee-house and 
declared,'^ an expression which he never used, and 
which wears the color of deliberation, " that he 
wished to see equality prevail in this country." 
another expression, which it is now agreed on all 
hands he never uttered, and which conveys a very 
different idea from saying, in answer to an im- 
pertinent or taunting question, " Oh yes, I am for 
equality." I impute nothing at all to Colonel 
Bullock, who did not appear to me to give his 
evidence unfairly — he read his paper as he wrote. 
But this is the very strength of my observation : 



^* The paper was as follows: "Percy coffee- 
house, 6th of November, 1792. "We, the undermen- 
tioned, do hereby certify that at about 10 o'clock 
this eveuinir, Mr. John Frost came into this coffee- 
room, and did then and in our presence opeuly de- 
clare that he wished to see equality prevail in this 
country, and no King-, in a loud and factious way; 
and upon being asked whether he meant that there 
should be no King in this country, he answered 
'Yes.' " The paper was not signed. 



1793.] 



IN BEHALF OF FROST. 



707 



for suppose the case had not come for months to 
trial, the other witnesses (and honestly too) might 
have let their memories lean on the written evi- 
dence, and thus you would have been trying, and 
perhaps condemning the defendant for speaking 
words, stripped too of their explanatory concom- 
itants, which it stands confessed at this moment 
were never spoken at all. 

Gentlemen, the disposition which has of late 
Pernicious in- prevailed to depart from the wise 
dattoifsfor^the" moderation of our laws and Consti- 
purpose of tutiou, undcr the pretext, or from the 

prosecuting in ' • i i i • i 

such cases. zeal of prcscrvmg them, and which 
has been the parent of so many prosecutions, is 
an awful monument of human weakness. These 
associators to prosecute, who keep watch of late 
upon our words and upon our looks, are associa- 
ted, it seems, to preserve our excellent Constitu- 
tion from the contagion of France, where an ar- 
bitrary and tyrannous democracy, under the col- 
or of popular freedom, destroys all the securities 
and blessings of life. But hovi'- does it destroy 
them ? How, but by the very means that these 
new partners of executive power would them- 
selves employ, if we would let them — by inflict- 
ing, from a mistaken and barbarous state neces- 
sity, the severest punishments for offenses never 
defined by the law — by inflicting them upon sus- 
picion instead of evidence, and in the blind, furi- 
ous, and indiscriminate zeal of persecution, in- 
stead of by the administration of a sober and im- 
partial jurisprudence. Subtracting the horrors 
of invading armies which France can not help, 
what other mischief has she inflicted upon her- 
self? From what has she suffered but from this 
undisciplined and cruel spirit of accusation and 
rash judgment ? A spirit that will look at noth- 
ing dispassionately, and which, though proceeding 
from a zeal and enthusiasm for the most part hon- 
est and sincere, is, nevertheless, as pernicious as 
the wicked fury of demons when it is loosened from 
the'sober dominion of slow and deliberate justice. 
What is it that has lately united all hearts and 
voices in lamentation ? What but these judicial 
executions, which we have a right to style mur- 
der, when we see the ax falling, and the prison 
closing upon the genuine expressions of the in- 
ofTensive heart — sometimes for private letters to 
friends, unconnected with conduct or intention — 
sometimes for momentary exclamations in favor 
of royalty, or some other denomination of govern- 
ment different from that which is established. 

These are the miseries of France, the unhap- 
py attendants upon revolution ; and united as we 
all are in deploring them, upon what principle 
of common sense shall we vex and terrify the 
subjects of our own country in the very bosom 
of peace, and disgust them with the government, 
which we wish them to cherish, by unusual, ir- 
ritating, and degrading prosecutions? 

Indeed, I am very sorry to say that we hear 
of late too much of the excellence of the British 
government, and jfccZ but too little of its benefits. 
They, too, who pronounce its panegyrics, are 
those who alone prevent the entire public from 
acceding to them. The eulogium comes from a 



suspected quarter, when it is pronounced by per- 
sons enjoying every honor from the Crown, and 
treating the people upon all occasions with sus- 
picion and contempt. The three estates of the 
kingdom are co-ordinate, all alike representing 
the dignity, and jointly executing the authority 
of the nation ; yet all our loyalty seems to be 
wasted upon one of them. How happens it else 
that we are so exquisitely sensible, so trembling- 
ly alive to every attack upon the Crown or the 
nobles that surround it, yet so completely careless 
of what regards the once respected and awful 
Commons of Great Britain ? 

If Mr. Frost had gone into every coffee-house, 
fi-om Charing Cross to the Exchange, rrevaiiing ter.d- 
lamenting the dangers of popular gov- ^ubjecranf 
ernment, reprobating the peevishness H'eir danger. 
of opposition in Parliament, and wishing, in the 
most advised terms, that we could look up to the 
throne and its excellent ministers alone for quiet 
and comfortable government, do you think that 
we should have had an indictment? I ask par- 
don for the supposition ; I can discover that you 
are laughing at me for its absurdity. Indeed, I 
might ask you whether it is not the notorious 
language of the highest men, in and out of Par- 
liament, to justify the alienation of the popular 
part of the government from the spirit and prin- 
ciple of its trust and office, and to prognosticate 
the very ruin and downfall of England, from a 
free and uncorrupted representation of the great 
body of the people ? I solemnly declare to you, 
that I think the whole of this system leads inev- 
itably to the dangers we seek to avert. It di- 
vides the higher and the lower classes of the 
nation into adverse parties, instead of uniting and 
compounding them into one harmonious whole. 
It embitters the people against authority, which, 
when they are made to feel and know is but 
their own security, they must, from the very na- 
ture of man, unite to support and cherish. I do 
not believe that there is any set of men to be 
named in England — I might say, that I do not 
know an individual who seriously wishes to 
touch the Crown, or any branch of our excellent 
Constitution ; and when we hear peevish and 
disrespectful expressions concerning any of its 
functions, depend upon it, it proceeds from some 
practical variance between its theory and its 
practice. These variances are the fatal springs 
of disorder and disgust. They lost America, 
and in that unfortunate separation laid the foun- 
dation of all that we have to fear ; yet, instead 
of treading back our steps, v^-e seek recovery in 
the system which brought us into peril. Let 
government in England always take care tr 
make its administration coi-respond with the true 
spirit of our genuine Constitution, and nothing 
will ever endanger it. Let it seek to maintain 
its corruptions by severity and coercion, and nei- 
ther laws nor arms will support it. These are 
my sentiments ; and I advise you, however un- 
popular they may be at this moment, to considei 
them before you repel them. 

If the defendant, among others, has judgei' 
too lightly of the advantages of our government 



708 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



i-eform his errors by a beneficial experience of 
them. Above all, let him feel its excellence to- 
day in its beneficence ; let him compare in his 
trial the condition of an English subject with 
that of a citizen of France, which he is supposed 
in theory to prefer. These are the true crite- 
rions by which, in the long run, individuals and 
nations become afTectionate to governments, or 
revolt against them. Men are neither to be 
talked nor written into the belief of happiness 
and security when they do not practically feel 
them, nor talked or written out of them when 
they are in the full enjoyment of their blessings : 
but if you condemn the defendant upon this sort 
of evidence, depend upon it, he must have his 
adherents, and, as far as that goes, I must be one 
of them. 

Gentlemen, I will detain you no longer, being 
Peroration: Satisfied to Icavc you, as conscientious 
i^witboJt'^n nien, to judge the defendant as you 
calt'the first yourselvcs would be judged; and if 
stone. there be any among you who can say 

to the rest that he has no weak or inconsiderate 



moments — that all his words and actions, even 
in the most thoughtless passages of his life, are 
fit for the inspection of God and man, he will be 
the fittest person to take the lead in a judgment 
of "Guilty," and the properest foreman to de- 
liver it with good faith and firmness to the court. 
I know the privilege that belongs to the At- 
torney General to reply to all that has been said ; 
but perhaps, as I have called no witnesses, he 
may think it a privilege to be waived. It is, 
however, pleasant to recollect, that if it should 
be exercised, even with his superior talents, his 
honor and candor will guard it from abuse. 



The Attorney General having exercised his 
privilege of repl}-. Lord Kenyon summed up ; 
and the jury, after a consultation of an hour and 
a half, returned a verdict of " Guilty." Mr. 
Frost was sentenced to be imprisoned in New- 
gate six months, to stand one hour in the pillory, 
and to be struck off the roll of attorne3^s, where- 
by he was ruined for life. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. ERSKINE FOR MR. BINGHAM ON A TRIAL FOR ADULTERY, DELIVERED IN THE COURT 
OF KING'S BENCH, FEBRUARY 24, 1794. 



INTRODUCTION. 

This was almost the only case in which Mr. Erskine ever appeared as counsel for the defendant in a 
trial of this kind. All his sympathies and feelings were with the bereaved party; and so fervid were his 
appeals on such occasions, that in many instances he gained an amount of damages which swept the en- 
tire property of the defendant. 

But the circumstances of this case were so peculiar, that Mr. Erskine felt himself authorized to appear 
for the defense. Mr. Bingham, afterward the Earl of Liican, had formed an early attachment for Ladj' 
Elizabeth Pauconberg, which was warmly reciprocated by the latter. They were engaged to be mar- 
ried, and had the expectation of an early union, when the match was broken off by her parents in favor 
of Mr. Howard, afterward the Duke of Norfolk, and she was compelled to marry one whom she regarded 
with disgust and even abhorrence. She bore him a son within sixteen months after their marriage ; 
but her affections continued to be passionately fixed on Mr. Bingham (who had at first avoided her soci- 
ety) ; a renewed intercourse gradually sprung up between them ; her husband naturally became alienated 
by the growing hostility of her feelings ; and after mutual upbraidings, she left him at the end of four years, 
and eloped with Mr. Bingham. It was certainly proper that they should now be divorced, especially as 
she was expected to give birtli speedily to a child by the latter ; but through a singular anomaly in the 
English laws, a divorce could be obtained only by Mr. Howard's bringing an action in damages against 
Mr. Bingham for depriving him of " the comfort and society of his wife !" 

Mr. Erskine's management of the case was truly admirable. The entire simplicity with which he com- 
mences — his disclaimer of all idea of being eloquent, or of making any address to the feelings of the jury 
— the dry detail of dates with which he enters on the facts of the case, so perfectly suited to do away all 
suspicion on that subject — his pointed exposure of the opposing counsel's statements without evidence to 
support them — the vivid picture which he brings before the mind of the ill-fated daughter "given up to 
the plaintiff by the infatuation of parents, and stretched upon her bridal bed as upon a rack" — the bold 
burst of passion with which he exclaims, "Mr. Howard was never married^' — "he was himself the se- 
ducer" — "imagine my client to be plaintiff, and what damages are you not prepared to give him, and j-et 
he is here as defendant .'" — the solemn lessons for the nobility which he deduces from the case, so in- 
structive in themselves, and so peculiarly adapted to strengthen his cause — every thing, in short, con- 
spires to make this speech, though brief, one of the most perfect exhibitions of power over the minds of 
a jury, to be found in the eloquence of our language. 

SPEECH, &c. 

Gentlemen of the Jury, — My learned I address from me, as counsel for the defendant, 
friend, as counsel for the plaintiff, has bespoke an \ which you must not, I assure you, expect to hear. 



1794.] 



IN BEHALF OF MR. BINGHAM. 



709 



He has thought it right (partly in courtesy to me, 
None of the el- as I am wilHng to believe, and in part 
expected which for the purposcs of his cause) that 

couns^e^rad" 7°^ should SUppOSC yOU are to be ad- 
predicted, dressed with eloquence which I nev- 
er possessed, and w^hich, if I did, I should be in- 
capable at this moment of exerting ; because the 
most eloquent man, in order to exert his elo- 
quence, must have his mind free from embarrass- 
ment on the occasion on which he is to speak — 
I am not in that condition. My learned friend 
has expressed himself as the friend of the plain- 
tiff's family. He does not regard that family 
more than I do ; and I stand in the same predic- 
ament toward my own honorable client and his 
relations. I know him and them, and because I 
Forbidden by know them, I regard them also : my 
inlsXationo'f cmbarrassmcnt, however, only arises 
the speaker. ^^ being obliged to discuss this ques- 
tion in a public court of justice, because, could 
it have been the subject of private I'cference, I 
should have felt none at all in being called upon 
to settle it. 

Gentlemen, my embarrassment is abundantly 
increased, w^hen I see present a noble person, 
high, very high in rank in this kingdom, but not 
higher in rank than he is in my estimation : I 
speak of the noble Duke of Norfolk, who most 
undoubtedly must feel not a little at being obliged 
to come here as a witness for the defendant in 
the cause of a plaintiff so nearly allied to him- 
self. I am persuaded no man can have so little 
sensibility, as not to feel that a person in my sit- 
uation must be greatly embarrassed in discuss- 
ing a question of this nature before such an 
audience, and between such parties as I have 
described. 

Gentlemen, my learned friend desired you 
Erroroftheop would take carc not to suffer argu- 
fn'gmn^'test^ ment. or observation, or eloquence to 
S ""der be called into the field, to detach your 
°atii- attention from the evidence in the 

cause, upon which alone you ought to decide ; I 
wish my learned friend, at the moment he gave 
you that caution, had not himself given testimony 
of a fact to w^hich he stood the solitary w^itness. 
I wish he had not introduced his own evidence, 
without the ordinary ceremony of being sworn. 
I will not follow his example. I will not tell 
you what I know from the conversation of my 
client, nor give evidence of what I know myself. 
My learned friend tells you that nothing can ex- 
ceed the agony of mind his client has suffered, 
and that no words can describe his adoration of 
the lady he has lost : these most material points 
of the cause rest, however, altogether on the sin- 
gle, imsupported, unsworn evidence of the coun- 
sel, for the plaintiff. No relation has been 
called upon to confirm them, though we are told 
that the whole house of Fauconberg, Bellasyse, 
and Norfolk are in the avenues of the court, 
ready, it seems, to be called at my discretion : 
and yet my learned friend is himself the only 
witness; though the facts (and most material 
facts, indeed, they would have been) might have 
been proved by so many illustrious persons. 



Now, to show yon how little disposed I am to 
work upon you by any thing but by statement «f 
proof; to convince you how little de- *''^ '^**®- 
sirous I am to practice the arts of speech as my 
only artillery in this cause, I will begin with a few 
plain dates, and, as you have pens in your hands, 
I will thank 3'^ou to write them down. I .shall be- 
gin with stating to you what my cause is, and shall 
then prove it — not by myself, but by witnesses. 

The parties were married on the 24th of April, 
1789. The child that has been spok- Marriageof 
en of, and in terms which gave me great ^IndMtlhlt 
satisfaction, as the admitted son of the ^''«''" ci'iu- 
plaintiff, blessed with the aflection of his parent, 
and whom the noble person to whom he may be- 
come heir can look upon without any unpleasant 
reflection — that child was born on the 12th of 
August, 1791. Take that date, and my learned 
friend's admission, that this child must have been 
the child of Mr. Howard ; an admission which 
could not have been rationally or consistently 
made, but upon the implied admission that no il- 
licit connection had existed previously by which 
its existence might have been referred to the de- 
fendant. On this subject, therefore, the plaintiff' 
must be silent. He can not say the parental mind 
has been wrung ; he can not say hereafter, "no 
SON OF MINE succeeding"^ — hc cau say none of 
these things. This child was born on the 12th 
of August, 1791, and as Mr. Howard is admit- 
ted to be the author of its existence (which he 
must have been, if at all, in 1790), I have a right 
to say that, during all that interval, this gentle- 
man could not have had the least reasonable cause 
of complaint against Mr. Bingham. His jealousy 
must, of course, have begun after that period ; 
for, had there been grounds for it before, there 
could be no sen.se in the admission of his coun- 
sel, nor any foundation for that parental consola- 
tion which was brought forward in the very front 
of the cause. 

The next dry date is, therefore, the 24th of 
Juh^, 1793 : and I put it to his Lord- _. .„ 

•" ' . i r • Tune of Mrs. 

ship, that there is no manner of evi- Howard's 
dence which can be pressed into this ^ "p®*"*" • 
cause previous to that time. Let me next dis- 
embarrass the cause from another assertion of 
my learned friend, namely, that a divorce can 
not take place before the birth of this _ 

, ., 1 , , .~ , 1 -1 1 1 Erroroftheop- 

child; and that, if the child happens posing counsel 

^ , , . , . . as to divorce. 

to be a son, which is one contingency 
— and if the child so born does not die, which is 
another contingency — and if the noble Duke dies 
without issue, which is a i^/rc^ contingency — then 
this child might inherit the honors of the house 
of Norfolk. That I deny. My recent experi- 
ence tells me the contrary. In a case where 
Mr. Stewart, a gentleman of Ireland, stood in a 
similar predicament, the Lords and Commons of 
England not only passed an Act of Divorce be- 
tween him and his lady, but, on finding there was 
no access on the part of the husband, and that the 
child was not his, they bastardized the issue. 
What, then, remains in this cause ? Gentle- 



* Macbeth. Act iii., Scene 2 



710 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



men, there remains onl}^ this : In what manner, 
True point whcn you have heai-J my evidence (for 
at issue. •j-jjig is a cause which, like all others, 
must stand upon evidence), the plaintiff shall be 
able to prove, what I have the noble judge's 
authority for saying he 77iust prove, namely, the 
loss of the comfort and society of his wife, by the 
seduction of the defendant. That is the very 
gist of the action. The loss of her afTection, and 
of domestic happiness, are the only legal founda- 
tions of his complaint. 

Now^, before any thing can be lost., it must have 
existed; before any thing can be taken away from 
a man, he must have had it; before the seduction 
of a woman's affections from her husband can take 
place, he must have possessed her affections. 

Gentlemen, my friend, Mr. Mingay, acknowl- 
edges this to be the law, and he shapes 

Representa- = t i tt 

tionsofoppo3- his case accordmgly. He represents 
ing counse . j^.^ client, a branch of a most illustri- 
ous house, as easting the eyes of affection upon 
a disengaged w^oman, and of rank equal to, or, at 
least, suitable to his own. He states a marriage 
of mutual affection, and endeavors to show that 
this young couple, with all the ardor of love, flew 
into each other's embraces. He shows a child, 
the fruit of that affection, and finishes with intro- 
ducing the seductive adulterer coming to disturb 
all this happiness, and to destroy the blessings 
which he describes. He exhibits the defendant 
coming with all the rashness and impetuosity of 
youth, careless of the consequences, and thinking 
of nothing but how he could indulge his own lust- 
ful appetite at the expense of another man's hon- 
or ; while the unhappy husband is represented 
as watching wuth anxiety over his beloved wife, 
anxious to secure her affections, and on his guard 
to preserve her virtue. Gentlemen, if such a case, 
or any thing resembling it, is established, I shall 
leave the defendant to whatever measure of dam- 
ages you choose, in your resentment, to inflict. 

In order, therefore, to examine this matter (and 
True state I ^hall support cvcry syllable that I ut- 
of facts. tgj. ^,y[\\^^ the most precise and uncontro- 
vertible proofs), I will begin with drawing up the 
curtains of this blessed marriage-bed, whose joys 
are supposed to have been nipped in the bud by 
the defendant's adulterous seduction. 

Nothing, certainly, is more delightful to the 
human fancy than the possession of a beautiful 
woman in the prime of health and youthful pas- 
sion ; it is beyond all doubt the highest enjoyment 
which God, in his benevolence, and for the wisest 
purposes, has bestowed upon his own image. I 
reverence, as I ought, that mysterious union of 
mind and body which, while it continues our spe- 
cies, is the source of all our affections ; which 
builds up and dignifies the condition of human life ; 
which binds the husband to the wife by ties more 
indissoluble than laws can possibly create, and 
which, by the reciprocal endearments arising 
from a mutual passion, a mutual interest, and a 
mutual honor, lays the foundation of that parent- 
al affection which dies in the brutes with the ne- 
cessities of nature, but which reflects back again 
upon the human parents the unspeakable sym- 



pathies of their offspring, and all the sweet, de- 
lightful relations of social existence. While the 
curtains, therefore, are yet closed upon this bridal 
scene, your imaginations will naturally represent 
to you this charming woman endeavoring to con- 
ceal sensations which modesty forbids the sex, 
however enamored, too ppenly to reveal,rwish- 
ing, beyond adequate expression, what she must 
not even attempt to express, and seemingly re- 
sisting w^hat she burns to enjoy .^ 

Alas, gentlemen ! you must now prepare to see 
in the room of this a scene of horror ^, , , , 

The lady's pre- 

and ol sorrow. You must prepare to vious engage- 
see a noble lady, whose birth surely ing repugnance 
required no further illustration; who ^o the marriage. 
had been courted to marriage before she ever 
heard even her husband's name ; and whose af- 
fections were irretrievably bestowed upon, and 
pledged to, my honorable and unfortunate client ; 
you must behold her given up to the plaintiff by 
the infatuation of parents, and stretched upon this 
bridal-bed as upon a rack ; torn from the arms 
of a beloved and impassioned youth, himself of 
noble birth, only to secure the honors of a higher 
title ; a legal victim on the altar of Heraldry. 

Gentlemen, this is no high coloring for the 
purposes of a cause ; no words of an advocate 
can go bej'ond the plain, unadorned effect of the 
evidence. I will prove to you that when she 
prepared to retire to her chamber she threw hei 
desponding arms around the neck of her confi- 
dential attendant, and w^ept upon her as a crim- 
inal preparing for execution. I will prove to 
you that she met her bridegroom with sighs and 
tears — the sighs and tears of afilicted love foi 
Mr. Bingham, and of rooted aversion to her hus- 
band. I think I almost hear her addressing him 
in the language of the poet — 

" I tell tbee, Howard, 
Such hearts as ours were never pak'd above : 
Ill-suited to each other; join'd, not match'd; 
Some sullen influence, a foe to both, 
Has wrought this fatal marriage to undo us. 
Mark but the frame and temper of our minds, 
How very much we differ. Ev'n this day. 
That fills thee with such ecstasy and transport. 
To me brings nothing that should make me bless it, 
To think it better than the day before, 
Or any other in the course of time, 
That duly took its turn, and was forgotten." 
Gentlemen, this was not the sudden burst of 
youthful disappointment, but the fixed and set- 
tled habit of a mind deserving of a happier fate 
I shall prove that she frequently spent her nights 
upon a couch, in her own apartments, dissolved 
in tears ; that she frequently declared to her 
woman that she would rather go to Newgate 
than to Mr. Howard's bed ; and it will appear, 
by his own confession, that for months subsequent 
to the marriage she obstinately refused him the 
privileges of a husband. 

To all this, it will be said by the plaintiff's 
counsel (as it has, indeed, been hint- „ „. , „. 

^ ' ' Mr. Bingham m 

ed already), that disgust and alicna- no ?ense these- 
tion from her husband could not but 
be expected ; but that it arose from her affection 
for Mr. Bingham. Be it so, gentlemen. I read- 



1794.] 



IN BEHALF OF MR. BINGHAM. 



711 



ily admit, that if Mr. Bingham's acquaintance 
with the lady had commenced subsequent to the 
marriage, the ai-gument would be irresistible, and 
the criminal conclusion against him unanswera- 
ble. But has Mr. Howard a right to instruct his 
counsel to charge my honorable client with se- 
duction, when he himself was the seducer? My 
learned friend deprecates the power of what he 
terms my pathetic eloquence. Alas, gentlemen ! 
if I possessed it, the occasion forbids its exertion, 
because Mr. Bingham has only to defend himself, 
and can not demand damages from Mr. Howard 
for depriving him of what was his by a title su- 
perior to any law which man has a moral right 
to make. Mr. Howard was never married ! 
God and nature forbid the bans of such a marriage. 
If, therefore, Mr. Bingham this day could have, 
by me, addressed to you his wrongs in the char- 
acter of a plaintiff demanding reparation, what 
damages might I not have asked for him ; and, 
without the aid of this imputed eloquence, what 
damages might I not have expected ? 

I would have brought before you a noble youth, 
who had fixed his affections upon one of the mo.st 
beautiful of her sex, and who enjoyed hers in re- 
turn. I would have shown you their suitable 
condition ; I would have painted the expectation 
of an honorable union ; and would have conclud- 
ed by showing her to you in the arms of another, 
by the legal prostitution of parental choice in the 
teeth of affection ; with child by a rival, and only 
reclaimed at last, after so cruel and so afflicting 
a divorce, with her freshest charms despoiled, 
and her very morals in a manner impeached, by 
asserting the purity and virtue of her original 
and spotless choice. Good God ! imagine my 
client to be plaintiff, and what damages are 
you not prepared to give him? and yet he is 
here. as defendant, and damages are demanded 
against HIM. Oh, monstrous conclusion ! 

(jcntlemen, considering my client as perfectly 
safe under these circumstances, I may spare a 
moment to render this cause beneficial to the 
public. 

It involves in it an awful lesson ; and more in- 
structive lessons are taught in courts of justice 
than the Chui-ch is able to inculcate. Morals 
come in the cold abstract from pulpits ; but men 
smart under them practically w^hen we lawyers 
are the preachers. 

Let the aristocracy of England, which trem- 
Admonitions to ^^^^ ^° much for itsclf, take heed to 
the aristocracy jts own sccuritv. Let the nobles of 

of England ans- i t i 

ing out of such ji-ngland, 11 they mean to preserve 

facts. ^1 I^ • 1 • 1 • 

that pre-emmence which, in some 
shape or other, must exist in every social com- 
munity, take care to support it by aiming at that 
which is creative, and alone creative, of real su- 
periority. Instead of matching themselves to 
supply wealth, to be again idly squandered in 
debauching excesses, or to round the quarters of 
a family shield ; instead of continuing their names 
and honors in cold and alienated embraces, amid 
the enervating rounds of shallow dissipation, let 
them live as their fathers of old lived before them. 
Let them marry as affection and prudence lead 



the way, and in the ardors of mutual love, and in 
the simplicities of rural life, let them lay the foun- 
dation of a vigorous race of men, firm in their 
bodies, and moral from early habits; and instead 
of wasting their fortunes and their strength in the 
tasteless circles of debauchery, let them light up 
their magnificent and hospitable halls to the gen- 
try and peasantry of the country, extending the 
consolations of wealth and influence to the poor. 
Let them but do this ; and, instead of those dan- 
gerous and distracting divisions between the dif- 
ferent ranks of life, and those jealousies of the 
multitude so often blindly painted as big with de- 
struction, we should see our country as one large 
and harmonious family, which can never be ac- 
complished amid vice and corruption, by wars or 
treaties, by informations ex officio for libels, or by 
any of the tricks and artifices of the state .^ 
Would to God this system had been followed in 
the instance before us ! Surely the noble house 
of Fauconberg needed no further il- Their appiica- 
lustration ; nor the still nobler house i'"" to this case. 
of Howard, with blood enough to have inoculated 
half the kingdom. I desire to be understood to 
make these observations as general moral reflec- 
tions, and not personally to the families in ques- 
tion ; least of all to the noble house of Norfolk, 
the head of which is now present ; since no man, 
in my opinion, has more at heart the liberty of 
the subject and the honor of our country. 

Having shown the feeble expectation of hap- 
piness from this marriage, the next Nothingdoneby 
point to be considered is this : Did J^roduce^furThl" 
Mr. Bingham take advantage of that alienation. 
circum.stance to increase the disunion ? I an- 
swer, No. I will prove to you that he conducted 
himself with a moderation and restraint, and with 
a command over his passions, which I confess I 
did not expect to find, and which in young men 
is not to be expected. I shall prove to you, by 
Mr. Greville, that, on this marriage taking place 
with the betrothed object of his affections, he 
went away a desponding man. His health de- 
clined ; he retired into the country to restore it ; 
and it will appear that for months afterward he 
never saw this lady until by mere accident he 
met her. And then, so far was he from endeavor- 
ing to renew his connection with her, that she 
came home in tears, and said he frowned at her 
as he passed. This I shall prove to you by the 
evidence in the cause. 

Gentlemen, that is not all. It will appear that, 
when he returned to town, he took no manner of 
notice of her ; and that her unhappiness was be- 
yond all power of expression. How, indeed, 
could it be otherwise, after the account I have 
given you of the marriage ? I shall prove, be- 
sides, by a gentleman who married one of the 
daughters of a person to whom this country is 
deeply indebted for his eminent and meritorious 
service [Marquis Cornwallis], that, from her ut- 
ter reluctance to her husband, although in every 
respect honorable and correct in his manners and 

2 This was during the progress of those oppressive 
state trials in which Mr. Erskiue was so largely en- 
gaged. 



712 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



behavior, he was not allowed even the privileges 
of a husband, for months after the marriage. 
This I mentioned to you before, and only now 
repeat it in the statement of the proofs. Noth- 
ing better, indeed, could be expected. Who can 
control the will of a mismatched, disappointed 
woman ? Who can restrain or direct her pas- 
sions ? I beg leave to assure Mr. Howard (and 
I hope he will believe me when I say it), that I 
think his conduct toward this lady was just such 
as might have been expected from a husband 
who saw himself to be the object of disgust to the 
woman he had chosen for his wife , and it is with 
this view only that I shall call a gentleman to say 
how Mr. Howard spoke of this supposed, but, in 
my mind, impossible object of his adoration. 
How, indeed, is it possible to adore a woman 
when you know her affections are riveted to an- 
other ? It is unnatural ! A man may have that 
appetite which is common to the brutes, and too 
indelicate to be described ; but he can never re- 
tain an affection which is returned with detesta- 
tion. Lady Elizabeth, I understand, was, at one 
E.vafperationof time, goittg out in a phactou : "There 
h!sw"rs'coa'' ^^he goes," said Mr. Howard; "God 
'^"'^'- damn her — I wish she may break her 

neck ; I should take care how I got another." 
This may seem unfeeling behavior ; but in Mr. 
Howard's situation, gentlemen, it was the most 
natural thing in the world, for they cordially hated 
one another. At last, however, the period arrived 
when this scene of discord became insupportable, 
and nothing could exceed the generosity and 
manly feeling of the noble person (the Duke of 
Norfolk), whose name I have been obliged to use 
in the course of this cause, in his interference to 
effect that separation which is falsely imputed to 
Mr. Bingham. He felt so much commiseration 
for this unhappy lady, that he wrote to her in the 
most affecting style. I believe I have got a let- 
ter from his Grace to Lady Elizabeth, dated 
Sunderland, July the 27th, that is, three days 
after their separation ; but before he knew it had 
actually taken place : it was written in conse- 
quence of one received from Mr. Howard upon 
the subject. Among other things he says, " / 
sincerely feel for youy Now if the Duke had 
not known at that time that Mr. Bingham had 
her earliest and legitimate affections, she could 
not have been an object of that pity which she re- 
ceived. She was^ indeed, an object of the sin- 
cerest pity ; and the sum and substance of this 
mighty seduction will turn out to be no more 
than this, that she was affectionately received by 
Mr. Bingham after the final period of volunta- 
ry separation. At four o'clock this miserable 
couple had parted hy consent, and 
leir separation. ^^^ chaise was not ordcrcd till she 
might be considered as a single woman by the 
abandonment of her husband. Had this separa- 
tion been legal and formal, I should have applied 
to his Lordship, upon the most unquestionable 
authorities, to nonsuit the plaintiff; for this action 
being founded upon the loss of the wife's socie- 
ty, it must necessarily fall to the ground if it ap- 
pears that the society, though not the marriage 



union, was interrupted by a previous act of his 
own. In that hour of separation, I am persuaded 
he never considered Mr. Bingham as an object 
of resentment or reproach. He was the author 
of his own misfortunes, and I can conceive him 
to have exclaimed, in the language of the poet, 
as they parted, 

'Elizabeth never loved me. 
Let no man, after me, a woman wed [brings 

Whose heart he knows he has not ; though she 
A mine of gold, a kingdom, for her dowry. 
For let her seem, like the night's shadowy queen. 
Cold and contemplative — he can not trust her: 
She may, she will, bring shame and sorrow on him ; 
The worst of sorrows, and the worst of shames." 

You have, therefore, before you, gentlemen, 
two young men of fashion, both of The suit neces- 
noble families, and in the flower of aZoXbuT 
youth : the proceedings, though not "u^ °"eVdama"" 
collusive, can not possibly be vindic- g^s. 
tive ; they are indispensably preliminary to the 
dissolution of an inauspicious marriage, which 
never should have existed. Mr. Howard may, 
then, profit by a useful though an unpleasant ex- 
perience, and be happier with a woman whose 
mind he may find disengaged ; while the parents 
of the rising generation, taking warning from the 
lesson which the business of the day so forcibly 
teaches, may avert from their families, and the 
public, that bitterness of disunion, which, while 
human nature continues to be itself, will ever be 
produced to the end of time, from similar con- 
junctures. 

Gentlemen, I have endeavored so to conduct 
this cause as to offend no man. I have ,,, ... 

. . At least the 

guarded agamst every expression which damages 
could innict unnecessary pain ; and, m merely 
doing so, I know that I have not only "°™'"^'- 
served my client's interests, but truly represent- 
ed his honorable and manly disposition. As the 
case before you can not be considered by any 
reasonable man as an occasion for damages, I 
might here properly conclude. Yet, that I may 
omit nothing which might apply to any possi- 
ble view of the subject, I will close by remind- 
ing you that my client is a member of a numer- 
ous family ; that, though Lord Lucan's fortune 
is considerable, his rank calls for a correspond- 
ing equipage and expense ; he has other chil- 
dren — one already married to an illustrious no- 
bleman, another yet to be married to some man 
who must be happy indeed if he shall know her 
value. Mr. Bingham, therefore, is a man of no 
fortune ; but the heir only of, I trust, a very dis- 
tant expectation. Under all these circumstan- 
ces, it is but fair to believe that Mr. Howard 
comes here for the reasons I have assigned, and 
not to take money out of the pocket of Mr. 
Bingham to put into his own. You will, there- 
fore, consider, gentlemen, whether it would be 
creditable for you to offer what it would be dis- 
graceful for Mr. Howard to receive. 



So completely had Mr. Erskine borne away 
the minds of the jury by this speech, that as 
some of them afterward stated, they had resolved 



1794] IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 713 



to bring in a verdict for the defendant, with 
heavy damages to be •paid him by the jjlaintiff ! 
And even when the judge reminded them, in his 
charge, that no blame could be imputed to Mr. 
Howard, who was left in total ignorance of the 
previous engagement — that his wife's vows at the 
altar ought to have been respected by Mr. Bing- 
ham, not only at first, but to the end — that the 
defendant ouirht never to have allowed an inti- 



macy to be renewed which led to such deplora- 
ble consequences — that he was liable to render 
a compensation to the plaintifT under these cir- 
cumstances — and that they could not be justified 
in affixing a brand upon the latter by giving 
trifling damages — still they gave him but five 
hundred pounds, when the sum usually awarded, 
at that time, between persons of a wealthy con- 
dition, was from ten to fifteen thousand pounds. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. ERSKINE IN BEHALF OF THOMAS HARDY WHEN INDICTED FOR HIGH TREASON, DELIV- 
ERED BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH, NOVEMBER 1, 1794. 

«* 

^ INTRODUCTION. 

Thomas Hardy was a shoemaker in London, and secretary of the " London Corresponding Society," 
xvhose professed object was to promote parliamentary reform — having branch societies in most parts of 
the kingdom. Rash and inflammatory speeches were undoubtedly made at the meetings of these asso- 
ciations, and many things contained in their letters among themselves, and their addresses to the public, 
were highly objectionable. "The grand object of these associations," says Mr. Belsham, who probably 
was well acquainted with their designs, " was unquestionably to effect a reform in Parliament upon the 
visionaiy, if not pernicious principles of the Duke of Richmond — universal suffrage and annual election. 
They contained a considerable proportion of concealed republicans, converts to the novel and extravagant 
doctrine of Paine ; and there can be no doubt but that these people hoped, and perhaps in the height of 
their enthusiasm believed, that a radical reform in Parliament upon democratic principles would eventu- 
ally lead to the establishment of a democratic government." Still, it is generally understood that the bulk 
of the members were attached to the Constitution. 

The government became alarmed at their proceedings, and instead of prosecuting for a misdemeanor 
those who could be proved to have used seditious language, they unhappily determined, at the instance 
of Lord Loughborough, to indict Hardy, Home Tooke, and eleven others for high treason. 

The act laid hold of was that of proposing a National Convention, avowedly for the purpose of promot- 
ing parliamentary reform ; but the government maintained that the real design was to use the conven- 
tion, if assembled, as an instrament of changing the government. The indictment, therefore, alleged, 

1. That Hardy and the others, in caiUng this convention, did conspire to excite insurrection, subvert and 
alter the Legislature, depose the King, and "bring and put our said Lord the King to death." 

2. The overt acts charged were attempting to induce persons, through the press, and by letters and 
speeches, to send delegates to a convention called for the above-mentioned purposes ; and also the prep- 
aration of a few pikes in some populous places, which, as the parties concerned maintained, were pro- 
vided as a defense against illegal attacks. 

The case was opened on Tuesday, the 28th of October, 1794, by a speech from the Attorney General, Sir 
John Scott [afterward Lord Eldon], of nine hours in length. Never before had a trial for treason occupied 
more than one day ; but in this instance the court sat during an entire week until after midnight, com- 
mencing every morning at eight o'clock. The Crown occupied the whole time, till after midnight Friday 
evening, with evidence against the prisoner; and Mr. Erskine then begged an adjournment to a somewhat 
later hour than usual the next day, that he might have time to look over his papers and make ready for the 
defense. To this the court objected as an improper delay of the jury, and proposed that the prisoner's 
witnesses should be examined while Mr. Erskine was preparing his reply. The following dialogue then 
ensued : Erskitie. " I should be sorry to put the jury to any inconvenience; I do not shrink from my duty, 
but I assure your Lordship that during the week I have been nearly without natural rest, and that my 
physical strength is quite exhausted." Eyre, C.J. "What is it you ask for ?" Erskine. " As I stated be- 
fore, the Attorney General found it necessary to consume nine hours ; I shall not consume half that time 
if I have an opportunity of doing that which I humbly request of the court." Eyre, C. J. "We have of- 
fered you an expedient , neither of you say whether you accept it ?" Mr. Gibbs, the other counsel for 
the prisoner, spurned the proposal, and Mr. Erskine requested an adjournment until twelve the next day, 
as essential to the fair defense of one who was on trial for his life. The Chief Justice, with apparent re- 
luctance, agreed to eleven. Erskine. "I should be glad if your Lordships would allow another hour." 
Eyre, C. J. " I feel so much for the situation of the jury, that, on their account, I can not think of it." 
Erskine. "My Lord, I never was placed in such a situation in the whole course of my practice before ; 
however, I will try to do my duty." Jury. •' My Lord, we are extremely willing to allow Mr. Erskine 
another hour, if your Lordship thinks proper." Eyre, C.J. " As the jury ask it for you, I will not refuse 
you." 



I 



714 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794 



"Cheered by this good omen," says Lord Campbell, "Erskine went home, and, after a short repose, 
arranged the materials of ' a speech which will last forever.' He began at two o'clock on Saturday after- 
noon, and spoke seven hours — a period that seemed very short to his hearers, and in reality was so, con- 
sidering the subjects he had to deal with, and the constitutional learning, powerful reasoning, the wit, 
and the eloquence which he condensed into it. This wonderful performance must be studied as a whole 
by all who are capable of understanding its merits ; for the enunciation of principles is so connected with 
the inferences to be drawn from the evidence, and there is such an artful, though seemingly natural suc- 
cession of topics, to call for the pity and the indignation of the jury — to captivate their affections and to 
convince their understandings — that the full beauty of detached passages can not be properly appre- 
ciated." 



SPEECH, &c. 



Gentlemen of the Jury, — Before I proceed 
^, , . , to the performance of the momentous 

Thanks to the \ . , . 

jury for tiieir dutv which IS at length cast upon me, 

indulgence. ti- -.u^fl ** 

1 desu-e, m the first place, to return 
my thanks to the judges for the indulgence I have 
received in the opportunity of addressing you at 
this later period of the day than the ordinary sit- 
ting of the court, when I have had the refresh- 
ment which nature but too much required, and a 
few hours' retirement, to arrange a Httle in my 
mind that immense matter, the result of which I 
must now endeavor to lay before you. I have to 
thank you^ also, gentlemen, for the very conde- 
scending and obliging manner in which you so 
readil}^ consented to this accommodation. The 
court could only speak for itself, referring me to 
t/oit, whose rest and comfort had been so long in- 
terrupted. I shall always remember your kind- 
ness. 

Before I advance to the regular consideration 
The praises be- o[ this great causc, either as it re- 
coTtftutL^'re gavds the evidence or the law, I 
merited only as wish first to put asidc all that I find 

It secures equal . ^ c i ] r • j 

and impartial m the spccch 01 my Icamcd iriend, 
justice. ^^^^ Attorney General, which is ei- 

ther collateral to the merits, or in which I can 
agree with him. First, then, in the name of 
THE prisoner, and speaking his sentiments, 
which are well known to be my own also, I con- 
cur in the eulogium which you have heard upon 
the Constitution of our wise forefathers. But be- 
fore this eulogium can have any just or useful 
application, we ought to reflect upon what it is 
which entitles this Constitution to the praise so 
justly bestowed upon it. To say nothing at 
present of its most essential excellence, or rath- 
er the very soul of it, viz., the share the people 
ought to have in their government, by a pure rep- 
resentation, for the assertion of which the pris- 
oner stands ai'raigned as a traitor before you — 
what is it that distinguishes the government of 
England from the most despotic monarchies? 
What but the security which the subject enjoys 
in a trial and judgment by his equals ; rendered 
doubly secure as being part of a system of law 
which no expediency can warp, and which no 
power can abuse with impunity. 

The Attorney General's second preliminary 
The evils of the obscrvation I equally agree to. I 
iion"a warning" auxiously wish with him that you 
TawstourJiSury ^^Y bcar in memory the anarchy 
of private right, which is dcsolatiug France. Be- 
fore I sit down, I may, perhaps, in my turn, 



have occasion to reflect a little upon its probable 
causes ; but, waiting a season for such reflections, 
let us first consider what the evil is which has 
been so feelingly lamented as having fallen on 
that unhappy country. It is, that under the do- 
minion of a barbarous state necessity, every pro- 
tection of law is abrogated and destroyed. It 
is, that no man can say, under such a system of 
alarm and terror, that his life, his liberty, his rep- 
utation, or any one human blessing, is secure to 
him for a moment. It is, that if accused of fed- 
eralism, or moderatism, or incivism, or of what- 
ever else the changing fashions and factions of 
the day shall have lifted up into high treason 
against the state, he must see his friends, his 
family, and the light of heaven no more : the ac- 
cusation and the sentence being the same, fol- 
lowing one another as the thunder pursues the 
flash. Such has been the state of England — 
such is the state of France ; and how. then, since 
they are introduced to you for application, ought 
they, in reason and sobriety, to be applied ? If 
this prosecution has been commenced (as is as- 
serted) to avert from Great Britain the calami- 
ties incident to civil confusion, leading in its is- 
sues to the deplorable condition of France, I call 
upon you, gentlemen, to avert such calamity from 
falling upon my client, and, through his side, upon 
yourselves and upon our country. Let not him 
suffer under vague expositions of tyrannical laws, 
more tyrannically executed. Let not him be hur- 
ried away to predoomed execution, from an hon- 
est enthusiasm for the public safety. I ask for 
him a trial by this applauded Constitution of our 
country. I call upon you to administer the law 
to him, according to our own wholesome insti- 
tutions, by its strict and rigid letter. However 
you may eventually disapprove of any part of his 
conduct, or, viewing it through a false medium, 
may think it even wicked, I claim for him, as a 
subject of England, that the law shall decide upon 
its criminal denomination. I protest, in his name, 
against all appeals to speculations concerning 
consequences^ when the law commands us to look 
only to intentions. If the state be threatened 
with evils, let Parliament administer a prospect- 
ive remedy, but let the prisoner hold his life un- 
der the law.^ 

1 Nothing could be more admirable than the turn 
given in this exordium to the remarks of the At- 
torney General. The prisoner and his eleven com- 
panions were in great danger of being sacrificed to 
the dread of French principles. The jury, though 



1794.] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



715 



Gentlemen, I ask this solemnl}' of the court, 
whose justice I am persuaded will afford it to 
me. I ask it more emphatically of you, the 
jury, who are called upon your oaths to make a 
true deliverance of your countryman from this 
charge. But lastly, and chiefly, I implore it of 
Him in whose hands are all the issues of life — 
whose humane and merciful eye expands itself 
over all the transactions of mankind : at whose 
command nations rise and fall, and are regener- 
ated ; without whom not a sparrow falleth to the 
ground — I implore it of God himself, that He will 
fill your minds with the spirit of justice and of 
truth, so that you may be able to find your way 
through the labyrinth of matter laid before you — 
a labyrinth in which no man's life was ever be- 
fore involved in the annals of British trial, nor, 
indeed, in the whole history of human justice or 
injustice. 

Gentlemen, the fii'st thing in order is to look 
The indict- at the indictment itself; of the whole of 
'"^°'" which, or of some integral part, the 
prisoner must be found guilty, or be wholly dis- 
charged from guilt. 

The indictment charges that the prisoners did 
Crime alleged, maliciously and traitorously conspire, 
to b^rnl'about compass, and imagine. " to bring and 
deatrof'thl P^i 0^*^ ^orc^ the King to death:' And 
Kins- that to fulfill, perfect, and bring to 

effect their most evil and wicked purpose (that 
is to say, of bringing and putting the King to 
death), "they met, conspired, consulted, and 
agreed among themselves, and other false trait- 
ors unknown, to cause and procure a convention 
to be assembled within the kingdom, with intenf 
(I am reading the ver}^ words of the indictment, 
which I entreat you to follow in the notes you 
have been taking with such honest perseverance) 
— " ivith intent^ and in order that the persons so 
assembled at such convention, should and might 
traitorously, and in defiance of the authority, and 
against the will of Parliament, subvert and alter, 
and cause to be subverted and altered, the Legis- 
lature, rule, and government of the country, and 
to depose the King from the royal state, title, 



gentlemen of high intelligence and respectability, 
were zealous adherents of the ministry, and com- 
mitted to the support of their measures as members 
of the Loyal Associations of the metropolis. Most 
of the evidence for the Crown had been previously 
published, and undoubtedly read by the jury under 
circumstances calculated to produce the worst im- 
pressions on their minds. The subject had been 
brought before Parliament by Mr. Pitt. The case 
had been prejudged ; a conspiracy had been charged 
on the prisoner and his companions by an act of 
Parliament; and the Habeas Corpus Act had act- 
ually been suspended through fear of this conspira- 
cy ! Under these circumstances, it seemed hardly 
possible for any jury to give the prisoner a fair hear- 
ing. This accounts for the extreme anxiety mani- 
fested by Mr. Erskine throughout the whole of this 
speech. The lives of eleven others besides the pris- 
oner were suspended on the issue of this one argu- 
ment. These considerations will induce the read- 
er to follow Mr. Erskine, with unwonted interest, 
through all the windings of this intricate case. 



power, and government thereof." This is the 
first and great leading overt act in the indict- 
ment. And you observe that it is not charged 
as being treason substantively and in itself, but 
only as it is committed in pursuance of the trea- 
son against the King's person, antecedently im- 
puted. For the charge is not, that the prisoners 
conspired to assemble a convention to depose the 
King, but that they conspired and compassed his 
death, and that, in order to accomplish that wick- 
ed and detestable purpose (i. c, in order to ful- 
fill the traitorous intention of the mind against 
his life), they conspired to assemble a convention 
with a view to depose him.^ The same observ- 
ation applies alike to all the other counts or overt 
acts upon the record, which manifestly, indeed, 
lean upon the establishment of the first for their 
support. They charge the publication of differ- 
ent writings, and the provision of arms, not as 
distinct offenses, but as acts done to excite to the 
assembling of the same convention, and to main- 
tain it when assembled ; but, above all, and which 
must never be forgotten, because they also uni- 
formly chai-ge these different acts as committed 
in fulfillment of the same traitorous purpose, to 
BRING THE KiNG TO DEATH. You will, there- 
fore, have three distinct matters for considera- 
tion upon this trial ; First. What share (if any) 
the prisoner had, in concert with others, in as- 
sembling any convention, or meeting of subjects 
within this kingdom ; Sceond. What were the acts 
to be done by this convention when assembled ; 
and, Third. What was the view, purpose, and 
intention of those who projected its existence 
This third consideration, indeed, comprehends, or 
rather precedes and swallows up the other two. 
Because, before it can be material to decide upon 
the views of the convention, as pointed to the sub- 
version of the rule and order of the King's polit- 
ical authority (even if such views could be as- 
cribed to it, and brought home even personally to 
the prisoner), we shall have to examine whether 
that criminal conspiracy against the established 
order of the community was hatched and engen- 
dered by a wicked contemplation to destroy the 
natural life and person of the King, and whether 
the acts charged and established by the evidence 
were done in pursuance and in fulfillment of the 
same traitorous purpose. 

Gentlemen, this view of the subject is not only 
correct, but self-evident. The sub- ^ , 

• p . Tr- , ,• • , Further proof 

version ot the Kmffs political govern- that this w the 

111 '^ . ^ . ^ ^ ., ^ crime alleged. 

ment, and all conspiracies to subvert 

it. are crimes of great magnitude and enormity, 

which the law is open to punish ; but neither of 

2 Here Mr. Erskine takes his first stand, and gives 
us the foundation of the entire legal argument which 
follows. There were two kinds of treason — one the 
"compassing the King's death,"' and the other " levy- 
ing war to depose him." Now the indictment had 
charged the foi-7ner on the prisoner; and although it 
had also mentioned the latter, this became subordi- 
7iatc to the former ; so that the thing to be proved 
against the prisoners was, that in the alleged con- 
spiracy they directly intended to destroy the natural 
life of the King. 



\.x.J.^\\lLU} 



716 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



them are the crimes before yon. The prisoner is 
not charged with a conspiracy against the King's 
political government, but against his natural life. 
He is not accused of having merely taken steps to 
depose him from his authority, but with having 
done so with the intention to bring him to death. 
It is the act with the specific intention, and not 
the act alone, which constitutes the charge. The 
act of conspiring to depose the King may, in- 
deed, be evidence, according to circumstances, of 
an intention to destroy his natural existence ; but 
never, as a proposition of law, can it constitute 
the intention itself. Where an act is done in 
pursuance of an intention, surely the intention 
must first exist ; a man can not do a thing in ful- 
fillment of an intention, unless his mind first con- 
ceives that intention. The doing of an act, or 
the pursuit of a system of conduct, which leads 
in probable consequences to the death of the 
King, may legally (if any such be before you) af- 
fect the consideration of the traitorous purpose 
charged by the record ; and I am not afraid of 
trusting you with the evidence. How far any 
given act, or course of acting, independent of in- 
tention, may lead probably or inevitably to any 
natural or political consequence, is what we have 
no concern with. These may be curious ques- 
tions of casuistry or politics ; but it is wickedness 
and folly to declare that consequences unconnect- 
ed even with intention or consciousness, shall be 
.synonymous in law with the traitorous mind, al- 
though the traitorous mind alone is arraigned, as 
constituting the crime. 

I. Gentlemen, the first question consequently 
Pan First: for Consideration, and to which I must, 
Bon^inv^r/edln therefore, earnestly implore the at- 
tiiiscase. tcntion of the court, is this — What 

IS THE LAW UPON THIS MOMENTOUS SUBJECT? 

And recollecting that I am invested with no au- 
thority, I shall not presume to offer you any thing 
of my own. Nothing shall proceed from myself 
upon this part of the inquiry, but that which is 
merely introductory, and necessary to the under- 
standing of the authorities on which I mean to 
rely for the establishment of doctrines, not less 
essential to the general liberties of England, than 
to the particular consideration which constitutes 
our present duty. 

First, then, I maintain, that that branch of the 
(nThetreason Statute 25th of Edward the Third, 
in q'lestion di- which dcclares it to be high treason, 

reeled against ,, , , , . 

ihfc natural life ' whcn tt man doth compass or im- 
ing, c. ^^^-^g ^^g death of the King, of his 
lady the Queen, or of his eldest son and heir,'''' 
was intended to guard, by a higher sanction than 
felony, the natural, lives of the King, Queen, 
and Prince ; and that no act, therefore (either 
inchoate or consummate), of resistance to, or 
rebellion against, the King's regal capacity, 
amounts to high treason of compassing his death, 
unless where they can be charged upon the in- 
dictment, and proved to the satisfaction of the 
jury at the trial, as overt acts committed by the 
prisoner, in fulfillment of a traitorous intention to 
destroy the King's natural life. 

Secondly, that the compassing the King's 



death, or, in other words, the traitorous intention 
to destroy his natural existence, is it con^im in tise 
the treason, and not the overt acts, ^troy^lrat natt 
which are only laid as manifestations »■*' '''^^• 
of the traitorous intention ; or, in other words, as 
evidence competent to be left to a jury to prove it 
— that no conspiracy to levy war against the 
King, nor any conspiracy against his regal char- 
acter or capacity, is a good overt act of com- 
passing his death, unless some force be exerted, 
or in contemplation, against the King's person ; 
and that such force, so exerted or in contempla- 
tion, is not substantively the treason of compass- 
ing, but only competent in point of law to estab- 
lish it, if the jury, by the verdict of guilty, draw 
that conclusion of fact from the evidence of the 
overt act. 

Thirdly, that the charge in the indictment, of 
compassing the King's death, is not The existence of 

,.!,,., . T tbis intention is 

laid as legal inducement or introduc- a/a« to be in- 
tion, to follow as a legal inference g,7From''tbe'^"' 
from the establishment of the overt °''f' f^^^ ^'}^ 

not a ueduction 

act, but is laid as an averment of a of law. 
FACT ; and, as such, the very gist of the indict- 
ment, to be affirmed or negatived by the verdict 
of Guilty or Not guilty.^ 

It will not (I am persuaded) be suspected by 
the Attorney General, or by the court. The doctrines of 
that I am about to support these doc- ^ea^t author'^L 
trines by opposing my own judgment Jn''Ji^°"e''°os"'^*^ 
to the authoritative writings of the tions. 
venerable and excellent Lord Hale, whose mem- 
ory wall live in this country, and throughout the 
enlightened world, as long as the administra- 
tion of pure justice shall exist. Neither do I 
wish to oppose any thing which is to be found in 
the other learned authorities principally relied 
upon by the Crown, because all my positions are 
perfectly consistent with a right interpretation 
of them ; and because, even were it otherwise, I 
could not expect successfully to oppose them by 
any reasonings of my own, which can have no 
weight, but as they shall be found at once con- 
sistent with acknowledged authorities, and with 
the established principles of the English law. I 
can do this with the greater security, because my 
respectable and learned friend, the Attorney Gen- 
eral, has not cited cases which have been the dis- 
grace of this country in former times, nor asked 
you to sanction by your judgment those bloody 
murders, which are recorded by them as acts of 
English justice ; but, as might be expected of an 
honorable man, his expositions of the law (though 



^ The statement contained in these three proposi- 
tions, if admitted, overthrew at once the entire ar- 
gument of the Attorney General as to the question 
of law. He had blended, as it were, the two kinds 
of treason mentioned in the preceding note. He 
insisted that it was enough for him to prove that 
the prisoner's acts amounted to a "levying of war" 
against the King's government, and that this, by the 
iyilendment of law, was a compassing of his death. 
Mr. Erskine shows that the jury must take the whole 
as a question oi fact — "Did he aim to destroy the 
King's natural life." This question he lays on the 
consciences of the jury. 



1794.] 



IN BEHa if of hardy. 



717 



I think them frequently erroneous) are drawn 
from the same sources, which I look up to for doc- 
trines so very different. I find, indeed, through- 
out the whole range of authorities (I mean those 
which the Attorney General has properly con- 
sidered as deserving that name and character) 
very little contradiction. As far as I can dis- 
cover, much more entanglement has arisen from 
now and then a tripping in the expression^ than 
from any difference of sentiment among eminent 
and virtuous judges, who have either examined 
or sat in judgment upon this momentous subject.'* 
Gentlemen, before I pursue the course I have 
A very wide field prescribcd to myself, I desire most 
©(•argument open- distinctly to be uudcrstood, that in 

ed by the peculiar •' . ' 

circumstances of my owu judgment the most suc- 
t s case. cessful argument that a conspiracy 

to depose the King does not necessarily establish 
the treason charged upon this record, is totally 
beside any possible judgment that you can have 
to form upon the evidence before you. The 
truth is, throughout the whole volumes [of evi- 
dence] that have been read, I can trace nothing 
that even points to the imagination of such a 
conspiracy ; and, consequently, the doctrines of 
Coke, Hale, and Foster, on the subject of high 
treason, might equally be detailed in any other 
trial that has ever been proceeded upon in this 
place. But, gentlemen, I stand in a fearful and 
delicate situation. As a supposed attack upon 
the King's civil authority has been transmuted, 
by construction, into a murderous conspiracy 
against his natural pei^son, in the same manner, 
and by the same arguments, a conspiracy to 
overturn that civil authority by direct force has 
again been assimilated, by further construction, 
to a design to undermine monarchy by changes 
wrought through public opinion, enlarging grad- 
ually into universal w^ill ; so that I can admit no 
false proposition, however aside I may think it 
from rational application. For as there is a con- 
structive compassing, so also there is construct- 
ive 'deposing ; and I can not, therefore, possibly 
know what either of them is separately, nor how 
the one may be argued to involve the other. 
There are, besides, many prisoners whose cases 
are behind, and whose lives may be involved in 
your present deliberation ; their names have been 
already stigmatized, and their conduct arraigned 
in the evidence you have heard, as a part of the 
conspiracy. It is these considerations which 
drive me into so large a field of argument, be- 
cause, by sufficiently ascertaining the law in the 
outset, they who are yet looking up to it for pro- 
tection may not be brought into peril. 

Gentlemen, I now proceed to establish, that a 
2ompassing of the death of the King, within the 
twenty-fifth of Edward the Third, which is the 
charge against the prisoner, consists in a traitor- 



* Here Mr. Erskine throws out, in passing, a ref- 
erence to the explanation which he intends to give 
of the apparent contradiction of the books to his po- 
sitions as here laid above. Nothing is more remark- 
able than the dexterity with which he thus prepares 
the way for what is coming, and makes his speeches 
a compacted system of thought. 



ous intention against his natural life ; and that 
nothing short of your firm belief of that detesta- 
ble intention, from overt acts which you find him 
to have committed, can justify his conviction. \ 
That I may keep my word with you in building 
my argument upon nothing of my own, I hope 
my friend Mr. Gibbs [his associate in the de- 
fense] will have the goodness to call me back 
if he finds me wandering from my engagement, 
that I may proceed step by step upon the most 
venerable and acknowledged authorities of the 
law. 

In this pi'ocess I shall begin with Lord Hale, 
who opens this important subject by j.yijgnpe from 
stating the reason of passing the stat- authorities: 

P, ,, ^, r-T-.^ 1 , Lord Hale. 

ute ot the twenty-filth of Edward the 
Third, on which the indictment is founded. Lord 
Hale says, in his Pleas of the Crown (vol. i., page 
82), that "'at common law there was a great 
latitude used in raising offenses to the crime and 
punishment of treason, by way of interpretation 
and arbiti'ary construction, which brought in 
great uncertainty and confusion. Thus, ac- 
croaching (i. e., encroaching on) royal poiver, 
was a usual charge of treason anciently, though 
a very uncertain charge ; so that no man could 
tell what it was, or what defense to make to it." 
Lord Hale then goes on to state various instan- 
ces of vexation and cruelty, and concludes with 
this striking observation : ''By these and the 
like instances that might be given, it appears 
how arbitrary and uncertain the law of treason 
was before the statute of twenty-fifth of Edward 
the Third, whereby it came to pass that almost 
every offense that was. or seemed to be, a breach 
of the faith and allegiance due to the King, was 
by construction, consequence, and interpretation, 
raised into the offense of high treason.'" This is 
the lamentation of the gi-eat Hale upon the state 
of this country previous to the passing of the 
statute, which, he says, was passed as a reme- 
dial law, to put an end to them. And Lord Coke, 
considering it in the same light, says, in his third 
Institute, page 2, "The Parliament which pass- 
ed this statute was called (as it well deserved) 
Parliamentum Benedictum / and the like honor 
was given to it by the different statutes which 
from time to time brought back treasons to its 
standard, all agi-eeing in magnifying and extoll- 
ing this blessed act." Now this statute, which 
has obtained the panegyric of these great men, 
whom the Chief Justice in his charge looked up 
to for light and for example, and whom the At- 
torney General takes also for his guide, would 
very little have deserved the high eulogium be- 
stowed upon it, if, though avowedly passed to 
destroy uncertainty in criminal justice, and to 
beat down the arbitrary constructions of judges, 
lamented by Hale as disfiguring and dishonor- 
ing the law, it had, nevertheless, been so word- 
ed as to give birth to neio constructions and un- 
certainties, instead of destroying the old ones. 
It would but ill have entitled itself to the de- 
nomination of a blessed statute, if it had not, in 
its enacting letter, which professed to remove 
doubts, and to ascertain the law, made use of 



I-.IJ './' .■]" ^JJiiJJ.J ... JiJHILii 



718 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



expressions the best known and understood ; and 
it will be found, accordingly, that it cautiously 
did so. 

In selecting the expression of compassing 
Meaning of the THE DEATH, it employed a term of 
pa7sfn§ the™' ^hc most fixed and appropriate sig- 
King's'death." nificatiou in the language of Engli.>;h 
law, which not only no judge or counsel, but 
which no attorney or attorney's clerk, could 
misunderstand ; because, in former ages, before 
the statute compassing the death of any man 
had been a felony, and what had amounted to 
such compassing, had been settled in a thousand 
instances. To estabUsh this, and to show also, 
by no reasoning of mine, that the term "com- 
passing the death" was intended by the statute, 
w^hen applied to the King, as high treason, to 
have the same signification as it had obtained in 
the law when applied to the subject as a felony, 
I shall refer to Mr. Justice Foster, and even to 
a passage cited by the Attorney General him- 
self, which speaks so unequivocally and unan- 
swerably for itself as to mock all commentary. 
" The ancient writers," says Foster, " in treat- 
ing of felonious homicide, considered the feloni- 
ous intention manifested by plain facts, in the 
same light, in point of guilt, as homicide itself. 
The rule was, voluntas rcputatur pro facto ;^ and 
while this rule prevailed, the nature of the of- 
fense was expressed by the term compassing the 
death. This rule has been long laid aside as too 
rigorous in the case of common persons. But 
in the case of the King, Queen, and Prince, the 
statute of treasons has, with great propriet}', 
retained it in its full extent and vigor ; and, in 
describing the offense, has likewise retained the 
ancient mode of expression, when a man doth 
' cqmpass or imagine the death of our Lord the 
King,' &c., and thereof be upon sufficient proof, 
provablement, attainted of open deed, by people 
of his condition : the words of the statute de- 
scriptive of the offense, must, therefore, be strict- 
ly pursued in every indictment for this species 
of treason. It must charge that the defendant 
did traitorously compass and imagine the King's 
death ; and then go on and charge the several 
acts made use of by the prisoner to effectuate 
his traitorous purpose. For ' the compassing 
the King's death' is the treason, and the overt 
acts are charged as the means made use of to 
effectuate the intentions and imaginations of the 
heart. And, therefore, in the case of the regi- 
cides, the indictment charged that they did trait- 
orously compass and imagine the death of the 
King, and the cutting off the head was laid as 
the overt act, and the person who was supposed 
to have given the mortal stroke was convicted 
on the same indictment." 

This concluding instance, though at first view 
it may appear ridiculous, is well selected as an 
illustration. Because, though in that case there 
could be no possible doubt of the intention, since 
the act of a deliberate execution involves, in com- 
mon sense, the intention to destroy life, yet still 

^ The will is taken for the deed. 



the anomaly of the offense, which exists wholly 
in the intention, and not in the overt act, re- 
quired the preservation of the form of the indict- 
ment. It is surely impossible to read this com- 
mentary of Foster without seeing the true pur- 
pose of the statute. The common law had an- 
ciently considered, even in the case of a fellow- 
subject, the malignant intention to destroy, as 
equivalent to the act itself. But that noble spirit 
of humanity which pervades the whole system of 
our jurisprudence, had, before the time of King 
Edward the Third, eat out and destroyed this rule, 
too rigorous in its general application ; but, as 
Foster truly observes in the passage I have read, 
" This rule, too rigorous in the case of the subject, 
the statute of treasons retained in the case of the 
King, and retained also the very expression used 
by the law^ when compassing the death of a sub- 
ject was felony." 

The statute, therefore, being expressly made 
to remove doubts, and accurately to .^, 

, „ It, . '' riie common 

denne treason, adopted the ancient ex- law use of the 
pression of the common law, as appli- L' meanmTin 
cable to felonious homicide, meaning "'^«^^^"t«- 
that the life of the Sovereign should remain an 
exception, and that voluntas profacto^ the wick- 
ed intention for the deed itself (as it regarded his 
sacred life), should continue for the rule; and, 
therefore, says Foster, the statute, meaning to 
retain the law which was before general, re- 
tained also the expression. It appears to me, 
therefore, incontrovertible, not only by the words 
of the statute itself, but upon the authority of 
Foster, which I shall follow up by that of Lord 
Coke and Hale (contradicted by no syllable in 
their works, as I shall demonstrate), that the stat- 
ute, as it regarded the security of the King's life, 
did not mean to enact a new security never known 
to the common law in other cases ; but meant to 
suffer a common law rule, which formerly exist- 
ed universally, which was precisely known, but 
which was too severe in common cases, to re- 
main as an exception in favor of the King's se- 
curity. I do, therefore, positively maintain, not 
as advocate merely, but in my ow^n person, that, 
within the letter and meaning of the Nothm-acom- 
statute, nothing can be a eompassinjr p^^sing^tiie 

■" r o King 8 death 

the death of the King that would not, which would not 
in ancient times, have been a felony towararfenow^ 
in the case of a subject. For other- ^"^J®^*- 
w^ise Foster and Coke, as will be seen, are very 
incorrect when they say the statute retained the 
old law, and the appropriate word to express it ; 
for if it went beyond it, it would, on the contrary, 
have been a new rule unknown to the common 
law, enacted for the first time, for the preserva 
tion of the King's life. Unquestionably, the Leg 
islature might have made such a rule ; but w^e are 
not inquiring what it might have enacted, but 
what it has enacted. But I ought to ask pardon 
for having relapsed into any argument of my own 
upon this subject, when the authorities are more 
express to the purpose than any language I can 
use. For Mr. Justice Foster himself expressly 
says — Discourse Isf, of High Treason., p. 207, 
" All the words descriptive of the offense, name- 



1794.] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



719 



ly, ' If a man doth compass or imagine, and there- 
of be attainted of open deed,' are plainly borrowed 
fi'om the common law, and therefore must bear 
the same construction they did at common law." 
Is this distinct ? I will read it to you again : 
" All the words descriptive of the offense, name- 
ly, ' If a man doth compass or imagine, and there- 
of be attainted of open deed,' are plainly borrowed 
from the common law, and therefore must bear 
the same construction they did at common law." 
Gentlemen, Mr. Justice Foster is by no means 
singular in his doctrine. Lord Coke, 

Same views = i r> i i i » i 

maintained by the oracic 01 the law, and the best or- 
acle that one can consult, when stand- 
ing for a prisoner charged with ti'eason, as he 
was the highest prerogative lawyer that ever ex- 
isted, maintains the same doctrine. Even he, 
even Coke, the infamous prosecutor of Raleigh,^ 
whose character with posterity, as an Attorney 
Genera], my worthy and honorable friend would 
disdain to hold, to be author of all his valuable 
works; yet even this very Lord Coke himself 
holds precisely the same language with Foster. 
For, in his commentary on this statute, in his 
3d Institute^ p. 5, w^hen he comes to the words, 
"Doth compass," he says, "Let us see, first, 
what the compassing the death of a subject was 
before the making of this statute, when voluntas 
reputabatur pro facto J^ Now what is the plain 
English of this ? The commentator says, " I am 
going to instruct you, the student, who are to 
learn from me the law of England, what is a 
compassing of the death of the King. But that 
I can not do but by first carrying you to look into 
what was the compassing the death of a subject 
at the ancient common law : because the statute 
having made a compassing, as applied to the 
King, the crime of high treason, which, at com- 
mon law, was felony in the case of a subject, it is 
impossible to define the one without looking back 
to the records which illustrate the other." This 
is so directly the train of Lord Coke's reasoning, 
that, in his own singularly precise style of com- 
mentating, he immediately lays before his reader 
a variety of instances from the ancient records and 
year books, of compassing the subject's death. 
And what are they ? Not acts wholly collateral 
to attacks upon life, dogmatically laid down by 
the law from speculations upon probable or pos- 
sible consequences ; but assaults loith intent to 
murder ; conspiracies to waylay the person with 
the same intention ; and other mtirderous machi- 
nations. These were [the] only compassings be- 
fore the statute against the subject's life ; and 
the extension of the expression was never heai'd 
of in the law, till introduced by the craft of polit- 
ical judges when it became applicable to crimes 
against the state. 

Here, again, I desire to appeal to the highest 
authorities for this source of constructive treason. 
Although the statute of Edward the Third had 
expressly directed that nothing should be de- 
clared to be treason but cases within its enact- 

6 See page 277 for his abusive treatment of 
Raleiqh. 



ing letter, yet Lord Hale says, in his Pleas of the 
Crown, page 83, that "things were Lord Haie on 
so carried by parties and factions, in ot uit'^crime^Sr 
the succeeding reign of Richard the '"^e^son. 
Second, that this statute was but little observed 
but as this or that party got the better. So the 
crime of high treason was in a manner arbitra- 
rily imposed and adjudged to the disadvantage of 
the party that was to be judged ; which, by va- 
rious vicissitudes and revolutions, mischiefed all 
parties, first and last, and left a great unsettled- 
ness and unquietness in the minds of the people, 
and was one of the occasions of the unhappiness 
of that King." 

" All this mischief was produced by the stat- 
ute of the 21st of Richard the Second, ActofRioh- 
which enacted, That every man that ard second, 
compasseth or pursueth the death of the King, or 
to depose him^ or to render up his homage liege, 
or he that raiseth people, and rideth against the 
King, to make war within his realm, and of that 
be duly attainted and adjudged, shall be adjudged 
a traitor, of high treason against the Crown." 

"This," says Lord Hale, "was a great snare 
to the subject, insomuch that the statute. 1st of 
Henry Fourth, which repealed it, recited that no 
man knew how he ought to behave himself, to do, 
speak, or say, for doubt of such pains of treason ; 
and, therefore, wholly to remove the prejudice 
which might come to the King's subjects, the stat- 
ute 1st of Henry the Fourth, chap. 10, was made, 
which brought back treason to the standard of 
the 25th of Edward the Third." 

Now if we look to this statute of Richard the 
Second, which produced such mischiefs, 
what are they? As far as it re-enacted the 
treason of compassing the King's death, and levv- 
ing war, it only re-enacted the statute of Edward 
theThird. But it went beyond it by the loose con- 
struction of compassing to depose the King, and 
raising the people, and riding to make war. or a 
compassing to depose him — terms new to the 
common law. The actual levying of force to 
impi'ison or depose the King, was already and 
properly high treason, within the second branch 
of the statute. So that this statute of Richard 
the Second enla\-ged only the crime of compass- 
ing, making it extend to a compassing to impris- 
on or depose, which are the great objects of an 
actual levying of war, and putting a compassing 
to levy war on a footing with the actual le\-3'ing 
it. It seems, therefore, most astonishing that 
any judge could be supposed to have decided, as 
an abstract rule of law, that a compassing to im- 
prison or depose the King was high treason, sub- 
stantively, without a previous compassing of his 
death. For it was made so by this statute. 21st 
of Richard the Second, and reprobated, stigma- 
tized, and repealed by the statute 1st of Henry 
the Fourth, chap. 10, " And so little effect," says 
Mr. Justice Blackstone, " have over-violent laws 
to prevent any crime, that, within two years after 
this new law of treason respecting imprisonment 
and deposing, this very prince was both deposed 
and murdered." 

Gentlemen, this distinction, made by the hu- 






720 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



mane statute of Edward the Third, between trea- 
Reasonsforthe son against the King's natural life, 
thel"tat',?teof ^ud rebellion against his civil author- 
Edward III. ity^ and which the act of Richard the 
Second, for a season, broke down, is founded in 
wise and sound policy. A .successful attack may 
be made upon the King's person by the maligni- 
ty of an individual, without the combination of 
extended conspiracy, or the exertions of rebell- 
ious force ; the law, therefore, justly stands upon 
the watch to crush the first overt manifestation 
of so evil and detestable a purpose. Considering 
the life of the chief magistrate as infinitely im- 
poi-tant to the public security, it does not wait 
for the possible consummation of a crime, which 
requires neither time, combination, nor force to 
accomplish,- but considers the traitorous purpose 
as a consummated trea.son. But the wise and 
humane policy of our forefathers extended the 
severity of the rule, voluntas pro facto, no further 
than they were thus impelled and justified by the 
necessity. And. therefore, an intention to levy 
war and rebellion, not consummated, however 
manifested by the most overt acts of conspiracy, 
was not declared to be treason, and upon the 
plainest principle in the world, namely, that the 
King's REGAL capacity, guarded by all the force 
and authority of the state, could not, like his nat- 
ural existence, be overthrown or endangered 
in a moment, by the first machinations of the 
traitorous mind of an individual, or even by the 
unarmed conspiracy of numbers ; and, therefore, 
this humane and exalted institution, measuring 
the sanctions of criminal justice by the standard 
of civil necessity, thought it sufficient to scourge 
and dissipate unarmed conspirators by a less vin- 
dictive pi'oceeding. 

These new treasons were, however, at length 
This extensioQ all happily swept away on the acces- 
L^elwafwith sionofKing Henry the Fourth, which 
by Henry IV. brought the law back to the standard 
of Edward the Third. And, indeed, in review- 
ing the history of this highly favored island, it is 
most beautiful, and, at the same time, highly en- 
couraging to observe b}^ what an extraordinary 
concurrence of circumstances, under the super- 
intendence of a benevolent Providence, the -liber- 
ties of our country have been established. /'Amid 
the convulsions arising from the maddest ambi- 
tion and injustice, and while the state was altern- 
ately departing from its poise on one side, and on 
the other the great rights of mankind were still 
insensibly taking root and flourishing. Though 
sometimes monarchy threatened to lay them pros- 
trate, though aristocracy occasionally undermined 
them, and democracy, in her turn, rashly tram- 
pled on them, yet they have ever come safely 
round at last. This awful and sublime contem- 
plation should teach us to bear with one another 
when our opinions do not quite coincide; extract- 
ing final harmony from the inevitable diflcren- 
ces which ever did, and ever must, exist among 



■' This is one of the many instances in which Mr. 
Erskine digresses for a moment to relieve the minds 



Gentlemen, the act of Henry the Fourth was 
scarcely made when it shared the same „ ., . . 

„ . . . But the Stat 

late with the venerable law which it ute disregard- 
restored. Nobody regarded it. It was 
borne down by factions, and, in those days, there 
were no judges, as there are now, to hold fii-m 
the balance of justice amid the storms of state. 
Men could not then, as the prisoner can to-day, 
look up for protection to magistrates independent 
of the Crown,^ and awfully accountable in char- 
acter to an enlightened world. As fast as arbi- 
trary constructions were abolished by one statute, 
unprincipled judges began to build them up again, 
till they were beat down by another. To recount 
their strange treasons would be tiresome and dis- 
gusting ; but their system of construction, in the 
teeth of positive law, may be well illustrated by 
two lines from Pope — 

" Destroy his fib and sophistry in vain, 
The creature 's at his dirty work again." 

This system, both judicial and parliamentary, 
became, indeed, so intolerable in the in- ^^ . . . 

' ' • p TT Statute in 

terval between the reign of Henry the the time of 
Fourth, and that of Philip and Mary,9 ^"*- 
that it produced, in the first year of the latter 
reign, the most remarkable statute that ever 
passed in England,^" repealing not only all for- 
mer statutes upon the subject, except that of 
Edward the Third, but also stigmatizing, upon 
the records of Parliament, the arbitrary construc- 
tions of judges, and limiting them, in all times, 
to every letter of the statute. I will read to you 
Lord Coke's commentary upon the subject. In 
his third Institute, page 23, he saj's, " Before the 
act of the 25th of Edward the Third, so many 
treasons had been made and declared, and in 
such sort penned, as not only the ignorant and 
unlearned people, but also learned and expert 



of his auditors, but he does it only to gather a strik- 
ing general truth, which, in returning, he applies 
with new force to the case in hand. 

s At the recommendation of George III., soon after 
his accession, the judges were made independent of 
the Crown, by holding their offices for life at a cer- 
tain fixed salary. 

9 Among the new treasons created during this in- 
terval, particularly in the reign of Henry VIII., may 
be reckoned the following: namely, clipping money, 
breaking prison or rescue when the prisoner is com- 
mitted for treason, burning houses to extort money, 
stealing of cattle by Welshmen, counterfeiting for- 
eign coin, willful poisoning, execrations against the 
King, calling him opprobrious names by public Avrit- 
ing, counterfeiting the sign manual or signet, refus- 
ing to abjure the Pope, deflowering, or marrying 
without the royal license any of the King's children, 
sisters, aunts, nephews, or nieces, bare solicitation 
of the chastity of the queen or princess, or advances 
made by themselves, marrying with the King by a 
woman not a virgin, without previously discovering 
to him her previous unchaste life, judging or believ- 
ing (manifested by an overt act) the King to have 
been lawfully married to Anne of Cleve, derogating 
from the King's royal style and title, impugning his 
supremacy, assembling riotously to the number of 
twelve, and not dispersing on proclamation. 

10 1 Mary, stat. 1, c. i. 



1794] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



721 



men, were trapped and snared, * * so as the 
mischief before Edward the Third, of the uncer- 
tainty of what was treason and what not, became 
so frequent and dangerous, as that the safest and 
surest remedy was, by this excellent act of Mary, 
to abrogate and repeal all but [except] only such 
as are specified and expressed in this statute of 
Edward the Third. By which law the safety of 
both the King and of the subject, and the preser- 
vation of the common weal, were wisely and suf- 
I ficiently provided for, and in such certainty that 
nihil reliction est arbilrio judicisM 

The whole evil, indeed, to be remedied and 
Intent ami avoidcd, by the act of Queen Mary, was 
u.at"'tafu"te the arbitriuni judicis, or judicial con- 
ofMary. structiou beyond the letter of the stat- 
ute. The statute [of Edward HI.] itself was 
perfect, and was restored in its full vigor ; and 
to suppose, therefore, that when an act was ex- 
pressly made, because judges had built treasons 
by constructions beyond the law, they were to 
be left, consistently with their duty, to go on 
building again, is to impute a folly to the Leg- 
islature which never yet was imputed to the 
framers of this admirable statute. But this ab- 
surd idea is expressly excluded, not merely by 
the statute, according to its plain interpretation, 
but according to the direct authority of Lord 
Coke himself, in his commentary upon it. For 
he goes on to say, " Two things are to be ob- 
served : first, that the word expressed, in the 
statute of Mary, excludes all implications or in- 
ferences whatsoever ; secondly, that no former 
attainder, judgment, precedent, resolution, or 
opinion of judges, or justices, of high treason, 
other than such as are specified and expressed 
in the statute of Edward the Third, are to be 
followed or drawn into example. For the words 
be plain and direct ; that from henceforth no act, 
deed, or offense shall be taken, had, deemed, or 
adjudged to be high treason, but only such as are 
declared and expressed in the said act of the 25th 
of Edward the Third, any act of Parliament or 
statute after 25th of Edward the Third, or any 
other declai'ation or matter, to the contrary not- 
withstanding." 

Gentlemen, if the letter of the statute of Mary, 
Shown by its whcn couplcd with Lord Coke's com- 
preambie. mentary, required further illustration, 
it would amply receive it from the preamble, 
which ought to be engraved on the heart of ev- 
ery man who loves the King, or who is called to 
any share in his councils ; for, as Lord Coke ob- 
serves in the same commentary : It truly recites 
that " the state of a King standeth and consist- 
eth more assured by the love and favor of the 
subjects toward their Sovereign, than in the dread 
and fear of laws, made with rigorous and extreme 
punishment ; and that laws, justly made for the 
preservation of the common weal, without ex- 
treme punishment or penalty, are more often and 
for the most part better kept and obeyed, than 
laws and statutes made with extreme punish- 
ment." 



^^ Nothing was left to the arbitrary decision of the 
judge. 

7,7 



But, gentlemen, the most important part of 
Lord Coke's commentary on this statute is yet 
behind, which I shall presently read to you, and 
to which I implore your most earnest attention. 
I will show you by it, that the unfortunate man, 
whose innocence I am defending, is arraigned 
before you of high treason, upon evidence not 
only wholly repugnant to this particular statute, 
but such as never yet was heard of in England 
upon any capital trial ; evidence which, even with 
all the attention you have given to it, I defy any 
one of you, at this moment, to say of what it con- 
sists ; evidence, which (since it must be called 
by that name) I tremble for my boldness in pre- 
suming to stand up for the life of a man, when I 
am conscious that I am incapable of understanding 
from it, even what acts are imputed to him ; evi- 
dence, which has consumed four days in the read- 
ing ; not in reading the acts of the prisoner, but 
the unconnected writings of men unknown to one 
another, upon a hundred diflferent subjects ; evi- 
dence, the very listening to which has deprived 
me of the sleep which nature requires ; which 
has filled my mind with unremitting distress and 
agitation, and which, from its discordant, uncon- 
nected nature, has suflered me to reap no advant- 
age from the indulgence, which I began with 
thanking you for ; but which, on the contrary, has 
almost set my brain on fire, with the vain endeav- 
or of collecting my thoughts upon a subject never 
designed for any rational course of thinking. ^^ 

Let us, therefore, see how the unexampled 
condition I am placed in falls in with Remarks of 
Lord Coke upon this subject, whose au- ^°'"^ '^"''^• 
thority is appealed to by the Crown itself; and 
let us go home and burn our books if they are to 
blazon forth the law by eulogium, and accurate- 
ly to define its protector, which yet the subject 
is to be totally cut off from, when, even under the 
sanction of these very authors, he stands upon his 
trial for his existence. Lord Coke says, in the 
same Commentary, page 12, that the statute had 
not only accurately defined the charge, but the 
nature of the proof on which alone a man shall 
be attainted of any of the branches of high trea- 
son. " It is to be observed," says he, " that the 
word in the act of Edward the Third is prova- 
blcment ; that is, upon direct and manifest proof, 
not upon conjectural presumptions, or inferences, 
or strains of wit, but upon good and sutTicient 
'proof. And herein the adverb provably hath a 
great force, and signifieth a direct plain proof, 
which word the Lords and Commons in Parlia- 
ment did use, for that the offense of treason was 

'2 We have here one of those sallies of feeling 
which sometimes occur in the inidst of Erskine's ar- 
guments. An immense mass of evidence in the 
shape of correspondence had been brought forward 
by the Crown, for the purpose of showing, among 
other things, the treasonable designs of another so- 
ciety, called the " Constitutional Society," and that 
the "London Corresponding Society," of whicli Har- 
dy was the secretary, was closely connected with it, 
and advocated the same principles. No wonder that 
Erskine spoke with impatience of such a mode ai 
aiming at the lives of men. 



U-JUil ■*?,!» 



722 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



so heinous, and was so heavily and severely pun- 
ished, as none other the like, and therefore the 
offender must be provably attainted, which words 
are as forcible as upon direct and manifest proof. 
Note, the word is not probably, for then commune 
argwnentum might have served, but the word is 
^provably be attainted.' " 

Nothing can be so curiously and tautologously 
labored as this commentary, of even that great 
prerogative lawyer Lord Coke, upon this single 
word in the statute. And it manifestly shows 
that, so far from its being the spirit and princi- 
ple of the law of England, to loosen the construc- 
tion of this statute, and to adopt rules of con- 
struction and proof, unusual in trials for other 
crimes, on the contrary, the Legislature did not 
even leave it to the judges to apply the ordinary 
rules of legal proof to trials under it, but admon- 
ished them to do justice in that respect in the very 
body of the statute. 

Lord Hale treads in the same path with Lord 
Coke, and concludes this part of the subject by 
the following most remarkable passage (vol. i., 
chap, xi., 86) : 

" Now, although the crime of high treason is 
Remarks of tb© greatest crime against faith, duty. 
Lord Hale. ^^^ humau socicty, and brings with it 
the greatest and most fatal dangers to the gov- 
ernment, peace, and happiness of a kingdom or 
state ; and, therefore, is deservedly branded with 
the highest ignominy, and subjected to the great- 
est penalties that the laws can inflict ; it appears, 
first, how necessary it was that there should be 
some known, fixed, settled boundary for this great 
crime of treason, and of what great importance 
the statute of 25th of Edward the Third was, in 
order to that end. Second, how dangerous it is to 
depart from the letter of that statute, and to mul- 
tiply and enhance crimes into treason by ambigu- 
ous and general words, such as accroaching royal 
power, subverting fundamental laws, and the like. 
And third, how dangerous it is by construction 
and analogy, to make treasons where the letter 
of the law has not done it. For such a method 
admits of no limits or bounds, but runs as far and 
as wide as the wit and invention of accusers, and 
the detestation of persons accused, will carry 
men." 

Surely, tbe admonition of this supereminent 

,. . ^ iudo-e ought to sink deep into the heart 

Application of '' " ° i r- 

them to the 01 evcry judge, and oi every juryman, 
present case, ^^^j^^ j^ called to administer justice un- 
der this statute ; above all, in the times and un- 
der the peculiar circumstances which assemble 
us in this place. Honorable men. feeling, as they 
ought, for the safety of government, and the tran- 
quillity of the country, and naturally indignant 
Igainst those who are supposed to have brought 
.hem into peril, ought, for that very cause, to 
proceed with more abundant caution, lest they 
should be surprised by their resentments or their 
fears. They ought to advance, in the judgments 
they form, by slow and trembling steps ; they 
ought even to fall back and look at every thing 
again, lest a false light should deceive them, ad- 
mitting no fact but upon the foundation of clear 



and precise evidence, and deciding upon no in- 
tention that does not result with equal clearness 
from the fact. This is the universal demand of 
justice in every case, criminal or civil. How 
much more, then, in this, when the judgment is 
every moment in danger of being swept away 
into the fathomless abyss of a thousand volumes ; 
where there is no anchorage for the understand- 
ing ; where no reach of thought can look round 
in order to compai'e their points, nor any memo- 
ry be capacious enough to retain even the im- 
perfect relation that can be collected from them ! 

Gentlemen, my mind is the more deeply affect- 
ed with this consideration by a very illustration from 
recent example in that monstrous ml.uTf^warren 
phenomenon which, under the name Hastings. 
of a trial, has driven us out of Westminster Hall 
for a large portion of my professional life. No 
man is less disposed than I am to speak lightly 
of great state prosecutions, which bind to their 
duty those who have no other superiors, nor any 
other control ; last of all am I capable of even 
glancing a censure against those who have led 
to or conducted the impeachment, because I re- 
spect and love many of them, and know them to 
be among the best and wisest men in the nation. 
I know them, indeed, so well, as to be persuaded 
that, could they have foreseen the vast field it 
was to open, and the length of time it was to 
occupy, they never would have engaged in it.-"" 
For I defy any man, not illuminated by the Di- 
vine Spirit, to say, with the precision and cer- 
tainty of an English judge deciding upon evi- 
dence before him, that Mr. Hastings is guilty or 
not guilty ! — for who knows what is before him, 
or what is not? Many have carried what they 
knew to their graves, and the living have lived 
long enough to forget it. Lideed, I pray God 
that such another proceeding may never exist in 
England ; because I consider it as a dishonor to 
the Constitution, and that it brings, by its exam- 
ple, insecurity into the administration of justice. 
Every man in civilized society has a right to 
hold his life, liberty, property, and reputation, 
under plain laws that can be well understood 
and is entitled to have some limited specific part 
of his conduct compared and examined by their 
standard. But he ought not for seven 5'ears, no, 
nor for seven days, to stand as a criminal before 
the highest human tribunal, until judgment is 
bewildered and confounded, to come at last, per- 
haps, to defend himself, broken down with fa- 
tigue and dispirited with anxiety, which, indeed, 
is my own condition at this moment, who am 
only stating the case of another. What, then, 
must be the condition of the unfortunate person 
whom you are trying ? 

The next great question is, how the admoni- 
tions of these ofreat writers are to be reconciled 



" It was the good fortune of Mr. Erskine to i-eme- 
dy, in his own person, the evil thus complained of, 
when he presided as Chancellor on the trial of Lord 
Melville. He insisted that the House of Lords 
should sit daily, like every other criminal tribunal, 
till the verdict was delivered ; and thus completed 
the case in fourteen days. 



1794] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



723 



with what is undoubtedly to be found in other 
The foregoing pai'ts of theii* woi'ks.^* I think, then, 
om:'^S^w?tr'^ I do not go too far, when I say that 
writlrs'LT^ it ought to be the inclination of every 
elsewhere said, persou's mind who is considering the 
meaning of any writer (particularly if he be a 
person of superior learning and intelligence), to 
reconcile as much as possible all he says upon 
any subject, and not to adopt such a construction 
as necessarily raises up one part in dix-ect oppo- 
sition to another. The law itself, indeed, adopts 
this sound rule of judgment in the examination 
of every matter which is laid before it for a 
sound construction ; and the judges, therefore, 
are bound by dut}', as well as reason, to adopt it. 

It appears to me, then, that the only ambigui- 
The key to this ty which ariscs, or can possibly arise, 
JvetoTe^'^"^ in the examination of the great au- 
phrase orert a«. thoritics, and iu thc coniparisou of 
them w^ith themselves, or with one another, is 
from not rightly understanding the meaning of 
the term overt act as applied to this species 
of treason. The moment 3'ou get right upon the 
true meaning and signification of this expression, 
the curtain is drawn up, and all is light and cer- 
tainty. 

Gentlemen, an overt act of the high treason 
Meanin;of charged upou this record, I take, wuth 
the phrase. ^^.^^^ subuiission to the court, to be 
plainly and simply this : The high treason 
charged is the compassing or imagining (in other 
words, the intending or designing) the death of 
the King — I mean his natural death — which be- 
ing a hidden operation of the mind, an "overt 
act" is any thing which legally proves the ex- 
istence of such traitorous design and intention. 
I say, then, that the design against the King's 
natural life is the high treason under the first 
branch of the statute ; and w^hatever is evidence 
that may be legally laid before a jury to judge 
of the traitorous intention, is a legal overt act ; 
because an overt act is nothing but legal evidence 
embodied upon the record. 

The charge of compassing being a charge of 
intention, which, without a manifesta- 
by conduct, no human tribunal 

the overt act , •' ' ... 

could try, the statute requu-es, by its 
very letter (but without which letter reason 
must have presumed), that the intention to cut 
off the sovereign should be manifested by an 
open act. And as a prisoner chai'ged with an 
intention could have no notice how to defend 
himself without the charge of actions from 
whence the intention was to be imputed to him, 
it was always the practice, according to the 
sound principles of English law, to state upon 
the face of the indictment the overt act, w^hich 
the Crown charges, as the means made use of 



Reasons for 
specifying *ion 



1* Mr. Erskine here comes to the second great di- 
vision of bis legal argument. It is really an answer 
to the argument of the Attorney General, though in 
another form. His object is to show how the aa- 
thorities adduced by the Crown could be reconciled 
with his preceding statement of the law. This he 
does with an ingenuity and force which can not fail 
to interest the reader. 



by the prisoner to effect his traitorous purpose ; 
and as this rule was too frequently departed 
from, the statute of the seventh of King Will- 
iam'^ enacted, for the benefit of the prisoner, 
that no evidence should ever be given of any 
overt act not charged in the indictment.^^ The 
charge, therefore, of the overt acts in the indict- 
ment, is the notice (enacted by statute to be 
given to the prisoner for his protection) of the 
means by which the Crown is to submit to the 
juiy the existence of the traitorous purpose, 
which is the crime alleged against him, and in 
pursuance of which ti'aitorous purpose the overt 
acts must also be charged to have been commit- 
ted. Whatever, therefore, is relevant Tiiese reasons 
or competent evidence to be received overt IctUn^ 
in support of the traitorous intention, ^^'fj^'^^/or 
is a legal overt act ; and what acts ti^e crime. 
are competent to that purpose is (as in all other 
cases) matter of law for the judges. But wheth- 
er, after the overt acts are received upon the 
record as competent, and are established by 
proof upon the trial, they be sufficient or insuf- 
ficient, in the particular instance, to convince the 
jury of the traitorous compassing or intention, 
is a mere matter of fact, which, from its very 
nature, can be reduced to no other standard than 
that which each man's own conscience and un- 
del-standing erects in his mind as the arbiter of 
his judgment. This doctrine is by no means 
new, nor peculiar to high treason. It pervades 
the whole law, and may be well il- Thusit belongs 



lustrated in a memorable case lately 



to the jury to 
decide on that 

decided upon writ of error in the evidence. 
House of Lords, and which must be in the mem- 
ory of all the judges now present who took a 
part in its decision. There the question w^as, 
whether, upon the establishment of a number of 
facts by legal evidence, the defendant had knowl- 
edge of a fact, the knowing of which would 
leave him without defense. To draw that ques- 
tion from the jury to the judges, I demurred to 
the evidence, saying, that though each part of it 
was legally admitted, it was for the law, by the 
mouth of the judges, to pronounce w^icther this 
fact of knowledge could legally be inferred from 
it. But the Lords, with the assent of all the 
judges, decided, to my perfect satisfaction, that 
such a demurrer to the evidence was irregular 
and invalid ; that the province of the juiy over 
the effect of evidence ought not to be so trans- 
ferred to the judges, and converted into matter 
of law; that what was relevant evidence to come 
before a jury was the province of the court, but 
that the conclusion to be drawn from admissible 
evidence was the unalienable province of the 
country. 

To apply that reasoning to the case before us. 
The matter to be inquired of here is the fact of 
the prisoner's intention, as, in the case I have just 



1^ 7 and 8 William III., c. iii., s. 8. 

16 That is, any overt act amounting to a distinct, 
independent charge. But if an overt act, not charged 
in the indictment, amount to a direct proof of any 
other overt act which is chai-ged, it may be given in 
evidence to prove such overt act. 



724 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794 



cited, it was the fact of the defendant's knowledge. 
So the jury are The charge of a conspiracy to depose 
whether^lie*^^ the King is, therefore, laid before you 
act3 charged to establish that intention. Its com- 

were aimed at i i • i i r c ^i j. 

the natural hfe pctcncy to bc laid belorc you lor that 
of the King. pm-pose is not disputed. I am only 
contending (with all reason and authority on my 
side) that it is to be submitted to your conscien- 
ces and understandings, whether, even if you be- 
lieved the overt act, you believe also that it pro- 
ceeded from a traitorous machination against the 
life of the King. I am only contending that these 
two beliefs must coincide to establish a verdict of 
guilty.^''' I am not contending that, under [cer- 
tain] circumstances, a conspiracy to depose the 
King, and to annihilate his regal capacity, may 
not be strong and satisfactory evidence of the in- 
tention to destroy his life — I only contend that in 
this, as in every other instance, it is for you to 
collect or not to collect this treason against the 
King's life, according to the result of your con- 
scientious belief and judgment, from the acts of 
the prisoner laid before you, and that the estab- 
lishment of the overt act, even if it were estab- 
lished, does not establish the treason against the 
King^s life by a consequence of law. On the con- 
trary, I affirm that the overt act, though punish- 
able in another shape as an independent crime, 
is a dead letter upon this record, unless you be- 
lieve, exercising your exclusive jurisdiction over 
the facts laid before you, that it was committed 
in accomplishment of the treason against the 

NATURAL LIFE OF THE KiNG. 

Gentlemen, this particular crime of compass- 
Pecuiiar nature ing thc King's death is so complete an 
of this crime. anomaly,being wholly seated in uncon- 
summated intention, that the law can not depart 
from describing it according to its real essence, 
even when it is followed by his death. A man 
can not be indicted for killing the King, as was 
settled in the case of the Regicides of Charles I., 
after long consultation among all the judges. It 
was held that the very words of the statute must 
be pursued ; and that, although the King was 
actually murdered, the prisoners who destroyed 
him could not be charged with the act itself, as 
high treason, but with the "compassing" of his 
death — the very act of the executioner in behead- 
ing him being only laid as the "overt act" upon the 
record. There, though the overt act was so con- 
nected with, as to be even inseparable from the 
traitorous intention, yet they were not confound- 
ed because of the effect of the precedent in dis- 
similar cases. And although the Regicides came 
to be tried immediately on the restoration of the 
King, in the dayspring of his authority, and be- 



17 This was the great point on which Erskine 
rested his hopes of success. If he could fasten this 
responsibility on the jury, and make them act under 
it, be felt that his cause was safe. But the danger 
was, that, adopting tlio Attorney General's princi- 
ples, they might consider " the writing of letters," 
&c., mentioned by Lord Hale, as /.ending' ultimately 
to subvert the monarchy, and thus be led to a ver- 
dict of guilty. Hence the intense earnestness with 
which he goes on to argue this point. 



fore high prerogative judges, and under circum- 
stances when, in any country but England, theii 
trial would have been a mockery, or their execu- 
tion have been awarded without even the forms 
of trial : yet in England, that sacred liberty which 
has forever adorned the Constitution, refused to 
sacrifice to zeal or enthusiasm either the sub- 
stance or the forms of justice. Hear views of 
what the Chief Baron pronounced upon ^°'''* "^'®' 
that occasion: "These persons are to be pro- 
ceeded with according to the laws of the land, 
and I shall speak nothing to you but what are 
the words of the law. By the statute of Edward 
the Third, it is made high treason to compass 
and imagine the death of the King : in no case 
else imagination or compassing, without an act- 
ual effect, is punishable by law." He then 
speaks of the sacred life of the King, and, speak- 
ing of the treason, says, " The treason consists 
in the wicked imagination which is not apparent ; 
but when this poison swells out of the heart, and 
breaks forth into action, in that case it is high 
treason. Then, what is an overt act of an im- 
agination, or compassing of the King's death ? 
Truly it is any thing which shows what the im- 
agination of the heart is." 

Indeed, gentlemen, the proposition is so clear 
that one gets confounded in the argu- Further evi- 
ment from the very simplicity of it. p^.'^oi'thls'' 
But still I stand in a situation which I i"-'"'^^'!'''?- 
am determined, at all events, to fulfill to the ut- 
most ; and I shall, therefore, not leave the matter 
upon these authorities, but will bring it down to 
our own times, repeating my challenge to have 
one single authority produced in contradiction. 
Lord Coke, in his 3d Institute, pages 11 and 12, 
says, " The indictment must charge that the pris- 
oner traitorously compassed and imagined the 
death and destruction of the King." He says, 
too, "There must be a compassing or imagina- 
tion ; for an act without compassing, intent, or 
imagination, is not within the Act, as appeareth 
by the express letter thereof; Et actus nonfacil 
reurn nisi mens sit rea.''' Nothing in language 
can more clearly illustrate my proposition. The 
indictment, like every other indictment, must 
charge distinctly and specifically the crime. 
That charge must, therefore, be in the very 
words of the statute which creates the crime — 
the crime created by the statute, not being the 
perpetration of any act, but being, in the rigor- 
ous severity of the law, the very contemplation, 
intention, and contrivance of a purpose directed 
to an act. That contemplation, purpose, and con- 
trivance must be found to exist, without which, 
says Lord Coke, there can be no compassing ; and 
as the intention of the mind can not be investi- 
gated without the investigation of conduct, the 
overt act is required by the statute, and must be 
laid in the indictment and proved. It follows 
from this deduction, that upon the clear princi- 
ples of the English law, every act may be laid as 
an overt act of compassing the King's death, 
which may be reasonably considered to be rele- 
vant and competent to manifest that intention. 
For were it otherwise, it would be shutting out 



1794] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



725 



from the view of the jury certain conduct of the 
prisoner, which might, according to circumstan- 
ces, serve to manifest the criminal intention of 
his mind. Hence, as more than one overt act 
may be laid, and even overt acts of different 
kinds, though not in themselves substantively 
treason, the judges [in the case of the Regicides] 
appear to have been justified in law, when they 
ruled them to be overt acts of compassing the 
death of the King. For, they are such acts as 
before the statute of King William (which re- 
quired that the indictment should charge all overt 
acts) would have been held to be relevant proof — 
of which relevancy of proof the judges are to judge 
as matter of law — and, therefore, being relevant 
proof, must also be relevant matter of charge, 
because nothing can be relevantly charged which 
may not also be relevantly admitted to proof. 
These observations explain, to the meanest ca- 
pacit}', in what sense Lord Coke must be under- 
stood, when he says, on the very same page, that 
" A preparation to depose the King, and to take 
the King by force and strong hand, until he has 
yielded to certain demands, is a sufficient overt 
act io prove the compassing of the King's death." 
He does not say, as a proposition of laii\ that he 
who prepares to seize the King, compasseth his 
death ; but that a preparation to seize him is a 
sufficient overt act to prove the compassing ; and 
he directly gives the reason, " Because of the 
strong t<i7idency it has to that end." This latter 
sentence destroys all ambiguity. ^^ I perfectly 
agree with Lord Coke, and I think every judge 
would so decide, upon the general principles of 
law and evidence, without any resort to his au- 
thority for it ; and for this plain and obvious rea- 
son : The judges who are by law to decide upon 
the relevancy or competency of the proof, in ev- 
ery matter, criminal and civil, have immemori- 
ally sanctioned the indispensable necessity of 
charging the traitorous intention as the crime, 
before it was required by the statute of King 
William. As the crime is in its natux'c invisible 
and inscrutable, until manifested by such conduct 
as in the eye of reason is indicative of the inten- 
tion, which constitutes the crime : no overt act 
is, therefore, held to be sufficient to give jurisdic- 
tion, even to a jury to draw the inference in fact 
of the traitorous purpose, but such acts from 
whence it may be reasonably inferred. And, 
therefore, as the restraint and imprisonment of a 
prince has a greater tendency to his destruction 
than in the case of a private man, such conspir- 
acies are admitted to be laid as overt acts, upon 
this principle — that if a man does an act from 
whence either an inevitable or a mainly probable 
consequence may be expected to follow, much 
more if he persists deliberately in a course of 
conduct, leading certainly or probably to any 
given consequence, it is reasonable to believe 
that he foresaw such consequence, and by pur- 

^^ Mr. Erskine had quoted from Lord Coke on a 
preceding page in support of his views respecting 
high treason (p. 718), and he here gives his prom- 
ised reconciliation of Coke's statements, which had 
appeared contradictory. 



suing his purpose with that foreknowledge, the 
intention to produce the conseqnence may be 
fairly imputed. But then all this is matter of 
fact for the jury from the evidence, not matter of 
law for the court, further than it is the privilege 
and duty of the judge to direct the attention of 
the juiy to the evidence, and to state the law as 
it may result from the different views the jury 
may entertain of the facts. And if such acts 
could not be laid as overt acts, they could not be 
offered in evidence ; and if they could not be of- 
fered in evidence, the mind of the prisoner, which 
it was the object of the trial to lay open as a clue 
to his intention, would be shut up and concealed 
from the jury, whenever the death of the Sover- 
eign was sought by circuitous but obvious means, 
instead of by a direct and murderous machina- 
tion. But when they are thus submitted, as 
matter of charge and evidence, to prove the 
traitorous purpose which is the crime, the secu- 
rity of the King and of the subject is equally pro- 
vided for. All the matter which has a relevan- 
cy to the crime is chargeable and provable, not 
substantively to raise from their establishment a 
legal inference, but to raise a presumption 'mfact._ 
capable of being weighed by the jury, with all 
the circumstances of the transaction, as offered 
to the Crown and the prisoner. And it is the 
province of the jury finally to say — not what was 
the possible or the probable consequence of the 
overt act laid in the indictment, but whether it 
has brought them to a safe and conscientious 
judgment of the guilt of the prisoner, i. e., of his 
guilt in compassing the death of the King, which 
is the treason charged in the indictment. Lord 
Hale is if possible, more direct and explicit upon 
the subject. He says, page 107, " The 
words "■ compass' or ' imagine' are of a 
great latitude ; they refer to the purpose or de- 
sign of the mind or will, though the purpose or 
design takes not effect. But compassing or im- 
agining singly of itself, is an internal act, and, 
without something to manifest it, could not pos- 
sibly fall under any judicial cognizance but of 
God alone ; and therefore this statute requires 
such an overt act as may render the compassing 
or imagining capable of a trial and sentence by 
human judicatures." Now, can any man possi- 
bly derive from such a wn-iting (proceeding, too, 
from an author of the character of Lord Hale), 
that an overt act of compassing might, in his 
judgment, be an act committed inadvertently 
without the intention ? Can any man gather 
from it, that a man, by falling into bad company, 
can be drawn in to be guilty of this species of 
treason by rash conduct, while the love of his 
Sovereign w^as glowing in his bosom ? Can 
there be any particular acts which can entitle a 
judge or counsel to pronounce, as a matter of 
lau\ what another man intends ? or that what a 
man intends is not a matter o[ fact ? Is there 
any man that will meet the matter fairly, and ad- 
vance and support that naked proposition ! At 
all events, it is certainly not a proposition to be 
dealt with publicly, because the man whose mind 
is capable even of conceiving it should be treas- 



726 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



tired up in a museum, and exhibited there as a 
curiosity, for money. 

Gentlemen, all I am asking, however, from my 
summingupon argument, and 1 defy any power of 
an'Sntai"' reason upon earth to move me from 
appeal to the [f jg ^jjjg — t^g-t the prisoner being 

feelings of the ' , '^ ^ ° 

jury- charged with intending the King s 

deaths you are to find whether this charge be 
founded or unfounded. I say, therefore, put upon 
the record what else you will — prove what you 
will — read these books over and over again — 
and let us stand here a year and a day in dis- 
coursing concerning them — still the question 
must return at last to what you, and you only, 
can resolve — Is he guilty of that base, detestable 
intention to destroy the King ? Not whether you 
incline to believe that he is guilty ; not whether 
you suspect, nor whether it be probable ; not 
whether he may be guilty ; no, but that prov- 
ABLY HE IS GUILTY. If you cau Say this upon 
the evidence, it is your duty to say so, and you 
may, with a tranquil conscience, return to your 
families ; though, by your judgment, the unhappy 
object of it must return no more to his. Alas ! 
gentlemen, what do I say ? he has no family to 
return to. The affectionate partner of his life 
has already fallen a victim to the surprise and 
horror which attended the scene now transact- 
ing. But let that melancholy reflection pass. It 
should not, perhaps, have been introduced — it 
certainly ought to have no effect upon you who 
are to judge upon your oaths. I do not stand 
here to desire you to commit perjury from com- 
passion ; but at the same time, my earnestness 
may be forgiven, since it proceeds from a weak- 
ness common to us all. I claim no merit with 
the prisoner for my zeal ; it proceeds from a self- 
ish principle inherent in the human heart — I am 
counsel, gentlemen, for myself. In every word 
I utter, I feel that I am pleading for the safety 
of my own life, for the lives of my children after 
rne, for the happiness of my countiy, and for the 
universal condition of civil society throughout the 
world. ^'^ 

But let us return to the subject, and pursue 
Return to Lord the doctrinc of Lord Hale upon the 
an'^o^/ert actli^a truc interpretation of the term overt 
^i^^hitw^lT' «<^^ as applicable to this branch of 
death. treason. Lord Hale says, and I do 

beseech most earnestly the attention of the court 
and jury to this passage — "If men conspire the 
death of the King, and thereupon provide weap- 
ons, or send letters, this is an overt act wnthin 
the statute." Take this to pieces, and what does 
it amount to ? " If men conspire the death of the 
King," that is the first thing, viz., the intention, 
"and thereupon," that is, in pursuance of that 
wicked intention, " provide weapons, or send let- 



1^ There was consummate skill when Mr. Erskine 
thus glanced at the death of Mrs. Hardy, in seeming 
almost to condemn himself for doing so, since this 
placed him before the jury as one who did not seek 
to work on their passions. Tlie tarn he next gives 
the thought is peculiarly fine — he was speaking for 
himself— for his children — for the world — and he was 
therefore bound to express these feelings. 



ters for the execution thereof," i. e., for the exe- 
cution of that destruction of the King which they 
have meditated, " this is an overt act within the 
statute." Surely the meaning of all this is self- 
evident. If the intention be against the King's 
life, though the con.spiracy does not immediately 
and directly point to his death, yet still the overt 
act will be sufficient, if it be something which has 
so direct a tendency to that end, as to be compe- 
tent rational evidence of the intention to obtain 
it. But the instances given by Lord Hale him- 
self furnish the best illustration : " If men con- 
spire to imprison the King by force and a strong 
hand until he has yielded to certain demands, and 
for that purpose gather company or write letters, 
that is an overt act to prove the compassing the 
King's death, as it was held in Lord Cobham's 
case by all the judges. "^° In this sentence Lord 
Hale does not depart from that precision which 
so eminently distinguishes all his writings. He 
does not say that if men conspire to imprison the 
King until he yields to certain demands, and for 
that purpose to do so and so, this is high treason. 
No, nor even an overt act of high treason, though 
he might in legal language correctly have said 
so. But, to prevent the possibility of confound- 
ing the treason with matter which may be legal- 
ly charged as relevant to the proof of it, he fol- 
lows Lord Coke's expression, in the third Insti- 
tute, and says, " This is an overt act to prove the 
compassing of the King's death." And as if by 
this mode of expression he had not done enough 
to keep the ideas asunder, and from abundant 
regard for the rights and liberties of the subject, 
he immediately adds, " But, then, there must be 
an overt act to prove that conspiracy ; and then 
that overt act to prove such design, is an overt 
act to prove the compassing of the death of the 
King." The language of this sentence labors in 
the ear from the excessive caution of the writer. 
Afraid that his reader should jump too fast to his 
conclusion upon a subject of such awful moment, 
he pulls him back after he has read that a con- 
spiracy to imprison the King is an overt act to 
prove the compassing of his death ; and says to 
him. But recollect that there must be an overt 
act to prove, in the first place, that conspiracy 
to imprison the King, and even then that inten- 
tion to imprison him so manifested by the overt 
act is but in its turn an overt act to prove the 
compassing or intention to destroy the King. 
Nor does the great and benevolent Hale rest 
even here, but after this almost tedious perspicu- 
ity, he begins the next sentence with this fresh 

^° Lord Cobham took part in the rash conspiracy 
of Raleigh against James I., A.D. 1604. He was 
tried and convicted, and condemned to death, but 
subsequently pardoned. 

It will occur at once to the reader that this pas- 
sage in Lord Hale was the strong-hold of the At- 
torney General. The " writing of letters" to call the 
convention was the great thing charged in the pres- 
ent case. Mr. Erskine, therefore, delayed the con- 
sideration of this passage from Hale till he had got 
out his doctrine strongly from Coke, and showed its 
reasons. Then he takes up Lord Hale and gives a 
decisive answer. 



1794.] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



727 



caution and limitation, ^'But then this must be in- 
tended of a co7ispiracy forcibly to detain and im- 
prison the King?'' What, then, is a conspiracy 
forcibly to imprison the King ? Surely it can 
require no explanation : it can only be a direct 
machination to seize and detain his person by 
rebellious force. Will this expi-ession be satis- 
fied by a conspiracy to seize speculatively upon 
his authority by the publication ol" pamphlets, 
which, by the inculcation of republican princi- 
ples, may. in the eventual circulation of a course 
of years, perhaps in a course of centuries, in this 
King's time, or in the time of a remote success- 
or, debauch men's minds from the English Con- 
stitution ; and, by the destruction of monarchy, 
involve the life of the Monarch ? Will any man 
say that this is what the law means by a conspir- 
acy against the King's government, supposing 
even that a conspiracy against his government 
were synonymous with a design upon his life ? 
Can any case be produced where a person has 
been found guilty of high treason, under this 
branch of the statute, where no war has been 
actually levied, unless where the conspiracy has 
been a forcible invasion of the King's personal 
liberty or security ? I do not mean to say that 
a conspiracy to levy war may not, in many in- 
stances, be laid as an overt act of compassing 
the King's death, because the war may be medi- 
ately or immediately pointed distinctly to his de- 
struction or captivity ; and, as Lord Hale truly 
says, " small is the distance between the prisons 
and graves of princes." But multiply the instan- 
ces as you will, still the principle presents itself 
The truth of this very maxim, built upon expe- 
rience, renders an overt act of this description 
rational and competent evidence to be left to a 
jury of a design against the King's life. But it 
does not, therefore, change the nature of the 
crime, nor warrant any court to declare the 
Dvert act to be legally and conclusively indicative 
of the traitorous intention. For if this be once 
admitted to be law, and the jury are bound to find 
the treason upon their belief of the existence of 
the overt act, the trial by the country is at an 
end, and the judges are armed with an arbitrary, 
uncontrollable dominion over the lives and liber- 
ties of the nation. 

Gentlemen, I will now proceed to show you 
These doctrines that the doctrincs which I am insist- 
wt°oK° te^ ing on have been held by all the great 
ofiaw. judges of this country, in even the 

worst of times ; and that they are, besides, not at 
all peculiar to the case of high treason, but per- 
vade the whole system of the criminal law. Mr. 
Justice Foster, so justly celebrated for his writ- 
ings, lays down the rule thus : It may be laid 
down as a general rule, that " indictments found- 
ed upon penal statutes, especially the most penal, 
must pursue the statute so as to bring the party 
within it." And this general rule is so express- 
ly allowed to have place in high treason, that it is 
admitted, on all hands, that an indictment would 
be radically and incurably bad, unless it charged 
the compassing of the King's death as the lead- 
ing and fundamental averment, and unless it 



formally charged the overt act to be committed 
in order to effectuate the traitorous purpose. No- 
body ever denied this proposition ; and the pres- 
ent indictment is framed accordingly. Now, it 
is needless to say, that if the benignity of the 
general law requires this precision in the indict- 
ment, the ^roo/" must be correspondingly precise, 
otherwise the subject would derive no benefit from 
the strictness of the indictment. That strictness 
can have no other meaning in law or common 
sense, than the protectioyi of the prisoner : for if, 
though the indictment must directly charge a 
breach of the very letter of the statute, the 
prisoner could, nevertheless, be convicted by ev- 
idence not amounting to a breach of the letter, 
then the strictness of the indictment would not 
only be no protection to the prisoner, but a direct 
violation of the first principles of justice, criminal 
and civil, which call universally for the proof of 
all material averments in every legal proceeding. 
But jNIr. Justice Foster expressly adverts to the 
necessary severity of proof, as well as of charge. 
He says, " although a case is brought within the 
reason of a penal statute, and within the mischief 
to be prevented, yet, if it does not come within 
the unequivocal letter, the benignity of the law 
interposeth." If the law, then, be thus severe 
in the interpretation of every penal proceeding, 
even down to an action for the killing of a hare 
or a partridge, are its constructions only to be 
enlarged and extended as to the statute of high 
treason, although the single object of passing it 
was to guard against constructions ? 

Gentlemen, the reason of the thing is so pal- 
pably and invincibly in favor of this ri.e Attorney 
analogy, that it never met with a di- u.Tiumlifhe'*' 
rect opposition. The Attorney Gen- "[".^^J^^l-'lfi^,. 
eral himself distinctly admits it, in one ward. 
part of his address to you, though he seems to 
deny it in another. I hope that when I state one 
part of his speech to be in diametrical opposition 
to another, he will not suppose that I attribute 
the inconsistency to any defect either in his un- 
derstanding or his heart. Far from it — they 
arise, I am convinced, from some of the author- 
ities not being sufficiently understood. 

In the beginning of his speech, he admits that 
the evidence must be satisfactory and convincing 
as to the intention ; but in the latter part he 
seems, as it were, to take off" the effect of that 
admission. I wish to give you the very words. 
I took them down at the time ; and if I do not state 
them correctly, I desire to be corrected. " I most 
distinctly disavow," said my honorable friend, 
" every case of construction. I most distinctly 
disavow any like case of treason not within the 
letter of the statute. I most distinctly disavow 
cumulative treason. I most distinctly disavow 
enhancing guilt by parity of i-eason. The ques- 
tion undoubtedly is, whether the proof be full and 
satisfactory to your reasons and consciences, that 
the prisoner is guilty of the treason of compass- 
ing the King's death." Gentlemen, I hope that 
this will always with equal honor be admitted. 
Now, let us see how the rest of the learned gen- 
tleman's speech falls in with this. For he goes 



728 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



on to say, that it is by no means necessary that 
the distinct, specific Intention should pre-exist the 
overt act. "If the overt act," says he, " be de- 
liberately committed, it is a compassing." But 
how so, if the intention be admitted to be the 
treason ? What benefit is obtained by the rigor- 
ous demand of the statute, that the compassing of 
the King's death shall be charged by the indict- 
ment as the crime, if a crime diffei'ent, or short 
of it, can be substituted for it in the proof? And 
how can the statute of Richard the Second be 
said to be repealed, which made it high treason 
to compass to depose the King, independently of 
intention upon his life, if the law shall declare, 
notwithstanding the repeal, that they are synon- 
ymous terms, and that the one conclusively in- 
volves the other ? 

Gentlemen, if we examine the most prominent 
Mr. Erskine's cascs which havc comc in judgment 
firmld"byt°»e" before judgcs of the most unquestion- 
State Trials, able authority, and, after the Consti- 
tution had become fixed, you will find every thing 
that I have been saying to you justified and con- 
firmed. 

The first great state trial, after the Revolution, 
Case of Sir was the casc of Sir John Friend, a 
John Friend, conspirator in the assassination plot.^^ 
Sir John Friend was indicted for compassing and 
imagining the death of King William. The overt 
acts charged and principally relied on, were, 
first, the sending Mr. Charnock into France to 
King James, to desire him to persuade the French 
King to send forces over to Great Britain, to 
levy war against, and to depose the King, and 
that Mr. Charnock was actually sent ; and, sec- 
ondly, the preparing men to be levied to form a 
corps to a.ssist in the restoration of the Pretend- 
er,^"^ and the expulsion of King William, of which 
Sir John Friend was to be the colonel. In this 
if the proofs were not to be 
wholly discredited, and the overt acts 
were consequently established, they 
went rationally to convince the mind of every 
man of the pre-existing intention to destroy the 
King. The conspiracy was not to do an act 



Difference be- CaSC 
tween tlii3case 
and the one 
under trial. 



^' In 1695, the year after the death of dueen Mary, 
which event it was considered would considerably 
weaken the authority of the King (William III.), 
several of the Jacobites conspired to seize his per- 
son, and convey him to France, and, in case of re- 
sistance, to assassinate hini; and messengers were 
sent to St. Germain, where James II. was then 
staying-, under the protection of the French gov- 
ernment, to demand a commission for the purpose 
(which was, however, refused), and to make arrange- 
ments for a descent upon England. The principal 
parties connected with this conspiracy were, the 
Earl of Aylesbuiy, Lord Montgomery, Sir Joliii Pen- 
wick, Sir John Friend, Captain Charnock, Captain 
Porter, and Mr. Goodman. 

^^ Mr. Erskine departs from general usage in giv- 
ing James II. the name of the Pretender. After his 
death, in 1701, his son, the Chevalier de St. George, 
assumed the title of James III. ; and as this was a 
mere pretense, without legal right, in the view of 
the English nation, he was stigmatized with the 
title of Pretender. 



which, though it might lead eventually and spec- 
ulatively to the King's death, might not be fore- 
seen or designed by those who conspired together. 
The conspiracy was not directed to an event 
probably leading to another and a different one, 
and from the happening of which second, a third, 
still different, might be engendered, which third 
might again lead, in its consequences, to a fourth 
state of things, which might, in the revolution 
of events, bring on the death of the King, though 
never compassed or imagined. Friend's con- 
spiracy, on the contrary, had for its direct and 
immediate object the restoration of the Pretender 
to the throne, by the junction of foreign and re- 
bellious force. In my opinion (and I am not 
more disposed than others to pu.sh things beyond 
their mark in the administration of criminal jus- 
tice), Sir John Friend, if the evidence against 
him found credit with the jury, could have no 
possible defense ; since the evidence went direct- 
ly to prove the dispatch of Charnock to France, 
under his direction, to invite the French King to 
bring over the Pretender into England, and to 
place him on the throne. The intention, there- 
fore, of Sir John Friend to cut off King William 
was a clear inference from the overt act in ques- 
tion. It was not an inference of law for the 
court, but oi fact for the jury, under the guid- 
ance of plain common sense ; because the con- 
sequence of the Pretender's regaining the throne 
must have been the attainder of King William 
by act of Parliament. Some gentlemen seem to 
look as if they thought not ; but I should be glad 
to hear the position contradicted. I repeat, that 
if the Pretender had been restoi-ed as King of 
England, the legal consequence would have been, 
that King William would have been a traitor and 
a usurper, and subject as such to be tried at 
the Old Bailey, or wherever else the King, who 
took his place, thought fit to bring him to judg- 
ment. From these premises, therefore, there 
could be no difficulty of inferring the intention. 
If, then, a case ever existed where, from the clear- 
ness of the inference, the province of the jury 
might have been overlooked, and the overt act 
confounded with the treason, it was in the in- 
stance of Friend : but so far was this from being 
the case, that you will fimd, on the contrary, ev- 
ery thing I have been saying to you, since I be- 
gan to address you, summed up and confirmed 
by that most eminent magistrate. Lord Chief Jus- 
tice Holt, who presided at that trial. 

He begins thus : " Gentlemen of the Jury, 
look ye, the treason that is mentioned in the in- 
dictment is conspiring, compassing, and imagin 
ing the death of the King. To prove the con- 
spiracy and design of the King's death, two prin- 
cipal overt acts are insisted on." He does not 
consider the overt act of conspiracy and consult- 
ation to be the treason, but evidence (as it un- 
doubtedly was in that case) to prove the com- 
passing the death. The Chief Justice then states 
the two overt acts above mentioned, and sums 
up the evidence for and against the prisoner, and 
leaves the intention to the jury as matter of fact. 
For it is not till afterward that he comes to an- 



1794.] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



729 



swer the prisoner's objection in point of law, as 
the Chief Justice in terms puts it — " There is an- 
other thing," said Lord Chief Justice Holt, "he 
did insist upon, and that is matter of law^ The 
statute 25th Edward the Third was read, which 
is the great statute about treason, and that does 
contain divers species of treason, and declares 
what shall be treason : one treason is the com- 
passing and imagining the death of the King ; 
another is the lev3'ing war. "Now,"' says he, 
(i.e., Friend), "here is no war actually levied; 
and a bare conspiracy to levy war does not come 
within the law against treason." To pause here 
a little : Friend's argument was this. Whatever 
my intentions might be — whatever my object of 
levying war might have been — whatever might 
have been my design to levy it — however the 
destruction of the King might have been effected 
by my conspiracy, if it had gone on — and how- 
ever it might have been my intention that it 
should, it is not treason within the 25th of Ed- 
ward the Third. To which Holt replied, a little 
incorrectly in language, but right in substance : 
" Now for that I must tell you, if there be only 
a conspiracy to levy war, it is not treason ;" that 
is, it is not a substantive treason : it is not a 
treason in the abstract. " But if the design and 
conspiracy be either to kill the King, or to de- 
pose him, or imprison him, or put any force 
or restraint upon him" (?'. e., personal restraint 
by force), "and the way of effecting these pur- 
poses is by levying a war, there the conspir- 
acy and consultation, to levy war for that pur- 
pose, is high treason, though no war be levied ; 
for such consultation and conspiracy is an overt 
act proving the compassing the death of the 
King." But what sort of war is it, the bare 
conspiracy to levy which is an overt act to prove 
a design against the King's life, though no war 
be actually levied ? Gentlemen, Lord Holt him- 
self illustrates this matter so clearly, that if I 
had any thing at stake short of the honor and life 
of the prisoner, I might sit down as soon as I had 
read it ; for if one did not know it to be an ex- 
tract from an ancient trial, one would say it was 
admirably and accurately written for the present 
purpose. It is a sort of prophetic bird's-eye view 
of what we are engaged in at this moment : 
"There may be war levied" (continues Lord Holt 
in Friend's ca.se) "without any design upon the 
King's person, which, if actually levied^ is high 
treason ; though purposing and designing such 
a levying of war is not so. As, for example : 
if persons do as.semble themselves, and act with 
force, in opposition to some law, and hope there- 
by to get it repealed ; this is a levying war, and 
treason, though the purposing and designing of 
it is not so. So when they endeavored, in great 
numbers, with force, to make reformation of their 
own heads, without pursuing the methods of the 
law, that is a levying war, but the purpose and 
designing is not so. But if there be, as I told 
you, a purpose and design to destroy the King, 
anrf" (not or to depose him, but and to depose 
him) " to depose him from his throne, which is 
proposed and designed to be effected by war that 



is to be levied ; such a conspiracy and consulta- 
tion to levy war for the bringing this to pass" 
(that i.s, for bringing the King's death to pass) 
"is an overt act of high treason. So that, gen- 
tlemen, as to that objection which he [Friend] 
makes, in point of law, it is of no force, if there 
be evidence sufficient to convince you that he 
did conspire to levy war for such an end." And 
he concludes by again leaving the intention ex- 
pressly to the jury. 

It is the enc/, therefore, for which the war is 
to be levied, and not the conspiracy The doctrine 
to do any act, which the law consid- ^^e'!^';^'t,fsir 
ers as a levying of war, that consti- J"''" Friend, 
tutes an overt act of treason against the King's 
life. The most rebellious movements toward a 
reform in government, not directed against the 
King's person, will not, according to Lord Holt, 
support the charge before you. 1 might sur- 
round the House of Commons with fifty thou.sand 
men, for the express purpose of forcing them, by 
duress, to repeal any law that is offensive to me, 
or to pass a bill for altering elections, without be- 
ing a possible object of this prosecution. Under 
the other branch of the statute. I might, indeed, 
be convicted of levying war, but not of conipass- 
ing the King's death ; and if I onl}^ conspired and 
meditated this rising to repeal laws by rebellion, 
I could be convicted of nothing but a high mis- 
demeanor. I would give my friends the case 
upon a special verdict, and let them hang me if 
they could. How much more might I give it 
them if the conspiracy imputed was not to effect 
a reform by violence, but, as in the case before 
us, by pamphlets and speeches, which might pro- 
duce universal suff'rage, which universal suffi-age 
might eat out and destroy aristocracy, which de- 
struction might lead to the fall of monarchy, and, 
in the end, to the death of the King. Gentle- 
men, if the cause were not too serious, I should 
liken it to the play with which we amuse our 
children : this is the cow with the crumpled horn, 
which gored the dog, that worried the cat, that 
ate the rat, &c., ending in " the house which Jack 
built." I do, therefore, maintain, upon the ex- 
press authority of Lord Holt, that, to convict a 
prisoner charged with this treason, it is absolute- 
ly necessary that you should be satisfied of his 
intention against the King^s life, as charged in 
the indictment ; and that no design against the 
King's government will even be a legal overt act 
to be left to a jury as the evidence of such an in- 
tention (much less the substantive and consum- 
mate treason), unless the conspiracy be directly 
pointed again.st the person of the King. 

The case of Lord George Gordon is opposed 
to this as a high and modern decision ; case or Lord 
and the Attorney General descended, e-^^^s^ G"^don. 
indeed, to a very humble and lowly authority, 
when he sought to maintain his argument by my 
own speech as counsel for that unfortunate per- 
son.2^ The passage of it alluded to lies at this 



23 Sir John Scott, in opening the case, had read a 
passage from this speech, in a triumphant tone, as 
if confirming his views in respect to treason from the 
lips of Mr. Erskine himself. 



730 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794 



moment before me ; and I shall repeat it and re- 
maintain it to-day. But let it first be recollected 
that Lord George Gordon was not indicted for 
compassing or imagining the King's death, un- 
der the first branch of the statute, but for levying 
war under the second. It never, indeed, entered 
into the conception of any man living, that such 
an indictment could have been maintained or at- 
tempted against him. I appeal to one of your 
Lordships now present, for whose learning and 
capacity I have the greatest and highest respect, 
and who sat upon that trial, that it was not in- 
sinuated from the bar, much less adjudged by the 
court, that the evidence had any bearing upon 
the first branch of treason. I know that I may 
safely appeal to Mr. Justice Buller for the truth 
of this assertion ; and nothing, surely, in the pas- 
sage from my address to the jury has the remot- 
est allusion to assimilate a conspiracy against the 
King's government (collateral to his person) with 
a treason against his life. JNIy words were : " To 
compass or imagine the death of the King; such 
imagination, or purpose of the mind, visible only 
to its great Author, being manifested by some 
open act ; an institution obviously directed, not 
only to the security of his natural person, but to 
the stability of the government ; the life of the 
Prince being so interwoven with the Con.stitution 
of the state, that an attempt to destroy the one is 
justly held to be a rebellious conspiracy against 
the other. " 

What is this but to say that the King's sacred 
Explanation of Hfc is guarded by higher sanctions 
speechln thlt ^hau thc Ordinary laws, because of its 
case. more inseparable connection with the 

public security, and that an attempt to destroy 
it is, therefore, made treason against the state. 
But the Attorney General is, I am sure, too cor- 
rect in his logic to say that the converse of the 
proposition is, therefore, maintained, and that an 
attack upon the King's authority, without design 
upon his person, is affirmed by the same expres- 
sion to be treason against his life. His correct 
and enlarged mind is incapable of such confusion 
of ideas. 

But it is time to quit what fell from me upon 
this occasion, in order to examine the judgment 
of the court, and to clothe myself with the au- 
thority of that great and venerable magistrate, 
whose memory will always be dear to me, not 
only from the great services he rendered to his 
country in the administration of her justice, but 
on account of the personal regard and reverence 
I had for him when living. 

Lord Mansfield, in delivering the law to the 
Lord Mans- j^ry upou Lord George Gordon's trial 
field's charge. (J appeal to thc trial itself, and to Mr. 
Justice Buller, now pi'esent, who agreed in the 
judgment), expressly distinguished between the 
safety provided for the King's natural person, by 
the first branch of the statute, and the security 
of his executive power under the second. That 
great judge never had an idea that the natural 
person of the King and the majesty of the King 
were thc same thing, nor that the treasons against 
them were synonymous ; he knew, on the con- 



trary, for he knew all that was to be known, that 
as substantive crimes they never had been blend- 
ed. I will x-ead his own words. '• There are 
two kinds of levying war — one against the pcr- 
son of the King, to imprison, to dethrone, or to 
kill him, or to make him change measures, or re- 
move counselors ; the other, which is said to be 
levied against the majesty of the King, or, in oth- 
er words, again.st him in his regal capacity, as 
when a multitude rise and assemble to attain by 
force and violence any object of a general public 
nature ; that is levying war against the majesty 
of the King ; and most reasonably so held, because 
it tends to dissolve all the bonds of society, to de- 
stroy property, and to overtm-n government ; and 
by force of arms to restrain the King from reign- 
ing according to law." But then observe, gen- 
tlemen, the war must be actually levied ; and here, 
again, I appeal to Mr. Justice Buller, for the 
words of Lord Mansfield, expressly referring for 
what he said to the authority of Lord Holt, in Sir 
John Friend's case already cited : " Lord Chief 
Justice Holt, in Sir John Friend's case, says, ' If 
persons do assemble themselves and act with 
force, in opposition to some law which they think 
inconvenient, and hope thei"eby to get it repealed, 
this is a levying war, and treason.' In the pres- 
ent case [Gordon's] it don't rest upon an impli- 
cation that they hoped by opposition to a law to 
get it repealed ; but the prosecution proceeds 
upon the direct ground, that the object was, by 
force and violence., to compel the Legislature to 
repeal a law ; and, therefore, without any doubt, 
I tell you the joint opinion of us all, that if this 
multitude assembled idth intent., by acts of force 
and violence., to compel the Legislature to repeal 
a law, it is high treason." 

Let these words of Lord Mansfield be taken 
down, and then show me the man, let it sustains 
his rank and capacity be what they IJJuil 'ground 
may, who can remove me from the te now takes 
foundation on which I stand, when I maintain 
that a conspiracy to levy war for the objects of 
reformation is not only not the high treason 
charged by this indictment when not directly 
pointed against the King's pei'son, but that even 
the actual levying it would not amount to the 
constitution of the crime. But this is the least 
material part of Lord Mansfield's judgment, as 
applicable to the present question ; for he ex- 
pressly considers thc intention of the prisoner, 
whatever be the act of treason alleged against 
him, to be all in all. So far from holding the 
probable, or even inevitable, consequence of the 
thing done as constituting the quality of the act, 
he pronounces them to be nothing as separated 
from the criminal design to produce them. Lord 
George Gordon assembled an immense multitude 
around the House of Commons ; a system so 
opposite to that of the persons accused before 
this commission, that it appears from thc evi- 
dence they would not even allow a man to come 
among them, because he had been Lord George's 
attorney. The Lords and Commons were abso- 
lutely blockaded in the chambers of Parliament : 
and if control was the intention of the prisoner 



1794.] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



731 



[Gordon], it must be wholly immaterial what 
were the deliberations that were to be controlled ; 
whether it was the continuance of Roman Cath- 
olics under penal law.s, the repeal of the Septen- 
nial Act, or a total change of the structure of 
the House of Commons, that was the object of 
violence, the attack upon the Legislature of the 
country would have been the same. That the 
multitude were actually assembled round the 
Houses, and brought there by the prisoner, it 
was impossible for me, as his counsel, even to 
think of denying ; nor that their tumultuous pro- 
ceedings wei'e not in effect productive of great 
intimidation, and even danger, to the Lords and 
Commons, in the exercise of their authority ; 
neither did I venture to question the law, that 
the assembling the multitude for that purpose 
was levying war within the statute. Upon these 
facts, therefore, applied to the doctrines we have 
heard upon this trial, there would have been 
nothing in Lord George Gordon's case to try ; 
he must have been instantly, without controver- 
sy, convicted. But Loi'd Mansfield did not say 
to the jury (according to the doctrines that have 
been broached here), that if they found the mul- 
titude, assembled by the prisoner, were in fact 
palpably intimidating and controlling the Parlia- 
ment in the exercise of their functions, he was 
guilty of high treason, whatever his intentions 
might have been. He did not tell them that the 
inevitable consequence of assembling a hundred 
thousand people round the Legislature, being a 
control on their proceedings, was therefore a 
levying war ; though collected from folly and 
rashness, without the intention of violence or 
control. If this had been the doctrine of Lord 
Mansfield, there would, as I said before, have 
been nothing to try ; for I admitted, in terms, 
that his conduct was the extremity of rashness, 
and totally inconsistent with his rank in the 
country, and his station as a member of the 
House of Commons. But the venerable magis- 
trate never for a moment lost sight of the grand 
ruling principle of criminal justice, that crimes 
have no seat but in the mind ; and upon the 
prisoner's intention, and upon his intention alone., 
he expressly left the whole matter to the jury, 
with the following directions, which I shall read 
verbatim from the trial : 

"Having premised these several propositions 
and principles, the subject-matter for your con- 
sideration naturally resolves itself into two points. 

" First. Whether this multitude did assemble 
and commit acts of violence, with intent to ter- 
rify and compel the Legislature to repeal the 
act called Sir George Saville's. If upon this 
point your opinion should be in the negative, 
that makes an end of the whole, and the prison- 
er ought to be acquitted. But if your opinion 
should be that the intent of this multitude, and 
the violence they committed, was to force a re- 
peal, there arises a second point — 

"Whether the prisoner at the bar incited, en- 
couraged, promoted, or assisted in raising this in- 
surrection, and the terror they carried with them, 
with the LATENT of forcing a repeal of this law. 



" Upon these two points, which you will call 
your attention to, depends the fate of this trial ; 
for if either the multitude had no such intent, or 
supposing they had, if the prisoner was no cause, 
did not excite, and took no part in conducting, 
counseling, or fomenting the insurrection, the 
prisoner ought to be acquitted ; and there is no 
pretense that he personally concurred in any act 
of violence." 

I therefore consider the case of Lord George 
Gordon as a direct authority in my favor. 

To show that a conspiracy to depose the King, 
independently of ulterior intention comments on a 
against his life, is high treason with- l^l^l"Z'uey^^' 
in the statute, the Attorney General General. 
next supposes that traitoi-s had conspired to de- 
pose King William, but still to preserve him as 
Stadtholder in Holland, and asks whether that 
conspiracy would not be a compassing his death. 
To that question I answer, that it would not have 
been a compassing the death of King William, 
provided the conspirators could have convinced 
the jury that their firm and bona fide intention 
was to proceed no fm*ther, and that, under that 
belief and impression, the jury (as they lawfully 
might) had negatived, by their finding, the fact 
of the intention against the King's natural exist- 
ence. I have no doubt at all that, upon such a 
finding, no judgment of treason could be pro- 
nounced ; but the difficulty would be to meet with 
a jury who, upon the bare evidence of such a con- 
spiracy, would find such a verdict. There might 
be possible circumstances to justify such a nega- 
tive of the intention, but they must come from the 
prisoner. In such a case the Crown would rest 
upon the conspiracy to depose, which would be 
prima facie and cogent evidence of the compass- 
ing, and leave the hard task of rebutting it on the 
defendant — I say the hard task, because the case 
put is of a direct rebellious force, acting against 
the King ; not only abrogating his authority, but 
imprisoning, and expelling his person from the 
kingdom. I am not seeking to abuse the reasons 
and consciences of juries in the examination of 
facts, but am only resisting the confounding them 
with arbitrary propositions of law. 

Gentlemen, I hope I have now a right to con- 
sider that the existence of high treason summing up 
-charged against the unfortunate man °'"""s>'ead. 
before you, is a matter of fact for your consider- 
ation upon the evidence. To establish this point 
has been the scope of all that you have been list- 
ening to with so much indulgence and patience. 
It was my intention to have further supported 
myself by a great many authorities, which I have 
been laboriously extracting from the different 
books of the law ; but I find I must pause here, 
lest I consume my strength in this preliminary 
pait of the case, and leave the rest defective. 

Gentlemen, the persons named in the indict- 
ment are charged with a conspiracy to p,„.^ second.- 
subvert the rule, order, and govern- f "i>? <-i"se of 

' ' . . . ^ tills [irosecu- 



ment of this country ; and it is materi- tio... -Hbrts i 
al that you should observe most partic- rl!^^'m"m pariia- 
ularly the means by which it alleges '"'"" 
this purpose was to be accomplished. Thr charge 



732 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1791 



is not of a conspiracy to hold the convention in 
Scotland, which was actually held there ; nor of 
the part they took in its actual proceedings ; but 
the overt act, to which all the others are subsid- 
iary and subordinate, is a supposed conspiracy to 
^ „ ^ hold a convention in England, which 

Call of a con- i i i V^ 

▼ention ror this ncvcr in fact was held. Consequent- 
purpose, j^^^ ^jj ^j^^ ^^^^ j^^^ ^|. matter which 

it has been decided you should hear, that does 
not immediately connect itself with the charge in 
question, is only laid before you — as the court 
has repeatedly expressed it — to prove that, in 
point of fact, such proceedings were had, the 
quality of which is for your judgment.^'* So far, 
and so far only, as they can be connected with 
the prisoner, and the act which he stands charged 
with, are they left to you, as evidence of the in- 
tention with which the holding of the second 
convention [that in England] was projected. 

This intention is, therefore, the whole cause. 
The charge is not the agreement to hold a con- 
vention — which it is notorious, self-evident, and 
even admitted that they intended to hold — but 
the agreement to hold it for the purpose alleged, 
of assuming all the authority of the state, and in 
fulfillment of the main intention against the life 
of the King. Unless, therefore, you can collect 
this double intention from the evidence before you, 
the indictment is not maintained. 

Gentlemen, the charge being of a conspiracy, 
The acts charged which, if made out in point of fact, 
were'^nnfcotert iuvolvcd beyond all controversy, and 
or concealed but within thc Certain knowledge of the 

open to the w hole _ _ ^ 

world. conspirators, the lives of every soul 

that was engaged in it; the first observation 
which I shall make to you (because in reason it 
ought to precede all others) is, that every act 
done by the prisoners, and every sentence written 
by them, in the remotest degree connected with 
the charge, or offered in evidence to support it, 
were done and written in the public face of the 
world. The transactions which constitute the 
whole body of the proof, were not those of a day, 
but in regular series for two years together. 
They were not the peculiar transaction of the 
prisoners, but of immense bodies of the King's 
subjects, in various parts of the kingdom, assem- 
bled without the smallest reserve, and giving to 
the public, through the channel of the daily news- 
papers, a minute and regular journal of their 
whole proceedings. Not a syllable have we 
heard read, in the week's imprisonment we have 
suffered, that we had not all of us read for months 
and months before the prosecution was heard of; 
and which, if we are not sufficiently satiated, we 
may read again upon the file of every coffee-house 
in the kingdom. It is admitted distinctly by the 
Crown, that a reform in the House of Commons 
is the ostensible purpose of all the pi'ocecdings 
laid before you, and that the attainment of that 



2* In other words, the court had admitted the ev- 
idence as to the Scottish convention (which occu- 
pied so much time, as the reader will see hereafter), 
merely as showing that the prisoners were previ- 
ously in a state of mind which mii,dit lead to treason 
in the proposed English convention. 



object only is the grammatical sense of (he great 
body of the written evidence. It rests, therefore, 
with the Crown, to show by legal proof that this ! 

ostensible purpose, and the whole mass of corre- | 

spondence upon the table, was only a cloak to con- | 

ceal a hidden machination, to subvert by force the 
entire authorities of the kingdom, and to assume 
them to themselves. Whether a reform of Par- 
liament be a wise or an unwise expedient ; wheth- 
er, if it were accomplished, it would ultimately 
be attended with benefits, or dangers, to the 
country, I will not undertake to investigate, and 
for this plain reason, because it is wholly foreign 
to the subject before us. But when we are try- 
ing the integrity of men's intentions, and are ex- 
amining whether their complaints of defects in 
the representation of the House of Commons be 
bona fide, or only a mere stalking-horse for trea- 
son and rebellion, it becomes a most essential in- 
quiry, whether they be the first who have ut- 
tered these complaints — whether they have tak- 
en up notions for the first time, which never oc- 
curred to others; and whether, in The plan.. fnariia- 
seeking to interfere practically in an "o mn^^it^, buT 
alteration of the Constitution, they f^'"<'ii';"^>"'by the 

' J highest names of 

have manifested, b}' the novelty of the country. 
their conduct, a spirit inconsistent with aflection 
for the government, and subversive of its author- 
ity. Gentlemen, I confess for one (for I think 
the safest way of defending a person for his life 
before an enlightened tribunal, is to defend him 
ingenuously), I confess for one, that if the defects 
in the Constitution of Parliament, which are the 
subject of the writings, and the foundation of all 
the proceedings before you, had never occurred 
to other persons at other times, or, if not new, 
they had only existed in the history of former 
conspiracies, I should be afraid you would sus- 
pect, at least, that the authors of them were plot- 
ters of mischief. In such a case I should nat- 
urally expect that you would ask yourselves this 
question — Why should it occur to the prisoner at 
the bar, and to a few others, in the year 1794, 
immediately after an important revolution in an- 
other country, to find fault, on a sudden, with a 
Constitution which had endured for ages, without 
the imputation of defect, and which no good sub- 
ject had ever thought of touching with the busy 
hand of reformation ? I candidly admit that such 
a question would occur to the mind of every rea- 
sonable man, and could admit no favorable an- 
swer. But surely this admission entitles me, on 
the other hand, to the concession, that if, in com- 
paring their writings, and examining their con- 
duct with the writings and conduct of the best 
and most unsuspected persons in the best and 
most unsuspected times, we find them treading 
in the paths which have distinguished their high- 
est superiors ; if we find them only exposing the 
same defects, and pursuing the same or similar 
courses for their removal — it would be the height 
of wickedness and injustice to torture expres- 
sions, and pervert conduct into treason and re- 
bellion, which had recently lifted up others to the 
love of the nation, to the confidence of the Sov- 
ereiirn, and to all the honors of the state. The 



1794] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



733 



natural justness of this reasoning is so obvious, 
that we have only to examine into the fact. Con- 
.sidering, then, under what auspices the prisoners 
are brought before you, it may be fit that I should 
set out with reminding you that the great Earl 
of Chatham began and established the fame and 
glory of his life upon the very causc'^^ which my 
unfortunate clients were engaged in, and that he 
left it as an inheritance to the present minister 
of the Crown, as the foundation of his fame and 
glory after him.-'' His fame and glory were, ac- 
cordingly, raised upon it, and if the Crown's evi- 
dence had been carried as far back as it might 
have been (for the institution of only one of the 
two London Societies is before us), you would 
have found that the Constitutional Society owed 
its earliest credit with the country, if not its vejjj^ 
birth, to the labor of the present minister,"'^ and 
its professed principles to his ^^ce the Duke of 
Richmond, high also in his Majesty's present' 
councils,^'^ whose plan of reform has been clear- 
ly established by the whole body of the written 
evidence, and by every witness examined for the 
Crown, to have been the type and model of all 
the societies in the supposed conspiracy, and 
uniformly acted upon in form and in substance 
by the prisoner before you, up to the very period 
of his confinement. 

Gentlemen, the Duke of Richmond's plan was 
_. , ,. „, , universal suffi-afje and annual Parlia- 

Duke of Rich- » 

mond'sphinof ments : and urged, too, with a bold- 
reform. . • 1 . ^1 

ness which, when the comparison 

comes to be made, will leave in the back-ground 
the strongest figures in the writings on the table. 
I do not say this sarcastically. I mean to speak 
with the greatest respect of his Grace, both v/ith 
regard to the wisdom and integrity of his con- 
duet ; for although I have always thought in pol- 
itics with the illustrious person [Mr. Fox] whose 
letter was read to you, although I think with Mr. 
Fox that annual Parliaments and universal suf- 
frage would be nothing like an improvement in 
the Constitution ; yet I confess that I find it easi- 
er to say so than to answer the Duke of Rich- 
mond's arguments on the subject. I must say, 
also, speaking of his Grace from a long personal 
knowledge, which began when I was counsel for 
his relation. Lord Keppel,-^ that, independently 
of his illustrious rank, which secures him against 
the imputation of trifling wuth its existence, he is 
a person of an enlarged understanding, of extens- 
ive reading, and of much reflection. His book 
can not, therefore, be considered as the eflusion 
of rashness and folly, but as the well-weighed. 



-^ See remarks of Lord Chatham, page 105, on the 
necessity of jjarliamentary reform. 

^^ Mr. Pitt, who, on bis first entry on political life, 
strenuously advocated parliamentary reform. 

2^ See note in trial of Frost, page 700. 

2^ Master General of the Ordnance. 

29 In the early part of the year 1779, Mr. Erskine 
appeared as counsel for Admiral Keppel, who was 
tried by a court-martial on charges preferred against 
him by Sir Hugh Palliser, respecting his conduct in 
the partial and unsatisfactory action witli the Fi'ench 
fleet ofFUshant, and honorably acquitted. 



though perhaps erroneous, conclusions drawn 
from the actual condition of our affairs, namely, 
that without a speedy and essential reform in 
Parliament (and there my opinion goes alonor 
with him) the very being of the country, as a 
great nation, would be lost. This plan of the 
Duke of Richmond was the grand main-spring of 
every proceeding we have. to deal with. You 
have had a great number of loose conversations 
reported from societies, on which no reliance can 
be had. Sometimes they have been garbled by 
spies, sometimes misre[)rescnted by ignorance ; 
and even, if correct, have frequently been the 
extravagances of unknown individuals, not even 
uttered in the presence of the prisoner, and to- 
tally unconnected with any design. For when- 
ever their proceedings are appealed to, and their 
real object examined by living members of them, 
•brought before you by the Crown, to testify them 
under the most solemn obligations of truth, they 
appear to have been following, in form and in 
substance, the plans adopted within our memo- 
ries, not only by the Duke of Richmond, but by 
hundreds of the most eminent men in the king- 
dom. 

The Duke of Richmond formally published his 
plan of reform in the year 1780, in influence <.f the 
a letter to Lieutenant Colonel Shar- pond's" views" 
man,''o who w^as at that time practi- "P"" ^reUad. 
cally employed upon the same object in Ireland. 
This is a most material part of the case, because 
you are desired to believe that the terms Con- 
vention and Delegates, and the holding the 
one, and sending the other, were all collected 
from what had recently happened in France, and 
were meant as the formal introduction of her re- 
publican Constitution. But they who desire you 
to believe all this, do not believe it themselves ; 
because they know certainly — and it has, indeed, 
already been proved by their own witnesses — 
that conventions of reformers were held in Ire- 
land, and delegates regularly sent to them, while 
France was under the dominion of her ancient 
government. They knew full well that Colonel 
Sharman, to whom the Duke's letter was ad- 
dressed, was, at that very moment, supporting a 
convention in Ireland, at the head often thousand 
men in arms, for the defense of their country, 
without any commission from the King any more 
than poor Franklow had, who is now in Newgate 
for regimenting sixty. These volunteers assert- 
ed and saved the liberties of Ireland ; and the 
King would, at this day, have had no more sub- 
jects in Ireland than he now has in America, if 
they had been treated as traitors to the govern- 
ment. It was never imputed to Colonel Sliar- 
man and the volunteers that they were in rebell- 
ion. Yet they had arras in their hands, which 

^° In this letter, and also in an address to the coun- 
ty of Sussex, the Duke asserted that it was vain for 
the people to look to the House of Commons for re- 
dress ; that they could find it only in themselves-, 
that they ought to assert their right, and not to de- 
sist till they should have established a House of 
Commons truly representing every man in the king- 
dom. 



734 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



the prisoners never dreamed of having ; while a 
grand fjeneral convention was actually sitting 
under their auspices at the Royal Exchange of 
Dublin, attended by regular delegates from all 
the counties in Ireland.^^ And who were these 
delegates ? I will presently tear off their names 
from this paper, and hand it to you. They were 
the greatest, the best, and proudest names in Ire- 
land ; men who had the wisdom to I'eflect (before 
it was too late for reflection) that greatness is not 
to be supported by tilting at inferiors, till, by the 
separation of the higher from the lower orders 
of mankind, every distinction is swept away in 
the tempest of revolution ; but in the happy har- 
monization of the whole community — by confer- 
ring upon the people their rights — sure of re- 
ceiving the auspicious return of^^Qgction, and of, 
insuring the stability of the government, whic 
is erected upon that just and natural basis. Gen-' 
tlemen, they who put this tortured construction 
on conventions and delegates, know also that re- 
peated meetings of reforming societies, both in 
England and Scotland, had assumed about the 
same time the style of conventions, and had been 
attended by regular delegates, long before the 
phrase had, or could have, any existence in 
France ; and that upon the very model of these 
former associations a formal convention was act- 
ually sitting at Edinburgh, with the Lord Chief 
Baron of Scotland in the chair, for promoting a 
reform in Parliament, at the very moment the 
Scotch convention, following its example, as- 
sumed that title. 

To return to this letter of the Duke of Rich- 
mond : It was written to Colonel Sharman, in an- 
swer to a letter to his Grace, desiring to know his 
plan of reform, which he accordingly communi- 
cated by the letter which is in evidence. This 
plan was neither more nor less than that adopted 
by the prisoners, of surrounding Parliament (un- 
willing to reform its own corruptions), not by 
armed men, or by importunate multitudes, but 
by the still and universal voice of a whole peo- 
ple claiming their known and unalienable rights. 
This is so precisely the plan of the Duke of Rich- 
mond, that I have almost borrowed his expres- 
sions. His Grace says. " The lesser reform has 
been attempted with every possible advantage in 
its favor ; not only from the zealous support of 
the advocates for a more eff^ectual one, but from 
the assistance of men of great weight, both in and 
out of power. But with all these temperaments 
and helps, it has failed. Not one proselyte has 
been gained from corruption, nor has the least 
ray of hope been held out from any quarter that 
the House of Commons was inclined to adopt any 
other mode of reform. The weight of corruption 
has crushed this more gentle, as it would have 
defeated any more efficacious plan in the same 
circumstances. From that quarter, therefore, I 
have nothing to hope. It is from the people 

AT LARGE THAT I EXPECT ANY GOOD ; and I am 



^' The orig-in and history of the volunteer forces 
in Ireland has already been stated. See page 296. 
At a later period, a national convention was held at 
Dublin under their auspices. 



convinced that the only way to make them feel 
that they are really concerned in the business is 
to contend for their full, clear, and indisputable 
rights of universal representation." Now. how 
does this doctrine apply to the defense of the 
prisoner? I maintain that it has the most de- 
cisive application ; because this book has been 
put into the hands of the Crown witnesses, who 
have one and all of them recognized it, and de- 
clared it to have been, boyia fide, the plan which 
they pursued. 

But are the Crown's witnesses worthy of cred- 
it? If they are not, let us return ^,u,,e witnesses 
home, since there is no evidence at ofti.ecrown 

nil • A 11 1 prove that the 

all, and the cause is over. All the accused acted on 
guilt, if any there be, proceeds from tiie Duke^oF °^ 
'U 4^eir testimony. If they are not to i^'c'""°"'i- 
It M5e believed, they have proved nothing ; sincejbe 
Cr^wn can. no^ |||M<ie/.upon you that part of the 
^evidence whicli suits its purpose, and ask you to 
reject the other which does not. The witnesses 
are either entirely credible, or undeserving of all 
credit, and I have no interest in the alternative. 
This is precisely the state of the cause. For, 
with regard to all the evidence that is written, 
let it never be forgotten, that it is not upon me 
to defend my clients against it, but for the Crown 
to exti'act fi'om it the materials of accusation. 
They:.do not contend that the treason is upon the 
surface of it, but in the latent intention ; which 
intention must, therefore, be supported by ex- 
trinsic proof; but which is, nevertheless, directly 
negatived and beat down by every witness they 
have called, leaving them nothing but comment- 
aries and criticisms against both fact and lan- 
guage, to which, for the present, I shall content 
myself with replying in the authoritative lan- 
guage of the court, in the earliest stage of their 
proceedings. [Charge of Chief Justice Eyre to 
the grand jury.] 

" If there be ground to consider the professed 
purpose of any of these associations ji,isisnotto 
(a reform in Parliament) as mere be treated as a 

, , 111- '"^'■'^ pretext, 

color, and as a pretext held out m without deci 
order to cover deeper designs — de- ^'^^ ^™° " 
signs against the whole Constitution and gov- 
ernment of the country — the case of those em- 
barked in such designs is that which I have al- 
ready considered. Whether this be so or not, is 
mere matter of fact ; as to which I shall only 
remind you, that an inquiry into a charge of this 
nature, which undertakes to make out that the 
ostensible purpose is a mere vail, under which is 
concealed a traitorous conspiracy, requires cool 
and deliberate examination, and the most atten- 
tive consideration ; and that the result should bo 
perfectly clear and satisfactory. In the affairs 
of common life, no man is justified in imputing 
to another a meaning contrary to what he him- 
self expresses, but upon the fullest evidence." 
To this (though it requires nothing to support 
it, either in reason or authority) I desire to add 
the direction of Lord Chief Justice Holt to the 
jury, on the trial of Sir William Perkyns i^ 



Sir "Willi am Perkyns was a violent Jacobite, 



1794.] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



735 



" Gentlemen, it is not fit that there should be 
any strained or forced construction put upon a 
man's actions when he is tried for his life. You 
ought to have a full and satisfactory evidence 
that he is guilty, before you pronounce him so." 

In this assimilation of the writings of the so- 
cieties to the writings of the Duke of Richmond 
and others, I do not forget that it has been truly 
said by the Lord Chief Justice, in the coiu'se of 
this very cause, that ten or twenty men's com- 
mitting crimes furnishes no defense for other 
men in committing them. Certainly it does not, 
and 1 fly to no such sanctuary. But in trying 
the prisoner's intentions, and the intentions of 
those with whom he associated and acted, if I can 
show them to be only insisting upon the same 
principles that have distinguished the most emi- 
nent men for wisdom and virtue in the country, it 
will not be very easy to declaim or argue them 
into the pains of death, while our bosoms are 
y, > glowing wnth admiration at the woi'ks of those 
very persons [Burke, &c.] who would condemn 
them. 

Gentlemen, it has been too much the fashion 
Mr. Burke's of latc to ovcrlook the genuine source 
rngThe"' Hou'se of all human authority, but more es- 
ofcommons. pecially totally to forget the charac- 
ter of the British House of Commons as a rep- 
resentative of the people. Whether this has 
arisen from that Assembly's having itself forgot- 
ten it, would be indecent for me to inquire into 
or to insinuate. But I .shall preface the author- 
ities which I mean to collect in support of the 
prisoner, w^ith the opinion on that subject of a 
truly celebrated writer,^-^ whom I wish to speak 
of with great respect ; I should, indeed, be 
ashamed, particularly at this moment, to name 
him invidiously, while he is bending beneath the 
pressure of a domestic misfortune, which no man 
out of his own family laments more .sincerely 
than I do. No difference of opinion can ever 
make me forget to acknowledge the sublimity 
of his genius, the vast reach of his understanding, 
and his universal acquaintance with the histories 
and constitutions of nations. I also disavow the 
introduction of these writings, with the view of 
involving the author in any apparent inconsisten- 
cies, which would tend, indeed, to defeat rather 
than to advance my purpose. I stand here to- 
day to claim at your hands a fair and charitable 
interpretation of human conduct, and I shall not 
set out with giving an example of uncharitable- 
ness. A man may have reason to change his 
opinions, or perhaps the defect may be in myself, 
who collect that they are changed. I leave it to 
God to judge of the heart — my wish is that 
Christian charity may prevail — that the public 



and a party not only in the conspiracy for the res- 
toration of James, mentioned a?Ue, p. 728, note, but 
also in a plot for the assassination of King William, 
j on the road between Richmond and Turnliara Green. 
The plot was discovered through some of the under- 
lings, who were to aid in the attempt on the King's 
life, and Sir William Perkyns was tried for treason, 
and executed at Tyburn. 

33 Mr. Burke, whose sou was at the point of death. 



harmony, w^hich has been lost, may be restored — 
that all England may reunite in the bonds of 
love and affection — and that, when the court is 
broken up by the acquittal of the prisoners, all 
heart-burnings and animosities may cease ; that, 
while yet we work in the light, we may try how 
we can save our country by a common effort ; 
and that, instead of shamelessly setting one half 
of society against the other by the force of armed 
associations and the terrors of courts of justice, 
our spirits and our strength may be combined in 
the glorious cause of our country. By this, I do 
not mean in the cause of the present war,''^ which 
I protest against as unjust, calamitous, and de- 
structive ; but this is not the place for such a 
subject — I only advert to it to prevent mistake 
or misrepresentation. 

The history and character of the English House 
of Commons was formerly thus described by Mr. 
Burke : " The House of Commons was supposed 
originally to be no part of the standing govern- 
ment of this country, but was considered as a con- 
trol issuing immediately from the people, and 
speedily to be resolved into the mass from whence 
it arose : in this respect it was in the higher part 
of government what juries are in the lower. 
The capacity of a magistrate being transitory, 
and that of a citizen permanent, the latter capac- 
ity, it was hoped, would, of course, preponderate 
in all discussions, not only between the people 
and the standing authority of the Crown, but be- 
tween the people and the fleeting authority of the 
House of Commons itself. It was hoped that, 
being of a middle nature, between subject and 
government, they would feel, with a more tender 
and a nearer interest, every thing that concerned 
the people, than the other remoter and more per- 
manent parts of Legislature. 

" Whatever alterations time and the necessary 
accommodation of business may have introduced, 
this character can never be sustained, unless the 
House of Commons shall be made to bear some 
stamp of the actual disposition of the people at 
large ; it would (among public misfortunes) be an 
evil more natural and tolerable, that the House 
of Commons should be infected with every epi- 
demical frenzy of the people, as this would indi- 
cate some consanguinity, some sympathy of na- 
ture with their constituents, than that they should, 
in all cases, be wholly untouched by the opinions 
and feelings of the people out of doors. By this 
want of sympathy they would cease to be a House 
of Commons. 

" The virtue, spirit, and essence of a Hou.se 
of Commons consists in its being the express im- 
age of the feelings of the nation. It was not in- 
stituted to be a control upon the people, as of late 
it has been taught, by a doctrine of the most per- 
nicious tendency, but as a control /or the people." 

He then goes on to say, that to give a technic- 
al shape, a color, dress, and duration Actual ronsU- 
to popular opinion, is the true office H!^,'""e"o/corn. 
of a House of Commons. Mr. Burke "'""^■ 
is unquestionably correct. The control upon the 

3t The war vi^ith France consequent on the execu- 
tion of Louis XVI. 



736 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



people ii? the King's majesty, and the hereditary 
privileges of the Peers ; the balance of the State 
is the control for the people upon both, in the 
existence of the House of Commons. But how 
can that control exist /or the people, unless they 
have the actual election of the House of Com- 
mons, which, it is most notorious, they have not ? 
I hold in my hand a state of the representation 
which, if the thing were not otherwise notorious, 
I would prove to have been lately offered in pi'oof 
to the House of Commons, by an honorable friend 
of mine now present,^"' whose motion I had the 
honor to second, where it appeared that twelve 
thousand people return near a majority of the 
House of Commons, and those, again, under the 
control of about two hundred. But though these 
facts were admitted, all redress, and even dis- 
cussion, was refused. What ought to be said of 
a House of Commons that so conducts itself, it is 
not for me to pronounce. I will appeal, there- 
fore, to Mr. Burke, who says, " that a House of 
Commons, which in all disputes between the peo- 
ple and administration presumes against the peo- 
ple, which punishes their disorders, but refuses 
even to inquire into their provocations, is an un- 
natural^ monstrous state of things in the Consti- 
tution." 

But this is nothing. Mr. Burke goes on aft- 
erward to give a more full description 

Still stronger » » 

language of of Parliament, and in stronger language 
{let the Solicitor GeneraP'' take it down 
for his reply) than any that has been employed 
by those who are to be tried at present as con- 
spirators against its existence. I read the pas- 
sage, to warn you against considering hard words 
against the House of Commons as decisive evi- 
dence of treason against the King. The passage 
is in a well-known work, called " Thoughts on 
the Causes of the present Discontents ;" and such 
discontents will always be present while their 
causes continue. The word present will apply 
just as well now, and much better than to the 
time [1770] when the honorable gentleman wrote 
his book ; for we are now in the heart and bow- 
els of another war, and groaning under its addi- 
tional burdens. I shall, therefore, leave it to the 
learned gentleman who is to repl}', to show us 
what has happened since our author wrote, which 
renders the Parliament less liable to the same ob- 
servations now. 

" It must be always the wish of an unconsti- 
tutional statesman, that a House of Commons, 
who are entirely dependent upon him, should have 
every right of the people entirely dependent upon 
their pleasure. For it was soon discovered that 
the forms of a free, and the ends of an arbitrary 
government, were things not altogether incom- 
patible. 

" The power of the Crown, almost dead and 
rotten as prerogative, has grown up anew, with 



3= Mr. (afterward Lord) Grey, who brought for- 
ward a motion for reform, in the session of 1792, 
m consequence of the resolution of the Society of 
Friends of the People, of which he and Mr. Erskine 
were members. 

•"' '='ii- .lolm Mitford, afterward Lord Redesdale. 



much more strength and far less odium, under 
the name of influence. This influence, which op- 
erated without noise and violence ; which con- 
verted the very antagonist into the instrument 
of power ; which contained in itself a perpetual 
principle of growth and renovation; and which 
the distresses and the prosperity of the country 
equally tended to augment, was an admirable sub- 
stitute for a prerogative which, being only the 
offspring of antiquated prejudices, had molded 
in its original stamina irresistible principles of 
decay and dissolution." 

What is this but saying that the House of 
Commons is a settled and scandalous abuse fast- 
ened upon the people, instead of being an antag- 
onist power for their protection ; an odious in- 
strument of power in the hands of the Crown, 
instead of a popular balance against it ? Did 
Mr. Burke mean that the prerogative of the 
Crown, properly understood and exercised, was 
an antiquated prejudice? Certainly not, because 
his attachment to a properly balanced monarchy 
is notorious. Why, then, is it to be fastened upon 
the prisoners, that they stigmatize monarchy, 
when they also exclaim only against its corrup- 
tions ? In the same manner, when he speaks of 
the abuses of Parliament., would it be fair to Mr. 
Burke to argue, from the strict legal meaning of 
the expression, that he included, in the censure 
on Parliament, the King's person, or majesty, 
which is part of the Parliament ? In examining 
the work of an author you must collect the sense 
of his expressions from the subject he is discuss- 
ing ; and if he is writing of the House of Com- 
mons as it affects the structure and efficacy of 
the government, you ought to understand the 
w^ord Parliament so as to meet the sense and ob- 
vious meaning of the writer. Why, then, is this 
common justice refused to others ? Why is the 
word Parliament to be taken in its strictest and 
least obvious sense against a poor shoemaker 
[Hardy], or any plain tradesman at a Sheffield 
club, while it is interpreted in its popular, though 
less correct acceptation, in the works of the 
most distinguished scholar of the age ? Add to 
this, that the cases are not at all similar. Mr. 
Burke uses the word Parliament throughout, 
when he is speaking of the House of Commons, 
without any concomitant words which convc}' an 
explanation, but the sense of his subject ; where- 
as Parliament is fastened upon the prisoner as 
meaning something beyond the House of Com- 
mons, M'hen it can have no possible meaning be- 
yond it ; since from the beginning to the end it 
is joined with the words " representation of the 
people" — "the representation of the people in 
Parliament." Does not this most palpably mean 
the House of Commons, when we know that the 
people have no representation in either of the 
other branches of the government. 

A letter has been read in evidence from ]Mr. 
Hardy to Mr. Fox, where he says Evidence that 

,,.•',., .' , •'^ Mr. Fox, Lord 

their object was universal represent- orev, .ind oth 

ation. Did Mr. Fox suppose, when siaer'th'e'I.ris" 

he received this letter, that it was """'^l^nW"^: 

from a nest of republicans, clamoring government. 



1794.] 

publicly for a universal representative Constitu- 
tion like that of France ? If he had, would he 
have sent the answer he did, and agreed to pre- 
sent their petition ? They wrote also to the So- 
ciety of the Friends of the People, and invited 
them to send delegates to the convention.'''' The 
Attorney General, who has made honorable and 
candid mention of that body, will not suppose that 
it would have contented itself with refusing the 
invitation in terms of cordiality and regard, if, 
with all the knowledge they had of their transac- 
tions, they had conceived themselves to have been 
invited to the formation of a body which was to 
overrule and extinguish all the authorities of the 
state. Yet, upon the perversion of these two 
terms, Parliament and Convention, against their 
natural interpretation, against a similar use of 
them by others, and against the solemn explana- 
tion of them by the Crov/n's own witness, this 
whole fabric of terror and accusation stands for 
its support. Letters, it seems, written to other 
people, are to be better understood by the gen- 
tlemen round this table, who never saw them till 
months after they were written, than by those to 
whom they were addressed and sent ; and no 
right interpretation, forsooth, is to be expected 
from writings when piu'sued in their regular se- 
ries, but they are to be made distinct by binding 
them up in a large volume, alongside of others 
totally unconnected with them, and the very ex- 
istence of whose authors was unknown to one 
another. 

I will now, gentlemen, resume the reading of 
Other language another part of Mr. Burke, and a pret- 
of Mr. Burke' ^y account it is of this same Parlia- 
ment : " They who will not conform their con- 
duct to the public good, and can not support it 
by the prerogative of the Crown, have adopted 
a new plan. They have totally abandoned the 
shattered and old-fashioned fortress of preroga- 
tive, and made a lodgment in the strong-hold of 
Parliament itself. If they have any evil design 
to which there is no ordinary legal power com- 
mensurate, they bring it into Parliament. There 
the whole is executed from the beginning to the 
end ; and the power of obtaining their object ab- 
solute, and the safety in the proceeding perfect; 
no rules to confine, nor after-reckonings to terri- 
fy. For Parliament can not, with any great pro- 
priety, punish others for things in which they 
themselves have been accomplices. Thus its 
control upon the executory power is lost." 

This is a proposition universal. It is not that 
the popular control was lost under this or that 
administration, but generally that the people have 
no control in the House of Commons. Let any 
man stand up and say that he disbelieves this to 
be the case ; I believe he would find nobody to 
believe him. Mr. Burke pursues the subject 
thus : " The distempers of monarchy were the 
great subjects of apprehension and redress in the 
last century — in this, the distempers of Parlia- 

^■' This society was composed of some of the first 
nobility and gentry of the kingdom — such as Lord 
Grey, Lord John Russell, &c. 
A A A 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



737 



ment.*' Here the word Parliament and the 
abuses belonging to it are put in express oppo- 
sition to the monarchy, and can not, therefore, 
comprehend it ; the distempers of Parliament, 
then, arc objects of serious apprehension and re- 
dress. What distempers ? Not of this or that 
year, but the habitual distempers of Parliament. 
And then follows the nature of the remedy, 
which shows that the prisoners are not singular 
in thinking that it is by the voice of the teg- 
PLE ONLY that Parliament can be corrected. "It 
is not in Parliament alone," says Mr. Burke, 
'■ that the remedy for parliamentary disorders 
can be completed ; and hardly, indeed, can it be- 
gin there. Until a confidence in government is 
re-established, the people ought to be excited to 
a more strict and detailed attention to the con- 
duct of their representatives. Standards forjudg- 
ing more systematically upon their conduct ought 
to be settled in the meetings of counties and cor- 
porations, and frequent and correct lists of the 
voters in all important questions ought to be pro- 
cured. By such means something may be done." 
It was the same sense of the impossibility of a 
reform in Parliament, without a general expres- 
sion of the wishes of the people, that dictated the 
Duke of Richmond's letter : all the petitions in 
1780'^^ had been rejected by Parliament. This 
made the Duke of Richmond exclaim, that from 
that quarter no redress was to be expected, and 
that from the people alone he expected any good ; 
and he, therefore, expressly invited them to claim 
and to assert an equal representation as their in- 
dubitable and unalienable birth-right — how to as- 
sert their rights, when Parliament had already re- 
fused them without even the hope, as the Duke ex- 
pressed it, of listening to them any more. Could 
the people's rights, under such circumstances, 
be asserted without rebellion ? Certainly they 
might ; for rebellion is, when bands of men with- 
in a state oppose themselves by violence to the 
general will, as expressed or implied by the pub- 
lic authority ; but the sense of a whole people, 
peaceably collected, and operating by its natural 
and certain effect upon the public councils, i.s not 
rebellion, but is paramount to, and the parent of, 
authority itself. 

Gentlemen, I am neither vindicating nor speak- 
ing the language of inflammation or The true rem- 
discontent. I shall speak nothing that tent iTtoac"" 
can disturb the order of the state— I Hgi.I^'olnhe''^ 
am full of devotion to its dignity and P^'i'is- 
tranquillity, and would not lor worlds let fall an 
expression in this or in any other place that could 
lead to disturbance or disorder. But for that very 
reason I speak with firmness of the rights of 
THE people, and am anxious for the redress of 
their complaints, because I believe a system of 
attention to them to be a far better security and 
establishment of every part of the government, 
than those that are employed to preserve them. 



''^ In that year Parliament was overwhelmed with 
innumerable petitions on the subject of tlie increas- 
ing influence of the Crown, the abuse of prerogative 
and the rights of the people. 



738 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



The state and government of a country rest for 
their support on the great body of the people ; 
and I hope never to hear it repeated in any court 
of justice, that peaceably to convene the people 
upon the subject of their own privileges can lead 
to the destruction of the King — they are the 
King's worst enemies who hold this language. 
It is a most dangerous principle that the Crown 
is in jeopardy if the people are acquainted with 
their rights, and that the collecting them togeth- 
er, to consider of them, leads inevitably to the 
destruction of the Sovereign. Do these gentle- 
men mean to say that the King sits upon his 
throne without the consent, and in defiance of 
the wishes, of the great body of his people, and 
that he is kept upon it by a few individuals who 
call themselves his friends, in exclusion of the 
rest of his subjects ? Has the King's inherit- 
ance no deeper or wider roots than this ? Yes, 
gentlemen, it has — it stands upon the love of the 
people, who consider their own inheritance to be 
supported by the King's constitutional authority. 
This is the true prop of the Throne ; and the love 
of every people upon earth will forever uphold a 
government founded, as ours is, upon reason and 
consent, as long as government shall be itself 
attentive to the general interests which are the 
foundations and the ends of all human authority. 
Let us banish, then, these unworthy and impol- 
itic fears of an unrestrained and an enlightened 
people ; let us not tremble at the rights of man, 
but, by giving to men their rights, secure their 
affections ; and, through their affections, their 
obedience. Let us not broach the dangerous 
doctrine that the rights of Kings and of men are 
incompatible. Our government at the Revolu- 
tion began upon their harmonious incorporation ; 
and Mr. Locke defended King William's title 
upon no other principle than the rights of man. 
It is from the revered work of Mr. Locke, and 
not from the Revolution in France, that one of 
the papers in the evidence, the most stigmatized, 
most obviously flowed. For it is proved that Mr. 
Yorke held in his hand Mr. Locke upon Govern- 
ment, when he delivered his speech on the Castle 
Hill at Sheffield,'^'^ and that he expatiated largely 
upon it. Well, indeed, might the w^itnesses say 
he expatiated largely, for there are many well- 
selected passages taken verbatim from the book ; 
and here, in justice to Mr. White,"*° let me notice 
the fair and honorable manner in which, in the 
absence of the clerk, he read this extraordinary 
performance. He delivered it not merely with 
distinctness, but in a manner so impressive, that 
I believe every man in court was affected by it. 
Gentlemen, I am not driven to defend every 
The language cxprcssion. Somc of thcui are im- 
'wHy^'io^eT^' pi'opci' undoubtcdl}', rash, and inflam- 
but neither la'n- matory ; but I scB nothiuo- in the 

guage nor acta , , , , vL • 

mdif-ate evil in- whoic takcu together, even it it were 

" '""*■ connected with the prisoner, that goes 

at all to an evil purpose in the writer. But Mr. 

33 Mr. Yorke was a member of the London Corre- 
Bpondiiig Society, and was appointed a delegate from 
that society to similar societies at Sheffield andotlier 
places. 40 The Solicitor to the Treasury. 



Attorney General has remarked upon this pro- 
ceeding at Sheffield (and whatever falls from a 
person of his rank and just estimation, deserves 
great attention) — he has remarked that it is quite 
apparent they had resolved not to petition. They 
had certainly resolved not at that season to peti- 
tion, and that seems the utmost which can be 
maintained from the evidence. But supposino- 
they had negatived the measure altogether, is 
there no way by which the people may actively 
associate for the purposes of a reform in Parlia- 
ment, but to consider of a petition to the House 
of Commons ? JNIight they not legally assemble 
to consider the state of their liberties, and the 
conduct of their representatives ? ]Might they 
not legally form conventions or meetings (for the 
name is just nothing) to adjust a plan of rational 
union for a wise choice of representatives when 
Parliament should be dissolved ? ]May not the 
people meet to consider their interests pi-epara- 
tory to, and independently of, a petition for any 
specific object ? My friend seems to consider 
the House of Commons as a substantive and per- 
manent pai-t of the Constitution. He seems to 
forget that the Parliament dies a natural death ; 
that the people then re-enter into their rights, and 
that the exercise of them is the most important 
duty that can belong to social man. How are 
such duties to be exercised with effect, on mo- 
mentous occasions, but by concert and commun- 
ion ? May not the people, assembled in their 
elective districts, resolve to trust no longer those 
by whom they have been betrayed ? May they 
not resolve to vote for no man who contributed 
by his voice to this calamitous war, which has 
thrown such grievous and unnecessary burdens 
upon them ? JMay they not say, " We will not 
vote for those who deny w^e are their constitu- 
ents, nor for those who question our clear and 
natural right to be equally represented?" Since 
it is illegal to carry up petitions, and unwise to 
transact any public business attended by multi- 
tudes, because it tends to tumult and disorder, 
may they not, for that very reason, depute, as 
they have done, the most trusty of their societies 
to meet with one another to consider, without the 
specific object of petitions, how they may claim, 
by means which are constitutional, their impre- 
scriptible rights ? 

And here I must advert to an argument em- 
ployed by the Attorney General, that Repiytothe 
the views of the societies toward uni- Attorney cen. 
versal suffrage carried in themselves ingu'niversaf 
(however sought to be effected) an *" "^""^^ 
implied force upon Parliament. For that, sup- 
posing by invading it with the vast pressure, not 
of the public arm, but of the public sentiment of 
the nation, the influence of which upon that as- 
sembly is admitted ought to be weighty, it could 
have prevailed upon the Commons to carry up a 
bill to the King for universal representation and 
annual Parliaments, his Majesty was bound to 
reject it ; and could not, without a breach of his 
coronation oath, consent to pass it into an act. I 
can not conceive where my friend met with this 
law, or what he can possibly mean by asserting 



1794.] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



r39 



that the King can not, consistently with his cor- 
onation oath, consent to any law that can be 
stated or imagined, presented to him as the act 
of the two Houses of Parliament. He could not, 
indeed, consent to a bill sent up to him framed 
by a convention of delegates assuming legislative 
functions. If my friend could have proved that 
the societies, sitting as a Parliament, had sent up 
such a bill to his Majesty, I should have thought 
the prisoner, as a member of such a Parliament, 
was at least in a different situation from that in 
which he stands at present. But as this is not 
one of the chimeras whose existence is contended 
for, I return back to ask upon what authority it 
is maintained, that universal representation and 
annual Parliaments could not be consented to by 
the King, in conformitj- to the wishes of the other 
branches of the Legislature. On the contrary, 
one of the greatest men that this country ever saw, 
considered universal representation to be such an 
inherent part of the Constitution, as that the King 
himself might grant it by his prerogative, even 
without the Lords and Common.s — and I had 
never heard the position denied upon any other 
footing than the Union with Scotland. But be 
that as it may, it is enough for my purpose that 
the maxim, that the King might grant universal 
representation, as a right befoi-e inherent in the 
whole people to be represented, stands upon the 
authority of Mr. Locke, the man, next to Sir 
Isaac Newton, of the greatest strength of under- 
standing that England, perhaps, ever had ; high, 
too, in the favor of King William, and enjoying 
one of the most exalted offices in the state.^^ 
Mr. Locke says, book ii., c. xiii., sect. 157 and 
158 : "'Things of this world are in so constant 
Views of a flux, that nothing remains long in the 
Mr. Locke, gai^g state. Thus people, riches, trade, 
power, change their stations, flourishing mighty 
cities come to ruin, and prove, in time, neglected 
desolate corners, while other unfrequented places 
grow into populous countries, filled with wealth 
and inhabitants. But things not always chang- 
ing equally, and private interest often keeping up 
customs and privileges, when the reasons of them 
are ceased, it often comes to pass, that in gov- 
ernments, where part of the legislative consists 
of representatives chosen by the people, that, in 
tract of time, this representation becomes very 
unequal and disproportionate to the reasons it was 
at first established upon. To what gross absurd- 
ities the following of custom, when reason has 
left it, may lead, we may be satisfied when we 
see the bare name of a town of which there re- 
mains not so much as the ruins, where scarce so 
much housing as a sheep-cote, or more inhabit- 
ants than a shepherd, is to be found, sends as 
many representatives to the grand assembly of 
law-makers, as a whole county, numerous in 
people and powerful in riehes.'*^ This strangers 

*i He was one of the Commissioners of Trade and 
Plantations. 

*2 Mr. Locke alluded to Old Sarum, in Wiltshire. 
in which a few fragments of foundation-walls are the j 
only traces of a town ever having- existed. It was 
totally deserted in the reign of Henry VIII. ; but yet, I 



stand amazed at, and every one must confess 
needs a remedy." 

'^Sahis populi suprema lex, is certainly so just 
and fundamental a rule, that he who sincerely 
follows it can not dangerously err. If, there- 
fore, the executive, who has the power of con- 
voking the legislative, observing rather the true 
proportion, than fa.shion of representation, regu- 
lates, not by old custom, hut by true reason, the 
number of members in all places that have a 
right to be distinctly represented, which no part 
of the people, however incorporated, can pretend 
to, but in proportion to the assistance which it 
affords to the public, it can not be judged to 
have set up a new legislative, but to have re- 
stored the old and true one, and to have rectified 
the disorders which succession of time had insens- 
ibly, as well as inevitably, introduced : for it be- 
ing the interest as well as intention of the people 
to have fair and equal representation, whoever 
brings it nearest to that, is an undoubted friend 
to, and establi.sher of, the government, and can 
not miss the consent and approbation of the com- 
munity ; prerogative being nothing but a power, 
in the hands of the Prince, to provide for the pub- 
lic good, in such cases, which, depending upon 
unforeseen and uncertain occurrences, certain 
and unalterable laws could not safely direct ; 
whatsoever shall be done manifestly for the good 
of the people, and the establishing the govern-- 
ment upon its true foundations, is, and always 
will be, ju.st prerogative. Whatsoever can not 
but be acknowledged to be of advantage to the 
society, and people in general, upon just and 
lasting measures, will always, when done, justify 
itself; and whenever the people shall choose their 
representatives upon just and undeniably equal 
measures, suitable to the original frame of the 
government, it can not be doubted to be the will 
and act of the society, whoever permitted or 
caused them so to do." But as the very idea of 
universal suffrage seems now to be considered 
not only to be dangerous to, but absolutely de- 
structive of, monarchy, you certainly ought to be 
reminded that the book which I have been read- 
ing, and which my friend kindly gives me a note 
to remind you of, was written by its immortal 
author in defense of King William's title to the 
Crown ; and when Dr. Sacheverel ventured to 
broach those doctrines of power and non-resist- 
ance, which, under the same establishments, have 
now become so unaccountably popular, he was 
impeached"*^ by the people's representatives for 
denying their rights, which had been asserted and 
established at the glorious era of the Revolution. 



up to the passing of the Reform Bill, in 1832, when 
the borough was disfranchised, Old Sarum was rep- 
resented in Parliament. 

*^ A. D. 1709. Being found guilty, he was prohib 
ited from preaching for three years, and his two ser 
mons. which had given so much offense, were ordered 
to be burned by the common hangman. The famous 
decree passed in the Convocation of the University 
of Oxford, asserting the absolute authority and in- 
defeasible right of princes, was also ordered to be, 
in like manner, committed to the flames. 



740 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



Gentlemen, if I were to go through all the 
Part Third: matter which I have collected upon 

^fX'evldence tllis SUbjCCt, Or which obtrudcS itSclf 

for the Crown, upon my mind, from common read- 
ing in a thousand directions, my strength would 
fail long before my duty was fulfilled. I had 
very little when I came into court, and I have 
abundantly less already ; I must, therefore, man- 
age what remains to the best advantage. I pro- 
ceed, therefore, to take a view of such parts of 
the evidence as appear to me to be the most ma- 
terial for the proper understanding of the case. I 
have had no opportunity of considering it, but in 
the interval which the indulgence of the court 
and your own has afforded me, and that has been 
for a very few hours this morning. But it oc- 
curred to me, that the best use I could make of 
the time given to me was, if possible, to disem- 
broil this chaos ; to throw out of view every 
thing irrelevant, which only tended to bring 
chaos back again: to take what remained in or- 
der of time ; to select certain stages and rest- 
ing-places ; to review the effect of the transac- 
tions, as brought before us, and then to see how 
the written evidence is explained by the testi- 
mony of the witnesses who have been examined. 
The origin of the Constitutional Society not 
(1 ) London h^^iug bccu laid in evidence before 
Co,res|...nd- you, thc first thing, both in point of 
date, and as applymg to show the ob- 
jects of the difTerent bodies, is the original ad- 
dress and resokition of the London Correspond- 
ing Society on its first institution, and when it 
first began to correspond with the other, which 
had formerly ranked among its members so 
many illustrious persons.'*^ Before we look to 
the matter of this [latter] institution, let us rec- 
ollect that the objects of it were given without 
reserve to the public, as containing the princi- 
ples of the [former] association. And I may be- 
gin with demanding, whether the annals of this 
country, or, indeed, the universal history of man- 
kind, afibrd an assistance of a plot and conspiracy 
voluntarily given up in its very infancy to gov- 
ernment, and the whole public; and of which — to 
avoid the very thing that has happened, the ar- 
raignment of conduct at a future period, and the 
imputation of secrecy where no secret was in- 
tended — a regular notice by letter was left with 
the Secretary of State, and a receipt taken at the 

** Previous to the formation of the London Cor- 
responding Society, there existed another called the 
Society for Constitutional Information. This was 
founded by some of the most distinguished Wliigs 
of the kingdom. Soon after the commencement of 
the French Revolution, it was joined by Home 
Tooke and others of more radical views, and many 
of its original members left it. This society took 
the lead in sending a deputati/m to the National 
Convention of France, an act which was highly cen- 
sured as derogatory to the English government. 
They also passed a vote of thanks to Thomas Paine 
for his work entitled the Rights of Man. Much of 
the evidence in the present case was intended to 
identity the Corresponding Society with the Con- 
stitutional Society, and thus to load Hardy with the 
odium of their proceedings. 



the sense they entertained of 
^ For the views and objects 



public office, as a proof of the piiblicity of their 
proceeding, a- 
their innocenx, 

of the society, we must look to the institution 
itself, which you are, indeed, desired to look at 
by the Crown ; for their intentions are not con- 
sidered as deceptions in this instance, but as 
plainly revealed by the very writing itself. 

Gentlemen, there was a sort of silence in the 
court — I do not say an afl^ected one, for mouo of 
I mean no possible offense to any one — the society, 
but there seemed to be an effect expected from 
beginning, not with the address itself, but with 
the very bold motto to it, though in verse : 
"Unbless'd by virtue, government a league 
Becomes, a circling junto of the great 
To rob by law ; Religion mild, a yoke 
To tame the stooping soul, a trick of state 
To mask their rapine, and to share the prey. 
Without it, what are Senates, but a face 
Of consultation deep and reason free, 
While the determined voice and heart are sold ? 
What, boasted freedom, but a sounding name ? 
And what election, but a market vile, 
Of slaves self-barter'd ?" 

I almost fancy I heard them say to me, "What 
think you of that to set out with ? Show me the 
parallel of that." Gentlemen, I am sorry, for 
the credit of the age we live in, to answer, that 
it is difficult to find the parallel, because the age 
affords no such poet as he who wrote it. These 
are the words of Thomson ; and it is under the 
banners of his proverbial benevolence that these 
men are supposed to be engaging in plans of 
anarchy and murder — under the banners of that 
great and good man, whose figure you may still 
see in the venerable shades of Hagley, placed 
there by the virtuous, accomplished, and public- 
spirited Lyttelton : the very poem, too, written 
under the auspices of his Majesty's royal father, 
when heir-apparent to the Crown of Great Brit- 
ain, nay, within the very walls of Carlton House, 
which afforded an asylum to matchless worth 
and genius in the person of this great poet. It 
was under the roof of a Prince of Wales that 
the poem of Libertv was written ; and what 
better return could be given to a Prince for his 
protection, than to blazon, in immortal numbers, 
the only sure title to the Crown he was to wear 

THE FREEDOM OF THE PEOPLE OF GreaT 

Britain ? And it is to be assumed, forsooth, in 
the year 1794, that the unfortunate prisoner be- 
fore you was plotting treason and rebellion, be- 
cause, with a taste and feeling beyond his hum- 
ble station, his first proceeding was ushered into 
view under the hallowed sanction of this admi- 
rable person, the friend and the defender of the 
British Constitution; who.se countrymen are pre- 
paring at this moment (may my name descend 
among them to the latest posterity !) to do honor 
to his immortal memory. Pardon me, gentlemen, 
for this desultory digression — I must express my- 
self as the current of my mind will carry me.*° 



** This was done by the Corresponding Society, 
partly, no doubt, in the spirit of bravado. 
*^ Tliv.m»on was born at Ednam in Scotland, and 



1794] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



741 



If we look at the whole of the institution itself, 
The object of it cxactlv Corresponds with the plan 
tocar'^outTuI of the Duke of Richmond, as express- 

jfRicU- 



?)ukeof "^-'- ^^ ^" ^^^ letters to Colonel Sharman 



mond. and to the High Sheriff of Sussex. 

This plan they propose to follow, in a public ad- 
dress to the nation, and all their resolutions are 
framed for its accomplishment ; and I desire to 
know in what they have departed from either, 
and what they have done which has not been 
done before, without blame or censure, in the 
pursuance of the same object. I am not speak- 
ing of the libels they may have written, which 
the law is open to punish, but what part of their 
conduct has, as applicable to the subject in ques- 
tion, been unprecedented ? I have at this rao- 
in proposing a mcnt in my 63^6 an honorable friend 
they1md°h'igh of mine, and a distinguished member 
autborifea." ^f ^hc Housc of Commons [Mr. Fox], 
who, within my own remembrance, I believe in 
1780, sat publicly at Guildhall, with many others, 
some of them magistrates of the cit}', as a conven- 
tion of delegates for the same objects. And what 
is still more in point, just before the convention 
began to meet at Edinburgh, whose proceedings 
have been so much relied on, there was a con- 
vention regularly assembled, attended by dele- 
gates from all the counties of Scotland, for the 
express and avowed purpose of altering the con- 
stitution of Parliament — not by rebellion, but by 
the same means employed by the prisoner. The 
Lord Chief Baron of Scotland sat in the chair, and 
was assisted by some of the first men in that coun- 
try, and, among others, by an honorable person 
to whom I am nearly allied, who is at the very 
head of the bar in Scotland, and most avowedly 
attached to the law and the Constitution.^^ 

These gentlemen, whose good intentions nev- 
FirstScouish er fell into suspicion, had presented a 
convention, petition for the alteration of election 
laws, which the House of Commons had rejected, 
and on the spur of that very rejection they met in 
a convention at Edinburgh, in 1793. The style 
of their first meeting was " A Convention of Del- 
egates, chosen from the counties of Scotland. ybr 
altering and amending the laws concerning Elec- 
tions'' — not for considering how they might be 
best amended — not for petitioning Parliament to 
amend them, but for altering and amending the 
election laws. The proceedings of these meet- 
ings were regularly published, and I will prove 
that their first resolution, as I have read it to you, 
was brought up to London, and delivered to the 
editor of the ]Moi-ning Chronicle, by Sir Thomas 
Dundas, lately created a peer of Great Britain, 
and paid for by him as a public advertisement. 
Now, suppose any man had imputed treason or 
sedition to these honorable persons, what would 
have been the consequence ? He would have 



an association was formed at this time, of which Er- 
skine was a member, to erect a monument to his 
memory in his native village. This was finally ac- 
complished at an expense of £300. 

*'' The Honorable Henry Erskine, Mr. Erskine's 
brother, then Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, at 
Edinburgh. 



been considered as an infamous libeler and tra- 
ducer, and deservedly hooted out of civilized life. 
Why, then, are different constructions to be put 
upon similar transactions ? Why is every thing 
to be held up as bona fide when the example is 
set, and mala fide when it is followed ? Why 
have I not as good a claim to take credit for 
honest purpose in the poor man I am defending, 
against whom not a contumelious expression has 
been proved, as when we find the same expres- 
sions in the mouths of the Duke of Richmond or 
Mr. Burke ? I ask nothing more from this ob- 
servation, than that a sober judgment may be 
pronounced from the quality of the acts which 
can be fairly established ; each individual stand- 
ing responsible only for his own conduct, instead 
of having our imaginations tainted with cant 
phrases, and a farrago of writings and speeches, 
for which the prisoner is not responsible, and for 
which the authors, if they be criminal, are liable 
to be brought to justice. 

But it will be said, gentlemen, that all the con- 
stitutional privileges of the people prejudice against 
are conceded — that their existence '''<"se '»"er con- 

■, . -, . 1 , , ventions Because 

was never denied or mvaded — and tiiey si-eak of the 
that their right to petition and to --'s''^ °f "'«" 
meet for the expression of their complaints, 
founded or unfounded, was never called in ques- 
tion. These, it will be said, are the rights of 
subjects — but that "the rights of man" are what 
alarms them. Every man is considered as a trait- 
or who talks about the rights of man ; but this 
bugbear stands upon the same perversion with 
its fellows. 

The rights of raian are the foundation of all 
government, and to secure them is the Defense of 
only reason of men's submitting to be ^'"^ phrase. 
governed. It shall not be fastened upon the un- 
fortunate prisoner at the bar, nor upon any other 
man. that because these natural rights were as- 
serted in France, by the destruction of a govern- 
ment which oppressed and subverted them — a 
process happily effected here by slow and imper- 
ceptible improvements — that, therefore, they can 
only be .so asserted in England, where the gov- 
ernment, through a gradation of improvement, is 
well calculated to protect them. We are, fortu- 
nately, not driven in this country to the terrible al- 
ternatives which were the unhappy lot of France, 
because we have had a happier destiny in the 
forms of a free Constitution. This, indeed, is the 
express language of many of the papers before 
you that have been complained of — especially of 
one alluded to by the Attorney General, as hav- 
ing been written by a gentleman with whom I 
am particularly acquainted. And though in that 
spirited composition there are, perhaps, some ex- 
pressions proceeding from warmth which he may 
not desire me critically to justify, yet I will ven- 
ture to affirm, from my own personal knowledge, 
that there is not a man in court more honestly 
public-spirited and zealously devoted to the Con- 
stitution of King, Lords, and Commons, than the 
honorable gentleman I allude to [Felix Vaughan, 
Esq., barrister-at-la\v] : it is Xhe phrase, therefore, 
and not the sentiment expressed by it, that can 



?-l5 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



alone give justifiable offense. It is, it seems, a 
new phrase commencing in revolutions, and nev- 
er used before in discussing the rights of British 
subjects, and, therefore, can only be applied in 
the sense of those who framed it. But this is so 
far from being the truth, that the very phrase 
sticks in my memory, from the memorable ap- 
plication of it to the rights of subjects, under this 
and every other establishment, by a gentleman 
whom you will not suspect of using it in any oth- 
er sense. The rights of man were considered 
by i\Ir. Burke, at the time that the great uproar 
was made upon a supposed invasion of the East 
India Company's charter, to be the foundation of, 
and paramount to, all the laws and ordinances of 
a state. The ministry, you may remember, were 
turned out for Mr. Fox's India Bill,*^ which their 
opponents termed an attack upon the chartered 
rights of man, or, in other words, upon the abuses 
supported by a monopoly in tirade. Hear the 
sentiments of Mr. Burke, when the natural and 
chartered rights of men are brought into contest. 
Mr. Burke, in his speech in the House of Com- 
mons, expressed himself thus : " The first objec- 
tion is, that the bill is an attack on the chartered 
rights of men. As to this objection, I must ob- 
serve that the phrase, " the chartered rights of 
men,^^ is full of affectation, and very unusual in 
the discussion of privileges conferred by charters 
of the present description. But it is not difficult 
to discover what end that ambiguous mode of 
expression, so often reiterated, is meant to an- 
swer. 

•' The rights of men, that is to say, the natural 
Mr. Burke on rights of mankind, are, indeed, sacred 
this subject, things ; and if any public measure is 
proved mischievously to affect them, the objec- 
tion ought to be fatal to that measure, even if no 
charter at all could be set up against it. And 
if these natural rights are further affirmed and 
declared by express covenants, clearly defined 
and secured against chicane, power, and author- 
ity, by written instruments and positive engage- 
ments, they are in a still better condition : they 
then partake not only of the sanctity of the ob- 
ject so secured, but of that solemn public faith 
itself, which secures an object of such import- 
ance. Indeed, this formal recognition, by the 
sovereign power, of an original right in the sub- 
ject, can never be subverted but by rooting up 
the holding radical principles of government, and 
even of society itself."' 

The Duke of Richmond, also, in his public let- 
_ , ,„. , ter to the High Sheriff of Sussex, rests 

Duke of Rich- , . , " , , ' 

mondonthe the rights ot thc pcoplc ol JLngland 
eame subject. ^^^^^ ^j^^ same horriblc and damnable 
principle of the rights of man. Let gentlemen, 
therefore, take care they do not pull down the 
very authority which they come here to support. 
Let them remember that his Majesty's family 
was called to the throne upon the very principle 
that the ancient kings of this country had viola- 
ted these sacred trusts. Let them recollect, too, 
in what the violation was charged to consist : it 



«8 See ante, page 313. 



was charged by the Bill of Rights to consist in 
cruel and infamous trials, in the packing of ju- 
ries, and in disarming the people, whose arms are 
their unalienable refuge against oppression. But 
did the people of England assemble to make this 
declax-ation ? No ! because it was unnecessary. 
The sense of the people, against a corrupt and 
scandalous government, dissolved it, by almost 
the ordinary forms by which the old government 
itself was administered. King William sent his 
writs to those who had sat in the former Parlia- 
ment ; but will any man, therefore, tell me that 
that Parliament re-organized the government 
without the will of the people ? and that it was 
not their consent which entailed on King Will- 
iam a particular inheritance, to be enjoyed under 
the dominion of the law ? 

Gentlemen, it was the denial of these princi- 
ples, asserted at the Revolution in En- „ . , ^ , 

• ' Fame s book. 

gland, that brought forward the author called forth by 
of the " Rights of Man," and stirred constkuTionai 
up this controversy which has given p'''"^^'?'^^- 
such alarm to government. But for this, the lit- 
erary labors of Mr. Paine had closed. He as- 
serts it himself in his book, and every body knows 
it. It was not the French Revolution, but Mr. 
Burke's Reflections upon it, followed up by an- 
other work on the same subject, as it regarded 
things in England, which brought forward Mr. 
Paine, and which rendered his works so much 
the object of attention in this country. Mr. 
Burke denied positively the very foundation upon 
which the Revolution of 1688 must stand for its 
support, namely, the right of the people to change 
their government ; and he asserted, in the teeth 
of his Majesty's title to the Crown, that no such 
right in the people existed. This is the true his- 
tory of the Second Part of the " Rights of Man." 
The First Part had little more aspect to this 
country than to Japan ; it asserted the right of 
the people of France to act as they had acted, 
but there was little which pointed to it as an ex- 
ample for England. There had been a despotic 
authority in France, which the people had thrown 
down, and Mr. Burke seemed to question their 
right to do so. Mr. Paine maintained the con- 
trary in his answer; and, having imbibed the 
principles of republican government during the 
American Revolution, he mixed with the contro- 
versy many coarse and harsh remarks upon mon- 
archy, as established even in England, or in any 
possible form. But this was collateral to the 
great object of his work, which was to maintain 
the right of the people to choose their govern- 
ment. This was the right which was questioned, 
and the assertion of it was most interesting to 
many who were most strenuousl^'^ attached to the 
English government. For men may assert the 
right of every people to choose their government, 
without seeking to destroy their own. This ac- 
counts for many expressions imputed to the un- 
fortunate prisoners, which I have often uttered 
myself, and shall continue to utter every day of 
my life, and call upon the spies of government to 
record them. I will say any where, without fear 
— nay, I will say here, where I stand, thai an at- 



1794.] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



743 



tempt to interfere, by despotic combination and 
violence, with any government which a people 
choose to give to themselves, whether it be good 
or evil, is an oppression and subversion of the 
natural and inalienable rights of man ; and though 
the government of this country should counte- 
nance such a system, it would not only be still 
legal for me to express my detestation of it, as I 
here deliberately express it, but it would become 
my interest and my duty. For if combinations 
of despotism can accomplish such a purpose, who 
shall tell me what other nation shall not be the 
prey of their ambition ? Upon the very princi- 
ple of denying to a people the right of governing 
themselves, how are we to resist the French, 
should they attempt by violence to fasten their 
government upon us? Or what inducement 
would there be for resistance to preserve laws 
which are not, it seems, our own, but which are 
unalterably imposed upon us ? The very argu- 
ment strikes, as with a palsy, the arm and vigor 
of the nation. I hold dear the privileges I am 
contending for, not as privileges hostile to the 
Constitution, but as necessaiy for its preserva- 
tion ; and if the French were to intrude by force 
upon the government of our ow^n free choice, I 
should leave these papers, and return to a pro- 
fession that, perhaps, I better understand."*^ 

The next evidence relied on, after the institu- 
(2) Letter of tion of the Corresponding Society, is a 
formtrtand letter Written to them from Norwich, 
••^P'i'- ' dated the 11th of November, 1792, 
with the answer, dated the 26th of the same 
month. It is asserted that this correspondence 
shows they aimed at nothing less than the total 
destruction of the monarchy, and that they, there- 
fore, vail their intention under covert and ambig- 
uous language. I think, on the other hand, and I 
shall continue to think so, as long as I am capa- 
ble of thought, that it was impossible for woi'ds 
to convey more clearly the explicit avowal of 
their original plan for a constitutional reform in 
the House of Commons. This letter from Nor- 
wich, after congratulating the Corresponding So- 
ciety on its institution, asks several questions aris- 
ing out of the proceedings of other societies in 
different parts of the kingdom, which they profess 
not thoroughly to understand. 

The Sheffield people (they observe) seemed at 
first determined to support the Duke of Rich- 
mond's plan only, but that they had afterward 
observed a disposition in them to a more moder- 
ate plan of reform proposed by the Friends of the 
People in London ; while the Manchester people, 
by addressing Mr. Paine (whom the Norwich 
people had not addressed), seemed to be intent 
on republican principles only. They [the Nor- 
wich people], therefore, put a question, not at all 
of distrust or suspicion, but bona Jide, if ever 
there was good faith between men, whether the 
Corresponding Society meant to be satisfied with 
the plan of the Duke of Richmond ? or whether 



*9 The reader is already aware that Mr. Erskine 
had served successively in the navy and army, before 
studving for the law. 



it was their private design to rip up monarchy 
by the roots, and place democracy in its stead ? 
Now hear the answer, from whence it is inferred 
that this last is their intention. They begin their 
answer with recapitulating the demand of their 
correspondent, as regularly as a tradesman, who 
has had an order for goods, recapitulates the 
order, that there may be no ambiguity in the ref- 
erence or application of the reply, and then they 
say, as to the objects they have in view, they re- 
fer them to their addresses. " You will thereby 
see that we mean to disseminate political knowl- 
edge, and thereby engage the judicious part of 
the nation to demand the recovery of their lost 
rights in annual Parliaments ; the members of 
these Parliaments owing their election to un- 
bought suffrages." They then desire them to be 
careful to avoid all dispute, and say to them, 
" Put monarchy, democracy, and even religion 
quite aside ;" and " let your endeavors go to in- 
crease the numbers of those who desire a full and 
equal representation of the people, and leave to 
a Parliament, so chosen, to reform all existing 
abuses ; and if they don't answer, at the year's 
end, you may choose others in their stead." The 
Attorney General says this is lamely expressed. 
I, on the other hand, say that it is not only not 
lamely expressed, but anxiously worded to put an 
end to dangerous speculations. Leave all theories 
undiscussed ; do not perplex yourselves with ab- 
stract questions of government ; endeavor prac- 
tically to get honest representatives ; and if they 
deceive you — then, what ? — bring on a revolu- 
tion ? No! Choose others in their stead! They 
refer, also, to their Address, which lay before 
their correspondent, which Address expresses it- 
self thus : " Laying aside all claim to originality, 
we claim no other merit than that of reconsider- 
ing and verifying what has already been urged 
in our common cause by the Duke of Richmond 
and Mr. Pitt, and their then honest party." 

When the language of the letter, which is 
branded as ambiguous [by the counsel pretense that 
for the Crown], thus stares them in the [erSnnfrs^wt^ 
face as an undeniable answer to the ^ "^^^"^ ^over. 
charge, they then have recourse to the old refuge 
of mala fides ; all this, they say, is but a cover 
for hidden treason. But I ask you, gentlemen, 
in the name of God, and as fair and honest men, 
what reason upon earth there is to suppose that 
the writers of this letter did not mean what they 
expressed ? Are you to presume, in a court of 
justice, and upon a trial for life, that men write 
with duplicity in their most confidential corre- 
spondence, even to those with whom they are 
confederated? Let it be recollected, also, that 
if this correspondence was calculated for decep- 
tion, the deception must have been understood 
and agreed upon by all parties concerned — for 
otherwise you have a conspiracy among persons 
who are at cross purposes with one another — con- 
sequently, the conspiracy, if this be a branch of 
it, is a conspiracy of thousands and ten thousands, 
from one end of the kingdom to the other, who 
are all guilty, if any of the prisoners are irviilfy. 
Upward of forty thousand persons, upon the k)w- 



744 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



Di() not origin 
ate 

influence. 



est calculation, must alike be liable to the pains 
and penalties of the law, and hold their lives as 
tenants at will of the ministers of the Crown, In 
whatever aspect, therefore, this prosecution is 
regarded, new difficulties and new uncertainties 
and terrors surround it. 

The next thing in order which we have to look 
/„ , .^u J at, is the convention at Edinburgh. 

(3.) The second ' i i , 

Edinbnrghcon- It appears that a letter had been 
written by Mr. Skirving,^" who was 
connected with reformers in Scotland, proceed- 
ed avowedly upon the Duke of Richmond's plan, 
proposing that there .should be a convention from 
the societies assembled at Edinburgh. Now 
you will recollect, in the opening, that the At- 
torney General considered all the great original 
sin of this conspiracy and treason to have orig- 
inated with the societies in London ; that the 
country societies were only tools in their hands, 
and that the Edinburgh Convention was the com- 
mencement of their projects. And yet it plainly 
, . . appears that this convention origin- 

not origin- ■, „ . i 

n London ated from neither of the London so- 
cieties, but had its beginning at Ed- 
inburgh, where, just before, a convention had 
been sitting for the reform in Parliament, attend- 
ed by the principal persons in Scotland. And, 
surely, without adverting to the nationality so 
peculiar to the people of that countiy, it is not 
at all suspicious that, since they were to hold a 
meeting for similar objects, they should make use 
of the same style for their association ; and that 
their deputies should be called delegates, when 
delegates had attended the other convention from 
all the counties, and whom they were every day 
looking at in their streets, in the course of the 
very same year that Skirving wTOte his letter on 
the subject. The views of the Corresponding 
Society, as they regarded this convention, and 
Tiie prisoners Consequently the views of the prison- 
?o°rMsr,ngs^," er, must be collected from the writ- 
fns'tmcteVtiielr ^^^ instructions to the delegates, un- 
delegate.^, less they can be falsified by matter 
which is collateral. If I constitute an agent, I 
am bound by what he does, but always with this 
limitation — for what he does within the scope of 
his agency. If I constitute an agent to buy 
horses for me, and he commits high treason, it 
will not, I hope, be argued, that I am to be 
hanged. If I constitute an agent for any busi- 
ness that can be stated, and he goes beyond his 
instructions, he must answer for himself beyond 
their limits ; for beyond them he is not my rep- 
resentative. The acts done, therefore, at the 
Scotch Convention, whatever may be their qual- 
ity, are evidence to show that, in point of fact, a 
certain number of people got together, and did 
any thing you choose to call illegal. But, as far 
as it concerns me, if I am not present, you are 

*° The Secretary to the Edinburgh Convention. 
He, together with Maurice Margaret and Josej)li 
Gerald (two of the London delegates), was arrested 
at Edinburgh, in 1794, for sedition : all of them were 
found guilty, and sentenced to fourteen years' trans- 
portation. All his papers were seized by the mag- 
istrate at the same time. 



limited by my instructions, and have not advanced 
a single step upon your journey to convict me. 
The instructions to Skirving have been read, and 
.speak for themselves ; they are strictly legal, and 
pursue the avowed object of the society ; and it 
will be for the Solicitor General to point out, in 
his reply, any counter or secret instructions, or 
any collateral conduct, contradictory of the crood 
faith with which they were written. The in- 
structions are in these words : " The delegates 
are instructed, on the part of this society, to as- 
sist in bringing forward and supporting any con- 
stitutional measure for procuring a real repre- 
sentation of the Commons of Great Britain." 
What do you say, gentlemen, to this language ? 
How are men to express themselves who desire 
a constitutional reform ? The object and the 
mode of effecting it were equally legal. This 
is most obvious from the conduct of the Parlia- 
ment of Ireland, acting under directions from 
England ; they passed the Convention Bill, and 
made it only a misdemeanor, knowing that, by 
the law as it stood, it was no misdemeanor at all. 
Whether this statement may meet with the ap- 
probation of others, I care not ; I know the fact 
to be so, and I maintain that you can not prove 
upon the convention which met at Edinburgh, 
and which is charged to-day with high treason, 
one thousandth part of what, at last, worked up 
government in Ireland to the pitch of voting it a 
misdemeanor. 

Gentlemen, I am not vindicating any thing that 
can promote disorder in the country. Laws rendered 
but I am maintaining that the worst cCn'ltmction^the 
possible disorder that can fall upon worst of evii.<. 
a country is, when subjects are deprived of the 
sanction of clear and unambiguous laws. If 
wrong is committed, let punishment follow ac- 
cording to the measure of that wrong. If men 
are turbulent, let them be visited by the laws 
according to the measure of their turbulency. 
If they write libels upon government, let them 
be punished according to the quality of those 
libels. But you must not, and will not, because 
the stability of the monarchy is an important 
concern to the nation, confound the nature and 
distinctions of crimes, and pronounce that the 
life of the Sovereign has been invaded, because 
the privileges of the people have been, perhaps, 
irregularly and hotly asserted. You will not, to 
give security to government, repeal the most 
sacred laws instituted for our protection, and 
which are, indeed, the only consideration for our 
submitting at all to government. If the plain 
letter of the statute of Edward III. applies to the 
conduct of the prisoners, let it, in God's name, be 
applied ; but let neither their conduct, nor the 
law that is to judge it, be tortured by construc- 
tion ; nor suffer the transaction, from whence 
you are to form a dispassionate conclusion of in- 
tention, to be magnified by scandalous epithets, 
nor overwhelmed in an undistinguishable mass 
of matter, in which you may be lost and bewil- 
dered, having mi.ssed the only parts which could 
have furnished a clue to a just or rational judg- 
ment. 



1794.] 

Gentlemen, this religious regard for the liber- 
vjewsofDr. ty of the subject against constructive 
Johnson. treason is well illustrated by Dr. John- 
son, the great author of our English Dictionary, 
a man remarkable lor his love of order, and for 
high principles of government, bat who had the 
wisdom to know that the great end of govern- 
ment, in all its forms, is the security of liberty 
and life under the law. This man, of masculine 
mind, though disgusted at the disorder which 
Lord George Gordon created, felt a triumph in 
his acquittal, and exclaimed, as we learn from 
Mr. Boswcll, "I hate Lord George Gordon, but I 
am glad he was not convicted of this constructive 
treason ; for though I hate him, I love my coun- 
try and myself." This extraordinary man no 
doubt remembered, with Lord Hale, that, when 
the law is broken down, injustice knows no 
bounds, but runs as far as the wit and invention 
of accusers, or the detestation of persons accused, 
will carry it. You will pardon this almost per- 
petual recurrence to these considerations ; but 
the present is a season when I have a right to 
call upon you by every thing sacred in humanity 
and justice — by every principle which ought to 
influence the heart of man, to consider the situ- 
ation in which I stand before you. I stand here 
rr , , • o for a poor, unknown, unprotected in- 

Hardship of ,. . , , , , • , i • 

the prisoner's dividual, Charged with a design to 
subvert the government of the coun- 
try and the dearest rights of its inhabitants — a 
charge which has collected against him a force 
sufficient to crush to pieces any private man. 
The whole weight of the Crown presses upon 
him ; Parliament has been sitting upon ex parte 
evidence for months together ; and rank and 
property is associated, from one end of the king- 
dom to the other, to avert the supposed conse- 
quences of the treason.^^ I am making no com- 
plaint of this. But surely it is an awful sum- 
mons to impartial attention ; surely it excuses 
me- for so often calling upon your integrity and 
firmness to do equal justice between the Crown, 
so supported, and an unhappy prisoner, so un- 
protected. 

Gentlemen, I declare that I am utterly aston- 
Motives for im- ishcd, on looking at the clock, to find 
at" the present how long I have becu speaking ; and 
*=''"''-'• that, agitated and distressed as I am, 

I have yet strength enough remaining for the 
remainder of my duty. At every peril to my 
health it shall be exerted ; for even if this cause 
should miscarry, I know I shall have justice done 
me for the honesty of my intentions. But what 
is that to the public and posterity ? What is it 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



745 



51 The followiug are the facts here referred to. On 
the 12th of April, 1794, the King sent a message to 
Parliament announcing the existence of seditious 
societies. The prisoners were arrested, and the 
Habeas Corpus Act was suspended on the 24th of 
the same month. The papers found on the prem- 
ises of Hardy and others were published by way of 
vindication, and the subject was long under discus- 
sion in Parliament. Loyal associations to sui)port 
the government were formed, in the mean time, in 
various places. 



to them, when it is plain, if this evidence can con- 
vict of high treason, that no man can be said to 
have a life which is his own ? For how can he 
possibly know by what engines it may be snared, 
or from what unknown sources it may be attacked 
and overpowered ? Such a monstrous precedent 
would be as ruinous to the King as to his sub- 
jects. We are in a crisis of our affairs, which, 
putting justice out of the question, calls in sound 
policy for the greatest prudence and moderation. 
At a time when other nations are disposed to 
.subvert their establishments, let it be our wisdom 
to make the subject feel the practical benefits of 
our own : let us seek to bring good out of evil. 
The distracted inhabitants of the world will fly 
to us for sanctuary, driven out of their countries 
from the dreadful consequences of not attending 
to seasonable reforms in govei'nment — victims to 
the folly of suffering corruptions to continue till 
the whole fabric of society is dissolved and tum- 
bles into ruin. Landing upon our shores, they 
will feel the blessing of security, and they will 
discover in wdiat it consists. They will read this 
trial, and their hearts w^ill palpitate at your de- 
cision. They will say to one another — and their 
voices will reach to the ends of the earth — " May 
the Constitution of England endure forever ! the 
sacred and yet remaining sanctuary for the op- 
pressed ! Here, and here only, the lot of man is 
cast in security ! What though authority, estab- 
lished for the ends of justice, may lift itself up 
against it ! What though the House of Com- 
mons itself should make an ex parte declaration of 
guilt ! What though every species of art should 
be employed to entangle the opinions of the peo- 
ple, which in other countries would be inevitable 
destruction ; yet, in England, in enlightened En- 
gland, all this will not pluck a hair from the head 
of innocence. The jury will still look steadfast- 
ly to the law, as the great polar star, to direct 
them in their course. As prudent men, they will 
set no example of disorder, nor pronounce a ver- 
dict of censure on authority, or of approbation 
or disapprobation beyond their judicial province ; 
but, on the other hand, they will make no polit- 
ical sacrifice, but deliver a plain, honest man fi'om 
the toils of injustice." When your verdict is pro- 
nounced, this will be the judgment of the world; 
and if any among ourselves are alienated in their 
affections to government, nothing will be so like- 
ly to reclaim them. They will say. Whatever we 
have lost of our control in Parliament, we have 
yet a sheet-anchor remaining to hold the vessel 
of the state amid contending storms. We have 
still, thank God, a sound administration of justice 
secured to us, in the independence of the judges, 
in the rights of enlightened juries, and in the in- 
tegrity of the bar — ready at all times, and upon 
every possible occasion, whatever may be the 
con.sequences to themselves, to stand forward in 
defense of the meanest man in England, when 
brought for judgment before the laws of the 
country. 

To return to this Scotch convention. Their 
papers were all seized by government. What 
their proceedings were, they best know; we can 



746 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794 



only see what parts they choose to show us. But 
Nothing trea- froiii what we have seen, does any man 
Edinburgh''^ seriously believe that this meeting at 
ConventTon. Edinburgh meant to assume and to 
maintain by force all the functions and authorities 
of the state ? Is the thing within the compass of 
human belief? If a man were offered a dukedom 
and twenty thousand pounds a year for trying to 
believe it, he might say he believed it — as what 
will not man say for gold and honors ? — but he 
never, in fact, could believe that this Edinburgh 
meeting was a Parliament for Great Britain. 
How, indeed, could he, from the proceedings of 
a few peaceable, unarmed men, discussing, in a 
constitutional manner, the means of obtaining a 
reform in Parliament ; and who, to maintain the 
club, or whatever you choose to call it, col- 
lected a little money from people who were well 
disposed to the cause ; a few shillings one day, 
and perhaps as many pence another? I think, 
as far as I could reckon it up, when the report 
from this great committee of supply was read to 
5'ou, I counted that there had been raised, in the 
first session of this Parliament, fifteen pounds, 
from wiiich, indeed, you must deduct two bad 
shillings, which are literally noticed in the ac- 
count. Is it to be endured, gentlemen, that men 
should gravely say, that this body assumed to it- 
self the offices of Parliament ? that a few harm- 
less people, wiio sat, as they profess, to obtain a 
full representation of the people, were themselves, 
even in their own imaginations, the complete rep- 
resentation which they sought for? Why should 
they sit from day to day to consider how they 
might obtain what they had already got? If 
their object was a universal representation of the 
whole people, how is it credible they could sup- 
pose that universal representation to exist in 
themselves — in the representatives of a few so- 
cieties, instituted to obtain it for the country at 
large ? If they were themselves the nation, why 
should the language of every resolution be, that 
reason ought to be their grand engine for the ac- 
complishment of their object, and should be di- 
rected to convince the nation to speak to Parlia- 
ment in a voice that must be heard ? The prop- 
osition, therefore, is too gross to cram down the 
throats of the English people, and this is the pris- 
oner's security. Here, again, he feels the advant- 
age of our free administration of justice. This 
proposition, on which so much depends, is not to 
be reasoned out on parchment, to be delivered 
privately to magistrates for private judgment. 
No. He has the privilege of appealing loud (as 
he now appeals by me) to an enlightened assem- 
bly, full of eyes, and ears, and intelligence, where 
speaking to a jury is, in a manner, speaking to a 
nation at large, and flying for sanctuary to its 
universal justice. 

Gentlemen, the very work of Mr. Paine, under 
the banners of which this supposed rc- 



Paii 



whose 



principles tiiey bcllion was sct on foot, refutcs the 
oppos^ed tTvio- charge it is brought forward to sup- 
'''"'■*• port. Mr. Paine, in his preface, and 

throughout his whole book, reprobates the use of 
force against the most evil governments, and the 



contrary was never imputed to him. If his book 
had been written in pursuance of the design of 
force and rebellion, with which it is now sought 
to be connected, he would, like the prisoners, 
have been charged with an overt act of hii> h trea- 
son ; but such a proceeding was never thought 
of. Mr. Paine was indicted [in 1792] for a mis- 
demeanor, and the misdemeanor was argued to 
consist not in the falsehood that a nation has no 
right to choose or alter its government, but in 
seditiously exciting the nation, without cause, to 
exercise that right. A learned Lord [Lord 
Chief Baron Macdonald] now on this bench, ad- 
dressed fhe jury as Attorney General upon this 
principle. His language was this : " The ques- 
tion is not what the people have a right to do, for 
the people are, undoubtedly, the foundation and 
origin of all government. But the charge is, for 
seditiously calling upon the people, without cause 
or reason, to exercise a right which would be se- 
dition, supposing the right to be in them ; for 
though the people might have a right to do the 
thing suggested, and though they are not excit- 
ed to the doing it by force and rebellion, yet, as 
the suggestion goes to unsettle the state, the prop- 
agation of such doctrines is seditious." There 
is no other way, undoubtedly, of describing that 
charge. I am not here entering into the appli- 
cation of it to Mr. Paine, whose counsel I was, 
and who has been tried already. To say that 
the people have a right to change their govern- 
ment, is, indeed, a truism. Every body knows 
it, and they exercised the right [in 1688], other- 
wise the King could not have had his establish- 
ment among us. If, therefore, I stir up individ- 
uals to oppose by force the general will, seated 
in the government, it may be trea- u is not trea- 
son ; but to induce changes in a gov- rangeHn^n" 
ernment, by exposing to a whole na- government, 
tion its errors and imperfections, can have no 
bearing upon such an offense. The utmost 
which can be made of it is a misdemeanor, and 
that, too, depending wholly upon the judgment 
which the jury may form of the intention of the 
writer. The courts for a long time, indeed, as- 
sumed to themselves the province of deciding 
upon this intention, as a matter of law, conclu- 
sively inferring it from the act of publication. I 
say the courts assumed it, though it was not the 
doctrine of Lord IMansfield, but handed down to 
him from the precedents of judges before his 
time. But even in that case, though the publi- 
cation was the crime, not, as in this case, the 
intention, and though the quality of the thing 
charged, when not rebutted by evidence for the 
defendant, had so long been considered to be a 
legal inference, yet the Legislature, to support 
the province of the jury, and in tenderness for 
liberty, has lately altered the law upon this im- 
portant subject.''^ If, therefore, we were not as- 
sembled, as we are, to consider of the existence 
of high treason against the King's life, but only 
of a misdemeanor for seditiously disturbing his 

52 See the concluding remarks on Mr. Erskine's 
speech upon the rights of juries, page 683. 



1794.] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



747 



title and establishment, by the proceedings for a 
reform in Parliament, I should think the Crown, 
upon the very principle which, under the libel 
law, must now govern such a trial, quite as dis- 
tant from its mark. Because, in my opinion, 
there is no way by which his Majesty's title can 
more firmly be secured, or by which (above all, 
in our times) its permanency can be better estab- 
lished, than by promoting a more full and equal 
representation of the people, by peaceable means ; 
and by what other means has it been sought, in 
this instance, to be promoted '? 

Gentlemen, when the members of this conven- 
The conduct of tiou wcro scizcd, did thev attempt re- 
whe'n°broke!r' sistaucc ? Did thcy insist upon their 
vFo'ience'was*'^ privileges as subjects under the laws, 
not intended, or as a Parliament enacting laws for 
others ? If they had said or done any thing to 
give color to such an idea, there needed no spies 
to convict them. The Crown could have given 
ample indemnity for evidence from among them- 
selves. The societies consisted of thousands and 
thousands of persons, some of whom, upon any 
calculation of human nature, might have been 
produced. The delegates who attended the 
meetings could not be supposed to have met 
with a different intention from those who sent 
them ; and if the answer to that be, that the con- 
stituents are involved in the guilt of their repre- 
sentatives, we get back to the monstx'ous position 
which I observed you before to shrink back from, 
with visible horror, when I stated it ; namely, the 
involving in the fate and consequence of this sin- 
gle trial every man who corresponded with these 
societies, or who, as a member of societies in any 
part of the kingdom, consented to the meeting 
which was assembled, or which was in prospect. 
But I thank God I have nothing to fear from such 
hydras, when I see before me such just and hon- 
orable men to hold the balance of justice. 

Gentlemen, the dissolution of this Parliament 
speaks as strong a language as its conduct when 
sitting. How was it dissolved ? When the mag- 
istrates entered, Mr. Skirving was in the chair, 
which he refused to leave. He considered and 
asserted his conduct to be legal, and therefore 
informed the magistrate he must exercise his 
authority, that the dispersion might appear to be 
involuntary, and that the subject, disturbed in his 
rights, might be entitled to his remedy. The 
magistrate on this took Mr. Skirving by the 
shoulder, who immediately obeyed ; the chair 
was quitted in a moment, and this great Parlia- 
ment broken up ! What was the effect of all 
this proceeding at the time, when whatever be- 
longed to it must have been best understood ? 
Were any of the parties indicted for high trea- 
son ? Were they indicted even for a breach of 
the peace in holding the convention ? None of 
these things. The law of Scotland, arbitrary as 
it is, was to be distui'bed to find a name for their 
offense, ^^ and the rules of trial to be violated, to 
convict them. They were denied their chal- 



*3 They were indicted for Icnsinp; viakim 
which was meant stirring uj) sedition. 



by 



lenges to their jurors, and other irregularities 
were introduced, so as to be the subject of com- 
plaint in the House of Commons. 

Gentlemen, in what I am saying I am not 
standing up to vindicate all that was Apology for ti.e 
published during these proceedintrs, warmth of the 

I = J . , :' , pr'soiiers when 

more especially those thmgs which ">« Kdinburgh 

.^ . r .1 relbrmers were 

were written in consequence ot the tried and sen- 
trials I have just alluded to.^^ But '""''^• 
allowance must be made for a state of heat and 
irritation. They saw men whom they believed 
to be persecuted for what they believed to be in- 
nocent. They saw them the victims of senten- 
ces which many would consider as equivalent to. 
if not worse than, judgment of treason'''' — sen- 
tences which, at all events, had never existed 
before, and such as I believe never will again 
with impunity. But since I am on the subject 
of intention^ I shall conduct myself with the same 
moderation which I have been prescribing. I 
will cast no aspersions, but shall content myself 
with lamenting that these judgments were pro- 
ductive of consequences which rarely follow from 
authority discreetly exercised. How easy is it, 
then, to dispose of as much of the evidence as 
consumed half a day in the anathemas against 
the Scotch judges ! It appears that they came to 
various resolutions concerning them ; some good, 
some bad, and all of them irregular. Among 
others, they compare them to Jefferies, and wish 
that they who imitate his example may meet 
his fate. What then? Irreverent expressions 
against judges are not acts of high treason ! If 
they had assembled round the Court of Justicia- 
ry, and hanged them in the execution of their 
offices, it would not have been treason within 
the statute. I am no advocate for disrespect 
to judges, and think that it is dangerous to the 
public order ; but, putting aside the insult upon 
the judges now in authority, the reprobation of 
Jefferies is no libel, but an awful and useful me- 
mento to wicked men. Lord Chief Justice Jef- 
feries denied the privilege of English Defense of 
law to an innocent man. He refused '„ respratT 
it to Sir Thomas Armstrong,^'^ who in Jeffe^es. 
vain pleaded in bar of his outlawry that he was 
out of the realm when he was exacted (an ob- 



^* The London Societies took a deep interest in 
Skirving and the other Scottish reformers, who had 
been condemned to transportation for fourteen years 
to Botany Bay. They spoke of this in strong terms 
of indignation, as it deserved, and this was now 
made their crime. 

" The legality of the sentence in the case of these 
men, as well as of Muir and Palmer, has been called 
in question; it being maintained by many that out- 
lawry without transportation was all that the law 
allowed. 

56 Sir Thomas Armstrong was seized in Holland 
for having been engaged in Monmouth's conspiracy 
against James II. in 1683; and as it was apprehend- 
ed that sufficient evidence could not be procured to 
obtain a verdict against him even from the subserv- 
ient juries of that time, he was condemned and ex- 
ecuted without a trial, under the pretense that he 
was not entitled to claim one, as he had not surren- 
dered himself after outlawry. 



748 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



jection so clear that it was lately taken for grant- 
ed in the case of Mr. Purefoy). The daughter 
of this unfortunate person, a lady of honor and 
quality, came publicly into court to supplicate 
for her father, and what were the effects of her 
supplications, and of the law in the mouth of the 
prisoner? "Sir Thomas Armstrong," said Jef- 
feries, " vou may amuse yourself as much as you 
please with the idea of your innocence, but you 
are to be hanged next Friday ;" and upon the 
natural exclamation of a daughter at this horri- 
ble outrage against her parent, he said, " Take 
that woman out of court ;" which she answered 
by a prayer that God Almighty's judgments 
might light upon him. Gentlemen, they did 
light upon him; and when, after his death, which 
speedily followed this transaction, the matter was 
brought before the House of Commons, under that 
glorious Revolution which is asserted through- 
out the proceedings before you, the judgment 
against Sir Thomas Armstrong was declared to 
be a murder under color of justice ! Sir Robert 
Sawyer, the Attorney General, was expelled the 
House of Commons for his misdemeanor in re- 
fusing the writ of error ; and the executors of 
Jefferies were commanded to make compensa- 
tion to the widow and the daughter of the de- 
ceased. These are great monuments of justice; 
and although I by no means approve of harsh ex- 
pressions against authority which tend to weaken 
the holdings of society, yet let us not go beyond 
the mark in our restraints, nor suppose that men 
are dangerously disaffected to the government, 
because they feel a sort of pride and exultation 
in events which constitute the dignity and glory 
of their country. 

Gentlemen, this resentment against the pro- 
The treatment cccdings of thc courts iu Scotlaud was 
of the Scottish not confined to those who were the 

reformers very . _ r> i 

generally con- objccts ot them. It was not Confined 
even to the friends of a reform in Par- 



aemned. 



liament. A benevolent public, in both parts of 
the island, joined them in the complaint ; and a 
gentleman of great moderation, and a most 
inveterate enemy to parliamentary reform, as 
thinking it not an improvement of the govern- 
ment, but nevertheless a lover of his country and 
its insulted justice, made the convictions of the 
delegates the subject of a public inquiry. I 
speak of my friend Mr. William Adam, who 
brought these judgments of the Scotch judges 
before the House of Commons, arraigned them 
as contrary to law, and proposed to reverse them 
by the authority of Parliament. Let it not, then, 
be matter of wonder that these poor men, who 
were the immediate victims of this injustice, and 
who saw their brethren expelled from their 
country by an unprecedented and questionable 
judgment, should feel like men on the subject, 
and express themselves as they felt. 

Gentlemen, amid the various distresses and em- 
Proof from the barrassmcnts which attend my prcs- 
accused tiLt''^ ent situation, it is a great consolation 
fofce'^asnot ^^at I havc marked, from the bcgin- 
intended. uing, your vigilant attention and your 

capacity to understand ; it is, therefore, with the 



utmost confidence that I ask you a few plain 
questions, arising out of the whole of these 
Scotch proceedings. In the first place, then, do 
you believe it to be possible that, if these men 
had really projected the convention as a traitor- 
ous usurpation of the authorities of Parliament, 
they would have invited the Friends of the Peo- 
ple, in Frith Street, to assist them, when Ihcy 
knew that this society was determined not to 
seek the reform of the Constitution but by means 
that w^ere constitutional, and from whom they 
could neither hope for support nor concealment 
of evil purposes ? I ask you, next, if their ob- 
jects had been traitoi-ous, would they have given 
them, without disguise or color, to the public and 
to the government in every common newspaper ? 
And yet it is so far from being a charge against 
them that they concealed their objects by hy- 
pocrisy or guarded conduct, that I have been 
driven to admit the justice of the complaint 
against them, for unnecessary inflammation and 
exaggeration. I ask you, further, whether, if 
the proceedings thus published and exaggerated 
had appeared to government, who knew every 
thing belonging to them, in the light they rep- 
resent them to 3'ou to-day, they could possibly 
have slept over them with such complete indif- 
ference and silence ? For it is notorious that 
after this convention had been held at Edin- 
burgh ; after, in short, every thing had been said, 
written, and transacted, on which I am now com- 
menting, and after Mr. Paine's book had been 
for above a year in universal circulation — ay, 
up to the very day when Mr. Grey gave notice, 
in the House of Commons, of the intention of the 
Friends of the People for a reform in Parlia- 
ment, there was not even a single indictment on 
the file for a misdemeanor ; but, from that mo- 
ment, when it was seen that the cause was not 
beat down or abandoned, the Proclamation made 
its appearance, and all the proceedings that fol- 
lowed had their birth. I ask you, lastly, gentle- 
men, whether it be in human nature, that a few 
unprotected men, conscious, in their own minds, 
that they had been engaged and detected in a 
detestable rebellion to cut off the King, to de- 
stroy the administration of justice, and to sub- 
vert the whole fabric of the government, should 
turn round upon their country, whose ruin they 
had projected, and whose most obvious justice 
attached on them, complaining, forsooth, that 
their delegates, taken by magistrates in the very 
act of high treason, had been harshly and ille- 
gally interrupted in a meritorious proceeding ? 
The history of mankind never furnished an in- 
stance, nor ever will, of such extravagant, pre- 
posterous, and unnatural conduct ! No, no, gen- 
tlemen. All their hot blood was owing to their 
firm persuasion, dictated by conscious innocence, 
that the conduct of their delegates had been le- 
gal, and might be vindicated against the magis- 
trates who obstructed them. In that they might 
be mistaken ; I am not arguing that point at 
present. If they are hereafter indicted for a 
misdemeanor, and I am counsel in that cause, I 
will then tell you what I think of it. Sufficient 



.794.] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



749 



unto the day is the good or evil thereof. It is 
sufficient for the present one, that the legality or 
illegality of the business has no relation to the 
crime that it is imputed to the prisoner. 

The next matter that is alleged against the 
(4.) The send- authors of the Scotch Convention, and 
iDg of delegates ^^6 socicties which Supported it, is 

to France by ... . , , * * r r • i 

thetwoT-on their havmg sent addresses ot Iriend- 

don societies. , . ^ ^, ^ ^. p t-i 

ship to the Convention ot i; rancc. 
These addresses are considered to be a decisive 
proof of republican combination, verging closely 
in themselves upon an overt act of treason. Gen- 
tlemen, if the dates of these addresses are attend- 
ed to, which come no lower down than Novem- 
ber, 1792, we have only to lament that they were 
but the acts of private subjects, and that they 
were not sanctioned by the state itself. The 
French nation, about that period, un- 

France was ' . . '^ ' 

then at peace dcr their ucw uonstitutiou, or under 

with England. , . , ii -^ i • i 

their new anarchy — call it which you 
will — were, nevertheless, most anxiously desir- 
ous of maintaining peace with this country. But 
the King was advised to withdraw his embas.sa- 
dor from France, upon the approaching catastro- 
phe of its most unfortunate Prince — an event 
which, however to be deplored, was no justifia- 
ble cause of offense to Great Britain. France 
desired nothing but the regeneration of her own 
government ; and if she mistook the road to her 
prosperity, what was that to us ? But it was 
alleged against her in Parliament, that she had 
introduced spies among us, and held correspond- 
ence with disaffected persons, for the de.struction 
of our Constitution. This was the charge of our 
minister, and it was, therefore, considered just and 
necessary, for the safety of the country, to hold 
France at arm's length, and to avoid the very 
contagion of contact w' ith her at the risk of war. 
But, gentlemen, this charge against France was 
thought by many to be supported by no better 
proofs than those against the prisoner. In the 
public correspondence of the embassador from 
the French King, and upon his death, as minis- 
ter from the Convention, with his Majesty's Sec- 
retary of State, documents which lie upon the 
table of the House of Commons, and which may 
be made evidence in the cause, the executive 
council repelled with indignation all the imputa- 
tions, which to this very hour are held out as the 
vindications of quarrel. " If there be such per- 
sons in England," says Monsieur Chauvelin, " has 
not England laws to punish them? France dis- 
avows them — such men are not Frenchmen." 
The same correspondence conveys the most sol- 
emn assurances of friendship down to the very 
year 1792, a period subsequent to all the corre- 
spondence and addresses complained of. Wheth- 
er these assurances were faithful, or otherwi.se — 
whether it would have been prudent to have de- 
pended on them, or otherwise — whether the war 
was advisable or unadvisable, are questions over 
which we have no jurisdiction. I only desire to 
bring to your recollection, that a man may be a 
friend to the rights of humanity and to the im- 
prescriptible rights of social man, which is now 
a term of derision and contempt — that he may 



feel to the very soul for a nation beset by the 
sword of despots, and yet be a lover of his own 
country and its Constitution. 

Gentlemen, the same celebrated person, of 
whom I have had occasion to speak Mr. Burke pub- 
so frequently, is the best and bright- l;[,'^,j.",[;';t,';y*''^ 
est illustration of this truth. Mr. w.u. tiieAmer- 

, 1 1 i> leans though in 

Burke, indeed, went a sreat deal lur- arms against 

1 1 • . ^ 1 • * England. 

ther than requires to be pressed into 
the present argument. He maintained the cause 
of justice and of truth against all the perverted 
authority and rash violence of his country, and 
expressed the feelings of a Christian and a pa- 
triot in the very heat of the American war — 
boldly holding forth our victories as defeats, and 
our successes as calamities and disgraces. " It 
is not instantly," said Mr. Burke, " that I can be 
brought to rejoice when I hear of the slaughter 
and captivity of long lists of those names which 
have been familiar to my ears from my infancy, 
and to rejoice that they have fallen under the 
sword of strangers, whose barbarous appellations 
I scarcely know how to pronounce. The glory 
acquired at the White Plains by Colonel Rhalle 
has no charms for me ; and I fairly acknowledge 
that I have not yet learned to delight in finding 
Fort Knyphausen in the heart of the British do- 
minions."^^ If this had been said or v/ritten by 
Mr. Yorke at Sheffield, or by any other member 
of these societies, heated with wine at the Globe 
Tavern, it would have been trumpeted forth as 
decisive evidence of a rebellious spirit, rejoicing 
in the dow^nfall of his country. Yet the great 
author, from whose writings I have borrowed, 
approved himself to be the friend of this nation 
at that calamitous crisis, and had it pleased God 
to open the understandings of our rulers, his wis- 
dom might have averted the storms that are now 
thickening around us. We must not, therefore, 
be too severe in our strictures upon the opinions 
and feelings of men as they regard such mighty 
public questions. The interests of a nation may 
often be one thing, and the interests of its gov- 
ernment another ; but the interests of those who 
hold government for the hour is at all times dif- 
ferent from either. At the time many of the 
papers before you were circulated on others may 
the subject of the w^ar with France, ^^J,^,''i.";'Je' t. 
many of the best and wisest men in '"s t'le French 

, . , . 1 , II- 1 without any 

this kingdom began to be driven by treasonable de- 
our situation to these melancholy re- ^'^"*' 
flections. Thousands of persons, the most firmly 
attached to the principles of our Constitution, and 
who never were members of any of these socie- 
ties, considered, and still consider. Great Britain 
as the aggressor against France. They consid- 
ered, and still consider, that she had a right to 

" See Mr. Burke's letter to the Sheriff of Bristol. 
Colonel Rhalle was a Hessian officer, who distin- 
guished himself at the battle of White Plains, in 
November, 1776. A few days after, General Knyp- 
hausen, a Gennan officer in the British service, led 
the way in attacking Fort "Wasliiugton,on the Hud- 
son, a little above New York; and from this circum- 
stance, probably, his name was given to the fort by 
the British while it remained in their possession. 



750 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



choose a government for herself, and that it was 
contraiy to the first principles of justice, and, if 
possible, still more repugnant to the genius of our 
own free Constitution, to combine with despots 
for her destruction. And who knows but that 
the external pressure upon France may have 
been the cause of that unheard-of state of socie- 
ty which we complain of? Who knows wheth- 
er, driven as she has been to exertions beyond the 
ordinary vigor of a nation, she has not thus gained 
that unnatural and giant strength which threat- 
ens the authors of it with perdition ? These are 
melancholy considerations, but they may reason- 
ably and, at all events, lawfully be entertained. 
We owe obedience to government in our actions, 
but surely our opinions are free. 

Gentlemen, pursuing the order of time, we are 
(5.) Proposal arrivcd at length at the proposition to 
tioifinTa^" hold another convention, which, with 
gland. ^i^g supposed support of it by force, are 

the only overt acts of high treason charged upon 
this record. For, strange as it may appear, there 
is no charge whatever before you of any one of 
those acts or writings, the evidence of which con- 
sumed so many days in reading, and which has 
already nearly consumed my strength in only 
passing them in review before you. If every 
line and letter of all the writings I have been 
commenting upon were admitted to be traitorous 
machinations, and if the convention in Scotland 
was an open rebellion, it is conceded to be for- 
eign to the present purpose, unless as such crim- 
inahty in them might show the views and objects 
of the persons engaged in them. On that prin- 
ciple only the court has over and over again de- 
cided the evidence of them to be admissible ; and 
on the same principle I have illustrated them in 
their order as they happened, that I might lead 
the prisoner in your view up to the very point 
and moment when the treason is supposed to 
have burst forth into the overt act for which he 
is arraigned before you. 

The transaction respecting this second conven- 
. „ , . tion, which constitutes the principal. 

All the treason ' i i i 

to be found i.eie, or, morc propcrlv, the only overt act 

if any where. . ' ■ j • , ^ 1 -,■ • J 

in the indictment, lies in the narrow- 
est compass, and is clouded with no ambiguity. I 
admit freely every act which is imputed to the 
prisoner, and listen not so much with fear as with 
curiosity and wonder to the treason sought to be 
connected with it. 

You will recollect, that the first motion toward 
„ , . , the holding of a second convention 

Hardy s letter • ■, ■ ^ i • 

to the constitu- orifmated in a letter to the prison- 
tionai Society. ^^ {yq^xi a country correspondent, in 
which the legality of the former was vindicated, 
and its dispersion lamented. This letter was 
answered on the 27th of March, 1794, and was 
j^ead to you in the Crown's evidence in these 
^'ords : 

" March 27, 1794. 
"Citizen, — I am directed by the London 
Corresponding Society to transmit the follow- 
ing resolutions to the Society for Constitutional 
Information, and to request the sentiments of 
that society respecting the important measures 



which the present juncture of affairs seems to 
require. 

"The London Corresponding Society conceives 
that the moment is arrived when a full and ex- 
plicit declai-ation is necessary from all the friends 
of freedom — whether the late illegal and unheard- 
of prosecutions and sentences^^ shall determine us 
to abandon our cause, or shall excite us to pur- 
sue a radical reform, with an ardor proportioned 
to the magnitude of the object, and with a zeal 
as distinguished on our own parts as the treach- 
ery of others in the same glorious cause is noto- 
rious. The Society for Constitutional Informa- 
tion is, therefore, required to determine whether 
or no they will be ready, when called upon, to 
act in conjunction with this and other societies 
to obtain a fair representation of the people — 
whether they concur with us in seeing the ne- 
cessity of a speedy convention, for the purpose 
of obtaining, in a constitutional and legal method, 
a redress of those grievances under which we at 
present labor, and which can only be effectually 
removed by a full and fair representation of the 
people of Great Britain. The London Corre- 
sponding Society can not but remind their friends 
that the present crisis demands all the prudence, 
unanimity, and vigor, that may or can be exert- 
ed by MEN and Britons; nor do they doubt but 
that manly firmness and consistency will finally, 
and they believe shortly, terminate in the full ac- 
complishment of all their wishes. 

" I am, fellow-citizen, 

" (In my humble measure), 

" A friend to the rights of man, 

" (Signed) T. Hardy, Secretary.''^ 

They then resolve that there is no security for 
the continuance of any right but in equality of 
laivs — not in equality oi property — the ridiculous 
bugbear by which you are to be frightened into 
injustice ; on the contrary, throughout every part 
of the proceedings, and most emphatically in Mr. 
Yorke's speech (so much relied on), the benefi- 
cial subordinations of society, the security of 
property, and the prosperity of the landed and 
commercial interests, are held forth as the very 
objects to be attained by the reform in the rep- 
resentation which they sought for. 

In examining this first moving toward a sec- 
ond convention, the first thing to be The object of this 
considered is, what reason there is, o/ji.g'forXr ""* 
from the letter I have just read to convention, 

„ 1 • 1 whioU was con- 

you, or irora any thing that appears fe^^sediynottrea- 
to have led to it, to suppose that a *''"-'^''^- 
different sort of convention was projected from 
that [at Edinburgh] which had been before as- 
sembled and dispersed. The letter says, another 
British Convention, and it describes the same ob- 
jects as the first. Compare all the papers for 
the calling this second convention with those for 
assembling the first, and you will find no differ- 
ence, except that they mixed with them extra- 
neous and libelous matter arising obviously from 
the irritation produced by the sailing of the trans- 
ports with their brethren condemned to exile. 

58 Those of Muir and others, mentioned above. 



1794.] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



751 



These papers have ah'eady been considered, and 

separated, as they ought to be, from the charge. 

I will now lay before you all the remaining 

operations of this formidable conspir- 

Conference be- -^ , . ... 

tvveen the two acy, up to thc prisoncr s imprisonment 
eoceties. j^ ^^^ Towcr. Mr. Hardy having re- 

ceived the letter just adverted to regarding a 
second convention, the Corresponding Society 
wrote the letter of the 27th of INIarch, and which 
was found in his handwriting, and is published 
in the first Report, page 11. This letter, in- 
closing the resolutions they had come to upon the 
subject, v.-as considered by the Constitutional So- 
ciety on the next day, the 28th of March, the 
ordinary day for their meeting, when they sent 
an answer to the Corresponding Society, inform- 
ing them that they had received their communi- 
cation — that they heartily concurred with them 
in the objects they had in view, and invited them 
to send a delegation of their members to confer 
with them on the subject. 

Now what were the objects they concurred in, 
The objects of ^ud what was to be the subject of 
their conference, conference bctwccn the societies by 
their delegates ? Look at the letter, which dis- 
tinctly expresses its objects and the means by 
which they sought to effect them. Had these 
poor men (too numerous to meet all together, 
and therefore renewing the cause of parliament- 
ary reform b}' delegation from the societies) any 
reason to suppose that they were involving them- 
selves in the pains of treason, and that they were 
compassing the King's death, w^hen they were 
redeeming (as they thought) his authority from 
probable downfall and ruin ? Had treason been 
imputed to the delegates before ? Had the im- 
agining the death of the King ever been sus- 
pected by any body ? Or, when they w^ere pros- 
ecuted for misdemeanors, was the prosecution 
considered as an indulgence conferred upon men 
whose lives had been forfeited ? And is it to be 
endured, then, in this free land — made free, too, 
by the virtue of our forefathers, who placed the 
King upon his throne to maintain this freedom — 
that forty or fifty thousand people, in the differ- 
ent parts of the kingdom, assembling in their lit- 
tle societies to spread useful knowledge, and to 
diffuse the principles of liberty — which the more 
widely they are .spread, the surer is the condition 
of our free government — are in a moment, with- 
out warning, without any law or principle to 
warrant it, and without precedent or example, to 
be branded as traitors, and to be decimated as 
victims for punishment ! The Constitutional So- 
ciety having answered the letter of the 27th of 
March, in the' manner I stated to you, commit- 
tees from each of the two societies were appoint- 
ed to confer together. The Constitutional So- 
ciety appointed Mr. Jo\'ce, Mr. Kidd, Mr. War- 
die, and Mr. Holcroft, all indicted ; and Mr. 
Sharpe, the celebrated engraver, not indicted, 
but examined as a witness by the Crown. Five 
were appointed by the Corresponding Society to 
meet these gentlemen ; namely, Mr. Baxter, Mr. 
Moore, Mr. Thelwall, and Mr. Hodgson, all in- 
dicted, and Mr. Lovatt, against whom the bill 



was thrown out. These gentlemen met at the 
house of Mr. Thelwall, on the 11th of April, 
1794, and there published the resolutions already 
commented on, in conformity with the general 
objects of the two societies, expressed in the let- 
ter of the 27th of March, and agreed to continue 
to meet on Mondays and Thursdays for further 
conference on the subject. The first Monday 
was the 14th of April, of which we Dinuuityof 
have heard so much, and no meeting bringins it about. 
was held on that day. The first Thursday w^as 
the 17th of April, but there was no meeting ; the 
21st of April was the second Monday, but there 
was still no meeting ; the 24th of April was the 
second Thursday, when the five of the Corre- 
sponding Society attended, but, nobody coming 
to meet them from the other, nothing, of course, 
was transacted. On Monday, the 28th of April, 
three weeks after their first appointment, this 
bloody and impatient band of conspirators, see- 
ing that a Convention Bill was in pi'ojection, and 
that Hessians were landing on our coasts, at last 
assembled themselves : and now we come to the 
point of action.^''^ Gentlemen, they met ; they 
shook hands with each other; they 
talked over the news and the pleasures 
of the day ; they wished one another a good even- 
ing, and retired to their homes : it is in vain to 
hide it, they certainly did all these things. The 
same alarming scene was repeated on the three 
following days of meeting, and on IMonday, May 
the 12th, would, but for the vigilance of govern- 
ment, have probably again taken place ; but on 
that day Mr. Hardy was arrested, his papers 
seized, and the conspiracy which pervaded this 
devoted country was dragged into the face of 
day. To be serious, gentlemen, you have liter- 
ally the whole of it before you in the meetings I 
have just stated ; in which you find ten gentle- 
men, appointed by two peaceable societies, con- 
versing upon the subject of a constitutional re- 
form in Parliament, publishing the result of their 
deliberations, witlrout any other arms than one 
supper-knife ; which, when I come to the subject 
of arms, I will in form lay before you. Yet for 
this, and for this alone, you are asked to devote 
the prisoncr before you. and his unfortunate as- 
sociates, to the pains and penalties of death ; and 
not to death alone, but to the eternal stigma and 
infamy of having conceived the detestable and 
horrible desicrn of dissolvinsf the ffovernment of 



59 A body of Hessian troops were landed on the 
Isle of Wight, from Germany, in 1794, in readiness 
for a projected expedition against France. The Op- 
position insisted that such an introduction of foreign 
troops, without the consent of Parliament, was ille- 
gal ; but the motions declaratory of the illegality of 
the proceedings were negatived, and Mr. Pitt refused 
to countenance a Bill of Indemnity. This, though 
well intended by Mr. Pitt, was an unfortunate mea.»ri 
ure. Many considered it as designed to put dowlF 
free discussion by force. The great evil was, that 
it gave an opening for rash men to mislead the peo- 
ple, and represent these troops as called in to en- 
slave them. There is reason to believe that this 
was one main reason why some were induced to 
prepare pikes and other weapons. 



752 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



their countiy, and of striking at the life of their 
Sovereign, who had never given offense to them, 
nor to an}' of his subjects. 

Gentlemen, as a conspiracy of this formidable 
ffo mention of cxtcnsion, which had no less for its 
arrestrlirsV''^ objcct than the sudden annihilation 
took place. of all the existing authorities of the 
country, and of every thing that supported them, 
could not be even gravely stated to have an ex- 
istence, without contemplation of force to give it 
effect, it was absolutely necessary to impress 
upon the public mind, and to establish by formal 
evidence upon the present occasion, that such a 
force was actually in preparation. This mo-<'t 
important and indispensable part of the cause 
was attended with insurmountable difficulties, 
not only from its being unfounded \n fact, but 
because it had been expressly negatived by the 
whole conduct of government. For, although the 
motions of all these societies had been watched 
for two years together — though spies had regu- 
'arly attended, and collected regular journals of 
'leir proceedings, yet when the first report was 
iiaished, and the Habeas Corpus Act suspended 
upon the foundation of the facts contained in it, 
ihere was not to be found, from one end of it to 
the other, even the insinuation of ai-ras. I be- 
lieve that this circumstance made a great im- 
pression upon all the thinking, dispassionate part 
of the public, and that the materials of the first 
report were thought to furnish but a slender ar- 
gument to support such a total eclipse of liberty. 
No wonder, then, that the discovery of a pike, in 
the interval between the two reports, should have 
been highly estimated. I mean no reflections 
lapon government, and only state the matter as a 
man of great wit very publicly reported it. He 
said that the discoverer, when he first beheld the 
long-looked-for pike, was transported beyond him- 
self with enthusiasm and delight, and that he hung 
over the rusty instrument with all the raptures 
of a fond mother, who embraces her first-born 
infant, " and thanks her God for all her travail 
past." 

In consequence of this discover}-, whoever 
(6.) Prepara- flight havc the merit of it, and what- 
tion of pikes, gygr i\^Q discoverer might have felt 

V lews oi iiip ^ ~ 

Sheffield re- upou it, pcrsons wcre sent by ijovern- 

formers. ' , ' ' , , • ,, 

ment (and properly sent) mto all cor- 
ners of the kingdom, to investigate the extent of 
the mischief The fruit of this inquiry has been 
laid before you, and I pledge myself to sum up 
the evidence which you have had upon the sub- 
ject, not by parts, or by general observations, but 
in the same manner as the court itself must sum 
it up to you, when it lays the whole body of the 
proof with fidelity before you. Notwith.standing 
all the declamations upon French anarchy, I think 
I may safely assert that it has been distinctly 
proved by the evidence that the Sheffield people 
wcre for universal representation in a British 
House of Commons. This appears to have been 
the general sentiment, with the exception of one 
witness, whose testimony makes the truth and 
bona-jidcs of the sentiments far more striking : the 
witness I allude to (George Widdison), whose ev- 



idence I shall state in its place, seems to be a 
plain, blunt, honest man, and, by-the-by, which 
must never be forgotten of any of them, the 
Crown's witness. I am not interested in the 
veracity of any of them ; for (what I have fre- 
quently remarked) the Crown must take them 
for better for worse : it must support each wit- 
ness, and the whole body of its evidence throujjh- 
out. If you do not believe the whole of what is 
proved by a witness, what confidence can you 
have in part of it, or what part can you select to 



If you are deceived in part, who 



confide 

shall measure the boundaries of the deception ? 
This man says he was at first for universal suf- 
frage — Mr. Yorke had persuaded him, from all 
the books, that it was the best — but that he aft- 
erward saw reason to think otherwise, and was 
not for going the length of the Duke of Rich- 
mond ; but that all the other Sheffield people 
were for the Duke's plan — a fact confirmed by 
the cross-examination of every one of the wit- 
nesses. You have, therefore, positively and dis- 
tinctly, upon the universal authority of the evi- 
dence of the Crown, the people of Sheffield, who 
are charged as at the head of a republican con- 
spiracy, proved to be associated on the very prin- 
ciples which, at different times, have distinguish- 
ed the most eminent persons in this kingdom ; 
and the charge made upon them, with regard to 
arms, is cleared up by the same universal testi- 
mony. 

You recollect that, at a meeting held upon the 
Castle-hill, there were two parties in „ . , 

' 1 • . . Reason for the 

the country ; and it is material to at- preparation of 
tend to what these two parties were. ^"^ ^' ^*' 
In consequence of the King's proclamation,^" a 
great number of honorable, zealous persons, who 
had been led by a thousand artifices to believe 
that there was a just cause of alarm in the coun- 
try, took very extraordinary steps for support of 
the magistracy. The publicans were directed 
not to entertain persons who were friendly to a 
reform of Parliament ; and alarms of change and 
of revolution pervaded the country, which be- 
came greater and greater as our ears were 
hourly assailed with the successive calamities 
of France. Others saw things in an opposite 
light, and considered that these calamities were 
made the pretext for extinguishing British lib- 
erty. Heart-burnings arose between the two 
parties ; and some — I am afraid a great many — 
wickedly or ignorantly interposed in a quarrel 
which zeal had begun. The societies were dis- 
turbed in their meetings, and even the private 
dwellings of many of their members were ille- 
gally violated. It appears by the very evidence 
to the Crown, by which the cause must stand or 
fall, that many of the friends of reform were dai- 
ly insulted, their houses threatened to be pulled 

60 This proclamation was issued on the 21st of 
May, 1792, and was directed against seditious meet- 
ings, and publications. In support of this proclama- 
tion, associations were formed in many places to 
sustain the government, and the magistrates took 
very stringent measures, which were in some in- 
stances hasty and irritating. 



1794] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



753 



down, and their peaceable meetings beset by pre- 
tended magistrates, without the process of the 
law. These proceedings naturally suggested the 
propriety of having arms for self-defense, the first 
and most unquestionable privilege of man, in or 
out of society, and expressly provided for by the 
very letter of English law. It was ingeniously 
put by the learned counsel, in the examination 
of a w^itness, that it was complained of among 
them that very little was sufficient to obtain a 
warrant from some magistrates, and that, there- 
fore, it was as well to be provided for those who 
might have warrants as for those who had none. 
Gentlemen, I am too much exhausted to pursue 
or argue such a difference, even if it existed upon 
the evidence. If the societies in question (how- 
ever mistakenly) considered their meetings to be 
legal, and the wari'ants to disturb them to be be- 
yond the authority of the magistrate to grant, 
they had a right, at the peril of the legal conse- 
quences, to stand upon their defense ; and it is 
no transgression of the law, much less high trea- 
son against the King, to resist his officers when 
they pass the bounds of their authority. So much 
for the general evidence of arms ; and the first 
Letter from and last time that even the name of 
poTing to'^Har- the prisoner is connected with the 
ti^on of'pTkesTn subjcct, is by a letter he received from 
London. a person of the name of Davison. I 

am anxious that this part of the case should be 
distinctly understood, and I will, therefore, bring 
back this letter to your attention. The letter is 
as follows : 

"Fellow-citizen, — The barefaced aristoc- 
racy of the present administration has made it 
necessary that w^e should be prepared to act on 
the defensive, against any attack they may com- 
mand their newly-armed minions to make upon 
us. A plan has been hit upon, and, if encour- 
aged sufficienth'^, will, no doubt, have the effijct 
of furnishing a quantity of pikes to the patriots, 
grea't enough to make them formidable. The 
blades are made of steel, tempered and polished 
after an approved form. They may be fixed into 
any shafts (but fir ones are recommended) of the 
girt of the accompanying hoops at the top end, 
and about an inch more at the bottom. 

"The blades and hoops (more than which can 
not properly be sent to any great distance) will 
be charged one shilling. Money to be sent with 
the orders. 

" As the institution is in its infancy, immedi- 
ate encouragement is necessary. 

" Orders may be sent to the Secretary of the 
Sheffield Constitutional Society. [Struck out.'\ 
" Richard Davison. 
"Sheffield, April 24, 1794." 

Gentlemen, you must recollect (for if it should 
, , , escape you, it miirht make a jjreat 

Hardy did not ,._, * •' ' , tV • i- ■ 

reply to the ditlerence) that Davison directs the 
^^^^^'' answer to this letter to be sent to Rob- 

ert Moody at Sheffield, to prevent post-office sus- 
picion ; and that he also incloses in it a similar 
one which Mr. Hardy was to forward to Nor- 
^•ich, in order that the society at that place 

B B B 



might provide pikes for themselves, in the same 
manner that Davison was recommending, through 
Hardy, to the people of London. Now what fol- 
lowed upon the prisoner's receiving this letter ? 
It is in evidence by this very Moody, to whom 
the answer was to be sent, and who was examined 
as a witness by the Crown, that he never received 
any answer to the letter ; and, although there was 
a universal seizure of papers, no such letter, nor 
any other, appeared to have been written. And, 
what is more, the letter to Norwich, from Davi- 
son, inclosed in his letter to Hardy, was never for- 
warded^ but was found in his custody when he 
w^as arrested, three weeks afterward, folded up in 
the other, and unopened, as he received it. Good 
God ! what is become of the humane sanctuary 
of English justice ? Where is the sense and 
meaning of the term provably in the statute of 
King Edward, if such evidence can be received 
against an English subject on a trial for his life ? 
If a man writes a letter to me about pikes, or 
about any thing else, can I help it? And is it 
evidence (except to acquit me of suspicion) when 
it appears that nothing is done upon it ? Mr. 
Hardy never before corresponded with Davison 
— he never desired him to write to him — how, 
indeed, could he desire him, when his very exist- 
ence was unknown to him ? He never returned 
an answer — he never forwarded the inclosed to 
Norwich ; he never even communicated the ietter 
itself to his own society, although he was its sec- 
retary, which showed he considered it as the un- 
authorized officious correspondence of a private 
man ; he never acted upon it at all, nor appears to 
have regarded it as dangerous or important, since 
he neither destroyed nor concealed it ! Gentle- 
men, I declare I hardly know in what languaire to 
express my astonishment, that the Crown can a.sk 
you to shed the blood of the man at the bar upon 
such foundations. Yet this is the whole of the 
written evidence concerning arms ; for the re- 
mainder of the plot rests for its foundation upon 
the parole evidence, the whole of which I shall 
pursue with precision, and not suffer a link of the 
chain to pass unexamined. 

William Camage was the first witness. He 
swore that the Sheffield societies were ,„.. 

_ Witnesses in 

frequently insulted, and threatened to rc^^pect to the 
be dispersed; so that the people in of pikes: 
general thought it necessary to defend """^se 
themselves against illegal attacks. The justices 
having officiously intruded themselves into their 
peaceable and legal meetings, they thought they 
had a right to be armed ; but they did not claim 
this right under the law of nature, or by theories 
of government, but as English subjects, under 
the government of England ; for they say in 
their paper, which has been read by the Crown 
that would condemn them, that they were en- 
titled by the " Bill of Rights" to be armed. 
Gentlemen, they state their title truly. The pre- 
amble of that statute enumerates the offenses of 
King James the Second ; among the chief of 
which was his causing his subjects to be dis- 
armed, and then our ancestors claim this viola- 
ted right as their indefeasible inheritance. Let 



754 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



us, therefore, be cautious how we rush to the 
conclusion that men are plotting treason against 
the King, because they are asserting a right, the 
violation of which has been adjudged against a 
King to be treason against the people. And let 
us not suppose that English subjects are a ban- 
ditti, for preparing to defend their legal liberties 
with pikes, because pikes may have been acci- 
dentally employed in another country to destroy 
both liberty and law. Carnage says he was 
spoken to by this Davison about three dozen of 
pikes. What then ? He is the Crown's witness, 
whom they offer to you as the witness of truth ; 
and he started with horror at the idea of violence, 
and spoke with visible reverence for the King : 
saying, God forbid that he should touch him ; 
but he, nevertheless, had a pike for himself. In- 
deed, the manliness with which he avowed it 
gave an additional strength to his evidence. " No 
doubt," says he, "I had a pike, but I would not 
have remained an hour a member of the society, 
if I had heard a syllable that it was in the con- 
templation of any body to employ pikes or any 
other arms against the King or the government. 
We meant to petition Parliament, through the 
means of the Convention of Edinburgh, thinking 
that the House of Commons would listen to this 
expression of the general sentiments of the peo- 
ple ; for it had been thrown out, he said, in Par- 
liament, that the people did not desire it them- 
selves." 

Mr. Broomhead, whose evidence I have al- 
, , ready commented upon, a sedate, plain, 

Broomhead. •' ^ ' - r ' 

sensible man, spoke also of his affection 
to the government, and of the insults and threats 
which had been offered to the people of Sheffield. 
He says, '" I heard of arms on the Castle-hill, but 
it is fit this should be distinctly explained. A 
wicked hand-bill, to provoke and terrify the mul- 
titude, had been thrown about the town in the 
night, which caused agitation in the minds of the 
people ; and it was then spoken of as being the 
right of every individual to have arms for defense ; 
but there was no idea ever started of resisting, 
much less of attacking the government. I nev- 
er heard of such a thing. I fear God," said the 
witness, "and honor the King; and would not 
have consented to send a delegate to Edinburgh 
but for peaceable and legal purposes." 

The next evidence upon the subject of arms 
is what is proved bv Widdison, to which 
I beg your particular attention, because, 
if there be any reliance upon his testimony, it puts 
an end to every criminal imputation upon Davi- 
jon, through whom, in the strange manner al- 
"eady observed upon, Hardy could alone be crim- 



the London societies, wrote the letter to Hardy, 
^^ of his oivn hcad,'^ as the witness expressed it, 
and that he, Widdison, made the pike-shafts, to 
the number of a dozen and a half. Davison, he 
said, was his customer. He told him that peo- 
ple began to think themselves in danger, and he 
therefore made the handles of the pikes for sale, 
to the number of a dozen and a half, and one like- 
wise for himself, without conceiving that he of- 
fended against any law. " I love the King," said 
Widdison, "as much as any man, and all that 
I associated with did the same. I would not 
have stayed with them if they had not. INIr. 
Yorke often told me privately, that he was for 
universal representation — and so were we all — 
THE Duke of Richmond's plan was our only 
OBJECT." This was the witness who was shown 
the Duke's letter, and spoke to it as being circu- 
lated, and as the very creed of the societies. This 
evidence shows, beyond all doubt, the genuine 
sentiments of these people, because it consists of 
their most confidential communications with one 
another ; and the only answer, therefore, that 
can possibly be given to it is, that the witnesses 
who deliver it are imposing upon the court. But 
this — as I have wearied you with reiterating — 
the Crown can not say. For, in that case, their 
whole proof falls to the ground together, since it 
is only from the same witnesses that the very 
existence of these pikes and their handles comes 
before us ; and, if you suspect their evidence in 
part^ for the reasons already given, it must be in 
toto rejected. My friend is so good as to furnish 
me with this further observation : that Widdison 
said he had often heard those who call themselves 
aristocrats say, that if an invasion of the country 
should take place, they would begin with destroy- 
ing their enemies at home, that they might be 
unanimous in the defense of their country. 

John Hill was next called. He is a cutler, 
and was employed by Davison to make the j 
blades for the pikes. He saw the letter 
which was sent to Hard)", and knew that it was 
sent, lest there should be the same call for de- 
fense in London against illegal attacks upon the 
societies — for that at Sheffield they were daily 
insulted, and that the opposite party came to his 
own house, fired muskets under the door, and 
threatened to pull it down. He swears that they 
were, to a man, faithful to the King, tsnd that the 
reform proposed was in the Commons House of 
Parliament. 

John Edwards was called, further to connect 
the prisoner with the combination offeree. ^ , 

T. p p 1 T 1 • -1 Edwards. 

But SO iar Irom establishing it, he swore, 
upon his cross-examination, that his only reason 
I for going to Hardy's was, that he wanted a pike 



mated. This man, Widdison, who was both a 

lurner and a hair-dresser, and who dressed Davi- | for his own defense, without connection with Da 
son's hair, and was his most intimate acquaint- ] vison or with Sheffield, and without concert or 
p.nce, gives you an account of their most confi- ', correspondence with any body. He had heard, 
dential conversations upon the subject of the he said, of the violences at Sheffield, and of the 
pikes, when it is impossible that they could be ' pikes that had been made there for defense ; that 



imposing upon one another ! He declares upon 
his solemn oath that Davison, without even the 
knowledge or authority of the Sheffield society, 
thinking that the same insu'ts might be offered to 



Hardy, on his application, .showed him the letter, 
which, as has appeared, he never showed to any 
other person. This is the whole sum and sub- 
stance of the evidence which applies to the charge 



1794 ] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



755 



of pikes, after the closest investigation, under the 
sanction, and by the aid of Parliament itself. It 
■ is evidence which, so far from establishing the 
fact, would have been a satisfactory answer to 
almost any testimony by which such a fact could 
have been supported; for in this unparalleled 
proceeding, the prisoner's counsel is driven by 
his duty to dwell upon the detail of the Crown's 
proofs, because the whole body of it is the com- 
pletest answer to the indictment which even a 
free choice itself could have selected. It is fur- 
ther worthy of your attention, that as far as the 
evidence proceeds from these plain, natural sour- 
ces, which the Crown was driven to for the nec- 
essary foundation of the proceedings before you, 
it has been simple, uniform, natural, and consist- 
ent. Whenever a different complexion was to 
be given to it, it was only through the medium 
of spies and informers, and of men, independent- 
l}"" of their infamous trade, of the most abandoned 
and profligate characters. 

Before I advert to v.'hat has been sworn by this 
Testimcnyof description of persons, I w^ill give you 
fpie^and^rn. ^ wholesomc caution concerning them, 
formers. ^^f\^ having uo cloqucnce of my own to 
enforce it, I will give it to you in the language 
of the same gentleman whose works are always 
seasonable, when moral or political lessons are 
to be rendered delightful. Look, then, at the 
picture of society, as Mr. Burke has drawn it, 
under the dominion of spies and informers. I 
say, under their dominion, for a resort to spies 
may, on occasions, be justifiable, and their evi- 
dence, when confirmed, may deserve implicit 
credit. But I say under the dominion of spies 
and informers, because the case of the Crown 
must stand alone upon their evidence, and upon 
their evidence, not only unconfirmed, but in di- 
rect contradiction to every witness not an inform- 
er or a spy, and in a case, too, where the truth, 
Mr. Burke in whatever it is, lies within the knowl- 
respectto edgc of fortv or fifty thousand people. 

such men. txt t? I t v, t t 

Mr. Burke says — 1 believe I can re- 
member it without reference to the book — 

"A mercenary informer knows no distinction. 
Under such a system, the obnoxious people are 
slaves, not only to the government, but they live 
at the mercy of every individual ; they are at 
once the slaves of the whole community, and of 
every part of it ; and the worst and most unmer- 
ciful men are those on whose goodness they most 
depend. 

" In this situation men not only shrink from the 
frowns of a stern magistrate, but are obliged to 
fly from their very species. The seeds of destruc- 
tion are sown in civil intercourse and in social 
habitudes. The blood of wholesome kindred is in- 
fected. The tables and beds are surrounded with 
snares. All the means given by Providence to 
make life safe and comfortable, are perverted into 
instruments of terror and torment. This species 
of universal subserviency that makes the very serv- 
ant who waits behind your chair the arbiter of your 
life and fortune, has such a tendency to degrade 
and abuse mankind, and to deprive them of that 
assured and libera? state of mind which alon*^ can 



make us what we ought to be, that I avow to God, 
I w^ould sooner bring myself to put a man to im- 
mediate death for opinions I disliked, and .so to 
get rid of the man and his opinions at once, than 
to fret him with a feverish being, tainted with the 
jail distemper of a contagious servitude, to keep 
him above ground, an animated m{?3s of putrefac- 
tion, corrupted himself, and corrupting all abo'^t 
him. "61 

Gentlemen, let me bring to your recollection 
the deportment of the first of this tribe, 

MAI 1 1 11 • 1 !/• Ale.xandir. 

r. Alexander — who could not m halt 

an hour even tell where he had lived, or why he 
had left his master. Does any man believe that 
he had forgotten these most recent transactions 
of his life ? Certainly not — but his history would 
have undone his credit, and must, therefore, be 
concealed. He had lived with a linen-draper, 
whose address we could scarcely get from him. 
and they had parted because they had words. 
What were the words ? We were not to be told 
that. He then went to a Mr. Killerby's, who 
agreed with him at twenty-five guineas a year. 
Why did he not stay there ? He was obliged, 
it seems, to give up this lucrative agreement, be- 
cause he was obliged to attend here as a witness. 
Gentlemen, Mr. Killerby lives only in Holborn : 
and was he obliged to give up a permanent en- 
gagement with a tradesman in Holborn, because 
he was obliged to be absent at the Old Bailey for 
five minutes in one single day ? I asked him if 
he had told JNIr. White, the Solicitor for the- 
Treasury, who would not have been so cruel as 
to deprive a man of his bread, by keeping him 
upon attendance which might have been avoided 
by a particular notice. The thing spoke for it- 
self — he had never told JNIr. White. But had he 
ever told Mr. Killerby ? For how else could he 
know that his place was inconsistent with his en- 
gagement upon this trial ? No, he had never 
told him ! How, then, did he collect that his 
place was inconsistent with his duty here ? This 
question never received any answer. You saw 
how he dealt with it, and how he stood stammer- 
ing, not daring to lift up his countenance in any 
direction — confused — disconcerted — and con- 
founded. 

Driven from the accusation upon the subject 
of pikes, and even from the very col- ,, . „. , ^ 

* ' . , , . ■' , (7.) story about 

or ot accusation, and knowmir that knives. 

, . , , • I '" 1 I^If. Grovea. 

nothing was to be done without the 
proof of arms, we have got this miserable, soli- 
tary knife, held up to us as the engine which was 
to destroy the Constitution of this country ; and 
Mr. Groves, an Old Bailey solicitor, employed as 
a spy upon the occasion, has been selected to give 
probability to this monstrous absurdity, by his re- 
spectahle evidence. I understand that this same 
gentleman has carried his system of spying to 
such a pitch as to practice it since this unfortu- 
nate man has been standing a prisoner before 
you, proffering himself, as a friend, to the com- 
mittee preparing his defense, that he might dis- 
cover to the Crown the materials by which he 



^1 See speech at Bristol, page 301. 



756 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



meant to defend his life. I state this only from 
report, and I hope in God I am mistaken ; for 
human nature starts back appalled from such 
atrocity, and shrinks and trembles at the very 
statement of it. But as to the perjury of this 
miscreant, it will appear palpable beyond all 
question, and he shall answer for it in due sea- 
son. He tells you he attended at Chalk Farm f^ 
and that there, forsooth, among about seven or 
eight thousand people, he saw two or three per- 
sons with knives. He might, I should think, have 
seen many more, as hardly any man goes with- 
out a knife of some sort in his pocket. He 
asked, however, it seems, where they got these 
knives, and was directed to Green, a hair-dress- 
er, who deals besides in cutlery ; and according- 
ly this notable Mr. Groves went (as he told us) 
to Green's, and asked to purchase a knil'e ; when 
Green, in answer to him, said, " Speak low, for my 
wife is a damned aristocrat." This answer was 
sworn to by the wretch, to give you the idea that 
Green, who had the knives to sell, was conscious 
that he kept them for an illegal and wicked pur- 
pose, and that they were not to be sold in public. 
The door, he says, being ajar, the man desired 
him to speak low, from whence he would have 
you understand that it was because this aristo- 
cratic wife was within hearing. This, gentlemen, 
is the testimony of Groves ; and Green himself is 
called as the next witness, and called by whom ? 
Not by me — I know nothing of him, he is the 
Crown's own witness. He is called to confirm 
,,. Groves's evidence. But not being a 

Contradicted by ,1,11 1 u- 

Green, who sold spy, hc dcclarcd solemnly upon his 
thekmves. ^^^^ (and I Can confimi his evidence 
by several respectable people) that the knives in 
question lie constantly, and lay then, in his open 
shop-window, in what is called the show-glass, 
where cutlers, like other tradesmen, expose their 
ware to public view ; and that the knives differ 
in nothing from others publicly sold in the Strand, 
and every other street in London ; that he be- 
spoke them from a rider, who came round for or- 
ders in the usual way — that he sold only fourteen 
in all, and that they were made up in little pack- 
ets, one of which Mr. Hardy had, who was to 
choose one for himself, but four more were found 
in his possession, because he was arrested before 
Green had an opportunity of sending for them. 

Gentlemen, I think the pikes and knives are 
(8.) story about HOW Completely disposed of. But 
6"""- something was said also about guns ; 

let us, therefore, see what that amounts to. It 
appears that Mr. Hardy was applied to by Sam- 
uel Williams, a gun-engraver, who was not even 
a member of any society, and who asked him if 
he knew any body who wanted a gun. Hardy 
said he did not ; and undoubtedly, upon the 
Crown's own showing, it must be taken for 
granted that if at that time hc had been ac- 
quainted with any plan of arming, he would have 
given a different answer, and would have jumped 
at the offer. About a fortnight afterward, liow- 

*^ A place in the country, a little out of Loudon, 
where a meeting of the reformers was held. 



ever (Hardy in the interval having become ac- 
quainted with Franklow), Williams called to buy 
a pair of shoes, and then Hardy, recollecting his 
former application, referred him to Franklow, 
who had in the most public manner raised the 
forty men, who were called the Loyal Lambeth 
Association. So that, in order to give this trans- 
action any bearing upon the charge, it became 
necessary to consider Franklow's association as 
an armed conspiracy against the government — 
though the forty people who composed it were 
collected by public advertisement — though they 
were enrolled under public articles — and though 
Franklow himself, as appears from the evidence, 
attended publicly at the Globe Tavern in his 
uniform, while the cartouch-boxes and the other 
accoutrements of these secret conspirators lay 
openly upon his shop-board, exposed to the open 
view of all his customers and neighbors ! This 
story, therefore, is not less contemptible than that 
which you must have all heard concerning Mr. 
Walker, whom I went to defend at Lancaster, 
where that respectable gentleman M^as brought 
to trial upon such a trumped-up charge, sup- 
ported by the solitary evidence of one Dunn, a 
most infamous witness. ^^ But what was the end 
of that prosecution ? I recollect it to the honor 
of my friend, Mr. Law, who conducted it for the 
Crown, who, knowing that there were persons 
whose passions were agitated upon these subjects 
at that moment, and that many persons had en- 
rolled themselves in societies to resist conspira- 
cies against the government, behaved in a most 
manful and honorable manner — in a manner, in- 
deed, which the public ought to know, and which 
I hope it never will forget. He would not even 
put me upon my challenges to such persons, but 
withdrew them from the panel ; and when he saw 
the complexion of the affair, from the contradic- 
tion of the infamous witness whose testimony sup- 
ported it, he honorably gave up the cause. 

Gentlemen, the evidence of Lynam does not 
require the same contradiction which fell 

' - _ _, , . , . Lynam. 

upon Mr. Groves, because it destroys it- 
self by its own intrinsic inconsistency. I could 
not, indeed, if it were to save my life, undertake 
to state it to you. It lasted, I think, about six or 
seven hours, but I have marked, under different 
parts of it, p.assages so grossly contradictory, 
matter so impossible, so inconsistent with any 
course of conduct, that it will be sufficient to 
bring these parts to your view, to destroy all the 
rest. But let us first examine in what manner 
this matter, such as it is, was recorded. He pro- 
fessed to speak from notes, yet I observed him 
frequently looking up to the ceiling while he was 
speaking. When I said to him. Are you now- 
speaking from a note? Have you got any note 
of what you are now saying ? He answered, 
'• Oh no ; this is from recollection." Good God 

^^ Mr. Walker, of Manchester, with some others^ 
was indicted, in 1794, at the Lancaster Assizes, for 
a conspiracy to overthrow the government. The 
prosecution depended on the evidence of an inforni- 
er of the name of Dunn, who was afterward convict- 
I ed of perjury at the very same Assizes. 



1794] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



75T 



Almiiihty ! Recollection mixing itself with notes 
in a case of high treason ! He did not even take 
down the words ; nay, to do the man justice, he 
did not even affect to have taken the words, but 
only the substance, as he himself expressed it. 
Oh, excellent evidence ! The substance of words 
taken down by a spy, and supplied, when defect- 
ive, by his memory ! But I must not call him a 
spy ; for it seems he took them bona fide as a del- 
egate, and yet bona fide as an informer. What 
a happy combination of fidelity ! faithful to serve, 
and faithful to betray ! correct to record for the 
business of the society, and correct to dissolve 
and to punish it ! What, after all, do the notes 
amount to? I will advert to the parts I alluded 
to. They were, it seems, to go to Frith Street, to 
sign the declaration of the Friends of the Liberty 
of the Press, which lay there already signed by 
between twenty and thirty members of the House 
of Commons, and many other respectable and op- 
ulent men ; and then they were to begin civil con- 
fusion, and the King's head and Mr. Pitt's were 
to be placed on Temple Bar ! Immediately after 
■which, we find them resolving unanimously to 
thank Mr. Wharton for his speech to support the 
glorious Revolution of 1688, which supports the 
very throne that was to be destroyed! which 
same speech they were to circulate in thousands, 
for the use of the societies throughout the king- 
dom. Such incoherent, impossible matter, pro- 
ceeding from such a source, is unworthy of all 
further concern. 

Thus driven out of every thing which relates 
(9.) Atrocious to amis, and from every other mat- 

charije against , , . ', ., , , 

Hardy, touching tcr which cau possibly attach upon 

the crimes of it xi i 

Watt. life, they have recourse to an expe- 

dient w^hich I declare fills my mind with horror 
and terror. It is this : The Corresponding So- 
ciety had, you recollect, two years before, sent 
delegates to Scotland, with specific instructions 
peacefully to pursue a parliamentary reform. 
When the convention which they were sent to 
was dispersed, they sent no others, for they were 
arrested when only considering of the propriety 
of another convention. It happened that Mr. 
Hardy was the secretary during the period of 
these Scotch proceedings, and the letters, conse- 
quently, written by him, during that period, were 
all official letters from a large body, circulated 
by him in point of form. When the proposition 
took place for calling a second convention, Mr. 
Hardy continued to be secretary, and in that 
--character signed the circular letter read in the 
course of the evidence, which appears to have 
4bund its way, in the course of circulation, into 
Scotland. This single circumstance has been 
admitted as the foundation of receiving in evi- 
dence against the prisoner a long transaction, 
imputed to one Watt, at Edinburgh, whose very 
existence was unknown to Hardy. This Watt 
had been employed by government as a spy, but 
at last caught a Tartar in his spj'ship ; for, in 
endeavoring to urge innocent men to a project 
which never entered into their imaginations, he 
was obliged to show himself ready to do what 
he recommended to others : and the tables beinj; 



turned upon him, he was hanged by his employ- 
ers. This man Watt read from a paper designs 
to be accomplished, but which he never intended 
to attempt, and the success of which he knew to 
be visionary. To suppose that Great Britain 
could have been destroyed by such a rebel as 
Watt, would be, as Dr. Johnson says, "to expect 
that a great city might be drowned by the over- 
flowing of its kennels." But whatever might be 
the peril of Watt's conspiracy, what had Hardy 
to do with it ? The people with Watt were five 
or six persons, wholly unknown to Hardy, and 
not members of any society of which Mr. Hardy 
was a member. I vow to God, therefore, that I 
can not express what I feel, when I am obliged 
to state the evidence by which he is sought to be 
affected. A letter, namely, the circular letter 
signed by Hardy, for calling another convention, 
is shown to George Ross, who says he received 
it from one Stock, who belonged to a society 
which met in Nicholson Street, in Edinburgh, and 
that he sent it to Perth, Strathaven, and Paisley, 
and other places in Scotland. The single, un- 
connected evidence of this public letter, finding 
its way into Scotland, is made the foundation of 
letting in the whole evidence which hanged Watt, 
against Hardy, who never knew him! Govern- 
ment hanged its own spy in Scotland upon that 
evidence, and it may be sufficient evidence for 
that purpose. I wall not argue the case of a 
dead man, and, above all, of such a man ; but I 
will say, that too much money was spent upon 
this performance, as I think it cost government 
about fifty thousand pounds. M'Ewen says that 
Watt read from a paper to a committee of six or 
seven people, of which he, the witness, was a 
member, that gentlemen residing in the country 
were not to leave their habitations under pain 
of death ; that an attack w^as to be made in the 
manner you remember, and that the Lord Jus- 
tice Clerk and the Judges were to be cut off by 
these men in buckram — and then an address was 
to be sent to the King, desiring him to dismiss 
his ministers and put an end to the v.-ar, or he 
might expect bad consequences. What is all. 
THIS TO Mr. Hardy ? How is it possible to af- 
fect him with any part of this ? Hear the sequel, 
and then judge for yourselves. Mr. Watt said 
(that is, the man who is hanged, said), after read- 
ing the paper, that he. Watt, ivished to correspond 
with Mr. Hardy in a safe manner ! So that, be- 
cause a ruffian and scoundrel, whom I never saw 
or heard of, chooses, at the distance of four hund- 
red miles, to say, that he wishes to correspond 
with me, I am to be involved in the guilt of his 
actions ! It is not proved or insinuated, that Mr. 
Hardy ever saw, or heard of, or knew that such 
men were in being as Watt or Downie ; nor is it 
proved, or asserted, that any letter was, in fact, 
written by either of them to Hardy, or to any 
other person. No such letter has been found in 
his possession, nor a trace of any connection be- 
tween them and any member of any English so- 
ciety. The truth, I believe, is, that nothing was 
intended by Watt but to entrap others to obtain 
a reward for himself, and he has been amply and 



758 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



justly rewarded. Gentlemen, I desire to be un- 
derstood to be making no attacks upon govern- 
ment. I have wished throughout the whole 
cause that good intentions may be imputed to it, 
but I really confess that it requires some ingenu- 
ity for government to account for the original 
existence of all this history, and its subsetjuent 
application to the present trial. They went down 
to Scotland after the arrest of the pi'isoners, in 
order, I suppose, that we might be taught the 
law of high treason by the Lord Justice Clerk 
of Edinburgh, and that there should be a sort of 
rehearsal to teach the people of England to ad- 
minister English laws. For, after all this ex- 
pense and preparation, no man was put upon his 
trial, or even arraigned under the special com- 
mission in Scotland, but these two men — one for 
reading this paper, and the other for not dissent- 
ing from it when it was read — and, with regard 
to this last unfortunate person, the Crown thought 
it indecent (as it would, indeed, have been inde- 
cent and scandalous) to execute the law upon 
him. A gentleman upon his jury said, he would 
die rather than convict Downie without a recom- 
mendation of mercy, and he was only brought 
over to join in the verdict under the idea that he 
vrould not be executed, and, accordingly, he has 
not suffered execution. If Downie, then, was an 
object of mercy, or rather of justice, though he 
was in the very room with Watt, and heard dis- 
tinctly the proposition, upon what possible ground 
can they demand the life of the prisoner at the 
bar, on account of a connection with the very 
same individual, though he never corresponded 
with him, nor saw him, nor heard of him — to 
whose very being he was an utter stranger ? 

Gentlemen, it is impossible for me to know 
A. eai to ^^^'^^^ impression this observation makes 
the justice upon vou, or upon the court: but I de- 

and human- , "V i i • i • i i 

ity of the Clare i am deeply mipressed with the 
j'"^^'" application of it. How is a man to de- 

fend himself against such implications of guilt ? 
Which of us all would be safe, standing at the 
bar of God or man, if he were even to answer 
for all his own expressions, without taking upon 
him the crimes or rashnesses of others ? This 
poor man has, indeed, none of his own to answer 
for. Yet how can he stand safely in judgment 
before you, if, in a season of alarm and agitation, 
with the whole pressure of government upon him, 
your minds are to be distracted with criminating 
materials brought from so many quarters, and of 
an extent which mocks all power of discrimina- 
tion ? I am conscious that I have not adverted 
to the thousandth part of them. Yet I am sink- 
ing under fatigue and weakness ; I am at this 
moment scarcely able to stand up while I am 
: -peaking to you, deprived, as I have been, for 
nights together, of every thing that deserves the 
name of rest, repose, or comfort. I, therefore, 
liasten, while yet I may be able, to remind you 
once again of the great principle into which all 
I have been saying resolves itself. 

Gentlemen, my whole argument, then, amounts 
to no more than this, that before the crime of 
cann.passing the King's death can be found by 



you, the jury, whose province it is to judge of 
its existence, it must be believed by Recapitulation 
you to have existed in point of fact, o'' principles. 
Before you can adjudge a fact, you must believe 
it — not suspect it, or imagine it, ox fancy it — but 
BELIEVE it. And it is impossible to impress the 
human mind with such a reasonable and certain 
belief as is necessary to be impressed, before a 
Christian man can adjudge his neighbor to the 
smallest penalty, much less to the pains of death, 
without having such evidence as a reasonable 
mind will accept of, as the infallible test of truth. 
And what is that evidence ? Neither more nor 
less than that which the Constitution has estab- 
lished in the courts for the general administration 
of justice — namely, that the evidence convinces 
the jury, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the 
criminal intention^ constituting the crime, existed 
in the mind of the man upon trial, and was the 
main-spring of his conduct. The rules of evi- 
dence, as they are settled by law, and adopted 
in its general administration, are not to be over- 
ruled or tampered with. They are founded in 
the charities of religion, in the philosophy of na- 
ture, in the truths of history, and in the experi- 
ence of common life ; and whoever ventures rash- 
ly to depart from them, let him remember that 
it will be meted to him in the same measure, and 
that both God and man will judge him accord- 
ingly. 

These are arguments addressed to your rea- 
sons and consciences, not to be shak- no precedents 
en in upright minds by any precedent, these^prmci^ 
for no precedents can sanctify injus- f'^s. 
tice. If they could, every human right would 
long ago have been extinct upon the earth. If 
the state trials in bad times are to be searched 
for precedents, what murders may you not com- 
mit ? What law of humanity may you not tram- 
ple upon ? What rule of justice may you not 
violate ? What maxim of wise policy may you 
not abrogate and confound ? If precedents in bad 
times are to be implicitly followed, why should 
we have heard any evidence at all ? You might 
have convicted without any evidence, for many 
have been so convicted, and in this manner mur- 
dered, even by acts of Parliament. If precedents 
in bad times are to be followed, why should the 
Lords and Commons have investigated these 
charges, and the Crown have put them into this 
course of judicial trial, since, without such a trial, 
and even after an acquittal upon one, the}' might 
have attainted all the prisoners by act of Parlia- . 
ment? They did so in the case of Lord Straf- 
ford. There are precedents, therefore, for all 
such things. But such precedents as could not 
for a moment survive the times of madness and 
distraction which gave them birth — precedents 
which, as soon as the spurs of the occasions were 
blunted, were repealed, and execrated even by 
Parliaments which (little as I may think of the 
present) ought not to be compared with it ; Pai*- 
liaments sitting in the darkness of former times 
— in the night of freedom — before the principles 
of government were developed, and before the 
Constitution became fixed. The last of these 



1794.] 



IN BEHALF OF HARDY. 



759 



precedents, and all the proceedings upon it, were 
ordered to be taken ofTthe tile and burned, to the 
intent that the same might no longer be visible 
in after ages — an order dictated, no doubt, by a 
pious tenderness for national honor, and meant 
as a charitable covering for the crimes of our fa- 
thers. But it was a sin against posterity — it 
was a treason against society ; for, instead of 
commanding them to be burned, they should 
rather have directed them to be blazoned in large 
letters upon the walls of our courts of justice, 
that, like the characters deciphered by the proph- 
ei", of God to the Eastern tyrant, they might en- 
large and blacken in your sights, to terrify you 
from acts of injustice. 

In times when the whole habitable earth is in 
Motives for ad- a State of change and fluctuation — 
ttricUeuer'of whcu dcscrts are Starting up into 
the law. civilized empires around you ; and 

when men, no longer slaves to the prejudices of 
particular countries, much less to the abuses of 
particular governments, enlist themselves, like the 
citizens of an enlightened world, into whatever 
communities their civil liberties may be best pro- 
tected — it never can be for the advantage of this 
country to prove that the strict, unextended let- 
ter of her laws is no security to its inhabitants. 
On the contrary, wdien so dangerous a lure is 
every where held out to emigration, it will be 
found to be the wisest policy of Great Britain to 
set up her happy Constitution — the strict letter 
of her guardian laws, and the proud condition of 
equal freedom, which her highest and her lowest 
subjects ought equally to enjoy — it will be her 
wisest policy to set up these first of human bless- 
ings against those charms of change and novelty 
which the varying condition of the world is hour- 
ly displaying, and which may deeply affect the 
population and prosperity of our country. In 
times when the subordination to authority is said 
to be every where but little felt, it will be found 
to be the wisest policy of Great Britain to instill 
into the governed an almost superstitious rever- 
ence for the strict security of the laws ; which, 
from their equality of principle, beget no jeal- 
ousies or discontent ; which, from their equal 
administi'ation, can seldom work injustice ; and 
which, from the reverence growing out of their 
mildness and antiquity, acquire a stability in the 
habits and affections of men far beyond the force 
of civil obligation — whereas, severe penalties and 
ai'bitrary constructions of laws intended for se- 
curity, lay the foundations of alienation from ev- 
ery human government, and have been the cause 
of all the calamities that have come, and are com- 
ing upon the earth. 

Gentlemen, what w^e read of in books makes 
Argument against ^"^ a faint imprcssion upon us com- 
using violence pared to what we see passing under 

with the people ^ .,,..' ii t 

derived from the OUr CyCS m thC hving WOrld. I re- 
Nether an a. niembcr the people of another coun- 
try, in like manner, contending for a renovation 
of their Constitution, sometimes illegally and tur- 
bulently, but still devoted to an honest end. I 
myself saw the people of Brabant so contending 
for the ancient Constitution of the good Duke of 



Burgundy. How was this people dealt by? All 
who were only contending for their own rights 
and privileges, were supposed to be, of course, 
disaffected to the Emperor. They were handed 
over to courts constituted for the emergency, as 
this is, and the Emperor marched his army 
through the country till all was peace — but such 
peace as there is in Vesuvius or jEtna, the very 
moment before they vomit forth their lava, and 
roll their conflagrations over the devoted habita- 
tions of mankind. When the French approached, 
the fatal effects were suddenly seen of a govern- 
ment of constraint and terror : the well-affected 
were dispirited, and the disaffected inflamed into 
fury.*^ At that moment, the Archduchess fled 
from Brussels, and the Duke of Saxe-Teschen 
was sent express to offer the joyeuse entree so 
long petitioned for in vain. But the season of 
concession was past, the storm blew from every 
quarter, and the throne of Brabant departed for- 
ever from the house of Burgundy. Gentlemen, 
I venture to affirm that, with other counsels, this 
fatal prelude to the last revolution in that coun- 
try might have been averted. If the Emperor 
had been advised to make the concessions of jus- 
tice and affection to his people, they would have 
risen in a mass to maintain their Prince's author- 
ity, interwoven with their own liberties ; and the 
French, the giants of modern times, would, like 
the giants of antiquity, have been trampled in the 
mire of their own ambition. 

In the same manner, a far more splendid and 
important crown passed away fi'om Authority of Mr. 
his Majesty's illustrious brow^-TiiE of^concihating'" 

IMPERIAL CROWN OF AmERICA. The '^'"^ people. 

people of that country, too, for a long season, con- 
tended as subjects, and often wnth irregularity and 
turbulence, for what they felt to be their rights ; 
and oh, gentlemen ! that the inspiring and immor- 
tal eloquence of that man, whose name I have so 
often mentioned, had then been heard with effect ! 
What was his language to this country when she 
sought to lay burdens on America, not to support 
the dignity of the Crown, or for the increase of 
national revenue, but to raise a fund for the pur- 
pose of corruption ; a fund for maintaining those 
tribes of hireling skip-jacks, which jNIr. Tooke so 
well contrasted w^ith the hereditarj^ nobility of 
England ? Though America would not bear 
this imposition, she w^ould have borne any useful 
or constitutional burden to support the parent 
state. 

"For that service — for all service," said Mr. 
Burke, " whether of revenue, trade, or empire, 
my trust is in her interest in the British Consti- 
tution. My hold of the colonies is in the close 
affection which grows from common names, 
from kindred blood, from similar privileges and 
equal protection. These are ties which, though 
light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Let 
the colonies always keep the idea of their civil 
rights associated with your governments, they 
will cling and grapple to you, and no force under 



^* This refers to the invasion of the Netherlands 
by the armies of the French Republic after the bat- 
tle of Jemappe, in 1792. 



760 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1794. 



heaven will be of power to tear them from their 
allegiance. But let it be once understood that 
your government may be one thing, and their 
privileges another; that these two things may 
exist without any mutual relation ; the cement is 
gone ; the cohesion is loosened ; and every thing 
hastens to decay and dissolution. As long as 
you have the wisdom to keep the sovereign au- 
thority of this country as the sanctuary of liberty, 
the sacred temple consecrated to our common 
faith, wherever the chosen race and sons of En- 
gland worship freedom, they will turn their faces 
toward you. The more they multiply, the more 
friends you will have ; the more ardently they 
love liberty, the more perfect will be their obe- 
dience. Slavery they can have any where. It 
is a weed that grows in every soil. They may 
have it from Spain, they may have it from Prus- 
sia. But until you become lost to all feeling of 
your true interest and your natural dignity, free- 
dom they can have from none but you. This is 
the commodity of price, of which you have the mo- 
nopoly. This is the true act of navigation, which 
binds to you the commerce of the colonies, and, 
through them, secures to you the wealth of the 
world. Is it not the same virtue which does ev- 
ery thing for us here in England ? Do you im- 
agine, then, that it is the Land-tax Act which 
raises your revenue ? that it is the annual vote in 
the Committee of Supply which gives you your 
army? or that it is the Mutiny Bill which in- 
spires it with bravery and discipline ? No ! 
surely no ! It is the love of the people, it is 
their attachment to their government, from the 
sense of the deep stake they have in such a glo- 
rious institution, which gives you your army and 
your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obe- 
dience, without which your army would be a 
base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten 
timber." 

Gentlemen, to conclude — my fervent wish is, 
that we may not conjure up a spirit to 

Peroration. *' i i 

destroy ourselves, nor set the example 
here of what in another country we deplore. Let 
us cherish the old and venerable laws of our fore- 
fathers. Let our judicial administration be strict 
and pure ; and let the jury of the land preserve 
the life of a fellow-subject, who only asks it from 
them upon the same terms under which they hold 
their own lives, and all that is dear to them and 
their posterity forever. Let me repeat the wish 
with which I began my address to you, and which 
proceeds from the very bottom of my heart. May 
it please God, who is the Author of all mercies 
to mankind, whose providence, I am persuaded, 
guides and superintends the transactions of the 
world, and whose guardian spirit has forever hov- 
ered over this prosperous island, to direct and 
fortify your judgments. I am aware I have not 
acquitted myself to the unfortunate man who has 
put his trust in me, in the manner I could have 
wished ; yet I am unable to proceed any further ; 
exhausted in spirit and in strength, but confident 
in the expectation of justice. There is one thing 
more, however, that (if I can) I mu.st state to you, 
namely, that I will show, by as many witnesses 



as it may be found necessary or convenient for 
you to hear upon the subject, that the views of 
the societies were what I have alleged them to 
be — that whatever irregularities or indiscretions 
they might have committed, their purposes were 
honest ; and that Mr. Hardy's, above all other 
men, can be established to have been so. I have, 
indeed, an honorable gentleman [Mr. Francis] in 
my eye at this moment, to be called hereafter as 
a witness, who being desirous, in his place as a 
member of Parliament, to promote an inquiry 
into the seditious practices complained of, Mv. 
Hardy offered himself voluntarily to come for- 
ward, proffered a sight of all the papers, which 
were afterward seized in his custody, and ten- 
dered every possible assistance to give satisfaction 
to the laws of his country, if found to be offend- 
ed. I will show, likewise, his character to be 
religious, temperate, humane, and moderate, and 
his uniform conduct all that can belong to a good 
subject and an honest man. When you have 
heard this evidence, it will, beyond all doubt, con- 
firm you in coming to the conclusion which, at 
such great length (for which I entreat your par- 
don), I have been endeavoring to support. 



As Mr. Erskine drew near to the close of this 
speech, his voice failed him, so that for the last 
ten mmutes he could only speak in a whisper, 
leaning on the table for support. The impres- 
sion made upon his audience, as they hung with 
breathless anxiety on his lips, while he stood be- 
fore them in this exhausted state, is said to have 
been more thrilling and profound than at any pe- 
riod of his long professional career. 

The moment he ended, the hall was filled with 
acclamations, which were taken up and repeat- 
ed by the vast multitudes that surrounded the 
building and blocked up the streets. Erskine 
made a noble use of his popularity. Recovering 
his voice, he went out and addressed the crowd, 
exhorting them to maintain order and confide in 
the justice of their country. He then requested 
them to disperse and retire to their own homes ; 
and within a few minutes, they were all gone, 
leaving the streets to a stillness like that of mid- 
night. 

On Monday morning, the evidence for the 
prisoner was received, after which Mr. Gibbs 
summed up in his defense, and the Solicitor Gen- 
eral, Sir John Mitford, closed in behalf of the 
Crown. The jury were out three hours, and re- 
turned with a verdict of not guilty. 

As the other cases stood on the same ground, 
it was supposed the government would stop here. 
But thc}^ determined to make one more effort, by 
arraigning Home Tooke, the celebrated philolo- 
gist. Tooke was then nearly sixty years old, 
with a frame broken down by disease, but having 
all the self-confidence of his early days, when he 
entered the lists with Junius. Mr. Erskine was 
his counsel ; but he wrote a note from prison, say- 
ing that, in addition to this, he was determined to 
speak in his own defense. He had done so three 
years before, in his suit with Mr. Fox ; and he 
thus began his address to the jury : " Gentlemen, 



1797.] 

there are here three parties to be considered 
— you, Mr. Fox, and myself. As for the judge 
and the crier^ they are sent here to preserve or- 
der, and they are both well paid for their trou- 
ble." Mr. Erskine, remembering the past, an- 
swered Tooke's note proposing to speak, by sim- 
ply saying, '' You'll be hanged if you do ;" to 
which Tooke instantly replied, "I'll be hanged if 
I donH.,''^ and went on to keep his word ! When 
arraigned for trial, and asked, " By whom will 
you be tried ?" he looked round some seconds on 
the court in a significant manner, and exclaimed, 
" I ivould be tried by God and my country ! 
But — " He then asked liberty to sit with his 
counsel ; and the court, on consultation, granted 
it as " an indulgence to his age." "My Lord," 
said he, " if I were judge, the word indulgence 
should never issue from my lips. My Lord, you 
have no indulgence to show ; you are bound to 



ON PAINE'S AGE OF REASON. 



761 



be jvist ; to do that which is ordered!" It is 
wonderful that Mr. Erskine was able to keep 
Tooke from being hanged, when he went on, 
throughout the whole cause, examining witness- 
es, and making remarks in the same spirit. But 
the case of Hardy had decided the principle, and 
Tooke was acquitted. The other prisoners were 
then discharged. 

Mr. Erskine's prediction proved correct when 
he told the jury that indulgence to the prisoners 
in this case would be found the best way to check 
a factious spirit among the people. " The ver- 
dict of acquittal," says the editor of his speeches, 
"instead of giving encouragement to whatever 
spirit of sedition may have existed at that period, 
produced a universal spirit of content and confi- 
dence in the people. Nothing, indeed, could 
more properly excite such sentiments than so 
memorable a proof of safety under the laws." 



SPEECH 

OF MR. ERSKINE AGAINST THOMAS WILLIAMS FOR THE PUBLICATION OF PAINE'S AGE OF REA- 
SON, BEFORE LORD KENYON AND A SPECIAL JURY, ON THE 24th OF JULY, 1797. 

INTRODUCTION. 
Williams was a bookseller of infamous character in London, and was prosecuted by the Society for 
the Suppression of Vice and Immorality, for publishing Paine's abusive attack on Christianity entitled 
the Age of Reason. Mr. Erskine was counsel for the prosecution, and opened the case. The plea set up 
by the defendant was, that such an attack was no crime against the government; and Mr. Erskine's re- 
marks were, therefore, directed chiefly to one point, viz., that " the Christian religion is the very founda- 
tion of the laws of the land." He draws the line with great clearness and precision between a legit- 
imate inquiry into the evidences of our religion, and a scurrilous and insulting attack on its institutions, 
calculated to destroy the influence of all religious belief upon the minds of men, and to set them free from 
the restraints of conscience, the obligations of an oath, and all the other bonds which unite society togeth- 
er. This speech contains a fuller exhibition than any other, of Mr. Erskine's powers of declamation in 
the best sense of the term — of lofty and glowing amplification on subjects calculated to awaken sublime 
sentiments, and thus to enforce the argument out of which it springs. 



SPEE 

Gentle:vien of the Jury, — The charge of 
blasphemy, which is put upon the record against 
the printer of this publication, is not an accusa- 
tion of the servants of the Crown, but comes be- 
fore you sanctioned by the oaths of a grand jury 
of the country. It stood for trial upon a former 
Reasons for de- day ; but it happening, as it frequent- 
tnVthejury'ong- 'y docs, without any imputation on 
iTcouid'TaTr the gentlemen named in the panel, 
upihecase. that a Sufficient number did not ap- 
pear to constitute a full special jury, I thought it 
my duty to withdraw the cause from trial till I 
could have the opportunity, wiiich is now open to 
me, of addressing myself to you, who were orig- 
inally appointed to try it. I pursued this course, 
however, from no jealousy of the common juries 
appointed by the laws for the ordinary service of 
the court, since my whole life has been one con- 
tinued experience of their virtues, but because I 
thought it of great importance that those who 
were to decide upon a cause so very momentous 
to the public should have the highest possible 
qualifications for fhe decision. That they should 



CH, &c. 

not only be men capable, from their education, of 
forming an enlightened judgment, but that their 
situations should be such as to bring them with- 
in the full view of their enlightened country, to 
which, in character and in estimation, they were 
in their own turns to be responsible. 

Not having the honor, gentlemen, to be sworn 
for the King, as one of his counsel, it no invasion in- 
has fallen much oftener to my lot to Sy ofVue" 
defend indictments for libels, than to r'''-'''s- 
assist in the prosecution of them. But I feel no 
embarrassment from that recollection, since I 
shall not be found to-day to express a sentiment 
or to utter an expression, inconsistent with those 
invaluable principles for which I have uniformly 
contended in the defense of others. Nothing that 
I have ever said, either professionally or person- 
ally, for the liberty of the press, do I mean to 
deny, to contradict, or counteract. On the con- 
trary, I desire to preface the discourse I have to 
make to you, with reminding you that it is your 
most solemn duty to take care it suffers no injury 
in your hands. A free and unlicensed press, in 



762 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1797 



the jtcst and legal sense of the expression^ has led 
to all the blessings, both of religion and govern- 
ment, which Great Britain, or any part of the 
world, at this moment enjoys, and is calculated 
still further to advance mankind to higher de- 
grees of civilization and happiness. But this 
freedom, like every other, must be limited to be 
enjoyed, and, like every human advantage, may 
be defeated by its abuse. 

Gentlemen, the defendant stands indicted for 
havinfT luiblished this book, which I have 

Nature oftbe ° i ,■ ,, i i- .• r r 

proposed de- only read irom the obligations oi proles- 
^°*^" sional duty, and which I rose from the 

reading of with astonishment and disgust. Stand- 
ing here with all the privileges belonging to the 
highest counsel for the Crown, I shall be entitled 
to reply to any defense that shall be made for the 
publication. I shall wait with patience till I hear 
it. Indeed, if I were to anticipate the defense 
which I hear and read of, it would be defaming, 
by anticipation, the learned counsel who is to 
make it. For if I am to collect it, even from 
a formal notice given to the prosecutors in the 
course of the proceedings, I have to expect that, 
instead of a defense conducted according to the 
rules and principles of English law and justice, 
the foundation of all our laws, and the sanctions 
of all our justice, are to be struck at and insult- 
ed. What is the force of that jurisdiction which 
enables the court to sit in judgment ? What but 
the oath which his Lordship as well as yourselves 
have sworn upon the Gospel to fulfill. Yet in 
A denial of that tlic Klug's Court, whcrc his Majesty 
wiioie'uVdai '^ himself also sworn to administer 
system of the thc justicc of England in the King's 

kingdom rests. _, •* , ...... , ^ 

Court, who receives his high author- 
ity under a solemn oath to maintain the Christian 
religion, as it is promulgated by God in the Holy 
Scriptures, I am nevertheless called upon, as 
counsel for the prosecution, to produce a certain 
book described in the indictment to be the Holy 
Bible. No man deserves to be upon the rolls of 
the court w^ho dares, as an attorney, to put his 
■ name to such a notice. It is an insult to the au- 
thority and dignity of the court of which he is an 
officer ; since it seems to call in question the very 
foundations of its jurisdiction. If this is to be the 
spirit and temper of the defense ; if, as I collect 
from that array of books which are spread upon 
the benches behind me, this publication is to be 
vindicated by an attack on all the truths which 
the Christian religion promulgates to mankind, 
let it be remembered that such an argument was 
neither suggested nor justified by any thing said 
by me on the part of the prosecution. In this 
stage of the proceedings, 1 shall call for reverence 
to the sacred Scriptures, not from their merits, 
unbounded as they arc, but from their authority 
in a Christian country •, not from the obligations 
of conscience, but from the rules of law. For 
my own part, gentlemen, I have been ever deep- 
ly devoted to the truths of Christianity, and my 
firm belief in the Holy Gospel is by no means 
owing to the prejudices of education, though I 
was religiously educated by the best of parents, 
but arises from the fullest and most continued re- 



flections of my riper years and understanding. 
It forms at this moment the great consolation of 
a life wiiich, as a shadow, must pass awav ; and 
without it, indeed, I should consider my long 
course of health and prosperity, perhaps too long 
and uninterrupted to be good for any man, only 
as the dust wiiich tl^ wind scatters, and rather 
as a snare than as a blessing. Much, however, 
as I wish to support the authority of the Scrip- 
tures, from a reasoned consideration of them, I 
shall repress that subject for the present. But 
if the defense shall be as I have suspected, to 
bring them at all into argument or question, I 
shall then fulfill a duty which I owe not only to 
the court, as counsel for the prosecution, but to 
the public, to state what I feel and know con- 
cerning the evidences of that religion which is 
reviled without being examined, and denied with- 
out being understood. 

I am well aware that by the communications 
of a free press, all the errors of man- ,, 

, . , P ' ' , , ,. Useandmiport- 

kinu, irom age to age, have been dis- anceofafree 
sipated and dispelled ; and I recollect ^'^^^^' 
that the world, under the banners of reforrned 
Christianity, has struggled through persecution 
to the noble eminence on which it stands at this 
moment, shedding the blessings of humanity and 
science upon the nations of the earth. It may 
be asked by what means the Reformation would 
have been effected if the books of the reformers 
had been suppressed, and the errors of condemned 
and exploded superstitions had been supported as 
unquestionable by the state, founded upon those 
very superstitions formerly, as it is at present, 
upon the doctrines of the Established Church ? oi 
how, upon such principles, any reformation, civil 
or religious, can in future be effected? The so- 
lution is easy. Let us examine what are the 
genuine principles of the liberty of the press, as 
they regard writings upon general subjects, un- 
connected with the personal reputations of pri- 
vate men, which are wholly foreign to the pres- 
ent inquiry. They are full of simplicity, and are 
brought as near perfection by the law of England 
as, perhaps, is consistent with any of the frail in- 
stitutions of mankind. 

Although every community must establish su- 
preme authorities, founded upon fixed Principles 
principles, and must give high powers ;;;^'rreedom oF 
to magistrates to administer laws for H'e 1"''^* hi 

~ matters civil 

the preservation of the government it- and religious. 
self, and for the security of those who are to be 
protected by it ; yet, as infallibility and perfection 
belong neither to human establishments nor to 
human individuals, it ought to be the policy of 
all free establishments, as it is most peculiarly 
the principle of our own Constitution, to permit 
the most unbounded freedom of discussion, even 
by detecting errors in the Constitution or admin- 
istration of the very government itself, so as that 
decorum is observed which every state must ex- 
act from its subjects, and wiiich imposes no re- 
straint upon any intellectual composition, fairly, 
honestly, and decently addressed to the conscien- 
ces and understandings of men. Upon this prin- 
ciple I have an unquestionable right — a right 



1797] 



ON PAINE'S AGE OF REASON. 



763 



which the best subjects have exercised — to ex- 
amine the principles and structure of the Consti- 
tution, and by fair, manly reasoning, to question 
the practice of its administrators. I have a right 
to consider and to point out errors in the one or 
in the other ; and not merely to reason upon their 
existence, but to consider the means of their ref- 
ormation. By such free, well-intentioned, mod- 
est, and dignified communication of sentiments 
and opinions all nations have been gradually im- 
proved, and milder laws and purer religions have 
been established. The same principles which 
vindicate civil contentions, honestly directed, ex- 
tend their protection to the sharpest controversies 
on religious faiths. This rational and legal course 
of improvement was recognized and ratified by 
Lord Kenyon as the law of England, in a late 
trial at Guildhall, when he looked back with grat- 
itude to the labors of the reformers, as the fount- 
ains of our religious emancipation, and of the 
civil blessings that followed in their train. The 
English Constitution, indeed, does not stop short 
in the toleration of religious opinions^ but liber- 
ally extends it to practice. It permits every man, 
even publicly, to worship God according to his 
own conscience, though in marked dissent from 
the national establishment, so as he professes the 
general faith, which is the sanction of all our 
moral duties, and the only pledge of our submis- 
sion to the system which constitutes a state. Is 
not this system of freedom of controversy and 
freedom of worship, sufficient for all the pur- 
poses of human happiness and improvement ? 
and will it be necessary for either that the law 
should hold out indemnity to those who wholly 
abjui-e and revile the government of their coun- 
try, or the religion on which it rests for its foun- 
dation ? 

I expect to hear, in answer to what I am now 
T->- *■ .• u saying, much that will offend me. My 

Distinction be- J fe' ,. t, . "1, 

tween le-iti- leamcd friend, from the difficulties of 

mate inquiry ... . i • i t i r 

and scurrilous his Situation, which 1 know, Irom ex- 
mv^ctive. perience, how to feel for very sincere- 
ly, may be driven to advance propositions which 
it may be my duty, with much freedom to reply to ; 
and the law will sanction that freedom. But will 
not the ends of justice be completely answered by 
the right to point out the errors of his discourse 
in terms that are decent and calculated to expose 
its defects ? or will any argument suffer, or will 
public justice be impeded, because neither private 
honor and justice, nor public decorum, would en- 
dure my telling my very learned friend that he 
was a fool, a liar, and a scoundrel, in the face of 
the court, because I differed from him in argu- 
ment or opinion ? This is just the distinction be- 
tween a book of free legal controversy and the 
book which I am arraigning before you. Every 
man has a legal right to investigate, with modesty 
and decency, controversial points of the Christian 
religion ; but no man, consistently with a law 
which only exists under its sanctions, has a right 
not only broadly to deny its very existence, but 
to pour forth a shocking and insulting invective, 
which the lowest establishments in the grada- 
tions of civil authority ought not to be permitted 



to suffer, and which soon would be borne down 
by insolence and disobedience, if they did. 

The same principle pervades the whole system 
of the law, not merely in its abstract 

, ... 1 -I 1 Illustration 

theory, but in its daily and most ap- from parallel 
plauded practice. The intercourse be- ''^^'"'' 
tween the sexes, and which, properly regulated, 
not only continues, but humanizes and adorns our 
natures, is the foundation of all the thousand ro- 
mances, plays, and novels which are in the hands 
of every body. Some of them lead to the con- 
firmation of every virtuous principle ; others, 
though with the same profession, address the im- 
agination in a manner to lead the passions into 
dangerous excesses. But though the law does 
not nicely discriminate the various shades which 
distinguish these works from one another, so as 
that it suffers many to pass, through its liberal 
spirit, that upon principle might be suppressed, 
would it or does it tolerate, or does any decent 
man contend that it ought to pass by unpuni.shed, 
libels of the most shameless obscenity, manifest- 
l}^ pointed to debauch innocence, and to blast and 
poison the morals of the rising generation ? This 
is only another illustration to demonstrate the ob- 
vious distinction between the works of an author 
who fairly exercises the powers of his mind in 
investigating doctrinal points in the religion of any 
country, and him who attacks the rational exist- 
ence of every religion, and brands with absurdi- 
ty and folly the state which sanctions, and the 
obedient tools who cherish, the delusion. But 
this publication appears to me to be as mischiev- 
ous and cruel in its probable effects, as it is man- 
ifestly illegal in its principles ; because it strikes 
at the best, sometimes, alas ! the only refuge and 
consolation amid the distresses and ^ 

m ■ • ('I rr>i Importance of 

aiiiictions oi the world. The poor religious conso- 
and humble, whom it affects to pity, sonTin p^ovlny 
may be stabbed to the heart by it. ""^^ ^A"^^'""- 
They have more occasion for firm hopes beyond 
the grave than those who have greater comforts 
to render life delightful. I can conceive a dis- 
tressed, but virtuous man, surrounded by chil- 
dren, looking up to him for bread when he has 
none to give them, sinking under the last day's 
labor, and unequal to the next, yet still looking 
up with confidence to the hour when all tears 
shall be wiped from the eyes of afiliction, bear- 
ing the burden laid upon him by a mysterious 
Providence which he adores, and looking forward 
with exultation to the revealed promises of his 
Creator, when he shall be greater than the great- 
est, and happier than the happiest of mankind. 
What a change in such a mind might be wrought 
b}'^ such a mei-ciless publication ? Gentlemen, 
whether these remarks are the overcharged dec- 
lamations of an accusing counsel, or the just re- 
flections of a man anxious for the public freedom, 
which is best secured by the morals of a nation, 
will be best settled by an appeal to the passages 
in the work, that are selected in the indictment 
for your consideration and judgment. You are 
at liberty to connect them with every context 
and sequel, and to bestow upon them the mildest 
interpretation. [Here jNIr. Erskine read and 



764 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1797. 



commented upon several of the selected passa- 
ges.] 

Gentlemen, it would be useless and disgust- 
The book sub- ing to enumerate the other passages 
foundrtiun'of within the scope of the indictment, 
government. How any man can rationally vindi- 
cate the publication of such a book, in a country 
where the Christian religion is the very founda- 
tion of the law of the land, I am totally at a loss 
to conceive, and have no wish to discuss. How 
is a tribunal, whose whole jurisdiction is founded 
upon the solemn belief and practice of what is 
denied as falsehood, and reprobated as impiety, 
to deal with such an anomalous defense ? Upon 
what principle is it even offered to the court, 
whose authority is contemned and mocked at ? 
If the religion proposed to be called in question 
is not previously adopted in belief, and solemnly 
acted upon, what authority has the court to pass 
any judgment at all of acquittal or condemna- 
tion ? Why am I now, or upon any other occa- 
sion, to submit to your Lordship's authority ? 
Why am I now, or at any time, to address twelve 
of my equals, as I am now addressing you, with 
reverence and submission ? Under what sanc- 
tion are the witne.sses to give their evidence, 
without which there can be no trial? Under 
what obligations can I call upon you, the jury, 
representing your country, to administer justice ? 
Surely upon no other than that you are sworn to 
administer it under the oaths you have taken. 
The whole judicial fabric, from the King's sov- 
ereign authority to the lowest office of magistra- 
cy, has no other foundation. The whole is built, 
both in form and substance, upon the same oath 
of ever}' one of its ministers, to do justice, "as 
God shall help them hereafter.''' What God ? and 
what hereafter ? That God, undoubtedly, who 
has commanded Kings to rule, and judges to de- 
cree with justice ; who has said to witnesses, not 
by the voice of nature, but in revealed command- 
ment.?, '"'' thou shalt not bear false witness against 
thy neighbor ;^^ and who has enforced obedience 
to them by the revelation of the unutterable 
blessings which shall attend their observances, 
and the awful punishments which shall await 
upon their transgressions. 

But it .seems this course of reason, and the 
Mr. Paine com- time and the person are at last ar- 
befi^veT.s'in^''* rivcd, that are to dissipate the errors 
Christianity. which havc oversprcad the past gen- 
erations of ignorance! The believers in Chris- 
tianity are many, but it belongs to the few that 
are wise to correct their credulity ! Belief is an 
act of reason; and superior reason may, there- 
fore, dictate to the weak. In running the mind 
along the numerous list of sincere and devout 
Christians, I can not help lamenting that New- 
ton had not lived to this day, to have had his shal- 
lowness filled up with this new flood of light. But 
the subject is too awful for irony. I will speak 
plainly and directly. Newton was a 

Newton. U. . •'. . ^^ •' , • i i 

Christian! Newton, whose mmd burst 
forth from the fetters cast by nature upon our 
finite conceptions ; Newton, whose science was 
truth, and the foundation of whose knowledge of 



Boyle. 



it was philosophy. Not those visionary and arro- 
gant assumptions which too often usurp its name, 
but philosophy resting upon the basis of mathe- 
matics, which, like figures, can not lie. Newton, 
who carried the line and rule to the utmost bar- 
riers of creation, and explored the principles by 
which, no doubt, all created matter is held to- 
gether and exists. But this extraordinary man, 
in the mighty reach of his mind, overlooked, per- 
haps, the errors which a minuter investigation 
of the created things on this earth might have 
taught him of the essence of his Creator. What 
shall then be said of the great Mr. Boyle, 
who looked into the organic structure of all 
matter, even to the brute inanimate substances 
which the foot treads on. Such a man may bo 
supposed to have been equally qualified with Mr. 
Paine, to " look through nature, up to nature's 
God." Yet the result of all his contemplation 
was the most confirmed and devout belief in all 
which the other holds in contempt as despicable 
and driveling superstition. But this error might, 
perhaps, arise from a want of due attention to the 
foundations of human judgment, and the .structure 
of that understanding which God has given us for 
the investigation of truth. Let that question be 
answered by Mr. Locke, who was to the 
highest pitch of devotion and adoration a 
Christian. Mr. Locke, whose office was to de- 
tect the errors of thinking, by going up to the 
fountains of thought, and to direct into the proper 
track of reasoning the devious mind of man, by 
showing him its whole process, from the first per- 
ceptions of sense to the last conclusions of ratio- 
cination ; putting a rein, besides, upon fal^e opin- 
ion, by practical rules for the conduct of human 
judgment. 

But these men were only deep thinkers, and 
lived in their closets, unaccustomed to the traffic 
of the world, and to the laws which practically 
regulate mankind. Gentlemen, in the place 
where you now sit to administer the justice of 
this great country, above a century ago the nev- 
er-to-be-forgotten Sir Matthew Hale pre- 
sided, whose faith in Christianity is an ex- 
alted commentary upon its truth and reason, and 
whose life was a glorious example of its fruits in 
man ; administering human justice with a wis- 
dom and purity drawn from the pure fountain of 
the Christian dispensation, which has been, and 
will be, in all ages, a subject of the highest rev- 
erence and admiration. 

But it is said by Mr. Paine that the Christian 
fable is but the tale of the more an- pretense timt 
cient superstitions of the world, and o.llya ^'IJj'th of 
may be easily detected by a proper earlier times. 
understanding of the mythologies of the heathens. 
Did Milton understand those mythologies ? Was 
he less versed than Mr. Paine in the superstitions 
of the world ? No : they were the subject of his 
immortal song ; and though shut out from all re- 
currence to them, he poured them forth from the 
stores of a memory rich with all that man ever 
knew, and laid them in their order as the illus- 
tration of that real and exalted faith, the unques- 
tionable source of that fervid genius, which 



1797.] ON PAINE'S AGE OF REASON 

cast a sort of shade upon all the other works of 



765 



He pass'd the bounds of flamuig space, 
Where angels tremble while they gaze ; 
He saw, till, blasted with excess of light, 
He clos'd his eyes in endless night !^ 
But it was the light of the body only that was 
extinguished ; " the celestial light shone inward," 
and enabled him to "justify the ways of God to 
man." The result of his thinking was, neverthe- 
less, not the same as Mr. Paine's. The mysteri- 
ous incarnation of our blessed Savior, which the 
" Age of Reason" blasphemes in w^ords so whol- 
ly unfit for the mouth of a Christian, or for the 
ear of a court of justice, that I dare not and will 
not give them utterance, Milton made the grand 
conclusion of Paradise Lost, the rest of his fin- 
ished labors, and the ultimate hope, expectation, 
and glory of the world : 
A Virgin is his mother, but his sire 
The power of the Most High : he shall ascend 
The throne hereditary, and bound his reign 
With earth's wide bounds, his glory with the heav- 
ens. 
The immortal poet having thus put into the 
mouth of the angel the prophecy of man's re- 
demption, follows it with that solemn and beauti- 
ful admonition, addressed in the poem to our great 
First Parent, but intended as an address to his 
posterity through all generations: 

This having learned, thou hast attained the sum 

Of wisdom : hope no higher, though all the stars 

Thou knew'st by name, and all th' ethereal powers. 

All secrets of the deep, all Nature's works, 

Or works of God in heaven, air, earth, or sea, 

And all the riches of this world enjoy'st, 

And all the rule one empire ; only add 

Deeds to thy knowledge answerable, add faith. 

Add virtue, patience, temperance ; add love, 

By name to come call'd Charity, the soul 

Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loth 

To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess 

A paradise within thee, happier far. 

Thus you find all that is great, or wise, or 
splendid, or illustrious among created beings — 
all the minds gifted beyond ordinary nature, if not 
inspired by their universal Author for the ad- 
vrancement and dignity of the world, though di- 
vided by distant ages, and by the clashing opin- 
ions distinguishing them from one another, yet 
joining, as it were, in one sublime chorus to cel- 
ebrate the truths of Christianity, and laying upon 
its holy altars the never-fading offerings of their 
immortal wisdom. 

Against all this concurring testimony, we find 
„ ... . suddenly, from Mr. Paine, that the Bible 

Morality of •' . ! 

teaches nothing but " lies, obscenity, 
cruelty, and injustice." Did the author 
or publisher ever read the sermon of Christ upon 
the Mount, in which the great principles of our 
faith and duty are summed up? Let us all but 
read and practice it. and lies, obscenity, cruelty, 
and injustice, and all human wickedness, would be 
banished from the world. 



the Ne 
Testament. 



Grey's Ode on the Progress of Poetry. 



Tendenoy of 
tlie book to de- 
stroy all social 
order, so that 



Gentlemen, there is but one consideration more 
which I can not possibly omit, be- 
cause, I confess, it affects me very 
deeply. Mr. Paine has written large- 
ly on public liberty and government ; ^^f.Cr;^ {,'« » 
and this last performance has, on that ""eivi^y from its 
account, been more widely circulated, 
and principally among those who attached them- 
selves from principle to his former works. This 
circumstance renders a public attack upon all re- 
vealed religion, from such a writer, infinitely more 
dangerous. The religious and moral sense of 
the people of Great Britain is the great anchor 
which alone can hold the vessel of the state 
amid the storms which agitate the world. If I 
could believe, for a moment, that the mass of the 
people were to be debauched from the principles 
of religion, which form the true basis of that hu- 
manity, charity, and benevolence that has been 
so long the national characteristic, instead of mix- 
ing myself, as I sometimes have done, in politic- 
al reformations, I would rather retire to the ut- 
termost corners of the earth to avoid their agita- 
tion ; and would bear, not only the imperfections 
and abuses complained of in our own wise estab- 
lishment, but even the worst government that ever 
existed in the world, rather than go to the work 
of reformation with a multitude set free from all 
the charities of Christianity, who had no sense of 
God's existence but from Mr. Paine's observa- 
tion of nature, which the mass of mankind have 
no leisure to contemplate ; nor any belief of future 
rewards and punishments to animate the good 
in the glorious pursuit of human happiness, nor 
to deter the wicked from destroying it even in 
its birth. But I know the people of England bet- 
ter. They are a religious people ; and, with the 
blessing of God, as far as it is in my power, I will 
lend my aid to keep them so. I have no objec- 
tions to the freest and most extended discussions 
upon doctrinal points of the Christian religion ; 
and, though the law of England does not permit it^ 
I do not dread the reasoned arguments of De- 
ists against the existence of Christianity itself, 
because, as was said by its divine author, if it is 
of God, it will stand. An intellectual book, how- 
ever erroneous, addressed to the intellectual world 
upon so profound and complicated a subject, can 
never work the mischief which this indictment is 
calculated to repress. Such works will only em- 
ploy the minds of men enlightened by study in 
a deeper investigation of a subject well worthy 
of their profound and continued contemplation. 
The powers of the mind are given for human im- 
provement in the progress of human existence. 
The changes produced by such reciprocations of 
lights and intelligences are certain in their pro- 
gressions, and make their way imperceptibly, as 
conviction comes upon the world, by the final 
and irresistible power of truth. If Christianity 
be founded in falsehood, let us become Deists in 
this manner, and I am contented. But this book 
hath no such object and no such capacity ; it 
presents no arguments to the wise and enlight- 
ened. On the contrary, it treats the faith and 
opinions of the wisest with the most shocking 



766 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1800. 



contempt, and stirs up men without the advant- 
ages of learning or sober thinking to a total dis- 
belief of every thing hitherto held sacred, and, 
consequently, to a rejection of all the laws and 
ordinances of the state, which stand only upon 
the assumption of their truth. 

Gentlemen, I can not conclude without ex- 
Peroration: pressing the deepest regret at all at- 
The friends of tacks uuon the Christian religion by 

civil liberty ^ , „ i 

should be the authors who proless to promote the 
auack chrfs'° civil liberties of the world. For un- 
tiaiiity. jgj, what other auspices than Chris- 

tianity have the lost and subverted liberties of 
mankind in former ages been reasserted? By 
what zeal, but the warm zeal of devout Chris- 
tians, have English liberties been redeemed and 
consecrated ? Under what other sanctions, even 
in our own days, have liberty and happiness been 
extending and spreading to the uttermost corners 
of the earth ? What work of civilization, what 



commonwealth of greatness has the bald religion 
of nature ever established ? We see, on the con- 
trary, the nations that have no other light than 
that of nature to direct them, sunk in barbarism 
or slaves to arbitrary governments ; while, since 
the Christian era, the great career of the world 
has been slowly, but cleax'ly, advancing lighter 
at every step, from the awful prophecies of the 
Gospel, and leading, I trust, in the end, to uni- 
versal and eternal happiness. Each generation 
of mankind can see but a few revolving links of 
this mighty and mysterious chain ; but, by doing 
our several duties in our allotted stations, we are 
sure that we are fulfilling the purposes of our 
existence. You, I trust, will fulfill yours this 
dav! 



The jury found a verdict of Guilty, without 
retiring from their seats. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. ERSKINE IN BEHALF OF JAMES HADFIELD, WHEN INDICTED FOR HIGH TREASON, DELIV- 
ERED BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH, JUNE 26, 1800. 



INTRODUCTION. 
James Hadfield was an invalid soldier of the British anny, and was indicted for firing a pistol at the 
King in the Drury Lane Theater. He was defended on the ground that he acted under a strong delusion, 
producing a settled insanity on one subject, while he appeared entirely rational upon every other. Lord 
Campbell says this "was Erskine's last, and perhaps his greatest display of genius in defending a paity 
prosecuted by the Crown. It is now, and ever will be, studied by medical men for its philosophic views 
of mental disease — by lawyers for its admirable distinctions as to the degree of alienation of mind which 
will exempt from final responsibility — by logicians for its severe and connected reasoning ; and by all 
lovers of genuine eloquence for its touching appeals to human feeling." — Lives of the Chancellors, vol. 
vi., page 520. 

S P E E C H, &c. 

subjects, YET NOT A HAIR OF THE HEAD OF THE 

SUPPOSED ASSASSIN WAS TOUCHED. lu tliis Un- 
paralleled scene of calm forbearance, the King 
himself, though he stood first in personal interest 
and feeling, as well as in command, was a sin- 



Gentlemen OF THE JuRY, — Thc scenc which 
we are engaged in, and the duty which I am not 
merely T^rzvzVf^'ec^, but appointed by the authority 
of the court to perform, exhibits to the whole civ- 
ilized world a perpetual monument of our national 
justice.^ 

The transaction, indeed, in every part of it, as 
The peculiarity i*- Stands rccordcd in the evidence al- 
of the proceed- ready before us, places our country, 

ing in a case like •; ' ^ , . . r ^ 

this an honor to and its government, and its mhabit- 
ngis JUS ice. ^^^^^ upon thc highest pinnacle of hu- 
man elevation. It appears that, upon the 15th 
day of May last, his Majesty, after a reign of 
forty years, not merely in sovereign power, but 
spontaneously in the very hearts of his people, 
was openly shot at (or to all appearance shot at) 
in a public theater [Drury Lane], in the center 
of his capital, and amid the loyal plaudits of his 



1 This is, perhaps, the most felicitous of Mr. Er- 
skine's exordiums. It turns upon a fact highly grat- 
ifying to the minds of an English jury, and leading 
directly to the great thought which needed to be 
urged at the outset, viz., tliat no regard for the 
King's safety should lead to any hasty or preju- 
diced judgments. Thc same thought is admirably 
introduced in a different connection at the close. 



gular and fortunate example. The least appear- 
ance of emotion on the part of that august per- 
sonage must unavoidably have produced a scene 
quite different, and far less honorable than the 
court is now witnessing. But his Majesty re- 
mained unmoved, and the person apparently of- 
fending was only secured, without injury or re- 
proach, for the business of this Ao-j. 

Gentlemen, I agree with the Attorney Gener- 
al^ (indeed, there can be no possible Greater protec 
doubt) that if the same pistol had been 'a^^^irtTthe 
maliciously fired by the prisoner, in ^,'"^,riv"te^n. 
the same theater, at the meanest man divuiuai. 
within its walls, he would have been brought to 
immediate trial, and, if guilty, to immediate exe- 
cution. He would have heard the charge against 
him for the first time when the indictment was 
read upon his arraignment. He would have been 



2 Sir John Mitford, afterward Lord Redesdale, and 
Lord Chancellor of Ireland. 



1800.] 

a stranger to the names, and even to the exist- 
ence, of those who were to sit in judgment upon 
him, and of those who were to be the witnesses 
against him. But upon the charge of even this 
murderous attack upon the King himself, he is 
covered all over with the armor of the law. He 
has been provided with counsel by the King's 
own judges, and not of their choice, but of his 
oivn.^ He has had a copy of the indictment ten 
days before his trial."* He has had the names, 
descriptions, and abodes of all the jurors returned 
to the court ; and the highest privilege of per- 
emptory challenges derived from, and safely di- 
rected by that indulgence.^ He has had the 
same description of every witness who could be 
received to accuse him ; and there must at this 
hour be ticice the testimony against him which 
would be legally competent to establish his guilt 
on a similar prosecution by [in behalf of] the 
meanest and most helpless of mankind. 

Gentlemen, when this melancholy catastrophe 
DifficuH.at first happened, and the prisoner was ar- 
to see the j-^jgned for trial, I remember to have 



IN BEHALF OF HADFIELD. 



767 



ofU 

diflerence. gg^j^^^ ^q gQ^ie now prcscnt, that it was, 
at first view, difficult to bring those indulgent ex- 
ceptions to the general rules of trial within the 
principle which dictated them to our humane an- 
cestors in cases of treasons against the political 
government, or of rebellious conspiracy against 
the person of the King. In these cases, the pas- 
sions and interests of great bodies of powerful 
men being engaged and agitated, a counterpoise 
became necessary to give composure and impar- 
tiality to criminal tribunals ; but a mei-e murder- 
ous attack upon the King's person, not at all con- 
nected with his political character, seemed a case 
to be ranged and dealt with like a similar attack 
upon any private man. 

But the wisdom of the law is greater than any 
Thatreasoa mau's wisdom ; how much more, there- 
assigned. (q^.q^ ^\^q^^ miuc ! An attack upon the 
King is considered to be parricide against the 
state, and the jury and the witnesses, and even 



3 By 7 Will. III., cap. 3, sec. 1, a person charged 
with high treason is allowed to make his defense by 
counsel, not exceeding two in number, to be selected 
by himself and assigned to him by the court ; and by- 
sec. 2 of the same statute, no person shall be con- 
victed of high treason but upon the oaths of two law- 
ful witnesses, unless he shall willingly, and without 
violence, confess the same. 

* The statute 7 Anne, cap. 21, directs that all per- 
sons indicted for high treason shall have a copy of 
the indictment, together with a list of the witnesses 
to be produced against them on the trial, and of the 
jurors impauneled, with their professions and places 
of abode respectively, delivered to them ten days be- 
fore trial, and in the presence of two or more wit- 
nesses. But now, by 39 and 40 Geo. III., cap. 93, 
and 5 and 6 Vict., cap. 51, the proceedings in trials 
for high treason in compassing the death or bodily 
harm of the Q,ueen are assimilated to those in trials 
for murder. 

5 On a trial for high treason, the prisoner is allowed 
a peremptory challenge of thirty-five jurors ; that is, 
one under the number of three full juries. This is the 
effect of 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, cap. 10, sec. 7. 



the judges, are the children. It is fit, on that 
account, that there should be a solemn pause be- 
fore we rush to judgment ; and what can be a 
more sublime spectacle of justice than to see a 
statutable disqualification of a whole nation for a 
limited period, a fifteen days' quarantine before 
trial, lest the mind should be subject to the con- 
tagion of pai-tial affections ! 

From a prisoner so protected by the benevo- 



lence of our institutions, the utmost 



The obhgations 



srood faith would, on his part, be due imposed by this 

» /. 1 • distinction on 

to the public if he had consciousness the counsel for 
and reason to reflect upon the obliga- '^ P"3°"e'"- 
tion. The duty, therefore, devolves on me; and, 
upon my honor ^ it shall be fulfilled. I will em- 
ploy no artifices of speech. I claim only the 
strictest protection of the law for the unhappy 
man before you. I should, indeed, be ashamed 
if I were to say any thing of the rule in the ab- 
stract by which he is to be judged, which I did 
not honestly feel ; I am sorry, therefore, that the 
.subject is so difficult to handle with brevity and 
precision. Indeed, if it could be brought to a 
clear and simple criterion, which could admit of 
a dry admission or contradiction, there might be 
very little difference, perhaps none at all, between 
the Attorney General and myself, upon the prin- 
ciples which ought to govern your verdict. But 
this is not possible, and I am, therefore, under the 
necessity of submitting to you, and to the judges, 
for their direction (and at greater length than I 
wish), how I understand this difficult and mo- 
mentous subject. 

The law, as it regards this most unfortunate 
infirmity of the human mind, like the The law on this 
law in all its branches, aims at the ut- sanf-'^i'ndefinue 
most degree of precision ; but there initsappUca- 
are some subjects, as I have just ob- 
served to you, and the present is one of them, 
upon which it is extremely difficult to be precise. 
The general principle is clear, but the applica- 
tion is most difficult. 

It is agreed by all jurists, and is established by 
the law of this and every other coun- xheexerciseof 
try, that it is the reason of man which tia" tothelxlst- 
makes him accountable for his actions; ence of crime, 
and that the deprivation of reason acquits him of 
crime. This principle is indisputable ; yet so 
fearfully and wonderfully are we made, so infin- 
itely subtle is the spiritual part of our being, so 
difficult is it to trace with accuracy the effect of 
diseased intellect upon human action, that I may 
appeal to all who hear me, whether there are 
any causes more difficult, or which, indeed, so 
often confound the learning of the judges them- 
selves, as when insanity, or the effects and con- 
sequences of insanity, become the subjects of le- 
gal consideration and judgment. I shall pursue 
the subject as the Attorney General has properly 
discussed it. I shall consider insanity, as it an- 
nuls a man's dominion over property, as it dis- 
solves his contracts, and other acts, which other- 
wise would be binding, and as it takes away his 
responsibility for crimes. If I could draw the 
line in a moment between these two views of the 
subject, I am sure the judges will do me the jus- 



768 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1800. 



tice to believe that I would fairly and candidly 
do so ; but great difficulties press upon my mind, 
which oblige me to take a difTerent course. 

I agree with the Attorney General, that the 
rt ion^t „,„,. law, in neither civil nor criminal cases, 

It 19 not mere ' ^ , 

weakness of will mcasurc the degrees of men s un- 

mindjbutdep- ^ , , 

rivationof dcrstandings. A wca/c man, however 
o~;s*'asan Hiuch bclow the Ordinary standard of 
excuse. human intellect, is not only responsi- 

ble for crimes, but is bound by his contracts, and 
may exercise dominion over his property. Sir 
Joseph Jekyll, in the Duchess of Cleveland's 
case, took the clear, legal distinction, when he 
said, " The law will not measure the sizes of 
men's capacities, so as they be compos mentis.''^ 
Lord Coke, in speaking of the expression non 
compos mentis, says, " Many times (as 

Lord Coke. , , , t • i i 

here) the Latin word expresses the true 
sense, and calleth him not amcns, dcmcns, furi- 
osus, lunaticus, fatims. stuUus^ or the like, for non 
compos mentis is the most sure and legal." He 
then says, " Non compos mentis is of four sorts : 
first, ideota [an idiot], which from his nativity, by 
a perpetual infirmity, is won compos mentis ; sec- 
ondly, he that by sickness, grief, or other acci- 
dent, wholly loses his memory and understand- 
ing ; thirdly, a lunatic that hath sometimes his 
understanding, and sometimes not ; aliquando 
gaiidet hicidis intcrvallis [has sometimes lucid in- 
tervals] ; and, therefore, he is called non compos 
mentis so long as he hath not understanding." 

But notwithstanding the precision with which 
this great author points out the different kinds of 
this unhappy malady, the nature of his work, in 
this part of it, did not open to any illustration 
which it can now be useful to consider. In his 
fourth Institute he is more particular ; but the 
admirable work of Lord Chief Justice Hale, in 
which he refers to Lord Coke's pleas of the 
Crown, renders all other authorities unnecessary. 

Lord Hale says, '" There is a partial insani- 
, . „ , ty of mind, and a total insanity. The 

Lord Hale. - ... . •' , . 

former is either in respect to things, 
quoad hoc vel illud insanire [to be insane as to 
this or that]. Some persons that have a compe- 
tent use of reason in respect of some subjects, 
are yet under a particular dementia [deprivation 
of reason] in respect of some particular discours- 
es, subjects, or applications ; or else it is partial 
in respect of degrees ; and this is the condition 
of very many, especially melancholy persons, 
who for the most part discover their defect in ex- 
cessive fears and griefs, and yet are not wholly 
destitute of the use of reason ; and this partial 
insanity seems not to excuse them in the com- 
mitting of any offense for its matter capital. For, 
doubtless, most persons that are felons of them- 
selves and others, are under a degree of partial 
insanity when they commit these offenses. It 
is very difficult to define the invisible line that 
divides perfect and partial insanity ; but it must 
rest upon circumstances duly to be weighed and 
considered both by judge and jury, lest on the one 
side there be a kind of inhumanity toward the 
defects of human nature : or, on the other side, 
too grea< an indulgence given to great crimes." 



Nothing, gentlemen, can be more accurately 
nor more humanely expressed; but Marked distinc- 
the application of the rule is often I.-"?! at,7cri;^- 
most difficult. I am bound, besides, ina'case?. 
to admit that there is a wide distinction between 
civil and criminal cases. If, in the former, a man 
appears, upon the evidence, to be non compos men- 
tis, the law avoids his act, though it can not be 
traced or connected with the morbid imagination 
which constitutes his disease, and which may be 
extremely partial in its influence upon conduct ; 
but to deliver a man from responsibility for crimes^ 
above all, for crimes of great atrocity and wick- 
edness, I am by no means prepared to apply this 
rule, however well established when property 
only is concerned. 

In the very recent instance of Mr. Greenwood 
(which must be fresh in his Lordship's ^, . , 

. . . *^ Tlussliownm 

recollection), the rule in civil cases the case of 
was considered to be settled. That '■^*""'"° • 
gentleman, while insane, took up an idea that a 
most affectionate brother had administered poison 
to him. Indeed, it was the prominent feature of 
his insanity. In a few months he recovered his 
senses. He returned to his profession as an advo- 
cate ; was sound and eminent in his practice, and 
in all respects a most intelligent and useful mem- 
ber of society ; but he could never dislodge from 
his mind the morbid delusion which disturbed it; 
and under the pressure, no doubt, of that diseased 
prepossession, he disinherited his brother. The 
cause to avoid this will was tried here. We are 
not now upon the evidence, but upon the princi- 
ple adopted as the law. The noble and learned 
judge, who f (resides upon this trial, and who pre- 
sided upon that, told the jury, that if they be- 
lieved Mr. Greenwood, when he made the will, 
to have been insane, the will could not be sup- 
ported, whether it had disinherited his brother or 
not; that the act, no doubt, strongly confirmed 
the existence of the false idea which, if believed 
by the jury to amount to madness., would equally 
have affected his testament, if the brother, instead 
of being disinherited, had been in his grave ; and 
that, on the other hand, if the unfounded notion 
did not amount to madness, its influence could 
not vacate the devise.^ This principle of law 
appears to be sound and reasonable, as it applies 
to civil cases, from the extreme difficulty of trac- 
ing with precision the secret motions of a mind, 
deprived by disease of its soundness and strength. 
Whenever, therefore, a person may be consid- 
ered non compos mentis, all his civil acts are void, 
whether they can be referred or not, to the mor- 
bid impulse of his malady, or even though, to 
all visible appearances, totally separated from it. 
But I agree with Mr. Justice Tracey, that it is 
not every man of an idle, frantic appearance and 
behavior, who is to be considered as a lunatic, 
either as it regards obligations or crimes ; but 
that he must appear to the jury to be non compos 
mentis, in the legal acceptation of the term ; and 
that, not at any anterior period, which can have 

* The jury in that case found for the will; but 
after a contrary verdict in the Common Pleas, a 
compromise took place. 



1800] 



IN BEHALF OF HADFIELD. 



769 



no bearing upon any case whatsoever, but at the 
moment when the contract was entered into, or 
the crime committed. 

The Attorney General, standing undoubtedly 
Nature of the "po'^ thc most revcrcd authorities of 

insanity whicli the laW, has laid it down that to pro- 
inmost cases ' ... •! •!• 

operates as an tcct a man irom Criminal responsibili- 
ty, there must be a total deprivation 
of mem.ory and understanding. I admit that this 
is the very expression used, both by Lord Coke 
and by Lord Hale ; but the true interpretation 
of it deserves the utmost attention and consider- 
ation of the court. If a total deprivation of 
memory was intended by these great lawyers to 
be taken in the literal sense of the words ; if it 
was meant, that, to protect a man from punish- 
ment, he must be in such a state of prostrated 
intellect as not to know his name, nor his con- 
dition, nor his relation toward others — that if a 
husband, he should not know he was married ; 
or, if a father, could not remember that he had 
children, nor know the road to his house, nor 
his property in it — then no such madness ever 
Not mere cxistcd in the world. It is idiocy alone 
idiocy. -which places a man in this helpless con- 
dition ; where, from an original mal-organiza- 
tion, there is the human frame alone without the 
human capacity ; and which, indeed, meets the 
very definition of Lord Hale himself, when, re- 
ferring to Fitzherbert, he says, " Idiocy, or fa- 
tuity a nativitate^ vel dementia naturalis^ is such 
a one as described by Fitzherbert, who knows 
not to tell twenty shillings, nor knows his own 
age, or who was his father." But in all the 
eases which have filled Westminster Hall with 
the most complicated considerations — the luna- 
tics, and other insane persons who have been the 
subjects of them, have not only had memory, in 
my sense of the expression — they have not only 
had the most perfect knowledge and recollec- 
tions of all the relations they stood in toward 
others, and of the acts and circumstances of 
their lives, but have, in general, been remarka- 
ble for subtlety and acuteness. Defects in their 
But a permanent rcasouings havc scldom been trace- 

delusion of sorr- 
sort making 
lliing.s appear 
real wlncU are 

''•'"'*°- their deductions within the scope of 

the malady being founded upon the immovable 
assumption of matters as realities, either without 
any foundation whatsoever, or so distorted and 
disfigured by fancy as to be almost nearly the 
same thing as their creation. It is true, indeed, 
that in some, perhaps in many cases, the human 
mind is stormed in its citadel, and laid prostrate 
under the stroke of frenzy ; these unhappy suf- 
ferers, however, are not so much considered, by 
physicians, as maniacs, but to be in a state of 
delirium as if from fever. There, indeed, all the 
ideas are overwhelmed — for reason is not mere- 
ly disturbed, hit driven wholly from her seat. 
Such unhappy patients are unconscious, there- 
fore, except at short intervals, even of external 
objects ; or, at least, are wholly incapable of con- 
sidering their relations. Such persons, and such 
persons alone (except idiots), are wholly deprived 
C c c ' 



of their understandings, in the Attorney Gen- 
eral's seeming sense of that expression. But 
these cases are not only extremely rare, but 
never can become the subjects of judicial diffi- 
culty. There can be but one judgment con- 
cerning them. In other cases, reason is not 
driven from her seat, but distraction sits down 
upon it along with her, holds her, trembling, 
upon it, and frightens her from her propriety.'' 
Such patients are victims to delusions of the 
most alarming description, which so overpower 
the faculties, and usurp so firmly the place of 
realities, as not to be dislodged and shaken by the 
organs of perception and sense : in such cases 
the images frequently vary, but in the same sub- 
ject are generally of the same terrific character. 
Here, too, no judicial difficulties can present 
themselves ; for who could balance upon the 
judgment to be pronounced in cases of such ex- 
treme disease ? Another class, branching out 
into almost infinite subdivisions, under which, 
indeed, the former, and every case of insanity, 
may be classed, is, where the delusions are not 
of that frightful character, but infinitely various 
and often extremely circumscribed ; yet where 
imagination [within the bounds of the malady) 
still holds the most uncontrollable dominion over 
reality and fact. These are the cases which 
frequently mock the wisdom of the wisest in ju- 
dicial trials ; because such persons often reason 
with a subtlety which puts in the shade the or- 
dinary conceptions of mankind. Their conclu- 
sions are just, and frequently profound ; but the 
premises from which they reason, when within 
the range of the malady, are uniformly false — 
not false from any defect of knowledge or judg- 
ment, but because a delusive image, the insepa- 
rable companion of real insanity, is thrust upon 
the subjugated understanding, incapable of re- 
sistance, because unconscious of attack. 

Delusion, therefore, where there is no frenzy 
or raving madness, is the true char- This delusion 
acter of insanity. Where it can not Tils^X"^^-' 
be predicated of a man standing for 'vvTth^;he3aw'^ 
life or death for a crime, he ought '""'^ct. 
not, in my opinion, to be acquitted ; and if courts 
of law were to be governed by an}^ other princi- 
ple, every departure from sober, rational conduct 
would be an emancipation from criminal justice. 
I shall place my claim to your verdict upon no 
such dangerous foundation. I must convince 
you. not only that the unhappy prisoner was a 
lunatic, within my own definition of lunacy, but 
that the act in question was the immediate, un- 
qualified offspring of the disease. In civil cases, 
as I have already said, the law avoids every act 
of the lunatic during the period of the lunacy, 
although the delusion may be extremely circum- 
scribed ; although the mind may be quite sound 
in all that is not within the shades of the very 
partial eclipse ; and although the act to be avoid- 



■^ And frights the isle from her propriety. — Othel- 
lo, act ii., sc. 3. The reader can not fail to remark 
the strength and beauty of the images used here, 
and ill other passages above and below to describe 
the different kinds of madness. 



770 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1800. 



ed can in no way be connected with the influ- 
ence of the insanity — but to deliver a lunatic 
from responsibility to criminal justice, above all 
in a case of such atrocity as the present, the re- 
lation between the disease and the act should be 
apparent. Where the connection is doubtful, 
the judgment should certainly be most indulgent, 
from the great difficulty of diving into the secret 
sources of a disordered mind ; but still, I think 
that, as a doctrine of law, the delusion and the 
act should be connected. 

You perceive, therefore, gentlemen, that the 
The doctrine prisonci', in naming me for his coun- 
ve?y'stnctb^on ^cl, has not obtained the assistance 
this subject. of a person who is disposed to carry 
the doctrine of insanity in his defense so far as 
even books would w^arrant me in carrying it. 
Some of the cases — that of Lord Ferrers, for in- 
stance — ^A'hich I shall consider hereafter, as dis- 
tinguished from the present — would not, in my 
mind, bear the shadow of an argument, as a de- 
fense against an indictment for murder. I can 
not allow the protection of insanity to a man 
who only exhibits violent passions and malig- 
nant resentments, acting upon real circumstances : 
who is impelled to evil by no morbid delusions ; 
but w^ho pi'oceeds upon the ordinary perceptions 
of the mind. I can not consider such a man as 
falling within the protection which the law gives, 
and is bound to give, to those whom it has pleased 
God, for mysterious causes, to visit with this most 
afflicting calamity. 

He alone can be so emancipated, whose dis- 
Principie casc (call it what you will) consists, not 
restated, j^grcly in seeing with a prejudiced eye, 
or with odd and absurd particularities, differing, 
in many respects, from the contemplations of 
sober sense, upon the actual existence of things ; 
but he only^ whose reasoning and corresponding 
conduct, though governed by the ordinary dic- 
tates of reason, proceed upon something which 
has no foundation or existence. 

Gentlemen, it has pleased God so to visit the 
Such was the unhappy man before you ; to shake his 
insanity oithe rcason iu its citadcl J to cause him to 
prisoner. build up as realities the most impossi- 
ble phantoms of the mind, and to be impelled by 
them as motives irresistible : the whole fabric 
being nothing but the unhappy vision of his dis- 
ease — existing nowhere else — having no founda- 
tion whatsoever in the very nature of things. 

Gentlemen, it has been stated by the Attorney 
He had the full General, and established by evidence 
Eum*indonoth- which I am in no condition to con- 
er subjects. tradict, uor have, indeed, any interest 
in contradicting, that, when the prisoner bought 
the pistol which he discharged at or toward his 
Majesty, he was well acquainted with the nature 
and use of it ; that, as a soldier, he could not but 
know, that in his hands it was a sure instrument 
of death ; that, when he bought the gunpowder, 
he knew it would prepare the pistol for its use ; 
that, when he went to the pla3-housc, he knew 
he was going there, and knew every thing con- 
nected with the scene, as perfectly as any other 
person. I freely admit all this : I admit, also. 



that every person who listened to his conversa- 
tion, and observed his deportment upon his ap- 
prehension, must have given precisely the evi- 
dence delivered by his Royal Highness the Duke 
of York, and that nothing like insanity appeared 
to those who examined him. But what then? 
I conceive, gentlemen, that I am more in the 
habit of examination than either that illustrious 
person or the witnesses from whom you have 
heard this account. Yet I well re- 
member (indeed, I never can forget it), 
that since the noble and learned Judge has pre- 
sided in this court, I examined, for the greater 
part of a day, in this very place, an unfortunate 
gentleman, who had indicted a most aflfectionate 
brother, together with the keeper of a mad-house 
at Hoxton [Dr. Sims], for having imprisoned him 
as a lunatic, w^hile, according to his evidence, 
he was in his perfect senses. I was, unfortunate- 
ly, not instructed in what his lunacy consisted, 
although my instructions left me no doubt of the 
fact ; but, not having the clue, he completely 
foiled me in every attempt to expose his infirm- 
ity. You may believe that I left no means un- 
employed which long experience dictated, but 
without the smallest effect. The day was wast- 
ed, and the prosecutor, by the most affecting his- 
tory of unmerited suffering, appeared to the judge 
and jury, and to a humane English audience, as 
the victim of the most wanton and barbarous op- 
pression. At last Dr. Sims came into court, who 
had been prevented, by business, from an earlier 
attendance, and whose name, by-the-by, I ob- 
serve to-day in the list of the witnesses for the 
Crown. From Dr. Sims I soon learned that the 
very man wiiom I had been above an hour ex- 
amining, and with every possible effort which 
counsel are so much in the habit of exerting, be- 
lieved himself to be the Lord and Savior of man- 
kind ; not merely at the time of his confinement, 
which w^as alone necessary for my defense, but 
during the w^hole time that he had been triumph- 
ing over every attempt to surprise him in the 
concealment of his disease ! I then affected to 
lament the indecency of my ignorant examina- 
tion, when he expressed his forgiveness, and 
said, with the utmost gravity and emphasis in 
the face of the whole couii, "I am the Chkist ;" 
and so the cause ended. Gentlemen, this is not 
the only instance of the power of concealing this 
malady. I could consume the day if I were to 
enumerate them ; but there is one so extremely 
remai-kable, that I can not help stating it. 

Being engaged to attend the assizes at Ches- 
ter upon a question of lunacy, andhav- Another simi- 
ing been told that there had been a '^""case. 
memorable case tried before Lord Mansfield in 
this place, I was anxious to procure a report of 
it. From that great man himself (who, within 
these w^alls, will ever be reverenced, being then 
retired, in his extreme old age, to his seat near 
London, in my own neighborhood) I obtained the 
following account of it : "A man of the name 
of Wood," said Lord Mansfield, " had indicted 
Dr. Monro for keeping him as a prisoner (I be- 
lieve in the same mad-house at Hoxton) when 



1800.] 



IN BEHALF OF HADFIELD. 



771 



he was sane. He underwent the most severe 
examination by the defendant's counsel without 
exposing his complaint; but Dr. Battye, hav- 
ing come upon the bench by me, and having de- 
sired me to ask him what was become of the 
Princess whom he had corresponded with in 
cherry-juice, he showed in a moment what he 
was. He answered, that there was nothing at 
all in that, because, having been (as eveiy body 
knew) imprisoned in a high tower, and being de- 
barred the use of ink, he had no other means of 
correspondence but by writing his letters in cher- 
ry-juice, and throwing them into the river which 
surrounded the tower, where the Princess re- 
ceived them in a boat. There existed, of course, 
no tower, no imprisonment, no writing in cher- 
ry-juice, no river, no boat ; but the whole the in- 
veterate phantom of a morbid imagination. I 
immediately," continued Lord Mansfield, " di- 
rected Dr. Monro to be acquitted. But this man, 
Wood, being a merchant in Philpot Lane, and 
having been carried through the City in his way 
to the mad-house, he indicted Dr. Monro over 
again, for the trespass and imprisonment in Lon- 
don., knowing that he had lost his cause by speak- 
ing of the Princess at Westminster. And such," 
said Lord Mansfield, "is the extraordinary sub- 
tlety and cunning of madmen, that when he was 
cross-examined on the trial in London, as he had 
successfully been before, in order to expose his 
madness, all the ingenuity of the bar, and all the 
authority of the court, could not make him say 
a syllable upon that topic, which had put an end 
to the indictment before, although he still had 
the same indelible impression upon his mind, as 
he signified to those who were near him ; but, 
conscious that the delusion had occasioned his 
defeat at Westminster, he obstinately persisted 
in holding it back."^ 

Now, gentlemen, let us look to the applica- 
Appiication of tiou of thesc cascs. I am not exam- 
tiiTpre^nt*" i"i"g"; ^^r thc present, whether either 
question. of thesB pcrsons ought to have been 
acquitted, if they had stood in the place of the 
prisoner now before you. That is quite a dis- 
tinct consideration, which we shall come to here- 
after. The direct application of them is only 
this, that if I bring before you such evidence of 
the prisoner's insanity as, if believed to have real- 
ly existed^ shall, in the opinion of the court, as 
the rule for your verdict in point of law, be suf- 
ficient for his deliverance, then that you ought 
not to be shaken in giving full credit to such ev- 
idence, notwithstanding the report of those who 
were present at his apprehension, who describe 
him as discovering no .symptom whatever of men- 
tal incapacity or disorder. For I have shown 
you that insane persons frequently appear in the 
utmost state of ability and composure, even in 
the highest paroxysms of insanity, except when 
frenzy is the characteristic of the disease. In 
this respect, the cases I have cited to you have 
the most decided application, because they apply 

8 The evidence atWestminster was then proved 
against him by the short-hand writer. 



to the overthrow of the whole of the evidence 
(admitting, at the same time, the truth of it), by 
which the prisoner's case can alone be encoun- 
tered. 

But it is said that whatever delusions may 
overshadow the mind, every person ^bis delusion 
oujjht to be responsible for crimes '"'*>' ^^'f^ '" , 

o I cases where the 

ivlio has the knowledge of good and subject ofit can 

., T >i • 1 T \.^ • distinguish be- 

evil. 1 thmk 1 can presently convmce tween right ?.n<} 
you, that there is something too gen- '**'^°"S- 
eral in this mode of considering the subject ; and 
you do not, therefore, find any such proposition 
in the language of the celebrated writer alluded 
to by the Attorney General in his speech. Let 
me suppose that the character of an insane delu- 
sion consisted in the belief that some given per- 
son was any brute animal, or an inanimate being 
(and such cases have existed), and that upon the 
trial of such a lunatic for murder, you firmly, 
upon your oaths, were convinced, upon the un- 
contradicted evidence of a hundred persons, that 
he believed the man he had destroyed to have 
been a potter's vessel. Suppose it was quite im- 
possible to doubt that fact, although to all other 
intents and purposes he was sane ; conver.sing, 
reasoning, and acting, as men not in any manner 
tainted with insanity, converse, and reason, and 
conduct themselves. Let me suppose further, 
that he believed the man whom he destroyed, but 
whom he destroyed as a potter's vessel, to be the 
property of another ; and that he had malice 
against such supposed person, and that he meant 
to injure him, knowing the act he was doing to 
be malicious and injurious, and that, in short, he 
had full knowledge of all the principles of good and 
evil. Yet it would be possible to convict such a 
person of murder, if, from the influence of his 
disease, he was ignorant of the relation he stood 
in to the man he had destroyed, and was utterly 
unconscious that he had struck at the life of a hu- 
man being. I only put this case, and many oth- 
ers might be brought as examples to illustrate 
that the knowledge of good and evil is too gen- 
eral a description. 

I really think, however, that the Attorney Gen- 
eral and mj'self do not, in substance, ^^^^^^ p^j^^j 
very materially differ. From the pies substantial- 
whole of his most able speech, taken the Attorney 
together, his meaning may, I think, 
be thus collected ; that where the act which is 
criminal, is done under the dominion of malicious 
mischief and wicked intention, although such in- 
sanity might exist in a corner of the mind, as 
might avoid the acts of the delinquent as a luna- 
tic in a civil case, yet that he ought not to be 
protected, if malicious mischief, and not insanity, 
had impelled him to the act for which he was 
criminally to answer ; because, in such a case, the 
act might be justly ascribed to malignant motives, 
and not to the dominion of disea.se. I am not 
disposed to dispute such a proposition, in a case 
which would apply to it, and I can well conceive 
such cases may exist. The question, therefore, 
which you will have to try, is this : 
Whether, when this unhappy man dis- tion befor'e'fiie 
charged the pistol in a direction which ''"'^^ 



772 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1800. 



convinced, and ought to convince, every person 
that it was pointed at the person of the King, he 
meditated mischief and violence to his Majesty, 
or whether he came to the theater (which it is my 
purpose to establish) under the dominion of the 
most melancholy insanity that ever degraded and 
overpowered the faculties of man. I admit that 
when he bought the pistol, and the gunpowder 
to load it, and when he loaded it, and came with 
it to the theater, and lastly, when he discharged 
it ; every one of these acts would be overt acts 
of compassing the King's death, if at all or any 
of these periods he was actuated by that mind 
and intention^ which would have constituted mur- 
der in the case of an individual, supposing the 
individual had been actually killed. I admit, 
also, that the mischievous, and, in this case, trait- 
orous intention must be inferred from all these 
acts, unless / can rebut the inferences by proof. 
If I were to fire a pistol toward yon, gentlemen, 
where you are now sitting, the act would un- 
doubtedly infer the malice. The whole proof 
therefore.^ is undoubtedly cast upon me. 

In every case of treason, or murder, vv'hich are 
Was the motive preciscly the same, except that the 
of the prisoner uncousummated intention in the case 

apermanentde- ^^. . , 

lasionofthe of the Kmg IS the same as the act- 
ual murder of a private man, the jury 
must impute to the person whom they condemn 
by their verdict, the motive which constitutes the 
crime. And your province to-day will, there- 
fore, be to decide whether the prisoner, when 
he did the act, was under the uncontrollable do- 
minion of insanity, and was impelled to it by a 
morbid delusion ; or whether it was the act of a 
man who, though occasionally mad, or even at 
the time not perfectly collected, was yet not act- 
uated by the disease, but by the suggestion of a 
wicked and malignant disposition. 

I admit, therefore, freely, that if, after you have 
heard the evidence which I hasten to lay before 
you, of the state of the prisoner's mind, and close 
up to the very time of this catastrophe, you shall 
still not feel yourselves clearly justified in negativ- 
ing the wicked motives imputed by this indict- 
ment, I shall leave you in the hands of the learned 
judges to declare to you the law of the land, and 
shall not seek to place society in a state of un- 
certainty by any appeal addressed only to your 
compassion. I am appointed by the court to 
claim for the prisoner the full protection of the 
law, but not to misrepresent it in his protection. 

Gentlemen, the facts of this melancholy case 
lie within a narrow compass. 

The unfortunate person before you was a 
E^iriy life of soldicr. He became so, I believe, in 

t:,<j prisoner, jj^^ y^^^ J 793 j^^J Jg nOW about 

twenty-nine years of age. He served in Flan- 
ders, under the Duke of York, as appears by his 
Royal Highness's evidence ; and being a most 
approved soldier, he was one of those singled out 
as an orderly man to attend upon the person of 
the Commander-in-Chief. You have been wit- 
nesses, gentlemen, to the calmness with which 
the prisoner has sitten in his place during the tri- 
al. There was but one exception to it. You 



saw the emotion which overpowered him when 
the illustrious person now in court His attachment 
took his seat upon the bench. Can vou f^ ^ ''°''''" ^? 

, ^. J his command- 

then believe, from the evidence, for I '"s officer. 

do not ask you to judge as physiognomists, or to 
give the rein to compassionate fancy ; but can 
there be any doubt that it was the generous emo- 
tion of the mind, on seeing the Prince, under 
whom he had served with so much bravery and 
honor? Every man, certainly, must judge for 
himself. I am counsel, not a witness, in the 
cause. But it is a most striking circumstance, 
as 3'ou find from the Crown's evidence, that 
when he was dragged thi'ough the orchestra under 
the stage, and charged with an act for which he 
considered his life as forfeited, he addressed the 
Duke of York with the same enthusiasm which 
has marked the demeanor I am adverting to. ]Mr. 
Richardson, who showed no disposition in his ev- 
idence to help the prisoner, but who spoke with 
the calmness and circumspection of truth, and 
who had no idea that the person he was examin- 
ing was a lunatic, has given you the account of 
the burst of affection on his first seeing the Duke 
of York, against whose father and sovereign he 
was supposed to have had the consciousness of 
treason. The King himself, whom he was sup- 
posed to have so malignantly attacked, never had 
a more gallant, loyal, or suffering soldier. His 
gallantry and loyalty will be proved ; his suffer- 
ings speak for themselves. 

About five miles from Lisle, upon the attack 
made on the British army, this un- His wounds 
fortunate soldier was in the fifteenth 
light dragoons, in the thickest of the ranks, ex- 
posing his life for his Prince, whom he is sup- 
posed to-day to have sought to murder. The 
first wound he received is most materially con- 
nected with the subject we are considering ; you 
may see the effect of it now.^ The point of a 
sword was impelled against him with all the force 
of a man urging his horse in battle. When the 
court put the prisoner under my protection, I 
thought it my duty to bring Mr. Cline to inspect 
him in Newgate. It will appear by the evidence 
of that excellent and conscientious person, who 
is known to be one of the first anatomi.sts in the 
world, that from this wound one of two things 
mu.st have happened : either, that by the imme- 
diate operation of surgery the displaced part of 
the skull must have been taken away, or been 
forced inward on the brain. The second stroke, 
also, speaks for itself: you may now see its ef- 
fects. [Here Mr. Erskine touched the head of 
the prisoner.] He was cut across all the nerves 
which give sensibility and animation to the body, 
and his head hung down almost dis.severed, until 
by the act of surgery it was placed in the posi- 
tion you now see it. But thus, almost destroy- 
ed, he still recollected his duty, and continued to 
maintain the glory of his country, when a sword 
divided the membrane of his neck where it term- 
inates in the head ; yet he still kept his place. 

9 Mr. Erskine put his band to the prisoner's head, 
who stood by him at the bar of the court. 



1800.] 



IN BEHALF OF HADFIELD. 



773 



though his helmet had been thrown off by the 
blow which I secondly described, when by an- 
other sword he w'as cut into the very brain — you 
may now see its membrane uncovered . Mr. Cline 
will tell you that he examined these wounds, and 
he can better describe them. I have myself seen 
them, but am no surgeon ; from his evidence you 
will have to consider their consequences. It 
may be said that many soldiers receive grievous 
wounds without their producing insanity. So 
they may, undoubtedly ; but we are upon the fact. 
There was a discussion the other day, whether 
a man who had been seemingly hurt by a fall be- 
yond remedy could get up and walk. The peo- 
ple around said it was impossible ; but he did get 
up and walk, and so there w^as an end to the im- 
possibility. The effects of the prisoner's wounds 
were known by the immediate event of insanity, 
and Mr. Cline will tell you that it would have 
been strange, indeed, if any other event had fol- 
lowed. We are not here upon a case of insanity 
arising from the spiritual part of man, as it may 
be affected by hereditary taint, by intemperance, 
or by violent passions, the operations of which are 
various and uncertain ; but we have to deal with 
a species of insanity more resembling what has 
been described as idiocy, pi-oceeding from orig- 
inal malorganization. There the disease is, from 
its very nature, incurable ; and so where a man 
(like the prisoner) has become insane from vio- 
lence to the brain., which permanently affects its 
structure, however such a man may appear oc- 
casionally to others, his disease is immovable. 
If the prisoner, therefore, were to live a thousand 
years, he never could recover from the conse- 
quence of that day. 

But this is not all. Another blow was still 
aimed at him, which he held up his arm to avoid, 
when his hand was cut into the bone. It is an 
afflicting subject, gentlemen, and better to be 
spoken of by those who understand it ; and, to 
and all further description, he was then thrust 
almost through and through the body with a 
bayonet, and left in a ditch among the slain. 

He was afterward carried to a hospital, where 
he was known by his tongue to one of his coun- 
trymen, who will be examined as a witness, who 
found him. not merely as a wounded soldier de- 
prived of the powers of his body, but bereft of 
his senses forever. 

He was affected from the very beginning with 
The rnn.tiipss that spccics of madncss which, from 
that followed, violent agitation, fills the mind with 
the most inconceivable imaginations, wholly un- 
fitting it tor all dealing \vith human affairs, ac- 
cording to the .sober estimate and standard of rea- 
son. He imagined that he had constant inter- 
course with the Almighty Author of all things ; 
that the w^orld was coming to a conclusion ; and 
The pecujiar ^^^^i ^^^^ ^^'^^' ^Icsscd SavioT, he was to 
nature of the sacrifice himsclf for its salvation. So 

dehision nn f t i i ■ , • i • 

der which lie obstmatcly did this morbid image con- 
tinue, that you will be convinced he 
went to the theater to perform, as he imagined, 
that blessed sacrifice : and, because he would not 
be guilty of suicide, though called upon by the 



imperious voice of Heaven, he wLshed that by the 
appearance of crime his life might be taken away 
from him by others. This bewildered, extrava- 
gant species of madness appeared immediately 
after his w'ounds, on his first entering the hos- 
pital ; and on the very same account he was dis- 
charged from the army on his return to England, 
which the Attorney General very honorably and 
candidly seemed to intimate. 

To proceed with the proofs of his insanity 
doxv7i to the very period of his sup- Manifested in 
posed guilt. This unfortunate man des"tro7hil'° 
before you is the father of an infant °'^" ^'''''^• 
of eight months ; and I have no doubt, that if the 
boy had been brought into court (but this is a 
grave place for the consideration of justice, and 
not a theater for stage efTect) — I say, I have no 
doubt whatever, that if this poor infant had been 
brought into court, you would have seen the un- 
happy father wrung with all the emotions of pa- 
rental afTection. Yet, upon the Tuesday pre- 
ceding the Thursday when he went to the play- 
house, you will find his disease still urging him 
forward, with the impression that the time was 
come when he must be destroyed for the benefit 
of mankind ; and in the confusion, or, rather, de- 
lirium of this wild conception, he came to the 
bed of the mother, who had this infant in her 
arms, and endeavored to dash out its brains 
against the wall. The family was alarmed 5 
and the neighbors being called in, the child was, 
with difficulty, rescued from the unhappy parent, 
who, in his madness, would have destroyed it. 

Now let me, for a moment, suppose that he 
had succeeded in the accomplishment comparison of 
of his insane purpose; and the ques- his feelings at 

, , , ., that time and 

tion had been, whether he w^as guilty when he fired 
of murder. Surely, the affection for ^ '^ '"^" 
this infant, up to the very moment of his distract- 
ed violence, would have been conclusive in his 
favor. But not more so than his loyalty to the 
King, and his attachment to the Duke of York, 
as applicable to the case before us ; yet at that 
very period, even of extreme distraction, he con- 
versed as rationally on all other subjects as he 
did with the Duke of York at the theater. The 
prisoner knew perfectly that he was the husband 
of the woman and the father of the child. The 
tears of afTection ran down his face at the very 
moment that he was about to accomplish its de- 
struction. During the whole of this scene of 
horror, he was not at all deprived of memory, in 
the Attorney General's sense of the expression 5 
he could have communicated, at that moment, 
every circumstance of his past life, and every 
thing connected with his present condition, ex- 
cept only the quality of the act he was meditating. 
In that, he w^as under the overruling dominion 
of a morbid imagination, and conceived that he 
was acting against the dictates of nature in obe- 
dience to the superior commands of Heaven, 
which had told him, that the moment he was 
dead, and the infant with him, all nature was to 
be changed, and all mankind were to be redeem- 
ed by his dissolution. There was not an idea 
in his mind, from the beginning to the end, of 



774 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1800. 



the destruction of the King. On the contrary, he 
always maintained his loyalty — lamented that he 
could not go again to fight his battles in the field ; 
and it will be proved, that only a few days be- 
fore the period in question, being present when 
a song was sung, indecent, as it regarded the 
person and condition of his Majesty, he left the 
room with loud expressions of indignation, and 
immediately sang "God save the King," with 
all the enthusiasm of an old soldier, who had 
bled in the service of his country. 

I confess to you, gentlemen, that this last cir- 
Kis prevailing cumstance, which may, to some, ap- 
fo^a/i^^oneof P^ar Insignificant, is, in my mind, 
polnts'^ln^tiie "^o^t momcntous testimony. For if 
case. this man had been in the habit of as- 

sociating with persons inimical to the govern- 
ment of our country, so that mischief might have 
been fairly argued to have mixed itself with 
madness (which, by-the-by, it frequently does) ; 
if it could in any way have been collected that, 
from his disorder, more easily inflamed and w^ork- 
ed upon, he had been led away by disaflTected 
persons to become the instrument of wickedness ; 
if it could have been established that such had 
been his companions and his habits, I should have 
oeen ashamed to lift up my voice in his defense. 
I should have felt that, however his mind might 
have been weak and disordered, yet if his under- 
standing sufficiently existed to be methodically 
acted upon as an instrument of malice, I could 
not have asked for an acquittal. But you find, 
on the contrary, in the case before you, that, not- 
withstanding the opportunity w^hich the Crown 
has had, and which, upon all such occasions, it 
justly employs to detect treason, either against 
the person of the King or against his govern- 
ment, not one witness has been able to fix upon 
the prisoner before you any one companion, of 
even a doubtful description, or any one expres- 
sion from which disloyalty could be inferred, 
Vi^hile the whole history of his life repels the im- 
putation. His courage in defense of the King 
and his dominions, and his affection for his son, 
in such unanswerable evidence, all speak aloud 
against the presumption that he went to the the- 
ater with a mischievous intention. 

To recur again to the evidence of Mr. Rich- 
Pecuiiarity of ardson, who delivered most honorable 
Rttemptmg the and impartial testimony. I certainly 
King's life. am obliged to admit, that what a pris- 
oner says for himself, when coupled at the very 
time with an overt act of wickedness, is no evi- 
dence whatever to alter the obvious quality of the 
act he has committed. If, for instance, I, who am 
now addressing you, had fired the same pistol to- 
ward the box of the King, and, having been 
dragged under the orchestra and secured for crim- 
inal justice, I had said that I had no intention to 
kill the King, but was weary of my life, and meant 
to be condemned as guilty ; would any man, who 
was not himself insane, consider that as a de- 
fense ? Certainly not : because it would be with- 
out the whole foundation of the prisoner's previous 
condition, part of which it is even dilTicult to ap- 
ply closely and directly by strict evidence, without 



taking his undoubted insanity into consideration, 
because it is his unquestionable insanity which 
alone stamps the efTusions of his mind with sin- 
cerity and truth. 

The idea which had impi-essed itself, but in 
most confused images, upon this un- ^e feit it nec- 
fortunate man, w^as, that he must be «*s"i' ^° '^^ 

, ? 7 T sonietliiug 

destroyed, out ought not to destroy wiiich would 
himself. He once had the idea of ingpuuo death 
firing over the King's carriage in the •'■«'''"''"^- 
street; but then he imagined he should be im- 
mediately killed, which was not the mode of pro- 
pitiation for the world. And as our Savior, be- 
fore his passion, had gone into the garden to 
pray, this fallen and afflicted being, after he had 
taken the infant out of bed to destroy it, return- 
ed also to the garden, saying, as he afterward 
said to the Duke of York, " that all was not over 
— that a great work was to be finished;" and 
there he remained in prayer, the victim of the 
same melancholy visitation. 

Gentlemen, these are the facts, freed from even 
the possibility of artifice or disguise ; comparison of 
because the testimony to support them ll'.^t oTi.ord'' 
will be beyond all doubt. In contem- Ferrers. 
plating the law of the country, and the prece- 
dents of its justice to which they must be applied, 
I find nothing to challenge or question. I ap- 
prove of them throughout. I subscribe to all that 
is written by Lord Hale. I agree with all the 
authorities cited by the Attorney General, from 
Lord Coke ; but above all, I do most cordially 
agree in the instance of convictions by which he 
illustrated them in his able address. ^° I have 
now lying before me the case of Earl Ferrers : 
unquestionably there could not be a shadow of 
doubt, and none appears to have been entertain- 
ed, of his guilt. I wish, indeed, nothing morp 
than to contrast the two cases ; and so far am I 
from disputing either the principle of that con- 
demnation, or the evidence that was the founda- 
tion of it, that I invite you to examine whether 
any two instances in the whole body of the crim- 
inal law are more diametrically opposite to each 
other than the case of Earl Ferrers afid that now 
before you. Lord Ferrers was divorced from his 
wife by act of Pai'liament ; and a person of the 
name of Johnson, who had been his steward, had 
taken part with the lady in that proceeding, and 
had conducted the business in carrying the act 
through the two Houses. Lord Ferrers conse- 
quently wished to turn him out of a farm which 
he occupied under him ; but his estate being in 
trust, Johnson was supported by the trustees in 
his possession. There were, also, some differen- 
ces respecting coal-mines ; and in consequence 
of both transactions. Lord Ferrers took up the 
most violent resentment against him. Let me 



^° The reader will remark, that in the cases which 
Mr. Erskine goes on to consider, the statement of the 
facts is not only clear and beautiful in itself, but is 
shaped tliroughout with a jjarticular reference to the 
case of Hadfield, so as to bring out the points of con- 
trast in strong relief, and thus open the way for the 
distinctions which follow. This kind o^ preparation 
is one of Mr. Erskine's greatest excellence. 



1800.] 



IN BEHALF OF HADFIELD. 



775 



here observe, gentlemen, that this was not a re- 
sentment founded upon any illusion ; not a resent- 
ment forced upon a distempered mind by falla- 
cious images, but depending upon actual circum- 
stances and real facts ; and, acting like any other 
man under the influence of malignant passions, 
he repeatedly declared that he would be revenged 
on Mr. Johnson, particularly for the part he had 
taken in depriving him of a contract respecting 
the mines. 

Now, suppose Lord Ferrers could have showed 
that no difference with Mr. Johnson had ever ex- 
isted regarding his wife at all — that Mr. Johnson 
had never been his steward — and that he had 
only, from delusion, believed so when his situa- 
tion in life was quite different. Suppose, further, 
that an illusive imagination had alone suggested 
to him that he had been thwarted by Johnson in 
his contract for these coal-mines, there never 
having been any contract at all for coal-mines — 
in short, that the whole basis of his enmity was 
without any foundation in nature, and had been 
shown to have been a morbid image imperiously 
fastened upon his mind. Such a case as that 
would have exhibited a character of insanity in 
Lord Ferrers extremely different from that in 
which it was presented by the evidence to his 
peers. Before them, he only appeared as a man 
of turbulent passions, whose mind was disturbed 
by no fallacious images of things without exist- 
ence ; whose quarrel with Johnson was founded 
upon no illusions^ but upon existing facts ; whose 
resentment proceeded to the fatal consummation 
with all the ordinary indications of mischief and 
malice ; and who conducted his own defense with 
the greatest dexterity and skill. Who, then, 

COULD DOUBT THAT LoRD FeRRERS WAS A MUR- 
DERER ? When the act was done, he said, ''I 
am glad I have done it. He was a villain, and 
I am revenged." But when he afterward saw 
that the wound was probably mortal, and that it 
involved consequences fatal to himself, he desired 
the surgeon to take all possible care of his patient ; 
and, conscious of his crime, kept at bay the men 
who came with arms to arrest him : showing, 
from the beginning to the end, nothing that does 
not generally accompany the crime for which he 
was condemned. He was proved, to be sure, to 
be a man subject to unreasonable prejudices, ad- 
dicted to absurd practices, and agitated by violent 
passions. But the act was not done under the 
dominion of uncontrollable disease ; and wheth- 
er the mischief and malice were substantive, or 
marked in the mind of a man whose passions 
bordered upon, or even amounted to insanity, it 
did not convince the Lords that, under all the 
circumstances of the case, he was not a fit object 
of criminal justice. 

In the same manner, Arnold, who shot at Lord 
Withthatof Onslow, and who was tried at Kingston 
Arnold. gQQfj g^fjg^. j^i^g Black Act passed on the 
accession of George I. Lord Onslow having been 
very vigilant as a magistrate in suppressing clubs, 
which were supposed to be set on foot to disturb 
the new government, Arnold had fi-equently 
been heard to declare that Lord Onslow would 



ruin his country ; and although he appeared from 
the evidence to be a man of most wild and tur- 
bulent manners, yet the people round Guildford, 
who knew him, did not, in general, consider him 
to be insane. His counsel could not show that 
any morbid delusion had ever overshadowed his 
understanding. They could not show, as I shall, 
that just before he shot at Lord Onslow, he had 
endeavored to destroy his own beloved child. It 
was a case o{ human resentment. 

I might instance, also, the case of Oliver, who 
was indicted for the murder of Mr. Wood, withumt 
a potter, in Staffordshire. Mr. Wood had '-'"(^''^er. 
refused his daughter to this man in marriage. My 
friend, Mr. Milles, was counsel for him at the as- 
sizes. He had been employed as a surgeon and 
apothecary by the father, who forbid him his 
house, and desired him to bring in his bill for pay- 
ment ; when, in the agony of disappointment, and 
brooding over the injury he had suffered, on his 
being admitted to Mr. Wood to receive payment, 
he shot him upon the spot. The trial occupied 
great part of the day ; yet, for my own part, I 
can not conceive that there was any thing in the 
case for a jury to deliberate on. He was a man 
acting upon existing facts^ and upon human re- 
sentments connected with them. He was at the 
very time carrying on his business, which re- 
quired learning and reflection, and, indeed, a 
reach of mind beyond the ordinary standard, be- 
ing trusted by all who knew him as a practitioner 
in medicine. Neither did he go to Mr. Wood's 
under the influence of illusion ; but he went to 
destroy the life of a man who was placed exactly 
in the circumstances which the mind of the crim- 
inal represented him. He went to execute venge- 
ance on him for refusing his daughter. In such a 
case there might, no doubt, be passion approach- 
ing to frenzy ; but there wanted that charactei'- 
istic of madness to emancipate him from criminal 
justice. 

There was another instance of this description 
in the case of a most unhappy woman, with tiiat of 
who was tried, in Essex, for the mur- of y^'E'"^"" 
der of Mr. Errington, who had seduced r-'s'""- 
and abandoned her and the children she had borne 
to him. It must be a consolation to those who 
prosecuted her, that she was acquitted, as she is 
at this time in a most undoubted and dei)lorable 
state of insanity. But I confess, if I had been 
upon the jury who tried her, I should have en- 
tertained great doubts and difficulties ; for, al- 
though the unhappy woman had before exhibited 
strong marks of insanity, arising from grief and 
disappointment, yet she acted \x\soxi. facts and cir- 
cumstances which had an existence, and which 
were calculated, upon the ordinary principles of 
human action, to produce the most violent resent- 
ment. Mr. Errington having just cast her off, 
and mai'ried another woman, or taken his under 
his protection, her jealousy was excited to such 
a pitch as occasionally to overpower her under- 
standing ; but when she went to Mr. Errington's 
house, where she shot him, she went with the ex- 
press and deliberate purpose of shooting him. 
That fact was unquestionable. She went there 



776 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1800. 



with a resentment long rankling in her besom, 
bottomed on an existing foundation. She did not 
act under a delusion, that he had deserted her 
when he had not, but took revenge upon him for 
an actual desertion. But still the jury, in the 
humane consideration of her sufferings, pro- 
nounced the insanity to be predominant over re- 
sentment, and they acquitted her. 

But let me suppose (which would liken it to 
the case before us) that she had never cohabited 
with Mr. Errington ; that she never had had 
children by him ; and, consequently, that he nei- 
ther had, nor could possibly have deserted or in- 
jured her. Let me suppose, in short, that she 
had never seen him in her life, but that her re- 
sentment had been founded on the morbid delu- 
sion that Mr. Errington, who had never seen her, 
had been the author of all her wrongs and sor- 
rows ; and that, under that diseased impression, 
she had shot him. If that had been the case, 
gentlemen, she would have been acquitted upon 
the opening, and no judge would have sat to try 
such a cause. The act itself would have been 
decisively characteristic of madness, because, be- 
ing founded upon nothing existing, it could not 
have proceeded from malice, which the law re- 
quires to be charged and proved, in every case 
of murder, as the foundation of a conviction. 
Let us now recur to the cause we are engaged 
,. . in, and examine it upon those principles 

Application ,',.,-, j * * j r il • 

to the case by which I am ready to stand or tall, m 
the judgment of the court. You have 
a man before you who will appear, upon the 
evidence, to have received those almost deadly 
wounds which I described to you, producing the 
immediate and immovable effects which the em- 
inent surgeon, whose name I have mentioned, 
will prove that they could not but have produced. 
It will appear that, from that period, he was vis- 
ited by the severest paroxysms of madness, and 
was repeatedly confined with all the coercion 
which it is necessary to practice upon lunatics ; 
yet, what is quite decisive against the imputation 
of treason against the person of the King, his 
loyalty never forsook him. Sane or insane, it 
was his very characteristic to love his Sovereign 
and his countr)?-, although the delusions which 
distracted him were sometimes, in other respects, 
as contradictory as they were violent. 

Of this inconsistency, there was a most strik- 
strikin^in- ing instance on only the Tuesday be- 
prtroni^Bde^ forc the Thursday in question, when 
fusions. it -will be proved that he went to see 

one Truelet, who had been committed by the 
Duke of Portland as a lunatic. This man had 
taken up an idea that our Savior's second ad- 
vent, and the dissolution of all human beings. 
were at hand ; and conversed in this strain of 
madness. This mixing itself with the insane 
delusion of the prisoner, he immediately broke 
out upon the subject of his own propitiation and 
sacrifice for mankind, although only the day be- 
fore he had exclaimed that the Virgin Mary was 
a whore ; that Christ was a bastard ; that God 
was a thief; and that he and this Truelet were 
to live with him at White Conduit House, and 



there to be enthroned together. His mind, in 
short, was overpowered and overwhelmed with 
distraction. 

The charge against the prisoner is the overt 
act of compassing the death of the case reviewed 
King, in firing a pistol at his Majes- ^^-^i'** leading 
ty — an act which only differs from sented. 
murder, inasmuch as the bare compassing is 
equal to the accomplishment of the malignant 
purpose ; and it will be your office, under the ad- 
vice of the judge, to decide by your verdict to 
which of the two impulses of the mind you refer 
the act in question. You will have to decide, 
whether you attribute it wholly to mischief and 
malice, or wholly to insanity, or to the one mix- 
ing itself with the other. If you find it attrib- 
utable to mischief and malice only, let the man 
DIE. The law demands his death for the public 
safety. If you consider it as conscious malice 
and mischief mixing itself with insanity, I leave 
him in the hands of the court, to say how he is 
to be dealt with ; it is a question too difficult foi 
me. I do not stand here to disturb the order of 
society, or to bring confusion upon my country 
But if you find that the act was committed whol 
ly under the dominion of insanity ; if you are sat- 
isfied that he went to the theater contemplating 
his own destruction only ; and that, when he fired 
the pistol, he did not maliciously aim at the per- 
son of the King — you will then be bound, even 
upon the principle which the Attorney General 
himself humanely and honorably stated to you, 
to acquit this most unhappy prisoner. 

If, in bringing these considerations hereafter to 
the standard of the evidence, any doubts should 
occur to you on the subject, the question for 
your decision will then be, which of the two al- 
ternatives is the most probable — a duty which 
you will perform in the exercise of that reason 
of which, for wise purposes, it has pleased God 
to deprive the unfortunate man whom you are 
trying. Your sound understandings will easily 
enable you to distinguish infirmities, which are 
misfortunes, from motives, which are crimes. Be- 
fore the day ends, the evidence will be decisive 
upon this subject. 

There is, however, another consideration, 
which I ought distinctly to present No(n-ideiiceof 
to you; because I think that more or^ralld'whoii 
turns upon it than any other view of ^e'^^J- 
the subject ; namely, whether the prisoner's de- 
fense can be impeached for artifice or fraud. I 
admit, that if, at the moment when he was ap- 
prehended, there can be faii'ly imputed to him 
any pretense or counterfeit of in.sanity, it would 
taint the whole case, and leave him without pro- 
tection. But for such a suspicion there is not 
even a shadow of foundation. It is repelled by 
the whole history and character of his disease, as 
well as of his life, independent of it. If you 
were trying a man, under the Black Act, for 
shooting at another, and there was a doubt upon 
the question of malice, would it not be import- 
ant, or rather decisive evidence, that the pris- 
oner had no resentment against the prosecutor ; 
but that, on the contrary, he was a man whom 



1800.] 



IN BEHALF OF HADFIELD. 



777 



he had always loved and served ? Now the pris- 
oner was maimed, cut down, and destroyed, in 
the service of the King. 

Gentlemen, another reflection presses very 
Peroration: The strongly on my mind, which I find it 
^evfr'betn a!ra- difficult to suppress. In cvcry state 
tuJ'im^tfex- there are political dilTerences and 
cesses of reform, pai'tics, and individuals disaffected 
to the system of government under which they 
live as subjects. There are not many such, I 
trust, in this country. But whether there are 
many or any of such persons, there is one cir- 
cumstance which has peculiarly distinguished 
his Majesty's life and reign, and which is in 
itself as a host in the prisoner's defense, since, 
amid all the treasons and all the seditions which 
have been charged on i-eformers of government 
as conspiracies to disturb it, no hand or voice 
has been hfted up against the person of the King. 
There have, indeed, been unhappy lunatics who, 
from ideas too often mixing themselves with in- 
sanity, have intruded themselves into the palace, 
but no malicious attack has ever been made upon 
the King to be settled by a trial. His Majesty's 
character and conduct have been a safer shield 
than guards, or than laws. Gentlemen, I wish 
to continue to that sacred life that best of all 
securities. I seek to continue it under that pro- 
tection where it has been so long protected. 
We are not to do evil that good may come of it ; 
we are not to stretch the laws to hedge round 
the life of the King with a greater security than 
that which the Divine Providence has so happily 
realized. 

Perhaps there is no principle of religion more 
It is safest when Strongly inculcatcd by the sacred 
fiafjustiS'wTtr' scriptures than that beautiful and 
hT^^oTany excess encouraging lesson of our Savior 
"f^eai. himself upon confidence in the Di- 

vine protection : " Take no heed for your life, 
what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, or 
wherewithal ye shall be clothed ; but seek ye 
first the kingdom of God, and all these things 
shall be added unto you." By which it is un- 
doubtedly not intended that we are to disregard 
the conservation of life, or to neglect the means 
necessary for its sustentation ; nor that we are 
to be careless of whatever may contribute to our 
comfort and happiness ; but that we should be 
contented to receive them as they are given to 
us, and not seek them in the violation of the rule 
and order appointed for the government of the 
world. On this principle, nothing can more tend 
to the security of his Majesty and his govern- 
ment, than the scene which this day exhibits in 
the calm, humane, and impartial administration 
of justice ; and if, in my part of this solemn du- 
ty, I have in any manner trespassed upon the 
just security provided for the public happiness, I 
wish to be corrected. I declare to you, solemn- 
ly, that my only aim has been to secure for the 



prisoner at the bar, whose life and death are in 
the balance, that he should be judged rigidly by 
the evidence and the law. I have made no ap- 
peal to your passions — you have no right to ex- 
ercise them. This is not even a case in which, 
if the prisoner be found guilty, the royal mercy 
should be counseled to interfere. He is either 
an accountable being, or not accountable. If he 
was unconscious of the mischief he was engaged 
in, the law is a corollary, and he is not guilty. 
But if, when the evidence closes, you think he 
was conscious, and maliciously meditated the 
treason he is charged with, it is impossible to 
conceive a crime more vile and detestable ; and 
I should consider the King's life to be ill attend- 
ed to, indeed, if not protected by the full vigor 
of the laws, which are watchful over the securi- 
ty of the meanest of his subjects. It is a most 
important consideration, both as. it regards the 
prisoner, and the community of which he is a 
member. Gentlemen, I leave it with you. 



Lord Kenyon, who presided at the trial, ap- 
peared, it is said, much prejudiced against the 
prisoner while the evidence for the Crown was 
taken. But when Mr. Erskine had stated the 
principle upon which he grounded his defense, 
and when his Lordship found that the facts came 
up to the case opened for the prisoner, he deliv- 
ered to the Attorney General the opinion of the 
court, that the case should not be proceeded in. 
A verdict of acquittal was, therefore, given, with- 
out any reply for the Crown, and the prisoner 
was placed in confinement at Bedlam. He re- 
mained there to an extreme old age, perfectly 
rational on most subjects, but liable to strong de- 
lusions, which rendered it unsafe to discharge 
him. 

In consequence of the attack of Hadfield upon 
George III., the peculiar provisions of the laws, 
referred to by Mr. Erskine in his exordium, were 
changed. Though he assigned very ingenious 
reasons for giving to a person who attempted the 
life of the King greater advantages as to trial, 
and as to the degree of evidence by which the 
change was to be established, than were granted 
in the case of a similar attempt on a subject, it 
was generally felt that this was neither wise nor 
safe. Hence the statute 39 and 40. George III., 
e. 93, was passed, by which it is enacted, that 
in all cases of high treason, in compassing or 
imagining the death of the King, and of mis- 
prision of such treason, where the overt act of 
such treason shall be alleged in the indictment 
to be the assassination of the King, or a direct 
attempt against his life or person, the pei'son ac- 
cused shall be indicted and tried in the same man- 
ner in every respect, and upon the like evidence, 
as if he was charged with murder, but the judg- 
ment and execution shall be the same as in other 
cases of hiirh treason. 



778 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1802. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. ERSKINE FOR THE REV. GEORGE MARKIIAM AGAINST JOHN FAWCETT, ESQ., FOR CRIM- 
INAL CONVERSATION WITH HIS WIFE, DELIVERED BEFORE THE DEPUTY SHERIFF OF MIDDLE- 
SEX AND A SPECIAL JURY, MAY 4, 1802, ON AN INQUISITION OF DAMAGES. 

INTRODUCTION. 

With all the varied abilities of Mr. Erskine, there was nothing in which he was thought so much to 
excel as the management of cases of adultery. He was almost uniformly retained for the complainant; 
and some of the most thrilling strains of his eloquence were on this subject. He obtained greater dam- 
ages than any other advocate in England ; and some even complained that, with Kenyon on the bench 
and Erskine at the bar, the judgments of juries in such cases became absolutely vindictive. 

In the present instance, there was no i-oom for denial or exculpation, and the case went by default. It 
was, therefore, shnply a hearing as to the amount of damages ; and was referred by the court to a special 
jury, convened by the Under Sheriff in a private room at the King's Arms Tavern, Westminster. Elo- 
quence, under such circumstances, would seem to be almost out of the question; and Mr. Erskine, there- 
fore, entered on the subject in the quiet manner of a private individual conversing with a few old ac- 
quaintances in a parlor of their own dwellings. But he instantly passed to a topic always interesting to 
an Englishman, the peculiar character of an English juiy; and touched their pride by the suggestion — 
one which runs throughout the whole speech — that the defendant, dreading the exposure of a public trial, 
had thrust the jury aside into a private room to cover his crimes for money. He then lays open the facts 
of the case in a narration of uncommon simplicity and beauty ; dwells on the peculiarly aggravating cir- 
cumstances which attended it ; and takes the ground, that ^full recompense (so far as money could give it) 
ought to be made to the plaintiff for the loss and suffering he had sustained. The damages were laid at 
£20,000, a sum more than double the defendant's entire property. Still Mr. Erskine contends that these 
damages ought to be awarded m full, as an act of simple justice to Mr. Markham, and as a warning to 
others for the protection of families in the intimacy of private friendship. On this last topic, he presents 
considerations founded on the structure of society, which are worthy of so fervent an admirer and student 
of Mr. Burke. 

It is a striking fact, that on so hackneyed a theme, necessarily involving a limited range of considera- 
tions, Mr. Erskine has nothing commonplace — no strained expressions, no extravagant sensibility, no 
clap-trap of any kind. In such a case, a man often shows his ability quite as much by what he does not 
say, as by what he does say; and we find Mr. Erskine here, as every where else, a perfect model of a 
business speaker, keeping his exuberant powers of fancy, sentiment, and pathos in the strictest subordi- 
nation to the realities of his case. 



SPEECH, &c. 



Mr. Sheriff, and Gentlemen of the Jury, 
— In representing the unfortunate gentleman who 
has sustained the injury which has been stated 
to you by my learned friend, Mr. Holroyd, who 
opened the pleadings, I feel one great satisfac- 
tion — a satisfaction founded, as I conceive, on a 
sentiment perfectly constitutional. I am about 
Character to addrcss myself to men whom I per- 
BUnces^'or" soNALLY KNOW ; to mcn, honorable in 
the jury. their Uves, moral, judicious ; and capa- 
ble of correctly estimating the injuries they are 
called upon to condemn in their character of ju- 
rors. This, gentlemen, is the only country in the 
world where there is such a tribunal as the one 
before which I am now to speak ; for, however 
in other countries such institutions as our own 
may have been set up of late, it is only by that 
maturity which it requires ages to give to gov- 
ernment-s — by that progressive wisdom which has 
slowly ripened the Constitution of our country — 
that it is possible there can exist such a body of 
men as you arc. It is the great privilege of the 



subjects of England that they judge one another. 
It is to be recollected that, although we are in 
this private room, all the sanctions of justice are 
present. It makes no manner of diflference, 
whether I address you in the presence of the 
under sheriff, your respectable chairman, or with 
the assistance of the highest magistrate of the 
state. 

The defendant has, on this occasion, suffered 
judgment by default : other adulterers ^, . 

11 i_ r 1 • c^ . Ohjectofthe 

have done so before him. Some have deiemiant in 
done so under the idea that, by suffer- case^togo b^ 
ing judgment against them, they had ''^'"•*""- 
retired from the public eye — from the awful pres- 
ence of the judge ; and that they came into a 
corner where there was not such an assembly of 
persons to witness their misconduct, and where it 
was to be canvassed before persons who might be 
less qualified to judge the case to be addressed to 
them. 

It is not long, however, since such pci'sons 
have had an opportunity of judging how nuich 



1802.] 



IN BEHALF OF MR. MARKHAM. 



779 



they were mistaken in this respect. The larg- 
Hi8 probable est damages, in cases of adultery, have 
mistake. j^ggj^ given in this place. By this place, 
I do not mean the particular room in which we 
are now assembled, but under inquisitions direct- 
ed to the sheriff; and the instances to which I al- 
lude are of modern, and, indeed, recent date. 
Gentlemen, after all the experience I have 
had, I feel myself, I confe.ss, consid- 

Transition : ' •' \ . 

Painful nature crably embarrassed m what manner 
to beVrese^t- to addrcss you. There are some sub- 
®'^" jects that harass and overwhelm the 

mind of man. There are some kinds of distresses 
one knows not how te deal with. It is impossi- 
ble to contemplate the situation of the plaintiff 
without being disqualified, in some degree, to 
represent it to others with effect. It is no less 
impossible for you, gentlemen, to receive on a 
sudden the impressions which have been long in 
my mind, without feeling overpowered with sen- 
sations which, after all, had better be absent, 
when men are called upon, in the exercise of 
duty, to pronounce a legal judgment. 

The plaintiff is the third son of his Grace the 
Narration : Archbishop of York, a clergyman of 
marr^lte 1;^'' t^c Church of England ; presented, 
institution in in the year 1791, to the living of 
Stokeley, in Yorkshire ; and now. by 
his Majesty's favor, Dean of the Cathedral of 
York. He married, in the year 1789, Miss Sut- 
ton, the daughter of Sir Richard Sutton, Bart., of 
Norwood, in Yorkshire, a lady of great beauty and 
accomplishments, most virtuously educated, and 
who, but for the crime of the defendant, which 
assembles you here, would, as .she has expressed 
it herself, have been the happiest of womankind. 
This gentleman having been presented, in 1791, 
by his father, to this living, where, I understand, 
there had been no resident rector for forty years, 
set an example to the Church and to the public, 
which was peculiarly virtuous in a man circum- 
stanced as he was ; for, if there can be any per- 
son more likely than another to protect himself 
securely with privileges and indulgences, it might 
be supposed to be the son of the metropolitan of 
the province. This gentleman, however, did not 
avail himself of the advantage of his birth and 
station. Although he was a very young man, he 
devoted himself entirely to the sacred duties of 
his profession ; at a large expense he repaired 
the rectory-house for the reception of his family, 
as if it had been his own patrimony, while, in his 
extensive improvements, he adopted only those 
arrangements which were calculated to lay the 
foundation of an innocent and peaceful life. He 
had married this lady, and entertained no other 
thoughts than that of cheerfully devoting himself 
to all the duties, public and private, which his 
situation called upon him to perform. 

About this time, or soon afterward, the de- 
Mr. Fawcett's fcndant became the purchaser of an 
fh^same neigh, ©statc iu thc neighborhood of Stoke- 
boriiood. jgy^ jj^^j^ y^y gj^,pj^ purchase, an inhab- 

itant of that part of the country, and the neigh- 
bor of this unfortunate gentleman. It is a most 
affecting circumstance, that the plaintiff and 



the defendant had been bred together at West- 
minster School ; and in my mind it is Their intimacy 
still more affecting, when I reflect '" ^^'■'>' '''"''• 
what it is which has given to that school so much 
rank, respect, and illustration. It has derived its 
highest advantages from the reverend father of 
the unfortunate gentleman whom I represent.^ 
It was the School of Westminster which gave 
birth to that learning which afterward presided 
over it, and advanced its character. However 
some men may be disposed to speak or write 
concerning public schools, I take upon me to say 
they are among the wisest of our institutions. 
Whoever looks at the national character of the 
English people, and compares it with that of all 
the other nations upon the earth, will be driven 
to impute it to that reciprocation of ideas and 
sentiments which fill and fructify the mind in the 
early period of youth, and to the affectionate sym- 
pathies and friendships which rise up in the hu- 
man heart before it is deadened or perverted by 
the interests and corruptions of the world. These 
youthful attachments are proverbial, and, indeed, 
few instances have occurred of any breaches of 
them ; because a man, before he can depart from 
the obligations they impose, must have forsaken 
every principle of virtue, and every sentiment of 
manly honor. When, therefore, the plaintiff found 
his old school-fellow and companion settled in his 
neighborhood, he immediately considered him as 
his brother. Indeed, he might well consider him 
as a brother, since, after having been at West- 
minster, they were again thrown together in the 
same college at Oxford ; so that the friendship 
they had formed in their youth became cemented 
and consolidated upon their first entrance into 
the world. It is no wonder, there- „ ., , 

f. 1 1 r 1 Mr.Markham's 

lore, that when the delendant came confidence and 
down to settle in the neighborhood of tion ofhfs*^^^' 
the plaintiff, he should be attracted '^"''"''■ 
toward him by the impulse of his former attach- 
ment. He recommended him to the Lord Lieu- 
tenant of the county, and, being himself a magis- 
trate, he pi'ocured him a share in the magistracy. 
He introduced him to the respectable circle of his 
acquaintances. He invited him to his house, and 
cherished him there as a friend. It is this which 
renders the business of to-day most affecting, as 
it regards the plaintiffj and wicked in the ex- 
treme, as it relates to the defendant, because the 
confidences of friendship conferred the opportuni- 
ties of seduction. The plaintifl'had no pleasures 
or affections beyond thc sphere of hi« domestic 
life ; and except in his occasional residences at 
York, which were but for short periods, and at a 
very inconsiderable distance from his home, he 
constantly reposed in the bosom of his family. I 
believe it will be impossible for my learned friend 
to invade his character : on the contrary, he will 



^ Dr. Markham, afterward Archbishop of York, 
was for some years at the head of the Westminster 
School, and was so much distinguished for his learn- 
ing and his tact in drawing out the abilities of his 
pupils, that he was chosen to be private tutor of the 
Prince of Wales and his brother the Duke of York. 



780 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1802. 



be found to have been a pattern of conjugal and 
parental affection. 

Mr. Fawcett being thus settled in the neigh- 
Mr.Fawcett's borliood, and thus received by Mr. 
abuse of that Markhain as his friend and compan- 

confidence to . . . ,, , , , , 

the purposes lon, it IS ncedlcss to saj he could har- 
ofsedacuon. ^^^ ^^ suspiciou that the defendant 
was meditating the seduction of his wife ; there 
was nothing, indeed, in his conduct, or in the 
conduct of the unfortunate lady, that could ad- 
minister any cause of jealousy to the most guard- 
ed or suspicious temper. Yet, dreadful to relate, 
and it is, indeed, the bitterest evil of which the 
plaintiff has to complain^ a criminal intercourse, 
for nearly five years before the discovery of the 
connection, had most probably taken place. 

I will leave you to consider what must have 
Peculiar ag- bccn the fecHngs of such a husband, 
fiirmi's°e°ry upou the fatal discovery that his wife, 
thl°pTain^tiff ^"^ ^"^^ ^ 'w'lk, had conducted her- 
is plunged, gelf in a manner that not merely de- 
prived him of her comfort and society, but placed 
him in a situation too horrible to be described. 
If a man without children is suddenly cut off by 
an adulterer from all the comforts and happiness 
of marriage, the discovery of kis condition is 
happiness itself when compared with that to 
which the plaintiff is reduced. When children, 
by a woman, lost forever to the husband, by the 
arts of the adulterer, are begotten in the unsus- 
pected days of virtue and happiness, there re- 
mains a consolation; mixed, indeed, with the 
most painful reflections, yet a consolation still. 
But what is the plaintiff's situation ? He does 
not know at what time this heavy calamity fell 
upon him — he is tortured with the most afflict- 
ing of all human sensations. When he looks at 
the children, whom he is by law bound to pro- 
tect and provide for, and from whose existence 
he ought to receive the delightful return which 
the union of instinct and reason has provided for 
the continuation of the world, he knows not 
whether he is lavishing his fondness and affection 
upon his own children, or upon the seed of a vil- 
lain sown in the bed of his honor and his delight. 
He starts back with horror, when, instead of see- 
ing his own image reflected from their infant 
features, he thinks he sees the destroyer of his 
happiness — a midnight robber introduced into his 
house, under professions of friendship and broth- 
erhood — a plunderer, not in the repositories of 
his treasure, which may be supplied, or lived 
without, "iwi there where he had garnered up his 
hopes, where either he must live or bear no lifc?'''^ 

In this situation, the plaintiff brings his case 
Duty of the jury ^eforc you, and the defendant at- 
to the piaintift- tcmpts no manner of defense. He 

and to the pub- .... -i i 

lie in assessing admits his guilt — hc rcndcrs it un- 
amages. ncccssary for me to go into any proof 

of it ; and the only question, therefore, that re- 
mains, is for you to say what shall be the conse- 

2 But there, where I had garnered up my heart, 
Where either I must live, or bear no life, 
Tlie fountain from the which my current runs, 
Or else dries up ; to be discarded thence ! 

Othello, Act iv.. So. 9. 



quences of his crime, and what verdict you will 
pronounce against him. You are placed, there- 
fore, in a situation most momentous to the pub- 
lic. You have a duty to discharge, the result of 
which not only deeply affects the present gener- 
ation, but which remotest posterity will contem- 
plate to your honor or dishonor. On your ver- 
dict it depends whether persons of the description 
of the defendant, who have cast off all respect 
for religion, who laugh at morality, when it is 
opposed to the gratification of their passions, and 
who are careless of the injuries they inflict upon 
others, shall continue their impious and destruct- 
ive course with impunity. On your verdict it 
depends whether such men, looking to the pro- 
ceedings of courts of justice, shall be able to say 
to themselves, that there are certain limits be- 
yond which the damages of juries are not to pass. 
On your verdict it depends whether men of large 
fortunes shall be able to adopt this kind of rea- 
soning to spur them on in the career of their 
lusts : " There are many chances that I may not 
he discovered at all ; there are chances that, if I 
am discovered, I may not be the object of legal in- 
quiry — and supposing I should, there are certain 
damages, beyond which a jury can not go. They 
may be large, but still within a certain compass. 
If I can not pay them myself there may be per- 
sons belonging to my family who will pity my sit- 
uation : somehow or other the money may be raised, 
and I may be delivered from the consequences of 
my crime.'''' I trust the verdict of this day 

WILL SHOW MEN WHO REASON THUS THAT THET 

ARE MISTAKEN. 

The action for adultery, like every other action, 
is to be considered according to the The suffering 
extent of the injury which the per- ^vr^-cale'toL" 
son complaining to a court of justice ["d'n'^foTtheln- 
has received. If he has received an jury sustained. 
injury, or sustained a loss that can be estimated 
directly in money, there is then no other medium 
of redress, but in moneys numbered according to 
the extent of the proof I apprehend it will not 
be even stated by the counsel for the defendant, 
that if a person has sustained a loss, and can 
show it is to any given extent, he is not entitled 
to i\{Q full measure of it in damages. If a man 
destroys my house or furniture, or deprives me 
of a chattel, I have a right, beyond all manner 
of doubt, to recover their corresponding values in 
money, and it is no answer to me to say that he 
who has deprived me of the advantage I before 
possessed is in no situation to render me satis- 
faction. A verdict pronounced upon such a prin- 
ciple, in any of the cases I have alluded to, would 
be set aside by the court, and a new trial award- 
ed. It would be a direct breach of the oaths of 
jurors, if, impressed with a firm conviction that a 
plaintiff had received damages to a given amount, 
they retired from their duty, because they felt 
commiseration for a defendant, even in a case 
where he might be worthy of compassion from 
the injury being unpremeditated and inadvert- 
ent. 

But there are other wrongs which can not be 
estimated in money : 



1802.] 

You can not minister to a mind diseased. ^ 
You can not redress a man who is wronged be- 
Tf money can not yond tliB possibiHty of rcdrcss : the 
"'ongtthe'^award law has HO mcans of restoring to 
.-/r'inltbe him what he has lost. God him- 
ost ample. self, as he has constituted human 
nature, has no means of alleviating such an inju- 
ry as the one I have brought before you. While 
the sensibilities, affections, and feelings he has 
given to man remain, it is impossible to heal a 
wound which strikes so deep into the soul. When 
you have given to a plaintitl, in damages, all that 
figures can number, it is as nothing ; he goes away 
hanging down his head in sorrow, accompanied 
by his wretched family, dispirited and dejected. 
Nevertheless, the law has given a civil action for 
adultery, and, strange to say, it has given noth- 
ing else. The law commands that the injury 
.shall be compensated (as far as it is practicable) 
IN MONEY, because courts oi Civil Justice have no 
other means of compensation than money ; and 
the only question, therefore, and which you upon 
your oaths are to decide, is this : has the plaint- 
iff sustained an injury up to the extent which he 
has complained of? Will twenty thousand pounds 
place him in the same condition of comfort and 
happiness that he enjoyed before the adultery, and 
which the adulterer has deprived him of? You 
know that it will not. Ask your own hearts the 
question, and you will receive the same answer. 
I should be glad to know, then, upon w^hat prin- 
ciple, as it regards the private justice, which the 
plaintiff has a right to, or upon what principle, 
as the example of that justice affects the public 
and the remotest generations of mankind, you can 
reduce this demand even in a single farthing. 

This is a doctrine which has been frequently 
Views of countenanced by the noble and learned 
^rttfZi':^ Lord [Lord Kenyon] who lately pre- 
of damages, gj^g^] j^ ^^c Court of King's Bench: 
but his Lordship's reasoning on the subject has 
been much misunderstood, and frequently mis- 
represented. The noble Lord is supposed to 
have said, that although a plaintiff may not have 
sustained an injury by adultery to a given amount, 
yet that large damages, for the sake of public 
example, should be given. He never said any 
such thing. He said that which law and morals 
dictated to him, and which will support his rep- 
utation as long as law and morals have a foot- 
ing in the world. He said that every plaintiff 
had a right to recover damages ttp to the extent 
of the injury he had received^ and that public ex- 
ample stood in the way of showing favor to an 
adulterer, by reducing the damages below the 
sum which the jury would otherwise consider as 
the lowest compensation for the wrong. If the 
plaintiff shows you that he was a most affection- 
ate hu-sband ; that his parental and conjugal 

^ Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
Raze out the written troubles of the brain, 
And with some sweet oblivious antidote 
Cleanse the stiffed bosom of that perilous stuff 
Which weighs upon the heart? 

Macbeth, Act v., Sc. 3. 



L\ BEHALF OF MR. MARKHAM. 



781 



affections were the solace of his life ; that for 
nothing the world could bestow in the shape of 
riches or honors would he have bartered one 
moment's comfort in the bosom of his family, he 
shows you a wrong that no money can compen- 
sate. Nevertheless, if the injury is only mensura- 
ble in money, and if you are sworn to make upon 
your oaths a pecuniary compensation, though I 
can conceive that the damages when given to 
the extent of the declaration, and you can give 
no more, may fall short of what your consciences 
would have dictated, yet I am utterly at a loss 
to comprehend upon what principle they can be 
lessened. But then comes the defendant's coun- 
sel, and says, "It is true that the injury can not 
be compensated by the sum which the plaintiff 
has demanded ; but you will consider the mise- 
ries my client must suffer, if you make him the 
object of a .severe verdict. You must, therefore, 
regard him with compassion ; though I am ready 
to admit the plaintiff is to be compensated for 
the injury he has received. 

Here, then. Lord Kenyon's doctrine deserves 
consideration. " He who will miti- -n,^,„ , „, ,„ 

Damages not to 

gate damages below the fair esti- ^e mitigated 

c ,, 1-11 , without iiositive 

mate oi the wrong which he has cause shown by 
committed, must do it upon some ^'>« '^^''-''^"t-J 
principle which the policy of the law will sup- 
port." 

Let me, then, examine, whether the defendant 
is in a situation which entitles him to no such cause 
have the damages against him miti- '" ""* •^'*^®- 
gated, when private justice to the injured party 
calls upon you to give them to the utmost 
FARTHING. The qucstiou will be, on what prin- 
ciple of mitigation he can stand before you. I 
had occasion, not a great while ago, to remark 
to a jury, that the wholesome institutions of the 
civilized world came sea.sonab]y in aid of the 
dispensations of Providence for our well-being 
in the world. If I were to ask, what it is that 
prevents the prevalence of the crime of incest, 
by taking away those otherwise natural impulses, 
from the promiscuous gratification of which we 
should become like the beasts of the field, and 
lose all the intellectual endearments which are 
at once the pride and the happiness of man? 
What is it that renders our houses ontiie contrary, 
pure and our families innocent? It the severest 

r . ^ , . . . . . „ ,, guards riecessa- 

is that, by the wise institutions ot all ry to protect so- 
civilized nations, there is placed a the^ciosestTnti" 
kind of guard against the human """■*■ 
pa.ssions, in that sense of impropriety and dishon- 
or, which the law has raised up, and impressed 
with almost the force of a second nature. This 
wise and politic restraint beats down, by the 
habits of the mind, even a propensity to incestu- 
ous commerce, and opposes those inclinations 
which nature, for wise purposes, has implanted 
in our breasts at the approach of the other sex. 
It holds the mind in chains against the seduc- 
tions of beauty. It is a moral feeling in per- 
petual opposition to human infirmity. It is like 
an angel from heaven placed to guard us from 
propensities which are evil. It is that warning 
voice, gentlemen, which enables you to embrace 



782 



MR. ERSKINE 



[1802. 



your daughter, however lovely, without feeling 
that you are of a different sex. It i.s that which 
enables you, in the same manner, to live familiarly 
with your nearest female relations, without those 
desires which are natural to man. 

Next to the tie of blood (if not, indeed, before 
Application of it) is the sacrcd and spontaneous re- 
toXcase'of latiou of friendship. The man who 
rriendship. comes under the roof of a married 
friend, ought to be under the dominion of the 
same moral restraint ; and, thank God, generally 
is so, from the operation of the causes which I 
have described. Though not insensible to the 
ehai-ms of female beauty, he receives its impres- 
sions under an habitual reserve, which honor im- 
poses. Hope is the parent of desire, and honor 
tells him he must not hope. Loose thoughts 
may arise, but they are rebuked and dissipated : 
"Evil into the mind of God or man 
May come and go, so unapproved, and leave 
No spot or blame behind." — Milton. 
Gentlemen, I trouble you with these reflec- 
tions, that you may be able properly to appre- 
ciate the guilt of the defendant, and to show 
you, that you are not in a case where large al- 
lowances are to be made for the ordinary infirmi- 
ties of our imperfect natures. When a man 
does wrong in the heat of sudden passion — as, 
for instance, when, upon receiving an affront, he 
rushes into immediate violence, even to the dep- 
rivation of life, the humanity of the law classes 
his offense among the lower degrees of homi- 
cide ; it supposes the crime to have been com- 
mitted before the mind had time to parley with 
itself. But is the criminal act of such a person. 
Abuse of however disastrous may be the conse- 
tiie'deS^' quence, to be compared with that of 
""*• the defendant ? Invited into the house 

of a friend — received with the open arms of af- 
fection, as if the same parents had given them 
birth and bred them — in this situation, this most 
monstrous and wicked defendant deliberately 
perpetrated his crime ; and, shocking to relate, 
not only continued the appearances of friendship 
after he had violated its most sacred obligations, 
but continued them as a cloak to the barbarous 
repetitions of his offense — writing letters of re- 
gard, while, perhaps, he was the father of the 
last child, whom his injured friend and compan- 
ion was embracing and cherishing as his own ! 
What protection can such conduct possibly re- 
ceive from the humane consideration of the law 
for sudden and violent passions ? A passion for 
a woman is progressive; it does not, like anger, 
gain an uncontrolled ascendency in a moment, 
nor is a modest matron to be seduced in a day. 
Such a crime can not, therefore, be committed 
under the resistless dominion of sudden infirmi- 
ty ; it must be deliberately., willfully., and icickedly 
committed. The defendant could not possibly 
have incurred the guilt of this adultery without 
often passing through his mind (for he had the 
education and principles of a gentleman) the 
very topics I have been insisting upon before you 
for his condemnation. Instead of being sudden- 
ly impelled toward mischief, without leisure for 



such reflections, he had innumerable difficulties 
and obstacles to contend with. He could not 
but hear, in the first refusals of this unhappy 
lady, every thing to awaken conscience, and 
even to excite horror. In the arguments he 
must have employed to seduce her from her duty, 
he could not but recollect and willfully trample 
upon his own. He was a year engaged in the 
pursuit ; he resorted repeatedly to his shameful 
purpose, and advanced to it at such intervals of 
time and distance, as entitle me to say, that he 
determined in cold blood to enjoy a future and 
momentary gratification, at the expense of every 
principle of honor which is held sacrcd among 
gentlemen, even where no laws interpose their 
obligations or restraints. 

I call upon you, therefore, gentlemen of the 
jury, to consider well this case — for a jury the chief 
it is your oflice to keep human life socfetyTnsuIh 
in tone ; your verdict must decide *^**^^- 
whether such a case can be indulgently consid- 
ered, without tearing asunder the bonds which 
unite society together. 

Gentlemen, I am not preaching a religion 
wiaich men can scarcely practice. I 

™, . •^. p , Apiiravations 

am not anecting a severity ol morals in the present 
beyond the standard of those whom I '"'^'"'^• 
am accustomed to respect, and with whom I asso- 
ciate in common life. I am not making a stalk- 
ing-horse of adultery, to excite exaggerated sen- 
timent. This is not the case of a gentleman 
meeting a handsome woman in a public street or 
in a place of public amusement ; where, finding 
the coast clear for his addresses, without inter- 
ruption from those who should interrupt, he finds 
himself engaged (probably the successor of an- 
other) in a vain and transitory intrigue. It is 
not the case. of him who, night after night, falls 
in with the wufe of another, to whom he is a 
stranger, in the boxes of a theater, or other re- 
sorts of pleasure, inviting admirers by indecent 
dress and deportment, unattended by any thing 
w'hich bespeaks the aflectionate wife and mother 
of many children. Such connections may be of 
evil example ; but I am not here to reform pub- 
lic manners, but to demand private justice. It is 
impossible to assimilate the sort of cases I have 
alluded to, which ever will be occasionally oc- 
cun-ing, with this atrocious invasion of household 
peace — this portentous disregard of every thing 
held sacred among men, good or evil. Nothing, 
indeed, can be more affecting than even to be 
called upon to state the evidence I must bring 
before you. I can scarcely pronounce to you 
that the victim of the defendant's lust was the 
mother of nine children, seven of them females 
and infants, unconscious of their unhappy condi- 
tion, deprived of their natural guardian, separa- 
ted from her forever, and entering the world with 
a dark cloud hanging over them. But it is not 
in the descending line alone that the happiness 
of this worthy family is invaded. It hurts me to 
call before you the venerable progenitor of both 
the father and the children, who has risen by ex- 
traordinary learning and piety to his eminent rank 
in the Church ; and who, instead of receiving, 



I802J 



IN BEHALF OF MR. MARKHAM. 



783 



unmixed and undisturbed, the best consolation 
of age, in counting up the number of his de- 
scendants, carrying down the name and honor of 
his house to future times, may be forced to turn 
aside his face fi-om softie of them that bring to his 
remembrance the wrongs which now oppress 
him, and which it is his duty to forget, because 
it is his, otherwise impossible, duty to forgive 
them. 

Gentlemen, if I make out this case by evi- 
it is one almost dcncc (and if I do not, forget every 
Tn uir^sCy o/ thing you have heard, and reproach 
such offenses, j^ic for having abused 3^our honest 
feelings), I have established a claim for damages 
that has no pai-allel in the annals of fashionable 
adultery. It is rather like the entrance of Sin 
and Death into this lower world. The undone 
pair were living like our first parents in Para- 
dise, till this demon saw and envied their happy 
condition. Like them, they were in a moment 
cast down from the pinnacle of human happiness 
into the very lowest abyss of sorrow and despair. 
In one point, indeed, the resemblance does not 
hold, which, while it aggravates the crime, re- 
doubles the sense of suffering. It was not from 
an enemy, but from a friend, that this evil pro- 
ceeded. I have just had put into my hand a 
quotation from the Psalms upon this subject, full 
of that unaffected simplicity which so strikingly 
characterizes the sublime and sacred poet : 

"It is not an open enemy that hath done me 
this dishonor, for then I could have borne it. 

" Neither was it mine adversary that did mag- 
nify himself against me ; for then, peradventure, 
I would have hid myself from him . 

" But it was even thou, my companion, my 
guide, mine own familiar friend." 

This is not the language of counsel, but the 
inspired language of truth. I ask you solemnly, 
upon your honors and your oaths, if you would 
exchange the plaintiff's former situation for his 
■present, for a hundred times the compensation 
he r'equires at your hands. I am addressing my- 
self to affectionate husbands and to the fathers of 
beloved children. Suppose I were to say to you. 
There is twenty thousand pounds for you : em- 
brace your wife for the last time, and the child 
that leans upon her bosom and smiles upon you 
— retire from your house, and make way for the 
adulterer — wander about an object for the hand 
of scorn to point its slow and moving finger at — 
think no more of the happiness and tranquillity 
of your former state — I have destroyed them for- 
ever. But never mind — don't make yourself un- 
easy — here is a draft upon my banker, it will be 
paid at sight — there is no better man in the city. 
I can see you think I am mocking you. gentle- 
men, and well you may ; but it is the very pith 
and marrow of this cause. It is impossible to 
put the argument in mitigation of damages in 
plain English, without talking such a language, 
as appears little better than an insult to your un- 
derstandings, dress it up as you will. 

But it may be asked — if no money can be an 
adequate, or, indeed, any compensation, why is 
Mr. Markham a plaintiff in a civil action ? 



Why does he come here for money ? Thank God, 
gentlemen, it is not my fault. I , ^ , . , 

° ' IP I T ^''■- Erskine's 

take honor to myseli, that 1 was one exertions to 
of those who endeavored to put an end a'cHminarof-^ 
to this species of action, by the adop- '^"'^• 
tion of a more salutary course of proceeding. 
I take honor to myself, that I was one of those 
who supported in Parliament the adoption of a 
law to pursue such outrages with the terrors of 
criminal justice. I thought then, and I shall al- 
ways think, that every act malum in se directly 
injurious to an individual, and most pernicious in 
its consequences to society, should be considered 
to be a misdemeanor. Indeed, I know of no oth- 
er definition of the term. The Legislature, how- 
ever, thought otherwise, and I bow to its decis- 
ion ; but the business of this day may produce 
some changes of opinion on the subject. I never 
meant that evo-y adultery was to be similarly 
considered. Undoubtedly, there are cases where 
it is comparatively venial, and judges would not 
overlook the distinctions. I am not a pretender 
to any extraordinary purity. My severity is con- 
fined to cases in which there can be but one sen- 
timent among men of honor, as to the offense, 
though they may differ in the mode and measure 
of its correction. 

It is this difference of sentiment, gentlemen, 
that I am alone afraid of. I fear you Dangerous 
may think there is a sort of limitation of rart?g!u°ng* 
in verdicts, and that you may look to ^as^^of this 
precedents for the amount of damages, ^ind. 
though you can find no precedent for the magni- 
tude of the crime ; but you might as well abolish 
the action altogether, as lay down a principle 
which limits the consequences of adultery to 
what it may be convenient for the adulterer to 
pay. By the adoption of such a principle, or by 
any mitigation of severity, arising even from an 
insufficient reprobation of it, you unbar the sanc- 
tuary of domestic happiness, and establish a sort 
of license for debauchery, to be sued out like oth- 
er licenses, at its price. A man has only to put 
money into his pocket, according to his degree 
and fortune, and he may then debauch the wife 
or daughter of his best friend, at the expense he 
chooses to go to. He has only to say to himself, 
what lago says to Roderigo in the play, 

Pat money in thy purse — go to — put money in thy 
purse.* 

Persons of immense fortunes might, in this 
way, deprive the best men in the country of their 
domestic satisfactions, with what to them might 
be considered as impunity. The most abandoned 
profligate might say to himself, or to other profli- 
gates, " I have suffered judgment by default — let 
them send down their deputy-sheriff to the King's 
Arms Tavern ; I shall be concealed from the eye 
of the public — I have drawn upon my banker for 
the utmost damages^ and I have as much more to 
spare to-morrow, if I can find another woman 
whom I would choose to enjoy at such a price." 
In this manner I have seen a rich delinquent, too 

4 Othello, Act i., Scene 3. 



784 



MR. ERSKINE IN BEHALF OF MR. MARKHAM. 



[1802. 



lightly fined by courts of criminal justice, throw- 
down his bank-notes to the officers, and retire 
with a deportment, not of contrition, but con- 
tv,mpt. 

For these reasons, gentlemen, I expect from 
you to-day the full measure of damages demand- 
ed by the plaintiff. Having given such a ver- 
dict, you will retire with a monitor within con- 
firming that you have done right ; you will retire 
in sight of an approving public, and an approv- 
ing Heaven. Depend upon it, the world can not 
be held together without morals ; nor can morals 
maintain their station in the human heart without 
religion, which is the corner-stone of the fabric of 
human virtue. 

We have lately had a most striking proof of 
Peroration: this subUmc and consoling truth in 
tSs (fndud- one result, at least, of the Revolution 
ing marriage) which has astouishcd and shaken the 

restored in /> i i -i t 

France. earth. Though a false philosophy 

was permitted, /or a season^ to raise up her vain 
fantastic front, and to trample down the Christian 
establishments and institutions, yet, on a sudden, 
God said, " Let there be light, and there was 
light." The altars of religion were restored — 
not purged, indeed, of human errors and super- 
stitions, not reformed in the just sense of refor- 
mation ; yet the Christian religion is still re-es- 
tablished — leading on to further reformation ; 
fulfilling the hope, that the doctrines and prac- 



tice of Christianity shall overspi-ead the face of 
the earth. 

Gentlemen, as to us, we have nothing to wait 
for. We have long been in the center of light. 
We have a true religion and a free government, 

AND you ARE THE PILLARS AND SUPPORTERS OF 
BOTH. 

I have nothing further to add, except that, 
since the defendant committed the in- Duty of a jury 
jury complained of, he has sold his ""England, 

'' •' r 1 _ where these m- 

estate, and is preparing to remove stitutions have 

• . ^1 i T) -^ always been 

into some other country. J3e it so. chenshed and 
Let him remove ; but you will have '■^^■^'■*"'^- 
to pronounce the penalty of his return. It is for 
YOU to declare whether such a person is worthy 
to be a member of our community. But if the 
feebleness of your jurisdiction, or a commisera- 
tion which destroys the exercise of it, shall shel- 
ter such a criminal from the consequences of his 
crimes, individual security is gone, and the rights 
of the public are unprotected. Whether this be 
our condition or not, I shall know by your ver- 
dict. 



The jury gave c£7000 damages — being the 
full amount of the defendant's property. The 
money could not be collected, as Mr. Fawcett 
had fled the country ; but the verdict operated 
as a sentence of perpetual banishment against 
him. 



MR. CURRAN. 

John Philpot Curran was born at Newmarket, an obscure village in the north- 
west corner of the county of Cork, Ireland, on the 24th of July, 1750. The family 
was in low circumstances, his father being seneschal, or collector of rents, to a gentle- 
man of small property in the neighborhood. He was a man, however, of vigorous in- 
tellect, and acquirements above his station ; while his wife was distinguished for that 
bold, irregular strength of mind, that exuberance of imagination and warmth of feel- 
ing, which were so strikingly manifested in the character of her favorite son. 

The peculiar position of his father brought the boy, from early life, into contact 
with persons of every class, both high and low ; and he thus gained that perfect 
knowledge of the mind and heart of his countrymen, and that kindling sympathy 
with their feelings, which gave him more power over an Irish jury than any other 
man ever possessed. Though sent early to school, his chief delight was in society — 
in fun, frolic, mimicry, and wild adventure. The country fairs, which were frequent 
m his native village, were his especial delight ; and, as he moved in the crowded 
streets, among the cattle and the pigs, the horse-dealers and frieze-dealers, the match- 
makers and the peddlers, he had his full share of the life, and sport, and contention 
of the scene. He was a regular attendant on dances and wakes ; and dwelt with 
the deepest interest on the old traditions about the unfinished palace of Kanturk, in 
the neighborhood, or listened to the stories concerning the rapparees of King Will- 
iam's wars, or to " the strains of the piper as he blew the wild notes to which Alis- 
ter M'Donnel marched to battle at Knocknanois, and the wilder ones in which the 
woman mourned over his corse." Every thing conspired from his earliest years to 
give him freedom and versatility of mind ; to call forth the keenest sagacity as to 
character and motives ; to produce a quick sense of the ridiculous ; to cherish that 
passionate strength of feeling which expressed itself equally in tears and laughter ; 
to make him, at once, oi reality and imagination " all compact." 

When he was about fourteen years old, as he was rolling marbles one morning, 
and playing his tricks in the ball-alley, he attracted the notice of an elderly gentle- 
man who was passing by. It was the Rev. Mr. Boyse, a clergyman of the Church 
of England, who held the rectorship of the parish. The family of Curran Avere at- 
tendants on his ministry, and he had heard much of the brightness and promise of 
the boy. He invited him to his house, and was so much pleased with his frank and 
hearty conversation, that he offered at once to instruct him in the classics, with a, 
view to his entering Trinity College, Dublin. Young Curran was ready for any thing 
that could gratify his curiosity. He removed to the Rectory ; he devoted himself to 
study, though with occasional outbreaks of his love of fun and frolic ; he made such 
proficiency that, within three years, he fairly outran his patron's ability to teach him ; 
he was then removed by Mr. Boyse to a school at Middleton, and supported partly 
at his expense ; and was prepared for the University in 1769, at the age of nineteen. 

Here he studied the classics especially, with great ardor, perfecting himself so fully 
both in the Latin and Greek languages, that he could read them with ease and pleas- 
ure throughout life. His exertions were rewarded by honors and emoluments which 
very nearly provided for his support while in college ; and he carried with him into 
life an enthusiasm for these studies which never subsided, amid all the multiplied 
cares of business and politics. For a long time he read Homer once every year ; 

D D u 



786 MR. CURRAN. 

Mr. Phillips speaks of seeing him, late in life, on board a Holyhead packet in a storm, 
absorbed in the iEneid, while every one around was deadly sick ; and in the last 
journey he ever took, Horace and Virgil were still, as in early life, his traveling com- 
panions. He was also distinguished at college for his love of metaphysical inquiries 
and subtle disquisition. He showed great ingenuity in the discussion of subjects ; 
and his companions were so much struck with his dexterity and force on a certain 
occasion, that they declared, with one consent, that " the bar, and the bar alone, was 
the proper profession for the talents of which he had that day given such striking 
proof" " He accepted the omen," says his son, " and never after repented of his 
decision."^ 

Having completed his college course, and qualified himself for the degree of Mas- 
ter of Arts, in 1773, he removed to London, and commenced the study of the law in 
the Middle Temple. Here he was supported in part by a wealthy friend, but his 
life in London was " a hard one." He spent his mornings, as he states, " in reading 
even to exhaustion," and the rest of the day in the more congenial pursuits of litera- 
ture, and especially in unremitted efforts to perfect himself as a speaker. His voice 
was bad, and his articulation so hasty and confused, that he went among his school- 
fellows by the name of " stuttering Jack Curran." His manner was awkward, his 
gesture constrained and meaningless, and his whole appearance calculated only to 
produce laughter, notwithstanding the evidence he gave of superior abilities. All 
these faults he overcame by severe and patient labor, f Constantly on the watch 
against bad habits, he practiced daily before a glass, reciting passages from Shaks- 
peare, Junius, and the best English orators. He frequented the debating societies, 
which then abounded in London ; and though mortified at first by repeated failures, 
and ridiculed by one of his opponents as " Orator Mum," he surmounted every dif- 
ficulty. " He turned his shrill and stumbling brogue," says one of his friends, " into 
a flexible, sustained, and finely-modulated voice ; his action became free and forcible ; 
he acquired perfect readiness in thinking on his legs ;" he put down every opponent 
by the mingled force of his argument and wit, and was at last crowned with the 
universal applause of the society, and invited by the president to an entertainment 
in their behalQ/^Well might one of his biographers say, " His oratorical training 
was as severe as any Greek ever underwent.^ 

Mr. Curran married during his residence in London, with but little accession to his 
fortune, and, returning soon after to Ireland, commenced the practice of the law in 
Dublin, at the close of 1775. He soon rose into business, because he could not do 
without it; verifying the remark of Lord Eldon, that some barristers succeed by 
great talents, some by high connections, some by miracle, but the great majority by 
commencing without a shilli?ig.'' "Within four years, he gained an established rep- 
utation and a lucrative practice ; and at this time, 1779, he united with Mr. Yel- 
verton, afterward Lord Avonmore, in forming a Society, called " The Monks of the 
Order of St. Patrick," embracing a large part of the wit, literature, eloquence, and 
public virtue of the metropolis of Ireland. From the title familiarly given its mem- 
bers of the " Monks of the Screw," it has been supposed by many to have been chiefly 
a drinking-club. So far was this from being the case, that, by an express regulation, 
every thing stronger than beer was excluded from the meeting. " It was a union," 

1 Mr. Curran's feelings toward Mr. Boyse, who sent him to College, were expressed in a story he 
once told at his own table. "Thirty-five years after," said he, "returning one day from court, I 
found an old gentleman seated in my dravving-room, with his feet on each side of the marble chim- 
ney-piece, and an air of being perfectly at home. He turned — it was my friend of the hall-alley ! I 
could not help bursting into tears. ' You are right, sir, you are righT; ! The chimney-piece is yours, 
the pictures are yours, the house is yours: you gave me all — my friend, my father!' He went 
with me to Parliament, and I saw the tears glistening in his eyes when" he saw his poor little .lackey 
rise to answer a Right Honorable. He is gone, sir. This is his wine — let us drink his health I" 



MR. CURRAN. 787 

says one acquainted with its proceedings, " of strong minds, brought together hke 
electric clouds by affinity, and flashing as they joined. They met, and shone, and 
warmed — they had great passions and generous accomplishments, and, like all that 
was then good in Ireland, they were heaving for want of freedom." Nearly thirty 
years after, when the angry politics of the day had thrown Lord Avonmore and his 
friend into hostile parties, so that they were no longer on speaking terms, Mr. Cur- 
ran adverted to the meetings of this society in arguing a case before Lord Avonmore, 
as Chief Baron of the Exchequer, in a manner which was deeply interesting to those 
who witnessed it. After delicately alluding to his Lordship, as differing from the 
Chief Justice of England on a point of law, and as having " derived his ideas 
from the purest fountains of Athens and Rome," Mr. Curran expressed his hope that 
such would be the decision of the court, embracing as it did members of the society 
referred to. " And this soothing hope," said he, " I draw from the dearest and ten- 
derest recollections of my life — from the remembrance of those Attic nights, and those 
refections of the gods, which we have spent with those admired, and respected, and 
beloved companions who have gone before us ; over whose ashes the most precious 
tears of Ireland have been shed. [Here Lord Avonmore became so much affected 
that he could not refrain from tears.] Yes, my good Lord, I see you do not forget 
them. I see their sacred fornjs passing in sad review before your memory. I see 
your pained and softened fancy recalling those happy meetings, where the innocent 
enjoyment of social mirth became expanded into the nobler warmth of social virtue, 
and the horizon of the board became enlarged into the horizon of man — where the 
sv/elling heart conceived and communicated the pure and generous purpose — where 
my slenderer and younger taper imbibed its borrowed hght from the more matured 
and redundant fountain of yours. Yes, my Lord, we can remember those nights 
without any other regret than that they can never more return ; for, 

" We spent them not in toys, or lust, or wine, 
But search of deep philosophy, 
Wit, eloquence, and poesy, 
Arts which I loved — for they, my friend, were thine." — Cowley.^ 

The space allowed to this sketch will not permit any minute detail of Mr. Cur- 
ran's labors at the bar or in public life. Nor was there any thing in either which 
calls for an extended notice. He was a member of the Irish House of Commons from 
1783 to 1797, and entered warmly into the cause of emancipation and reform ; but 
he was never distinguished as a parliamentary orator. His education was forensic ; 
his feelings and habits fitted him pre-eminently to act on the minds of a jury, and 
for more than twenty years he had an unrivaled mastery over the Irish bar. His 
speeches at state trials arising out of the United Irish conspiracy, were the most 
splendid efforts of his genius. He condemned insurrection ; but he felt that the 
people had been goaded to madness by the oppression of the government, and for 
nearly six years he tasked every effort of his being to save the victims of misguided 
and unsuccessful resistance. He did it at the hazard of his life. As he drove to 
town at this period from his residence in a neighboring village, he was in daily ex- 
pectation of being shot at. The court-room was crowded with troops during some of 
the trials, with a view, it was believed, of intimidating the jury or the advocates of 
the prisoners. " Whafs that?" exclaimed Mr. Curran, as a clash of arms was 
heard from the soldiery at the close of one of his bold denunciations of the course 

' Lord Avonmore, in whose breast political resentment was easily subdued by the same noble 
tenderness of feeling which distinguished Charles J. Fox. upon a more celebrated occasion, could 
not withstand this appeal to his heart. The moment the court rose, his Lordship sent for his friend, 
and threw himself into his arms, declaring that unworthy artifices had been used to separate them, 
and that they should never succeed in future. 



788 MR. CURRAN. 

pursued by the government. Some who stood near him seemed, from their looks 
and gestures, about to offer him personal violence, when he fixed his eye sternly upon 
them, and added, "Yo7c may assassinate, but you shall not intimidate me!'' 
" They were not mere clients for whom he pleaded," says his biographer, " they 
were friends for whose safety he would have coined his blood ; they were patriots 
who had striven by means which he thought desperate or unsuited to himself for the 
freedom of their country. He came in the spirit of love and mercy, inspired by 
genius and commissioned by Heaven to walk on the waters with these patriots, and 
lend them his hand when they were sinking. He pleaded for some who, neverthe- 
less, were slaughtered ; but was his pleading therefore in vain ? Did he not convert 
many a shaken conscience, sustain many a frightened soul ? Did he not keep the 
life of genius, if not of hope, in the country ? Did he not help to terrify the govern- 
ment into the compromise which they so ill kept ? He did all this, and more. His 
speeches will ever remain less as models of eloquence than as examples of patriotism 
and undying exhortations to justice and liberty." 

In 1803 there was another attempt at insurrection, which Mr. Curran regarded 
with very different emotions. It was that of Uobert Emmett. Whatever we may 
think of the motives or the genius of this extraordinary young man, there can be but 
one opinion of the enterprise in which he was engaged. It was, from the first, rash 
and hopeless. He was just from college, with no character throughout the country 
to give him authority as a leader, and no experience in the conduct of affairs ; hasty 
in his judgments, obstinate to an extreme in his resolves, and fatally deceived by 
weak or false advisers. The moment he began to move, the ground sunk under him. 
" His attempt," as remarked by a friend of his principles, " had not the dignity of 
even partial success, and did a vast injury to the country." To Mr. Curran it was 
peculiarly afflictive, because it commenced with the murder of his old friend. Lord 
Chief Justice Kilwarden, in the streets of Dublin. In addition to this, Emmett had 
won the affections of Sarah Curran without the knowledge of her father ; a corre- 
spondence between them was found among his papers ; and Mr. Curran was thus 
brought under the suspicions of the government, was compelled to undergo the in- 
terrogatories of the Privy Council, and had the pain of being laid under obligations 
to the generosity of the Attorney General, while his character was exposed to obloquy, 
and the cause he had espoused subjected to the basest imputations from his political 
opponents. It is not, therefore, surprising that he refused to defend Emmett — de- 
fense was, indeed, impossible — or even to see him. Nor, perhaps, is it surprising that 
his feelings continued to be so much wounded at Sarah's clandestine engagement 
and its results, as to make her home an unhappy one ; so that she left his house, 
married without love, and carried her broken heart to an early grave in a foreign 
land.^ To complete his wretchedness, Mr. Curran, through the villainy of a friend, 
was called to suffer the severest calamity which a husband can ever endure. 

The remaining events of his life can be briefly told. On the accession of the 
Whigs to power, under Lord Grenville, in 1806, he was appointed Master of the 
Rolls. But the bench was not his place. He was but poorly fitted for its duties ; 
and, though he discharged them with a moderate degree of ability, it was always 
with reluctance. To assuage the melancholy which now preyed upon him, he car- 
ried his former habits of conviviality to a still greater extent. He surrounded him- 
self with gay companions, especially at his dinner-table ; " and when roused," says 
one of his biographers, "he used to run over jokes of every kind, good, bad, and in- 
different. No epigram too delicate, no mimicry too broad, no pun too little, and no 
metaphor too bold for him. He wanted to be happy, and to make others so, and 
rattled away for mere enjoyment. These afternoon dinner sittings were seldom pro- 
' See Washington Irving's stoiy of the Broken Heart, in his Sketch Bi>ok. 



MR. CURRAN. 789 

longed very late ; but they made up in vehemence what they wanted in duration." 
But his health failed him, and in 1814 he resigned the Mastership of the Rolls. 
He now traveled, spending most of his time in England, but occasionally visiting 
Paris and other places on the Continent. In the spring of 1817, while dining with 
his friend, Thomas Moore, he had a slight attack of paralysis. His physician ordered 
him at once to the south of Europe ; and, to arrange his affairs, he went over to Ire- 
land for the last time. He returned to London, and was attacked with apoplexy, 
of which he died, after lingering a few days, on the 14th of October, 1817. 

Mr. Curran was short of stature, with a swarthy complexion, and " an eye that 
glowed like a live coal." His countenance was singularly expressive; and, as he 
stood before a jury, he not only read their hearts with a searching glance, but he 
gave them back his own, in all the fluctuations of his feelings, from laughter to tears. 
His gesture was bold and empassioned ; his articulation was uncommonly distinct 
and deliberate ; the modulations of his voice were varied in a high degree, and per- 
fectly suited to the widest range of his eloquence. 

His power lay in the variety and strength of his emotions. He delighted a jury by 
his wit ; he turned the court-room into a scene of the broadest farce by his humor, 
mimicry, or fun ; he made it " a place of tears," by a tenderness and pathos which 
subdued every heart ; he poured out his invective like a stream of lava, and inflamed 
the minds of his countrymen almost to madness by the recital of their wrongs. His 
rich and powerful imagination furnished the materials for these appeals, and his in- 
stinctive knowledge of the heart taught him how to use them with unfaihng success. 
He relied greatly for effect on his power of painting to the eye ; and the actual con- 
dition of the country for months during the insurrection, and after it, furnished ter- 
rific pictures for his pencil. Speaking of the ignorance which prevailed in England 
as to the treatment of the Irish, he said, " If you wished to convey to the mind of 
an English matron the horrors of that period, when, in defiance of the remonstrances 
of the ever-to-be-lamented Abercromby, our poor people were surrendered to the bru- 
tality of the soldiery by the authority of the state, you would vainly attempt to give 
her a general picture of lust, and rapine, and murder, and conflagration. By en- 
deavoring to comprehend every thing, you would convey nothing. When the father 
of poetry wishes to portray the movements of contending armies and an embattled 
field, he exem]jlijies, he does not describe. So should your story to her keep clear of 
generalities. You should take a cottage, and place the affrighted mother with her 
orphan daughters at the door, the paleness of death in her face, and more than its 
agonies in her heart — her aching heart, her anxious ear struggling through the mist 
of closing day to catch the approaches of desolation and dishonor. The ruffian gang 
arrives — the feast of plunder begins — the cup of madness kindles in its circulation — 
the wandering glances of the ravisher become concentrated upon the shrinking and 
devoted victim. You need not dilate — you need not expatiate ; the unpolluted ma- 
tron to whom you tell the story of horror beseeches you not to proceed ; she presses her 
child to her heart — she drowns it in her tears — her fancy catches more than an angel's 
tongue could describe ; at a single view she takes in the whole miserable succession 
of force, of profanation, of despair, of death. So it is in the question before us." 

The faults of Mr. Curran arose from the same source as his excellences. They 
lay chiefly on the side oi excess; intense expressions, strained imagery, overwrought 
passion, and descriptions carried out into too great minuteness of circumstance. But 
he spoke for the people ; the power he sought was over the Irish mind ; and, in such 
a case, the cautious logic and the Attic taste of Erskine, just so far as they existed, 
would only have weakened the eflect. There are but few parts of our country where 
Curran would be a safe model for the bar ; but our mass meetings will be swayed 
most powerfully by an eloquence conceived in the spirit of the great Irish Orator. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. CURRAN IN BEHALF OF AECHIBALD HAMILTON ROWAN WHEN INDICTED FOR THE PUB- 
LICATION OF A SEDITIOUS LIBEL, DELIVERED JANUARY 29, 1794. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Mr. Rowan was a gentleman of wealth and respectability in Dublin, who acted as secretary of the 
Society of United Irishmen for that city. Associations under this name were now taking the place of the 
Irish Volunteers,^ who ten years before had so powerful an influence on the politics of Ireland. Their 
original object was to promote Catholic emancipation and a reform in Parliament. The society to which 
Mr. Rowan belonged was one of the earliest, and the views of its members, as stated by the son and bi- 
ographer of Curran, " did not extend beyond a constitutio7ial reform." It should not be confounded with 
the subsequent associations which, under the same title, aimed at a revolution. 

In 1792, the government issued a proclamation against seditious associations, which was no doubt di- 
rected against the United Irishmen. The chairman of the Dublin Society, Dr. Drennan, drew up a reply 
addressed to the Volunteers of Ireland, and Mr. Rowan signed it as secretary. Its language was vehe- 
ment and unguarded. " Citizen soldiers, to arms ! Take up the shield of freedom and the pledge of peace 
— peace, the motive and end of your virtuous institution. War, an occasional duty, should never be your 
occupation ; every man should become a soldier in defense of his rights." The best construction that 
could be put on such language, was that Ireland was again to be converted into a camp, as in 1780, for 
the sake of showing England that her rights and interests must not be trifled with. The construction put 
upon it by the government was that of a summons to prepare for insurrection, and it is not improbable 
that the feelings of Drennan would have led him to such a result. But Mr. Rowan, as stated by Charles 
Phillips, had no such intentions. "He was a man of the kindest nature, with a touch of the romantic. 
Never was there a man less capable of crime, or more likely to commit an indiscretion. He never thought 
of himself, but if he saw toward another even the semblance of oppression, at all cost and at all hazard 
he stood forth to redress or to resist it. He was no mere political adventurer; he was a man of large 
possessions; the interests of Ireland and his own were identified." He signed this address, but he nev- 
er gave it circulation ; the man who did distribute it, and who greatly resembled Mr. Rowan, was named 
Willis, and was never indicted. 

Drennan and Rowan were brought before the Court of King's Bench for a seditious libel, not by a pre- 
sentment of the grand jury, but by an information of the Attorney General. The former was acquitted 
on a mere point of form ; the trial of the latter gave rise to this speech. In justice to Mr. Curran, one 
thing should be remembered in perusing it. Mr. Rowan had given directions that his counsel should aim 
not so much to obtain his acquittal as to defend his principles. This accounts for the want of that close 
argument on the exact point at issue, which has been the chief objection to this speech. Its true title 
would be, A Vindication of Mr. Rowan's motives, of the Irish Volunteers, of a Free Press, and of Cath- 
olic Emancipation. 



SPEECH, &c. 



Gentlebien of the Jury, — When I consider 
Causes of era- thc period at which this prosecution is 
,^n%X?ng"on brought fofward ; when I behold the 
the defense, extraordinary safeguard^ of armed sol- 
diers, resorted to, no doubt, for the preservation 
of peace and order ; when I catch, as I can not 
but do, the throb of public anxiety, which beats 
from one end to the other of this hall ; when I 
reflect on what may be the fate of a man of the 
most beloved personal character, of one of the 

^ For an account of this corps, see note 5 to Mr. 
Burke's speech previous to the Bristol election, page 
296, and the Memoir of Mr. Grattan, page 38,3. 

'■^ Ahuding to a guard of soldiers which was brought 
into court just at the opening of the trial. Mr. Cur- 
ran, in alluding to this fact, very naturally shaped 
his exordium into a beautiful resemblance to that of 
Cicero, in his oration for Milo. 



most respected families of our country — ^himself 
the only individual of that family — I may almost 
say of that country, who can look to that possi- 
ble fate with unconcern ? Feeling, as I do, all 
these impressions, it is in the honest simplicity 
of my heart I speak, w^ien I say that I never rose 
in a court of justice with so much embarrassment 
as upon this occasion. 

If, gentlemen, I could entertain a hope of find- 
ing refuge for the disconcertion of my oniy resource 
mind in the perfect composure of yours ; a"naY«stice "If 
if I could suppose that those awful vi- tiiejury. 
cissitudes of human events, which have been 
stated or alluded to, could leave your judgments 
undisturbed and )-our hearts at ease, I know 1 
should form a most erroneous opinion of your 
character. I entertain no such chimerical hopes ; 
I form no such unworthy opinions ; I expect not 



1794.] 



MR. CURRAN IN BEHALF OF MR. ROWAN. 



791 



that your hearts can be more at ease than my 
own ; I have no right to expect it ; but I have a 
right to call upon you in the name of your coun- 
try, in the name of the living God, of whose eter- 
nal justice you are now administering that por- 
tion which dwells with us on this side of the 
grave, to discharge your breasts, as far as you 
are able, of every bias of prejudice or passion ; 
that if my client is guilty of the offense charged 
upon him, you may give tranquillity to the pub- 
lic by a firm verdict of conviction : or if he is in- 
nocent, by as firm a verdict of acquittal ; and that 
you will do this in defiance of the paltry artifices 
and senseless clamors that have been resorted to 
in order to bring him to his trial with anticipated 
conviction. And, gentlemen, 1 feel an additional 
necessity of thus conjuring you to be upon your 
guard, from the able and imposing statement 
which you have just heard on the part of the 
prosecution. I know well the virtues and the 
talents of the excellent person who conducts that 
prosecution ; I know how much he would dis- 
dain to impose upon you by the trappings of of- 
fice ; but I also know how easily we mistake the 
lodgment which character and eloquence can 
make upon our feelings, for those impressions 
that reason, and fact, and proof, only ought to 
work upon our understandings. 

Perhaps, gentlemen, I shall act not unwisely 
in waving any further observation of this sort, 
and giving your minds an opportunity of grow- 
ing cool and resuming themselves, by coming to 
a calm and uncolored statement of mere facts, 
premising only to you that I have it in the strict- 
est injunction from my client to defend him upon 
facts and evidence only, and to avail myself of 
no technical artifice or subtilty that could with- 
draw his cause from the test of that inquiry 
which it is your province to exercise, and to 
which only he wishes to be indebted for an ac- 
quittal. 

.In the month of December, 1792, Mr. Row^an 
Preliminary "^as arrcstcd ou an information charg- 
Hard^.lpsof ^"S ^'"^ ^'^^h ihc offcnsc for which he 
Mr Row.in is now ou his trial. He was taken be- 

ir. the early 

staj-es of the lorc an honorable personage now on 
prosecufon. ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^ admitted to bail. He 

remained a considerable time in this city, solicit- 
ing the threatened prosecution, and offering him- 
self to a fair trial by a jury of his country ; but 
it was not then thought fit to yield to that solic- 
itation ; nor has it now been thought proper to 
prosecute him in the ordinary way, by sending 
up a bill of indictment to a grand jury. I do not 
mean by this to say that informations ex officio 
are always oppressive or unjust ; but I can not 
but observe to you, that when a petty jury is 
called upon to try a charge not previously found 
by the grand inquest, and supported by the na- 
ked assertion only of the King's prosecutor, the 
accusation labors under a weakness of probabili- 
ty w^hich it is difficult to assist. If the charge had 
no cause of dreading the light ; if it was likely to 
find the sanction of a grand jury, it is not easy 
to account why it deserted the more usual, the 
more popular-, and the more constitutional mode, 



and preferred to come forward in the ungracious 
form of ex officio information. 

If such bill had been sent up and found, Mr. 
Rowan would have been tried at the ijackwardness 
next commission ; but a speedy trial bnn'^h,m7o ^ 
was not the wish of his prosecutors. ^'^'^^ 
An information was filed, and when he expected 
to be tried upon it, an error, it seems, was dis- 
covered in the record. Mr. Rowan offered to 
wave it, or consent to any amendment desired. 
No. That proposal could not be accepted. A 
trial must have followed. That information, 
therefore, was withdrawal, and a new one filed ; 
that is, in fact, a third prosecution was instituted 
upon the same charge. This last was filed on 
the eighth day of last July. Gentlemen, these 
facts can not fail of a due impression upon you. 
You will find a material part of your inquiry 
must be, whether Mr. Rowan is pursued as a 
criminal or hunted down as a victim. It is not, 
therefore, by insinuation or circuity, but it is 
boldly and directly that I assert, that oppression 
has been intended and practiced upon him ; and 
by those facts which I have stated I am warrant- 
ed in the assertion. 

His demand, his entreaty to be tried was re- 
fused ; and why ? A hue and cry was The design was 
to be raised against him ; the sword h-^'v^^l^prij^- 
was to be suspended over his head ; '^"^^■ 
some time was necessary for the public mind to 
become heated by the circulation of artful clam- 
ors of anarchy and rebellion ; those same clam- 
ors which, with more probability, and not more 
success, had been circulated before through En- 
gland and Scotland. In this country the causes 
and the swiftness of their progress were as ob- 
vious, as their folly has since become to every 
man of the smallest observation. I have been 
stopped myself with, " Good God, sir, have you 
heard the news ?" No, sir, what ? " Why one 
French emissary was seen traveling through 
Connaught in a post-chaise, and scattering from 
the windows as he passed, little doses of politi- 
cal poison, made up in square bits of paper ; an- 
other was actually surprised in the fact of seduc- 
ing our good people from their allegiance, by 
discourses upon the indivisibility of French rob- 
bery and massacre, which he preached in the 
French language to a congregation of Irish peas- 
ants !" 

Such are the bugbears and spectres to be raised 
to warrant the sacrifice of whatever little public 
spirit may remain among us ; but time has also 
detected the imposture of these Cock-lane ap- 
paritions, and you can not now, wuth your eyes 
open, give a verdict without asking your con- 
sciences this question : Is this a fair and honest 
precaution ? Is it brought forward with the sm- 
gle view of vindicating public justice, and pro- 
moting public good ? 

And here let me remind you that you are not 
convened to try the guilt of a libel Diflerencebe 
affecting the personal character of lThbei7n"ti!^ 
any private man. I know no case in '"''''•'f remarks 

J • . on the govern- 

which a jury ought to be more severe ""'"t- 

than when personal calumny is conveyed through 



792 



MR. CURRAN 



[1794. 



a vehicle, which ought to be consecrated to pub- 
lie information ; neither, on the other hand, can 
I conceive any case in which the firmness and 
the caution of a jury should be more exerted than 
when a subject is prosecuted for a libel on the 
state. The peculiarity of the British Constitu- 
tion (to which, in its fullest extent, we have an 
undoubted right, however distant we may be 
from the actual enjoyment), and in which it sur- 
passes every known government in Europe, is 
this, that its only professed object is the general 
good, and its only foundation the general will. 
Hence the people have a right, acknowledged 
from time immemorial, fortified by a pile of 
statutes, and authenticated by a revolution that 
speaks louder than them all, to see whether 
abuses have been committed, and whether their 
properties and their liberties have been attended 
to as they ought to be. This is a kind of sub- 
ject which I feel myself overawed when I ap- 
proach. There are certain fundamental princi- 
ples which nothing but necessity should expose 
to a public examination. They are pillars, the 
depth of whose foundation you can not explore 
without endangering their strength ; but let it 
be recollected that the discussion of such topics 
should not be condemned in me, nor visited upon 
my client. The blame, if any there be, should 
rest only with those who have forced them into 
^ _ , discussion. I say, therefore, it is the 

Great freedom . , p , , 

of remark on right 01 the peoplc to kccp an eter- 

their rulers the °, ^ , "^ \, j \. r ..i • 

rightofthepeo- ual watch upou the conduct of their 
P'^' rulers ; and in order to that, the free- 

dom of the press has been cherished by the law 
of England. In private defamation, let it never 
be tolerated ; in wicked and wanton aspersion 
upon a good and honest administration, let it nev- 
er be supported ; not that a good government can 
be exposed to danger by groundless accusation, 
but because a bad government is sure to find in 
the detected falsehood of a licentious press a se- 
curity and a credit which it could never other- 
wise obtain. 

I have said that a good government can not be 
What, then, endangered — I say so again ; for wheth- 

rn^mfnt ^r it bc good or bad, can never depend 
upon assertion ; the question is decided 
by simple inspection — to try the tree, look at its 
fruit ; to judge of the government, look at the 
people. What is the fruit of good government ? 
" The virtue and happiness of the people." Do 
four millions of people in this country gather 
those fruits from that government, to whose in- 
jured purity, to whose spotless virtue and viola- 
ted honor, this seditious and atrocious libeler is 
to be immolated upon the altar of the Constitu- 
tion ? To you, gentlemen of that jury, who are 
bound by the most sacred obligation to your 
country and your God, to speak nothing but the 
truth, I put the question — Do they gather these 
fruits? are they orderly, industrious, religious, and 
contented ? do you find them free from bigotry 
and ignorance, those inseparable concomitants of 
systematic oppression ? or, to try them by a test as 
unerring as any of the former, are they united ? 
The period has now elapsed in which considera- 



is existmg 
govern 
of 1 reland 



tions of this extent would have been deemed im- 
proper to a jury; happily for these countries, the 
Legislature of each has lately changed, or, per- 
haps, to speak more properly, revived and re- 
stored the law respecting trials of this kind.^ For 
the space of thirty or forty years, a usage had 
prevailed in Westminster Hall, by which the 
judges assumed to themselves the decision of the 
question, whether libel or not. But the learn- 
ed counsel for the prosecution are now obliged 
to admit that this is a question for the jury on1v 
to decide. You w^ill naturally listen with re- 
spect to the opinion of the court, but you will re- 
ceive it as matter of advice, not as matter of 
law; and you will give it credit, not from any 
adventitious circumstances of authority, but mere- 
ly so far as it meets the concurrence of your 
own understandings. 

Give me leave, now, to state to you the charge 
as it stands upon the record : It is, ciiar^e against 
that Mr. Rowan, " being a person of a ^'- ^"^''^^■ 
wicked and turbulent disposition, and malicious- 
ly designing and intending to excite and diffli.se 
among the subjects of this realm of Ireland, dis- 
contents, jealousies, and suspicions of our Lord 
the King and his government, and disaffection and 
disloyalty to the person and government of our 
said Lord the King, and to raise very dangerous 
.seditions and tumults within this kingdom of Ire- 
land and to draw the government of this king- 
dom into great scandal, infamy, and disgrace; 
and to incite the subjects of our said Lord the 
King to attempt, by force and violence, and with 
arms, to make alterations in the government, 
state, and Constitution of this kingdom ; and to 
incite his Majesty's said subjects to tumult and 
anarchy, and to overturn the established Consti- 
tution of this kingdom, and to overawe and in- 
timidate the Legislature of this kingdom by 
armed force," did " maliciously and seditiously" 
publish the paper in question. 

Gentlemen, without any observation of mine, 
you must see that this information Three things must 
contains a direct charge upon Mr. thoSiirc^lTn- 
Rowan ; namely, that he did, with viction. 
the intents set forth in the information, publish 
this paper, so that here you have, in fact, two or 
three questions for your decision : first, the mat- 
ter of fact of the publication ; namely. Did Mr. 
Rowan publish that paper ? If Mr. Rowan did 
not, in fact, publish that paper, you have no 
longer any question on which to employ your 
minds. If you think that he was, in fact, the 
publisher, then, and not till then, arises the great 
and important subject to which your judgments 
must be directed. And that comes shortly and 
simply to this, is the paper a libel ; and did he 
publish it with the intent charged in the inform- 
ation ? But whatever you may think of the ab- 
stract question, whether the paper be libelous or 
not, and of which paper it has not even been in- 
sinuated that he is the author, there can be no 
ground for a verdict against him, unless you also 
are persuaded that what he did was done with a 



Alludiner to Mr. Fox's Libel Bi 



ling 



1794] 



IN BEHALF OF MR. ROWAN. 



793 



criminal design. I wish, gentlemen, to simpli- 
fy, and not to perplex ; I, therefore, say again, 
if these three circumstances conspire — that he 
puhlished it, that it was a libel, and that it was 
published with the purposes alleged in the in- 
formation, you ought unquestionably to find him 
guilty ; if, on the other hand, you do not find that 
all these circumstances concurred ; if you can 
not, upon your oaths, say that he published it, if 
it be not in your opinion a libel, and if he did not 
publish it with the intention alleged ; I say, upon 
the failure of any one of these points, my client 
is entitled, in justice, and upon your oaths, to a 
verdict of acquittal. 

Gentlemen, Mr. Attorney General has thought 
_ . . , ,. proper to direct your attention to the 

Topics to bed IS- ' ^ , -^ 

cussed in meet- State and circumstauces of public af- 

ing tlie charge. - . ^ ,i ^- c ^t ■ ^ 

(1.) The voiun- lairs at the tune ot this transaction ; 

teers of Ireland, j^^ ^^ ^j^^ ^^^^^ ^ ^^^^ rCtrOSpCCtive 

observations on a period at which he has but 
.slightly glanced ; I speak of the events which took 
place before the close of the American war. 
You know, gentlemen, that France had espoused 
the cause of America, and we became thereby 
engaged in war with that nation. Heu nescia 
mens hominum futuri!^ Little did that ill-fated 
Monarch know that he was forming the first 
causes of those disastrous events that were to end 
in the subversion of his throne, in the slaughter 
of his family, and the deluging of his country 
w^ith the blood of his people. You can not but 
remember, that at a time when we had scarce- 
ly a regular soldier for our defense ; when the 
old and the young were alarmed and terrified 
with the apprehension of invasion, Providence 
seemed to have worked a sort of miracle in our 
favor. You saw a band of armed men come 
forth at the great call of nature, of honor, and 
their country. You saw men of the greatest 
wealth and rank ; you saw every class of the 
community give up its members, and send them 
armed into the field, to protect the public and 
private tranquillity of Ireland. It is ^possible 
for any man to turn back to that period without 
'reviving those sentiments of tenderness and grat- 
itude which then beat in the public bosom; to 
recollect amid what applause, what tears, what 
prayers, what benedictions, they walked forth 
among spectators, agitated by the mingled sen- 
sations of terror and reliance, of danger and pro- 
tection, imploring the blessings of Heaven upon 
their heads, and its conquest upon their swords. 
That illustrious, and adored, and abused body of 
men, stood forward and assumed the title which, 
I trust, the ingratitude of their country will nev- 
er blot from its history, " The Volunteers of 
Ireland." 

Give me leave, now, with great respect, to put 



* I'he passage is from the jEncid of Virgil, book 
X., line 501, and relates to Turnus, and his bringing 
down upon himself the calamities which at last over- 
took him. 

Nescia mens hominum fati sortisque futurse. 
Such are the minds of men ! 
Unconscious of their fate and coming fortune. 



one question to you : Do you think the assem- 
bling of that glorious band of patri- 

. ' • ^ • r» -r\ Their formation 

ots was an insurrection? Do you not a seditious 
think the invitation to that assem- ^"^^ 
bling would have been sedition ? They came 
under no commission but the call of their country ; 
unauthorized and unsanctioned, except by public 
emergency and public danger. I ask, was that 
meeting an insurrection or not ? I put another 
question : If any man had then published a call 
on that body, and stated that war was declared 
against the state — that the regular troops were 
withdrawn — that our coasts were hovered round 
by the ships of the enemy — that the moment was 
approaching when the unprotected feebleness of 
age and sex, when the sanctity of habitation, 
would be disregarded and profaned by the brutal 
ferocity of a rude invader : if any man had then said 
to them, " Leave your industry for a while, that 
you may return to it again, and come forth in arms 
for the public defense." I put this question boldly 
to you, gentlemen. It is not the case of the Vol- 
unteers of that day ; it is the case of my client at 
this hour, which I put to you. Would that call 
have been then pronounced in a court ,. 

. '^ . . If not, tlien the 

ol lustice. or by a jury on their oaths, caii on them to 

''..■, 1 ]• • ... ' come forth 

a criminal and seditious invitation to again, not serfi- 
insurrection ? If it would not have ''""' 
been so then, upon what principle can it be so 
now ? What is the force and perfection of the 
law ? It is the permanency of the law ; it is, that 
whenever the fact is the same, the law is also 
the same ; it is, that the law remains a written, 
monumented, and recorded letter, to pronounce 
the same decision upon the same facts, whenever 
they shall arise. I will not affect to conceal it ; 
you know there has been an artful, ungrateful, 
and blasphemous clamor raised against these il- 
lustrious characters, the saviors of the kingdom 
of Ireland. Having mentioned this, let me read 
a few words of the paper alleged to be criminal : 
" You first took up arms to protect your country 
from foreign enemies, and from domestic disturb- 
ance. For the same purposes, it now becomes 
necessary that you should resume them." 

I should be the last in the world to impute any 
want of candor to the right honorable This caii made 
gentleman who has stated the case "ot^af.v'new'C?! 
on behalf of the prosecution ; but he ga-'ization. 
has certainly fallen into a mistake, which, if not 
explained, might be highly injurious to my client. 
He supposed that this publication was not ad- 
dressed to the old Volunteers, but to new combi- 
nations of them, formed upon new principles, and 
actuated by different motives. You have the 
words to which this construction is imputed upon 
the record ; the meaning of his mind can be col- 
lected only from those words which he has made 
u.se of to convey it. The guilt imputable to him 
can only be inferred from the meaning ascriba- 
ble to those words. Let his meaning then be 
fairly collected by resorting to them. Is there a 
foundation to suppose that this address was di- 
rected to any such body of men as has been call- 
ed a banditti, with what justice, it is unnecessa- 
ry to inquire, and not to the old Volunteers ? As 



794 



MR. CURRAN 



[1794. 



to the sneer at the word citizen soldiers, I should 
feel that I was treating a very respected friend 
with an insidious and unmerited unkindness, if I 
affected to expose it by any gravity of refutation. 
I may, however, be permitted to observe, that 
those who are supposed to have disgraced this 
expression by adopting it, have taken it from the 
idea of the British Constitution, " that no man, 
in becoming a soldier, ceases to be a citizen." 
Would to God. all enemies as they are, that that 
unfortunate people had borrowed more from that 
sacred source of liberty and virtue ; and would 
to God, for the sake of humanity, that they had 
preserved even the little they did borrow. If 
even thei-e could be an objection to that appella- 
tion, it must have been strongest when it was 
first assumed.^ To that period the writer man- 
ifestly alludes ; he addresses those who first took 
up arms : " You first took up arms to protect your 
country from foreign enemies and from domestic 
disturbance. For the same purposes, it is now 
necessary that you should resume them." Is 
this applicable to those who had never taken up 
arms before? "A proclamation," says this pa- 
per, " has been issued in England, for embody- 
ing the militia, and a proclamation has been is- 
sued by the Lord Lieutenant and Council in Ire- 
land for repressing all seditious associations. In 
consequence of both these proclamations, it is 
reasonable to apprehend danger from abroad and 
danger at home." God help us; from the situ- 
ation of Europe at that time, we were threaten- 
ed with too probable danger from abroad, and 
I am afraid it was not without foundation that 
we were told our having something to dread at 
home. 

I find much abuse has been lavished on the dls- 
it was justified rcspcct with which the proclamation 
matron oTt'he IS treated in that part of the paper 
governmenu alleged to be a libel. To that my 
answer for my client is short ; I do conceive it 
competent to a British subject — if he thinks that 
a proclamation has issued for the purpose of 
i-aising false terrors, I hold it to be not only the 
privilege, but the duty of a citizen to set his 
countrymen right with respect to such misi-ep- 
resented danger; and until a proclamation in 
this country shall have the force of law, the rea- 
son and grounds of it are surely, at least, ques- 
tionable by the people. Nay, I will go further ; 
if an actual law had received the sanction of the 
three estates, if it be exceptionable in any mat- 
ter, it is warrantable to any man in the commu- 
nity to state, in a becoming manner, his ideas 
upon it. And I should be at a loss to know, if 
the positive laws of Great Britain are thus ques- 
tionable, upon what ground the* proclamation of 
an Irish government should not be open to the 
animadversion of an Irish subject. 

Whatever be the motive, or from whatever 
It was made with quarter it arises, says this paper, 
honest intention,. " alarm has adscu." Gentlemen, 
do you not know that to be the fact? It has been 



5 The old volunteers often used the phrase " citi- 
zen soldiers." 



stated by the Attorney General, and most truly, 
that the most gloomy apprehensions were enter- 
tained by the whole country. "You Volunteers 
of Ireland, are therefore summoned to arms at 
the instance of government, as well as by the re- 
sponsibility attached to your character, and the 
permanent obligations of your institution." I 
am free to confess, if any man assuming the lib- 
erty of a British subject, to question public top- 
ics, should, under the mask of that privilege, pub- 
lish a proclamation inviting the profligate and 
seditious, those in want and those in despair, to 
rise up in arms to overawe the Legislature, to 
rob us of whatever portion of the blessings of a 
free government we possess, I know of no offense 
involving gicater enormity. But that, gentle- 
men, is the question you are to try. If my cli- 
ent acted with an honest mind and fair intention, 
and having, as he believed, the authority of gov- 
ernment to suppoi't him in the idea that danger 
was to be apprehended, did apply to that body 
of so known and so revered a character, calling 
upon them by their former honor, the principle 
of their glorious institution, and the great stake 
they possessed in their country ; if he interposed, 
not upon a fictitious pretext, but a real belief of 
actual and imminent danger, and that their arm- 
ing at that critical moment was necessary to their 
country, his intention was not only innocent, but 
highly meritorious. It is a question, gentlemen, 
upon which you only can decide ; it is for you 
to say whether it was criminal in the defendant 
to be so misled, and whether he is to fall a sac- 
rifice to the prosecution of that government by 
which he was so deceived. I say, again, gentle- 
men, you can look only to his own words as the 
interpreter of his meaning, and to the state and 
circumstances of his country, as he was made to 
believe them, as the clue to his intention. The 
case, then, gentlemen, is shortly and simply this : 
a man of the first family, and fortune, and char- 
acter, and property among you, reads a procla- 
mation, stating the country to be in danger from 
abroad affd at home, and thus alarmed — thus, 
upon authority of the prosecutor, alarmed, ap- 
plies to that august body, before whose awful 
presence sedition must vanish and insurrection 
disappear. You must surrender, I hesitate not 
to say it, your oaths to unfounded assertion, if 
you can submit to say that such an act of such 
a man, so warranted, is a wicked and seditious 
libel. If he was a dupe, let me ask you who 
was the impostor ? I blush and I shrink with 
shame and detestation from that meanness of 
dupery, and servile complaisance, which could 
make that dupe a victim to the accusation of that 
impostor. 

You perceive, gentlemen, that I am going into 
the merits of this publication, before I apply my- 
self to the question which is first in order of time, 
namely, whether the publication, in point of fact, 
is to be ascribed to Mr. Rowan or not. I have 
been unintentionally led into this violation of or- 
der. I should effect no purpose of either brevity 
or clearness, by returning to the more methodi- 
cal course of observation. I have been naturally 



1794.] 



IN BEHALF OF MR. ROWAN. 



795 



drawn from it by the superior importance of the 
topic I am upon, namely, the merit of the publi- 
cation in question. 

This publication, if ascribable at all to Mr. 
Rowan, contains four distinct subjects. The fii'st 
the invitation to the Volunteers to arm. Upon 
that I have already observed ; but those that 
remain are surely of much importance, and no 
doubt are prosecuted as equally criminal. The 
paper next states the necessity of a reform in 
Parliament ; it states, thirdly, the necessity of an 
emancipation of the Catholic inhabitants of Ire- 
land ; and, as necessary to the achievement of all 
these objects, does, fourthly, state the necessity 
of a general delegated convention of the people. 

It has been alleged that Mr. Rowan intended 
(2.)Pariiament- by tliis publication to excite the sub- 
The'^free^'dis- jscts of this country to effect an al- 
cussion of this teration in the form of your Constitu- 

subject allowed J 

in England. tiou. And hcrc, gentlemen, perhaps 
you may not be unwilling to follow a little further 
than Mr. Attorney General has done, the idea of 
a late prosecution in Gi-eat Britain upon the sub- 
ject of a public libel. It is with peculiar fond- 
ness I look to that country for solid principles of 
constitutional liberty and judicial example. You 
have been pressed in no small degree with the 
manner in which this publication raai'ks the dif- 
ferent orders of our Constitution, and comments 
upon them. Let me show you what boldness of 
animadvei-sion on such topics is thought justifia- 
ble in the British nation,. and by a British jury. 
I have in my hand the report of the trial of the 
printers of the Morning Chronicle for a supposed 
libel against the state, and of their acquittal : let 
me read to you some passages from that publi- 
cation, which a jury of Englishmen were in vain 
called upon to brand with the name of libel. 

" Claiming it as our indefeasible right to asso- 
Extracts from the ciatc together, in a peaceable and 
Mornms Chronicle, friendly manner, for the communi- 
cation of thoughts, the formation of opinions, and 
to promote the general happiness, we think it un- 
necessaiy to offer any apology for inviting you 
to join us in this manly and benevolent pursuit. 
The necessity of the inhabitants of every com- 
munity endeavoring to procure a true knowledge 
of their rights, their duties, and their interests, 
will not be denied, except by those who ai'e the 
slaves of prejudice, or interested in the continu- 
ation of abuses. As men who wish to aspire to 
the title of freemen, we totally deny the wisdom 
and the humanity of che advice, to approach the 
defects of government with ' pious awe and trem- 
bling solicitude.' What better doctrine could the 
Pope or the tyrants of Europe desire ? We think, 
therefore, that the cause of truth and justice can 
never be hurt by temperate and honest discus- 
sions ; and that cause which will not bear such 
a scrutiny must be systematically or practically 
bad. We are sensible that those who are not 
friends to the general good, have attempted to 
inflame the public mind with the cry of ' Dan- 
ger,' whenever men have asslciated for discuss- 



this place. We would, therefore, caution every 
honest man, who has really the welfare of the 
nation at heart, to avoid being led away by the 
prostituted clamors of those who live on the sour- 
ces of corruption. We pity the fears of the tim- 
orous ; and we are totally unconcerned respect- 
ing the false alarms of the venal. 

" We view with concern the frequency of wars. 
We are persuaded that the interests of the poor 
can never be promoted by accession of territory, 
when bought at the expense of their labor and 
blood ; and we must say, in the language of a 
celebrated author, ' We, who are only the peo- 
ple, but who pay for wars with our substance and 
our blood, will not cease to tell Kings,' or govern- 
ments, ' that to them alone wars are profitable ; 
that the true and just conquests are those which 
each makes at home by comforting the peasant- 
ry, by promoting agriculture and manufactures, 
by multiplying men, and the other productions of 
nature ; that then it is that kings may call them- 
selves the image of God, whose will is perpetu- 
ally directed to the creation of new beings. If 
they continue to make us fight and kill one an- 
other, in uniform, we will continue to write and 
speak until nations shall be cured of this folly.' 
We are certain our present heavy burdens are 
owing, in a great measure, to cruel and impolitic 
wars ; and therefore we will do all on our part, 
as peaceable citizens who have the good of the 
community at heart, to enlighten each other, and 
protest against them. 

" The present state of the representation of the 
people calls for the particular attention of every 
man who has humanity sufBcient to feel for the 
honor and happiness of his country ; to the de- 
fects and corruptions of which we are inclined 
to attribute unnecessary wars, oppressive taxes, 
&c. We think it a deplorable case when the 
poor must support a corruption which is calcu- 
lated to oppress them ; when the laborer must 
give his money to afford the means of preventing 
him having a voice in its disposal ; when the low- 
er classes may say, " We give you our money, 
for which we have toiled and sweated, and which 
would save our families from cold and hunger ; 
but we think it more hard that there is nobody 
whom we have delegated to see that it is not im- 
properly and wickedly spent. We have none to 
watch over our interests. The rich only are rep- 
resented. 

"An equal and uncorrupt representation would^ 
we are persuaded, save us from heavy expenses, 
and deliver us fi"om many oppressions. We will, 
therefore, do our duty to procure this reform, 
which appears to us of the utmost importance. 

" In short, we see with the most lively con- 
cern an army of placemen, pensioners, &c., fight- 
ing in the cause of corruption and prejudice, and 
spreading the contagion far and wide. 

" We see with equal sensibility the present 
outcry against reforms, and a proclamation (tend- 
ing to cramp the liberty of the press, and discredit 
the true friends of the people) receiving the sup- 



ing the principles of government ; and we have port of numbers of our countrymen. 

little doubt but such conduct will be pursued in ! "We see burdens multiplied, the lower classes 



796 



MR. CURRAN 



[1794. 



sinking into poverty, disgrace, and excesses, and 
the means of those shocking abuses increased 
for the purpose of revenue. 

" We ask ourselves, ' Are we in England ?' 
Have our forefathers fought, bled, and conquered 
for liberty? And did they not think that the 
fruits of their patriotism would be more abund- 
ant in peace, plenty, and happiness ? 

" Is the condition of the poor never to be im- 
proved '? 

" Great Britain must have arrived at the high- 
est degree of national happiness and prosperity, 
and our situation must be too good to be mend- 
ed, or the present outcry against reforms and 
improvements is inhuman and criminal. But we 
hope our condition will be speedily improved, 
and to obtain so desirable a good is the object 
of our present association : a union founded on 
principles of benevolence and humanity ; dis- 
claiming all connection with riots and disorder, 
but firm in our purpose, and warm in our affec- 
tions for liberty. 

'• Lastly, we invite the friends of freedom 
tlu'oughout Great Britain to form similar socie- 
ties, and to act with unanimity and firmness, till 
the people be too wise to be imposed upon, and 
their influence in the government be commensu- 
rate with their dignity and importance. Then 
shall we be free and happy.'''' Such, gentlemen, 
is the language which a subject of Great Britain 
thinks himself warranted to hold, and upon such 
language has the corroborating sanction of a 
British jury been stamped by a verdict of ac- 
quittal. Such was the honest and manly free- 
dom of publication ; in a country, too, where the 
complaint of abuses has not half the foundation 
it has here. I said I loved to look to England 
for principles of judicial example ; I can not but 
say to you, that it depends on your spirit wheth- 
er I shall look to it hereafter with sympathy or 
with shame. 

Be pleased now, gentlemen, to consider 
The motives whether the statement of the imper- 
wer'rirprisht'^ fcctiou in your representation has been 
and patriotic, made with a desire of inflaming an 
attack upon the public tranquillity, or with an 
honest purpose of procuring a remedy for an 
actually existing grievance. It is impossible not 
to revert to the situation of the times ; and let 
me remind you, that whatever observations of 
this kind I am compelled thus to make in a 
court of justice, the uttering of them in this 
place is not imputable to my client, but to the 
necessity of defense imposed upon him by this 
extraordinary prosecution. 

Gentlemen, the representation of your people 
Importance or is the Vital principle of their political 
faVriprestnt- existcncc. Without it they are dead, 
" p^^ or they live only to servitude ; without 
it there are two estates acting upon 
and against the third, instead of acting in co-op- 
eration with it ; without it, if the people are op- 
pressed by their judges, where is the tribunal to 
which their judges can be amenable? Without 
it, if they are trampled upon and plundered by 
a minister, where is the tribunal to which the 



atinn of the 
people in 
liament. 



offender shall be amenable ? Without it, where 
is the ear to hear, or the heart to feel, or the 
hand to redress their sufferings ? Shall they be 
found, let me ask you, in the accursed bands of 
imps and minions that bask in their disgrace, 
and fatten upon their spoils, and flourish upon 
their ruin ? But let me not put this to you as 
a merely speculative question. It is a plain 
question of fact : rely upon it, physical man is 
every where the same ; it is only the various 
operations of moral causes that gives variety to 
the social or individual character and condition. 
How otherwise happens it that modern slavery 
looks quietly at the despot, on the very spot where 
Leonidas expired? The answer is easy; Sparta 
has not changed her climate, but she has lost that 
government which her liberty could not survive. 
I call you, therefore, to the plain question of 
fact. This paper recommends a re- 

P • T-. !• T 1 M"* Ireland 

lorm in Parliament: I put that ques- surharep- 

.■ . • 1 ^1 • I resentation? 

tion to your consciences ; do you think 
it needs that reform ? I put it boldly and fairly 
to you ; do you think the people of Ireland are 
represented as they ought to be ? Do you hes- 
itate for an answer ? If you do, let me remind 
you that, until the last year, three millions of 
your countrymen have, by the express letter of 
the law, been excluded from the reality of actu- 
al, and even from the phantom of virtual repre- 
sentation. Shall we, then, be told that this is 
only the affirmation of a wicked and seditious 
incendiary ? If you do not feel the mockery of 
such a charge, look at your country ; in what 
state do you find it ? Is it in a state of tran- 
quillity and general satisfaction ? These are 
traces by which good are ever to be distin- 
guished from bad governments, without any very 
minute inquiry or speculative refinement. Do 
you feel that a veneration for the law, a pious 
and humble attachment to the Constitution, form 
the political morality of the people ? Do you 
find that comfort and competency among your 
people which are always to be found where a 
government is mild and moderate, where taxes 
are imposed by a body who have an interest in 
treating the poorer orders with compassion, and 
preventing the weight of taxation from pressing 
sore upon them ? 

Gentlemen, I mean not to impeach the state 
of your representation 5 I am not say- The q.i 



estion 
proper < 



to be altered or amended ; nor is this ^''""• 
a place for me to say whether I think that three 
millions of the inhabitants of a country whose 
whole number is but four, ought to be admitted 
to any efficient situation in the state. It may 
be said, and truly, that these are not questions 
for either of us directly to decide ; but you can 
not refuse them some passing consideration at 
least, when you remember that on this subject 
the real question for your decision is, whether 
the allegation of a defect in your Constitution is 
so utterly unfounded and false, that you can as- 
cribe it only to the malice and perverseness of 
a wicked mind, and not to the innocent mistake 
of an ordinary understanding ; whether it may 



1794] 



IN BEHALF OF MR. ROWAN. 



797 



not be mistake ; whether it can be only sedi- 
tion. 

And here, gentlemen, I own I can not but re- 
riiament grct that OHC of our countrymcn should 
/e'rcon- be criminally pursued for asserting the 
ieringit ncccssity of a reform, at the very mo- 
ment when that necessity seems admitted by the 
Parliament itself; that this unhappy reform shall, 
at the same moment, be a subject of legislative 
discussion and criminal prosecution. Far am I 
from imputing any sinister design to the virtue 
or wisdom of our government ; but who can 
avoid feeling the deplorable impression that must 
be made on the public mind, when the demand 
for that reform is answered by a criminal inform-, 
ation ! I am the more forcibly impressed by this 
consideration, when I consider that when this 
information was first put on the file, the subject 
was transiently mentioned in the House of Com- 
mons. Some circumstances retarded the prog- 
ress of the inquiry there, and the progress of the 
information was equally retarded here. On the 
first day of this session, you all know, that sub- 
ject was again brought forward in the House of 
Commons, and, as if they had slept together, this 
prosecution was also revived in the Court of 
King's Bench, and that before a jury taken from 
a panel partly composed of those very members 
of Parliament who, in the House of Commons, 
must debate upon this subject as a measure of 
public advantage, which they are here called 
upon to consider as a public crime.^ 

This paper, gentlemen, insists upon the neces- 
(3.) Catholic sity of emancipating the Catholics of 
emancipation, ij-gland, and that is charged as a part 
of the libel. If they had kept this prosecution 
impending for another year, how much would re- 
main for a jury to decide upon, I should be at a 
loss to discover. It seems as if the progress of 
public reformation was eating away the ground 
of the prosecution. Since the commencement of 
the prosecution, this pai-t of the libel has unluck- 
ily received the sanction of the Legislature. In 
that interval, our Catholic brethren have obtain- 
ed that admission which, it seems, it was a libel 
to propose.'' In what way to account for this. I 
am really at a loss. Have any alarms been oc- 
casioned by the emancipation of our Catholic 
brethren ? Has the bigoted malignity of any in- 
dividuals been crushed ? Or, has the stability 
of the government, or has that of the country 
been weakened? Or, are one million of subjects 
stronger than three millions ? Do you think that 
the benefit they received should be poisoned by 
the stings of vengeance ? If you think so, you 
must say to them, " You have demanded your 
emancipation, and you have got it ; but we abhor 
your persons, we are outraged at your success ; 
and we will stigmatize, by a criminal prosecu- 
tion, the relief which vou have obtained from the 



the 



6 The jury was taken from a panel containin; 
Dames of a number of members of Parliament. 

7 In 1793, after the prosecution was commenced, a 
bill passed the Irish Parliament giving the right of 
suffrage to Catholics, and conferring a large part of 
the rights and privileges desired. 



voice of your country." I ask you, gentlemen, 
do you think, as honest men, anxious for the pub- 
lic tranquillity, conscious that there are wounds 
not yet completely cicatrized, that you ought to 
speak this language at this time, to men who are 
too much disposed to think that in this very 
emancipation they have been saved from their 
own Parliament by the humanity of their Sover- 
eign ? Or, do you wish to prepare them for the 
revocation of these improvident concessions ? 
Do you think it wise or humane, at this moment, 
to insult them, by sticking up in a pillory the 
man who dared to stand forth their advocate ? I 
put it to your oaths, do you think that a blessing 
of that kind, that a victory obtained by justice 
over bigotry and oppression, should have a stig- 
ma cast upon it by an ignominious sentence upon 
men bold and honest enough to propose that 
measure ; to propose the redeeming of religion 
from the abuses of the Church — the reclaiming 
of three millions of men from bondage, and giv- 
ing liberty to all who had a right to demand it 
— giving, I say, in the so much censured words 
of this paper, " Universal E.aiancipation !" I 
speak in the spirit of the British law, which 
makes liberty commensurate with, and insepa- 
rable from, the British soil — which proclaims, 
even to the stranger and the sojourner, the mo- 
ment he sets his foot upon British earth, that the 
ground on which he treads is holy, and conse- 
crated by the genius of Universal Emancipa- 
tion. No matter in what language his doom 
may have been pronounced ; no matter what 
complexion incompatible with freedom an Indian 
or an African sun may have burned upon him; 
no matter in what disastrous battle his liberty 
may have been cloven down ; no matter with 
what solemnities he may have been devoted upon 
the altar of slavery ; the first moment he touch- 
es the sacred soil of Britain, the altar and the 
god sink together in the dust ; his soul walks 
abroad in her own majesty; his body swells be- 
yond the measure of his chains that burst from 
around him, and he stands redeemed, regenerated, 
and disenthralled, by the irresistible genius of 
Universal Emancipation.^ 

[Here Mr. Curran was interrupted by a sud- 
den burst of applause from the court and hall. 
After some time, silence was restored by the au- 
thority of Lord Clonmel, who acknowledged the 
pleasure which he himself felt at the brilliant dis- 
play of professional talent, but disapproved of any 
intemperate expressions of applause in a court 
of justice. Mr. Curran then proceeded :] 

Gentlemen, I am not such a fool as to ascribe 
anv effusion of this sort to any merit ^. . 

- . . •' It IS not the in- 

01 mine. It is the mighty theme, dividual, but 

d^ ^, . . , 111 ^ 'I'e cause, that 

not the inconsiderable advocate, demand- strong 

that can excite interest in the hear- «'»^«"'«"t»- 

er. What you hear is but the testimony which 



^ The origin of this fine passage may be traced to 
the following lines of Cowper: 

Slaves can not breathe in England; if their lungs 
Receive our air, that moment they are free : 
They touch our country, and their shackles fall. 
Task, book ii. 



798 



MR. CURRAN 



[1794. 



nature bears to her own character ; it is the ef- 
fusion of her gratitude to that Power which 
stamped that character. And, gentlemen, per- 
mit me to say, that if my client had occasion to 
defend his cause by any mad or drunken appeals 
to extravagance or licentiousness, I trust in God, 
I stand in that situation, that, humble as I am, he 
would not have resorted to me to be his advocate. 
I was not recommended to his choice by any 
connection of principle or party, or even private 
friendship : and, saying this, I can not but add, 
that I consider not to be acquainted with such a 
man as Mr. Rowan a want of personal good for- 
tune. Gentlemen, upon this great subject of re- 
form and emancipation, there is a latitude and 
boldness of remark, justifiable in the people, and 
necessary to the defense of Mr. Rowan, for which 
the habits of professional studies, and technical 
adherence to established forms, have rendered me 
unfit. It is, however, my duty, standing here as 
his advocate, to make some few observations to 
you, which I conceive to be material. 

Gentlemen, you are sitting in a country that 
„ . , has a right to the British Constitu- 

The interests of , ? i ■ i • i 

England and Ire- tiou, and which IS bound by an m- 

lanlinseparable. ^JiggoJ^jble uuiou with the British na- 

tion. If you were now even at liberty to debate 
upon that subject — if you even were not by the 
most solemn compacts, founded upon the author- 
ity of your ancestors and of yourselves, bound to 
that alliance, and had an election now to make, 
in the present unhappy state of Europe — if you 
had heretofore been a stranger to Great Britain, 
you would now say, we will enter into society 
and union with you : 

Commane periculum, 
Una salus ambobus erit.' 

But to accomplish that union, let me tell you, 
you must learn to become like the English peo- 
ple : it is vain to say you will protect their free- 
dom, if you abandon your own. The pillar whose 
base has no foundation can give no support to the 
dome under which its head is placed ; and if you 
profess to give England that assistance which 
you refuse to yourselves, she will laugh at your 
folly, and despise your meanness and insincerity. 
Let us follow this a little further ; I know you 
Disposition of will interpret what I say with the can- 
England to de- dor iu which it is spoken. England is 

press the other i j i .. i • r r 

parts of the marked by a natural avarice of free- 
empire. ^Qj^^ which she is studious to engross 
and accumulate, but most unwilling to impart, 
whether from any necessity of her policy, or 
from her w^eakness, or from her pride, I will not 
presume to say ; but that so is the fact, you need 
not look to the East or to the West — you need 
only look to yourselves. In order to confirm that 
observation, I would appeal to what fell from the 
learned counsel for the Crown, that notwithstand- 
ing the alliance subsisting for two centuries past, 
between the two countries, the date of liberty in 



^ To both alike one danger and one safety. 

The words are those of ^neas, addressed to his 
father as he was bearing him from Troy. — yEneid, 
book ii., 709-10. 



one goes no further back than the year 1784. If 
it required additional confirmation, I should state 
the case of the invaded American, and the subju- 
gated Indian, to prove that the policy of England 
has ever been to govern her connections more as 
colonies than allies ; and it must be owing to the 
great spirit, indeed, of Ireland, if she shall con- 
tinue free. Rely upon it, she will ever have to 
hold her course against an adverse current ; rely 
upon it, if the popular spring does not continue 
firm and elastic, a short interval of debilitated 
nerve and broken force will send you down the 
stream again, and reconsign you to the condition 
of a province. 

If such should become the fate of your Con- 
stitution, ask yourselves what must be Ireland kept 
the motive of your government ? It is '^"^Jl^"^^, 
easier to govern a province by a fac- a faction, 
tion, than to govern a co-ordinate country by co 
ordinate means. I do not say it is now, but it 
will be always thought easiest by the managers 
of the day, to govern the Irish nation by the 
agency of such a faction, as long as this coun- 
try shall be found walling to let her connection 
with Great Britain be preserved only by her own 
degradation. In such a precarious and wretched 
state of things, if it shall ever be found to exist, 
the true friend of Irish liberty and British con- 
nection will see that the only means of saving 
both must be, as Lord Chatham expressed it, 
"the infusion of new health and blood into the 
Constitution." He will see how deep a stake 
each country has in the liberty of the other ; he 
will see what a bulwark he adds to the common 
cause, by giving England a co-ordinate and co- 
interested ally, instead of an oppressed, enfee- 
bled, and suspected dependent ; he will see how 
grossly the credulity of Britain is abused by those 
who make her believe that her solid interest is 
promoted by our depression ; he will see the des- 
perate precipice to which she approaches, by 
such a conduct, and, with an animated and gen- 
erous piety, he will labor to avert her danger. 
But, gentlemen of the jury, what is likely to be 
his fate ? The interest of the Sovereign must be 
forever the interest of his people, because his in- 
terest lives beyond his life ; it must live in his 
fame — it must live in the tenderness of his solic- 
itude for an unborn posterity — it must live in ihi. . 
heart-attaching bond, by which millions of men 
have united the destinies of themselves and their 
children with his, and call him by the endearing 
appellation of King and father of his people. 

But what can be the interest of such a govern- 
ment as I have described ? Not the interest of 
the King, not the interest of the people ; but the 
sordid interest of the hour ; the interest in de- 
ceiving the one, and in oppressing and deform- 
ing the other ; the interest of unpunished rapine 
and unmerited favor ; that odious and abject in- 
terest that prompts them to extinguish public 
spirit in punishment or in bribe ; and to pursue 
every man even to death who has sense to see, 
and integrity and firmness enough to abhor and 
to oppose them. What, therefore, I say, gentle- 
men, will be the fate of the man who embarks 



1794] 



IN BEHALF OF MR. ROWAN. 



799 



in an enterprise of so much difficulty and danger ? 
I will not answer it. Upon that hazard has my 
client put every thing that can be dear to man : 
his fame, his fortune, his person, his liberty, and 
his children ; but with what event your verdict 
only can answer, and to that I refer your coun- 
try. 

Gentlemen, there is a fourth point remaining. 
(4.) Call of a ^ays this paper, "for both these pur- 
convention. poses, it appcars necessary that pro- 
vincial conventions should assemble preparatory 
to the convention of the Protestant people. The 
delegates of the Catholic body are not justified in 
communicating with individuals, or even bodies 
of an inferior authority, and therefore an assem- 
bly of a similar nature and organization is nec- 
essary to establish an intercourse of sentiment, a 
uniformity of conduct, a united cause, and a unit- 
ed nation. If a convention on the one part does 
not soon follow, and is not connected with that 
on the other, the common cause will split into 
partial interests ; the people will relax into inat- 
tention and inertness ; the union of affection and 
exertion will dissolve, and too probably some lo- 
cal insurrection, instigated by the malignity of our 
common enemy, may commit the character and 
risk the tranquillity of the island, which can be 
obviated only by the influence of an assembly 
arising from, and assimilated with the people, 
and whose spirit may be, as it were, knit with 
the soul of the nation — unless the sense of the 
Pi-otestant people be, on their part, as fairly col- 
lected and as judiciously directed, unless individ- 
ual exertion consolidates into collective strength, 
unless the particles unite into one mass, we may 
perhaps serve some person or some party for a 
little, but the public not at all. The nation is 
neither insolent, nor rebellious, nor seditious. 
While it knows its rights, it is unwilling to man- 
ifest its powers. It would rather supplicate ad- 
ministration to anticipate revolution by well- 
timed reform, and to save their country in mercy 
to themselves." 

Gentlemen, it is with something move than 
True import common rcvcrencc, it is with a species 
of the words, of tcrror, that I am obliged to tread this 
ground. But what is the idea put in the stron- 
gest point of view. " We are willing not to man- 
ifest our powers, but to supplicate administration 
to anticipate revolution, that the Legislature may 
save the country in mercy to itself." 

Let me suggest to you, gentlemen, that there 
No guilt in ^*'® some circumstances which have 
them ifthe mo- happened in the history of this coun- 

tive was right. , V, ^ , ^^ "^ 

try, that may better serve as a com- 
ment upon this part of the case than any I can 
make. I am not bound to defend Mr. Rowan 
as to the truth or wisdom of the opinions he may 
have formed. But if he did really conceive the 
situation of the country to be such that the not re- 
dressing her grievances might lead to a convul- 
sion, and of such an opinion not even Mr. Row- 
an is answerable here for the wisdom, much less 
shall I insinuate any idea of my own upon so aw- 
ful a subject ; but if he did so conceive the fact 
tc be, and acted from the fair and honest sug- 



gestion of a mind anxious for the public good, I 
must confess, gentlemen, I do not know in what 
part of the British Constitution to find the prin- 
ciple of his criminality. 

But, gentlemen, be pleased further to consider 
that he can not be understood to put ^, 

\ llieirrcrerence 

the fact on which he argues on the to the case of 
authority of his assertion. The con- "" ^^ ' 
dition of Ireland was as open to the observation 
of every other man as to that of JMr. Rowan. 
What, then, does this part of the publication 
amount to? In my mind, simply to this: "the 
nature of oppression in all countries is such that, 
although it may be borne to a certain degree, it 
can not be borne beyond that degree. You find 
it exemplified in Great Britain. You find the 
people of England patient to a certain point ; 
but patient no longer. That infatuated mon- 
arch James II. experienced this. The time did 
come when the measure of popular suffering and 
popular patience was full ; when a single drop 
was sufficient to make the waters of bitterness 
to overflow. I think this measure in Ireland is 
brimful at present. I think the state of repre- 
sentation of the people in Parliament is a griev- 
ance. I think the utter exclusion of three mill- 
ions of people is a grievance of that kind that the 
people are not likely long to endure ; and the con- 
tinuation of which may plunge the country into 
that state of despair which wrongs exasperated 
by perseverance never fail to produce." But to 
whom is even this language addressed ? Not 
to the body of the people, on whose temper and 
moderation, if once excited, perhaps not much 
confidence could be placed ; but to that authori- 
tative body whose influence and power would 
have restrained the excesses of the irritable and 
tumultuous ; and for that purpose expressly does 
this publication address the Volunteers. "We 
are told that we are in danger. I call upon you, 
the great constitutional saviors of Ireland, to de- 
fend the country to which you have given polit- 
ical existence ; and use whatever sanction your 
great name, your sacred character, and the 
weight you have in the coramunit}^ must give 
you to repress wicked designs, if any there are." 
" We feel ourselves strong. The people arc 
always strong. The public chains can only be 
riveted by the public hands. Look to those de- 
voted regions of southern despotism. Behold the 
expiring victim on his knees, presenting the jav- 
elin reeking with his blood to the ferocious mon- 
ster who returns it into his heart. Call not that 
monster the tyrant. He is no more than the ex- 
ecutioner of that inhuman tyranny which the peo- 
ple practice upon themselves, and of which he is 
only resei'ved to be a later victim than the wretch 
he has sent before. Look to a nearer country, 
where the sanguinary characters are more legi- 
ble ; whence you almost hear the groans of death 
and torture. Do you ascribe the rapine and mur- 
der of France to the few names that we are ex- 
ecrating here ? or do you not see that it is the 
frenzy of an infuriated multitude abusing its own 
strength, and practicing those hideous abomina- 
tions upon itself. Against the violence of this 



800 



MR. CURRAN 



[1794. 



strength let your virtue and influence be our safe- 
guard." 

What criminality, gentlemen of the jury, can 
Not designed to you find in this ? What at any time ? 
veTt'disiurt-'" But I ask you, particularly at this mo- 
ance in Ireland, mentous period, what guilt can you 
find in it ? My client saw the scene of horror 
and blood which covers almost the face of Eu- 
rope. He feared that causes, which he thought 
similar, might produce similar effects ; and he 
seeks to avert those dangers by calling the unit- 
ed virtue and tried moderation of the country into 
a state of strength and vigilance. Yet this is the 
conduct which the prosecution of this day seeks 
to stigmatize ; and this is the language for which 
this paper is reprobated to-day, as tending to turn 
the hearts of the people against their Sovereign, 
and inviting them to overturn the Constitution. 

Let us now, gentlemen, consider the conclud- 
m w r ing part of this publication. It rec- 

The right of , . 

boidingconven- ommcnds a meetmg of the people to 
th°e"right'ofpe" deliberate on constitutional methods 
tition. ^j- redressing grievances. Upon this 

subject I am inclined to suspect that I have in 
my youth taken up crude ideas, not founded, per- 
haps, in law ; but I did imagine that when the 
Bill of Rights restored the right of petitioning for 
the redress of grievances, it was understood that 
the people might boldly state among themselves 
that grievances did exist; that they might law- 
fully assemble themselves in such a manner as 
they might deem most orderly and decorous. I 
thought I had collected it from the greatest lu- 
minaries of the law. The power of petitioning 
seemed to me to impl}'^ the right of assembling 
for the purpose of deliberation. The law requir- 
ing a petition to be presented by a limited num- 
ber, seemed to me to admit that the petition 
might be prepared by any number whatever, 
provided, in doing so, the}^ did not commit any 
breach or violation of the public peace. I know 
that there has been a law passed in the 
basforbidden Ii'ish Parliament of last year which 
^^' may bring my former opinion into a 

merited want of authority. That law declares, 
"that no body of men may delegate a power to 
any similar number, to act, think, or petition for 
them !" If that law had not passed, I should 
have thought that the assembling by a delegated 
convention was recommended, in order to avoid 
the tumult and disorder of a promiscuous assem- 
bly of the whole mass of the people. I should 
have conceived, before that act, that any law to 
abridge the orderly appointment of the few to 
consult for the interest of the many, and thus 
force the many to consult by themselves, or not 
at all, would in fact be a law not to restrain, but 
to promote insurrection. But that law has spok- 
en, and my error must stand corrected. Of this, 
^ .„ „ however, let me remind yon. You 

ButMr.Rowao ' . r i ^ \- 

not to be tried arc to try this part of the publication 
y t at aw. ^^ what the law was then ; not by 
what it is now. How was it understood until 
last session of Parliament ? You had both in 
England and Ireland, for the last ten years, those 
delesiated meetinirs. The Yobmtecrs of lr(>litn(]. 



in 1782, met by delegation; they framed a plan 
of parliamentary reform ; they presented it to the 
i-epresentative wisdom of the nation. It was not 
i-eceived ; but no man ever dreamed that it was 
not the undoubted right of the subject to assem- 
ble in that manner. They assembled, by dele- 
gation, at Dungannon; and to show the idea then 
entertained of the legality of their public con- 
duct, that same body of Volunteers was thanked 
by both Houses of Parliament, and their dele- 
gates most graciously received at the Throne. 
The other day you had delegated representatives 
for the Catholics of Ireland, publicly elected by 
the members of that persuasion, and sitting in 
convention in the heart of your capital, carrying 
on an actual treaty with the existing govern- 
ment, and under the eye of your own Parlia- 
ment, which was then assembled ; you have seen 
the delegates from that convention carry the 
complaints of their grievances to the foot of the 
throne, from whence they brought back to that 
convention the auspicious tidings of that redress 
which they had been refused at home. 

Such, gentlemen, have been the means of pop- 
ular communication and discussion, which, until 
the last session, have been deemed legal in this 
country, as, happily for the sister kingdom, they 
are yet considered there. 

I do not complain of this act as any infraction 
of popular liberty; I should not think under ti.is 
it becoming in me to express any com- 'f^^' '''^ 'ret- 

, . 9 , ^ , -^ , dom of tbe 

plamt agamst a law, when once be- press doubly 
come such. I observe only, that one '"^^"^ 
mode of popular deliberation is thereby taken 
utterly away, and you are reduced to a situation 
in which you never stood before. You are liv- 
ing in a country where the Constitution is right- 
ly stated to be only ten years old — where the 
people have not the ordinary rudiments of edu- 
cation. It is a melancholy story that the lower 
orders of the people here have less means of be- 
ing enlightened than the same class of people in 
any other country. If there be no means left by 
which public measures can be canvassed, what 
will be the consequence ? Where the press is 
free, and discussion unrestrained, the mind, by 
the collision of intercourse, gets rid of its own 
asperities ; a sort of insensible perspiration takes 
place in the body politic, by which those acri- 
monies, which w^ould otherwise fester and in- 
flame, are quietly dissolved and dissipated. But 
noM', if any aggregate assembly shall meet, they 
are censured ; if a printer publishes their reso- 
lutions, he is punished : rightly, to be sure, in 
both cases, for it has been lately done. If the 
people say, let us not create tumult, but meet in 
delegation, they can not do it ; if they are anx- 
ious to promote parliamentary reform in that 
way, they can not do it ; the law of the last ses- 
sion has, for the first time, declared such meet- 
ings to be a crime. What then remains ? The 
liberty of the press 07ily — that sacred palladium 
which no influence, no power, no minister, no 
government, which nothing but the depravity, or 
folly, or corruption of a jury, can ever destroy. 
And what calamities are the people saved 



i794.] 



IN BEHALF OF MR. ROWAN. 



801 



iVoai, by having public communication left open 
Heneiitsto to tlicm ? I will tcll you, gentlemen, 
menf'froma what they are saved from, and what 
iree press, t^g government is saved from; I will 
tell you, also, to what both are exposed by shut- 
ting up that communication. In one case, sedi- 
tion speaks aloud and walks abroad ; the dema- 
gogue goes forth ; the public eye is upon him ; 
he frets his busy hour upon the stage ; but soon 
either weariness, or bribe, or punishment, or dis- 
appointment, bears him down, or drives him ofT, 
and he appears no more. In the other case, how 
does the work of sedition go forward ? Night 
after night the muffled rebel steals forth in the 
dark, and casts another and another brand upon 
the pile, to which, when the hour of fatal matu- 
rity shall arrive, he will apply the torch. If you 
doubt of the horrid consequence of suppressing 
the effusion even of individual discontent, look 
to those enslaved countries where the protection 
of despotism is supposed to be secured by such 
restraints. Even the person of the despot there 
is never in safety. Neither the fears of the des- 
pot nor the machinations of the slave have any 
slumber — the one anticipating the moment of 
peril, the other watching the opportunity of ag- 
gression. The fatal crisis is equally a surprise 
upon both : the decisive instant is precipitated 
without warning — by folly on the one side, or 
by frenzy on the other; and there is no notice 
of the treason till the traitor acts. In those un- 
fortunate countries — one can not read it without 
horror — there are officei's whose province it is 
to have the water which is to be drunk by their 
rulers sealed up in bottles, lest some wretched 
miscreant should throw poison into the draught. 
But, gentlemen, if you wish for a nearer and 
Illustration from morc interesting example, you have 
English history, j^. ^^ ^j,g history of your own revolu- 
tion. You have it at that memorable period, 
when the Monarch [James II.] found a servile 
acquiescence in the ministers of his folly — when 
the liberty of the press was trodden under foot — 
when venal sheriffs returned packed juries, to 
carry into effect those fatal conspiracies of the 
few against the many — when the devoted bench- 
es of public justice were filled by some of those 
foundlings of fortune who, overwhelmed in the 
torrent of corruption at an early period, lay at 
the bottom like drowned bodies while soundness 
or sanity remained in them ; but at length, be- 
coming buoyant by putrefaction, they rose as 
they rotted, and floated to the surface of the 
polluted stream, where they were drifted along, 
the objects of terror, and contagion, and abomin- 
ation. ^^ 

'" It may not be ungratifying to hear the manner 
in which this p'assage was suggested to the speak- 
er's mind. A day or two before Mr. Rowan's trial, 
one of Mr. Curran's friends showed him a letter that 
he had received from Bengal, in which the writer, 
after mentioning the Hindoo custom of throwing the 
dead into the Ganges, added, that he was then upon 
the banks of that river, and that, as he wrote, he 
could see several bodies floating down its stream. 
The orator, shortly after, whiie describing a corrupt- 
E E E 



In that awful moment of a nation's travail, of 
the last gasp of tyranny and the first breath of 
freedom, how pregnant is the example ! The 
press extinguished, the people enslaved, and the 
prince undone. As the advocate of society, 
therefore — of peace — of domestic liberty — and 
the lasting union of the two counti'ies — I con- 
jure you to guard the liberty of the press, that 
great sentinel of the state, that grand detector 
of public imposture ; guard it, because, when it 
sinks, there sinks with it, in one common grave, 
the liberty of the subject and the security of the 
Crown. 

Gentlemen, I am glad that this question has 
not been brought forward earlier; I R^eent panic 
rejoice for the sake of the court, of the '" "'« s'^ter 

, P , ... ' , island, and its 

jury, and ot the public repose, that disgraceful 
this question has not been brought •^''"^^'5"«"=^«- 
forward till wow. In Great Britain, analogous 
circumstances have taken place. At the com- 
mencement of that unfortunate w^ar which has 
deluged Europe with blood, the spirit of the En- 
glish people w^as tremblingly alive to the terror 
of Freijch principles ; at that moment of general 
paroxysm, to accuse was to convict. The dan- 
ger looked larger to the public eye, from the 
misty region through which it was surveyed. 
We measure inaccessible heights by the shad- 
ows which they project, where the lowness and 
the distance of the light form the length of the 
shade. 

There is a sort of aspiring and adventurous 
credulity which disdains assenting to obvious 
truths, and delights in catching at the improba- 
bility of circumstances, as its best ground of 
faith. To what other cause, gentlemen, can you 
ascribe that, in the wise, the reflecting, and the 
philosophic nation of Great Britain, a printer has 
been found guilty of a libel, for publishing those 
resolutions, to which the present minister of that 
kingdom had actually subscribed his name? To 
what other cause can you ascribe, what in my 
mind is still more astonishing, in such a country 
as Scotland, a nation cast in the happy medium 
between the spiritless acquiescence of submiss- 
ive poverty, and the sturdy credulity of pam- 
pered wealth; cool and ardent, adventurous and 
persevering ; wnnging her eagle flight against 
the blaze of every science, with an eye that nev- 
er winks, and a wing that never tires ; crowned 
as she is with the spoils of every art, and decked 
with the WTcath of every muse ; from the deep 
and scrutinizing researches of her Hume, to the 
sweet and simple, but not less sublime and pa- 
thetic morality of her Burns — how, from the 
bosom of a country like that, genius and charac- 
ter, and talents, should be banished to a distant, 
barbai'ous soil ; condemned to pine under the 
horrid communion of vulgar vice and base-born 
profligacy, for twice the period that ordinary 
calculation gives to the continuance of human 
life?^^ But I will not further press any idea 
ed bench, recollected this fact, and applied it as 
above. — Life of Currari, by his Son, vol. i., p. 316. 

11 Alluding to the banishment of the Scotch Re- 
formers, Muir, Palmer, fee. 



802 



MR. CURRAN 



[1794. 



that is painful to me, and I am sure must be 
painful to you. I will only say, you have now 
an example of which neither England nor Scot- 
land had the advantage. You have the exam- 
ple of the panic, the infatuation, and the contri- 
tion of both. It is now for you to de- 
ought'tJ profit cide whether you will profit by their 
by these errors. ^^^^,-1^^^^ of jdle pauic and idle re- 
gret, or whether you merely prefer to palliate a 
servile imitation of their frailty, by a paltry af- 
fectation of their repentance. It is now for you 
to show that you are not carried away by the 
same hectic delusions, to acts of which no tears 
can wash away the consequences or the indeli- 
ble reproach. 

Gentlemen, I have been warning you by in- 



They ought also stauccs of public intellect suspended 
^ or obscured : let me rather excite 

by a more recent , , ' , «,...,, 



>ugh 
nflui 



to be influenced 



change of feeling you by the cxamplc of that intellect 
"gan • recovered and I'estored. In that 
case which Mr. Attorney General has cited him- 
self, I mean that of the trial of Lambert in En- 
gland, is there a topic of invective against con- 
stituted authorities, is there a topic of. abuse 
against every department of British government 
that you do not find in the most glowing and 
unqualified terms in that publication, for which 
the printer of it was prosecuted, and acquitted 
by an English jury? See, too, what a difference 
there is between the case of a man publishing 
his own opinion of facts, thinking that he is 
bound by duty to hazard the promulgation of 
them, and without the remotest hope of any per- 
sonal advantage, and that of a man who makes 
publication his trade. And saying this, let me 
not be misunderstood ; it is not my province to 
enter into any abstract defense of the opinions 
of any man upon public subjects. I do not af- 
firmatively state to you that these grievances, 
which this paper supposes, do in fact exist ; yet I 
can not but say that the movers of this prosecution 
have forced that question upon you. Their mo- 
tives and their merits, like those of all accusers, 
are put in issue before you ; and I need not tell you 
how strongly the motive and merits of any inform- 
er ought to influence the fate of his accusation. 

I agree most implicitly with Mr. Attorney 
M, TJn»„n ,„ General that nothing can be more 

Mr. Kowan an- o 

ewerabie only for criminal than an attempt to work 

his inleiitions, not . '■ 

for his errors of a cliangc m the government by 
judgment ^^^^^ j-^^^^^ ^^^ j cntrcat that the 

court will not .suffer any expression of mine to 
be considered as giving encouragement or de- 
fense to any design to excite disaffection, to 
overawe or to overturn the government. But I 
put my client's case upon another ground. If 
he was led into an opinion of grievances where 
there were none ; if he thought there ought to 
be a reform where none was necessary, he is an- 
swerable only for his intention. He can be an- 
swerable to you in the same way only that he is 
answerable to that God before whom the accuser, 
the accu.sed, and the judge must appear togeth- 
er; that is, not for the clearness of his under- 
standing, but for the purity of his heart. 

Gentlemen, Mr. Attorney General has said 



that Mr. Rowan did by this publication (suppos- 
ing it to be his) recommend, under the No leveling 
name of equality, a general, indiscrim- ^oSedin 
inate assumption of public rule by the Address. 
every the meanest person in the state. Low as 
we are in point of public information, there is 
not, I believe, any man, who thinks for a mo- 
ment, that does not know that all which the 
great body of the people of any country can 
have from any government, is a fair encourage- 
ment to their industry, and protection for the 
fruits of their labor. And there is scarcely any 
man, I believe, who does not know that if a peo- 
ple could become so silly as to abandon their 
stations in society, under pi-etense of governing 
themselves, they would become the dupes and 
the victims of their own folly. But does this pub- 
lication recommend any such infatuated abandon- 
ment, or any such desperate assumption? I will 
read the words which relate to that subject. 
"By liberty we never understood unlimited free- 
dom, nor by equality the leveling of property or 
destruction of suboi'dination." I ask you with 
what justice, upon what principle of common 
sense, you can charge a man with the publica- 
tion of sentiments the very reverse of what his 
words avow ; and that, when there is no collat- 
eral evidence, where there is no foundation what- 
ever, save those very words, by which his mean- 
ing can be ascertained ? or, if you do adopt an 
arbitrary principle of imputing to him your mean- 
ing instead of his own, what publication can be 
guiltless or safe ? It is a sort of accusation that 
I am ashamed and sorry to see introduced in a 
court acting on the principles of the British Con- 
stitution. 

In the bitterness of reproach it was said, " out 
of thine own mouth will I condemn thee." From 
the severity of justice I demand no more. See 
if, in the words that have been spoken, 3-ou can 
find matter to acquit or to condemn. '" By lib- 
erty we never understood unlimited freedom, nor 
by equality the leveling of property, nor the de- 
struction of subordination. This is a calumny 
invented by that faction, or that gang, which 
misrepresents the King to the people, and the 
people to the King ; traduces one half of the na- 
tion to cajole the other ; and, by keeping up dis- 
trust and division, wishes to continue the proud 
arbitrators of the fortune and fate of Ireland." 
Here you find that meaning disclaimed as a cal- 
umny, which is artfully imputed as a crime. 

I say, therefore, gentlemen of the jury, as to 
the four parts into which the publica- „ . , . 

, 1. • 1 1 T Recapitulation. 

tion must be divided, 1 answer thus : 
It calls upon the Volunteers. Consider the time, 
the danger, the authority of the prosecutors them- 
selves for believing that danger to exist ; the 
high character, the known moderation, the ap- 
proved loyalty of that venerable institution ; the 
similarity of the circumstances between Xhe pe- 
riod at which they are summoned to take arms, 
and that in which they have been called upon to 
rcassume them. Upon this simple ground, gen- 
tlemen, you will decide whether this part of the 
j publication was libelous and criminal, or not. 



1794.] 



IN BEHALF OF MR. ROWAN. 



803 



As to reform^ I could wish to have said noth- 
ing upon it. I believe I have said enough. If 
be thought the state required it, he acted like an 
honest man. For the rectitude of the opinion 
he was not answerable. He discharged his duty 
in telling the country that he thought so. 

As to the emanci'paUon of the Catholics, I can 
not but say that Mr. Attorney General did vexy 
wisely in keeping clear of that. Yet, gentle- 
men, I need not tell you how important a figure 
it was intended to make upon the scene, though, 
from unluck}' accidents, it has become necessary 
to expunge it during the rehearsal. 

Of the concluding part of this publication, the 
Convention which it recommends, I have spoken 
already. I wish not to trouble you with saying 
more upon it. I feel that I have already ti'cs- 
passed much upon your patience. In truth, upon 
a subject embracing such a variety of topics, a 
rigid observance either of conciseness or arrange- 
ment could, perhaps, scarcely be expected. It 
is, however, with pleasure I feel I am drawing 
to a close, and that only one question remains, to 
which I beg your attention. 

Whatever, gentlemen, may be your opinion of 
Want of evi- the meaning of this publication, there 
home u?e*^pu1f J^t remains a great point for you to 
A<fdre"s''to*Mr <3ecide upon ; namely, whether, in 
Rowan. poiut of fact, this publication be im- 

putable to Mr. Rowan or not ; whether he did 
publish it or not. And two witnesses are call- 
ed to that fact, one of the name of Lyster^ and 
the other of th "' name of Morton. You must 
have observed that Morton gave no evidence 
upon which that paper could even have been 
read ; he produced no paper ; he identified no 
paper ; .so that in point of law, there was no ev- 
idence to be given to a jury ; and, therefore, it 
turns entirely upon the evidence of the other wit- 
ness. He has stated that he went to a public 
meeting, in a place where there was a gallery 
crowded with spectators ; and that he there got 
a printed paper, the same which has been read 
to you. 

I know you are well acquainted with the fact 
that the ci-edit of every witness must 

Only one wit- ■ , i , i • , , 

iiess, andhe bc Considered by, and rest with the 
impeacie . j^jy They are the sovcrcign judgcs 
of that circumstance ; and I will not insult your 
feelings by insisting on the caution with which 
you should watch the testimony of a witness that 
seeks to affect the liberty, or property, or char- 
acter of your fellow-citizens. Under what cir- 
cumstances does this evidence come before you ? 
The witness says he has got a commission in the 
army by the interest of a lady, from a person 
then high in administration. He told you that 
he made a memorandum upon the back of that 
paper, it being his general custom, when he got 
such papers to make an endorsement upon them ; 
that he did this from mere fancy; that he had no 
intention of giving any evidence on the subject ; 
he took it with no such view. 

There is something whimsical enough in this 
Comments on curious story. Put his credit upon the 
lus testimony, pogitj^e evidcncc adduced to his char- 



acter. Who he is I know not. I know not the 
man ; but his credit is impeached. Mr. Blake 
was called ; he said he knew him. I asked him, 
" Do you think, sir, that JMr. Lyster is or is not a 
man deserving credit upon his oath ?" If you 
find a verdict of conviction, it can be only upon 
the credit of Mr. L3'ster. What said Mr. Blake ? 
Did he tell you that he believed he was a man 
to be believed upon his oath ? He did not at- 
tempt to say that he was. The best he could 
say was, that he would hesitate. Do you believe 
Blake ? Have you the same opinion of Lystcr's 
testimony that Mr. Blake has ? Do you know 
Lyster ? If you do know him, and know that he 
is credible, your knowledge should not bc shak- 
en by the doubts of an\^ man. But if you do not 
know him, you must take his credit from an 
unimpeached witness, swearing that he would 
hesitate to believe him. 

In my mind there is a circumstance of the 
strongest nature that came out from 
Lyster on the table. '^ I am aware that cumsunce"^ 
a very respectable man, if impeached ^s^i'nstbim. 
by surprise, may not be ready prepared to repel 
a wanton calumny by contrary testimony. But 
was Lyster unapprised of this attack upon him ? 
What said he ? "I knew that you had Blake to 
examine against me. You have brought him 
here for that purpose." He knew the very wit- 
ness that was to be produced against him ; he 
knew that his credit was impeached, and yet he 
produced no person to support that credit. What 
said Mr. Smyth ? " From my knowledge of him, 
I would not believe him upon his oath." 

Mr. Attorney General. I beg pardon, but I 
must set Mr. Curran right. Mr. Lyster said 
he heard Blake would be here, but not in time 
to prepare himself. 

Mr. Curran. But what said Mrs. Hatchell ? 
Was the production of that witness a surprise 
upon Mr. Lyster? her cross-examination shows 
the fact to be the contrary. The learned coun- 
sel, you see, was perfectly apprised of a chain 
of private circumstances, to which he pointed his 
questions. Did he know these circumstances b}'^ 
inspiration? No; they could come only from 
Lyster himself I insist, therefore, the gentleman 
knew his character was to be impeached : his 
counsel knew it ; and not a single witness has been 
produced to support it. Then consider, gentle- 
men, upon what ground you can find a verdict of 
conviction against my client, when the only witness 
produced to the fact of publication is impeached, 
without even an attempt to defend his character. 
Many hundreds, he said, were at that meeting ; 
why not produce one of them to swear to the fact 
of such a meeting ? One he has ventured to 
name ; but he was certainly very safe in naming 
a person who, he has told you, is not in the king- 
dom, and could not, therefore, be called to con- 
front him. 

Gentlemen, let me suggest another observa- 
tion or two. If still you have any doubt as to 



'- In the Irish courts the witness gives his testi- 
mony seated in a chair, om a raised platfonn called 
the talk. 



804 



MR. CURRAN 



[1794. 



the guilt or innocence of the defendant, give me 
Argument de- Icave to suggcst to jou what circum- 
rractrofthe stances you ought to consider in or- 
accased. ^jgj. ^q found your verdict. You 

should consider the character of the person ac- 
cused, and in this your task is easy. I will ven- 
ture to say there is not a man in this nation 
more known than the gentleman who is the sub- 
ject of this prosecution, not only by the part he 
has taken in public concerns, and which he has 
taken in common with many, but still more so 
by that extraordinary sympathy for human af- 
fliction which, I am sorry to think, he shares 
with so small a number. There is not a day 
that you hear the cries of your starving manu- 
facturers in your streets, that you do not also 
see the advocate of their sufferings. That you 
do not see his honest and manly figure, with un- 
covered head soliciting for their relief, searching 
the frozen heart of charity for every string that 
can be touched by compassion, and urging the 
force of every argument and every motive, save 
that which his modesty suppresses ; the author- 
ity of his own generous example. Or, if you see 
him not there, you may trace his steps to the 
private abode of disease, and famine, and despair ; 
the messenger of Heaven, bearing with him food, 
and medicine, and consolation. Are these the 
materials of which anarchy and public rapine 
are to be formed ? Is this the man on whom to 
fasten the abominable charge of goading on a 
frantic populace to mutiny and bloodshed ? Is 
this the man likely to apostatize from every prin- 
ciple that can bind him to the state, his birth, his 
property, his education, his character, and his 
children? Let me tell you, gentlemen of the 
jury, if you agree with his prosecutors in thinking 
that there ought to be a sacrifice of such a man, 
on such an occasion, and upon the credit of such 
evidence, you are to convict him — never did 3'ou, 
never can you give a sentence, consigning any 
man to public punishment with less danger to 
his person or to his fame ; for where could the 
hireling be found to fling contumely or ingrati- 
tude at his head, whose private distress he had 
not labored to alleviate, or whose public condi- 
tion he had not labored to improve. 

I can not, however, avoid adverting to a cir- 
cumstance that distinguishes the case 

Peroration: o nr r, r i r- 

Mr. Rowan, if oi Mr. Kowau trom that 01 a late 

condemned, .£. . . , , . , . , ,„ 

mustsufterin sacriuce m a neighbormg kingdom.''^ 
Ireland. rpj^^ scvcrcr law of that country, it 

seems, and happy for them that it should, ena- 
bles them to remove from their sight the victim 
of their Infatuation. The more merciful spirit 
of our law deprives you of that consolation. His 
sufferings must remain forever before your eyes 
a continual call upon your shame and 3'our re- 
morse. But those sufferings will do more ; they 
will not rest satisfied with your unavailing con- 
trition, they will challenge the great and para- 
mount inquest of society. The man will be 
weighed against the charge, the witness, and the 
sentence; and impartial justice will demand, why 



'^ Alludini? to the banishment of Muir, Palmer, &c. 



has an Irish jury done this deed ? The moment 
he ceases to be regarded as a criminal, he be- 
comes of necessity an accuser. And, let me ask 
you, what can your most zealous defenders be 
prepared to answer to such a charge ? When 
your sentence shall have sent him forth to that 
stage [the pillory] which guilt alone can render 
infamous, let me tell you he will not be like a 
little statue upon a mighty pedestal, diminishing 
by elevation. But he will stand a striking and 
imposing object upon a monument, which, if it 
does not, and it can not, record the atrocity of 
his crime, must record the atrocity of his convic- 
tion. And upon this subject credit me when I 
say that I am still more anxious for you than I 
can possibly be for him. I can not but feel the 
peculiarity of your situation. Not the jury of 
his own choice, which the law of England al- 
lows, but v.'hich ours refuses,''* collected in that 
box by a person certainly no friend to Mr. Row- 
an, certainly not very deeply interested in giving 
him a very impartial jury. Feeling this, as I 
am persuaded you do, you can not be surprised, 
however you may be distressed at the mournful 
presage with which an anxious public is led to 
fear the worst from your possible determination. 
But I will not, for the justice and honor of our 
common country, suffer my mind to be borne 
away by .such melancholy anticipations. I will 
not relinquish the confidence that this day will 
be the period of his sufferings ; and however 
merciless he has been hitherto pursued, that 
your verdict will send him home to the arms of 
his family and the wishes of his country. But 
if, which Heaven forbid, it hath still been unfor- 
tunately determined that, beeause he has not 
bent to power and authority, because he would 
not bow down before the golden calf and wor- 
ship it, he is to be bound and cast into the fur- 
nace ; I do trust in God that there is a redeem- 
ing spirit in the Constitution which will be seen 
to walk with the sufferer through the flames, and 
to preserve him unhurt by the conflagration. 



At the conclusion of this speech, there was 
another universal bui'st of applause, throughout 
the court and hall, for some minutes, which was 
again silenced by the interference of Lord Clon- 
mel. " Mr. Curran," says Charles Phillips, " used 
to relate a ludicrous incident which attended his 
departure from court after the trial. His path 
was instantly beset by the populace, who were 
bent on chairing him. He implored — he entreat- 
ed — all in vain. At length, assuming an air of 
authority, he addressed those nearest to him : " I 
desire, gentlemen, that you will desist." " I laid 
great emphasis," says Curran, " on the word 'de- 
sist,' and put on my best suit of dignity. How- 
ever, my next neighbor, a gigantic, brawny chair- 
man, eyeing me with a somewhat contemptuous 
affection, from top to toe, bellowed out to i)is 
companion, 'Arrah, blood and turf! Pat, don't 

'* In making up the jury, Mr. Rowan was not al- 
lowed the .same right of challenging which is enjoy- 
ed in E norland. 



1797.] 



IN BEHALF OF MR. FINNERTY. 



805 



mind the little crachur ; here, pitch him up this I Mr. Rowan was sentenced to pay 66500, and to 
minute upon my showlder.'' Pat did as he was | be imprisoned two years. Within a short time, 
desired; the 'little crachur' was carried, nolens however, he escaped from prison and fled to 
volens, to his carriage, and drawn home by an America, where he remained for many years, 
applauding populace." but finally returned to Ireland and had all further 

The jury brought in a verdict of Guilty, and punishment remitted. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. CURRAN IN BEHALF OF PETER FINNERTY WHEN INDICTED FOR A LIBEL, DELIVERED BE- 
FORE JUSTICE DOWNS IN THE COMMISSION COURT, DECEMBER 22, 1797. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Mr. Finnerty was the printer of a newspaper published at Dublin called the Press, and was indicted 
for publishing a severe letter, signed Marcus, addressed to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in reference 
to the execution of William On*. 

Orr was a farmer of the Presbyterian sect — a man of pious, gentle, and gallant character, gi-eatly re- 
spected and beloved in the county of Antrim, where he lived. He was prosecuted for administering ac 
oath to a United Irishman, and for so doing was condemned to death ! Some of the jury made an affidavit, 
immediately after the trial, that they acted under intimidation in convicting him, and that spirits were in- 
troduced into the jury room. It was likewise ascertained that the principal witness against Orr was a 
man of infamous character, whose word could not be relied on. These things were certified to the Lord 
Lieutenant with a view to Orr's being pardoned. He was accordingly respited to allow time for consid- 
eration ; a second, and then a third respite was granted, and the feeling became general that his pardon 
was secured ; when, to the astonishment and horror of the public, he was hanged at the expiration of 
seven days, surrounded by large bodies of troops collected to overawe the people. He died with great 
calmness, leaving a written declaration of his entire innocence. 

The public indignation was now universal. Medals were struck and circulated bearing the inscrip- 
tion, " Remember Orr;" his name became a watch- word even in England ; Mr. Fox spoke of him as a 
martyr; and the toast, "The ministers in Orr's place," was often heard in both countries. The letters 
of Marcus expressed the general sentiment of the people respecting his execution ; and this was thought 
by the government a favorable opportunity for crushing Finnerty's paper, in which it was published — the 
only remaining paper in Ireland which had not been bought out or broken down by the government. 

"Mr. Curran's address to the jury in this case," says his son, "must be considered, if not the iinest, at 
least the most surprising specimen of his oratorical powers. He had no time for preparation ; it was not 
till a few minutes before the case commenced that his brief was handed him. During the progress of the 
trial, he had occasion to speak at unusual length to questions of law that arose upon the evidence, so that 
his speech to the jury could necessarily be no other than a sudden, extemporaneous effusion; and it was, 
perhaps, a secret, and not unjustifiable, feeling of pride at having so acquitted himself upon such an 
emergency that inclined his own rnind to prefer it to any of his other efforts." 



SPEE 

[iMr. Curran, after a few observations on the 
right of the jury under the Libel Bill of Mr. 
Fox, proceeded thus :] 

And now, gentlemen, let us come to the im- 
„ ', ,, mediate subject of the trial, as it is 

Rem;\rks on the A ' 

cxtra.iP'Mis mat- brought bcforc you by the charge 
hy \\J''voa»l^\ in the indictment, to which it ought 
for the Crown. ^^ ^^^^ heexi confincd ; and also, as 
it is presented to you by the statement of the 
learned counsel who has taken a much wider 
range than the mere limits of the accusation, 
and has endeavored to force upon your consider- 
ation extraneous and irrelevant facts, for reasons 
which it is my duty to explain. The indictment 
states simply that Mr. Finnerty has published a 
false and scandalous libel upon the Lord Lieu- 
tenant of Ireland, tending to bring his govern- 
ment into disrepute, and to alienate the afiec- 
tioiis of the people: and one would have expect- 
ed that, without stating any other matter, the 



counsel for the Crown would have gone directly 
to the proof of this allegation. But he has not 
done so : he has gone to a most extraordinary 
length, indeed, of preliminary observation, and 
an allusion to facts, and sometimes an assertion 
of facts, at which, I own, I was astonished, until 
I .saw the drift of these allusions and assertions. 
Whether you have been fairly dealt with by him, 
or are now honestly dealt with by me, you must 
be judges. He has been pleased to ^.^ i,,i„„«tio„s 
say that this prosecution is brought against the gen_ 
against this letter signed Marcus, tiie newspaper 

1 i r> ' 1 i 1 11 containins the 

merely as a part ol what he calls a piece coiupiain- 
system of attack upon government ^'^ °^' 
by the paper called the Press. As to this I will 
only ask you w^hether you are fairly dealt with? 
Whether it is fair treatment to men upon their 
oaths, to insinuate to them, that the general char- 
acter of a newspaper (and that general character 
founded merely upon the assertion of the prose- 



806 



MR. CURRAN 



[1797. 



cutor) is to have any influence upon their minds 
when they are to judge of a particular publica- 
tion ? I will only ask you what men you must 
be supposed to be when it is thought that even 
in a court of justice, and with the eyes of the na- 
tion upon you, you can be the dupes of that trite 
and exploded expedient, so scandalous of late in 
this country, of raising a vulgar and mercenary 
cry against whatever man or whatever principle 
it is thought necessary to put down ; and I shall 
therefore merely leave it to your own pride to 
suggest upon what foundation it could be hoped 
that a senseless clamor of that kind could be 
echoed back by the yell of a jury upon their 
oaths. I trust you see that this has nothing to 
do with the question. 

Gentlemen of the jury, other matters have been 
His pretense of mentioned, which I must repeat for 
inote"the°iber- the sauic purposc — that of showing 
SthbpXcu- you that they have nothing to do with 
t'on- the question. The learned counsel 

has been pleased to say, that he comes forward 
in this prosecution as the real advocate for the 
liberty of the press, and to protect a mild and 
merciful government from its licentiousness ; and 
he has been pleased to add, that the Constitution 
can never be lost while its freedom remains, and 
that its licentiousness alone can destroy that free- 
dom. As to that, gentlemen, he might as well 
have said that there is only one mortal disease 
of which a man can die. I can die the death in- 
flicted by tyranny; and when he comes forward 
to extinguish this paper in the ruin of the printer 
by a state prosecution, in order to prevent its dy- 
ing of licentiousness, you must judge how can- 
didly he is treating you, both in the fact and in 
the reasoning. Is it in Ireland, gentlemen, that 
we are told licentiousness is the only disease that 
can be mortal to the press ? Has he heard of 
nothing else that has been fatal to the freedom 
of publication ? I know not whether the printer 
of the Northern Star may have heard of such 
things in his captivity, but I know that his wife 
and children are well apprised that a press may 
be destroyed in the open day, not by its own li- 
centiousness, but by the licentiousness of a mili- 
tary force.^ As to the sincerity of the declara- 

Proof from facts ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^ prosecuted in 
that govern- order to asscrt the freedom of the 

ments prosecute 

for very different press, it Starts a tram of thought, of 
melancholy retrospect and direful 
prospect, to which I did not think the learned 
counsel would have wished to commit your 
minds. It leads you naturally to reflect at what 
times, from what motives, and with what conse- 
quences the government has displayed its patri- 
otism by prosecutions of this sort. As to the 
motives, does history give you a single instance 
in which the state has been provoked to these 
conflicts, except by the fear of truth, and by the 
love of vengeance ? Have you ever seen the 
rulers of any country bring forward a prosecu- 
tion from motives of filial piety, for libels upon 
' The Northern Star was a paper published iu 
Belfast, which was broken down and destroyed by 
the government in the way here referred to. 



their departed ancestors ? Do you read that 
Elizabeth directed any of those state prosecu- 
tions against the libels which the divines of her 
time had written against her Catholic sister ; or 
against the other libels which the same gentle- 
men had written against her Protestant father ? 
No, gentlemen, we read of no such thing ; but 
we know she did bring forward a prosecution 
from motives of personal resentment, and we 
know that a jury was found time-serving and 
mean enough to give a verdict which she was 
ashamed to carry into effect ! 

I said the learned counsel drew you back to 
the times that have been marked by these miser- 
able conflicts. I see you turn your thoughts to the 
reign of the second James. I see you turn your 
eyes to those pages of governmental abandon- ^ 
ment, of popular degradation, of expiring liberty, 
of merciless and sanguinary persecution : to that 
miserable period, in which the fallen and abject 
state of man might have been almost an argu- 
ment in the mouth of the atheist and blasphemer 
against the existence of an all-just and an all- 
wise First Cause ; if the glorious era of the Rev- 
olution that followed it had not refuted the im- 
pious inference, by showing that if man descends, 
it is not in his own proper motion f that it is with 
labor and with pain, and that he can continue to 
sink only until, by the force and pressure of the 
descent, the spring of his immortal faculties ac- 
quires that recuperative energy and effort that 
hurries him as many miles aloft. He sinks but 
to rise again. It is at that period that the state 
seeks for shelter in the destruction of the press ; 
it is in a period like that that the tyrant prepares 
for the attack upon the people, by destroying the 
liberty of the press : by taking away that shield 
of wisdom and of virtue, behind which the people 
are invulnerable, in whose pure and polished con- 
vex, ere the lifted blow has fallen, he beholds 
his own image, and is turned into stone.^ It is 
at those periods that the honest man dares not 
speak, because truth is too dreadful to be told ; 
it is then humanity has no ears, because human- 
ity has no tongue. It is then the proud man 
scorns to speak, but like a physician baffled by 
the wayward excesses of a dying patient, retires 
indignantly from the bed of an unhappy wretch, 
whose ear is too fastidious to bear the sound of 
wholesome advice, whose palate is too debauched 
to bear the .salutary bitter of the medicine that 
might redeem him ; and therefore leaves him to 
the felonious piety of the slaves that talk to him 
of life, and strip him before he is cold. 

1 do not care, gentlemen, to exhaust too much 
of your attention by following this subject through 
the last century with much minuteness ; but the 
facts are too recent in your minds not to show 

2 See the speech of Moloch in Milton's Paradise 
Lost, book ii. : 

In our proper motion we ascend 

Up to our native seat; descent and fall 

To us are adverse. 

3 The allusion here is to the shield of Minerva, 
having the head of Medusa iu its center, which 
turned the beholder into stone. 



1797.] 



IN BEHALF OF MR. FINNERTY. 



807 



you that the liberty of the press and the liberty 
of the people sink and rise together, and that 
the liberty of speaking and the liberty of acting 
have shared exactly the same fate. You must 
have observed in England that their fate has been 
the same in the successive vicissitudes of their 
late depression; and sorry I am to add that this 
country has exhibited a melancholy proof of their 
inseparable destiny, through the various and fur- 
ther stages of deterioration down to the period 
of their final extinction ; when the Constitution 
has given place to the sword, and the only print- 
er in Ireland who dares to speak for the people 
is now in the dock. 

Gentlemen, the learned counsel has made the 
The preceding ^^^al subjcct of this prosecutiou so 
dered'^neces" Small a part of his statement, and has 
sary by the led vou iuto SO widc a range, certainly 

course of the •' , , . '^ ' . ,. 

prosecuting at- as ncccssary to the object, as inappli- 
^°"^^^- cable to the subject of this prosecu- 

tion, that I trust you will think me excusable in 
somewhat following his example. Glad am I to 
find that I have the authority of the same example 
for coming at last to the subject of this trial. I 
agree with the learned counsel that the charge 
made against the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland is 
that of having grossly and inhumanly abused the 
royal prerogative of mercy, of which the King is 
only the trustee for the benefit of the people. 
The facts are not controverted. It has been as- 
serted that their truth or falsehood is indifterent, 
and they are shortly these, as they appear in this 
publication. 

William Orr was indicted for having adminis- 
Narration of tcrcd the oath of a United Irishman. 
the facts which Every man now knows v^'hat that 

gave rise to the t .... 

letter of Mar- Oath IS; that it IS Simply an engage- 
ment, first, to promote a brotherhood 
of affection among men of all religious distinc- 
tions ; secondly, to labor for the attainment of a 
parliamentary reform ; and, thirdly, an obligation 
of'secrecy, which was added to it when the con- 
vention law made it criminal and punishable to 
meet by any public delegation for that purpose. 
After remaining upward of a year in jail, Mr. 
Orr was brought to his trial ; was prosecuted by 
the state ; was sworn against by a common in- 
former by the name of Wheatley, who himself 
had taken the obligation, and was convicted 
under the Insurrection Act, which makes the 
administering such an obligation felony of death. 
The jury recommended Mr. Orr to mercy. The 
judge, with a humanity becoming his character, 
transmitted the recommendation to the noble 
prosecutor in this case [the Lord Lieutenant]. 
Three of the jurors made solemn affidavit in 
court that liquor had been conveyed into their 
box ; that they were brutally threatened by some 
of their fellow^ -jurors with capital prosecution if 
they did not find the prisoner guilty ; and that, 
under the impression of those threats, and worn 
down by watching and intoxication, they had 
given a verdict of guilty against him, though they 
believed him, in their conscience, to be innocent. 
That further inquiries were made, which ended 
in a discovery of the infamous life and character 



of the informer ; that a respite was therefore 
sent once, and twice, and thrice, to give time, as 
Mr. Attorney General has stated, for his Excel- 
lency to consider whether mercy could he extend- 
ed to him or not ; and that, with a knowledge of 
all these circumstances, his Excellency did final- 
ly determine that mercy should not be extended 
to him, and that he was accordingly executed 
upon that verdict. 

Of this publication, which the indictment 
charges to be false and seditious, That letter does 
Mr. Attorney General is pleased to [J^'j,^^ Auorne^'' 
say that the design of it is to bring General, reflect 

. •' ^ . ° . ° in the least on 

the courts ol justice into contempt, the judges in that 
As to this point of fact, gentlemen, "^^^^^ 
I beg to set you right. To the administration of 
justice, so far as it relates to the judges, this 
publication has not even an allusion in any part 
mentioned in this indictment. It relates to a de- 
partment of justice that can not begin until the 
duty of the judge is closed. Sorry should I be 
that, with respect to this unfortunate man, any 
censure should be flung on those judges who 
presided at his trial, with the mildness and tem- 
per that became them, upon so awful an occa- 
sion as the trial of life and death. Sure am I, 
that if they had been charged with inhumanity 
or injustice, and if they had condescended at all 
to prosecute the reviler, they would not have 
come forward in the face of the public to say, 
as has been said this day, that it was immaterial 
whether the charge was true or not. Sure I 
am, their first object would have been to show 
that it was false ; and ready, should I have been 
an eye-witness of the fact, to have discharged 
the debt of ancient friendship, of private respect, 
and of public duty, and upon my oath, to have 
repelled the falsehood of such an imputation. 
Upon this subject, gentlemen, the presence of 
those venerable judges restrains what I might 
otherwise have said, nor should I have named 
them at all if I had not been forced to do so, 
and merely to undeceive you, if you have been 
made to believe their characters to have any 
community of cause whatever with the Lord 
Lieutenant of Ireland. To him alone it is con- 
fined, and against him the charge is u was directed 
made, as strongly, I suppose, as the ;i,^"L^„rd^L',et 
vi'riter could find words to express it, tenant. 
"that the Viceroy of Ireland has cruelly abused 
the prerogative of royal mercy, in suffering a 
man under such circumstances to perish like a 
common malefactor." For this Mr. Attorney 
General calls for your conviction as a false and 
scandalous libel, and after stating himself every 
fact that I have repeated to you, either from his 
statement or from the evidence, he tells you that 
you ought to find it false, though he almost in 
words admits that it is not false, and has resist- 
ed the admission of the evidence by which we 
offered to prove every word of it to be true. 

And here, gentlemen, give me leave to remind 
you of the parties before you. The trav- parties ia 
erser* is a printer, who follows that pro- *'"* '^^^*- 



* The name of traverser is usually given to the 
defendant in the Irish courts. 



808 



MR. CURRAN 



[1797. 



fession for bread, and who at a time of great 
public misery and terror, when the people are 
restrained by law from debating under any dele- 
gated form ; when the few constituents that we 
have are prevented by force from meeting in 
their own persons to deliberate or to petition ; 
when every other newspaper in Ireland is put 
down by force, or purchased by the administration 
(though here, gentlemen, perhaps I ought to beg 
your pardon for stating without authority, f rec- 
ollect, when we attempted to examine as to the 
number of newspapers in the pay of the Castle, 
that the evidence was objected to), at a season 
like this, Mr. Finnerty has had the courage, per- 
haps the folly, to print the publication in ques- 
tion, from no motive under heaven of malice or 
vengeance, but in the mere duty which he owes 
to his family and to the public. His prosecutor 
is the King's minister in Ireland. In that char- 
The conduct of the actcr docs thc learned gentleman 
ft?r1rurdofaa-^ ^ean to say that his conduct is 
iniadversion. ^Qt a fair subjcct of public observ- 

ation ? Where does he find his authority for 
that in the law or practice of the sister country? 
Have the virtues, or the exalted station, or the 
general love of his people preserved the sacred 
person even of the royal master of the prosecu- 
tor from the asperity and the intemperance of 
public censure, unfounded as it ever must be, 
with any personal respect to his Majesty, jus- 
tice, or truth? Have the gigantic abilities of 
Mr. Pitt, have the more gigantic talents of his 
great antagonist, Mr. Fox, protected either of 
them from the insolent familiarity, and, for aught 
I know, the injustice with which writers have 
treated them? What latitude of invective has 
Boldness of thc King's minister escaped upon the 
frs mli.r"'' subject of the present war ? Is there 
respect. ^j^ epithet of contumely or of reproach, 
that hatred or that fancy could suggest, that are 
not publicly lavished upon him ? Do you not 
find the words, "advocate of despotism — robber 
of the public treasure — murderer of the King's 
subjects — debaucher of the public morality — 
degrader of the Constitution — tarnisher of the 
British empire," by frequency of- use lose all 
meaning whatsoever, and dwindling into tex-ms, 
not of any peculiar reproach, but of ordinary 
appellation ? And why, gentlemen, is this per- 
mitted in that country? I will tell you why. 

Because in that country they are )-et 
its being per- wisc cnough to see that the measures 

of the state are the proper subjects for 
the freedom of the press ; that the principles re- 
lating to personal slander do not apply to rulers 
or to ministers ; that to publish an attack upon 
a public minister, without any regard to truth, 
but merely because of its tendency to a breach 
of the peace, would be ridiculous in the extreme. 
What breach of the peace, gentlemen, I pray 
you, is it in such a case ? Is it the tendency of 
such publications to provoke Mr. Pitt, or Mr. 
Dundas, to break the head of the writer, if they 
should happen to meet him ? No, gentlemen. 
In that country this freedom is exercised, be- 
cause the people feel it to be their right, and it 



is wisely suffered to pass by the state, from a 
consciousness that it would be vain to oppose it; 
a consciousness confirmed by the event of every 
incautious experiment. It is suffered to pass 
from a conviction that, in a court of justice at 
least, the bulwarks of the Constitution will not 
be surrendered to the state, and that the intend- 
ed victim, whether clothed in the humble guise 
of honest industry, or decked in the honors of 
genius, and virtue, and philosophy ; whether a 
Hardy or a Tooke will find certain protection 
in the honesty and spirit of an English jury. 

But, gentlemen, I suppose Mr. Attorney will 
scarcely wish to carry his doctrine ,,„ 

•' T 1 1 T What are tlie 

altogether SO far. Indeed, I remem- Attorney cen- 
ber, he declared himself a most zeal- to the rights of 
ous advocate for the liberty of the ^'^'^p'^^"^' 
press. I may, therefore, even according to him, 
presume to make some observations on the con- 
duct of the existing government. I should wish 
to know how far he supposes it to extend. Is it 
to the composition of lampoons and madrigals, 
to be sung down the grates by ragged ballad- 
mongers, to kitchen maids and footmen ? I will 
not suppose that he means to confine it to those 
ebullitions of Billingsgate, to those cataracts of 
ribaldry and scurrility that are daily spouting 
upon the miseries of our wretched fellow-suffer- 
ers, and the unavailing efforts of those who have 
vainly labored in their cause.^ I will not sup- 
pose that he confines it to the poetic license of 
a birth-day ode. The laureate would not use 
such language ! in w^hich case I do entirely 
agree with him, that the truth or the falsehood is 
as perfectly immaterial to the law as it is to the 
laureate, as perfectly unrestrained by the law of 
the land as it is by any law of decency, or shame, 
or modesty, or decorum. But as to the priv- 
ilege of censure or blame, I am sorry that the 
learned gentleman has not favored you with his 
notion of the liberty of the press. Suppose an Irish 
viceroy acts " a very little absurdly." May the 
press venture to be " respectfully comical upon 
that absurdity ?'' The learned counsel does not, 
at least in terms, give a negative to that. But 
let me treat you honestly, and go further, to a 
more material point. Suppose an Irish viceroy 
does an act that brings scandal upon his master ; 
that fills the mind of a reasonable man with the 
fear of approaching despotism; that leaves no 
hope to the people of preserving themselves and 
their children from chains, but in common con- 
federacy for common safety. What is an honest 
man in that case to do? I am sorry the right 
honorable advocate for the liberty of the press 
has not told you his opinion, at least in any ex- 
press words. I will, therefore, venture to give 
you my humbler thoughts upon the subject. 

I think an honest man ought to tell the people 
frankly and boldly of their peril, and, I statement of 
must say, I can imagine no villainy ^''""^ '"'s'^'^' 
greater than that of his holding a traitorous si- 
lence at such a crisis, except the villainy and 

* Mr. Curran here refers to the abuse poured out 
by the government papers in Ireland against the 
friends of reform. 



1797.] 



IN BEHALF OF MR. FINNERTY 



809 



baseness of prosecuting him, or of finding him 
guilty for such an honest discharge of his pub- 
lic duty. And I found myself on the known 
principle of the Revolution of England, namely, 
that the Crown itself may be abdicated by cer- 
tain abuses of the trust reposed, and that there 
are possible excesses of arbitrary power, "which 
it is not only the right, but the bounden duty of 
every honest man to resist at the risk of his for- 
tune and his life. Now, gentlemen, if this rea- 
soning be admitted, and it can not be denied, if 
there be any possible event in which the people 
are obliged to look only to themselves, and are 
justified in doing so, can you be so absurd as to 
say that it is lawful to the people to act upon it 
when it unfortunately does arrive ; but that it is 
criminal in any man to tell them that the miser- 
able event has actually arrived, or is imminently 
approaching ? Far am I, gentlemen, from insin- 
uating that (extreme as it is) our misery has been 
matured into any deplorable crisis of this kind, 
from which I pray that the Almighty God may 
forever preserve us. But I am putting my prin- 
ciple upon the strongest ground, and most favor- 
able to my opponents ; namely, that it never can 
be criminal to say any thing of the government 
but what is false ; and I put this in the extreme, 
in order to demonstrate to you a fortiori, that 
the privilege of speaking truth to the people, 
which holds in the last extremity, must also ob- 
tain in every stage of inferior importance ; and 
that however a court may have decided before 
the late act [the Libel Act of Mr. Fox] that the 
truth was immaterial in case of libel, that since 
that act no honest jury can be governed by such 
a principle. 

Be pleased now, gentlemen, to consider the 
The Attorney gfouuds upon which this publication 
General charges jg called a libel, and criminal. Mr. 

as hhelous a ' _ 

statement Attomcy tcfts vou it tcnds to excite 

which he ac- ,. . *' , . •' . _ 

knowledges to scdition and msurrection. Let me 
''«K"e- again remind you that the truth of 

this charge is not denied by the noble prosecutor. 
What is it, then, that tends to excite sedition and 
insurrection? "The act that is charged upon 
the prosecutor, and is not attempted to be de- 
nied." And, gracious God ! gentlemen of the 
jury, is the public statement of the King's rep- 
resentative this ? '• I have done a deed that 
must fill the mind of every feeling or thinking 
man with horror and indignation, that must alien- 
ate every man that knows it, from the King's 
government, and endanger the separation of this 
distracted empire ; the traverser has had the guilt 
of publishing this fact, which I myself acknowl- 
edge, and I pray you to find him guilty." Is 
this the case which the Lord Lieutenant of Ire- 
land brings forward ? Is this the principle for 
which he ventures, at a dreadful crisis like the 
present, to contend in a court of justice ? Is this 
the picture which he wishes to hold out of him- 
self, to the justice and humanity of his own coun- 
trymen ? Is this the history which he wishes to 
be read by the poor Irishman of the south and 
of the north, by the sister nation, and the com- 
mon enemy. 



tell the truth: 



With the profoundest respect, permit me hum- 
bly to defend his Excellencv, even , 

•' . , . . . „■" • 1^"' oug/it not 

against his own opinion. Ihe guilt tiie 
of this publication, he is pleased to 
think, consists in this, that it tends to insurrec- 
tion. Upon what can such a fear be sup[)orted ? 
After the multitudes which have perished in this 
unhappy nation within the last three years, and 
which has been borne with a patience unparallel- 
ed in the story of nations, can any man suppose 
that the fate of a single individual could lead to 
resistance or insurrection? But suppose that it 
might, what ought to be the conduct of an hon- 
est man ? Should it not be to apprise the gov- 
ernment and the country of the approaching dan- 
ger ? Should it not be to say to the viceroy, 
" You will drive the people to madness if you 
persevere in such bloody counsels ; you will al- 
ienate the Irish nation; you will distract the 
common force ; and you will invite the common 
enemy." Should not an honest man say to the 
people, "the measure of your affliction is great, 
but you need not I'esort for remedy to any des- 
perate expedients. If the King's minister is de- 
fective in humanity or wisdom, his royal master 
and your beloved sovereign is abounding in both." 
At such a moment, can you be so senseless as 
not to feel that any one of you ought to hold such 
language, or is it possible you could be so infat- 
uated as to punish the man who was honest 
enough to hold it? Or is it possible that you 
could bring yourselves to say to your country, 
that at such a season the press ought to sleep 
upon its post, or to act like the perfidious watch- 
man on his round that sees the villain wrenching 
the door, or the flames bursting from the win- 
dows, while the inhabitant is wrapped in sleep, 
and cries out, " Past five o'clock ; the morning 
is fair, and all well !" 

On this part of the case I shall only put one 
question to you. I do not affect to v/ouia it have 
say that it is similar in all its points : ^^,V\^ hbei to 

.j I ' teir the truth 

1 do not affect to compare the hum- respecting the 
ble fortunes of Orr with the sainted seiTand syd^ 
names of Russell or of Sydney; still "^'''' 
less am I willing to find any likeness between the 
present period and the year 1683. But I will 
put a question to you completely parallel in prin- 
ciple. When that unhappy and misguided Mon- 
arch had shed the sacred blood which their no- 
ble hearts had matured into a fit cement of 
revolution, if any honest Englishman had been 
brought to trial for daring to proclaim to the 
world his abhorrence of such a deed, what would 
you have thought of the English jury that could 
have said, " We know in our hearts that what 
he said was true and honest ; but we will say, 
upon our oaths, that it was false and criminal ; 
and we will, by that base subserviency, add an- 
other item to the catalogue of public wrongs, and 
another argument for the necessity of an appeal 
to Heaven for redress. 

Gentlemen, I am perfectly aware that what I 
say may be easily misconstrued ; but if you listen 
to me with the same fairness that I address you, 
I can not be misunderstood. When I show you 



810 



MR. CURRAN 



[1797. 



the full extent of your political rights and reme- 
The present ^ics ; whcH I answer those slander- 
case is far from gj-g of Bi-iti.sh liberty who defjrade the 

calling for the -^ " 

application of Monarch into a despot, who degrade 

the above prin- , ,„ p, • , .i 

cipies in their the steadfastncss of law into the way- 
fuu extent. ^^.^rdne.ss of will ; when I show you 
the inestimable stores of political wealth so dear- 
ly acquired by our ancestors, and so solemnly be- 
queathed ; and when I show you how much of 
that precious inheritance has yet survived all the 
prodigality of their posterity, I am far from say- 
ing that 1 stand in need of it all upon the present 
occasion. No, gentlemen, far, indeed, am I from 
such a sentiment. No man more deeply than 
m3'self deplox-es the present melancholy state of 
our unhappy country. Neither does any man 
more fervently wish for the return of peace and 
tranquillity through the natural channels of mer- 
cy and of justice. I have seen too much offeree 
and of violence, to hope much good from the con- 
tinuance of them on one side, or retaliation from 
another. I have seen too much of late of politi- 
cal rebuilding, not to have observed that to de- 
molish is not the shortest way to repair. It is 
with pain and anguish that 1 should search for 
the miserable right of breaking ancient ties, or 
going in quest of new relations or untried ad- 
ventures. No, gentlemen, the case of my client 
rests not upon these sad privileges of despair. 
I trust that as to the fact, namely, the intention 
of exciting insurrection, you must see it can not 
be found in this publication ; that it is the mere 
idle, unsupported imputation of malice, or panic, 
or falsehood. And that as to the law, so far has 
he been from transgressing the limits of the Con- 
stitution, that whole regions lie between him and 
those limits which he has not trod ; and which 
I pray to Heaven it may never be necessary for 
any of us to tread. 

Gentlemen, Mr. Attorney General has been 
^ . . ^ pleased to open another battery upon 

Examination of * ^. i.iti " t 

the charge that this publication, which 1 do trust I 
sofen"ail!drtu'i- shall silcncc, unlcss 1 flatter myself 
^"' too much in supposing that hitherto 

my resistance has not been utterly unsuccessful. 
He abuses it for the foul and insolent familiarity 
of its address. I do clearly understand his idea ; 
he considers the freedom of the press to be the 
license of offering that paltry adulation which no 
man ought to stoop to utter or to hear; he sup- 
poses the freedom of the press ought to be like 
the freedom of a King's jester, who, instead of 
reproving the faults of which majesty ought to 
be ashamed, is base and cunning enough, under 
the mask of servile and adulatory censure, to 
stroke down and pamper those vices of which it 
is foolish enough to be vain. He would not 
have the press presume to tell the Viceroy that 
the prerogative of mercy is a trust for the bene- 
fit of the subject, and not a gaudy feather stuck 
in the diadem to shake in the wnnd, and by the 
waving of the gaudy plumage to amuse the van- 
ity of the wearer. He would not have it say to 
him that the discretion of the Crown, as to mer- 
cy, is like the discretion of a court of justice as to 
law, and that in the one case as well as the other, 



wherever the propriety of the exercise of it ap- 
pears, it is equally a matter of right. He would 
have the press all fierceness to the people, and 
all sycophancy to power ; he would have it con- 
sider the mad and phrenetic depopulations of au- 
thority like the awful and inscrutable dispensa- 
tions of Providence, and say to the unfeeling and 
despotic spoiler, in the blasphemed and insulted 
language of religious resignation, " the Lord hath 
given, and the Lord hath taken aw^ay, blessed be 
the name of the Lord !" 

But let me condense the generality of the 
learned gentleman's invective into ques- ^^ 

=> • -r-v ^^^ mean- 

tions that you can conceive. Does he ingofthis 
mean that the air of this publication is ' " ' 
rustic and uncourtly ? Does he mean that w^hen 
Marcus presumed to ascend the steps of the cas- 
tle, and to address the Viceroy, he did not turn 
out his toes as he ought to have done ? But, 
gentlemen, you are not a jury of dancing-mas- 
ters. Or does the learned gentleman mean that 
the language is coarse and vulgar ? If this be 
his complaint, my client has but a poor advocate. 
I do not pretend to be a mighty grammarian, or 
a formidable critic ; but I would beg leave to 
suggest to you in serious humility, that a frke 
PRESS can be supported only by the ardor of men 
who feel the prompting sting of real or supposed 
capacity; who write from the enthusiasm of vir- 
tue or the ambition of praise, and over whom, 
if you exercise the rigor of grammatical censor- 
ship, you will inspire them with as mean an 
opinion of your integrity as your wisdom, and 
inevitably drive them from their post ; and if 
you do, rely upon it, you will reduce the spirit 
of publication, and with it the press of this coun- 
try, to what it for a long interval has been, the 
register of births, and fairs, and funerals, and the 
general abuse of the people and their friends. 

But, gentlemen, in order to bring this charge 
of insolence and vulgarity to the test, _,, , 

f .■ 'The charge 

let me ask you whether you know of i)n)iiEht to the 

, 1 • 1 "ill 1 ^PSt of facts. 

a'iiy language which could have ade- 
quately described the idea of mercy denied w^here 
it ought to have been granted, or of any phrase 
vigorous enough to convey the indignation which 
an honest man would have felt upon such a sub- 
ject ? Let me beg of you for a moment to sup- 
po.se that any one of you had been the writer of 
this very severe expostulation with the Viceroy, 
and that you had been the witness of the whole 
progress of this never-to-be-forgotten catastrophe. 
Let me suppose that you had known the charge 
upon which Mr. Orr was apprehended, the charge 
of abjuring that bigotry which had torn and dis- 
graced his country ; of pledging himself to restore 
the people of his country to their place in the 
Constitution ; and of binding himself never to be 
the betrayer of his fellow-laborers in that enter- 
prise — that you had seen him upon that charge 
removed from his industry, and confined in a jail 
— that through the slow and lingering progress 
of twelve tedious months you had seen him con- 
fined in a dungeon, shut out from the common 
use of air and of his own limbs — that day after 
day you had marked the unhappy captive, cheer- 



1797.] 



IN BEHALF OF MR. FINNERTY. 



811 



ed by no sound but the cries of his family, or the 
clanking of his chains ; that you had seen him at 
last brought to his trial — that you had seen the 
vile and perjured informer deposing against his 
life — that you had seen the drunken, and worn- 
out, and terrified jury give in a verdict of death 
— that you had seen the same jury, when their 
returning sobriety had brought back their con- 
sciences, prostrate themselves before the human- 
ity of the bench, and pray that the mercy of the 
Crown might save their characters from the re- 
proach of an involuntary crime, their consciences 
from the torture of eternal self-condemnation, 
and their souls from the indelible stain of inno- 
cent blood. 

Let me suppose that you had seen the respite 
given, and that contrite and honest recommenda- 
tion transmitted to that seat where mercy was 
presumed to dwell — that new and before un- 
heard of crimes are discovered against the in- 
former — that the royal mercy seems to relent, 
and that a new respite is sent to the prisoner — 
that time is taken, as the learned counsel for the 
Crown has expressed it, to see whether mercy 
couM be extended or not !-^that after that period 
of lingering deliberation passed, a third respite 
is transmitted — that the unhappy captive himself 
feels the cheering hope of being restored to a 
family that he had adored, to a character that 
he had never stained, and to a country that he 
had ever loved — that you had seen his wife and 
children upon their knees, giving those tears to 
gratitude which their locked and frozen hearts 
could not give to anguish and despair, and im- 
ploring the blessings of eternal Providence upon 
his head, who had graciously spared the father, 
and restored him to his children — that you had 
seen the olive branch sent into his little ark, but 
no sign that the waters had subsided. 

" Alas ! 
Nor wife, nor children more shall he behold, 

. Nor friends, nor sacred home !"6 

No seraph mercy unbars his dungeon, and leads 
him forth to light and life, but the minister of 
death hurries him to the scene of suffering and 
of shame, where, unmoved by the hostile array 
of artillery and armed men, collected together 
to secure, or to insult, or to disturb him, he dies 
with a solemn declaration of his innocence, and 
utters his last breath in a prayer for the liberty 
of his country ! Let me now ask you, if any of 
you had addressed the public ear upon so foul 
and monstrous a subject, in what language would 
you have conveyed the feelings of horror and 
indignation ? Would you have stooped to the 
meanness of qualified complaint ? would you 
have been mean enough ? but I entreat your 
forgiveness, I do not think meanly of you. Had 
I thought so meanly of you, I could not suffer 
my mind to commune with you as it has done. 
Had I thought you that base and vile instrument, 
attuned by hope and by fear, into discord and 
falsehood, from whose vulgar string no groan of 

6 See Thomson's description, in his Winter, of a 

man perishing in a snow-storm. 



suffering could vibrate, no voice of integrity or 
honor could speak — let me honestly tell you, 1 
should have scorned to fling my hand across it ; 
I should have left it to a fitter minstrel. If I do 
not, therefore, grossly err in my opinion of you, 
I could use no language upon such a subject as 
this that must not lag behind the rapidity of your 
feelings, and that would not disgrace those feel- 
ings if it attempted to describe them. 

Gentlemen, I am not unconscious that the 
learned counsel for the Crown seem- xi.e way in 
ed to address you with a confidence tornej Gei^rai 
of a very different kind ; he seemed expected this 

J _ ' subject to be 

to expect a kind and respectful sym- treated. 
pathy from you with the feelings of the castle, 
and the griefs of chided authority. Perhaps, 
gentlemen, he may know you better than I do. 
If he does, he has spoken to you as he ought. 
He has been right in telling you that if the rep- 
robation of this writer is weak, it is because his 
genius could not make it stronger ; he has been 
right in telling you that his language has not been 
braided and festooned as elegantly as it might; 
that he has not pinched the miserable plaits 
of his phraseology, nor placed his patches and 
feathers with that correctness of millinery which 
became so exalted a person. If you agree with 
him, gentlemen of the jury, if you think that the 
man who ventures at the hazard of his own life, 
to rescue from the deep, " the drowned honor of 
his country,"''' must not presume upon the guilty 
familiarity of plucking it up by the locks, I have 
no more to say. Do a courteous thing. Upright 
and honest jurors, find a civil and obliging ver- 
dict against the printer ! And when you have 
done so, march through the ranks of your fellow- 
citizens to your own homes, and bear their looks 
as ye pass along. Retire to the bosom of your 
families and your children, and when you are 
presiding over the morality of the parental board, 
tell those infants, who are to be the future men 
of Ireland, the history of this day. Form their 
young minds by your precepts, and confirm those 
precepts by your own example ; teach them how 
discreetly allegiance may be perjured on the ta- 
ble, or loyalty be forsworn in the jury box. And 
when you have done so, tell them the story of 
Orr. Tell them of his captivity, of his children, 
of his hopes, of his disappointments, of his cour- 
age, and of his death ; and when you find your 
little hearers hanging upon your lips, when you 
see their eyes overflow with sympathy and sor- 
row, and their young hearts bursting with the 
pangs of anticipated orphanage, tell them that 
YOU had the boldness and the injustice to stigma- 
tize the man who had dared to publish the trans- 
action .' 

Gentlemen, I believe I told you before that the 
conduct of the viceroy was a small The object of 
part, indeed, of the subject of this tri- tiiispro.secution 

^ ' • V • r 1 • reaches far be- 

al. it the vmdication oi his mere yond the vindi- 

,1 i u 1 1 •.. '-■at'on of the 

personal character had been, as it Lord Lieuten- 
ought to have been, the sole object ®"'' 



' " And pluck up drowned honor by the locks." 
Shakspeare's 1st Part of Henry IV., Act L, Sc. 4. 



812 



MR. CURRAN 



[1797. 



of this prosecution, I should have felt the most 
respectful regret at seeing a person of his high 
consideration come forward in a court of public 
justice in one and the same breath to admit the 
truth, and to demand the punishment of a publi- 
cation like the present ; to prevent the chance he 
might have had of such an accusation being dis- 
believed, and by a prosecution like this, to give 
to the passing stricture of a newspaper, that life, 
and body, and action, and reality, that proves it 
to all mankind, and makes the record of it indel- 
ible. Even as it is, 1 do own I feel the utmost 
concern that his name should have been soiled 
by being mixed in a question of which it is the 
mere pretext and scape-goat. Mr. Attorney 
was too wise to state to you the real question, or 
the object which he wished to be answered by 
your verdict. Do you remember that he was 
pleased to say that this publication was a base 
and foul misrepresentation of the virtue and wis- 
dom of the government, and a false and audacious 
statement to the world, that the King's govern- 
ment in Ireland was base enough to pay inform- 
ers for taking away the lives of the people ? 
When I heard this statement to-day, I doubted 
whether you were aware of its tendency or not. 
It is now necessary that I should explain it to 
you more at large. 

You can not be ignorant of the great conflict 
between prerogative and privilege 

The contest of , . , , f , i , ,? 

the government which hath couvulscd tlic country tor 

and the people. ^^^^ j^^^ ^^^^^^^ ^^^^.^ ^^^^ j ^^^ 

privilege, you can not suppose that I mean the 
privileges of the House of Commons ; I mean the 
privileges of the people. You are no strangers 
to the various modes by which the people labor- 
ed to approach their object. Delegations, con- 
ventions, remonstrances, resolutions, petitions to 
the Parliament, petitions to the Throne. It 
might not be decorous in this place to state to 
you with any sharpness the various modes of re- 
sistance that were employed on the other side. 
But you all of you seem old enough to remem- 
ber the variety of acts of Parliament that have 
been ma.de, by which the people were deprived, 
.session after session, of what they had supposed 
to be the known and established fundamentals of 
the Constitution ; the right of public debate, the 
right of public petition, the right of bail, the right 
of trial, the right of arms for self-defense ; until 
at last even the relics of popular privilege be- 
came superseded by military force ; the press ex- 
tinguished ; and the state found its last intrench- 
ment in the grave of the Constitution. As little 
can you be strangers to the tremendous confed- 
erations of hundreds of thousands of our coun- 
trymen, of the nature and the objects of which 
such a variety of opinions have been propagated 
and entertained.'^ 

The writer of this letter has presumed to cen- 
sure the recall of Lord Fitzwilliam as well as 
the measures of the present Viceroy. Into this 

^ Mr. Curran here refers to the societies of United 
Irishmen, M'hich were formed every where throu!,'h- 
out the land just in proportion as the restrictions 
took place which are enumerated above. 



subject I do not enter : but you can not your- 
selves forget that the conciliatory The severe 
measures of the former noble Lord u'eTorT Lieu- 
had produced an almost miraculous ''^"'"''• 
unanimity in this country ; and much do I regret, 
and sure I am that it is not without pain you can 
reflect how unfortunately the conduct of his suc- 
cessor has terminated. His intentions might 
have been the best. I neither know them nor 
condemn them ; but their terrible eflfects you can 
not be blind to. Every new act of coercion has 
been followed by some new symptom of discon- 
tent, and every new attack provoked some new 
paroxysm of resentment or some new combina- 
tion of resistance. In this deplorable state of 
affairs, convulsed and distracted within, and men- 
aced by a most formidable enemy from without, 
it was thought that public safety might be found 
in union and conciliation, and repeated applica- 
tions were made to the Parliament of this king- 
dom for a calm inquiry into the complaints of the 
people. These applications were made in vain. 
Impressed by the same motives, Mr. Fox brought 
the same subject before the Commons of England, 
and ventured to ascribe the perilous state of Ire- 
land to the severity of its government. Even 
his stupendous abilities, excited by the liveliest 
.sympathy with our sufferings, and animated by 
the most ardent zeal to restore the strength with 
the union of the empire, were repeatedly exerted 

without success. The fact of dis- The discontent 

content was denied ; the fact of co- harbeefn pub- 
ercion was denied ; and the conse- '"^'^ denied. 
quence was, the coei'cion became more implac- 
able, and the discontent more threatening and 
irreconcilable. A similar application was made, 
in the beginning of this session, in the Peers of 
Great Britain, by our illustrious countryman. 
Lord Moira, of whom I do not wonder that my 
learned friend should have observed how much 
virtue can fling pedigree into the shade, or how 
much the transient honor of a body inherited 
from man is obscured by the luster of an intel- 
lect derived from God. He, after being an eye- 
witness of this country, presented the miserable 
picture of what he had seen ; and, to the aston- 
ishment of every man in Ireland, the existence 
of those facts was ventured to be denied. The 
conduct of the present Viceroy was justified and 
applauded ; and the necessity of continuing that 
conduct was insisted upon as the only means of 
preserving the Constitution, the peace, and the 
prosperity of Ireland. The moment the learned 
counsel had talked of this publication as a false 
statement of the conduct of the government and 
the condition of the people, no man could be at 
a loss to see that that awful question which had 
been dismissed from the Commons of Ireland, 
and from the Lords and Commons of Great Brit- 
ain, is now brought forward to be tried by a side 
wind, and in a collateral way, by a criminal pros- 
ecution. 

I tell you, therefore, gentlemen of the jury, it 
is not with respect to Mr. Orr that your verdict 
is now sought. You are called upon, on your 
oaths, to say that the government is wise and mer- 



1797.] 



IN BEHALF OF MR. FINNERTY. 



813 



ciful ; that the people are prosperous and happy; 
The chief ob- ^^^^ military law ought to be eon- 
jectotthe tinued ; that the British Constitution 

•srosecution is . ' • i r i i 

obtain a dec- could uot, With salety, DC restorcd to 
.' o°f"the gov- this country; and that the statements 
■timent. ^^ ^ Contrary import by your advo- 

cates in either country were libelous and false. 
I tell you these are the questions ; and I ask you, 
can you have the front to give the expected an- 
swer in the face of a community who know the 
country as well as you do '? Let me ask you 
how you could reconcile with such a verdict the 
jails, the tenders, the gibbets, the conflagrations, 
the murders, the proclamations that we hear of 
eveiy day in the streets, and see every day in the 
country. What are the processions of the 
learned counsel himself, circuit after circuit? 
Merciful God, what is the state of Ireland, and 
where shall you find the wretched inhabitant of 
this land ! You may find him, perhaps, in a jail, 
the only place of security, I had almost said of 
ordinary habitation ; you may see him flying, by 
the conflagration of his own dwelling ; or you 
may find his bones bleaching on the green fields 
of his country ; or he may be found tossing upon 
the surface of the ocean, and mingling his groans 
with those tempests, less savage than his perse- 
cutors, that drift him to a returnless distance from 
his family and his home. And yet, with these 
facts ringing in the ears, and staring in the face 
of the prosecutor, you are called upon to say, on 
your oaths, that these facts do not exist. You 
are called upon, in defiance of shame, of truth, of 
honor, to deny the sufferings under which you 
groan^ and to flatter the persecution that tramples 
you under foot. 

But the learned gentleman is further pleased 
Also a aeciara- ^o say that the traverser has charged 
tion that inform- the ffovemment with the encourage- 

ersarenotem- ^ p- r T'U- *l 

ployed by the mcnt 01 inlormers. 1 his, gentlemen, 
is another small fact that you are to 
deny at the hazard of your souls, and upon the 
solemnity of your oaths. You are upon your 
oaths to say to the sister country, that the gov- 
ernment of Ireland uses no .such abominable in- 
struments of destruction as informers. Let me 
ask you honestly, what do you feel, when in my 
hearing, when in the face of this audience, you 
are called upon to give a verdict that every man 
of us, and every man of you, knows by the testi- 
mony of his own eyes to be utterly and absolute- 
ly false ? I speak not now of the public procla- 
mation of informers, with a promise of secrec}'' 
and of extravagant reward. I speak not of the 
fate of those horrid wretches who have been so 
often transferred from the table to the dock, and 
from the dock to the pillory f I speak of what 
your own eyes have seen day after day, during 
the course of this commission, from the box 
where you are now sitting — the number of hor- 



3 There were many government witnesses at this 
time, who so obviously perjured themselves in their 
testimony, that they were taken immediately to the 
criminal's box (the dock), and thence, on conviction, 
to the pillory, where they were sentenced to stand 
for their perjuries. 



rid miscreants who avowed upon their oaths that 
they had come from the very seat of govern- 
ment, from the Castle, where they had been 
worked upon by the fear of death and the hopes 
of compensation to give evidence against their 
fellows — [I speak of the well-known fact] that the 
mild and wholesome counsels of this government 
are holdcn over these catacombs of living death, 
where the wretch that is buried a man lies till his 
heart has time to fester and dissolve, and is then 
dug up a witness. 

Is this fancy, or is it fact ? Have you not seen 
him after his resurrection from that ^, 

, P , . , , „ The appearance 

tomb, alter having been dug out oi of the informer 
the region of death and corruption, 
make his appearance upon the table, the living 
image of life and of death, and the supreme arbiter 
of both ? Have you not marked, when he enter- 
ed, how the stormy wave of the multitude retired 
at his approach ? Have you not marked how 
the human heart bowed to the supremacy of his 
power in the undissembled homage of deferen- 
tial horror ? How his glance, like the lightning 
of heaven, seemed to rive the body of the ac- 
cused and mark it for the grave, while his voice 
warned the devoted wretch of woe and death — a 
death which no innocence can escape, no art 
elude, no force resist, no antidote prevent. There 
was an antidote — a juror'' s oath — but even that 
adamantine chain, which bound the integrity of 
man to the throne of eternal justice, is solved 
and melted in the breath that issues from the 
informer's mouth. Conscience swings from her 
mooring, and the appalled and affi'ighted juror 
consults his own safety in the surrender of the 
victim : 

Et quae sibi quisque tiniebat. 



Unius in miseri exitium couversa tulere.'" 
Gentlemen, I feel 1 must have tired your pa- 
tience, but I have been forced into this „ 

, , , Peroration : 

length by the prosecutor, who has Not wonderful 



ernment seek 



ordinary topics, and to bring a ques- ^-X^rbylhe 
tion of mere politics to trial, under verdict of a 
the lorm ot a criminal prosecution, jury can thus 

IX • 1 1 1 • cover it. 

can not say I am surprised that this 

has been done, or that you should be solicited by 
the same inducements and from the same motives, 
as if your verdict was a vote of approbation. I 
do not wonder that the government of Ireland 
should stand appalled at the .state to whir-h we 
are reduced. I wonder not that they should start 
at the public voice, and labor to stiile or to con- 
tradict it. I wonder not that at this arduous crisis, 
when the very existence of the empire is at stake, 
when its strongest and most precious limb is not 
girt with the sword for battle, but pressed by the 
tourniquet for amputation ; when they find the 
coldness of death already begun in those extrem- 
ities where it never ends, that they are terrified 
at what they have done, and wish to say to the 
.surviving parties of that empire, "they can not 



10 And thus what each was dreading for himself, 
On the devoted head of one poor wretch 
They ixxmeA.— VirgiV s ^neid, book ii., line 130. 



814 



MR. CURRAN 



[1804. 



say that we did it." I wonder not that they 
should considei- their conduct as no immaterial 
question for a court of criminal jurisdiction, and 
wish anxiously, as on an inquest of blood, for the 
kind acquittal of a friendly jury. I wonder not 
that they should wish to close the chasm they 
have opened by flinging you into the abyss. But 
trust me, my countrymen, you might perish in it, 
but you could not close it. Trust me, if it is yet 
possible to close it, it can be done only by truth 
and honor. Trust me, that such an effect could 
no more be wrought by the sacrifice of a jury 
than by the sacrifice of Orr. As a state meas- 
ure, the one would be as unwise and unavailing 
as the other. But while you are yet upon the 
brink, while you are yet visible, let me, before we 
part, remind you once more of your awful situa- 
tion. The law upon this subject gives you su- 
preme dominion. Hope not for much assistance 
from his Lordship. On such occasions, perhaps, 
the duty of the court is to be cold and neutral. 
I can not but admire the dignity he has support- 
ed during this trial ; I am grateful for his pa- 
tience. But let me tell you it is not his prov- 
ince to fan the sacred flame of patriotism in the 
jury box. As he has borne with the little ex- 
travagances of the law, do you bear with the lit- 



tle failings of the press. Let me, therefore, re- 
mind you, that though the day may soon come 
when our ashes shall be scattered before the 
winds of heaven, the memory of what you do can 
not die. It will carry down to your posterity 
your honor or your shame. In the presence, and 
in the name of that ever-living God, I do there- 
fore conjure you to reflect that you have your 
characters, your consciences, that you have also 
the character, perhaps the ultimate destiny, of 
3'our country in your hands. In that awful name, 
I do conjure you to have mercy upon your coun- 
try and upon yourselves, and so to judge now as 
you will hereafter be judged ; and I do now sub- 
mit the fate of my client, and of that country 
which we yet have in common to your disposal. 



JNIr. Finnerty was found guilty by the jury, 
and was brought up for sentence the following 
day. He stated that he had been taken to Al- 
derman Alexander's office, and there threatened 
with public whipping if he did not give up the 
name of the author of Marcus. He refused to 
do it, and was sentenced to stand in the pillory 
one hour, and be imprisoned tv.'o years, which 
punishment he suflered. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. CURRAN AGAINST THE MARQUESS OF HEADFORT FOR ADULTERY WITH THE WIFE OF 

THE REV. CHARLES MASSY, BEFORE BARON SMITH AND A SPECIAL JURY, DELIVERED JULY 27, 

1804. 

INTRODUCTION. 

The Rev. Charles Massy, son of Sir Hugh Massy, Bart., was a clergyman of the Church of En- 
gland, and was married to Miss Rosslewyn, a lady of extraordinary beauty, in 1796. By her he had one 
son. In 1803, the Marquess of Headfort, an officer in the army, was quartered in the neighborhood with 
his regiment, and was received to the hospitalities of Mr. Massy's house. As the Marquess was more 
than fifty years of ae:e, Mr. Massy had uo suspicions of any evil design on the part of his guest, and ad- 
mitted him to the mofet familiar intercourse with his family. The occasion was laid hold of for seducing 
Mrs. Massy, who eloped with the Marquess on the Sunday after Christmas, while her husband was per- 
forming service in his own church. 

The damages were laid at £40,000. All the facts of the case were admitted, and the only thing urged 
for the defendant in mitigation of damages was that Mr. Massy had brought this calamity on himself by 
allowing his wife to associate too freely with the Marquess. It gave a melancholy interest to Mr. Cur- 
ran's speech that he had himself suff'ered the same injury under the same circumstances, and that the 
defense of the man who had injured him was precisely the same. Mr. Curran was, therefore, arguing 
his own cause in defending his client against these imputations, and exposing the guilt of the seducer. 

SPEECH, &c. 



Never, so clearly as in the present instance, 
Power of just havc I observcd that safeguard of jus- 
thfrninds^or" tice which Providence has placed in 
ra^n- the nature of man. Such is the im- 

perious dominion with which truth and reason 



sity, rather than election. You have seen it, in 
the learned advocate who has preceded me, most 
peculiarly and strikingly illustrated. You have 
seen even his great talents, perhaps the first in 
any country, languishing under a cause too weak 



wave their scepter over the human intellect, that to carry him, and too heavy to be carried by hi 
no solicitation, however artful, no talent, howev- 
er commanding, can reduce it from its allegi- 
ance. In proportion to the humility of our sub- 
mission to its rule, do we rise into some faint 
emulation of that ineffable and presiding divinity, 
whose characteristic attribute it is to be coerced 



He was forced to dismiss his natural candor and 
sincerity, and, having no merits in his case, to 
substitute the dignity of his own manner, the re- 
sources of his own ingenuit}', over the over- 
whelming difficulties with which he was sur- 
rounded. Wretched client ! unhappy advocate ! 



and bound by the inexorable laws of its own na- What a combination do you form ! But such is 
ture, so as to be all-wise and all-just from neces- the condition of guilt — its commission mean and 



1804.] 



AGAINST THE MARQUESS OF HEADFORT. 



815 



tremulous — its defense artificial and insincere — 
its prosecution candid and simple — its condem- 
nation dignified and austere. Such has been the 
defendant's guilt — such his defense — such shall 
be my address, and such, I trust, your verdict. 

The learned counsel has told you that this un- 
Tiie reparation fortunatc woman is not to be estima- 
deraanJed. ^gj r^^ [^y^y thousand pouods. Fatal 
and unquestionable is the truth of this assertion. 
Alas ! gentlemen, she is no longer worth any 
thing — faded, fallen, degraded, and disgraced, 
she is worth less than nothing. But it is for the 
honor, the hope, the expectation, the tenderness, 
and the comforts that have been blasted by the 
defendant, and have fled forever, that you are to 
remunerate the plaintiff, by the punishment of 
the defendant. It is not her present value which 
you are to weigh — but it is her value at that 
time, when she sat basking in a husband's love, 
with the blessing of Heaven on her head, and its 
purity in her heart. When she sat among her 
family, and administered the morality of the pa- 
rental board — estimate that past value — compare 
it with its present deplorable diminution — and it 
may lead you to form some judgment of the se- 
verity of the injury and the extent of the com- 
pensation. 

The learned counsel has told you. you ought 
Tbe jury ought to bc cautious, bccausc your verdict 
by Hirsenst*^ cau uot be sct asidc for excess. The 
bii.ties in the asscrtiou is just, but has he treated 

damages they ^ i i • i- -tt- 

give. you fau'ly by its application? His 

cause would not allow him to be fair — for why 
is the rule adopted in this single action ? Be- 
cause, this being peculiarly an injury to the most 
susceptible of all human feelings — it leaves the 
injury of the husband to be ascertained by the 
sensibility of the jury ; and does not presume to 
measure the justice of their determination by the 
cold and chilly exercise of its own discretion. In 
any other action, it is easy to calculate. If a 
tradesman's arm is cut off! you can measure the 
loss which he has sustained ; but the wound of 
feeling and the agony of the heart can not be 
judged by any standard with which I am ac- 
quainted. You are, therefore, unfairly dealt with, 
when you are called on to appreciate the present 
suffering of the husband by the present guilt, de- 
linquency, and degradation of his wife. As well 
might you, if called on to give compensation to 
a man for the murder of his deai-est friend — to 
find the measure of his injury by weighing the 
ashes of the dead. But it is not, gentlemen of 
the jury, by weighing the ashes of the dead, that 
you would estimate the loss of the survivor. 
The learned counsel has referred you to other 
cases and other countries for instan- 

Amountof r i ^ t ^ t r 

damages given CCS 01 moderate verdicts. 1 can reler 

in other cases. . ^i i- • x p • ^ 

you to some authentic instances of just 
ones. In the next county, c€ 15,000 against a 
subaltern officer. In Travers and M'Carthy, 
«£5000 against a servant. In Tighe against 
Jones, d£ 10,000 against a man not worth a shil- 
ling. What, then, ought to be the rule, where 
rank, and power, and wealth, and station have 
combined to render the example of his crime 



more dangerous — to make his guilt more odious 
— to make the injury to the plaintiff more griev- 
ous, because more conspicuous ? I affect no lev- 
eling familiarity, when I speak of persons in the 
higher ranks of society. Distinctions of orders 
arc necessary, and I always feel disposed to treat 
them with respect. But when it is my duty to 
speak of the crimes by which they are degraded, 
I am not so fastidious as to shrink from their con- 
tact, when to touch them is essential to their dis- 
section. In this action, the condition, the con- 
duct, and circumstances of the party are justly 
and peculiarly the objects of your consideration. 
Who are the parties ? The plaintiff, , . 

. , , „ „ ., * , , ' Condition of the 

young, amiable, of family and edu- parties in the 
cation. Of the generous disinterest- f''^^"^ ^*=«- 
edness of his heart, you can form an opinion, 
even from the evidence of the defendant, that he 
declined an alliance which would have added to 
his fortune and consideration, and which he re- 
jected for an unportioned union with his present 
wife. She, too, at that time young, beautiful, 
and accomplished ; and feeling her affection for 
her husband increase, in proportion as she re- 
membered the ardor of his love, and the sinceri- 
ty of his sacrifice. Look now to the defendant ! 
I blush to name him ! I blush to name a rank 
which he has tarnished, and a patent that he 
has worse than canceled. High in the army — 
high in the state — the hereditary counselor of the 
King — of wealth incalculable — and to this last I 
advert with an indignant and contemptuous satis- 
faction, because, as the only instrument of his guilt 
and shame, it will be the means of his punishment, 
and the source of compensation for his guilt. 

But let me call your attention distinctly to the 
questions you have to consider. The . , , , 

j7 • ^ ' r r •! T 1 • The defendant's 

first is the fact of guilt. Is this no- guiit acknowi- 
ble Lord guilty ? His counsel knew '"^^'"^' 
too well how they would have mortified his van- 
ity, had they given the smallest reason to doubt 
the splendor of his achievement. Against any 
such humiliating suspicion, he had taken the most 
studious precaution by the publicity of the ex- 
ploit. And here in this court, and before you, 
and in the face of the country, has he the unpar- 
alleled effrontery of disdaining to resort even to 
a confession of innocence. His guilt established, 
your next question is the damages you should 
give. You have been told that the amount of 
the damages should depend on circumstances. 
You will consider these circumstances, whether 
of aggravation or mitigation. His learned coun- 
sel contend that the plaintifFhas been the author 
of his own suffering, and ought to receive no 
compensation for the ill consequences of his own 
conduct. In what part of the evidence do you 
find any foundation for that assertion ? He in- 
dulged her, it seems, in dress. Generous and 
attached, he probably indulged her in that point 
beyond his means ; and the defendant now impu- 
dently calls on you to find an excuse for the adul- 
terer, in the fondness and liberality of the husband. 
But you have been told that the husband con- 
nived. Odious and impudent aggravation of in- 
jury — to add calumny to insult, and outrage to 



816 



MR. CURRAN 



[1804. 



The pretense 



dishonoi*. From whom, but a man 
that Mr. Massy hackneved in the paths of shame and 

Iiad connived, . "'„ , ^ r 

or at least been viCB — irom whom, but trom a man 
indiscreet. having no compunctions in his own 
breast to restrain him, could you expect such 
brutal disregard for the feelings of others ? From 
whom, but the cold-blooded, veteran seducer — 
from what, but from the exhausted mind, the 
habitual community with shame — from what, 
but the habitual contempt of virtue and of man, 
could you have expected the arrogance, the bar- 
barity, and folly of so foul, because so false an im- 
putation ? He should have reflected, and have 
blushed, before he suffered so vile a topic of de- 
fense to have passed his lips. But, ere you con- 
demn, let him have the benefit of the excuse, if 
the excuse be true. You must have observed 
how his counsel fluttered and vibrated between 
what they called connivance and injudicious con- 
fidence ; and how, in affecting to distinguish, 
they have confounded them both together. If 
the plaintiff" has connived, I freely say to you, do 
not reward the wretch who has prostituted his 
wife and surrendered his own honor — do not 
compensate the pander of his own shame, and 
the willing instrument of his own infamy. But 
as there is no sum so low to which such a de- 
fense, if true, ought not to reduce your verdict, 
so neither is any so high to which such a charge 
ought not to inflame it, if such a charge be false. 
Where is the single fact in this case on which 
the remotest suspicion of connivance 

Not one fact r« >>!• ^ ^ i i 

to justify this can be hung? Odiously has the de- 
pretense. fendant endeavored to make the soft- 
est and most amiable feelings of the heart the 
pretext of his slanderous imputations. An an- 
cient and respectable prelate, the husband of his 
wife's sister, was chained down to the bed of 
sickness, perhaps to the bed of death. In that 
distressing situation, ray client suffered that wife 
to be the bearer of consolation to the bosom of 
her sister — he had not the heart to refuse her — 
and the softness of his nature is now charged on 
him as a crime ! He is now insolently told that 
he connived at his dishonor, and that he ought to 
have foreseen that the mansion of sickness and 
of sorrow would have been made the scene of 
assignation and of guilt. On this charge of con- 
nivance I will not further weary you, or exhaust 
myself — I will add nothing more, than that it is 
as false as it is impudent ; that in the evidence, 
it has not a color of support ; and that by your 
verdict you should mark it with reprobation. 
The other subject, namely, that he was indis- 
creet in his confidence, does, I think, call for 
some discussion — for I trust you see that I affect 
not any address to your passions by which you 
may be led away from the subject. I presume 
merely to separate the parts of this affecting 
case, and to lay them item by item before you. 
with the coldness of detail, and not with any color- 
ing or display of fiction or of fancy. Honorable 
to himself was his unsuspecting confidence ; fatal 
must wc admit it to have been, when we look to 
the abuse committed upon it; but where was the 
guilt of this indiscretion ? He did admit this 



noble Lord to pass his threshold as his guest. 
Now the charge which this noble Lord builds or. 
this indiscretion is, "Thou fool! thou hast con- 
fidence in my honor, and that was a guilty in- 
discretion — thou simpleton, thou thoughtest that 
an admitted and cherished guest would have re- 
spected the laws of honor and hospitality, and 
thy indiscretion was guilt. Thou thoughtest 
that he would have shrunk from the meanness 
and barbarity of requiting kindness with treach- 
ery, and thy indiscretion was guilt." 

Gentlemen, what horrid alternative in the 
treatment of wives would such rea- The necessary 
soning recommend ? Are they to be ^.r'jun^i'.uh.'or'^^ 
immured by worse than Eastern bar- ^'''^ defense, 
barity? Are their principles to be depraved, 
their passions sublimated, every finer motive of 
action extinguished by the inevitable conse- 
quences of thus treating them like slaves ? Or 
is a liberal and generous confidence in them to 
be the passport of the adulterer, and the justifi- 
cation of his crime ? 

Honorably but fatally for his own repose, he 
was neither jealous, suspicious, nor Mr. Massy did re- 
cruel. He treated the defendant pose conndence. 
with the confidence of a friend, and his wife with 
the tenderness of a husband. He did leave to 
the noble Marquess the physical possibility of 
committing against him the greatest crime which 
can be perpetrated against a being of an amia- 
ble heart and refined education. In the middle 
of the day, at the moment of divine worship, 
when the miserable husband was on his knees, 
directing the prayers and thanksgiving of his 
congregation to their God, that moment did the 
remorseless adulterer choose to carry off" the de- 
luded victim from her husband — from her child 
— from her character — from her happiness — as 
if not content to leave his crime confined to its 
miserable aggravations, unless he also gave it a 
cast and color of factitious sacrilege and impiety. 
Oh ! how" happy had it been when he arrived at 
the bank of the river with the ill-fated fugitive, 
ere yet he had committed her to that boat, of 
which, like the fabled bark of Styx, the exile 
was eternal — how happy at that moment, so 
teeming with misery and with shame, supposed re- 
if you, my Lord, had met him, and Tthlhe"" 
could have accosted him in the char- Marquess. 
acter of that good genius which had abandoned 
him. How impressively might you have plead- 
ed the cause of the father, of the child, of the 
mother, and even of the worthless defendant 
himself. You would have said, "Is this the re- 
quital that you are about to make for the respect, 
and kindness, and confidence in your honor? 
Can you deliberately expose this young man in 
the bloom of life, with all his hopes yet before 
him ? Can you expose him, a wretched outcast 
from society, to the scorn of a merciless world ? 
Can you set him adrift upon the tempestuous 
ocean of his own passions, at this early season 
when they are most headstrong ; and can you 
cut him out from the moorings of those domes- 
tic obligations, by whose cable he might ride at 
safety from their turbulence ? Think, if you can 



1804.] 



AGAINST THE MARQUESS OF HEADFORT. 



817 



conceive it, what a powerful influence arises 
from the sense of home, from the sacred religion 
of the hearth in quelling the passions, in re- 
claiming the wanderings, in correcting the dis- 
orders of the human heart. Do not cruelly take 
from him the protection of these attachments. 
But if you have no pity for the father, have mer- 
cy, at least, upon his innocent and helpless child. 
Do not condemn him to an education scandalous 
or neglected. Do not strike him into that most 
dreadful of all human conditions, the orphanage 
that springs not from the grave, that falls not 
from the hand of Providence or the sti'oke of 
death ; but comes before its time, anticipated 
aad inflicted by the remorseless cruelty of pa- 
rental guilt." For the poor victim herself, not 
yet immolated, while yet balancing upon the 
pivot of her destiny, your heart could not be 
cold, nor your tongue be wordless. You would 
have said to him, "Pause, my Lord, while there 
is yet a moment for reflection. What are your 
motives, what your views, what your prospects, 
from what you are about to do ? You are a 
married man, the husband of the most amiable 
and respectable of women ; you can not look to 
the chance of marrying this wretched fugitive. 
Between you and such an event there are two 
sepulchers to pass. What are your induce- 
ments ? Is it love, think you ? No. Do not 
give that name to any attraction you can find in 
the faded refuse of a violated bed. Love is a 
noble and generous passion ; it can be founded 
only on a pure and ardent friendship, on an ex- 
alted respect, on an implicit confidence in its 
object. Search your heart ; examine your judg- 
ment. Do you find the semblance of any one 
of these sentiments to bind you to her ? What 
could degrade a mind to which nature or educa- 
tion had given port or stature, or character, into 
a friendship for her ? Could you repose upon her 
faith ? Look in her face, my Lord : she is at 
this' moment giving you the violation of the 
most sacred of human obligations as the pledge 
of her fidelity. She is giving you the most ir- 
refragable proof that as she is deserting her 
husband for you, so she would without scruple 
abandon you for another. Do you anticipate 
any pleasure you might feel in the possible 
event of your becoming the parents of a com- 
mon child •? She is at this moment proving to 
you that she is as dead to the sense of parental 
as of conjugal obligation, and that she would 
abandon your ofispring to-morrow with the same 
facility with which she now deserts her own. 
Look then at her conduct as it is, as the world 
must behold it, blackened by every aggravation 
that can make it either odious or contemptible, 
and unrelieved by a single circumstance of mit- 
igation that could palliate its guilt or retrieve it 
from abhorrence. 

"Mean, however, and degraded as this woman 
must be, she will still (if you take her with you) 
have strong and heavy claims tipon you. The 
force of such claims does certainly depend upon 
circumstances. Before, therefore, you expose 
her fate to the dreadful risk of your caprice or 

F F F 



ingratitude, in mercy to her, weigh well the con- 
fidence she can place in your futui-e justice and 
honor. At that future time, much nearer than 
you think, by what topics can her cause be plead- 
ed to a sated appetite, to a heart that repels her, 
to a just judgment, in which she never could have 
been valued or respected ? Here is not the case 
of an unmarried woman, with whom a pure and 
generous friendship may insensibly have ripened 
into a more serious attachment, until at last her 
heart became too deeply pledged to be reas- 
sumed. If so cii'cumstanced, without any hus- 
band to betray, or child to desert, or motive to 
restrain, except what related solely to herself, 
her anxiety for your happiness made her overlook 
every other consideration, and commit her des- 
tiny to your honor ; in such a case (the stron- 
gest and the highest that man's imagination can 
suppose), in which you, at least, could see noth- 
ing but the most noble and disinterested sacri- 
fice ; in which you could find nothing but what 
claimed from you the most kind and exalted sen- 
timent of tenderness, and devotion, and respect, 
and in which the most fastidious rigor would find 
so much more subject for sympathy than blame — 
let me ask you, could you, even in that case, an- 
swer for your own justice and gratitude ? I do 
not allude to the long and pitiful catalogue of 
paltry adventures, in which, it seems, your time 
has been employed — the coarse and vulgar suc- 
cession of casual connections, joyless, loveless, 
and unendeared. But do you not find upon your 
memory some trace of an engagement of the 
character I have sketched ? Has not your sense 
of what you would owe in siich a case, and to 
such a woman, been at least once put to the test 
of experiment ? Has it not once, at least, hap- 
pened that such a woman, with all the resolution 
of strong faith, flung her youth, her hope, her 
beauty, her talent, upon your bosom, weighed you 
against the world, which she found but a feather 
in the scale, and took you as an equivalent?^ 
How did you then acquit yourself? Did you 
prove yourself worthy of the sacred trust reposed 
in you ? Did your spirit so associate with hers 
as to leave her no room to regret the splendid 
and disinterested sacrifice she had made ? Did 
her soul find a pillow in the tenderness of yours, 
and a support in its firmness ? Did you preserve 
her high in her own consciousness, proud in your 
admiration and friendship, and happy in your af- 
fection ? You might have so acted (and the 
man that was worthy of her would have perished 
rather than not so act) as to make her delighted 
w^ith having confided so sacred a trust to his hon- 
or. Did you so act ? Did she feel that, how- 
ever precious to your heart, she was still more ^ 
exalted and honored in your reverence and re- j 
spect ? Or did she find you coarse and paltry, 
fluttering and unpurposed, unfeeling and ungrate- 
ful ? You found her a fair and blushing flower, 
its beauty and its fragrance bathed in the dews 

^ This reference to a previous elopement of an- 
other with the Marquess, and his desertion of her, 
must have operated with great force on the minda 
of the jury. 



818 



MR. CURRAN 



[1804. 



of heaven. Did you so tenderly transplant it as 
to preserve that beauty and fragrance unim- 
paired ? Or did you so rudely cut it as to inter- 
rupt its nutriment, to waste its sweetness^ to 
blast its beauty, to bow down its faded and sick- 
ly head ? And did you at last fling it, like ' a 
loathsome w^eed, away ?' If, then, to such a 
woman, so clothed with every title that could en- 
noble, and exalt, and endear her to the heart of 
man, you could be cruelly and capriciously defi- 
cient, how can a wretched fugitive like this, in 
every point her contrast, hope to find you just ? 
Send her, then, away. Send her back to her 
home, to her child, to her husband, to herself." 

Alas, there was none to hold such language to 
The conductor this uoblc defendant ; he did not hold 
intiieeiopl'' it to himsclf. But he paraded his 
ment. dcspicablc prize in his own carriage, 

with his own retinue, his own servants. This 
veteran Paris hawked his enamored Helen, from 
this western quarter of the island, to a sea-port in 
the eastern, crowned with the acclamations of a 
senseless and grinning rabble, glorying and de- 
lighted, no doubt, in the leering and scofl!ing ad- 
miration of grooms, and hostlers, and waiters, as 
he passed. In this odious contempt of every per- 
sonal feeling, of public opinion, of common hu- 
manity, did he parade this woman to the sea- 
port, whence he transported his precious cargo 
to a country where her example may be less 
mischievous than in her own ; where I agree 
with my learned colleague in heartily wishing 
he may remain with her forever. We are too 
poor, too simple, too unadvanced a country for 
the example of such achievements. When the 
relaxation of morals is the natural growth and 
consequence of the great progress of arts and 
wealth, it is accompanied by a refinement that 
makes it less gross and shocking. But for such 
palliations we are at least a century too young. 
„ ,,. , I advise you, therefore, most earnest- 

Public morals , 

require exem- ly to rebukc this budding mischief, 
pary amages. ^^ Jetting the wholcsomc vigor and 
chastisement of a liberal verdict speak what you 
think of its enormity. In every point of view 
in which I can look at the subject, I see you 
are called upon to give a verdict of bold, and 
just, and indignant, and exemplary compensa- 
tion. The injury of the plaintift'demands it from 
your justice. The delinquency of the defendant 
provokes it by its enormity. The rank on which 
he has relied for impunity calls upon you to tell 
him that crime does not ascend to the rank of 
the perpetrator, but the perpetrator sinks from 
his rank and descends to the level of his delin- 
quency. The style and mode of his defense is a 
gross aggravation of his conduct, and a gross in- 
sult upon you. Look upon the different subjects 
of his defense as you ought, and let him profit 
by them as he deserves. Vainly presumptuous 
upon his rank, he wishes to overawe you by the 
despicable consideration. He next resorts to a 
cruel aspersion upon the character of the unhap- 
py plaintiff, whom he had already wounded be- 
yond the possibility of reparation He has ven- 
tured to charge him with connivance. As to 



that, I will only say, gentlemen of the jury, do 
not give this vain boaster a pretext for saying j 
that if the husband connived in the oflense, the 
jury also connived in the I'eparation. ,,, 

But he has pressed another curious topic upon 
you. After the plaintiff" had cause jue pretense 
to suspect his designs, and the likeli- ^^'.'^y^'- f^-'^" 
hood of their being fatally successful, fectiy judi" ' 
he did not then act precisely as he sL°specTed'^ 
ought. Gracious God, what an ar- ^"""^ ^'■''• 
guraent for him to dare to advance ! It is say- 
ing thus to him, " I abused your confidence, your 
hospitality ; I laid a base plan for the seduction 
of the wife of your bosom ; I succeeded at last, 
so as to thi'ow in upon you that most dreadful 
of all suspicions to a man fondly attached, proud 
of his wife's honor, and tremblingly alive to his 
own ; that you w^ere possibly a dupe to the con- 
fidence in the wnfe as much as in the guest. In 
this so pitiable distress, which I myself had stu- 
diously and deliberately contrived for you — be- 
tween hope and fear, and doubt and love, and 
jealousy and shame ; one moment shrinking from 
the cruelty of your suspicion, the next fired with 
indignation at the facility and credulity of your 
acquittal — in this labyrinth of doubt, in this 
frenzy of suffering, you were not collected and 
composed. You did not act as you might have 
done if I had not worked you to madness ; and 
upon that very madness which I have inflicted 
upon you, upon the very completion of my guilt 
and of your misery, I will build ray delense. 
You will not act critically right, and therefore 
are unworthy of compensation." Gentlemen, 
can you be dead to the remorseless atrocity of 
such a defense ! And shall not your honest ver- 
dict mark it as it deserves ? 

But let me go a little further ; let me ask you, 
for I confess I have no distinct idea of j^^^^-^^ 
what should be the conduct of a hus- cnityorhis 
band so placed, and who is to act crit- 
ically right. Shall he lock her up or turn her 
out ? Or enlarge or abridge her liberty of act- 
ing as she pleases ? Oh, dreadful Areopagus of 
the tea-table ! How formidable thy inquests, 
how tremendous thy condemnations ! In the 
first case, he is brutal and barbarous — an odious 
Eastern despot. In the next. What ! turn an in- 
nocent woman out of his house, without evidence 
or proof, but merely because he is vile and mean 
enough to suspect the wife of his bosom, and the 
mother of his child ! Between these extremes, 
what intermediate degree is he to adopt ? I put 
this question to you, do you at this moment, un- 
influenced by any passion, as you now are, but 
cool and collected, and uninterested as you must 
be, do you see clearly this proper and exact line 
which the plaintiff should have pursued ? I much 
question if you do. But if you did or could, must 
you not say that he was the last man from whom 
you should expect the coolness to discover or 
the steadiness to pursue it ? And yet this is the 
outrageous and insolent defense that is put for- 
ward to you. My miserable client, when his 
brain was on fire, and every fiend of hell was let 
loose upon his heart, he should then, it seems, 



1804] 



AGAINST THE MARQUESS OF HEADFORT. 



S19 



have placed himself before his mirror, he should 
have taught the stream of agony to flow deco- 
rously dov\'n his forehead. He should have com- 
^ jsed his features to harmon}', he should have 
writhed with grace and groaned in melody. 

But look farther to this noble defendant and 
The pretense his honorable defense : the wretch- 
S^enamrijed' ^d woman is to be successively the 
attentions. victim of scductioH and of slander. 
She, it seems, received marked attentions. 
Here, I confess, I felt myself not a little at a 
loss. The witnesses could not describe what 
these marked attentions were or are. They con- 
sisted not, if you believe the witness that swore 
to them, in any personal approach or contact 
whatsoever, nor in any unwarrantable topics of 
discourse. Of what materials, then, were they 
composed ? Why, it seems, a gentleman had the 
insolenoe at table to propose to her a glass of 
wine, and she, most abandoned lady ! instead 
of flying, like an angry parrot, at his head, and 
besmirching and bescratching him for his inso- 
lence, tamely and basely replies, " Port, sir, if you 
please." But, gentlemen, why do I advert to 
this folly, this nonsense ? Not, surely, to vindi- 
cate from censure the most innocent and the most 
delightful intercourse of social kindness, of harm- 
less and cheerful courtesy ; " where virtue is, 
these are most virtuous." But I am soliciting 
your attention and your feeling to the mean and 
odious aggravation — to the unblushing and re- 
morseless barbarity of falsely aspersing the 
wretched woman he had undone. One good he 
has done, he has disclosed to you the point in 
which he can feci ; for how imperious must that 
avarice be which could resort to so vile an ex- 
pedient of frugality ? Yes, I will say that, with 
the common feelings of a man, he would have 
rather suflered his ci30,000 a year to go as com- 
pensation to the plaintiff"than saved a shilling of 
it by so vile an expedient of economy. He 
would rather have starved with her in a jail, he 
would rather have sunk with her into the ocean, 
than have so vilified hei- — than have so degraded 
himself. 

But it seems, gentlemen, and, indeed, you have 
been told, that long as the course of 
his gallantries has been (and he has 
grown gray in the service), it is the 
first time he has been called upon for 
To how many might it have been 
fortunate if he had not that impunity to boast? 
Your verdict will. I trust, put an end to that en- 
couragement to guilt that is built upon impunity. 
The devil, it seems, has saved the noble Mar- 
quess harmless in the past ; but your verdict 
will tell him the term of that indemnity is ex- 
pired, that his old friend and banker has no more 
effects in his hands, and that if he draws any 
more upon him, he must pay his own bills him- 
self. You will do much good by doing so. You 
may not enlighten his conscience nor touch his 
heart, but his frugality will understand the hint. 
It will adopt the prudence of age, and deter him 
from pursuits in which, though he may be insens- 
ible of shame, he will not be regardless of ex- 
pense. Ycu will do more^ you will not only pun- 



Thc first time 
the Marquess 
has been sued 
for such con- 
duct. 

damages. 



' ish him in his tender point, but you will weaken 
him in his strong one — his money. We have 
heard much of this noble Lord's wealth, and much 
of his exploits, but not much of his accomplish- 
ments or his wit. I know not that his verses 
have soared even to the poet's corner. I have 
heard it said that an ass laden with gold could 
find his way through the gate of the strongest 
city. But, gentlemen, lighten the load upon his 
back, and you w^ill completely curtail the mis- 
chievous faculty of a grave animal, whose mo- 
mentum lies not in his agility, but his weight ; 
not in the quantity of motion, but the quantity 
of his matter. 

There is another ground on which you are 
called upon to give most liberal dam- Large damases 
ages, and that has been laid by the ^nf'.'iu^i'^hThe 
unfeeling vanity of the defendant, ''ei^'nlant's os- 

^ J tentalion ofliia 

This business has been marked by cnme. 
the most elaborate publicity. It is very clear 
that he has been allured by the glory of the chase, 
and not the value of the game. The poor ob- 
ject of his pursuit could be of no value to him, 
or he could not have so wantonly, and cruelly, 
and unnecessarily abused her. He might easi- 
ly have kept this unhappy intercourse an un- 
suspected secret. Even if he wished for her 
elopement, he might easily have so contrived it 
that the place of her retreat would be profound- 
ly undiscoverable. Yet, though even the ex- 
pense (a point so tender to his delicate sensibil- 
ity) of concealing could not be a one fortieth of 
the cost of publishing her, his vanity decided him 
in favor of glory and publicity. By that election 
he has in fact put forward the Irish nation, and 
its character, so often and so variously calumni- 
ated, upon its trial before the tribunal of the 
empire ; and your verdict will this day decide, 
whether an Irish jury can feel with justice and 
spirit upon a subject that involves conjugal affec- 
tion and comfort, domestic honor and repose — 
the certainty of issue — the weight of public opin- 
ion — the gilded and presumptuous criminality of 
overweening rank and station. I doubt not but 
he is at this moment reclined on a silken sofa, 
anticipating that submissive and modest verdict 
by which you will lean gently on his errors ; and 
expecting, from your patriotism, no doubt, that 
you will think again and again before you con- 
demn any great portion of the immense revenue 
of a great absentee to be detained in the nation 
that produced it, instead of being transmitted, as 
it ought, to be expended in the splendor of anoth- 
er country. He is now probably waiting for the 
arrival of the report of this day, which I under- 
stand a famous note-taker has been sent hither 
to collect. (Let not the gentleman be disturb- 
ed.) Gentlemen, let me assure you it is more, 
much more the trial of you, than of the noble 
Marquess, of which this imported recorder is at 
this moment collecting the materials. The kind of re 
His noble employer is now expecting ^i'wi"[.h u,^"^'" 

a report to the following effect : Marques;, may 
I !^ . be supposed to 

Such a day came on to be tried at expect. 
Ennis, by a special jury, the cause of Charles 
Massy against the most noble the Marquess of 
Headfort. It appeared that the plaintiff's wife 



820 



MR. CURRAN AGAINST THE MARQUESS OF HEADFORT. 



[1804. 



was young, beautiful, and captivating. The 
plaintiff himself a person fond of this beautiful 
creature to distraction, and both doting on their 
child ; but the noble Marquess approached her ; 
the plume of glory nodded on his head. Not 
the Goddess Minerva, but the Goddess Venus 
had lighted upon his casque, ' the fire that nev- 
er tires — such as many a lady gay had been daz- 
zled with before.' At the first advance she 
trembled, at the second she struck to the re- 
doubted son of Mars and pupil of Venus. The 
jury saw it was not his fault (it was an Irish 
jury) ; they felt compassion for the tenderness of 
the mother's heart, and for the warmth of the 
lover's passion. The jury saw on the one side a 
young, entertaining gallant, on the other a beau- 
teous creature, of charms irresistible. They rec- 
ollected that Jupiter had been always successful 
in his amours, although Vulcan had not always 
escaped some awkward accidents. The jury 
was composed of fathers, brothers, husbands — 
but they had not the vulgar jealousy that views 
little things of that sort with rigor ; and wishing 
to assimilate their country in every respect to 
England, now that they are united to it, they, 
like English gentlemen, returned to their box with 
a verdict of sixpence damages and sixpence costs." 
Let this be sent to England. I promise you your 
odious secret wuU not be kept better than that 
of the wretched Mrs. Massy. There is not a 
bawdy chronicle in London in which the epi- 
taph which you would have written on yourselves 
will not be published, and our enemies will de- 
light in the spectacle of our precocious depravi- 
ty, in seeing that we can be rotten before we are 
ripe. I do not suppose it, I do not, can not, 
will not, believe it. I will not harrow up my- 
self with the anticipated apprehension. 

There is another consideration, gentlemen, 
Larse damages which I think most impcriouslv de- 
breaciTofhos- "lauds cveu a vindictive award of ex- 
pitaiity. emplary damages, and that is the 

breach of hospitality. To us peculiarly does it 
belonor to avenffe the violation of its altar. The 
hospitality of other countries is a matter of ne- 
cessitv or convention ; in savage nations of the 
first, in polished of the latter ; but the hospi- 
tality of an Irishman is not the running account 
of posted and legered courtesies, as in other 
countries; it springs, like all his qualities, his 
faults, his virtues — directly from his heart. The 
heart of an Irishman is by nature bold, and he j 
confides ; it is tender, and he loves ; it is gener- 
ous, and he gives ; it is social, and he is hospi- ! 
table. This sacrilegious intruder has profaned | 
the religion of that sacred altar so elevated in 
our worship, so precious to our devotion ; and it i 
is our privilege to avenge the crime. You must 
either pull down the altar and abolish the wor- 
ship, or you must preserve its sanctity unde- } 
based. There is no alternative between the uni- 
versal exclusion of all mankind from your thresh- 
old, and the most rigorous punishment of him 
who is admitted and betrays. This defendant 
has been so trusted, has so betrayed, and you 
ought to make him a most signal example. 

Gentlenaea, I am the more disposed to feel the 



strongest indignation and abhorrence at this odi- 
ous conduct of the defendant, when I Peroration.- 
consider the deplorable condition to The injury done 
which he has reduced the plaintiff, and the protec- 
and perhaps the still more deplor- etyVretoth to' 
able one that he has in prospect be- ^^varX^d"™" 
fore him. What a progress has he s^s- 
to travel through before he can attain the peace 
and tranquillity which he has lost? How like 
the wounds of the body are those of the mind ! 
Hov/ burning the fever ! How painful the sup- 
puration ! How slow, how hesitating, how re- 
lapsing the process to convalescence ! Through 
what a variety of suffering, what new scenes and 
changes, must my unhappy client pass, ere he can 
reattain, should he ever reattain, that health of 
soul of which he has been despoiled by the cold 
and deliberate machinations of this praticed and 
gilded seducer ? If, instead of drawing upon his 
incalculable wealth for a scanty retribution, you 
were to stop the progress of his despicable 
achievements by reducing him to actual pover- 
ty, you could not even so punish him beyond the 
scope of his offense, nor reprise the plaintiff be- 
yond the measure of his suffering. Let me re- 
mind you that in this action the law not only 
empowers you, but that its policy commands you 
to consider the public example, as well as the 
individual injury, when you adjust the amount 
of )^our verdict. I confess I am most anxious 
that you should acquit yourselves worthily upon 
this important occasion. I am addressing you as 
fathers, husbands, brothers. I am anxious that a 
feeling of those high relations should enter into, 
and give dignity to your verdict. But I confess 
it, I feel a ten-fold solicitude when I remember that 
I am addressing you as my countrymen, as Irish- 
men, whose characters as jurors, as gentlemen, 
must find either honor or degradation in the re- 
sult of your decision. Small as must be the dis- 
tributive share of that national estimation that can 
belong to so unimportant an individual as myself, 
yet do I own I am tremblingly solicitous for its 
fate. Perhaps it appears of more value to me, 
because it is embarked on the same bottom with 
yours ; perhaps the community of peril, of com- 
mon safety, or common wreck gives a conse- 
quence to my share of the risk, which I could not 
be vain enough to give it, if it were not raised to 
it by that mutuality. But why stoop to think at 
all of myself, when I know that you, gentlemen of 
the jury, when I know that our country itself are 
my clients on this day, and must abide the altern- 
ative of honor or of infamy, as you snail decide. 
But I will not despond ; I will not dare to despond. 
I have every trust, and hope, and confidence in 
you. And to that hope I will add my most fer- 
vent prayer to the God of all truth and justice, so 
to raise, and enlighten, and fortify your minds, 
that you may so decide as to preserve to your- 
selves while you live, the most delightful of all 
recollections, that of acting justly, and to trans- 
mit to your children the most precious of all in- 
heritances, the memory of your virtue. 



The damages were fixed by the jury at ten 
thousand pounds. 



SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 

James Mackintosh was the son of a captain in the British army, and was born 
at Aldourie, near Inverness, in Scotland, on the 24th of October, 1765. He was very 
early remarkable for his love of reading, making it his constant employment, whether 
at home or abroad, and being accustomed, when a mere child, to take his book and 
dinner with him into the wild hills around his father's residence, where he gave up 
the whole day in some secluded nook to his favorite employment. 

At the age of ten, he was sent to a boarding-school at a small town called Fort- 
rose, where he soon made such proficiency in his studies that "the name of Jamie 
Mackintosh was synonymous, all over the country side, with a prodigy of learning." 
He early assisted his instructor in teaching the younger boys, and before he reached 
his thirteenth year, he showed a singular love of politics and extemporaneous speak- 
ing. " It was at this period," says his instructor, the Reverend Mr. Wood, " that 
Fox and North made such brilliant harangues on the American war. Jamie espoused 
the cause of liberty, and called himself a H^/i/g-; and such was his influence among 
his school-fellows, that he prevailed on some of the older ones, instead of playing at 
ball, and such out-of-door recreations, to join him in the school-room during the hours 
of play, and assist at debates in what they called the House of Commons, on the po- 
litical events of the day. When Jamie ascended the rostrum, he harangued until 
his sopra7io voice failed him. One day he was Fox, another Burke, or some leading 
member of the Opposition ; and when no one ventured to reply to his arguments, he 
would change sides for the present, personate North, and endeavor to combat what 
he conceived to be the strongest parts of his own speech. When I found out this 
singular amusement of the boys," adds Mr. Wood, " I had the curiosity to listen when 
Jamie was on his legs. I was greatly surprised and delighted with his eloquence in 
the. character of Fox, against some supposed or real measure of the minister. His 
voice, though feeble, was musical, and his arguments so forcible that they would 
have done credit to many an adult." 

At the age of fifteen he was placed at King's College, Aberdeen, and at once 
showed his predilection for those abstract inquiries in which he spent so large a part 
of his life. Though a mere boy, his favorite books were Priestley's Institutes of Nat- 
ural and Revealed Rehgion, Beattie on Truth, and Warburton's Divine Legation, 
which last delighted him, as he stated in afterlife, more than any book he ever read. 
He soon after made the acquaintance of Robert Hall, then a student at Aberdeen, 
who was deeply interested in the same pursuits, and though both were diligent in 
their classical studies, they gave their most strenuous and unwearied labors to a joint 
improvement in philosophy. They read together ; they sat side by side at lecture ; 
they were constant companions in their daily walks. In the classics, they united in 
reading much of Xenophon and Herodotus, and more of Plato ; and so far did they 
carry it, says the biographer of Hall, that, "exciting the admiration of some and 
the envy of others, it was not unusual for their class-fellows to point at them and 
say, ' There go Plato and Herodotus !' But the arena in which they most frequently 
met was that of morals and metaphysics. After having sharpened their weapons by 
reading, they often repaired to the spacious sands on the sea-shore, and, still more 
frequently, to the picturesque scenery on the banks of the Don, above the old town, 



822 SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 

to discuss with eagerness the various subjects to which their attention had been di- 
rected. There was scarcely an important position in Berkeley's Minute Philosopher, 
ill Butler's Analogy, or in Edwards on the Will, over which they had not thus de- 
bated with the utmost intensity. Night after night, nay, month after month, they 
met only to study or dispute, yet no unkindly feeling ensued. The process seemed 
rather, hke blows in the welding of iron, to knit them more closely together." From 
this union of their studies, and the discussions which ensued. Sir James afterward 
declared himself to have " learned more than from all the books he ever read ;" 
while Mr. Hall expressed his opinion throughout life, that Sir James " had an intel- 
lect more like that of Bacon than any person of modern times." 

Having taken his degree of Bachelor of Arts at the age of nineteen, Mr. Mackin- 
tosh repaired to Edinburgh in 1784, and commenced the study of medicine. Here 
he was soon received as a member of the Speculative Society, an association for de- 
bate which then exerted a powerful influence over the University, and was the 
means of training some of the most distinguished speakers which Scotland has ever 
produced. In this exciting atmosphere, his early passion for extemporaneous speak- 
ing, in connection with his subsequent habits of debate, gained the complete ascend- 
ency ; so that, although his medical studies were not wholly neglected, a large part 
of his time was given to those miscellaneous subjects which would furnish topics for 
the Society, and that desultory reading and speculation in which he always delighted. 

After four years spent at Edinburgh, Mr. Mackintosh went to London in 1788, 
with a view to medical practice, but found no immediate prospect of business, and 
but little encouragement for the future. His father died about this time, leaving 
him a very scanty patrimony ; and, as he married soon after, without adding to his 
property, he was driven, like Burke in early life, to the public press for the means 
of support. He wrote from the first with uncommon force and elegance, and was 
thus introduced to the acquaintance of some distinguished literary men, chiefly of 
the extreme Whig party. He was much in the society of Home Tooke, and found 
great delight in the rich, lively, and sarcastic conversation of that extraordinary man ; 
while Tooke, though jealous, and sparing of praise, was so struck with his talents 
for argument, that he declared him "a very formidable adversary across a table." 
He now took to the study of the law in connection with his labors for the press, and 
never, probably, were his exertions greater or better directed than at this time, or 
more conducive to his intellectual improvement. Desultory reading and speculation 
without any definite object, were the bane of his life ; but he was now held to his 
daily task, and, under the pressure of want, the encouragement of his friends, and 
the kindling delight which he felt in high literary excellence, he was daily forming 
those habits of rich and powerful composition for which he was afterward so much 
distinguished. 

In 1792 he published his first great work, the " Yindicise GallicsB," or " Defense 
of the French Revolution against the accusations of the E-ight Honorable Edmund 
Burke." It was a daring attempt for a young man of twenty-six to enter the lists 
with such an opponent, celebrated beyond any man of the age for his powers as a 
writer, and regarded as an oracle by nearly all among the middling and higher class- 
es, who looked with horror and dismay at the Revolution which this unknown ad- 
venturer came forward to defend. Not to have failed utterly in such an attempt 
was no mean praise. But he did more. He brought to the work an honest and 
dauntless enthusiasm ; a large stock of legal and constitutional learning ; a style 
which, though inferior in richness to that of his great antagonist, was not only ele- 
gant and expressive, but often keen and trenchant ; and his success w^as far beyond 
his most sanguine expectations. Three editions were called for in rapid succession ; 
Mr. Fox quoted the work with applause in the House of Commons ; and even Mr 



SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 823 

Burke, who had heen treated by Mr. Mackintosh with the respect due to his great 
talents, spoke of its spirit and execution in the kindest terms. Mr. Canning, who 
was accustomed, at that period, to treat every thing that favored the Revolution with 
ridicule or contempt, told a friend that he read the book, on its first coming out, " with 
as much admiration as he had ever felt." 

The Revolution turned out very differently, in most respects, from what Mr. Mack- 
intosh had hoped, and he saw reason to change some of the opinions expressed in 
this work. He afterward made the acquaintance of Mr. Burke, and remarked, in a 
letter to him, about four years after, " For a time I was seduced by what I thought 
liberty, and ventured to oppose, without ever ceasing to venerate, that writer who 
had nourished my understanding with the most wholesome principles of political 
wisdom. Since that time a melancholy experience has undeceived me on many sub- 
jects in which I was then the dupe of my own enthusiasm. I can not say (and you 
would despise me if I dissembled) that I can even now assent to all your opinions on 
the present politics of Europe.^ But I can with truth affirm that I subscribe to 
your general principles, and am prepared to shed my blood in defense of the laws 
and Constitution of my country.'"^ 

In the latter part of 1795, Mr. Mackintosh was called to the bar, and in 1799 he 
formed the plan of giving lectures on the Law of Nature and of Nations. The sub- 
ject was pecuharly suited to his philosophical cast of mind, and had long occupied 
his attention. Being in want of a hall for the purpose, he asked the Benchers of 
Lincoln's Inn to grant him the use of theirs ; and when some demur was made on 
account of the sentiments expressed in his VindicisB Gallicee, he printed the Intro- 
ductory Lecture as a prospectus of the course. It was truly and beautifully said by 
Thomas Campbell, " If Mackintosh had published nothing else than this Discourse, 
he would have left a perfect monument of his intellectual strength and symmetry ; 
and even supposing that essay had been recovered only imperfect and mutilated — if 
but a score of its consecutive sentences could be shown, they would bear a testimony 
to his genius as decided as the bust of Theseus bears to Grecian art among the El- 
gin marbles." The Lord Chancellor [Loughborough], ashamed of the delay among 
the Benchers, interposed decisively, and procured the use of the hall ; and the Prime 
Minister, Mr. Pitt, " always liberally inclined," as one of his opponents in politics has 
described him, wrote a private letter to Mr. Mackintosh, saying, " The plan you have 
marked out appears to me to promise more useful instruction and just reasoning on 
the principles of government than I have ever met with in any treatise on the sub- 
ject," The lectures now went forward, and Lincoln's Inn Hall was daily filled with 
an auditory such as never before met on a similar occasion. Lawyers, members of 
Parliament, men of letters, and gentlemen from the country, crowded the seats ; and 
the Lord Chancellor, who, from a pressure of public business, was unable to attend, 
received a full report of each lecture in writing, and was loud in their praise. 

In such a course of lectures the name of Grotius could not fail to have a promi- 
nent place, and the reader will be delighted with the following sketch of his charac- 
ter, which has rarely, if ever, been equaled by any thing of the kind in our language. 

" So great is the uncertainty of posthumous reputation, and so liable is the fame, even of the 
greatest men, to be obscured by those new fashions of thinking and writing which succeed each 

^ Mr. Mackintosh here refers to Mr. Burke's views respecting the war with France, which he 
openly condemned in opposition to Mr. Burke ; nor did he ever agree with him on a number of 
points mentioned in the sketch of Mr. Burke in this volume, p. 231. His change consisted mainly 
in withdrawing his defense of the Revohition as actually conducted, and agreeing with Mr. Burke 
that the nation was not prepared for liberty. 

^ When Mr. Mackintosh visited Paris during the peace of Amiens, some of the French literati to 
whom he was introduced complimented him on his defense of their Revolution. " Gentlemen," 
said he, in reply, " since that time you have entirely refuted me .'" 



824 SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 

other so rapidly among polished nations, that Grotius, who filled so large a space in the eyes of 
his cotemporaries, is now, perhaps, known to some of my readers only by name. Yet, if we fairly 
estimate both his endowments and his virtues, we may justly consider him as one of the most 
memorable men who have done honor to modern times. He combined the discharge of the most 
important duties of active and public life with the attainment of that exact and various learning 
which is generally the portion only of the recluse student. He was distinguished as an advocate 
and a magistrate, and he composed the most valuable works on the law of his own country. He 
was almost equally celebrated as a historian, a scholar, a poet, and a divine ; a disinterested states- 
man, a philosophical lawyer, a patriot who united moderation with firmness, and a theologian who 
was taught candor by his learning. Unmerited exile did not damp his patriotism ; the bitterness 
of controversy did not extinguish his charity. The sagacity of his numerous and fierce adversa- 
ries could not discover a blot on his character ; and in the midst of all the hard trials and galling 
provocations of a turbulent political life, he never once deserted his friends when they were unfor- 
tunate, nor insulted his enemies when they were weak. In times of the most furious civil and re- 
ligious faction he preserved his name unspotted, and he knew how to reconcile fidelity to his own 
party with moderation toward his opponents." 

The Introductory Lecture closed in the following beautiful manner : 

" I know not whether a philosopher ought to confess that, in his inquiries after truth, he is 
biased by any consideration, even by the love of virtue ; but I, who conceive that a real philoso- 
pher ought to regard truth itself chiefly on account of its subserviency to the happiness of man- 
kind, am not ashamed to confess that I shall feel a great consolation at the conclusion of these lec- 
tures if, by a wide survey and an exact examination of the conditions and relations of human na- 
ture, I shall have confirmed but one individual in the conviction that justice is the permanent in- 
terest of all men, and of all commonwealths. To discover one new link of that eternal chain, by 
which the Author of the universe has bound together the happiness and the duty of his creatures, 
and indissolubly fastened their interests to each other, would fill my heart v^'ith more pleasure than 
all the fame with which the most ingenious paradox ever crowned the most ingenious sophist." 

Mr. Mackintosh now devoted himself to his profession with the most flattering 
prospects of success ; but his thoughts were soon after directed to a judicial station, 
either in Trinidad or India, which he had the prospect of obtaining, and which he 
considered as more suited to his habits and cast of mind. While this matter was 
pending, he made his celebrated speech in favor of M. Peltier, which is given in this 
collection. The case was a singular one. Peltier was a French royalist, who re- 
sided in London, and published a newspaper in the French language, in which he 
spoke with great severity of Bonaparte, then First Consul of France. It would seem 
hardly possible that a man like Bonaparte could feel the slightest annoyance at such 
attacks ; but it is said to have been the weak point in his character, and that he 
was foolishly sensitive on this subject. At all events, as the two countries were 
then at peace, he made a formal demand of the English ministry to punish Peltier 
for " a libel on a friendly government." A prosecution was accordingly commenced, 
and Mr. Mackintosh, in defending Peltier, was brought into the same dilemma with 
that of Demosthenes in his Oration for the Grown. Equity was on his side, but the 
law was against him ; and his only hope (as in the case of Demosthenes) was that 
of pre-occupying the minds of the juiy Mdth a sense of national honor and public jus- 
tice, and bearing them so completely away by the fervor of his eloquence, as to ob- 
tain a verdict of acquittal from their feelings, without regard to the strict demands 
of law. His theme was the freedom of the English press — its right and duty to 
comment on the crimes of the proudest tyrants ; and he maintained (with great ap- 
pearance of truth) that the real object of Bonaparte, after destroying every vestige 
of free discussion throughout the Continent, was to silence the press of England as 
to his conduct and designs. He told the jury, after dwelling on the extinction of the 
liberty of the press abroad, " One asylum of free discussion is still inviolate. There 
is still one spot in Europe where man can freely exercise his reason on the most im- 
portant concerns of society — where he can boldly publish his judgment on the acts 
of the proudest and most powerful tyrants. The press of England is still free. It is 
guarded by the free Constitution of our forefathers ; it is guarded by the hearts and 
arms of Englishmen ; and I trust I may venture to say, that if it be to fall, it will 



SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 825 

fall only under the ruins of the British empire. It is an awful consideration, gen- 
tlemen : every other monument of European liberty has perished : that ancient fab- 
ric, which has been gradually reared by the wisdom and virtue of our fathers, still 
stands. It stands (thanks be to God I) solid and entire ; but it stands alone, and it 
stands amid ruins." Still, as the law was, the jury felt bound to convict Peltier. 

We have hardly any thing in our eloquence conceived in a finer spirit, or carried 
out in a loftier tone of sentiment and feeling, than the appeals made in this oration. 
It would have been just as sure to succeed before an Athenian tribunal, as that of 
Demosthenes to fail in an English court of law. Lord Erskine was present during 
its delivery, and before going to bed addressed the following note to Mr. Mackintosh : 

" Dear Sir, — I can not shake off from my nerves the effect of your powerful and 
most wonderful speech, which so completely disqualifies you for Trinidad or India. 
I could not help saying to myself, as you were speaking, ' terrmn illam beatam 
quce liunc virum acciperit, hanc ingratam si ejicerit, 7niseram si ainiseritP I 
perfectly approve the verdict, but the manner in which you opposed it I shall always 
consider as one of the most splendid monuments of genius, literature, and eloquence. 

" Yours ever, T. Erskine." 

When the speech was published, Mr. Mackintosh sent a copy to his friend Robert 
Hall, and soon after received a letter, containing, among other things, the following 
passage : "Accept my best thanks for the trial of Peltier, which I read, so far as 
your part in it is concerned, with the highest delight and instruction. I speak my 
sincere sentiments when I say, it is the most extraordinary assemblage of whatever 
is most refined in address, profound in political and moral speculation, and masterly 
in eloquence, which it has ever been my lot to read in the English language." 

A few months after, Mr. Mackintosh was appointed Recorder of Bombay, and at 
the same time received the honors of knighthood. He arrived in India about the 
middle of 1804, and spent eight years in that country, devoting all the time he could 
gain from the duties of the bench to the more congenial pursuits of literature. He 
wrote several interesting pieces during this period, and particularly a sketch of Mr. 
Fox's character, which will be found below, and which has always been regarded as 
one of the best delineations ever given of that distinguished statesman. His appoint- 
ment to India was, on the whole, injurious to his intellectual growth. He needed 
beyond most men to be kept steadily at work, under the impulse of great objects and 
strong motives urging him to the utmost exertion of his powers. Had he remained 
at the bar, he might have surpassed Erskine in learning, and rivaled him in skill as 
an advocate, while his depth and amplitude of thought would have furnished the 
richest materials for every occasion that admitted of eloquence. But he now relapsed 
into his old habits of desultory reading and ingenious speculation. He projected a 
number of great works, and labored irregularly in collecting materials ; but his 
health sunk under the enervating effects of the climate, and he returned to England 
at the end of eight years, disappointed in his expectations and depressed in spirit, 
bringing with him a vast amount of matter for books which were never to be com- 
pleted. 

So highly were his talents appreciated, that immediately after his return in 1812, 
he was offered a seat in the House of Commons by the government, and also by his 
old Whig friends. He chose the latter, and continued true to liberal principles to 
the end of his days. 

^ The words are taken from the peroration of Cicero's oration for Milo, in which he deplores the 
exile which must befall his client if he loses his cause. 

Happy the land that shall receive him ! Ungrateful the country that shall cast him out ! miser- 
able if she finally lose him ! 



826 SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 

In 1818 he was appointed Professor of Law and of General Politics at Haileybury 
College, an institution designed to prepare young men for the service of the East 
India Company. His lectures embraced a course of four years, extending through 
four months of each year. He endeared himself greatly to his pupils by his kind 
and conciliating manners, while his extraordinary learning, and the high reputation 
he had with the public, made him the object of their respect and veneration. This 
situation he held nine years, and resigned it in 1827. During all this time he took 
an active part in politics, entering warmly into every important debate in Parlia- 
ment, and writing numerous articles for the Edinburgh Review. He also wrote, in 
1829, a Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, which was first published 
as a supplement to the Encyclopedia Britannica, and soon after printed in an 8vo 
volume by itself To these he added, in the three subsequent years, several volumes 
of an abridged history of England, and a work on the Revolution of 1688, which was 
published after his death. Under the administration of Earl Grey, he was appointed 
a member of the Board of Control, and took an active part in the great struggle for 
parliamentary reform. 

As a speaker in Parliament he was instructive rather than bold and exciting. His 
residence in India had so debilitated his constitution, and his habits of speculation 
had so completely gained the ascendency, that he never spoke with that lofty enthu- 
siasm and fervor of emotion which distinguished his defense of Peltier. He had, 
says an able cotemporary, "perhaps more than any man of his time, that mills sa- 
jpientia which formed the distinguishing characteristic of the illustrious friend of 
Cicero, and which wins its way into the heart, while it at once enlightens and satis- 
fies the understanding." He died on the 30th of May, 1832, in the sixty-seventh year 
of his age, perhaps more regretted and less envied than any public man of his age. 



SPEECH 

OF MR. MACKINTOSH IN BEHALF OF JEAN PELTIER WHEN TRIED FOR A LIBEL ON NAPOLEON 
BONAPARTE, DELIVERED IN THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH, FEBRUARY 21, 1803. 

INTRODUCTION. 

The leading circumstances of this trial have been already stated in the preceding memoir. 

In 1802, Mr. Peltier commenced a French newspaper in London, designed to expose the ambifruous 
conduct of Bonaparte, who, though only First Consul in name, was assuming the power and dignity of 
the regal office. Hence he called his paper L'Ambigu, and put on the frontispiece the figure of a sphynx 
(emblematic of mystery), with a head which strikingly resembled that of Bonaparte, wearing a crovm. 
Its pages were filled with instances of the despotism of the First Consul, some violent and some ridicu- 
lous, and hence he also called it "Varietes atroces et amusantes." It was characterized, on the whole, 
by great bitterness, one of the numbers containing an ode, written in the name of Chenier— so distin- 
guished at once for his talents and his Jacobin principles — which directly hinted at the assassination of 
Bonaparte. In another, there was an intimation of the same kind in a sliort poem from a Dutch patriot. 
A third contained a parody on a speech in Sallust, that of Lepidus against Sylla, which was plainly 
pointed at the First Consul as having assumed the Dictatorship. 

These things gave so much annoyance to Bonaparte, that he actually demanded of the English gov- 
ernment to send Peltier out of the kingdom -^ and when this was refused, he insisted, as France was 
then at peace with England, that Mr. Peltier should be prosecuted by the English Attorney General for 
" a libel on a friendly government !" Upon this subject, the laws of England were strict even to severity. 
Convictions had been frequent in past times ; and only four years before, John Vint had been sentenced to 
an imprisonment of six months and a tine of one hundred pounds, for using the following words respecting 
the conduct of the Czar of Russia: "The Emperor Paul is rendering himself obnoxious to his subjects by 
various acts of tyranny, and ridiculous in the eyes of Europe by his inconsistency. He has lately passed 
an edict to prohibit the exportation of deals and other naval stores. In consequence of this ill-judged 
law, a hundred sail of vessels are likely to return to this country without freight." When these harm- 
less words had been visited with such a penalty, it was impossible for the government to avoid taking up 
the case of Peltier, and he was accordingly brought before the Court of King's Bench, Lord Ellenborough 
presiding, by an information from the Attorney General, Mr. Percival, afterward Prime Minister. 

It was a singular spectacle for the English government to appear as prosecutor of a poor French Roy- 
alist for bitter words about Bonaparte, when the Prime Minister of England had so lately poured out 
against him one of the most terrible invectives ever uttered by human lips. But the First Consul held 
them firmly to the execution of their laws ; and when the trial came on, two French officers of high rank 
made their appearance in the court room, and took their seats by the jury-box, directly in front of the 
counsel for the Crown and prisoner ! 

Mr. Percival opened the case in a mild and gentlemanly address, insisting on the three points men- 
tioned above, and reminded the jury that as Bonaparte was head of a government now at peace with 
England, he was entitled to the protection of her laws. Mr. Mackintosh followed in the speech before us. 
Without directly alluding to the presence of the French officers, he took the ground that the real object 
of this prosecution was to break down the only remaining free press in Europe ; and appealed to the jury 
for its protection, with a compass and richness of thought, a grandeur of sentiment, and an impassioned 
warmth of feeling, such as no court, either in ancient or modern times, had ever witnessed. 



SPEECH, &c. 



Gentlemen of the Jury, — The time is now 
come for me to address you in behalf of the un- 
fortunate gentleman who is the defendant on this 
record. 

I must begin with observing, that though I 
know myself too well to ascribe to any thing but 
to the kindness and good nature of my learned 
friend, the Attorney General, the unmerited 
praises which he has been pleased to bestow on 
me, yet, I will venture to say, he has done me 



1 See Howell's State Trials, vol. xxviii., p. 566. 



no more than justice in supposing that in this 
place, and on this occasion, where I exercise the 
functions of an inferior minister of justice, an in- 
ferior minister, indeed, but a minister of justice 
still, I am inca[)able of lending my- NoinJet-omm 
self to the passions of any client, ^ra'i'Read 
and that I will not make the pro- "f » government 

. ' at peace with 

ceedmgs ol this court subservient to Engianj. 
any political purpose. Whatever is respected 
by the laws and government of my country shall, 
in this place, be respected by me. In consider- 
ing matters that deeply interest the quiet, the 



828 



MR. MACK UN TOSH 



[1803. 



safety, and the liberty of all mankind, it is impos- 
sible for me not to feel warmly and strongly ; 
but I shall make an effort to control my feelings 
however painful that effort may be, and where I 
can not speak out but at the risk of offending 
either sincerity or prudence, I shall labor to con- 
tain myself and be silent. 

I can not but feel, gentlemen, how much I stand 
still the defense ^^ "^cd of your favorablc attention 
of the accused and indulgence. The charge which 
and fearless state- I havc to defend is surrounded with 

mentofthetruth. ^j^^ ^^^^^ invidioUS topicS of disCUS- 

sion ; but they are not of my seeking. The case 
and the topics which are inseparable from it are 
brought here by the prosecutor. Here I find 
them, and here it is my duty to deal with them, 
as the interests of Mr. Peltier seem to me to re- 
quire. He, by his choice and confidence, has 
cast on me a very arduous duty, which I could 
not decline, and which I can still less betray. 
He has a right to expect from me a faithful, a 
zealous, and a fearless defense ; and this his just 
expectation, according to the measure of my 
humble abilities, shall be fulfilled. I have said 
a fearless defense. Perhaps that word was un- 
necessary in the place where I now stand. In- 
trepidity in the discharge of professional duty is 
so common a quality at the English bar, that it 
has, thank God, long ceased to be a matter of 
boast or praise. If it had been otherwise, gen- 
tlemen, if the bar could have been silenced or 
overawed by power, I may presume to say that 
an English jury would not this day have been 
met to administer justice. Perhaps I need scarce 
say that my defense shall be fearless, in a place 
where fear never entered anj^ heart but that of 
a criminal. But you w^ill pardon me for having 
said so much when you consider who the real 
parties before you are. 

I. Gentlemen, the real prosecutor is the mas- 
Pan First: ^^^ ^^ ^^® grcatcst cmpirc the civil- 
Preiimiiiary ized world cvcr saw. The defendant 

considerations: . , ^ , 

Parties in the IS a detcnseless, proscribed exile. He 
presen case, j^ ^ French Royalist, who fled from 
his countiT in the autumn of 1792, at the period 
of that memorable and awful emigration when 
all the proprietors and magistrates of the great- 
est civilized country of Europe were driven from 
their homes by the daggers of a.ssassins ; when 
our shores w^ere covered, as with the wreck of a 
great tempest, with old men, and women, and 
children, and ministers of religion, who fled from 
the ferocity of their countrymen as before an 
army of invading barbarians. 

The greatest part of these unfortunate exiles, of 
those, I mean, who have been spared by the sword, 
who have survived the effect of pestilential cli- 
mates or broken hearts, have been since permit- 
ted to revisit their country. Though despoiled 
of their all, they have eagerly embraced even the 
sad privilege of being suffered to die in their na- 
tive land. 

Even this miserable indulgence was to be pur- 
Thedefendanta chascd by compHanccs, by declara- 
tim^ofWHUy tio"S of allegiance to the new gov- 
and honor. emmcnt, which some of these suffer- 



ing Royalists deemed incompatible with their con- 
sciences, with their dearest attachments, and their 
most sacred duties. Among these last is Mr. 
Peltier. I do not presume to blame those who 
submitted, and I trust j'ovi will not judge harshly 
of those who refused. You will not think unfa- 
vorably of a man who stands before you as the 
voluntary victim of his loyalty and honor. If a 
revolution (which God avert) were to drive us into 
exile, and to cast us on a foreign shore, we should 
expect, at least, to be pardoned by generous men, 
for stubborn loyalty, and unseasooable fidelity to 
the laws and government of our fathers. 

This unfortunate gentleman had devoted a 
great part of his life to literature. The publisher of 
It was the amusement and ornament pape^for hfj'^^ 
of his better days. Since his own ""pport. 
ruin and the desolation of his country, he has been 
compelled to employ it as a means of support. 
For the last ten years he has been engaged in a 
variety of publications of considerable import- 
ance ; but since the peace, he has desisted from 
serious political discussion, and confined himself 
to the obscure journal which is now before you ; 
the least calculated, surely, of any publication 
that ever issued from the press, to rouse the 
alarms of the most jealous government ; which 
will not be read in England, because His work inca 
it is not written in our language ; the'siiglaestlii- 
which can not be read in France, be- J"''> *" "'^ 

' . French govern- 

cause its entry into that country is ment. 
prohibited by a power whose mandates are not 
very supinely enforced, nor often evaded with im- 
punity ; which can have no other object than that 
of amusing the companions of the author's prin- 
ciples and misfortunes, by pleasantries and sar- 
casms on their victorious enemies. There is, in- 
deed, gentlemen, one remarkable circumstance 
in this unfortunate publication ; it is the only, or 
almost the only journal which still dares to es- 
pouse the cause of that royal and illustrious fam- 
ily, which but fourteen years ago was flattered 
by every press and guarded by every tribunal in 
Europe. Even the court in which we are met 
affords an example of the vicissitudes of their for- 
tune. My learned friend has reminded you that 
the last prosecution tried in this place, at the in- 
stance of a French government, was for a libel 
on that magnanimous princess, who has since 
been butchered in sight of her palace. 

I do not make these observations with any 
purpose of questioning the general prin- Liable, nev- 
ciples which have been laid down by bepro^s^ecu" 
my learned friend. I must admit his ^'"^ ^"^ '''^^'• 
right to bring before you those who libel any 
government recognized by his Majesty, and at 
peace with the British empire. I admit that, 
whether such a government be of yesterday, or 
a thousand years old ; whether it be a crude and 
bloody usurpation, or the most ancient, just, and 
paternal authority upon earth, we are here equal- 
ly bound, by his Majesty's recognition, to protect 
it against libelous attacks.*^ I admit that if, dur- 

^ The reader will at once see Mr. Mackintosh's 
motive in making the extreme concessions which 
follow as to Clarendon and others. Principles 



1803.] 



ON THE TRIAL OF JEAN PELTIER. 



829 



ing our usurpation, Lord Clarendon had published 
his history at Paris, or the Marquess of Mont- 
rose his verses on the murder of his sovereign, 
' Mr. Cowley his Discourse on Cromwell's 
overnment, and if the English embassador had 
wOmplained, the President De Moli, or any other 
of the great magistrates who then adorned the 
Parliament of Paris, however reluctantly, pain- 
fully, and indignantly, might have been compelled 
to have condemned these illustrious men to the 
punishment of libelers. I say this only for the 
sake of bespeaking a favorable attention from 
your generosity, and compassion to what will be 
feebly urged in behalf of my unfortunate client, 
who has sacrificed his fortune, his hopes, his con- 
nections, his country, to his conscience ; who 
seems mai'ked out for destruction in this his last 
asylum. 

That he still enjoys the security of this asylum, 
The defend- ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ bccu Sacrificed to the 
ant hiti.erto resentment of his powerful enemies, is 

protected by • . .v 12 r A 

the govern- perhaps owing to the firmness ol the 
"^" ■ King's government. If that be the fact, 

gentlemen ; if his Majesty's ministers have re- 
sisted applications to expel this unfortunate gen- 
tleman from England, I should publicly thank 
them for their firmness, if it were not unseemly 
and improper to suppose that they could have 
acted otherwise — to thank an English govern- 
ment for not violating the most sacred duties of 
hospitality ; for not bringing indelible disgrace 
on their country.^ 

But be that as it may, gentlemen, he now 
He now looks comcs bcforc you, perfectly satisfied 
STfiS^h that an English jury is the most re- 
jury, fi-eshing prospect that the eye of ac- 
cused innocence ever met in a human tribunal ; 
and he feels with me the most fervent gratitude 
to the Protector of empires that, suiTOunded as 
we are with the ruins of principalities and pow- 
ers, we still continue to meet together, after the 
manner of our fathers, to administer justice in 
this her ancient sanctuary. 

II. There is another point of view in which 
Part Second.- ^his casc sccms to me to merit your 
The real ques- jjiost scrious attention. I consider it 

tion at issue. 

Thepreserva- as the first of a long scrics of conflicts 

tion of a free , ^ . ° ^ . . 

press in Eu- between the greatest power m the 
^°'^^' world and the only free press remain- 

ing in Europe."* No man living is more thor- 



which reach so far, and involve such consequences, 
' must be often set aside, and he hoped to induce the 
jury to do so in the present instance. 

3 What is here stated hypothetically, Mr. Peltier 
afterward declared to be the fact. Bonaparte had 
directly demanded of the government to banish Pel- 
tier, and he was saved only by the firmness of min- 
isters. An intimation of this fact was designed to 
touch the pride of the jury when called upon to car- 
ry out the demands of the First Consul. 

* It was not for mere effect that Mr. Mackintosh 
put his cause on this high ground. He had recent- 
ly returned from Paris, and was perfectly satisfied 
that Bonaparte intended to break down all discus- 
sion which might weaken his power. If the peace 
of Amiens had continued for ten years, and he could 



oughly convinced than I am that my learned 
friend, Mr. Attorney General, will never degrade 
his excellent character; that he will never dis- 
grace his high magistracy by mean compliances, 
by an immoderate and unconscientious exercise 
of power ; yet I am convinced, by circumstances, 
which I shall now abstain from discussing, that 
I am to consider this as the first of a long scries 
of conflicts between the greatest power in the 
world and the only free press now remaining in 
Europe. Gentlemen, this distinction of the En- 
glish press is new ; it is a proud and melancholy 
distinction. Before the great earthquake of the 
French Revolution had swallowed up all the 
asylums of free discussion on the Continent, we 
enjoyed that privilege, indeed, more fully than 
others ; but we did not enjoy it exclusively. In 
great monarchies, the press has always been con- 
sidered as too formidable an engine to be intrust- 
ed to unlicensed individuals. But in other Con- 
tinental countries, either by the laws of the state, 
or by long habits of liberality and tol- freedom of 
eration in magistrates, a liberty of dis- discus.sion in 

, * . ' , , -^ „ the smaller 

cussion has been enjoyed, perhaps suf- states on the 
ficient for most useful purposes. It °" '"^" ' 
existed, in fact, where it was not protected by 
law; and the wise and generous connivance of 
governments was daily more and more secured 
by the growing civilization of their subjects. In 
Holland, in Switzerland, in the imperial towns of 
Germany, the press was either legally or prac- 
tically free. Holland and Switzerland are no 
more ; and since the commencement of this pro.s- 
ecution, fifty imperial towns have been erased 
from the list of independent states by one dash 
of the pen. Three or four still preserve a pre- 
carious and trembling existence. I w\\\ not say 
by what compliances they must purchase its con- 
tinuance. I will not insult the feebleness of 
states, whose unmerited fall I do most bitterly 
deplore.^ 

These governments were in many respects 
one of the most interesting parts of the position of 
ancient system of Europe. Unfortu- those states, 
nately lor the repose oi mankind, great fluence of 
states are compelled, by regard to their o^thriarler 
own safety, to consider the military spir- f"""'"- 
"it and martial habits of their people as one of the 
main objects of their policy. Frequent hostili- 
ties seem almost the necessary condition of their 
greatness ; and, without being great, they can 
not long remain safe. Smaller .states exempted 
from this cruel necessity — a hard condition of 
greatness, a bitter satire on human nature — de- 
voted themselves to the arts of peace, to the cul- 
tivation of literature, and the improvement of 
reason. They became places of refuge for free 
and fearless discussion ; they were the impartial 



prosecute effectually in English courts, what might 
not have been the result? 

= The digression which follows, touching the small- 
er states of Europe, is not only beautiful in itself, 
and conceived in a fine spirit of pliilosophy, but pre- 
pares the way for coming back, with increased force 
and interest, to the press of England as the only re- 
maining instrument of free discussion in Europe. 



830 



MR. MACKINTOSH 



[1803. 



spectators and judges of the various contests of 
ambition which from time to time disturbed the 
quiet of the world. They thus became peculiar- 
ly qualified to be the organs of that public opin- 
ion which converted Europe into a great repub- 
lic, with laws which mitigated, though they could 
not extinguish ambition; and with moral tribu- 
nals to which even the most despotic sovereigns 
were amenable. If wars of aggrandizement 
were undertaken, their authors were arraigned 
in the face of Europe. If acts of internal tyran- 
ny were perpetrated, they resounded from a 
thousand presses throughout all civilized coun- 
tries. Princes on whose will there were no le- 
gal checks, thus found a moral restraint which 
the most powerful of them could not brave with 
absolute impunity. They acted before a vast 
audience, to whose applause or condemnation 
the}' could not be utterly indifferent. The very 
constitution of human nature, the unalterable 
laws of the mind of man, against which all re- 
bellion is fruitless, subjected the proudest tyrants 
to this control. No elevation of power, no de- 
pravity, however consummate, no innocence, 
however spotless, can render man wholly inde- 
pendent of the praise or blame of his fellow-men. 
These governments were, in other respects, 

The security OUC of the mOSt bcaUtiful and inter- 
one of flifmost esting parts of our ancient system. 
in"he"fiistory Thc pcrfcct security of such inconsid- 
of Europe. erablc and feeble states, their undis- 
turbed tranquillity amid the wars and conquests 
that surrounded them, attested, beyond any other 
part of the European system, the moderation, the 
justice, the civilization to which Christian Eu- 
rope had reached in modern times. Their weak- 
ness was protected only by the habitual rever- 
ence for justice, which, during a long series of 
ages, had grown up in Christendom. This was 
the only fortification which defended them against 
those mighty monarchs to whom they offered so 
easy a prey. And till the French Revolution, 
this was sufificient. Consider, for instance, the 
situation of the Republic of Geneva. Think of 
her defenseless position, in the very jaw^s of 
France ; but think also of her undisturbed se- 
curity, of her profound quiet, of the brilliant suc- 
cess with which she applied to industry and lit- 
erature, while Louis XIV. was pouring his myr- 
iads into Italy before her gates. Call to mind, 
if ages crowded into years have not effaced them 
from your memory, that happy period, when we 
scarcely dreamed more of the subjugation of the 
feeblest republic of Europe than of the conquest } 
of her mightie.st empire ; and tell me, if you can 
imagine a spectacle more beautiful to the moral 
eye, or a more striking proof of progress in the 
noblest principles of true civilization. 

These feeble states — these monuments of the 
Aiiofti.em justice of Europc — the asylum of 
tedTand'life^r pcacc, of industry, and of literature— 
press enslaved. ||^g Organs of public rcasou — the ref- 
uge of oppressed innocence and persecuted truth, 
have perished with those ancient principles which 
were their .sole guardians and protectors. They 
have been swallowed up by that fearful convul- 



sion which has shaken the uttermost corners of 
the earth. They are destroyed and gone for- 
ever. 

One as5'lum of free discussion is still inviolate. 
There is still one spot in Europe The liberty of 
where man can freely exercise his connned\oEn 
reason on the most important con- f'*.';!^^^'^p''*^ 

I asj lum in JLU- 

cerns of society, where he can bold- '"pe. 
ly publish his judgment on the acts of the proud- 
est and most powerful tyrants. The press of 
England is still free. It is guarded by the free 
Constitution of our forefathers. It is guarded 
by the hearts and arms of Englishmen, and I trust 
I may venture to say that if it be to fall, it will 
fall only under the ruins of the British empire. 

It is an awful consideration, gentlemen. Ev- 
ery other monument of European liberty has 
perished. That ancient fabric which has been 
gradually reared by the wisdom and virtue of 
our fcithers still stands. It stands, thanks be to 
God ! solid and entire ; but it stands alone, and 
it stands amid ruins. 

In these extraordinary circumstances, I repeat 
that I must consider this as the first „ 

. Restatement 

01 a long series ol conflicts between oftheques- 
the greatest power in the world and 
the only fi-ee press remaining in Europe. And 
I trust that you will consider yourselves as the 
advanced guard of liberty, as having this day to 
fight the first battle of free discussion against 
the most formidable enemy that it ever encoun- 
tered. You will therefore excuse me, if, on so 
important an occasion, I remind you, at more 
length than is usual, of those general principles 
of law and policy on this subject which have been 
handed down to us by our ancestors. 

III. Those who slowly built up the fabric of 
our laws never attempted any thing Pm-t Third: 
so absurd as to define, by any precise Jpert'TJ poii^- 
rule, the obscure and shifting bound- ^^Hibeis. 
aries which divide libel from history or discus- 
sion. It is a subject which, from its nature, ad- 
mits neither rules nor definitions. The same 
words may be perfectly innocent in one case, and 
most mischievous and libelous in another. A 
change of circumstances, often appar- Necessarily va- 
ently sliorht, is sufficient to make the risible in its ap- 

J n " plicatron, ac- 

whole difference. These chanjjes, cording to the 

... , "., circumstances 

which may be as numerous as the oftiieta.se and 
variety of human intentions and con- '>'■"'« t"°«s- 
ditions, can never be foreseen nor comprehended 
under any legal definitions, and the framers of 
our law have never attempted to subject them to 
such definitions. They left such ridiculous at- 
tempts to those who call themselves philosophers, 
but who have, in fact, proved themselves most 
grossly and .stupidly ignorant of that philosophy 
which is conversant with human affairs. 

The principles of the law of England on the 
subject of political libel are few and i.iai.ie to be- 

. , 1,1 •! come severe 

Simple, and they arc necessarily so and oppress 
broad, that, without a habitually mild ted'to'*t'he" 
administration of ju.stice, they might '«"er. 
encroach materially on the liberty of political 
discussion. Every publication which is intend- 
ed to vilify either our own government or the 



1803.] 



ON THE TRIAL OF JEAN PELTIER. 



831 



government of any foreign state in amity with 

this kingdom, is, by the law of England, a libel. 

To protect political discussion from 

Means of pro- ^ '^ , . , . , , , 

tection against the danger to which it would be ex- 
t IS seventy. ^^^^^ Y)y thcse wide principles, if 
they were severely and literally enforced, our an- 
cestors trusted to various securities — some grow- 
ing out of the law and Constitution, and others 
arising from the character of those public officers 
whom the Constitution had formed, and to whom 
its administration is committed. They tru.sted, 
. j^^ j,^^ in the first place, to the moderation of 
ci..iracterof thc legal officcrs ofthc Crown, educa- 
cutiiigoffi- ted in the maxims and imbued with 
'^^"' the spirit of a free government ; con- 

trolled by the superintending power of Parlia- 
ment, and peculiarly watched in all political 
prosecutions by the reasonable and wholesome 
jealousy of their fellow-subjects. And I am 
bound to admit that, since the glorious era of the 
Revolution [1688], making due allowance for 
the frailties, the faults, and the occasional vices 
of men, they have, upon the whole, not been dis- 
appointed. I know that in the hands of my 
learned friend that trust will never be abused. 
But, above all, they confided in the moderation 
and good sense of juries, popular in their origin, 
(b) And still popular in their feelings, popular in 
"umi'j'udg^ their very prejudices, taken from the 
feeUn'^s"of I'o^ss of the pcoplc, and immediately | 
thejuV returning to that mass again. By ! 
these checks and temperaments they hoped that | 
they should sufficiently repress malignant libels, | 
without endangering that freedom of inquiry 
which is the first security of a free state. They 
knew that the offense of a political libel is of a 
very peculiar nature, and differing in the most 
important particulars from all other crimes. In 
all other cases, the most severe execution of law 
can only spread terror among the guilty ; but in 
political libels it inspires even the innocent with 
Peeuiiar evils ^®^^- This Striking peculiarity ariscs 
offseveritv 111 froiii the Same cii-cumstances which 
poiiticaiii- make it impos.^^ble to define the limits 
of libel and innocent di.scussion ; which 
make it impossible for a man of the pui'cst and 
most honorable mind to be always perfectly cer- 
tain whether he be within the territory of fair 
argument and honest narrative, or whether he 
may not have unwittingly overstepped the faint 
and varying line which bounds them. But, gen- 
tlemen, I will go further. This is the only of- 
fense where severe and frequent punishments not 
only intimidate the innocent, but deter men from 
the most meritorious acts, and from rendering the 
most important services to their country. They 
indispose and disqualify men for the discharge 
of the most sacred duties which they owe to 
mankind. To inform the public on the conduct 
of those who administer public affairs requires 
courage and conscious security. It is always 
an invidious and obnoxious office ; but it is often 
the most necessary of all public duties. If it is 
not done boldly, it can not be done effectually, 
and it is not from writers trembling under the 
uplifted scourge that we are to hope for it. 



There are other matters, gentlemen, to which 
I am desirous of particularly calling peculiar induce- 
your attention. These are the cir- 'nentsforEn- 

.' _ ... gland to admit 

cumstances in the condition of this =>" exposure of 

, . , , . , , wrongs commit- 

country w^hich have induced our an- ted in on.er 
cestors, at all times, to handle with '^""'"•^'■'"• 
more than ordinary tenderness that branch of 
the liberty of discussion which is applied to the 
conduct of foreign states. The relation of this 
kingdom to the commonwealth of Europe is so 
peculiar, that no history, I think, furnishes a par- 
allel to it. From the moment in which we 
abandoned all projects of continental aggran- 
dizement, we could have no interest respecting 
the state of the Continent but the interests of na- 
tional safety and of commercial prosperity. The 
paramount interest of every state — that which 
comprehends every other — is security. And the 
security of Great Britain requires (^^ ^^^ security 
nothing on the Continent but the depends on the 

" „ . . ^ maintenance ot 

uniform observance of justice. It justice tiirough- 
requires nothing but the inviolabil- ""^ "'^°^^' 
ity of ancient boundaries and the sacredness of 
ancient possessions, which, on these subjects, is 
but another form of words for justice. A na- 
tion which is herself shut out from the possibil- 
ity of continental aggrandizement can have no 
interest but that of preventing such aggrandize- 
ment in others. We can have no interest of 
safety but the preventing of those encroachments 
which, by their immediate effects, or by their ex- 
ample, may be dangerous to ourselves. We can 
have no interest of ambition respecting the Con- 
tinent. So that neither our real, nor even our 
apparent interests, can ever be at variance with 
justice. 

As to commercial prosperity, it is, indeed, a 
secondary, but it is still a very im- (b)Hercommer- 
portant branch of our national inter- '"^' P''osperity. 
ests, and it requires nothing on the continent of 
Europe but the maintenance of peace, as far as 
the paramount interest of security will allow.^ 

Whatever ignorant or prejudiced men may af- 
firm, no war was ever gainful to a commercial 

^ It hardly need be mentioned that a feeling pre- 
vailed on 'Change that " the acquittal of Peltier would 
be considered in France as tantamount to a declara- 
tion of war." This feeling the jury were very like- 
ly to entertain, and while Mr. Mackintosh could not 
allude to it in direct terms, it was his object to at- 
tack it indirectly, and set it aside. Hence he goes 
on to expatiate in beautiful language, and with great 
ingenuity and truth, on the importance of peace to 
the commercial prosperity of England. This coin- 
cidence with the feelings of the jury as mercantile 
men would naturally give him their confidence ; and 
he then leads them on to see that peace is best pro- 
moted, on the whole, by maintaining the cause of po- 
htical justice throughout Europe ; that entire free- 
dom of remark on the part of the English press is 
favorable to this object ; and that tiie policy of En- 
gland has never been to purchase peace by with- 
holding her writers from the freest expression of 
their opinions respecting the crimes of other govern- 
ments. Considered in this light, the reader will see 
in the passage which follows an admirable instance 
of rhetorical skill. 



MR. MACKINTOSH 



[1803. I 



nation 

This dependent 



Losses may be less in some, and in- 
cidental profits may arise in others, 
on the peare ^ni no such profits ever formed an 

and prosperity , • r ^i * 

ofotherna adequate compensation lor the waste 
'^'°'"" of capital and industry which all wars 

must produce. Next to peace, our commercial 
greatness depends chiefly on the affluence and 
prosperity of our neighbors. A commercial na- 
tion has, indeed, the same interest in the wealth 
of her neighbors that a tradesman has in the 
wealth of his customers. The prosperity of 
England has been chiefly owing to the general 
proofress of civilized nations in the arts and im- 
provements of social life. Not an acre of land 
has been brought into cultivation in the wilds of 
Siberia or on the shores of the Mississippi which 
has not widened the market for English industry. 
It is nourished by the progressive prosperity of 
the world, and it amply repays all that it has re- 
ceived. It can only be employed in spreading 
civilization and enjoyment over the earth; and 
by the unchangeable laws of nature, in spite of 
the impotent tricks of government, it is now 
partly applied to revive the industry of those very 
nations who are the loudest in their senseless 
clamors against its pretended mischiefs. If the 
blind and barbarous project of destroying English 
prosperity could be accomplished, it could have 
no other effect than that of completely beggar- 
ing the very countries who now stupidly ascribe 
their own pov3rty to our wealth. 

Under these circumstances, gentlemen, it be- 
Andthe.=5are Came thc obvious policy of the king- 
dom, a policy in unison with the 
of a free government, to 
abroad. cousidcr with great indulgence even 

the boldest animadversions of our political writ- 
ers on the ambitious projects of foreign states. 

Bold, and sometimes indiscreet as these ani- 
madversions might be, they had, at 

Such an expo- rr r • i 

sure rouses to least, the effcct 01 warning the peo- 
resistance. ^j^ ^j. ^j^^j^ danger, and of rousing 

the national indignation against those encroach- 
ments which England has almost always been 
compelled in the end to resist by arms. Seldom, 
indeed, has she been allowed to wait till a prov- 
ident regard to her own safety should compel her 
to take up arms in defen.se of others. For as it 
was said by a great orator of antiquity that no 
man ever was the enemy of the republic who had 
not first declared war against him, so I may say, 
with truth, that no man ever meditated the sub- 
jugation of Europe who did not consider the de- 
struction or the corruption of England as the first 
condition of his success.^ If you examine his- 
tory, you will find that no such project was ever 
formed in which it was not deemed a necessary 



■i are 
promoted by 
exposing the de- 
signs of amhi- maxims 
tious rulers 



7 The words are those of Cicero in his second ora- 
tion airainst Anthony, " duonara meo fato, Patres 
Conscript!, fieri dicam, ut nemo, his annis vit^inti, 
reipublicae fuerit liostis, qui non belluni eodera tem- 
pore mihi qaoque indixerit?" How has it hap- 
pened. Conscript Fathers, that no one has come out 
as an enemy of the republic, for these last twenty 
years, who did not at the same time declare war 
against me ? 



preliminary, either to detach England from the 
common cause or to destroy her. It seems as 
if all the conspirators against the independence 
of nations might have sufficiently itaidsi'-ngiand 
taught other states that England is LmonVthe'na- 
their natural guardian and protector : t'<'"s of guard- 

S) I > ing public JU3- 

that she alone has no interest but their tice. 
preservation ; that her safety is interwoven with 
their own. When vast projects of aggrandize- 
ment are manifested, when schemes of criminal 
ambition are carried into effect, the day of battle 
is fast approaching for England. Her free gov- 
ernment can not engage in dangerous wars with- 
out the hearty and affectionate support of her 
people. A state thus situated can not without 
the utmost peril silence those public discussions 
which are to point the popular indignation against 
those who must soon be enemies. In domestic 
dissensions, it may sometimes be the supposed 
interest of government to overawe the press. 
But it never can be even their apparent interest 
when the danger is purely foreign. A King of 
England who, in such circumstances, should con- 
spire against the free press of this country, would 
undermine the foundations of his own throne ; he 
would silence the trumpet which is to call his 
people round his standard. 

Our ancestors never thought it their policy to 
avert the resentment of foreign ty- ^ever her poii- 
rants by enioininjr English writers to cy to check an- 

. ■' Y ^ , . . imadver.^ion 

contain and repress their just abhor- on foreign des- 
rence of the criminal enterprises of i""^'^'"' 
ambition. This great and gallant nation, which 
has fought in the front of every battle against the 
oppressors of Europe, has sometimes inspired 
fear, but, thank God, she has never felt it. We 
know that they are our real, and must soon be- 
come our declared foes. We know that there 
can be no cordial amity between the natural en- 
emies and the independence of nations. W^e have 
never adopted the cowardly and short- ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ 
sighted policy of silencing our press, sacrificed her 

» } / . . 1 ° 1 • , national spirit 

oi breaking the spirit and palsying the for an uncer- 
hearts of our people for the sake of a ^'" ''^''"" 
hollow and precarious truce. We have never 
been base enough to purchase a short respite 
from hostilities by sacrificing the first means of 
defense ; the means of rousing the public spirit 
of the people, and directing it against the ene- 
mies of their country and of Europe.^ 

Gentlemen, the public spirit of a people, by 
which I mean thc whole body of National spirit 
those affections which unites men's fff^^^^l^xTloi 
hearts to the commonwealth, is in **''^^"=- 

8 Here Mr. Mackintosh reaches the point aimed at 
in the last three paragraphs, viz., that the jvry must 
not sacrifice Mr. Peltier to propitiate Bonaparte, and 
adds force to his admonition by reminding them of 
what was becoming daily more manifest, that the 
peace of Amiens was only " a hollow and precarious 
truce." Sooner, probably, than he expected — only 
seventeen days after — the King sent a message to 
Parliament which showed that war was inevitable. 
It accordingly commenced May 18, 180.3. The noble 
passage which follows as to the means of cherishing 
national spirit vftiS,thereiove, peculiarly appropriate. 



1803.] 



ON THE TRIAL OF JEAN PELTIER. 



833 



various countries composed of various elements, 
and depends on a great variety of causes. In 
this country, I may venture to say that it mainly 
depends on the vigor of the popular parts and 
principles of our government, and that the spirit 
of liberty is one of its most important elements. 
Perhaps it may depend less on those advantages 
of a free government, which are most highly es- 
timated by calm reason, than upon those parts 
of it which delight the imagination, and flatter 
the just and natural pride of mankind. Among 
these we are certainly not to forget the political 
rights which are not uniformly withheld from the 
lowest classes, and the continual appeal made to 
them in public discussion, upon the greatest in- 
terests of the state. These are undoubtedly 
among the circumstances which endear to En- 
glishmen their government and their country, 
and animate their zeal for that glorious institu- 
tion w^hich confers on the meanest of them a sort 
of distinction and nobility unknown to the most 
illustrious slaves, who tremble at the frown of a 
tyrant. Whoever were unwarily and rashly to 
abolish or narrow these privileges, which it must 
be owned are liable to great abuse, and to very 
specious objections, might perhaps discover too 
late that he had been dismantling his country. 
Of w^hatever elements public spirit is composed, 
it is always and every where the chief defensive 
principle of a state. It is perfectly distinct from 
courage. Perhaps no nation, certainly no Eu- 
ropean nation, ever perished from an inferi- 
ority of courage. And undoubtedly no consid- 
erable nation was ever subdued in which the 
public affections were sound and vigorous. It is 
public .spirit which binds together the dispersed 
courage of individuals and fastens it to the com- 
monw-ealth. It is, therefore, as I have said, the 
chief defensive principle of every country. Of 
That spirit de- ^^' ^^^® stimulauts which arouse it into 

pendent on pre- actiou, thc HlOSt pOWCrful amOUg US 

is certainly the press ; and it can not 
be restrained or weakened w^ithout 
imminent danger that the national spirit may 
languish, and that the people may act with less 
zeal and affection for their country in the hour 
of its danger. 

These principles, gentlemen, are not new — 
they are genuine old English principles. And 
though in our days they have been disgraced 
and abused by ruffians and fanatics, they are in 
themselves as just and sound as they are liberal ; 
and they are the only principles on which a free 
state can be safely governed. These principles 
I have adopted since I first learned the use of 
reason, and I think I shall abandon them only 
with life. 

IV. On these principles I am now to call your 
PartFnurth: attention to thc libel with which this 
?nTd'l"fense Unfortunate gentleman is charged. I 
tieKbiica- heartily rejoice that I concur with the 
tions. greatest part of what has been said 

by my learned friend, Mr. Attorney General, 
who has done honor even to his character by 
the generous and liberal principles which he 
has laid down. He has told you that he does 

G G G 



serving tlie 1 
dom of the 
pres:/. 



not mean to attack historical narrative. He has 
told you that he does not mean to attack political 
discussion. He has told you, also, that he does 
not consider every intemperate word into which 
a writer, fairly engaged in narration or reason- 
ing, might be betrayed, as a fit subject for pros- 
ecution. The essence of the crime of libel con- 
sists in the malignant mind which the publica- 
tion proves, and from which it flows. A jury 
must be convinced, before they find a man guilty 
of libel, that his intention was to libel, not to 
state facts which he believed to be true, or rea- 
sonings w^hich he thought just. My learned 
friend has told you that the liberty of history in- 
cludes the right of publishing those observations 
which occur to intelligent men when they con- 
sider the affairs of the world ; and I think he 
will not deny that it includes also the right of 
expressing those sentiments which all good men 
feel on the contemplation of extraordinary exam- 
ples of depravity or excellence. 

One more privilege of the historian, which 
the Attorney General has not named, First Ground: 

'-'.epublish- 
historically 



but to which his principles extend, ed'/.!''"'^'" 



It IS now my duty to claim on be- ^'i',fi°e'j3''not 
half of my client; I mean the right •'^'^'e- 
of republishing., historically, those documents, 
whatever their original malignity may be, which 
display the character and unfold the intentions 
of governments, or factions, or individuals. I 
think my learned friend will not deny that a 
historical compiler may innocently republish in 
England the most insolent and outrageous dec- 
laration of war ever published against his Maj- 
esty by a foreign government. The intention 
of the original author was to vilify and degrade 
his Majesty's government ; but the intention of 
the compiler is only to gratify curiosity, or, per- 
haps, to rouse just indignation against the calum- 
niator whose production he republishes. His 
intention is not libelous — his republication is 
therefore not a libel. Suppose this to be the 
case with Mr. Peltier. Suppose him to have 
republished libels with a merely historical in- 
tention. In that case it can not be pretended 
that he is more a libeler than my learned friend, 
Mr. Abbott [junior counsel for the Crown, after- 
ward Lord Tenterden], who read these supposed 
libels to you when he opened the pleadings. 
Mr. Abbott republished them to you, that you 
might know and judge of them — Mr. Peltier, on 
the supposition I have made, also republished 
them, that the public might know and judge of 
them. 

You already know that thc general plan of 
Mr. Peltier's publication was to give His paper was 
a picture of the cabals and intritrues, pus'l "L r"c^' 
of the hopes and projects of French a„Tli"h''oid""' 
factions. It is undoubtedly a nat- f<"-iiiii>eir lan- 

•' . R'lage and feel- 

ural and necessary part of this plan "igs- 
to republish all the serious and ludicrous pieces 
which these factions circulate against each other. 
The ode ascribed to Chenier or Ginguene I do 
really believe to have been written at Paris, to 
have been circulated there, to have been there 
attributed to some one of these writers, to have 



834 



MR. MACKINTOSH 



[1803. 



been sent to England a.s their work, and as such 
to have been republished by Mr. Peltier. But 
I am not sure that I have evidence to convince 
you of the truth of this. Suppose that I have 
not ; will ray learned friend say that ray client 
must necessarily be convicted ? I, on the con- 
trary, contend that it is for my learned friend to 
show that it is not a historical republication. 
Such it professes to be, and that profession it is 
for him to disprove. The profession may indeed 
be '"a mask;" but it is for my friend to pluck 
off the mask, and expose the libeler, before he 
calls upon you for a verdict of guilty. 

If the general lawfulness of such republications 
Such an expo- bc denied, then I must ask IMr. At- 
be^n'^permTued tomey General to account for the long 
in England. impunity which English newspapers 
have enjoyed. I must request him to tell you 
why they have been suffered to republish all the 
atrocious, official and unofficial libels which have 
been published against his Majesty for the last 
ten years, by the Brissots, the Marats, the Dan- 
tons, the Robespierrcs, the Barreres, the Talliens, 
the Reubells, the Merlins, the Barrases, and all 
that long line of bloody tyrants who oppressed 
their own country and insulted every other which 
they had not the power to rob. What must be 
the answer ? That the English publishers were 
either innocent, if their motive was to gratify 
curiosity, or praiseworthy, if their intention was 
to rouse indignation against the calumniators of 
their country. If any other answer be made, I 
must remind my friend of a most sacred part of 
his duty — the duty of protecting the honest fame 
of those who are absent in the service of their 
country. Within these few days we have seen, 
in every newspaper in England, a publication, 
called the Report of Colonel Sebastian!, in which 
a gallant British officer [General Stuart] is 
charged with writing letters to procure assas- 
sination. The publishers of that infamous re- 
port are not, and will not be prosecuted, because 
their intention is not to libel General Stuai't. 
On any other principle, why have all our news- 
papers been suffered to circulate that most atro- 
cious of all libels against the King and people 
of England, which purports to be translated from 
the Moniteur of the ninth of August, 1 802 — a li- 
bel against a Prince who has passed through a 
factious and stormy reign of forty-three years, 
without a single imputation on his personal char- 
acter ; against a people who have passed through 
the severest trials of national virtue with unim- 
paired glory — who alone in the world can boast 
of mutinies without murder, of triumphant mobs 
without massacre, of bloodless revolutions, and 
of civil wars unstained by a single assassination. 
That most impudent and malignant libel which 
charges such a King of such a people, not only 
with having hired assassins, but with being so 
shameless, so lost to all sense of character, as to 
have bestowed on these assassins, if their murder- 
ous projects had succeeded, the highest badges 
of public honor, the rewards reserved for states- 
men and heroes — the order of the Garter — the 
order which was founded by the heroes of Cressy 



and Poitiers — the garter which was worn by 
Henry the Great and by Gustavus Adolphus, 
which might now be worn by the hero who, on 
the shores of Syria [Sir Sydney Smith] — the an- 
cient theater of English chivalry — has revived 
the renown of English valor and of English hu- 
manity — that unsullied garter which a detestable 
libeler dares to say is to be paid as the price of 
murder. 

If I had now to defend an English publisher 
for the republication of that abominable libel, 
what must I have said in his defense ? I must 
have told you that it was originally published by 
the French government in their official gazette ; 
that it was republished by the English editor to 
gratify the natural curiosity, perhaps to rouse 
the just resentment of his English readers. I 
should have contended, and, I trust, with success, 
that his republication of a libel was not libelous ; 
that it was lawful, that it was laudable. All 
that would be important, at least all that would 
be essential in such a defense, I now state to 
you on behalf of Mr. Peltier; and if an English 
newspaper may safely republish the libels of the 
French government against his Majesty, I shall 
leave you to judge whether Mr. Peltier, in similar 
circumstances, may not with equal safet}' repub- 
lish the libels of Chenier against the First Consul. 
On the one hand, you have the assurances of Mr. 
Peltier in the context that this ode is merely a 
republication — you have also the general plan of 
his work, with which such a republication is per- 
fectly consistent. On the other hand, you have 
only the suspicions of Mr. Attorney General that 
this ode is an original production of the defend- 
ant. 

But supposing that you should think it his 
production, and that you should also g^^„„j g^^^^j. 
think it a libel, even in that event, i.nie wrote jo- 

. . _ tlrically to ex- 

which I can not anticipate, I am not pose tiie prin- 
left without a defense. The ques- jTcobins, iiTL 
tion will still be open, " Is it a libel "°"'"''''- 
on Bonaparte, or is it a libel on Chenier or Gin- 
guene?" This is not an information for a libel 
on Chenier ; and if you should think that this ode 
was produced by Mr. Peltier, and ascribed by 
him to Chenier, for the sake of covering that 
writer with the odium of Jacobinism, the defend- 
ant is entitled to your verdict of not guilty. Or 
if you should believe that it is ascribed to Jaco- 
binical writers for the sake o{ satirizing a French 
Jacobinical faction, you must also, in that case, 
acquit him. Butler puts seditious and immoral 
language into the mouth of rebels and fanatics ; 
but Hudibras is not for that reason a libel on 
morality or government. Swift, in the most ex- 
quisite piece of irony in the world (his argument 
against the abolition of Christianity), uses the 
language of those shallow, atheistical coxcombs 
whom his satire was intended to scourge. The 
scheme of his irony required some levity and 
even some profancness of language. But no- 
body was ever so dull as to doubt whether Swift 
meant to satirize Atheism or religion. In the 
same manner, Mr. Peltier, when he wrote a sat- 
ire on French Jacobinism, was compelled to as- 



J803.] 



OxN THE TRIAL OF JEAN PELTIER. 



835 



cribe to Jacobins a Jacobinical hatred of govern- 
wii en writing ^ent. Hc was obliged, by dramatic 
name^of"che° P^'^pi'iety, to put into their mouths 
meT,heviusc those anarchical maxims which are 
aentmienuof Complained of in his ode. But it 
a Jacobin. ^|jj ^^ ^^j^^^ ^^^^^ incitements to in- 
surrection are here directed against the author- 
ity of Bonaparte. This proves nothing, because 
they must have been so directed, if the ode were 
a satire on Jacobinism. French Jacobins must 
inveigh against Bonaparte, because he exercises 
the powers of government. The satirist who 
attacks them must transcribe their sentiments 
and adopt their language. 

I do not mean to say, gentlemen, that Mr. Pel- 
tier feels any affection, or professes any alle- 
giance to Bonaparte. If I were to say so, he 
would disown me. He would disdain to pm-- 
chase an acquittal by the profession of sentiments 
which he disclaims and abhors. Not to love 
Bonaparte is no crime. The question is not 
whether Mr. Peltier loves or hates the First Con- 
sul, but whether he has put revolutionary lan- 
guage into the mouth of Jacobins with a view to 
paint their incorrigible turbulence, and to exhibit 
the fruits of Jacobinical revolutions to the de- 
testation of mankind. 

Now, gentlemen, we can not give a probable 
Proof that he ^uswer to this question without pre- 
spoke not his viouslv examining two or three ques- 

own feehngs, . •' ° i r- 

but iiiose of tions, on which the answer to the first 
must very much depend. Is there a 
faction in France which breathes the spirit, and 
Line of ar- IS Hkcly to cmploy the language of this 
gument. q jg 9 Does it perfectly accord with their 
character and views ? Is it utterly irreconcil- 
able with the feelings, opinions, and wishes of 
Mr. Peltier ? If these questions can be answered 
in the affirmative, then I think you must agree 
with me that Mr. Peltier does not in this ode 
speak his own sentiments, that he does not here 
vent his own resentment against Bonaparte ; but 
that he personates a Jacobin, and adopts his lan- 
guage for the sake of satirizing his principles. 

These questions, gentlemen, lead mo to those 
political discussions w^hich, generally speaking, 
are in a court of justice odious and disgusting. 
Here, however, they are necessary, and I shall 
consider them only as far as the necessities of 
this cause require. 

Gentlemen, the French Revolution — I must 
(a) French P^^^'^G after I hav6 uttered words which 
Revolution, prescut sucli an overwhelming idea. 

and origin i.^ '^ . 

of Jacobin- But I havc uot uow to cugagc in an 
enterprise so far beyond my force as 
that of examining and judging that tremendous 
Revolution. I have only to consider the char- 
acter of the factions which it must have left be- 
hind it.9 

The French Revolution bejian with creat and 



^ As Mr. Mackintosh had written in favor of the 
French Revolution at its early stages, and changed 
his views as he saw its progress and inevitable 
tendency, he is throughout this speech the more ex- 
plicit in expressing his abliorrence of its principles 
and its results. 



fatal errors. These errors produced atrocious 
crimes. A mild and feeble monarchy was suc- 
ceeded by bloody anarch}^, which very shortly 
gave birth to military despotism. France, in a 
few years, described the whole circle of human 
society. 

All this was in the order of nature. When 
every principle of authority and civil The crimes of 
discipline, when every principle which t''« Revolution 

, , ' *' ^ ' , , prepared the 

enables some men to command, and way for a miii- 
disposes others to obey, was extirpa- ^"J' <i^«p°»'«"»- 
ted from the mind by atrocious theories, and still 
more atrocious examples 5 when every old insti- 
tution was trampled down with contumely, and 
every new institution covered in its cradle with 
blood ; when the principle of property itself, the 
sheet-anchor of society, was annihilated ; when 
in the persons of the new possessors, whom the 
poverty of language obliges us to call proprie- 
tors, it was contaminated in its source by rob- 
bery and murder, and it became separated from 
that education and those manners, from that gen- 
eral presumption of superior knowledge and more 
scrupulous probity which form its only liberal 
titles to respect ; when the people were taught 
to despise every thing old, and compelled to de- 
test every thing new, there remained only one 
principle strong enough to hold society together, 
a principle utterly incompatible, indeed, with lib- 
erty and unfriendly to civilization itself, a tyran- 
nical and barbarous principle ; but in that mis- 
erable condition of human affairs, a refuge from 
still more intolerable evils. I mean the princi- 
ple of militaiy power which gains strength from 
that confusion and bloodshed in which all the 
other elements of society are dissolved, and 
which, in these terrible extremities, is the ce- 
ment that preserves it from total destruction. 

Under such circumstances, Bonaparte usurped 
the supreme power in France. I say 
usurped^ because an illegal assump- usurpation of 

.• c • • -r. that despotism. 

tion 01 powder is a usurpation. But 
usurpation in its strongest moral sense, is scarce- 
ly applicable to a period of lawless and savage 
anarchy. The guilt of military usurpation, in 
truth, belongs to the author of those confusions 
which sooner or later give birth to such a usurp- 
ation. 

Thus, to use the words of the historian : " By 
recent as well as all ancient example, it became 
evident that illegal violence, with whatever pre- 
tenses it may be covered, and whatever object it 
may pursue, must inevitably end at last in the 
arbitrary and despotic government of a single 
person. "'° But though the government of Bo- 
naparte has silenced the revolutionary „ , , 

c \.- ■ ^ 1 ■ , • ButtheJaco 

lactions, it has not and it can not have bm spirit stiu 
extinguished them. No human pow- '^'"^'"^ 
er could reimpress upon the minds of men all 
those sentiments and opinions which the sophistry 
and anarchy of fourteen years had obliterated. 
A faction must exist which breathes the spirit 
of the ode now before you. 

It is, I know, not the spirit of the quiet and 



Hume's Histoiy of England, vol. vii,. p. 220. 



836 MR. MACKINTOSH 

submissive majority of the French people. They 
., have always rather suffered than act- 

ft ot among the _ . _ •' _ . . „ , . , 



[1803. 



common peo- ed in the Revolution. Completely 
quietiy°submit- exhausted by the calamities through 
*^''" which they have passed, they yield 

to any power which gives them repose. There 
is, indeed, a degree of oppression which rouses 
men to resistance ; but there is another and 
a greater, which wholly subdues and unmans 
them. It is remarkable that Robespierre him- 
self was safe till he attacked his own accom- 
plices. The spirit of men of virtue was broken 
and there was no vigor of character left to de- 
stroy him, but in those daring ruffians who were 
the sharers of his tyranny. 

As for the wretched populace who were made 
the blind and senseless instrument of 

Thev are stu- . , „ 

pidiv ignorant SO many crmies, whose irenzy can 
on {he subject, ^^^ ^^ rcviewcd by a good mind with 
scarce any moral sentiment but that of compas- 
sion ; that miserable multitude of beings, scarce- 
ly human, have already fallen into a brutish for- 
getfulness of the very atrocities which they them- 
selves perpetrated. They have already forgot- 
ten all the acts of their drunken fury. If you ask 
one of them. Who destroyed that magnificent 
monument of religion and art ? or who perpe- 
trated that massacre? they stupidly answer, 
the Jacobins ! though he w^ho gives the answer 
was probably one of these Jacobins himself ; so 
that a traveler, ignorant of French history, might 
suppose the Jacobins to be the name of some 
Tartar horde who, after laying waste France for 
ten years, were at last expelled by the native in- 
habitants. They have passed from senseless 
rage to stupid quiet. Their delirium is followed 
by lethargy. 

In a word, gentlemen, the great body of the 
ar.d trnined to pcoplc of Fraucc havc bccu Severely 
subjection. trained in those convulsions and pro- 
scriptions which are the school of .slavery. They 
are capable of no mutinous, and even of no bold 
and manly political sentiments. And if this ode 
professed to paint their opinions, it would be a most 
unfaithful picture. But it is otherwise with those 
who have been the actors and leaders in the scene 
of blood. It is otherwise with the numerous 
agents of the most indefatigable, searching, mul- 
tiform, and omnipresent tyranny that ever existed, 
which pervaded every class of society which had 
ministers and victims in every village in France. 

Some of them, indeed, the basest of the race, 
the sophists, the rhetors, the poet- 
laureates of murder, who were cruel 



bonie, espe- 
cially literary 

ti'eir'service.sto Only from cowardicc and calculating 

lernment. ^.,d ..._ r„„..i„ „,j]jj 



the 



selfishness, are perfectly willing to 
transfer their venal pens to any government that 
does not di.sdaio their infamous support. These 
men, Republicans from servility, who published 
rhetorical panegyrics on massacre, and who re- 
duced plunder to a system of ethics, are as ready 
Rut others still to prcach slavcry as anarchy. But 
Sint''o''r'" the more daring, I had almost said, 
jax:obinis.B. t^c morc respcctablc ruffians, can 
not so easily bend their heads under the yoke. 
These fierce spirits have not lost 



" The unconquerable will, 
And study of revenge, immortal hate."^^ 

They leave the luxuries of servitude to the mean 
and dastardly hypocrites, to the Belials and Mam- 
mons of the infernal faction. They pursue their 
old end of t3Tanny under their old pretext of 
liberty. The recollection of their unbounded 
power renders eveiy inferior condition irksome 
and vapid ; and their former atrocities form, if I 
may so speak, a sort of moral destin}^ which ir- 
resistibly impels them to the perpetration of new 
crimes. They have no place left for penitence 
on earth. They labor under the most awful pro- 
scription of opinion that ever was pronounced 
against human beings. They have cut down ev- 
ery bridge by which they could retreat into the 
society of men. Awakened from their dreams 
of Democracy, the noise subsided that deafened 
their ears to the voice of humanity ; the film fall- 
en from their e3'es which hid from them the 
blackness of their own deeds ; haunted by the 
memory of their inexpiable guilt ; condemned 
daily to look on the faces of those whom their 
hands made widows and orphans, they are goad- 
ed and scourged by these real furies, and hur- 
ried into the tumult of new crimes, which will 
drown the cries of remorse, or, if they be too de- 
praved for remorse, will silence the curses of 
mankind. '■* Tyrannical power is their only ref- 
uge from the just vengeance of their fellow-creat- 
ures. Murder is their only means of usurping 
power. They have no taste, no occupation, no 
pursuit but power and blood. If their hands are 
tied, they must at least have the luxury of mur- 
derous projects. They have drunk too deeply of 
human blood ever to relinquish their cannibal 
appetite. 

Such a faction exists in France. It is numer- 
ous : it is powerful ; and it has a prin- ^^^^.^ number 
ciple of fidelity stronger than any that ^^''^'" France. 
ever held together a society. They are banded 
together by despair of forgiveness, by the unani- 
mous detestation of mankind. They are now 
contained by a severe and stern government. 
But they still meditate the renew^al of insurrec- 
tion and massacre ; and they are prepared to re- 
new the worst and most atrocious of their crimes, 
that crime against posterity and against human 
nature itself, that crime of which the latest gen- 
erations of mankind may feel the fatal conse- 
quences — the crime of degrading and prostitut- 
ing the sacred name of liberty.'^ 

'^ Milton's Paradise Lost, book ii. 

12 The furies in ancient mythology were consider- 
ed as " hunters of men," who pursued the guilty as 
they fled before them, whether into retirement or the 
crowded scenes of life, and inflicted upon them the 
just punishment of their crimes. 

1^ There is a depth of thought, a pow^er of combi- 
nation, and a glow of eloquence in this description 
of the French Jacobins, w^liich Burke alone could 
have equaled. There is also a startling air of para- 
dox in saying that these faithless villains were unit- 
ed b}' " a principle of hdelity stronger than any that 
ever held a society together." The thought flashes 
across the mind. What can that principle he? and 
the next sentence gives a complete answer: "They 



1803] 

I must own, that however paradoxical it may 
They are more appear, I should ahnost think not 
[itanThal'rl-ei- worsc, but Hiore mcanlj of them if it 
lows who have wcrc Otherwise. I must then think 

joined the gov- i • i t 

eminent them destitute of that which 1 will 

not call courage, because that is the name of a 
virtue ; but of that ferocious energy which alone 
rescues ruffians from contempt. If they were 
destitute of that which is the heroism of mur- 
derers, they would be the lowest as well as the 
most abominable of beings. 

It is impossible to conceive any thing more 
despicable than wretches who, after hectoring 
and bullying over their meek and blameless 
sovereign and his defenseless family, whom they 
kept so long in a dungeon trembling for their 
existence — whom they put to death by a slow 
torture of three years, alter playing the Repub- 
lican and the tyrannicide to women and chil- 
dren, become the supple and fawning slaves of 
the first government that knows how to wield 
the scourge with a firm hand. 

I have used the word Republican because it is 
the name by which this atrocious fac- 

Xn no sense J 

are they true tiou dcscribcs itsclf. The assumption 

Republicans. „ , . r ..i • 

of that name is one ot their crimes. 
They are no more Republicans than Royalists. 
They are the common enemies of all human so- 
ciety. God forbid that by the use of that word 
I should be supposed to i-eflect on the members 
of those respectable Republican communities 
which did exist in Europe before the French 
Revolution. That Revolution has spared many 
monarchies, but it has spared no republic within 
the sphere of its destructive energy. One re- 
public only now exi.sts in the world — a republic 
of English blood, which was originally composed 
of Republican societies, under the protection of 
a monarchy, which had, therefore, no great and 
perilous change in their internal constitution to 
effect ; and of which, I speak it with pleasure 
and pride, the inhabitants, even in the convul- 



ON THE TRIAL OF JEAN PELTIER. 



837 



are banded together by despair of forgiveness, by 
the unanimous detestation of mankind." Demosthe- 
nes sometimes uses paradox to rouse the attention 
of his hearers, but he has no instance of it equal to 
this. 

Madame De Stael. in her " Ten Years of Exile," 
thus speaks of this passage. "It was during this 
stormy period of my existence that I received the 
speech of Mr. Mackintosh ; and there read his de- 
scription of a Jacobin, who had made himself an ob- 
ject of terror during the Revolution to children, 
women, and old men, and who was now bending 
himself double under the rod of the Corsican, who 
tears from him, even to the last atom, that liberty 
for which he pretended to have taken arms. This 
morceau of the finest eloquence touched me to my 
very soul ; it is the privilege of superior writers 
sometimes unwittingly to solace the unfortunate in 
all countries and at all times. France was in a state 
of such complete silence around me, that this voice, 
which suddenly responded to my soul, seemed to 
me to come down from heaven — it came from a land 
of liberty !" 

She afterward translated the whole speech into 
French, and thus made it widely known on the Con- 
tinent. 



ing exactly the 
feelings of the 



sions of a most deplorable separation, displayed 
the humanity as well as valor which, I trust I 
may say, they inherited from their foreftithers. 

Nor do I mean by the use of the word " Re- 
publican" to confound this execra- Nor does a Re- 

ble faction with all those who, in the enm.entfeJm 
liberty of private speculation, may ^l^'^^^,^,:;^,;.';:, 
prefer a Republican form of govern- of Europe. 
ment. I own that, after much reflection, I am 
not able to conceive an error more gross than 
that of those who believe in the possibility of 
erecting a republic in any of the old monarchical 
countries of Europe, who believe that in such 
countries an elective supreme magistracy can 
produce any thing but a succession of stern tyr- 
annies and bloody civil wars. It is a supposi- 
tion which is belied by all experience, and which 
betrays the greatest ignorance of the first prin- 
ciples of the constitution of society. It is an 
error which has a false appearance of superior- 
ity over vulgar prejudice ; it is, therefore, too apt 
to be attended with the most criminal rashness 
and presumption, and too easy to be inflamed 
into the most immoral and anti-social fanaticism. 
But as long as it remains a mere quiescent er- 
ror, it is not the proper subject of moral disap- 
probation. 

If then, gentlemen, such a faction, falsely call- 
ing itself Republican, exists in France, But such Jac- 
let us consider whether this ode speaks France, hav" 
their sentiments, describes their char- 
acter, agrees with their views. Try- , ^ 

. ' ~ . •' the name of 

ing it by the principle I have stated, cheuier. 
I think you will have no difficulty in concluding 
that it is agreeable to the general plan of this 
publication to give a historical and satirical view 
of the Brutuses and brutes of the republic — of 
those who assumed and disgraced the name 
of Brutus,^"* and who, under that name, sat as 
judges in their mock tribunals, with pistols in 
their girdles, to anticipate the office of the exe- 
cutioner on those unfortunate men whom they 
treated as rebels, for resistance to Robespierre 
and Couthon. 

I now come to show you that this ode can 
not represent the opinions of Mr. ,^. j^^^^^ ^^^j 
Peltier. He is a French Royalist, ings have noth- 

TT 1 1 11. 1 1 '"S in common 

He has devoted his talents to the with those of 
cause of his King. For that cause 
he has sacrificed his fortune and hazarded his 
life. For that cause he is proscribed and exiled 
from his country. I could easily conceive pow- 
erful topics of Royalist invective against Bona- 
parte ; and if Mr. Peltier had called upon French- 
men by the memor}^ of St. Louis and Henry the 
Great, by the memory of that illustrious family 
which reigned over them for seven centuries, and 
with whom all their martial renown and literary 
glory are so closely connected ; if he had ad- 
jured them by the spotless name of that Louis 
XVI., the martyr of his love for his people, which 
scarce a man in France can now pronounce but 
in the tone of pity and veneration ; if he had thus 
called upon them to change their useless regret 
'* Citizen Brutus, president of the Military Com- 
mission, at Marseilles, in January, 1794. 



838 



MR. MACKINTOSH 



[1803. 



and their barren pity into generous and active 
indignation ; if he had reproached the conquer- 
ors of Europe with the disgrace of being the 
slaves of an upstart stranger ; if he had brought 
before their minds the contrast between their 
country under her ancient monarch — the source 
and model of refinement in manners and taste — 
and since their expulsion the scourge and the 
opprobrium of humanity ; if he had exhorted 
them to drive out their ignoble tyrants and to re- 
store their native sovereign ; I should then have 
recognized the voice of a Royalist. I should 
have recognized language that must have flowed 
from the heart of Mr. Peltier, and I should have 
been compelled to acknowledge that it was point- 
ed against Bonaparte, 



and to punish those who delivered you from them. 
I exhort you to reverence the den of these ban- 
ditti as ' the sanctuary of the laws,' and to la- 
ment the day in which this intolerable nuisance 
was abated as 'an unfortunate day.' Last of 
all, I exhort you once more to follow that de- 
plorable chimera — the first lure that led you to 
destruction — the sovereignty of the people — 
though I know, and you have bitterly felt, that 
you never were so much slaves in fact as since 
you have been sovereigns in theory !" 

Let me ask, Mr. Attorney General, whether, 
upon his supposition, I have not given you a 
faithful translation of this ode ; and I think I 
may safely repeat that if this be the language 
of a Royalist addressed to Royalists, it must be 



These, or such as these, must have been the the production of a lunatic. But on my supposi- 



The senti- topics of a Royalist, if he had published 
mentsoftiiat ^^ invcctivc agaiust the First Consul. 

ode would be ^ ... 

nonsense in But instead of tlicsc Or Similar topics, 

the mouth of , , . , . i <^ /-\ i 

Mr. Peltier as what havc we in this ode .'' On the 
aKoyahst. supposition that it is the invective of 
a Royalist, how is it to be reconciled to common 
sense ? What purpose is it to serve ? To 
whom is it addressed ? To what interests does 
it appeal ? What passions is it to rouse ? If it 
be addressed to Royalists, then I request, gen- 
tlemen, that you will carefully read it, and tell 



tion, every thing is natural and consistent. You 
have the sentiments and language of a Jacobin. 
It is therefore probable^ if you take it as a his- 
torical republication of a Jacobin piece. It is 
just, if you take it as a satirical representation 
of Jacobin opinions and projects. 

Perhaps it will be said that this is the produc- 
tion of a Royalist writer, who as- Equally non- 

T-> J T I- • . seiisicalif tbey 

sumes a Republican disguise to serve are supposed 
Royalist purposes; but if my learn- hlndresstr"' 
ed friend chooses that supposition, I P''"m"te the 

1 t 5 designs of a 



whether, on that supposition, it can be any think an equal absurdity returns upon Roj^aiist. 



thing but the ravings of insanity, and whether a 
commission of lunacy be not a proceeding more 
fitted to the author's case than a conviction for 
a libel. On that supposition, I ask you whether 
it does not amount in substance to such an ad- 
dress as the following? "Frenchmen, Royal- 
ists, I do not call upon you to avenge the mur- 
der of your innocent Sovereign, the butchery of 
your relations and friends, the disgrace and 
oppression of your country ! I call upon you 
by the hereditary right of Barras, transmitted 
through a long series of ages, by the beneficent 
government of Merlin and Reubell, those worthy 
successors of Charlemagne, whose authority was 
as mild as it was lawful — I call upon you to re- 
venge on Bonaparte the despotism of that Direc- 
tory who condemned the far greater part of your- 
selves to beggary and exile, who covered France 
with Bastiles and scaflfolds ; who doomed the 
most respectable remaining members of their 
community — the Pichegrues, the Barbe Marbois, 
the Barthelemis — to a lingering death in the pes- 
tilential wilds of Guiana. I call upon you to 
avenge on Bonaparte the cause of those councils 
of five hundred or of two hundred, of elders or 
of youngsters, those disgusting and nauseous 
mockeries of representative assemblies — those 
miserable councils which sycophant sophists had 
converted into machines for fabricating decrees 
of proscription and confiscation, which not only 
proscribed unborn thousands, but, by a refine- 
ment and innovation in rapine, visited the sins 
of the children upon the fathers, and beggared 
parents, not for the offtMises, but for the misfor- 
tunes of their sons. I call upon you to restore 
this Directory and these councils, and all this 
horrible profanation of the name of a republic, 



him in another shape. We must, then, suppose 
it to be intended to excite Republican discontent 
and insurrection against Bonaparte. It must, 
then, be taken as addressed to Republicans. 
Would Mr. Peltier in that case have disclosed 
his name as the publisher ? Would he not much 
rather have circulated the ode in the name of 
Chenier, without prefixing his own, which was 
more than suflficient to warn his Jacobinical 
readers against all his counsels and exhortations. 
If he had circulated it under the name of Chenier 
only, he would, indeed, have hung out Republic- 
an colors ; but by prefixing his own, he appears 
without disguise. You must suppose him then 
to say : " Republicans ! I, your mortal enemy for 
fourteen years, whom you have robbed of his all, 
whom you have forbidden to revisit his country 
under pain of death, who, from the beginning of 
the Revolution, unceasingly poured ridicule upon 
your follies, and exposed your crimes to detes- 
tation, who in the cause of my unhappy Sover- 
eign braved your daggers for three years, and 
who escaped almost b}- miracle from your assas- 
sins in September, who has since been constant- 
ly employed in warning other nations by your 
example, and in collecting the evidence upon 
which history will pronounce your condemnation ; 
I, who at this moment deliberately choose exile 
and honorable poverty, rather than give the 
slightest mark of external compliance with your 
abominable institutions ; I, your most irreconcil- 
able and indefatigable enemy, offer you counsel 
which you know can only be a snare into which I 
expect you to fall, though by the mere publication 
of my name I have sufficiently forewarned you 
that I can have no aim but that of your destruc- 
tion." 



1803.] 



ON THE TRIAL OF JEAN PELTIER. 



Comments on 

particular tO COnfirm 

passages. 



I ask you again, gentlemen, is this common 
The ode was, scnsc ? Is it Hot as clcar, from the 
therefore, ei-' name of the author, that it is not ad- 

ther written by i t i ■ r i 

chenierorde- dressetl to Jacobms, as, Irom the con- 
p^e hi^slnti- tents of the publication, that it is not 
'"^"*' addressed to Royalists ? It may be 

the genuine work of Chenier, for the topics are 
such as he would employ. It may be a satire 
on Jacobinism, for the language is well adapt- 
ed to such a composition. But it can not be a 
Royalist's invective against Bonaparte, intended 
by him to stir up either Royalists or Republic- 
ans to the destruction of the First Consul. 
I can not conceive it to be necessary that I 

should minutely examine this poem 
my construction. There 

are one or two passages on which I 
shall make a few observations. The first is the 
contrast between the state of England and that 
of France, of which an ingenious friend has fa- 
vored me with a translation, which I shall take 
the liberty of reading to you.^'' 

Her glorious fabric England rears 

Ou law's fixed base alone; 
Law's gnardiau pow'r while each reveres, 
England ! thy people's freedom fears 

No danger from the Throne. 

For there, before the almighty Law, 
High birth, high place, with pious awe, 

In reverend bomage bend : 
There man's free spirit, unconstrain'd 
Exults, in man's best rights maintain'd. 
Rights, which by ancient valor gain'd, 

Fi'om age to age descend. 

Bi'itons, by no base fear dismay'd. 
May power's worst acts arraign: 

Does tyrant force their rights invade ? 

They call on Law's impartial aid. 
Nor call that aid in vain. 

Hence, of her sacred charter proud. 
With every earthly good endow'd. 

O'er subject seas unfurl'd, 
Britannia waves her standard wide, 
Hence, sees her freighted navies ride 
Up wealthy Thames' majestic tide, 

The wonder of the world. 

Here, at first sight, you may perhaps think 
that the consistency of the Jacobin character is 
not supported, that the Republican disguise is 
thrown off, that the Royalist stands unmasked 
before you ; but, on more consideration, you will 
find that such an inference would be too hasty. 
The leaders of the Revolution are now reduced 
to envy that British Constitution which, in the 
infatuation of their presumptuous ignorance, they 
once rejected with scorn. They are now slaves, 
as they themselves confess, because twelve years 
ago they did not believe Englishmen to be free. 
They can not but see that England is the only 
popular government in Europe, and they are 
compelled to pay a reluctant homage to the jus- 
tice of English principles. The praise of En- 
gland is too striking a satire on their own gov- 
ernment to escape chem ; and I may accordingly 



^5 We learn from Mr. Mackintosh's son that Mr. 
Canning was the author of this beautiful translation. 



venture to appeal to all those who know any 
thing of the political circles of Paris, whether 
such contrasts between France and England as 
that which I have read to you be not the most 
favorite topics of the opponents of Bonaparte. 
But in the very next stanza, 

Cependant, encore affligee 
Par I'odieuse heredite, 
Londres de titres surchargee, 
Londres n'a pas I'EgaliU.^^ 

You see, that though they are forced to surren- 
der an unwilling tribute to our liberty, they can 
not yet renounce all their fantastic and deplora- 
ble chimeras. They endeavor to make a com- 
promise between the experience on which they 
can not shut their eyes, and the wretched sys- 
tems to which they still cling. Fanaticism is 
the most incurable of all mental diseases ; be- 
cause in all its forms, religious, philosophical, or 
political, it is distinguished by a sort of mad con- 
tempt for experience, which alone can correct 
the erroi's of practical judgment. And these 
democratical fanatics still speak of the odious 
principle of " hereditary government." They 
still complain that we have not " equality." 
They know not that this odious principle of in- 
heritance is our bulwark against tyranny; that 
if we had their pretended equality, we should 
soon cease to be the objects of their envy. 
These are the sentiments which you would nat- 
urally expect from half-cured lunatics. But 
once more I ask you, whether they can be the 
sentiments of Mr. Peltier ? Would he complain 
that we have too much monarchy, or too much 
of what they call aristocracy ? If he has any 
prejudices against the English government, must 
they not be of an entirely opposite kind '? 

I have only one observation more to make on 
this poem. It relates to the passage comments on 
which is 

ment to assassination.^^ In my 
of considering the subject, Mr. Pel- of Bonaparte, 
tier is not answerable for that passage, whatev- 
er its demerits may be. It is put into the mouth 
of a Jacobin; and it will not, I think, be af- 
fii'med that if it were an incitement to assassin- 
ate, it would be very unsuitable to his charac- 
ter. Experience, and very recent experience, 
has abundantly proved how widely the French 
Revolution has blackened men's imaginations, 
what a daring and desperate cast it has given to 
their characters, how much it has made them 
regard the most extravagant projects of guilt 



supposed to be an incite- p';fsi'd tn'rec- 



^^ A literal translation affords the best means of 
judging in this case, and such a translation will, 
therefore be given — " London, still suffering under 
the evils of hereditary rank, wealth, &c. ; London, 
burdened with titles [of nobility, &c.], has no equal- 
ity !" 

^'' The words were these, alluding to the death 
of Cesar by the hand of Brutus : 

" Rome, dans ce revers funeste, 
Pour te venger au moins il reste 
Un poignard aux derniers Remains." 
Rome, in this sad reverse, there remains, at least, 
a dagger to avenge thee among the last Romans. 



840 



MR. MACKINTOSH 



[1803. 



as easy and ordinary expedients ; and to what a 
horrible extent it has familiarized their minds to 
crimes which before were only known among 
civilized nations by the history of barbarous 
times, or as the subject of poetical fiction. But, 
thank God, gentlemen, we in England have not 
learned to charge any man with inciting assas- 
sination, not even a member of that atrocious 
sect who have revived political assassination in 
Christendom, except when we are compelled to 
do so by irresistible evidence. Where is that 
evidence here ? In general, it is immoral, be- 
cause indecent to speak with levity, still more to 
anticipate with pleasure, the destruction of any 
human being. But between this immorality and 
the horrible crime of inciting to assassination, 
there is a wide interval indeed. The real or 
supposed author of this ode gives you to under- 
stand that he would hear with no great sorrow of 
the destruction of the First Consul. But surely 
the publication of that sentiment is very differ- 
ent from an exhortation to assassinate. 

But, says my learned friend, why is the ex- 
ample of Brutus celebrated ? Why are the 
French reproached with their baseness in not 
copying that example? ^ Gentlemen, I have no 
judgment to give on the act of Mo.rcus Brutus. 
I rejoice that I have not. I should not dare to 
condemn the acts of brave and virtuous men in 
extraordinary and terrible circumstances, and 
which have been, as it w^ere, consecrated by the 
veneration of so many ages. Still less should I 
dare to weaken the authority of the most sacred 
rules of duty by praises which would be immoral, 
even if the acts themselves were in some meas- 
ure justified by the awful circumstances under 
which they were done. I am not, in the words 
of Mr. Burke, the paneg3Tist of "those instances 
of doubtful public spirit at which morality is per- 
plexed, reason is staggered, and from which af- 
frighted nature recoils." 

But whatever we may think of the act of 
Brutus, surely my learned friend will not contend 
that every allusion to it, every panegyric on it 
which has appeared for eighteen centuries, in 
prose and verse, is an incitement to assassination. 
From the Conspicuce Divina Pkillipica Famae^ 
down to the last school-boy declamation, he will 
find scarce a work of literature without such al- 
lusions, and not very many without such pane- 
gyrics. I must say that he has construed this 
ode more like an Attorney General than a critic 
in poetry. According to his construction, al- 
most every fine writer in our language is a 
preacher of murder.'^ 



^^ The quotation above is from the tenth satire of 
Juvenal, line 125. 

Divine Phillipic of illustrious fame. 

The poet refers to the second Oration of Cicero 
against Anthony, containing the well-known pas- 
sage, " Caisare interfecto statim cruentum alte ex- 
toUens Marcus Brutus pugionem, Ciceronem nom- 
inatira exclamavit, atque ei recuperatam libertatem 
est gratulatus." 

Akenside has given a free translation of the 
words in his celebrated lines on moral sublimity. 
' Look then abroad through nature, to the range 



Having said so much on the first of these sup- 
posed libels, I shall be very short on 

.1 ^ ^1 ^ . 1 Comment on 

the two that remam — the verses as- the lines a«. 
cribed to a Dutch patriot, and the S.^ 
parody of the speech of Lepidus. In ^""'■ 
the first of these, the piercing eye of Mr. Attorn- 
ey General has again discovered an incitement 
to assassinate — the most learned incitement to 
assassinate that ever was addressed to such ig- 
norant ruffians as are most likely to be employed 
for such nefarious purposes \^^ An obscure al- 
lusion to an obscure and perhaps fabulous part 
of Roman history, to the supposed murder of 
Romulus, about which none of us know any 
thing, and of which the Jacobins of Paris and 
Amsterdam probably never heard. But the apo- 
theosis ! Here my learned friend has a little for- 
gotten himself. He seems to argue as if apo- 
theosis always presupposed death. But he must 
know that Augustus, and even Tiberius and Nero, 
were deified during their lives, and he can not 
have forgotten the terms in which one of the 
court poets of Augustus speaks of his master's 
divinity : 

Proesens divus habebitur 

Augustus adjectis Britannis 
Imperio.^" 

If any modern rival of Augustus should choose 
that path to Olympus,'^^ I think he will find it 
more steep and rugged than that by which Pol- 
lux and Hercules climbed to the ethereal towers, 
and that he must be content with purpling his 
lips with Burgundy on earth, as he has very lit- 
tle chance of purpling them with nectar among 
the gods. 

The utmost that can seriously be made of this 
passage is, that it is a wish for a man's xi.ey express 



for the decency of publicly declaring 
such wishes, or even for the propriety 
of entertaining them ; but the distance between 



pane's death, 
not for liis as- 
sassination. 



Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres 
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense ; 
And speak, O man ! does this capacious scene 
With half that kindling majesty dilate 
Thy strong conception, as when Bndus rose 
Refulgent from the stroke of Ccesar's fate, 
Amid the crowd of patriots ; and his arm 
Aloft extending-, like eternal Jove 
When gvilt brings doion the thunder, call'd aloud 
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel, 
And hade the Father of his Country hail ! 
For lo ! the tyrant prostrate on the dust, 
And Rome again is free ! 

Pleasures of the Imagination, Book i. 
^' The passage referred to is at the close of a 
short poem, entitled " Vosu d'un bon Patriot," Wish 
of a good patriot : 

" Enfin (et Romulus nous rappelle la chose) 
Je fais voeu — des demain qu'il ait I'apoth^ose !" 
Finally (and Romulus recalls the thing to mind), 
I wish that on the morrow he may have his apothe- 
osis. 
2° A present God, Augustus shall be worshiped, 
With Britons added to his wide domains. 

Horace, Odes, Book iii., Ode 5. 
21 Alluding to any attempt that Bonaparte might 
make to invade Enjrland. 



1803.] 



ON THE TRIAL OF JEAN PELTIER. 



841 



such a wish and a persuasive to murder is im- 
mense. Such a wish for a man's death is very 
often little more than a strong, though, I admit, 
not a very decent way of expressing detestation 
for his character. 

But without pursuing this argument any fur- 
ther, I think myself entitled to apply to these 
verses the same reasoning which I have already 
applied to the first supposed libel on Bonaparte. 
If they be the real composition of a pretended 
Dutch patriot, Mr. Peltier may republish them 
innocently. If they be a satire on such pretend- 
ed Dutch patriots, they are not a libel on Bona- 
parte. Granting, for the sake of argument, that 
they did entertain a serious exhortation to assas- 
sinate, is there any thing in such an exhortation 
inconsistent with the character of these pretend- 
ed patriots ? • 

They who were disaffected to the mild and 

„, . - tolerant government of their flourish- 
character of s . , . , 
the Dutch ing couutry. because it did not exactly 

square with all their theoretical whim- 
sies ; they who revolted from that administra- 
tion as tyrannical, which made Holland one of the 
wonders of the world for protected industry, for 
liberty of action and opinion, and for a prosperity 
which I may venture to call the greatest victory 
of man over hostile elements ; they who called 
in the aid of the fiercest tyrants that Europe 
ever saw, who served in the armies of Robes- 
pierre, under the impudent pretext of giving lib- 
erty to their country, and who have finally bur- 
ied in the same grave its liberty, its independ- 
ence, and perhaps its national existence, they are 
not men entitled to much tenderness from a po- 
litical satirist, and he will scarcely violate dra- 
matic propriety if he impute to them any lan- 
guage, however criminal and detestable. They 
who could not brook the authority of their old, 
lazy, good-natui'ed government, are not likely to 
endure with patience the yoke of that stern dom- 
ination which they have brought upon them- 
selves, and which, as far as relates to them, is 
only the just punishment of their crimes. They 
who call in tyrants to establish liberty, who sac- 
rifice the independence of their country under 
pretense of reforming its internal constitution, 
are capable of every thing. 

I know nothing more odious than their char- 
More odious acter, unless it be that of those who 
cepttirose^of invokcd the aid of the oppressors of 
Ireland. Switzerland to be the deliverers of 
Ireland ! Their guilt has, indeed, peculiar ag- 
gravations. In the name of liberty, they were 
willing to surrender their country into the hands 
of tyrants, the most lawless, faithless, and mer- 
ciless that ever scourged Europe ; who, at the 
very moment of their negotiation, were covered 
with the blood of the unhappy Swiss, the martyrs 
of real independence and of real liberty. Their 
success would have been the destruction of the 
only free community remaining in Europe — of 
England, the only bulwark of the remains of Eu- 
ropean independence. Their means were the 
passions of an ignorant and barbarous peasantry, 
and a civil war, which could not fail to produce 



all the horrible crimes and horrible retaliations 
of the last calamity that can befall society — a 
servile revolt. They sought the worst of ends 
by the most abominable of means. They labored 
for the subjugation of the world at the expense 
of crimes and miseries which men of humanity 
and conscience would have thought too great a 
price for the deliverance of mankind. 

The last of these supposed libels is the parody 
on the speech of Lepidus, in the frag- p^^^jy on 
ments of Sallust. It is certainly a very the speech 

, , 1 r ' . "^ ot Lepulus. 

ingenious and happy parody ot an orig- 
inal, attended with some historical obscurity and 
difficulty, which it is no part of our present busi- 
ness to examine.'^'^ This parody is said to have 
been clandestinely placed among the papers of 
one of the most amiable and respectable men in 
France, M. Camille Jordan, in order to furnish a 
pretext for involving that excellent person in a 
charge of conspiracy. This is said to have been 
done by a spy of Fouche. Now, gentlemen, I 
take this to be a satire on Fouche, on Applied lo 
his manufacture of plots — on his con- f'^"'^''^ 
trivances for the destruction of innocent and vir- 
tuous men — and I should admit it to be a libel 
on Fouche, if it were possible to libel him. I 
own that I should like to see Fouche appear as 
a plaintiff, seeking reparation for his injured 
character, before any tribunal safe from his fangs, 
where he had not the power of sending the judges 
to Guiana or Madagascar. It happens that we 
know something of the histoi'y of M. Fouche 
from a very credible witness against him — from 
himself. You will perhaps excuse me for read- 
ing to you some passages of his letters in the 
year 1793, from which you will judge whether 
any satire can be so severe as the portrait he 
draws of himself. 

" Convinced that there are no innocent men 
in this infamous city,'^^ but those who Quotations from 
are opposed and loaded with irons by '"* letters. 
the assassins of the people,'^ we are on our guard 
against the tears of repentance ! nothing can dis- 
arm our severity. They have not yet dared to 
solicit the repeal of our first deci-ee for the an- 
nihilation of the city of Lyons ! but scarcely any 
thing has yet been done to carry it into execution." 
(Pathetic !) " The demolitions are too slow. 
More rapid means are necessary to republican 
impatience. The explosion of the mine and the 
devouring activity of the flames can alone ade- 
quately represent the omnipotence of the peo- 
ple." (Unhappy populace, always the pretext, 
the instrument, and the victim of political 
crimes!) "Their will can not be checked like 
that of tyrants. It ought to have the efTects of 
thunder!" The next specimen of this worthy 
gentleman which I shall give, is in a speech to 
the Jacobin Club of Paris, on the 21st of De- 



22 This parody .seems not to have originated with 
Peltier, but to have been made in Paris during the 
Revolution. 

23 The unhappy city of Lyons. 

2* He means the murderers who were condemned 
to death for their crimes. 



842 



MR. MACKINTOSH 



[1803. 



cember, 1793, by his worthy colleague in the 
mission to Lyons, Collot d'Herbois : 

" We are accused" (you, gentlemen, will soon 
see how unjustly) " of being cannibals, men of 
blood ; but it is in counter-revolutionary peti- 
tions, hawked about for signature by aristocrats, 
that this charge is made against us. They ex- 
amine with the most scrupulous attention how 
the countei'-revolutionists are put to death, and 
they affect to say that they are not killed at one 
stroke." (He speaks for himself and his col- 
league Fouche, and one would suppose that he 
was going to deny the fact — but nothing like it.) 
"Ah! Jacobins, did Chalier"^ die at the first 
stroke, &c. ? A drop of blood poured from gen- 
erous veins goes to my heart" (humane creat- 
ure !), ''but I have no pity for conspirators." 
(He, however, proceeds to state a most undenia- 
ble proof of his compassion.) " We caused two 
hundred to be shot at once, and it is charged 
upon us as a crime!" (Astonishing ! that such 
an act of humanity should be called a crime !) 
" They do not know that it is a proof of our sens- 
ibility ! When twenty criminals are guillotined, 
the last of them dies twenty deaths ; but these 
two hundred conspirators perished at once. They 
speak of sensibility, ice also are full of sensibilily ! 
The Jacobins have all the virtues ! They are com- 
passionate, humane, generous .'" (This is some- 
what hai-d to be understood, but it is perfectly 
explained by what follows.) " But they reserve 
these sentiments for the patriots who are their 
brethren, which the aristocrats never will be." 

The only remaining document with which I 
shall trouble you is a letter from Fouche to his 
amiable colleague Collot d'Herbois, which, as 
might be expected in a confidential communica- 
tion, breaihes all the native tenderness of his 
soul. " Let us be terrible, that we may run no 
risk of being feeble or cruel. Let us annihilate 
in our wrath, at a single blow, all rebels, all con- 
spirators, all traitors" (comprehensive words in 
his vocabulary), " to spare ourselves the pain, the 
long agony of punishing like kings !" (Nothing 
but philanthropy in this worthy man's heart.) 
" Let us exercise justice after the example of 
nature. Let us avenge ourselves like a people. 
Let us strike like the thunder-bolt ; and let even 
the ashes of our enemies disappear from the soil 
of liberty ! Let the perfidious and ferocious 
English be attacked from every side. Let the 
w^hole republic form a volcano to pour devour- 
ing lava upon them. May the infamous island 
which produced these monsters, who no longer 
belong to humanity, be forever buried under the 
waves of the ocean ! Farewell, my friend ! 
Tears of joy stream from my eyes" (we shall 
soon see for what), '"they deluge my soul." 

[Then follows a little postscript, which ex- 
plains the cause of this excessive joy, so hyper- 
bolical in its language, and which fully justifies 
the indignation of the humane writer against the 
"ferocious English," who arc so stupid and so 
cruel as never to have thought of a benevolent 



Peltier's paper. 



" This Chalier was the Marat of Lyons. 



massacre, by way of sparing themselves the pain 
of punishing individual criminals.] 

" We have only one way of celebrating victo- 
ries. We send this evening two hundred and 
thirteen rebels to be shot /'^ 

Such, gentlemen, is M. Fouche, who is said to 
have procured this parody to be mixed with the 
papers of my excellent friend, Camille Jordan, 
to serve as a pretext for his destruction. Fab- 
ricated plots are among the most usual means of 
such tyrants for such purposes ; and if Mr. Pel- 
tier intended to libel (shall I say ?) Fouche by 
this composition, I can easily understand both 
the parody and the history of its origin. But if 
it be directed against Bonaparte to serve Roy- 
alist purposes, I must confess myself wholly un- 
able to conceive why Mr. Peltier should have 
stigmatized his work and deprived it of all au- 
thority and power of persuasion, by prefixing to 
it the infamous name of Fouche. 

On the same principle, 1 think one of the ob 
servations of my learned friend, on the ^ 

•', ,. . , Comments on 

title oi this publication, may be re- tiie tiUeofMr. 
torted on him. He has called your 
attention to the title, 
atroces et amusantes." Now, gentlemen, I 
must ask whether, had these been Mr. Peltier's 
own invectives against Bonaparte, he would him- 
self have branded them as " atrocious." But if 
they be specimens of the opinions and invectives 
of a French faction, the title is very natural, and 
the epithets are perfectly intelligible. Indeed, I 
scarce know a more appropriate title for the 
whole tragic comedy of the Revolution than that 
of "atrocious and amusing varieties." 

My learned friend has made some observations 

I on other parts of this publication, to j^ ^j,^^^ ^^^^^ 

show the spirit which animates the of his paper he 

r rnay have been 

author, but they do not seem to be flippant or se- 

• -, ^ \^, ^. 1 . vere.buthehas 

very material to the question between not been libei- 
us. It is no part of my case that Mr. °"^- 
Peltier has spoken with some unpoliteness, with 
some flippancy, with more severity than my 
learned friend may approve, of factions and of 
administrations in France. Mr. Peltier can not 
love the Revolution, or any government that has 
grown out of it and maintains it. The Revolu- 
tionists have destroyed his family, they have 
seized his inheritance, they have beggared, ex- 
iled, and proscribed himself. If he did not de- 
test them he would be unworthy of living, and 
he would be a base hypocrite if he were to con- 
ceal his sentiments. But I must again remind 
you that this is not an information for not suffi- 
ciently honoring the French Revolution, for not 
showing sufficient reverence for the consular 
government. These are no crimes among us. 
England is not yet reduced to such an ignomin- 
ious dependence. Our hearts and consciences are 
not yet in the bonds of so wretched a slavery. 
This is an information for a libel on Bonaparte, 
and if you believe the principal intention of Mr 
Peltier to have been to republish the writings 
or to satirize the character of other individuals, 
you must acquit him of a libel on the First Con- 
sul. 



1803 ] 



ON THE TRIAL OF JEAN PELTIER. 



843 



Here, gentlemen, I think I might stop, if I 
had only to consider the defense of Mr. Pel- 
tier. I trust that you are already convinced of 
his innocence. I fear I have exhausted your pa- 
tience, as I am sure I have very nearly exhaust- 
ed my own strength. But so much seems to me 
to depend on your verdict, that I can not forbear 
from laying before you some considerations of a 
more general nature. 

Believing, as I do, that we arc on the eve of a 
Part Fourth: great Struggle; that this is only the 
exampies°oV* first battle bctwccn reason and pow- 
M^ioUnTthe er ; that you have now in your hands, 
Bentiments be- committed to your trust, the only re- 

comiiig the J > J 

present crisis, mains of frcc di.scussion in Europe, 
now confined to this kingdom — addressing you, 
therefore, as the guardians of the most important 
interests of mankind ; convinced that the unfet- 
tered exercise of reason depends more on your 
present verdict than on any other that was ever 
delivered by a jury, I can not conclude without 
bringing before you the sentiments and examples 
of our ancestors in some of those awful and per- 
ilous situations by which Divine Providence has 
in former ages tried the virtue of the English na- 
tion. We are fallen upon times in which it be- 
hooves us to strengthen our spirits by the con- 
templation of great examples of constancy. Let 
us seek for them in the annals of our forefathers. 
The reign of Queen Elizabeth may be consid- 
(1.) The age of ercd as the opening of the modern 
Elizabeth." history of England,^ especially in its 
connection with the modern system of Europe, 
which began about that time to assume the form 
that it preserved till the French Revolution. It 
was a very memorable period, of which the max- 
ims ought to be engraven on the head and heart 
of every Englishman. Philip II.. at the head of 
the greatest empire then in the world, was open- 
ly aiming at universal domination, and his proj- 
ect was so far from being thought chimerical by 
the wisest of his cotemporaries that, in the opin- 
ion of the great Duke of Sully, he must have 
been successful, " if, by a most singular combina- 
tion of circumstances, he had not at the same 
time been resisted by two such strong heads as 
those of Henry IV. and Queen Elizabeth." To 
the most extensive and opulent dominions, the 
most numerous and disciplined armies, the most 
renowned captains, the greatest i-evenue, he add- 
ed also the most formidable power over opinion. 
He was the chief of a religious faction, animated 
by the most atrocious fanaticism, prepared to 
second his ambition by rebellion, anarchy, and 
regicide in every Protestant state. Elizabeth 
was among the first objects of his hostility. That 
wise and magnanimous Princess placed herself 
in the front of the battle for the liberties of Eu- 
rope. Though she had to contend at home with 
his fanatical faction, which almost occupied Ire- 
land, which divided Scotland, and was not of con- 
temptible strength in England, she aided the op- 
pressed inhabitants of the Netherlands in their 
just and glorious resistance to his tyranny ; she 
aided Henry the Great in suppressing the abom- 
inable rebellion which anarchical principles had 



excited and Spanish arms had supported in 
France, and after a long reign of various fortune, 
in which she preserved her unconquered spirit 
through great calamities and still greater dan- 
gers, she at length broke the strength of the en- 
emy, and reduced his power within such limits 
as to be compatible with the safety of England 
and of all Europe. Her only effectual ally was 
the spirit of her people, and her policy flowed 
from that magnanimous nature which in the hour 
of peril teaches better lessons than those of cold 
reason. Her great heart inspired her with a 
higher and a nobler wisdom — which disdained to 
appeal to the low and sordid passions of her peo- 
ple even for the protection of their low and sor- 
did interests, because she knew, or, rather, she 
felt, that these are effeminate, creeping, coward- 
ly, short-sighted passions, which shrink from con- 
flict even in defense of their ov^'n mean objects. 
In a righteous cause, she roused those generous 
affections of her people which alone teach bold- 
ness, constancy, and foresight, and which are 
therefore the only safe guardians of the lowest 
as w^ell as the highest interests of a nation. In 
her memorable address to her army, when the 
invasion of the kingdom was threatened by 
Spain, this woman of heroic spirit disdained to 
speak to them of their ease and their commerce, 
and their wealth and their safety. No ! She 
touched another chord — she spoke of their na- 
tional honor, of their dignity as Englishmen, of 
" the foul scorn that Parma or Spain should dare 
to invade the borders of her realms." She 
breathed into them those grand and powerful 
sentiments which exalt vulgar men into heroes, 
which led them into the battle of their country, 
armed with holy and irresistible enthusiasm ; 
which even cover with their shield all the igno- 
ble interests that base calculation and cowardly 
selfishness tremble to hazard, but shrink from de- 
fending.'^^ A sort of prophetic instinct, if I may 
so speak, seems to have revealed to her the im- 
portance of that great instrument for rousing and 
guiding the minds of men, of the effects of which 
she had no experience, which, since her time, has 
changed the condition of the world, but which 
few modern statesmen have thoroughly under- 
stood or wisely employed ; which is, no doubt, 
connected with many ridiculous and degrading 
details, which has produced, and which may 
again produce terrible mischiefs, but of which 
the influence must, after all, be considered as 
the most certain effect and the most efficacious 
cause of civilization, and which, whether it be a 
blessing or a curse, is the most powerful engine 
that a politician can move — I mean the press. 
It is a curions fact that in the year of the Ar- 
mada, Queen Elizabeth caused to be she was the first 

..J., n ^ ^^ iii to avail herself 

prmted the first gazettes that ever ofthepre.«sio 
appeared in England : and I own, t^^n^tVr 
when I consider that this mode of *■■>'• 
rousing a national spirit was then absolutely un- 
exampled, that she could have no as.surance of 



26 We have but few strains of eloquence in our 
language more noble or more inspiring for a people 
like the English than this passage. 



844 



MR. MACKINTOSH 



[1803. 



its efficacy from the precedents of former times, 
I am disposed to regard her having recourse to 
it as one of the most sagacious experiments, one 
of the greatest discoveries of political genius, one 
of the most striking anticipations of future expe- 
rience that we find in history. I mention it to 
you to justify the opinion that I have ventured to 
state of the close connection of our national spir- 
it with our press, even our periodical press. I 
can not quit the reign of Elizabeth without lay- 
ing before you the maxims of her policy, in the 
language of the greatest and wisest of men. 
Lord Bacon, in one part of his discourse on her 
reign, speaks thus of her support of Holland : 
" But let me rest upon the honorable and con- 
tinual aid and relief she hath given to the dis- 
tressed and desolate people of the Low Coun- 
tries — a people recommended unto her by an- 
cient confederacy and daily intercourse, by their 
cause so innocent and their fortune so lament- 
able !" In another passage of the same dis- 
course, he thus speaks of the general system of 
her foreign policy as the protector of Europe, in 
•words too remarkable to require any comment- 
ary. " Then it is her government, and her gov- 
ernment alone, that hath been the sconce and fort 
of all Europe, which hath let this proud nation 
from overrunning all. If any state be yet free 
from his factions erected in the bowels thereof; 
if there be any state wherein this faction is erect- 
ed that is not yet fired with civil troubles ; if 
there be any state under his protection that en- 
jo3'eth moderate liberty, upon whom he tyran- 
nizeth not, it is the mercy of this renowned Queen 
that standeth between them and their misfor- 
tunes!" 

The next great conspirator against the rights 
(2.) Succor of of mcu and of nations, against the se- 
In'bedtysT curity and independence of all Eu- 
Louis XIV. ropean states, against every kind and 
degree of civil and religious liberty, was Louis 
XIV. In his time the character of the English 
nation was the more remarkably displayed, be- 
cause it was counteracted by an apostate and 
perfidious government. During great part of 
his reign, you know that the throne of England 
was filled by princes who deserted the cause of 
their country and of Europe, who were the ac- 
complices and the tools of the oppressor of the 
wflrld,"' who were even so unmanly, so unprince- 
ly, so base, as to have sold themselves to his am- 
bition ; who were content that he should enslave 
the Continent, if he enabled them to enslave 
Great Britain. These princes, traitors to their 
own royal dignity and to the feelings of the gen- 
erous people whom they ruled, preferred the con- 
dition of the first slave of Louis XIV. to the dig- 
nity of the first freemen of England : yet even un- 
der these princes, the feelings of the people of 
this kingdom w^ere displayed, on a most memor- 
able occasion, toward foreign sufierers and for- 
eign oppressors. The Revocation of the Edict 
of Nantes threw fifty thousand French Protest- 

27 Charles II. and James II. They both received 
regular pensions from the French Monarch. 



ants on our shores. They were received as I 
trust the victims of tyranny ever will be in this 
land, which seems chosen by Providence to be 
the home of the exile, the refuge of the oppressed. 
They were welcomed by a people high-spirited 
as well as humane, who did not insult them by 
clandestine charity ; who did not give alms in 
secret lest their charity should be detected by the 
neighboring tyrants ! No ! They were public- 
ly and nationally welcomed and relieved. They 
were bid to raise their voice against their op- 
pressor, and to proclaim their wrongs to all 
mankind. They did so. They wei-e joined in 
the cry of just indignation by every Englishman 
worthy of the name. It was a fruitful indigna- 
tion, which soon produced the successful resist- 
ance of Europe to the common enemy. Even 
then, when Jeffreys disgraced the bench which 
his Lordship [Lord EUenborough] now adorns, 
no refugee was deterred by prosecution for libel 
from giving vent to his feelings, from arraigning 
the oppressor in the face of all Europe. 

During this ignominious period of our history, 
a war arose on the Continent, which (3.) Aid given to 
can not but present itself to the mind 1^°^ by'The 
on such an occasion as this ; the only **"^^ monarcii. 
war that was ever made on the avowed ground 
of attacking a free pre.ss. I speak of the inva- 
sion of Holland by Louis XIV, The liberties 
which the Dutch gazettes had taken in discuss- 
ing his conduct were the sole cause of this very 
extraordinary and memorable war, which was 
of short duration, unprecedented in its avowed 
principle, and most glorious in its event for the 
liberties of mankind. That republic, at all times 
so interesting to Englishmen — in the worst times 
of both countries our brave enemies ; in their 
best times our most faithful and valuable friends 
— was then charged with the defense of a free 
press against the oppressor of Europe, as a 
sacred trust for the benefit of all generations. 
They felt the sacredness of the deposit, they l"elt 
the dignity of the station in which they were 
placed, and though deserted by the un-English 
government of England, they asserted their own 
ancient character, and drove out the great ar- 
mies and great captains of the oppressor with 
defeat and disgrace. Such was the result of the 
only war hitherto avowedly undertaken to op- 
press a free country because she allowed the free 
and public exercise of reason. And may the 
God of justice and liberty grant that such may 
ever be the result of wars made by tyrants 
against the rights of mankind, especially against 
that right which is the guardian of every other. 

This war, gentlemen, had the eflTect of raising 
up from obscurity the ijreat Prince of (4.)Supportof 
Orange, afterward King William III., .^'fiRiS't"!^ 
the deliverer of Holland, the deliverer r;;pj'',gli"n"t 
of England, the deliverer of Europe ; Louis xiv. 
the only hero who was distinguished by such a 
happy union of fortune and virtue that the ob- 
jects of his ambition were always the same with 
the interests of humanity ; perhaps the only man 
who devoted the whole of his life exclusively to 
the service of mankind. This most illustrious 



1803.] 



ON THE TRIAL OF JEAN PELTIER. 



845 



benefactor of Europe, this " hero without vanity 
or passion," as he has been justly and beauti- 
fully called by a venerable prelate [Dr. Shipley, 
Bishop of St. Asaph], who never made a step to- 
ward greatness without securing or advancing 
liberty, who had been made Stadtholder of Hol- 
land for the salvation of his own countiy, was 
soon after made King of England for the deliv- 
erance of ours. When the people of Great Brit- 
ain had once more a government worthy of them, 
they returned to the feelings and principles of 
their ancestors, and resumed their former station 
and their former duties as protectors of the in- 
dependence of nations. The people of England, 
delivered from a government which disgraced, 
oppressed, and betrayed them, fought under 
William as their forefathers had fought under 
Elizabeth, and after an almost uninterrupted 
struggle of more than twenty years, in which 
they were often abandoned by fortune, but never 
by their own constancy and magnanimity, they 
at length once more defeated those projects of 
guilty ambition, boundless aggrandizement, and 
universal domination, which had a second time 
threatened to overwhelm the whole civilized 
world. They rescued Europe from being swal- 
lowed up in the gulf of extensive empire, which 
the experience of all times points out as the 
grave of civilization ; where men are driven by 
violent conquest and military oppression into 
lethargy and slavishness of heart ; where, after 
their arts have perished with the mental vigor 
from which they spring, they are plunged by the 
combined power of effeminacy and ferocity into 
irreclaimable and hopeless barbarism. Our an- 
cestors established the safety of their own coun- 
try by providing for that of others, and rebuilt 
the European system upon such firm foundations 
that nothing less than the tempest of the French 
Revolution could have shaken it. 

This arduous struggle was suspended for a 
(5)Boid animad- short time by the peace of Ryswick. 
EuTSpres'ron The interval between that treaty and 
ti'meof^pelce" ^^c War of the succession enables us 
with France. to judgc how our ancestors acted in 
a very peculiar situation, which requires maxims 
of policy very different from those which usually 
govern states. The treaty which they had con- 
cluded was in truth and substance only a truce. 
The ambition and the power of the enemy were 
such as to render real peace impossible. And 
it was perfectly obvious that the disputed suc- 
cession of the Spanish Monarch would soon ren- 
der it no longer practicable to preserve even the 
appearance of amity. It was desirable, howev- 
er, not to provoke the enemy by unseasonable 
hostility ; but it was still more desirable, it was 
absolutely necessary, to keep up the national 
jealousy and indignation against him who was 
soon to be their open enemy. It might natural- 
ly have been apprehended that the press might 
have driven into premature war a Prince who, 
not long before, had been violently exasperated 
by the press of another free country. I have 
looked over the political publications of that time 
with some care, and I can venture to say that at 



no period were the system and projects of Louis 
XIV. animadverted on with more freedom and 
boldness than during that interval. Our ances- 
tors and the heroic Prince who governed them, 
did not deem it wise policy to disarm the national 
mind for the sake of prolonging a tiuce. They 
were both too proud and too wise to pay so great 
a price for so small a benefit. 

In the course of the eighteenth century, a great 
change took place in the state of po- increased 
litical discussion in this country. I innuence of 

. p newspapers 

speak of the multiplication oi news- on political 

T 1 xi i subjects. 

papers, i know that newspapers are 
not very popular in this place, which is, indeed, 
not very surprising, because they are known here 
only by their faults. Their publishers come 
here only to receive the chastisement due to their 
offenses. With all their faults, I own I can not 
help feeling some respect for whatever is a proof 
of the increased curiosity and increased knowl- 
edge of mankind ; and 1 can not help thinking 
that if somewhat more indulgence and consider- 
ation were shown for the difficulties of their sit- 
uation, it might prove one of the best correct- 
ives of their faults, by teaching them that self- 
respect which is the best security for liberal con- 
duct toward others. But however that may be, 
it is very certain that the multiplication of these 
channels of popular information has produced a 
great change in the state of our domestic and 
foreign politics. At home, it has, in truth, pro- 
duced a gradual revolution in our government. 
By increasing the number of those who exercise 
some sort of judgment on public affairs, it has 
created a substantial democracy, infinitely more 
important than those democratical forms which 
have been the subject of so much contest. So 
that I may venture to say, England has not only 
in its forms the most democratical government 
that ever existed in a great country, but in sub- 
stance has the most democratical government 
that ever existed in any country ; if the most 
substantial democracy be that state in which the 
greatest number of men feel an interest and ex- 
press an opinion upon political questions, and in 
which the greatest number of judgments and 
wills concur in influencing public measures. 

The same circumstances gave great additional 
importance to our discussion of con- inprea«^,i hoi.i. 
tinental politic?. That discussion nessoiHi-ir 

' . ti.ne as t.. >r 

was no longer, as in the precedmg eigngove... 
century, confined to a few pamphlets, ""'""■ 
written and read only by men of education and 
rank, which reached the multitude very slowly 
and rarely. In newspapers an almost daily ap- 
peal was made, directly or indirectly, to the judg- 
ment and passions of almost every individual in 
the kingdom, upon the measures and principles 
not only of his own country, but of every state in 
Europe. Under such circumstances, the tone 
of these publications, in speaking of foreign gov- 
ernments, became a matter of importance. You 
will excuse me, therefore, if, before I conclude, I 
remind you of the general nature of their lan- 
guage on one or two very remarkable occasions, 
and of the boldness with which they arraigned 



846 



MR. MACKINTOSH 



[1803. 



the crimes of powerful sovereigns, without any 
check from the laws and magistrates of their 
own country. This toleration, or rather this 
protection, was too long and uniform to be acci- 
dental. I am, indeed, very much mistaken if it 
be not founded upon a policy which this country 
can not abandon without sacrificing her liberty 
and endangering her national existence. 

The first remarkable instance which I shall 
(6.) Denuncia- choosc to State of the uupuuishcd 
t'?" by the En- ^mj protcctcd bolducss of thc English 
those who were prcss, of the frccdom with which they 
firft^partition^ animadverted on the policy of power- 
of Poland. f^j sovereigns, is the partition of Po- 
land in 1772 ; an act not, perhaps, so horrible in 
its means, nor so deplorable in its immediate ef- 
fects, as some other ati'ocious invasions of na- 
tional independence which have followed it ; but 
the most abominable in its general tendency and 
ultimate consequences of any political crime re- 
corded in history, because it was the first prac- 
tical breach in the .system of Europe, the first ex- 
ample of atrocious robbery perpetrated on vmof- 
fending countries which have been since so lib- 
erally followed, and which has broken down all 
the barriers of habit and principle which guard- 
ed defenseless states. The perpetrators of this 
atrocious crime were the most powerful sover- 
eigns of the Continent, whose hostility it certain- 
ly was not the interest of Great Britain wanton- 
ly to incur. They were the most illustrious 
princes of their age, and some of them were, 
doubtless, entitled to the highest praise for their 
domestic administration, as w^ell as for the brill- 
iant qualities which distinguished their charac- 
ters. But none of these circumstances, no dread 
of their resentment, no admiration of their tal- 
ents, no consideration for their rank, silenced the 
animadversion of the English press. Some of 
you remember, all of you know, that a loud and 
unanimous cry of reprobation and execration 
broke out against them from every part of this 
kingdom. It was perfectly uninfluenced by any 
considerations of our own mere national interest, 
which might perhaps be supposed to be rather 
favorably affected by that partition. It was not, 
as in some other countries, the indignation of ri- 
val I'obbers, who were excluded from their shai-e 
of the prey. It was the moral anger of disin- 
terested spectators against atrocious cnmes, the 
gravest and the most dignified moral principle 
w^hich the God of justice has implanted in the hu- 
man heart ; that of which the dread is the only 
restraint on the actions of powerful criminals, and 
of which the promulgation is the only punishment 
that can be inflicted on them. It is a restraint 
which ought not to be weakened. It is a pun- 
ishment which no good man can desire to miti- 
gate. 

That great crime was spoken of as it deserved 
in England. Robbery was not described by any 
courtly circumlocutions. Rapine was not called 
policy ; nor was the oppression of an innocent 
people termed a mediation in their domestic dif- 
ferences. No prosecutions, no criminal informa- 
tions followed the liberty and the boldness of the 



language then employed. No complaints even 
appear to have been made from abroad, much 
less any insolent menaces against the free Con- 
stitution which protected the English press. The 
people of England were too long known through- 
out Europe for the proudest potentate to expect 
to silence our press by such means. 

I pass over the second partition of Poland in 
1792. You all remember what passed contributions 
on that occasion, the universal abhor- after ufeiec- 
rence expressed by every man and ev- °°^ partition, 
cry writer of every party, the succors that were 
publicly prepai-ing by large bodies of individuals 
of all parties for the oppressed Poles. 

I hasten to the final dismemberment of that 
unhappy kingdom, which seems to me severe tone of 
the most striking example in our his- prLf tSwtj-d 
tory of the habitual, principled, and J{;| ZTd^s-"^ 
deeply rooted forbearance of those meinberment, 

,"'... though alhes of 

who adramister the law toward po- England, 
litical writers. We were engaged in the most 
extensive, bloody, and dangerous war that this 
country ever knew ; and the parties to the dis- 
memberment of Poland were our allies, and our 
only powerful and effective allies. We had ev- 
eiy motive of policy to court their friendship. 
Every reason of state seemed to require that we 
should not permit them to be abused and vilified 
by English writers. What was the fact ? Did 
any Englishman consider himself at liberty, on 
account of temporary interests, however urgent, 
to silence those feelings of humanity and justice 
w^hich guard the certain and permanent interests 
of all countries ? You all remember that every 
voice, and every pen, and every press in En- 
gland were unceasingly employed to brand that 
abominable robbery. You remember that this 
was not confined to private writers, 
but that the same abhorrence was guageheidin' 
expressed by every member of both ^^'^''^"'^°'- 
Houses of Parliament who was not under the 
restraints of ministerial reserve. No minister 
dared even to blame the language of honest in- 
dignation which might be very inconvenient to 
his most important political projects ; and I hope 
I may venture to say that no English assembly 
would have endured such a sacrifice of eternal 
justice to any miserable interest of an hour. Did 
the law-officers of the Crown venture to come 
into a court of justice to complain of the boldest 
of the publications of that time? They did not. 
I do not say that they felt any disposition to do 
so. I believe that they could not. But I do say 
that if they had ; if they had spoken of the ne- 
cessity of confining our political writers to cold 
narrative and unfeeling argument ; if they had 
informed the jury that they did not prosecute his- 
tory, but invective ; that if private waiters be at 
all to blame great princes, it must be with mod- 
eration and decorum, the sound heads and hon- 
est hearts of an English jury would have con- 
founded such sophistry, and declared by their 
verdict that moderation of language is a relative 
term, which varies with the subject to which it 
is applied ; that atrocious crimes are not to be 
related as calmly and coolly as indifferent or tri- 



1803.] 



ON THE TRIAL OF JEAN PELTIER. 



847 



fling events ; that if there be a decorum due to 
exalted rank and authority, there is also a much 
more sacred decorum due to virtue and to human 
nature, which would be oiitraged and trampled 
under foot by speaking of guilt in a lukewarm 
language, falsely called moderate. 

Soon after, gentlemen, there followed an act, 
(7.) Indignant ^^ Comparison with which all the 
press whe"n the ^^^^^ of rapiuc and blood perpetrated 
liberties of in tlic world arc innocence itself — 
were destroyed thc iuvasiou and dcstructiou of Switz- 
by France. qj-i^^^^ that Unparalleled scene of 
guilt and enormity ; that unprovoked aggression 
against an innocent country, which had been the 
sanctuary of peace and liberty for three centu- 
ries ; respected as a sort of saci-ed territory by 
the fiercest ambition ; raised, like its own mount- 
ains, beyond the region of the storms which 
raged around on every side ; the only warlike 
people that never sent forth armies to disturb 
their neighbors ; the only government that ever 
accumulated treasures without imposing taxes, 
an innocent treasure, unstained by the tears of 
the poor, the inviolate patrimony of the common- 
wealth, which attested the virtue of a long se- 
ries of magistrates, but which at length caught 
the eye of the spoiler, and became the fatal oc- 
casion of their ruin ! Gentlemen, the destruc- 
tion of such a country, "its cause so innocent, 
and its fortune so lamentable !" made a deep im- 
pression on the people of England. I will ask 
my learned friend, if we had then been at peace 
with the French Republic, whether we must have 
^een silent spectators of the foulest crimes that 
ever blotted the name of humanity ! whether we 
must, like cowards and slaves, have repressed the 
compassion and indignation with which that hor- 
rible scene of tyranny had filled our hearts ?"^ 
Let me suppose, gentlemen, that Aloys Reding, 
who has displayed in our times the simplicity, 
magnanimity, and piety of ancient heroes, had, 
after his glorious struggle, honored this kingdom 
by choosing it as his refuge ; that after performing 
prodigies of valor at the head of his handful of 
heroic peasants on the field of Morgarten, where 
his ancestor, the Landmann Reding, had, five 
hundred years before, defeated the first oppress- 
ors of Switzerland, he had selected this country 
to be his residence, as the chosen abode of liber- 
ty, as the ancient and inviolable asylum of the 
oppressed ; would my learned friend have had the 
boldness to have said to this hero, " that he must 
hide his tears" (the tears shed by a hero over the 
ruins of his country !) " lest they might provoke 



-^ In the spring of 1798, Aloys Reding, here spok- 
en of, met the French amiy on the field of Morgar- 
ten, as chief magistrate of the Canton of Schweitz, 
and with a handful of men broke their ranks and put 
them to flight. But he was at last overpowered by 
numbers, his country subjugated, and himself thrown 
at first into prison and afterward driven into exile. 
He was born in 1755 and died in 1818, retaining to 
the last his hatred of French revolutionary princi- 
ples, and especially of Bonaparte. Zschokke, in his 
history of the fall of the democratic Cantons of 
Switzerland, has thrown a romantic interest around 
the name of Reding. 



the resentment of Rcubell or Rapinat ! that he 
must smother the sorrow and the anger with 
which his heart was loaded ; that he must breathe 
his murmurs low, lest they might be overheard 
by the oppressor !" Would this have been the 
language of my learned friend ? I know that it 
would not. I know that by such a supposition I 
have done wrong to his honorable feelings, to his 
honest English heart. I am sure that he knows as 
well as I do. that a nation which should thus re- 
ceive the oppressed of other countries would be 
preparing its own neck for the yoke. He knows 
the slavery which such a nation would deserve, 
and must speedily incur. He knows that sym- 
pathy with the unmerited sufferings of others, 
and disinterested anger against their oppressors, 
are, if I may so speak, the masters which are 
appointed by Providence to teach us fortitude in 
the defense of our own rights ; that selfishness is 
a dastardly principle, which betrays its charge 
and flies from its post ; and that those only can 
defend themselves with valor who ai'e animated 
by the moral approbation with which thev can 
survey their sentiments toward others, who are 
ennobled in their own eyes by a consciousness 
that they are fighting for justice as well as inter- 
est ; a consciousness which none can feel but 
those who have felt for the wrongs of their breth- 
ren. These are the sentiments which my learn- 
ed friend would have felt. He would have told 
the hero : " Your confidence is not deceived ; this 
is still that England, of which the history may, 
perhaps, have contributed to fill your heart with 
the heroism of liberty. Every other country of 
Europe is crouching under the bloody tyrants 
who destroyed your country. Wc are unchang- 
ed ; we are still the same people which received 
with open arms the victims of the tyranny of 
Philip II. and Louis XIV. - We shall not exer- 
cise a cowardly and clandestine humanity ! Here 
we are not so dastardly as to rob you of your 
greatest consolation. Here, protected by a free, 
brave, and high-minded people, you may give 
vent to your indignation ; you may proclaim the 
crimes of your tyrants, you may devote them to 
the execration of mankind ; there is still one spot 
upon earth in which they are abhorred, without 
being dreaded !" 

I am aware, gentlemen, that I have already 
abused your indulgence, but I must ,. , . ., 
entreat you to bear with me for a Frt-ndi iievo- 

, ^ ^. -^ 1 ,, , liition Enghind 

short time longer, to allow me to sup- had i.een at 
pose a case which might have oc- p'ranceTwhat 
curred, in which you will see the hor- |J"f,','|,'ecouree 
rible consequences of enforcing rig- ofthe^Engi.sb 
orously principles of law, which I can ^'^^'"" 
not counteract, against political writers. We 
might have been at peace with France during 
the whole of that terrible period which elapsed 
between August, 1792 and 1794, which has 
been usually called the reign of Robespierre ! 
The only series of crimes, perhaps, in history, 
which, in spite of the common disposition to ex- 
aggerate extraordinary facts, has been beyond 
measure underrated in public opinion. I say this, 
gentlemen, after an investigation, which, I think, 



848 



MR. MACKINTOSH 



[1803. 



entitles me to affirm it with confidence. Men's 
minds were oppressed by atrocity and the mul- 
titude of crimes ; their humanity and their indo- 
lence took refuge in skepticism from such an 
overwhelming mass of guilt ; and the conse- 
quence was, that all these unparalleled enormi- 
ties, though proved not only with the fullest his- 
torical, but with the strictest judicial evidence, 
were at the time only half believed, and are now 
scarcely half remembered. When these atroci- 
ties were daily perpetrating, of which the great- 
est part are as little known to the public in gen- 
eral as the campaigns of Genghis Khan, but are 
still protected from the scrutiny of men by the 
immensity of those voluminous records of guilt 
in which they are related, and under the mass 
of which they wnll be buried till some historian 
be found with patience and courage enough to 
drag them forth into light, for the shame, indeed, 
but for the instruction of mankind — when these 
crimes were perpetrating, which had the pecul- 
iar malignity, from the pretexts with which they 
were covered, of making the noblest objects of 
human pursuit seem odious and detestable ; which 
has almost made the names of liberty, reforma- 
tion, and humanity synonymous with anarchy, 
robbery, and murder ; which thus threatened not 
to extinguish every principle of improvement, to 
arrest the progress of civilized society, and to 
disinherit future generations of that rich succes- 
sion, which they were entitled to expect from the 
knowledge and wisdom of the present, but to de- 
stroy the civilization of Europe, which never gave 
such a proof of its vigor and robustness as in be- 
ing able to resist their destructive power — when 
all these horrors were acting in the greatest empire 
of the Continent, I will ask my learned friend, if 
we had then been at peace with France, how En- 
glish writers were to relate them so as to escape 
the charge of libeling a friendly govern ment?'^'-^ 

When Robespierre, in the debates in the Na- 
tional Convention on the mode of murdering their 
blameless Sovereign, objected to the formal and 
tedious mode of murder called a trial, and pro- 
posed to put him immediately to death, " on the 
principles of insurrection," because, to doubt the 
guilt of the King would be to doubt of the inno- 
cence of the Convention ; and if the King were 
not a traitor, the Convention must be rebels ; 
would my learned friend have had an English 
writer state all this with " decorum and modera- 
tion?'''' Would he have had an English writer 
state that though this reasoning was not perfect- 
ly agreeable to our national laws, or perhaps to 
our national prejudices, yet it was not for him to 
make any observations on the judicial proceed- 
ings of foreign states ? 

When Marat, in the same Convention, called 
for two hundred and seventy thousand heads, 
must our English wn-iters have said that the rem- 
edy did, indeed, seem to their weak judgment 
rather severe ; but that it was not for them to 

29 We see in this passage a tendency which Mack- 
intosh had, in common with Burke, to overload a sen- 
tence with too many particulars. He condemned it 
himself in after life, when remarking on this speech. 



judge the conduct of so illustrious an a.s.sembly 
as the National Convention, or the suggestions 
of so enlightened a statesman as M. Marat ? 

When that Convention resounded with ap- 
plause at the news of several hundred aged 
priests being thrown into the Loire, and particu- 
larly at the exclamation of Carrier, who com- 
municated the intelligence, " What a revolution- 
ary torrent is the Loire" — w^hen these sugges- 
tions and narrations of murder, which have hith- 
erto been only hinted and whispered in the most 
secret cabals, in the darkest caverns of banditti, 
w^ere triumphantly uttered, patiently endured, and 
even loudly applauded by an assembly of seven 
hundred men, acting in the sight of all Europe, 
w^ould my learned friend have wished that there 
had been found in England a single writer so 
base as to deliberate upon the most safe, deco- 
rous, and polite manner of relating all these 
things to his countrymen ? 

When Carrier ordered five hundred children 
under fourteen years of age to be shot, the great- 
er part of whom escaped the fire from their size, 
when the poor victims ran for protection to the 
soldiers, and were bayoneted clinging round their 
knees ! would my friend — but I can not pursue 
the strain of interrogation. It is too much. It 
would be a violence which I can not practice on 
my own feelings. It would be an outrage to 
my friend. It would be an insult to humanity. 
No ! Better, ten thousand times better, would 
it be that every press in the world were burned; 
that the very use of letters were abolished ; that 
we were returned to the honest ignorance of the 
rudest times, than that the results of civilization 
should be made subservient to the purposes of 
barbarism, than that literature should be em- 
ployed to teach a toleration for cruelty, to weak- 
en moral hatred for guilt, to deprave and brutal- 
ize the human mind. I know that I speak my 
friend's feelings as w-ell as my own when I say 
God forbid that the dread of any punishment 
should ever make any Englishman an accomplice 
in so corrupting his countrymen, a public teach- 
er of depravity and barbarity ! 

Mortifying and horrible as the idea is, I must 
remind you, gentlemen, that even at that time, 
even under the reign of Robespierre, my learned 
friend, if he had then been Attorney General, 
might have been compelled by some most deplor- 
able necessity to have come into this court to 
ask your verdict against the libelers of Barrere 
and Collot d'Herbois. Mr. Peltier then em- 
ployed his talents against the enemies of the hu- 
man race, as he has uniformly and bravely done. 
I do not believe that any peace, any political con- 
siderations, any fear of punishment would have 
silenced him. He has shown too much honor, 
and constancy, and intrepidity, to be shaken by 
such circumstances as the.se. 

My learned friend might then have been com- 
pelled to have filed a criminal information against 
Mr. Peltier, for "' wickedly and maliciously in- 
tending to vilify and degrade Maximilian Robes- 
pierre, President of the Committee of Public 
Safety of the French Republic !" He might 



1803.] 

have been reduced to the sad necessity of ap- 
pearing before you to belie his own better feel- 
ings, to prosecute Mr, Peltier for publishing those 
sentiments which my friend himself had a thou- 
sand times felt, and a thousand times expressed. 
He might have been obliged even to call for 
punishment upon Mr. Peltier for language which 
he and all mankind would forever despise Mr. 
Peltier if he were not to employ. Then, indeed, 
gentlemen, we should have seen the last humili- 
ation fall on England ; the tribunals, the spotless 
and venerable tribunals of this free country re- 
duced to be the ministers of the vengeance of 
Robespierre ! What could have rescued us from 
this last disgrace ? The honesty and courage of 
a jury. They would have delivered the judges 
of this country from the dire necessity of inflict- 
ing punishment on a brave and virtuous man, be- 
cause he spoke truth of a monster. They would 
have despised the threats of a foreign tyrant, as 
their ancestors braved the power of oppression 
at home. 

In the court where we are now met, Crom- 
well twice sent a satirist on his tyr- 

Peroration: • i i • i i 

Conduct of an auuy to be convicted and punished as 
in'^e^timeT a libclcr, and in this court, almost in 
of Cromwell, ^j^j^^ ^j. ^j^^ scaflbld Streaming with 

the blood of his Sovereign, w^ithin hearing of the 
^lash of his bayonets which drove out Parliament 
with contumely, two successive juries rescued 
the intrepid satirist [Lilburne] from his fangs, and 
sent out with defeat and disgrace the usurper's 
Attorney General from what he had the insolence 
to call his court ! Even then, gentlemen, when 
all law and liberty were trampled under the feet 
of a military banditti ; when those gi-eat crimes 
were perpetrated on a high place and with a 
high hand against those who were the objects of 
public veneration, which, more than any thing 
else, break their spirits and confound their moral 
sentiments, obliterate the distinctions between 
right and wrong in their understanding, and teach 
the multitude to feel no longer any reverence for 
that justice which they thus see triumphantly 
dragged at the chariot-wheels of a tyrant ; even 
then, when this unhappy country, triumphant, in- 
deed, abroad, but enslaved at home, had no pros- 
pect but that of a long succession of tyrants wad- 
ing through slaughter to a throne — even then, I 
say. when all seemed lost, the imconquerable spirit 
of English liberty survived in the hearts of En- 
glish jurors. That spirit is, I trust in God, not 
extinct ; and if any modern tyrant were, in the 
drunkenness of his insolence, to hope to overawe 
an English jury, I trust and I believe that they 
would tell him, " Our ancestors braved the bay- 
onets of Cromw^ell ; we bid defiance to yours. 
Contempsi Catiline gladios — no7i pertimescam 

tuosr'^'' 



ON THE TRIAL OF JEAN PELTIER. 



849 



30 This was the exclamation of Cicero to Anthony 
at the close of his second oration against him. " De- 
fendi rempublicam adolescens ; non deseram senex : 
contempsi Catiliuac gladios ; non pertimescam tuos." 
I defended the republic in my youth, I will not de- 
sert her in my age ; I have despised the daggers of 
Catiline, and I shall not fear yours. 
Hhh 



What could be such a tyrant's means of over- 
awing a jury? As long as their coun- .^, . , . 

= .*',•' . ° 1 • , . Their duty 

try exists, they are girt round with im- at the prea- 
penetrable armor. Till the destruction 
of their country, no danger can fall upon them 
for the performance of their duty, and I do trust 
that there is no Englishman so unworthy of life 
as to desire to outlive England. But if any of 
us are condemned to the cruel punishment of sur- 
viving our country — if, in the inscrutable coun- 
sels of Providence, this favored seat of justice and 
liberty, this noblest work of human wisdom and 
virtue, be destined to destruction, which I shall 
not be charged with national prejudice for say- 
ing w^ould be the most dangerous wound ever in- 
flicted on civilization ; at least let us carry with 
us into our sad exile the consolation that we our- 
selves have not violated the rights of hospitality 
to exiles — that we have not torn from the altar 
the suppliant who claimed protection as the vol- 
untary victim of loyalty and conscience ! 

Gentlemen, I now leave this unfortunate gen- 
tleman in your hands. His character and his 
situation might interest your humanity ■ but, on 
his behalf, I only ask justice from you. I only 
ask a favorable construction of what can not be 
said to be more than ambiguous language, and 
this you will soon hp told, from the highest au- 
thority, is a part of justice. 



Lord Ellenborough charged the jury that any 
publication which tends to degrade, revile, and 
defame persons in considerable situations of pow- 
er and dignity in foreign countries, may be taken 
to be and treated as a libel, and particularly 
where it has a tendency to interrupt the pacific 
relations between the two countries. If the pub- 
lication contains a plain and manifest incitement 
and persuasion addressed to others to assassin- 
ate and destroy the persons of such magistrates, 
as the tendency of such a publication is to inter- 
rupt the harmony subsisting between two coun- 
tries, the libel assumes a still more criminal com- 
plexion. 

His Lordship also showed it to be his decided 
opinion that the words could not be taken iron- 
ically, as suggested by Mr. Mackintosh. The 
jury, therefore, found the defendant Guilty, 
without leaving their seats ; but as war broke 
out almost immediately, Mr. Peltier w^as not 
brought up for sentence, but was at once dis- 
charged. 

The whole of this peroration of Cicero is worthy 
of the reader's attentive perusal. 

The pointed reference to Bonaparte in this and 
a preceding sentence was called forth, no doubt, by 
the conduct of the French officers already men- 
tioned. Being functionaries of the Consular gov- 
ernment, their appearing at this time in court, their 
seating themselves alongside of the jury, and in a 
place directly suited to an inspection of the coun- 
sel, as if they meant to hold the Attorney General 
to his duty, and to face down the advocate of the 
prisoner — these things had all the appearance of a 
design to overrule the decision ; and it is rather sur- 
prising that such conduct did not stir the spirit of an 
English jury. 



850 



SKETCH OF CHARLES J. FOX. 



CHARACTER OF CHARLES J. FOX 

Mr. Fox united in a most remarkable degree | quiet dignity of a mind roused only by great ob 



the seemingly repugnant characters of the mild 
est of men and the most vehement of orators. 
In private life he was gentle, modest, placable, 
kind ; of simple manners, and so averse from pa- 
rade and dogmatism, as to be not only unosten- 
tatious, but even somewhat inactive in conversa- 
tion. His superiority was never felt but in the 
instruction which he imparted, or in the attention 
which his generous preference usually directed to 
the more obscure members of the company. The 
simplicity of his manners was far from excluding 
that perfect urbanity and amenity which flowed 
still more from the mildness of his nature than 
from familiar intercourse with the most polished 
society of Europe. His conversation, when it 
was not repressed by modesty or indolence, was 
delightful. The pleasantry, perhaps, of no man 
of wit had so unlabored an appearance. It seem- 
ed rather to escape from his mind than to be pro- 
duced by it. He had lived on the most intimate 
terms with all his cotemporaries, distinguished 
by wit, politeness, philosophy, learning, or the 
talents of public life. In the course of thirty 
years, he had known almost every man in Eu- 
rope whose intercourse could strengthen, or en- 
rich, or polish the mind. His own literature 
was various and elegant. In classical erudition, 
which, by the custom of England, is more pecu- 
liarly called learning, he was inferior to few pro- 
fessed scholars. Like all men of genius, he de- 
lighted to take refuge in poetry from the vulgar- 
ity and irritation of business. The character of 
his mind was displayed in his extraordinary par- 
tiality for the poetry of the two most poetical na- 
tions or, at least, languages of the west — those 
of the Greeks and of the Italians. He disliked 
political conversation, and never willingly took 
any part in it. 

To speak of him justly as an orator would re- 
quire a long essay. Every where natural, he 
carried into public something of that simple and 
negligent exterior which belonged to him in pri- 
vate. When he began to speak, a common ob- 
server might have thought him awkward ; and 
even a consummate judge could only have been 
struck with the exquisite justness of his ideas, 
and the transparent simplicity of his manners. 
But no sooner had he spoken for some time, than 
he was changed into another being. He forgot 
himself and every thing around him. He thought 
only of his subject. His genius warmed, and 
kindled as he went on. He darted fire into his 
audience. Torrents of impetuous and irresistible 
eloquence swept along their feelings and convic- 
tion. He certainly possessed above all moderns 
that union of reason, simplicity, and vehemence 
which formed the prince of orators. He was the 
most Dcmosthcnean speaker since Demosthenes. 
" I knew him," says Mr. Burke, in a pamphlet 
written after their unhappy diflercnce, " when he 
was nineteen ; since which time he has risen, by 
slow degrees, to be the most brilliant and accom- 
plished debater that the world ever saw." The 



jects, the absence of petty bustle, the contempt oi 
shoM^, the abhorrence of intrigue, the plainness 
and downrightness, and the thorough good na- 
ture which distinguished Mr. Fox, seem to ren- 
der him no very unfit representative of that old 
English national character, which if it ever 
changed, we should be sanguine, indeed, to ex- 
pect to see succeeded by a better. The sim- 
plicity of his character inspired confidence, the 
ardor of his eloquence roused enthusiasm, and the 
gentleness of his manners invited friendship. " I 
admired," says Mr. Gibbon, "the powers of a 
superior man, as they are blended in his attract- 
ive character, with all the softness and simplici- 
ty of a child ; no human being was ever more 
free from any taint of malignity, vanity, or false- 
hood." From these qualities of his public and 
private character, it probably arose that no En- 
glish statesman ever preserved during so long a 
period of adverse fortunes, so many affectionate 
friends and so many zealous adherents. The 
union of ardor in public sentiment, with mildness 
in social manner, was in Mr. Fox an hereditary 
quality. The same fascinating power over the 
attachment of all who came within his sphere is 
said to have belonged to his father ; and those 
who know the survivors of another generation 
will feel that this delightful quality is not yet ex- 
tinct in the race. 

Perhaps nothing can more strongly prove the 
deep impression made by this part of Mr. Fox's 
character than the words of Mr. Burke, who in 
January. 1797, six years after all intercourse 
between them had ceased, speaking to a person 
honored with some degree of Mr. Fox's friend- 
ship, said, " To be sure, he is a man made to be 
loved !" and these emphatical words were uttered 
with a fervor of manner which left no doubt of 
their heartfelt sincerity. 

These few hasty and honest sentences are 
sketched in a temper too sober and serious for 
intentional exaggeration, and with too pious an 
affection for the memory of Mr. Fox, to profane 
it by intermixture with the factious brau'ls and 
wrangles of the day. His political conduct be- 
longs to history. The measures which he sup- 
ported or opposed may divide the opinion of pos- 
terit}'-, as they have divided those of the present 
age. But he will most certainly command the 
unanimous reverence of future generations, by 
his pure sentiments toward the commonwealth, 
by his zeal for the civil and religious rights of 
all men, by his liberal principles favorable to 
mild government, to the unfettered exercise of 
the human faculties, and the progressive civiliza- 
tion of mankind, by his ardent love for a coun- 
try, of which the well-being and greatness were, 
indeed, inseparable from his own glory, and by 
his profound reverence for that free Constitution, 
which he was universally admitted to understand 
better than any other man of his age, both in an 
exactly legal and a comprehensively philosoph- 
ical sense. 



Mfi. CANNING. 

George Canning was born in London on the 11th of April, 1770. His father, 
who belonged to an Irish family of distinction, had been disinherited for marrying 
beneath his rank, and was trying his fortune as a barrister in the English metrop- 
olis with very scanty means of subsistence. He died one year after the birth of his 
son, leaving a widow, with three young children, wholly destitute of property, and 
dependent for support on her own exertions. 

Under these circumstances, Mrs. Canning, who was a woman of extraordinary 
force of character, first set up a small school, and soon after attempted the stage. 
She was successful in her provincial engagements, especially at Bath and Exeter ; 
and in the latter place she married a linen-draper of the name of Hunn, who was 
passionately attached to theatrical performances, and united with her in the employ- 
ment of an actor. A few years after, she was again left a widow by the death of 
Mr. Hunn ; but her profession gave her a competent independence, until she saw her 
son raised to the highest honors of the state, and was permitted to share in the fruits 
of his success.^ 

George was educated under the care of his uncle, Mr. Stratford Canning, a London 
merchant, out of the proceeds of a small estate in Ireland, which was left him by his 
grandmother. He was first sent to school at Hyde Abbey, near Winchester, where 
he made uncommon proficiency in the rudiments of Latin and Greek, and was par- 
ticularly distinguished for his love of elegant English literature. On one occasion, 
when a mere child, being accidentally called upon to repeat some verses, he com- 
menced with one of the poems of Mr. Gray, and never stopped or faltered until he 
had gone through the entire volume. His mother's employment naturally led him 
to take a lively interest in speaking, and especially in acting dialogues ; and in one 
instance, when the boys performed parts out of the Orestes of Euripides, previous to 
a vacation, he portrayed the madness of the conscience-stricken matricide with a 
force and tenderness which called forth the liveliest applause of the audience. 

Before he was fifteen, George went to Eton, and carried with him a high reputa- 
tion for writing Latin and Greek verses, which always confers distinction in the great 
schools of England. He was at once recognized as a boy of surprising genius and 
attainments ; and he used the influence thus gained in promoting his favorite pur- 
suit, that of elegant English literature. When a little more than sixteen, he induced 
the boys to establish a weekly paper called the Microcosm, to which he contributed 
largely, and acted as principal editor. Its pages bore such striking marks of brill- 
iancy and wit, as to attract the attention of the leading reviews ; and the work be- 
came the means of training up some of the most distinguished men of the age to 
those habits oi early comijosition, which Sir James Mackintosh speaks of as indispens- 
able to the character of a truly great writer. 

1 It is a high testimony to Mr. Canning's manliness and warmth of heart, that he never attempted 
to throw any covering over his mother's early history, but treated her openly throughout life with 
the utmost reverence and affection. He visited her at her residence in Bath as often as his public 
employments w^ould permit, and never allowed any business, however urgent, to prevent him from 
writing to her every Sunday of his life. He obtained pensions for his mother and sisters; and 
when attacked on the subject, defended himself to the satisfaction of all by saying that, in retiring 
from his office of Under Secretary in 1801, he was entitled to a pension of £500 a year, and had 
only procured the settlement of a fair equivalent on his dependent relatives. 



852 MR. CANNING. 

His attention, Avhile at Eton, was also strongly turned to extemporaneous speak- 
ing. He joined a society for debate, in which the Marquess of Wellesley, Earl Grey 
and other distinguished statesmen had gone before him in their preparation as ora- 
tors, and had introduced all the forms of the House of Commons. The Speaker was 
in the chair ; the minister, with his partisans, filled the Treasury benches, and wen 
faced by the most strenuous Opposition that Eton could muster. The enthusiasm 
with which Canning and his companions entered into these mimic contests was but 
httle inferior to what they felt in the real ones that followed, and for which they 
were thus preparing the way. Canning, especially, showed throughout life the in- 
fluence of his early habits of writi?ig in conjunction with extemporaneous debate. 
His speeches bear proofs on every page of the effects of the pen in forming his spoken 
style. On every important debate, he wrote much beforehand, and composed more 
in his mind, which flowed forth spontaneously, and mingled with the current of his 
thoughts, in all the fervor of the most prolonged and excited discussion. Hence, 
w^hile he had great ease and variety, he never fell into that negligence and looseness 
of style which we always find in a purely extemporaneous speaker. 

After standing foremost among his companions at Eton in all the lower forms, 
George became " captain" of the school, and was removed to Christ Church, Oxford, 
in October, 1787. The accuracy and ripeness of his scholarship turned upon him 
the eyes of the whole University, and justified his entering, even when ai freshman, 
into competition for the Chancellor's first prize, which he gained by a Latin poem 
entitled " Iter ad Meccam E.eligionis Causa Susceptum." The distinction which he 
thus early acquired, he maintained, throughout his whole college course, by a union 
of exemplary diligence with a maturity of judgment, refinement of taste, and brill- 
iancy of genius far beyond his years. In Mr. Canning we have one of the happiest 
exhibitions of the results produced by the classical course pursued at Eton and Ox- 
ford, which, " whatever may be its defects, must be owned," says Sir James Mack- 
intosh, " v/hen taken with its constant appendages, to be eminently favorable to the 
cultivation of sense and taste, as well as to the development of wit and spirit." The 
natural effect, however, of this incessant competition, in connection with the early 
tendencies of his mind and his remarkable success, was to cherish that extreme sens- 
itiveness to the opinion of others, that delight in superiority, that quick sense of his 
oAvn dignity, that sensibility to supposed neglect or disregard, which, with all his at- 
tractive qualities, made him in early life not always a pleasant companion, and some- 
times involved him in the most serious difficulties. But, though he never lost his 
passion for distinction, it was certainly true of him, as said by another, " As he ad- 
vanced in years, his fine countenance, once so full of archness or petulance, w^as en- 
nobled by the expression of thought and feehng ; he now pursued that lasting praise 
which is not to be earned without praiseworthiness ; and if he continued to be a lover 
of fame, he also passionately loved the glory of his country." 

Mr. Canning left the University in the twenty-second year of his age, and after 
giving a few months to the study of the law, was invited by Mr. Pitt, who had heard 
of his extraordinary talents, to take a seat in Parliament as a regular supporter of 
the government. His first predilections were in favor of Whig principles. He had 
been intimate with Mr. Sheridan from early life, but diflered from him wholly in re- 
spect to the French Revolution, and was thus prepared to look favorably on the pro- 
posals of Mr. Pitt. After mutual explanations, he accepted the offer, and was re- 
turned to Parliament from one of the ministerial boroughs at the close of 1793, in 
the twenty-fourth year of his age. 

Mr. Canning's maiden speech was in favor of a subsidy to the King of Sardinia, 
and was delivered on the 31st of January, 1794. It was brilliant, but wanting in 
fjolidity and judgment ; and in general it may be remarked, that he rose sloiuly into 



MR. CANNING. 853 

those higher qualities as a speaker, for which he was so justly distinguished during 
the later years of his life. He was from the first easy and fluent ; he knew how to 
play with an argument when he could not answer it ; he had a great deal of real 
wit, and too much of that ungenerous raillery and sarcasm, by which an antagonist 
may be made ridiculous, and the audience turned against him, without once meeting 
the question on its true merits. There was added to this an air of disregard for the 
feelings of others, and even of willingness to ofiend, which doubled the sense of in- 
jury every blow he struck ; so that during the first ten years of his parliamentary ca- 
reer, he never made a speech, it was said, on which he particularly plumed himself, 
without making likewise an enemy for life. He was continually acting, as one said 
who put the case strongly, like " the head of the sixth form at Eton : squibbing the 
' doctor,' as Mr. Addington was called — fighting my Lord Castlereagh — cutting heart- 
less jokes on poor Mr. Ogden — flatly contradicting Mr. Brougham — swaggering over 
the Holy Alliance — quarreling with the Duke of Wellington — perpetually involved 
in some personal scrape." These habits, however, gradually wore off as he advanced 
in life, and his early political opponents were warmest in their commendations of his 
conduct at the close of his political career. 

In 1797, Mr. Canning projected the Anti- Jacobin Review, in conjunction with Mr. 
Jenkinson and Mr. Ellis (afterward Lords Liverpool and Seaford), Mr. Frere, and 
other writers of the same stamp. Mr. GifTord was editor, and its object was to hear 
down the Radical party in politics and literature, and to turn upon them the con- 
tempt of the whole nation by the united force of argument and ridicule. It took the 
widest range, from lofty and vehement reasoning to the keenest satire and the most 
bitter personal abuse. It applied the lash with merciless severity to all the extrav- 
agances of the day in taste and sentiment — the mawkish sensibility of the Delia 
Cruscan school, the incongruous mixtures of virtue and vice in the new German 
drama, and the various imjjrove^nents in literature introduced by Holcroft, Thelwall, 
and others among the Radical reformers. Such an employment was perfectly suited 
to the taste of Mr. Canning. It was an exercise of ingenuity in which he always de- 
lighted ; and a large part of the keenest wit, the most dextrous travesty, and the 
happiest exhibitions of the laughable and burlesque, were the productions of his pen. 
The most striking poetical effusions were his. Among these, the " Knife-grinder," 
and the " Loves of Mary Pottinger," are admirable in their way, and will hold their 
place among the amusing extravaganzas of our literature, when the ablest political 
diatribes of the Anti- Jacobin are forgotten.^ 

'•* The reader may be pleased, as a specimen, to see Mr. Canning's sapphics on the Knife-grinder, 
intended as a burlesque on a fashionable poet's extreme sensibility to the sufferings of the poor, 
and his reference of all their distresses to political causes. It was also designed to ridicule his 
hobbling verse and abrupt transitions. 

THE FRIEND OF HUMANITY AND THE KNIFE-GRINDER. 

Friend of Humanity. 
Needy knife-grinder ! whither are you going ? 
Rough is the road ; your wheel is out of order ; 
Bleak blows the blast ; your hat has got a hole in't, 

So have your breeches ! 

Weary knife-grinder ! little think the proud ones, 
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike- 
Road, what hard work 'tis crying all day, " Knives and 
Scissors to grind O !" 

Tell me, knife-grinder, how came you to grind knives ? 
Did some rich man tyrannically use you ? 
Was it the squire ? or parson of the parish ? 

Or the attorney? 



854 MR. CANNING. 

In July, 1800, Mr. Canning married Miss Joan Scott, daughter of General Scott, 
and sister to Lady Tichfield, afterward Duchess of Portland. She had a fortune of 
XlOO,000, which placed him at once in circumstances of entire independence, while 
he gained an increase of influence by his family alliances. 

In a sketch like this, only the leading incidents can be given in the political ca- 
reer of Mr. Canning. He was actively engaged in public life for nearly thirty-four 
years, eleven of which were spent in connection with Mr. Pitt. His first ofUce was 
that of Under Secretar}' of State. He went out with his patron during Mr. Adding- 
ton's brief ministry, and came in with him again, as Treasurer of the Navy, in 1804. 
On Mr. Pitt's death, early in 1806, he was not included (as he had reason to expect) 
in Lord Grenville's arrangements, and went into opposition. During his whole life, 
he was the ardent champion of the " Great Minister's" principles, and the defender 
of his fame. In the London Q/Uarterly for August, 1810, he gave an estimate of 
Mr. Pitt's character and a defense of his political life, which for ingenuity of thought, 
richness of fancy, and splendor of diction, has never been surpassed in the periodical 
literature of our language. It came warm from his heart. He truly said to his con- 
stituents at Liverpool, "In the grave of Mr. Pitt my political allegiance lies buried." 

On the accession of the Duke of Portland to power (March, 1807), Mr. Canning 
became Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and for the first time a member of the cabinet. 
But, at the end of two years, he had a personal altercation with Lord Castlereagh 
(then Secretary of War), resulting in a duel, which not only threw both of them out 
of office, but dissolved the Portland ministry. 

Mr. Canning now remained out of power nearly five years, though regular in his 
attendance on Parliament. He took independent ground during Mr. Percival's min- 
istry of a year and a half, and delivered at this time his celebrated speech on the 
Bullion (Question, exposing the current fallacy, "It is not paper that has fallen, but 
gold which has risen," and calling, in the strongest terms, for the resumption of cash 

Was it the squire, for killing of his game? or 

Covetous parson, for his tithes distraining ? 

Or roguish lawyer, made you lose your little 

All in a lawsuit? 

(Have you not read the Rights of Man, by Tom Paine?) 

Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids. 

Ready to fall, as soon as you have told your 
Pitiful story. 
Knife-grinder. 

Story ! why bless you ! I have none to tell, sir ; 

Only last night a drinking at the Checkers, 

This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were 
Torn in a scuffle. 

Constables came up for to take me into 

Custody ; they took me before the justice ; 

Justice Oldmixou put me in the parish- 
stocks for a vagrant. 

I should be glad to drink your honor's health in 

A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence ; 

But, for my part, I never love to meddle 

With politics, sir. 

Friend of Humanity. 
/give thee sixpence ! I will see thee hang'd first ! 
Wretch ! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance. 
Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, 

Spiritless outcast ! 
{_Kicks the knife-grinder, overtnms his wheel, and exit in a transport of 
republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy. '\ 



MR. CANNING. 855 

payments. This speech, though interesting no longer to the general reader, has been 
truly characterized as " one of the most powerful and masterly specimens on record 
of chaste and reasoning eloquence." The question lay out of Mr. Canning's ordinary 
range of thought, and the ability with which he took it up proved (what his friends 
had always said) that no man could more promptly, or with greater effect, turn the 
whole force of his mind on any new subject, however foreign to his ordinary pursuits. 
Under his friend Lord Liverpool [Mr. Jenkinson], who followed Mr. Percival in June, 
1812, he gave his cordial support to the ministry, though excluded from office by his 
views in favor of Catholic emancipation. To him especially, at this period, was 
Lord Wellington indebted for an enthusiastic support during his long and terrible 
conflict in Spain. It was under the policy and guidance of Canning, as Secretary 
of Foreign Affairs in 1808, that this conflict commenced ; and he never ceased to 
animate the country to fresh sacrifices and efforts in battling with Bonaparte for the 
rescue of the Peninsula. It was the first favorable opportunity ever presented for 
carrying out the continental policy of Mr. Pitt, and it was always the theme of Mr. 
Canning's proudest exultations. " If there is any part of my political conduct," said 
he, " in which I glory, it is that in the face of every difficulty, discouragement, and 
prophecy of failure, mine was the hand which committed England to an alliance 
with Spain." 

In 1812, Mr. Canning was invited to stand as a candidate for Liverpool, and, 
though powerfully opposed by Mr. Brougham, he carried his election, and was again 
returned, on three subsequent occasions, with continually increasing majorities. Two 
speeches to his constituents at Liverpool will be found below ; they are some of the 
best specimens of his eloquence. 

In 1814, he was sent as embassador extraordinary to the court of Lisbon, and being 
attacked on this subject, after his return to the House, in 1816, he made his defense 
in a speech of remarkable ability and manliness, which has, however, but little in- 
terest for the reader at the present day, because filled up chiefly with matters of per- 
sonal detail. The same year [1816] he was made President of the Board of Indian 
Control, and thus brought again into the ministry. From this ,time England was 
agitated for six or eight years by the rash movements of the Radical reformers, which 
led ministers to adopt measures of great, perhaps undue stringency, to preserve the 
pubhc peace. Mr. Canning took strong ground on this subject, and was severely at- 
tacked in a pamphlet understood to be from the pen of Sir Philip Francis. His ex- 
treme sensitiveness to such attacks showed itself in an extraordinary way. He ad- 
dressed a private letter to the author of the pamphlet, through Ridgeway, the publish- 
er, telling him, " You are a liar and a slaitderer, and ivant courage only to he an as- 
sassi?i." Even on dueling principles, no man was bound to come forward under such 
a call ; and the challenge which Mr. Canning endeavored to provoke was not given. 

In 1822, he was appointed Governor General of India, but, at the moment when 
he was ready to embark for Calcutta, the office of Secretary of Foreign Affairs be- 
came vacant by the sudden death of the Marquess of Londonderry [Lord Castlereagh], 
and Mr. Canning was called to this important station on the 16th of February, 1823. 
It was a crisis of extreme difficulty. France was at that moment collecting troops 
to overthrow the constitutional government of Spain, and was urging the other al- 
lied powers, then assembled in congress at Verona, to unite in the intervention. Mr. 
Canning instantly dispatched the Duke of Wellington to Verona with the strongest 
remonstrances of the British government against the proposed invasion of Spain ; and» 
at the opening of the next Parliament, explained and defended the views of the min- 
istry in a manner which called forth the warmest applause of Mr. Brougham and 
most of his other political opponents.^ Early in 1825, Mr. Canning took the import- 
3 On this subject, see Mr. Brougham's speech, page 904. 



S56 MR. CANNING. 

ant step of recognizing the independence of the Spanish provinces in South America, 
a measure which made him deservedly popular in every part of the kingdom. In 
December, 1826, actuated by the same liberal sentiments, he made his celebrated 
speech on giving aid to Portugal, when threatened with invasion from Spain. It will 
be found below, and has been generally regarded as the master-piece of his eloquence, 
not only for the felicity of its arrangement and the admirable grace and spirit with 
which his points are pressed, but for the large and statesmanlike views he takes of 
European politics, and his prophetic foresight of the great contest ofp7•^/^c^^9Zes which 
was even then coming on."* 

As to all questions of foreign policy — the most important by far of any at that pe- 
riod — Mr. Canning was virtually minister from February, 1823, when he was ap- 
pointed Secretary of Foreign Affairs. He had so entirely the confidence of Lord Liv- 
erpool, that his intellect was the presiding one in the cabinet ; and as Lord Liver- 
pool's health began to decline, the burden of the government rested upon him more 
and more. In 1827, his Lordship died of a paralytic shock ; and on April 12th of 
that year, Mr. Canning was made Prime Minister in form. The Duke of Welling- 
ton, Mr. Peel, and nearly all his Tory colleagues, threw up their places at once, out 
of hostility to Catholic emancipation, w^hich they saw must prevail if he remained in 
power — the very men who, two years after, under the strong compulsion of public 
sentiment, carried that same emancipation through both houses of Parliament ! But 
they sacrificed Mr. Canning before they could be made to do it. A keen and unre- 
lenting opposition now sprung up ; and some who, only a few months before, had 
made him " the god of their idolatry," were foremost in denouncing him as " the most 
profligate minister that was ever in power." Unfortunately, at this crisis, his health 
failed him. He had been brought to the brink of the grave, at the commencement 
of the year, by an illness contracted at the funeral of the Duke of York ; and M'ith 
his peculiar sensitiveness, heightened by disease, he could not endure the bitter per- 
sonal altercations to which he was continually exposed. He was singularly situated. 
Standing between the two great parties of the country, he agreed with the Whigs 
on the subjects of Catholic emancipation, foreign policy, and commercial regulation, 
while he differed from them as to parliamentary reform, and the repeal of the Test 
Act. Still, they gave him a generous support ; and he could rely on the wit of Tierney 
and the scathing eloquence of Brougham to defend him against the attacks of those 
who were so lately his servile dependents or his admiring friends. He had reached 
the summit of his ambition — but it was only to die I His ardent mind bore him up 
for a brief season, but was continually exhausting the springs of life within. His 
last act was one of his worthiest — that of signing the treaty of London for the deliv- 
erance of Greece. He transacted public business until a few days before his death, 
and died on the 8th of August, 1827, in the fifty-eighth year of his age.^ 

As a fitting close of this memoir, the reader will be interested in the following beau- 
tiful sketch of Mr. Canning's character by Sir James Mackintosh, slightly abridged 
and modified in the arrangement of its parts. 

" Mr, Canning seems to have been the best model among our orators of the adorn- 
ed style. The splendid and sublime descriptions of Mr. Burke — his comprehensive 
and profound views of general principles — though they must ever delight and instruct 
the reader, must be owned to have been digressions which diverted the mind of the 
hearer from the object on which the speaker ought to have kept it steadily fixed. 

* See the remarkable passage on this subject, page 882. 

^ " Canning," says a late writer, " would have attained to old age, but for his sleepless nights. 
Down to the year 1826, he had no organic disease whatever. His constitution was untouched; but 
his brain, at night, was active for hours after he retired to bed. He has himself, in a letter to Sir 
W. Knighton, given a graphic picture of a night of torture.'' 



MR. CANNING. 857 

Sheridan, a man of admirable sense and matchless wit, labored to follow Burke into 
the foreign regions of feeling and grandeur. The specimens preserved of his most 
celebrated speeches show too much of the exaggeration and excess to which those 
are peculiarly liable who seek by art and effort what nature has denied. By the 
constant part which Mr. Canning took in debate, he was called upon to show a 
knowledge which Sheridan did not possess, and a readiness which that accomplished 
man had no such means of strengthening and displaying. In some qualities of style 
Mr. Canning surpassed Mr. Pitt. His diction was more various — sometimes more 
simple — more idiomatical, even in its more elevated parts. It sparkled with im- 
agery, and was brightened by illustration ; in both of which Mr. Pitt, for so great an 
orator, was defective. 

" Had he been a dry and meager speaker, Mr. Canning would have been universally 
allowed to have been one of the greatest masters of argument ; but his hearers were 
so dazzled by the splendor of his diction that they did not perceive the acuteness and 
the occasional excessive refinement of his reasoning ; a consequence which, as it 
shows the injurious influence of a seductive fault, can with the less justness be over- 
looked in the estimate of his understanding. Ornament, it must be owned, when it 
only pleases or amuses, without disposing the audience to adopt the sentiments of the 
speaker, is an offense against the first law of public speaking ; it obstructs instead of 
promoting its only reasonable purpose. But eloquence is a widely-extended art, com- 
prehending many sorts of excellence, in some of which ornamented diction is more 
liberally employed than in others, and in none of which the highest rank can be at- 
tained without an extraordinary combination of mental powers. 

" No English speaker used the keen and brilliant weapon of wit so long, so often, 
or so effectively, as Mr. Canning. He gained more triumphs, and incurred more en- 
mity by it than by any other. Those whose importance depends much on birtli and 
fortune are impatient of seeing their own artificial dignity, or that of their order, 
broken down by derision ; and perhaps few men heartily forgive a successful jest 
against themselves, but those who are conscious of being unhurt by it. Mr. Can- 
ning often used this talent imprudently. In sudden flashes of wit, and in the play- 
ful description of men or things, he was often distinguished by that natural felicity 
which is the charm of pleasantry, to which the air of art and labor is more fatal than 
to any other talent. The exuberance of fancy and wit lessened the gravity of his 
general manner, and perhaps also indisposed the audience to feel his earnestness where 
it clearly showed itself. In that important quality he was inferior to Mr. Pitt, 

" ' Deep on whose front engraven, 
Deliberation sat, and public care;'^ 

and no less inferior to Mr. Fox, whose fervid eloquence flowed from the love of his 
country, the scorn of baseness, and the hatred of cruelty, which were the ruling pas- 
sions of his nature. 

" On the whole, it may be observed that the range of Mr. Canning's powers as an 
orator was wider than that in which he usually exerted them. When mere state- 
ment only was allowable, no man of his age was more simple. When infirm health 
compelled him to be brief, no speaker could compress his matter with so little sacri- 
fice of clearness, ease, and elegance. As his oratorical faults were those of youthful 
genius, the progress of age seemed to purify his eloquence, and every year appeared 
to remove some speck which hid, or at least dimmed, a beauty. He daily rose to 
larger views, and made, perhaps, as near approaches to philosophical principles as 
the great difference between the objects of the philosopher and those of the orator 
will commonly allow. 

" Mr. Canning possessed, in a high degree, the outward advantages of an orator. 

6 Paradise Lost, book ii. 



858 MR. CANNING. 

His expressive countenance varied with the changes of his eloquence ; his voice, flex- 
ible and articulate, had as much compass as his mode of speaking required. In the 
calm part of his speeches, his attitude and gesture might have been selected by a 
painter to represent grace rising toward dignity. 

" In social intercourse Mr, Canning was delightful. Happily for the true charm of 
his conversation, he was too busy not to treat society as more fitted for relaxation 
than for display. It is but little to say that he was neither disputatious, declamatory, 
nor sententious — neither a dictator nor a jester. His manner was simple and unob- 
trusive ; his language always quite familiar. If a higher thought stole from his 
mind, it came in its conversational undress. From this plain ground his pleasantry 
sprang with the happiest effect ; and it was nearly exempt from that alloy of taunt 
and banter which he sometimes mixed with more precious materials in public con- 
test. He may be added to the list of those eminent persons who pleased most in 
their friendly circle. He had the agreeable quality of being more easily pleased in 
society than might have been expected from the keenness of his discernment and the 
sensibility of his temper : still, he was liable to be discomposed, or even silenced, by 
the presence of any one whom he did not like. His manner in company betrayed 
the political vexations or anxieties which preyed on his mind : nor could he conceal 
that sensitiveness to public attacks which their frequent recurrence wears out in most 
English politicians. These last foibles may be thought interesting as the remains of 
natural character, not destroyed by refined society and political affairs. 

" In some of the amusements or tasks of his boyhood there are passages which, with- 
out much help from fancy, might appear to contain allusions to his greatest measures 
of policy, as well as to the tenor of his life, and to the melancholy splendor which 
surrounded his death. In the concluding hue of the first English verses written by 
him at Eton, he expressed a wish, which has been singularly reahzed, that he might 

" ' Live in a blaze, and in a blaze expire.* 

It is a striking coincidence, that the statesman, whose dying measure was to mature 
an alliance for the deliverance of Greece, should, when a boy, have written English 
verses on the slavery of that country ; and that in his prize poem at Oxford, on the 
Pilgrimage to Mecca — a composition as much applauded as a modern Latin poem can 
aspire to be — he should have so bitterly deplored the lot of other renowned coun- 
tries now groaning under the same barbarous yoke, 

" ' Nunc satrapae imperio et sievo subdita Turcae.''' 

" To conclude : He was a man of fine and brilliant genius, of warm afTections of a 
high and generous spirit — a statesman who, at home, converted most of his oppo- 
nents into warm supporters ; who, abroad, was the sole hope and trust of all who 
sought an orderly and legal liberty, and who was cut off in the midst of vigorous and 
splendid measures, which, if executed by himself or with his own spirit, promised to 
place his name in the first class of rulers, among the founders of lasting peace and 
the guardians of human improvement." 

7 Now to the satrap and proud Turk subjected. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. CANNING ON THE FALL OF BONAPARTE, DELIVERED AT LIVERPOOL, JANUARY 10, 1814. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Mr. Canning was elected member for Liverpool, in opposition to Mr. Brougham, in the autumn of 1812, 
and at the end of fourteen months he visited his constituents to congratulate them on the success of the 
Allies on the Continent, which had filled all England with exultation and triumph. 

After the retreat of Bonaparte from Moscow, in the winter of 1812-13, nearly all Europe combined for 
bis overthrow ; and though he still maintained the contest, his fall was rendered certain by the advance 
of an overpowering force from every quarter to invade the French territory. 

The speech of Mr. Canning on this occasion, for selectness of thought, for beauty of language, for ardor 
and enthusiasm, was perhaps superior to any of his productions. 

SPEECH, &c. 

Gentlemen, as your guest, I thank you from | is just to speak well ; and I do no more than 
my heart for the honorable and affec- j justice to the gentleman [Mr. John Backhouse] 



edgment of tionatc reccptlon which you have given 

kindness. » ^, .„*:,.„ „*' t 



hom you have appointed to conduct the office 
me. As the representative of Liver- in question (with whom I had no previous ac- 
pool, I am most happy in meeting my constitu- i quaintance), in bearing public testimony to his 
ents again, after a year's experience of each oth- merit, and in assuring you that it would be diffi- 
er, and a year's separation ; a year, the most cult to find any one who would surpass him in 
eventful in the annals of the world, and com- | zeal, intelligence, and industry, 
prising within itself such a series of stupendous I Having dispatched what it was necessary for 
changes as might have filled the history of an me to say on these points, I know, gen- y.^^ ^^^^^ 
age. [ tlemen, that it is your wish, and I feel '"'^ aHWrs. 

Gentlemen, you have been so good as to couple it to be my duty, that I should now proceed to 
Regard foY the With my uamc the expression of your i communicate to you my sentiments on the state 
i"lYker^s°con* acknowledgments for the attention of public affairs, with the same frankness which 
stitueiits. which I have paid to the interests of ■ has hitherto distinguished all our intercourse wnth 

your town. You, gentlemen, I have no doubt, ^ each other. That duty is one which it does not 
recollect the terms upon w^hich I entered into ! now require any effort of courage to perform, 
your service ; and you are aw^are, thei-efore, that | To exhort to sacrifices, to stimulate to exertion, 
I claim no particular acknowledgment at your 
hands for attention to the interests of Liverpool, 



implicated as they are with the general inter- 
ests of the country. I trust, at the same time, 
that I have not been wanting to all or to any of 
you in matters of local or individual concern. 
But I should not do fairly by you, if I were not 



to shame despondency, to divert from untimely 
concession, is a duty of a sterner sort, which you 
found me not backward to discharge, at a period 
when, from the shortness of our acquaintance, I 
was uncertain whether my freedom might not 
offend you. My task of to-day is one at which 
no man can take offense. It is to mingle mv 



to take this opportunity of saying that a service congratulations with your rejoicings on the events 
(which certainly I will not pretend to describe , which have passed and are passing in the world, 
as without some burden in itself) has been made | If, in contemplating events so widely (I had al- 
light to me, beyond all example, by that institu- most said so tremendously) important, g^^^^^, ^^^ 
tion which your munificence and provident care it be pardonable to turn one's view for 3"^ exultation 
have established: I mean the office in London, j a moment to local and partial consider- '" "^"' ™*"" 
through which your correspondence with your ations, I may be permitted to observe, that, while 
members is now^ carried on. I had no preten- i to Great Britain, while to all Europe, w^hile to 
sion, gentlemen, to this singular mark of your | the world and to posterity, the events which have 
consideration; but neither will it, I hope, be ! recently taken place are matter of unbounded and 
thought presumptuous in me to confess, that I universal joy, there is no collection of individuals 
might not have been able to discharge the serv- I who are better entitled than the company now 
ice which I owe you, in a way which would assembled in this room (in great part, I presume, 
have satisfied my own feelings as well as yours identically the same, and altogether representing 
— that I might, in spite of all my endeavors, have 1 the same interests and feelings as that of which 
been guilty of occasional omissions, if I had not ' I took leave, in this room, about fourteen months 
been provided with some such medium of com- i ago) to exult in the present state of things, and 
munication with my constituents. Of an absent , to derive from it, in addition to their share of the 
and meritorious individual, it is as pleasing as it ] genei-al joy, a distinct and special satisfaction. 



860 



MR. CANNING 



[1814. 



We can not forget, gentlemen, the sinister 
., omens and awful predictions under 

Alarniiiig pre- . ■ r\ 

dictions which which WO met and parted in October, 
1812. The penalty denounced upon 
you for your election of me was embarrassment 
to the rich and famine to the poor. I was warned 
that, when I should return to renew my acquaint- 
ance with my constituents, I should find the grass 
growing in your streets. In spite of that denun- 
ciation, you did me the honor to elect me ; in spite 
of that warning, I venture to meet you here again. 
It must be fairly confessed that this is not the sea- 
son of the year to estimate correctly the amount 
of superfluous and unprofitable vegetation with 
which your streets may be teeming ; but, with- 
out presuming to limit the power of productive 
nature, it is at least satisfactory to know that the 
fields have not been starved to clothe your quays 
with verdure ; that it is not by economizing in 
the scantiness of the harvest that nature has re- 
served her vigor for the pastures of your Ex- 
change. 

But, gentlemen, I am sure you feel, with me, 
_,,. ... that these are topics which I treat 

This failure ow- . . » 

ing not to the witli Icvity Only because they are not, 

choice of men, .. .. i .^ • i . i 

nor were, at the time when they were 
seriously urged, susceptible of a serious argu- 
. ment ( they did not furnish grounds on which 
any man would rest his appeal to your favor, or 
on which your choice of any man could be justi- 
fied. If I have condescended to revert to them 
at all, it is because I would leave none of those 
recollections untouched which the comparison of 
our last meeting with the present, I know, sug- 
gests to your minds as well as to my own ; and 
because I would, so far as in me lies, endeavor 
to banish from all future use, by exposing their 
absurdity, topics which are calculated only to 
mislead and to inflame. That the seasons would 
have run their appointed course, that the sun 
would have shone with as genial a warmth, and 
the showers would have fallen with as fertilizing 
a moisture, if you had not chosen me for your 
representative, is an admission w^hich I make 
without much apprehension of the consequence. 
Nor do I wish you to believe that your choice 
of any other than me would have delayed the re- 
turn of your prosperity, or prevented the revival 
of your commerce. 

I make these admissions without fear, so far 
^ ^ ,, as concerns the choice between indi- 

but adherence . , , -n t i i • i 

to great princi- viduals. But 1 do uot admit that It 
^^"^ was equally indifferent upon what 

principles that choice should be determined. I 
do not admit, that if the principles which it was 
then recommended to you to countenance had un- 
fortunately prevailed in Parliament, and, through 
the authority of Parliament, had been introduced 
into the counsels of the country, they would not 
have interfered with fatal operation, not indeed 
to arrest the bounty of Providence, to turn back 
the course of the seasons, and to blast the fertility 
of the earth, but to stop that current of political 
events which, "taken at the flood," has placed 
England at the head of the world. 

Gentlemen, if I had met you here again on this 



day in a state of public affairs as doubtful as that 
in which Vfe took leave of each oth- 

.^ „ , , . Ill Perseverance 

er ; II conlederated nations had been in these princi- 
still arrayed against this country, and of'uie'preselu* 
the balance of Europe still trembling ^■'""'Pi'^- 
in the scale, I should not have hesitated now, as 
I did not hesitate then, to declare my decided and 
unalterable opinion, that perseverance, under 
whatever difficulties, under whatever privations, 
afforded the only chance of prosperity to you, be- 
cause the only chance of safety to your country ; 
and the only chance of safety to the country, be- 
cause the only chance of deliverance to Europe. 
Gentlemen, I should be ashamed to address you 
now in the tone of triumph, if I had not address- 
ed you then in that of exhortation. I should be 
ashamed to appear before you shouting in the 
train of success, if I had not looked you in the 
face and encouraged you to patience under diffi- 
culties. It is because ray acquaintance with you 
commenced in times of peril and embarrassment, 
and because I then neither flattered nor deceived 
you, that I now^ not only offer to you my congrat- 
ulations, but put in my claim to yours, on the 
extinction of that peril, on the termination of that 
embarrassment, and on the glorious issue to which 
exertion and endurance have brought that great 
struggle in which our honor and our happiness 
were involved. 

Gentlemen, during the course of a political 
life, nearly coeval wuth the commencement of 
the w^ar, I have never given one vote, I have 
never uttered one sentiment, which had not for 
its object the consummation now happily within 
our view. 

I am not ashamed, and it is not unpleasing or 
unprofitable, to look back upon the Elevated pnsi- 
dangers which we have passed, and «i"ni'iE"g'and. 
to compare them with the scene which now lies 
before us. We behold a country inferior in 
population to most of her continental neigjbbors, 
but multiplying her faculties and resources by 
her own activity and enterprise, by the vigor of 
her Constitution, and by the good sense of her 
people ; we behold her, after standing up against 
a formidable foe throughout a contest, in the 
course of which every one of her allies, and at 
times all of them together, have fainted and 
failed — nay, have been driven to combine with 
the enemy against her — we behold her, at this 
moment, rallying the nations of Eui'ope to one 
point, and leading them to decisive victory. 

If such a picture were merely the bright vis- 
ion of speculative philosophy, if it were present- 
ed to us in the page of the history of ancient 
times, it would stir and warm the heart. But, 
gentlemen, this country is our own ; and what 
must be the feelings which arise, on such a re- 
view, in the bo.som of every son of that country ? 
What must be the feelings of a community such 
as I am now addressing, which constitutes no 
insignificant part of the strength of the nation 
so described ; which has suffered largely in her 
privations, and may hope to participate propor- 
tionably in her reward ? What (I may be per- 
mitted "^o add) must be the feelings of one who 



1814] 



ON THE FALL OF BONAPARTE. 



861 



is chosen to represent that community, and who 
finds himself in that honorable station at the mo- 
ment of triumph, only because he discountenan- 
ced despair in the moment of despondency ? 

From the contemplation of a spectacle so 
The consequence mighty and magnificent as this, I 
fonS'stabhsi^ed""" s^ould disdain to tum aside to the 
principles. controversics of party. Of princi- 

ples, however, it is impossible not to say some- 
thing ; because our triumph would be incom- 
plete, and its blessings might be transient, if we 
could be led astray by any sophistry ; if we 
could consent, in a sort of compromise of com- 
mon joy, to forget or to misstate the causes from 
which that triumph has sprung. All of one 
mind, I trust and believe we are, in exulting at 
the success of our country ; all of one mind, I 
trust, we now are throughout this land, in determ- 
ining to persevere, if need be, in strenuous exer- 
tion to prosecute, and I hope, to perfect the great 
work so happily in progress. But we know that 
there are some of those who share most heartily 
in the public exultation, who yet ascribe efTects, 
which happily can not be disputed, to causes 
which may justly be denied. No tenderness for 
disappointed prophecies, gentlemen, ought to in- 
duce us thus to disconnect effect and cause. It 
would lead to errors which might be dangerous, 
if unwarily adopted and generally received. 

We have heard, for instance, that the war has 
These not "°^ been successful, because the princi- 
changed.as pies ou wliich the war was undertaken 

pretended, f , , 

during the have bccu renounced ; that we are at 
length blessed with victory, because w^e 
have thrown away the banner under w^hich w^e 
entered into the contest ; that the contest was 
commenced with one set of principles, but that 
the issue has been happily brought about by the 
adoption of another. Gentlemen, I know of no 
such change. If we have succeeded, it has not 
been by the renunciation, but by the prosecution 
of our principles ; if we have succeeded, it has 
not been by adopting new maxims of policy, but 
by upholding, under all varieties of difficulty and 
discouragement, old, established, inviolable prin- 
ciples of conduct. 

We are told that this war has of late become 
Bntthepeo- a war of the people, and that by the 
to^orwftif operation of that change alone§ the 
their rulers, power of imperial France has been 
baffled and overcome. Nations, it is said, have 
at length made common cause with their sov- 
ereigns, in a contest which heretofore had been 
a contest of sovereigns only. Gentlemen, the 
fact of the change might be admitted, without, 
therefore, admitting the argument. It does not 
follow that the people were not at all times 
equally interested in the war (as those who think 
as I do have always contended that they were), 
because it may be, and must be admitted that 
the people, in many countries, were for a time 
deluded. They who argue against us say that 
jarring interests have been reconciled. We say 
that gross delusions have been removed. Both ad- 
mit the fact that sovereigns and their people aj-e 
identified. But it is for them, who contend that 



this has been effected by change of principles, 
to specify the change. What change of princi- 
ples or of government has taken place among the 
nations of Europe? We are the best judges 
of ourselves — what change has taken place here ? 
Is the Constitution other than it was when we 
were told (as we often were told in the bad 
times) that it was a doubt whether it were worth 
defending ? Is the Constitution other than it was 
when we were warned that peace on any terms 
must be made, as the only hope of saving it from 
popular indignation and popular reform ? 

There is yet another question to be asked. 
By what power, in what part of the The powers 
world, has that final blow been struck ^cineveir^ 
which has smitten the tyrant to the ^'^ victory. 
ground ? I suppose, by some enlightened re- 
public ; by some recently-regenerated govern- 
ment of pure philanthropy and uncorrupted vir- 
tue ; I suppose, by some nation which, in the 
excess of popular freedom, considers even a rep- 
resentative system as defective, unless each in- 
dividual interferes directly in the national con- 
cerns ; some nation of enlightened patriots, ev- 
ery man of whom is a politician in the coffee- 
house, as well as in the Senate : I suppose it is 
from some such government as this that the 
conqueror of autocrats, the sworn destroyer of 
monarchical England, has met his doom. I look 
through the Eui'opean world, gentlemen, in vain : 
I find there no such august community. But in 
another hemisphere I do find such a one, which, 
no doubt, must be the political David by whom 
the Goliath of Europe has been brought down. 
What is the name of that glorious republic, to 
which the gratitude of Europe is eternally due 
— which, from its innate hatred to tyranny, has 
so perseveringly exerted itself to liberate the 
world, and at last has successfully closed the 
contest ? Alas, gentlemen, such a republic I do 
indeed find ; and I find it enlisted, and (God be 
thanked !) enlisted alone, under the banner of 
the despot.^ But where was the blow struck ? 
Where ? Alas for theory ! In the wilds of des- 
potic Russia. It was followed up on the plains 
of Leipsic — by Russian, Prussian, and Austrian 
arms. 

But let me not be mistaken. Do I, therefore, 
mean to contend — do I, therefore, give PiUriotism 
to our antagonists in the argument the fnsTincttve 
advantage of ascribing to us the base '"«'^''"s- 
tenet that an absolute monarchy is better than 
a free government ? God forbid ! What I mean 
is this, that, in appreciating the comparative ex- 
cellence of political institutions, in estimating 
the force of national spirit, and the impulses of 
national feeling, it is idle — it is mere pedantry, 
to overlook the affections of nature^ The order' 
of nature could not subsist among mankind, if 
there were not an instinctive patriotism ; I do 
not say unconnected with, but prior and para- 

* This slant at America was, of course, to be ex- 
pected in time of war, and had quite as little bitter- 
ness in it as we should naturally look for in a man 
of Mr. Canning's temperament, at a moment of so 
much exultation. 



862 



MR. CANNING 



[1814. 



mount to, the desire of political amelioration. It 
may be very wrong that it should be so. I can 
not help it. Our business is with fact. And 
surely it is not to be regretted that tyrants and 
conquerors should have learned, from the lessons 
of experience, that the first consideration sug- 
gested to the inhabitant of any country by a 
foreign invasion, is, not whether the political con- 
stitution of the state be faultlessly perfect or not, 
but whether the altar at which he has worship- 
ed — whether the home in which he has dwelt 
from his infancy — whether his wife and his chil- 
dren — whether the tombs of his forefathers — 
whether the place of the Sovereign under whom 
he was born, and to whom he, therefore, owes 
(or, if it must be so stated, fancies that he, there- 
fore, owes) allegiance, shall be abandoned to vio- 
lence and profanation. 

That, in the infancy of the French Revolution, 
Delusion on wia^^J uatious in Europc were, unfor- 
tbis subject tunately, led to believe and to act upon 
tbe Frencb a different persuasion, is undoubtedly 
Revouuon. ^^.^g . ^y^^^ wholc countrics were over- 
run by reforming conquerors, and flattered them- 
selves with being proselytes till they found them- 
selves victims. Even in this country, as I have 
already said, there have been times when we 
have been called upon to consider whether there 
was not something at home which must be mend- 
ed before we could hope to repel a foreign in- 
vader with success. 

It is fortunate for the world that this question 
should have been tried, if I may so say, to a dis- 
advantage ; that it should have been tried in 
countries where no man in his senses will say 
that the frame of political society is such as, ac- 
cording to the most moderate principles of reg- 
ulated freedom, it ought to be ; where, I will 
venture to say, without hazarding the imputation 
of being myself a visionary reformer, political 
society is not such as, after the successes of this 
war, and from the happy contagion of the exam- 
ple of Great Britain, it is sure gradually to be- 
come. It is fortunate for the world that this 
question should have been tried on its own mer- 
its ; that, after twenty years of controversy, we 
should be authorized, by undoubted results, to 
revert to nature and to truth, and to disentangle 
the genuine feelings of the heart from the ob- 
structions which a cold, presumptuous, general- 
izing philosophy had wound around them. 

One of the most delightful poets of this coun- 
A love of one's try, in describing the various propor- 
foSuon of tions of natural blessings and advant- 
patriotism. j^gcs dispensed by Providence to the 
various nations of Europe, turns from the luxu- 
riant plains and cloudless skies of Italy to the 
rugged moi!f!^tains of Switzerland, and inquires 
whether there, also, in those barren and stormy 
regions, the "patriot passion" is found equally 
imprinted on the heart ? He decides the ques- 
tion truly in the affirmative ; and he says, of the 
inhabitant of those bleak wilds. 

Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms, 
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms; 
And, as a child, when scarinsr sounds molest, 



Clings close and closer to the mother's breast, 
So the loud torrent and the whirlwind's roar 
But bind him to his native mountains more. 2 

What Goldsmith thus beautifully applied to 
the physical varieties of soil and climate has 
been found no less true with respect to political 
institutions. A sober desire of improvement, a 
rational endeavor to redress error, and to correct 
imperfection in the political frame of human so- 
ciety, are not only natural, but laudable in man. 
But it is well that it should have been shown, 
by irrefragable proof, that these sentiments, even 
where most strongly and most justly felt, super- 
sede not that devotion to native soil which is the 
foundation of national independence. And it is • 
right that it should be understood and remem- 
bered, that the spirit of national independenca 
alone, aroused where it had slumbei'ed, enlight- 
ened where it had been deluded, and kindled 
into enthusiasm by the insults and outrages of 
an all-grasping invader, has been found suffi- 
cient, without internal changes and compromises 
of sovereigns or governments with their people 
— without relaxations of allegiance and abjura- 
tions of authority, to animate, as with one per- 
vading soul, the difTerent nations of the conti- 
nent ; to combine, as into one congenial mass, 
their various feelings, passions, prejudices ; to 
direct these concentrated energies with one im- 
pulse against the common tyrant; and to shake 
(and, may we not hope ? to overthrow) the Ba- 
bel of his iniquitous power. 

Gentlemen, there is another argument, more 
peculiarly relating to our own coun- ^^,^^^,^„,,y 
try, which has at times been inter- can stand msu- 
posed to discourage the prosecution 
of the war. That this country is sufficient to its 
own defense, sufficient to its own happiness, suf- 
ficient to its own independence ; and that the 
complicated combinations of continental policy 
are always hazardous to our interests, as well 
as burdensome to our means, has been, at several 
periods of the war, a favorite doctrine, not only 
with those who, for other reasons, wished to em- 
barrass the measures of the government, but with 
men of the most enlightened minds, of the most 
benevolent views, and the most ardent zeal for 
the interests as well as the honor of their coun- • 
try.# May we not flatter ourselves, that upon 
this point, also, experience has decided in favor 
of the course of policy which has been actually 
pursued ? 

Can any man now look back upon the trial 
which we have gone through, and Tbeinterestsof 
maintain that, at any period during ^."uMy^co"'^'^" 
the last twenty years, the plan of in- ;;t;;,'f„rdlber 
sulated policy could have been adopt- nations. 
ed, without having in the event, at this day, 
prostrated England at the foot of a conqueror? 
Great, indeed, has been the call upon our exer- 
tions; great, indeed, has been the drain upon our 
resources ; long and wearisome has the struggle 
been ; and late is the moment at which peace is 
brought within our reach. But even though the 



2 Goldsmith's Traveler. 



1814.] 



ON THE FALL OF BONAPARTE. 



difficulties of the contest may have been en- 
hanced, and its duration protracted by it, yet is 
there any man who seriously doubts whether the 
• having associated our destinies with the destinies 
of other nations be or be not that which, under 
the blessing of Providence, has eventually secured 
the safety of all ? 

It is at the moment when such a trial has come 
Peace could not to its issuc, that it is fair to ask of 
t'made'ata^" thosc who have suffcrcd under the 
earlier period, pressurc of protracted exertion (and 
of whom rather than of those who are assembled 
around me — for by whom have such privations 
been felt more sensibly ?) — it is now, I sa}', the 
time to ask whether, at any former period of the 
contest, such a peace could have been made as 
would at once have guarded the national inter- 
ests and corresponded with the national charac- 
ter ? I address myself now to such persons only 
as think the character of a nation an essential 
part of its strength, and consequently of its safe- 
ty. But if, among persons of that description, 
there be one who with all his zeal for the glory 
of his country, has yet at times been willing to 
abandon the contest in mere weariness and de- 
spair, of such a man I would ask, whether he can 
indicate the period at which he now wishes that 
such an abandonment had been consented to by 
the government and the Parliament of Great 
Britain ? 

Is it when the continent was at peace — when, 
looking upon the map of Europe, you 
parte first saw ouc mighty and connected sys- 

usurpe power. ^^^^^ ^^^^ great luminary, with his at- 
tendant satellites circulating around him ; at that 
period could this countiy have made peace, and 
have remained at peace for a twelvemonth ? 
What is the answer ? Why, that the experi- 
ment was tried. The result was the renewal of 
the war. 

Was it at a later period, when the continental 
Not.during the systcm had been established ? When 
thIcontTnLui two thirds of the ports of Europe were 
system. gj^^t agaiust you ? When but a sin- 

gle link was wanting to bind the continent in a 
circling chain of iron, which should exclude you 
from intercourse with other nations ? At that 
moment peace was most earnestly recommended 
to you. At that moment, gentlemen, I first came 
among you. At that moment I ventured to rec- 
ommend to you perseverance, patient persever- 
ance ; and to express a hope that, by the mere 
strain of an unnatural effort, the massive bonds 
imposed upon the nations of the continent might, 
at no distant period, burst asunder. I was heard 
by you with indulgence — I know not whether 
with conviction. But is it now to be regretted 
that we did not at that moment yield to the 
pressure of our wants or of our fears ? What 
has been the issue ? The continental system was 
completed, with the sole exception of Russia, in 
the year 1812. In that year the pressure upon 
this country was undoubtedly painful. Had we 
yielded, the system would have been immortal. 
We persevered, and, before the conclusion of an- 
other year, the system was at an end : at an end, 



as all schemes of violence naturally terminate, 
not by a mild and gradual decay, such as waits 
upon a regular and well-spent life, but by sud- 
den dissolution ; at an end, like the breaking up 
of a winter's frost. But yesterday the whole 
continent, like a mighty plain covered with one 
mass of ice, presented to the view a drear ex- 
panse of barren uniformity ; to-day, the breath of 
heaven unbinds the earth, the streams begin to 
flow again, and the intercourse of human kind 
revives. 

Can we regret that we did not, like the faint- 
ing traveler, lie down to rest — but, indeed, to 
perish — under the severity of that inclement sea- 
son ? Did we not more wisely to bear up, and 
to wait the change ? 

Gentlemen, I have said that I should be asham- 
ed, and in truth I should be so, to ad- ^^.^^^^ ^^^ ^^ 
dress you in the language of exulta- g'-^nJ to exuit 

.•L . ? r ^L • J 1 in the results of 

tion, it It were merely lor the mdul- her long priva- 
gence, however legitimate, of an ex- ^'°"^" 
uberant and ungovernable joy. But they who 
have suffered great privations have a claim not 
merely to consolation, but to something more. 
They are justly to be compensated for what they 
have undergone, or lost, or hazarded, by the con- 
templation of what they have gained. 

We have gained, then, a rank and authority in 
Europe, such as, for the life of the Herpreemi- 
longest liver of those who now hear "at^ns of eu?* 
me, must place this country upon an ""ope- 
eminence which no probable reverses can shake. 
We have gained, or rather we have recovered, a 
splendor of military glory, which places us by 
the side of the greatest military nations in the 
world. At the beginning of this war, while there 
was not a British bosom that did not beat with 
rapture at the exploits of our navy, there were 
few who would not have been contented to com- 
promise for that reputation alone ; to claim the 
sea as exclusively our province, and to leave to 
France and the other continental powers the 
struggle for superiority by land. That fabled 
deity, whom I see portrayed upon the wall,^ was 
considered as the exclusive patron of British 
prowess in battle; but in seeming accordance 
with the beautiful fiction of ancient mytholog}'-, 
our Neptune, in the heat of contest, smote the 
earth with his trident, and up sprang the fiery 
war-horse, the emblem of military power. 

Let Portugal, now led to the pursuit of her 
flying conquerors — let liberated Spain The benefits 
—let France, invaded in her turn by 'vh^hXhas 
those whom she had overrun or men- g'''"^'^ '^ 
aced with invasion, attest the triumphs of the 
army of Great Britain, and the equality of her 
military with her naval fume. And let those who, 
even after the triumphs of the Peninsula had be- 
gun, while they admitted that we had, indeed, 
wounded the giant in the heel, still deemed the 
rest of his huge frame invulnerable — let them 
now behold him reeling under the blows of united 
nations, and acknowledge at once the might of 
British arms and the force of British example. 

3 A figure of Neptune. 



864 



MR. CANNING 



[1814. 



I do not say that these are considerations with 
a view to which the war, if otherwise terminable, 
ought to have been purposely protracted ; but I 
say that, upon the retrospect, we have good reason 



to rejoice that the war was not closed ingloriously twho does not find, in the contemplation of this 



and insecurely, when the latter events of it have 
been such as have established our security by our 
glory. 

I say we have reason to rejoice, that, during the 
period when the continent was prostrate before 
France — that, especially during the period when 
the continental system was in force, we did not 
shrink from the struggle ; that we did not make 
peace for present and momentary ease, unmind- 
ful of the permanent safety and greatness of this 
country ; that we did not leave unsolved the mo- 
mentous questions, whether this country could 
maintain itself against France, unaided and alone ; 
or with the continent divided ; or with the con- 
tinent combined against it ; whether, when the 
"wrath of the tyrant of the Em-opean world was 
kindled against us with seven-fold fury, we 
could or could not walk unharmed and unfet- 
tered through the flames ? 

I say we have reason to rejoice that, through- 
out this more than Punic war, in which it has so 
often been the pride of our enemy to represent her- 
self as the Rome, and England as the Carthage, 
of modern times (with at least this color for the 
comparison, that the utter destruction of the mod- 
ern Carthage has unifoi-mly been proclaimed to be 
indispensable to the greatness of her rival) — we 
have, I say, reason to rejoice that, unlike our as- 
signed prototype, we have not been diverted by 
internal dissensions from the vigorous support of 
a vital struggle ; that we have not suffered dis- 
tress nor clamor to distract our counsels, or to 
check the exertions of our arms. 

Gentlemen, for twenty years that I have sa|, in 
The war lias Parliament, I have been an advocate 
of the war. You knew this when you 
did me the honor to choose me as your 
peace. representative. I then told you that 

I was the advocate of the war, because I was a 
lover of peace ; but of a peace that should be the 
fruit of honorable exertion, a peace that should 
have a character of dignity, a peace that should 
be worth preserving, and should be likely to 
endure. I confess I was not sanguine enough, 
at that time, to hope that I should so soon have 
an opportunity of justifying my professions. But 
I know not why, six weeks hence, such a peace 
should not be made as England may not only 
be glad, but proud to ratify. Not such a peace, 
gentlemen, as that of Amiens — a short and fe- 
verish interval of unrefreshing repose. Dur- 
ing that peace, which of 3'ou went or sent a son 
to Paris, who did not feel or learn that an En- 
glishman appeared in France shorn of the digni- 
ty of his country ; with the mien of a suppliant, 
and the conscious prostration of a man who had 
consented to purchase his gain or his ease by sub- 
mission ? But let a peace be made to-morrow, 
such as the allies have now the power to dictate, 
and the meanest of the subjects of this kingdom 
shall not walk the streets of Paris without being 



been uniformly 
advocated as 
the means of 
an honorable 



pointed out as the compatriot of Wellington ; as 
one of that nation whose firmness and persever- 
ance have humbled France and rescued Europe. 
Is there any man that has a heart in his bosom 



contrast alone, a recompense for the struggles and 
the sufferings of years ? 

But, gentlemen, the doing right is not only the 
most honorable course of action — it is The result not 
also the most profitable in its result. bui^mo°stbene- 
At any former period of the w^ar, the ^'^"^^■ 
independence of almost all the other countries, 
our allies would have been to be purchased with 
sacrifices profusely poured out from the lap of 
British victory. Not a throne to be re-estab- 
lished, not a province to bo evacuated, not a gar- 
rison to be withdrawn, but this country would 
have had to make compensation, out of her con- 
quests, for the concessions obtained from the en- 
emy. Now, happily, this work is already done, 
either by our efforts or to our hands. The pen- 
insula free — the lawful commonwealth of Euro- 
pean states already, in a great measure, restored, 
Great Britain may now appear in the congress 
of the world, rich in conquests, nobly and right- 
fully won, with little claim upon her faith or her 
justice, whatever may be the spontaneous im- 
pulse of her generosity or her moderation. 

Such, gentlemen, is the situation and prospect 
of affairs at the moment at which I have the hon- 
or to address you. That you, gentlemen, may 
have your full share in the prosperity of your 
country, is my sincere and earnest wish. The 
courage with which you bore up in adverse cir- 
cumstances eminently entitles you to this reward. 

For myself, gentlemen, while I rejoice in your 
returning prosperity, I rejoice also that our con- 
nection began under au.spices so much less favor- 
able ; that we had an opportunity of knowing 
each other's minds in times when the minds of 
men are brought to the proof — times of trial and 
difficulty. I had the satisfaction of avowing to 
you, and you the candor and magnanimity to ap- 
prove, the principles and opinions by which ni}' 
public conduct has uniformly been guided, at a 
period when the soundness of those opinions and 
the application of those principles was matter 
of doubt and controversy. I thought, and I said, 
at the time of our first meeting, that the cause 
of England and of civilized Europe must be ulti- 
mately triumphant, if we but preserved our spirit 
untainted and our constancy unshaken. Such an 
assertion was, at that time, the object of ridicule 
with many persons : a single year has elapsed, 
and it is now the voice of the whole world. 

Gentlemen, we may, therefore, confidently in- 
dulge the hope that our opinions will continue 
in unison ; that our concurrence will be as cor- 
dial as it has hitherto been, if unhappily any new 
occasion of difficulty or emban-assment should 
hereafter arise. 

At the present moment, I am sure, we are 
equally desirous to bury the recollection of all 
our differences with others in that general feeling 
of exultation in which all opinions happily com- 
bine. 



1820.] 



ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



865 



SPEECH 



OF MR. CANNING ON RADICAL REFORM, DELIVERED TO HIS CONSTITUENTS AT LIVERPOOL, 

MARCH 18, 1820. 

INTRODUCTION. 

England was in a very agitated state during the year 1819. Pecuniary distress was nearly universal, 
and the agricultural, manufacturing, and commercial interests were reduced to the lowest point of de- 
pression. 

Sir Francis Burdett, Mr. Hunt, Lord Cochrane, and others, ascribed nearly all the sufferings of the coun- 
try to one cause, viz., the want of parliamentary reform, and made the most strenuous efforts in favor of 
annnal Parliaments and univasal suffrage. Nothing could be more injurious than these efforts to the 
cause of genuine reform, as advocated by Earl Grey, especially considering the means adopted by the 
radical reformers to accomplish their object. Itinerant lecturers traversed the country, gathering immense 
crowds of the lower classes, and inflaming their minds by a sense of injury and oppression. Bodies of men, 
amounting sometimes to fifty thousand, marched to the place of meeting in regular array, with banners 
bearing the inscription "Liberty or Death!" and others of a similar import. The magistrates became 
alarmed, and the measures used to prevent mischief were sometimes unduly severe, and in one instance 
(that of the meeting at Manchester, August 16th) were attended with the most deplorable consequences. 

It was the general sentiment of the country, that some measures should be adopted to prevent these 
evils, and at the meeting of Parliament in November, 1819, the ministry introduced bills for the following 
purposes, which, from their number, were called the "Six Acts." 1. To take away the right of travers- 
ing- in cases of misdemeanor ; 2. To punish any person found guilty on a second conviction of libel, by fine, 
imprisonment, and banishment for life ; 3. To prevent seditious meetings, requiring the names of seven 
householders to the requisition, which in future convened any meeting for the discussion of subjects con- 
nected with Church or State ; 4. To prohibit military training, except under the authority of a magistrate 
or Lord Lieutenant; 5. To subject cheap periodical pamphlets, on political subjects, to a duty similar to 
that of newspapers; 6. A bill giving magistrates the power of entering houses by night or by day, for 
the purpose of seizing arms believed to be collected for unlawful purposes. These bills were all carried 
by large majorities ; the entering houses by nigkt, and the severity of the restrictions on the press, were 
chiefly objected to; but there appeared a general concurrence in the necessity of strong measures. 

Soon after these acts were passed, a new election took place ; and Mr. Canning came forward to vin- 
dicate the above measures, and also to resist every attempt at parliamentary reform by identifying the 
whole plan with these radical views. The speech is certainly a very able one, and will interest the reader 
as living the Tory side of the argument, though it by no means meets the question as presented by such 
reformers as Earl Grey and Mr. Brougham. 

SPEECH, &c. 



Gentlemen, — Short as the interval is since I 
Recentpo- last met jou in this place on a similar 
liucai evils, occasion, the events which have filled 
up that interval have not been unimportant. The 
great moral disease which we then talked of as 
gaining ground on the community has, since that 
period, arrived at its most extravagant height ; 
and since that period, also, remedies have been 
applied to it. if not of permanent cure, at least of 
temporaiy mitigation. 

Gentlemen, with respect to those remedies — 
The reme- I mean With respect to the transactions 
dies applied, of the last short session of Parliament, 
previous to the dissolution — I feel that it is my 
duty, as your representative, to render to you 
some account of the part which I took in that 
assembly to which you sent me ; I feel it my duty 
also, as a member of the government by which 
those measures were advised. Upon occasions 
of such trying exigency as those which we have 
lately experienced, I hold it to be of the very es- 
'senee of our free and popular -Constitution, that 
In 



an unreserved interchange of sentiment should 
take place between the representative and his 
constituents ; and if it accidentally happens that 
he who addresses you as your representative, 
stands also in the situation of a responsible ad- 
viser of the Crown, I recognize in that more rare 
occurrence a not less striking or less valuable 
peculiarity of that Constitution under which we 
have the happiness to live — by which a minister 
of the Crown is brought into contact with the 
great body of the community, and the service of 
the King is shown to be a part of the service of 
the people. 

Gentlemen, it has been one advantage of the 
transactions of the last session of Parliament, that 
while they were addressed to meet the evils which 
had grown out of charges heaped upon the House 
of Commons, they had also, in a great measure, 
falsified the charges themselves. 

I would appeal to the recollection of every 
man who now hears me — of any the most care- 
less estimator of public sentiment, or the most in- 



866 



MR. CANNING 



[1820. 



different spectator of public events, whether any 
Signal change country, in any two epochs, however 
mtiieconditioa distant, of its history, ever present- 
er the country. , ,' •'. , . ,n ^1 • 

ed such a contrast with itseli as this 
country in November, 1819, and this country in 
February, 1820 ? Do I exaggerate when I say, 
that there was not a man of property who did not 
tremble for his possessions ? — that there was not 
a man of retired and peaceable habits who did 
not tremble for the tranquillity and security of 
his home ? — that there was not a man of orderly 
and religious principles who did not fear that 
those principles were about to be cut from under 
the feet of succeeding generations ? Was there 
any man who did not apprehend the Crown to 
be in danger ? Was there any man attached to 
the other branches of the Constitution who did 
not contemplate with anxiety and dismay the 
rapid and apparently irresistible diffusion of doc- 
trines hostile to the very existence of Parliament 
as at present constituted, and calculated to ex- 
cite not hatred and contempt merely, but open 
and audacious force, especially against the House 
of Commons ? What is, in these respects, the 
situation of the country now ? Is there a man 
of property who does not feel the tenure by M^hich 
he holds his possessions to have been strength- 
ened ? Is there a man of peace who does not 
feel his domestic tranquillity to have been se- 
cured? Is there a man of moral and religious 
principles who does not look forward with better 
hope to see his children educated in those prin- 
ciples ? — who does not hail, with renewed con- 
fidence, the revival and re-establishment of that 
moral and religious sense which had been at- 
tempted to be obliterated from the hearts of man- 
kind ? 

Well, gentlemen, and what has intervened be- 
This change twccu the two pcriods ? A calling of 
the ac'tfon of that degraded Parliament ; a meeting 
compJamedof ^^ that scoffcd at and derided House 
Parliament of Commons ; a concurrence of those 
three branches of an imperfect Constitution, not 
one of which, if we are to believe the radical re- 
formers, lived in the hearts, or swayed the feel- 
ings, or commanded the respect of the nation ; 
but which, despised as they were while in a state 
of separation and inaction, did, by a co-operation 
of four short weeks, restore order, confidence, a 
reverence for the laws, and a just sense of their 
own legitimate authority. 

Another event, indeed, has intervened, in it- 
self of a most painful nature, but powerful in aid- 
ing and confirming the impressions which the as- 
sembling and the proceedings of Parliament were 
calculated to produce. I mean the loss which 
the nation has sustained by the death of a Sov- 
ereign, with whose person all that is venerable 
in monarchy has been identified in the eyes of 
successive generations of his subjects ; a Sover- 
eign whose goodness, whose ycar.s, whose sor- 
rows and sufferings must have softened the 
hearts of the most ferocious enemies of kingly 
power ; whose active virtues, and the memory 
of whose virtues, when it pleased Divine Provi- 
deiuv- that thoy should be active no more, have 



been the guide and guardian of his people through 
many a weary and many a stormy pilgrimage ; 
scarce less a guide, and quite as much a guard- 
ian, in the cloud of his evening darkness, as in 
the brightness of his meridian day.^ 

That such a loss, and the recollections and re- 
flections naturally arising from it, must have had 
a tendency to revive and refresh the attachment 
to monarchy, and to root that attachment deeper 
in the hearts of the people, might easily be shown 
by reasoning ; but a feeling, truer than all rea- 
soning, anticipates the result, and renders the 
process of argument unnecessary. So far, there- 
fore, has this great calamity brought with it its 
own compensation, and conspired to the restora- 
tion of peace throughout the country with the 
measures adopted by Parliament. 

And, gentlemen, what was the character of 
those measures ? The best eulojrv of , 

I T 1 1 1 • • I • 1 Regulation 

them 1 take to be this : it may be said of large pub- 
of them, as has been said of some of "" '"^'^^'"s^- 
the most consummate productions of literary art, 
that, though no man beforehand had exactly an- 
ticipated the scope and the details of them, there 
was no man, when they were laid before him, 
who did not feel that they were precisely such 
as he would himself have suggested. So faith- 
fully adapted to the case which they were framed 
to meet, so correctly adjusted to the degree and 
nature of the mischief they were intended to con- 
trol, that, while we all feel that they have done 
their work, I think none will say there has been 
any thing in them of excess or supererogation. 

We were loudly assured by the reformers, that 
the test throughout the country by which those 
who were ambitious of seats in the new Par- 
liament would be tried, was to be — whether 
they had supported those measures. I have in- 
quired, with as much diligence as was compati- 
ble with my duties here, after the proceedinofs of 
other elections, and I protest I know no place yet, 
besides the hustings of Westminster and South- 
wark, at which that menaced test has been nut 
to any candidates. To me, indeed, it was not 
put as a test, but objected as a charge. You 
know how that charge was answered ; and the 
result is to me a majority of 1300 out of 2000 
voters upon the poll. — ^\ 

But, gentlemen, though this question has not. 
as was threatened, been the watch- The interdictof 
word of popular elections, every other eTmee'tinLrno 
effort has, nevertheless, been Indus- [f faim/n the 

' ' liberty of the 

tnously employed to persuade the people. 
people that their liberties have been essentially 
abridged by the regulation of popular meetings. 
Against that one of the measures passed by Par- 
liament, it is that the attacks of the radical re- 
formers have been particularly directed. Gen- 
tlemen, the first answer to this averment is, that 
the act leaves untouched all the constitutional 
modes of assembly which have been known to 
the nation since it became free. We are fond 
of dating our freedom from the Revolution. I 
should be glad to know in what period since the 

^ This refers to the Kinsr's deransrement from 1811. 



1820.] 



ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



867 



Revolution (up to a very late period indeed, which 
I will specify) — in what period of those reigns 
growing out of the Revolution — I mean, of the 
first reigns of the house of Brunswick — did it en- 
ter into the head of man, that such meetings could 
be holden, or that the Legislature would tolerate 
the holding of such meetings, as disgraced this 
kingdom for some months previous to the la.st ses- 
sion of Parliament ? When, therefore, it is as- 
serted that such meetings were never before sup- 
pressed, the simple answer is, they were never 
before systematically attempted to be holden. 

I verily believe the first meeting of the kind 
^ , that was ever attempted and toler- 

Sucli meetings i /t i c ■ • \ 

unknown to the ated (1 kuow oi nouc autcnor to It) 
was that called by Lord George Gor- 
don, in St. George's Fields, 'in the year 1780, 
which led to the demolition of chapels and dwell- 
ing-houses, the breaking of prisons, and the con- 
flagration of London. Was England never free 
till 1780? Did British liberty spring to light 
from the ashes of the metropolis ? What ! was 
there no freedom in the reign of George the Sec- 
ond ? None in that of George the First ? None 
in the reign of Queen Anne or of King William ? 
Beyond the Revolution I will not go. But I have 
always heard that British liberty was established 
long before the commencement of the late reign ; 
nay, that in the late reign (according to popular 
politicians) it rather sunk and retrograded ; and 
yet never till that reign was such an abuse of 
popular meetings dreamed of, much less erected 
into a right not to be questioned by magistrates, 
and not to be controlled by Parliament. 

Do I deny, then, the general right of the peo- 
Aii social rights pls to mcct, to petition, or to delib- 
liSihegin^ erate upon their grievances ? God 
erai good. forbid ! But social right is not a sim- 

ple, abstract, positive, unqualified term. Rights 
are, in the same individual, to be compared \vith 
his duties ; and rights in one person are to be 
balanced with the rights of others. Let us take 
this right of meeting in its most extended con- 
struction and most absolute sense. The persons 
who called the meeting at Manchester tell you 
that they had a right to collect together count- 
less multitudes to discuss the question of parlia- 
mentary reform ; to collect them when they would 
and whei'e they would, without consent of mag- 
istrates, or concurrence of inhabitants, or refer- 
ence to the comfort or convenience of the neigh- 
borhood. May not the peaceable, the industri- 
ous inhabitant of Manchester say, on the other 
hand. " I have a right to quiet in my house ; I 
have a right to carry on my manufactory, on 
which not my existence only and that of my 
children, but that of my workmen and their nu- 
merous families depends. I have a right to be 
protected in the exercise of this my lawful call- 
ing ; I have a right to be protected, not against 
violence and plunder only, against fire and sword, 
but against the terror of these calamities, and 
against the risk of these inflictions ; against the 
intimidation or .seduction of my workmen ; or 
against the distraction of that attention and the 
interruption of that industry, without which nei- 



ther they nor I can gain our livelihood. I call 
upon the laws to afford me that protection ; and 
if the laws in this country can not afford it, de- 
pend upon it, I and my manufacturers must em- 
igrate to some country where they can." Hero 
is a conflict of rights, betw^een which what is the 
decision ? Which of the two claims is to give 
way? Can any reasonable being doubt ? Can 
any honest man hesitate ? Let private justice or 
public expediency decide, and can the decision by 
possibility be other than that the peaceable and 
industrious shall be protected — the turbulent and 
mischievous put down ? 

But what similarity is there between tumults 
such as these and an orderly meeting, ^^^^^^ .,„,^^^^^ 
recognized by the law for all legiti- mass meetings 

^ c T . . not essential to 

mate purposes ot discussion or peti- the right of pe- 
tion? God forbid that there should "''"°- 
not be modes of assembly by which every class 
of this great nation may be brought together to 
deliberate on any matters connected w^ith their 
interest and their freedom. It is, however, an in- 
version of the natural order of things, it is a dis- 
turbance of the settled course of society, to repre- 
sent discussion as every thing, and the ordinary 
occupations of life as nothing. To protect the 
peaceable in their ordinary occupations is as much 
the province of the laws, as to provide opportuni- 
ties of discussion for every purpose to which it is 
necessary and properly applicable. The laws do 
both ; but it is no part of the contrivance of the 
laws that immense multitudes should wantonly 
be brought together, month after month, and day 
after day, in places where the very bringing to- 
gether of a multitude is of itself the source of 
terror and of danger. 

It is no part of the provision of the laws, nor 
is it in the spirit of them, that such They are direct- 
multitudes should be brought togeth- [l, "spirit of u.e 
er at the will of unauthorized and ir- English laws. 
responsible individuals, changing the scene of 
meeting as may suit their caprice or convenience, 
and fixing it where they have neither property, 
nor domicil, nor connection. The spirit of the 
law goes directly the other way. It is, if I may 
so express myself, eminently a spirit of corpora- 
tion. Counties, parishes, townships, guilds, pro- 
fessions, trades, and callings, form so many local 
and political subdivisions, into which the people 
of England are distributed by the law : and the 
pervading principle of the whole is that of vicin- 
age or neighborhood ; by which each man is held 
to act under the view of his neighbors ; to lend 
his aid to them, to borrow theirs ; to share their 
councils, their duties, and their burdens ; and to 
bear with them his share of responsibility for the 
acts of any of the members of the community of 
which he forms a part. 

Observe, I am not speaking here of the reviled 
and discredited statute law only, but of that ven- 
erable common law to which our reformers are 
so fond of appealing on all occasions, against the 
statute law by which it is modified, explained, or 
enforced. Guided by the spirit of the one, no 
loss than by the letter of the other, what man is 
there in this country who can not point to the 



Mil. CANNING 



[1820. 



portion of sociery to which he belongs ? If in- 
jury is sustained, upon whom is the injured per- 
son expressly entitled to come for redress ? Upon 
the hundred, or the division in which he has sus- 
tained the injury. On what principle ? On the 
principle, that as the individual is amenable to 
the division of the community to which he spe- 
cially belongs, so neighbors are answerable for 
each other. Just laws, to be sure, and admira- 
ble equity, if a stranger is to collect a mob which 
is to set half JNIanchester on fire ; and the burned 
half is to come upon the other half for indemni- 
ty, while the stranger goes off unquestioned, to 
excite the like tumult and produce the like dan- 
ger elsewhere ! 

That such was the nature, such the tendency, 
, nay. that such, in all human probabili- 

Theirresults -^ . , , ', , , c 

might easily ty, might havc been the result, ol meet- 
ings like that of the 16ih of Au^u^^t. 
who can deny? Who that weighs all the par- 
ticulars of that day, comparing them with the 
rumoi's and the threats that preceded it, will dis- 
pute that such might have been the result of that 
very meeting, if that meeting, so very legally 
assembled, had not, by the happy decision of the 
magistrates, been so very illegally dispersed ? 
It is, therefore, not in consonance, but in con- 
„ tradiction to the spirit of the law, that 

Theywerecall- . * 7 

ed in a way to such meetings have been holden. 1 he 

avoid the oner- , ., » i .. 

ationofthe law prescribes a corporate character. 
'^^''' The callers of these meetings have 

always studiously avoided it. No summons of 
freeholders — none of freemen — none of the in- 
habitants of particular places or parishes — no ac- 
knowledgment of local or political classification. 
Ju.st so at the beginning of the French Revolu- 
tion ; the first work of the reformers was to loos- 
en every established political relation, ever}^ le- 
gal holding of man to man ; to destroy every cor- 
poration, to dissolve every subsisting class of so- 
ciety, and to reduce the nation into individuals, in 
order afterward to congregate them into mobs. 

Let no person, therefore, run away with the 
Such was the "olion that these things were done 
obvious design, ^vjthout dcsigu. To bring together 
the inhabitants of a particular division, or men 
sharing a common franchise, is to bring together 
an assembly of which the component parts act 
with some respect and awe of each other. An- 
cient habits, which the reformers would call prej- 
udices ; preconceived attachments, which they 
v/oiild call corruption ; that mutual respect which 
makes the eye of a neighbor a security for each 
rnan's good conduct, but which the reformers 
would stigmatize as a confederacy among the 
few for dominion over their fellows ; all these 
things make men difficult to be moved, on the 
sudden, to any extravagant and violent enter- 
prise. But bring together a multitude of indi- 
viduals, ha\ing no permanent relation to each 
other — no common tic but what arises from their 
concurrence as members of that meeting, a tic 
dissolved as soon as the meeting is at an end ; in 
such an aggregation of individuals there is no 
such mutual respect, no such check upon the pro- 
ceedings of each man from the awe of his neigh- 



bor's disapprobation ; and if ever a multitudinous 
assembly can be wrought up to purposes of mis- 
chief, it will be an assembly so composed. 

How monstrous is it to confound such meet- 
ings with the genuine and recoirnized 

1 r n • 1 " ,' , Ou«rIit never to 

modes ol collecting the sense ol the be confounded 
English people ! Was it by meet- ized me'e'rn^l' 
ings such as these that the Revolu- °''^''^i'e''pie- 
tion was brought about, that grand event to which 
our antagonists are so fond of referring ? Was 
it by meetings in St. George's Fields? in Spa 
Fields? in Smithfield? Was it by untold mul- 
titudes collected in a village in the north ? No ! 
It was by the meeting of corporations, in their 
corporate capacity; by the assembly of recog- 
nized bodies of the state ; by the interchange of 
opinions among portions of the community known 
to each other, and capable of estimating each 
other's views and characters. Do we want a 
more striking mode of remedying grievances 
than this ? Do we require a more animating ex- 
ample ? And did it remain for the reformers of 
the present day to strike out the course by which 
alone Great Britain could make and keep her- 
self free ? 

Gentlemen, all power is, or ought to be, ac- 
companied by responsibility. Tyr- some one ou.ht 
anny is irresponsible power. This to be responsible 

, ^"^ . . . ' ,, * , , for the holding 

definition is equally true, whether of public meet 
the power be lodged in one or ma- '"°^' 
ny • whether in a despot, exempted by the form of 
government from the control of the law ; or in a 
mob, whose numbers put them beyond the reach 
of law. Idle, therefore, and absurd, to talk of 
freedom where a mob domineers ! Idle, there- 
fore, and absurd, to talk of liberty, when you hold 
your property, perhaps your life, not indeed at 
the nod of a despot, but at the will of an inflamed, 
an infuriated populace ! If, therefore, during the 
reign of terror at Manchester, or at Spa Fields, 
there were persons in this country who had a 
right to complain of tyranny, it was they who 
loved the Constitution, who loved the monarchy, 
but who dared not utter their opinions or their 
wishes until their houses were barricaded, and 
their children sent to a place of safety. That 
was tyranny ! and so far as the mobs were under 
the control of a leader, that was despotism ! It 
was against that tyranny, it was against that des- 
potism, that Parliament at length raised its arm. 
All power, I say, is vicious that is not ac- 
companied by proportionate responsi- personnire- 
bility. Personal responsibility prevents chel'ks'tiie^r 
the abuse of individual power ; respons- abuse. 
ibility of character is the security against the 
abuse of collective power, when exercised b}^ 
bodies of men whose existence is permanent and 
defined. But strip such bodies of these qualities, 
you degrade them into multitudes, and then what 
security have you against any thing that they 
may do or resolve, knowing that, from the mo- 
ment at which the meeting is at an end, there is no 
human being responsible for their proceedings ? 
The meeting at Manchester, the meeting at Bir- 
mingham, the meeting at Spa Fields or Smith- 
field, what pledge could they give to the nation 



1820.] 



ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



869 



of the soundness or sincerity of their designs ? 
The local character of Manchester, the local 
character of Birmingham, was not pledged to any 
of the proceedings to which their names were 
appended. A certain number of ambulatory 
tribunes of the people, self-elected to that high 
function, assumed the name and authority of 
whatever place they thought proper to select for 
a place of meeting ; the rostrum was pitched, 
sometimes here, sometimes there, according to 
the fancy of the mob or the patience of the mag- 
istrates ; but the proposition and the proposer 
were in all places nearly alike ; and when, by a 
sort of political ventriloquism, the same voice had 
been made to issue from half a dozen different 
corners of the country, it was impudently as- 
sumed to be a concord of sweet sounds, compos- 
ing the united voice of the people of England ! 
Now, gentlemen, let us estimate the mighty 
, mischief that has been done to liberty 

The cause of . . "L 

liberty has not by puttmg down mcctmgs such as 1 
remedies^ ** have described. Let us ask wiiat 
adopted lawful authority has been curtailed ; 

let us ask what respectable community has been 
defrauded of its franchise ; let us ask what mu- 
nicipal institutions have been violated by a law 
which fixes the migratory complaint to the spot 
whence it professes to originate, and desires to 
hear of the grievance from those by whom that 
grievance is felt — which leaves to Manchester, 
as Manchester, to Birmingham, as Birmingham, 
to London, as London, all the free scope of ut- 
terance which they have at any time enjoyed for 
making known their wants, their fee!ing.s, their 
wishes, their remonstrances ; which leaves to 
each of these divisions its separate authority — to 
the union of all, or of many of them, the aggre- 
gate authority of such a consent and co-opera- 
tion ; but which denies to any itinerant hawker 
of grievances the power of stamping their names 
upon his wares ; of pretending, because he may 
rai.se an outcry at Manchester or at Birmingham, 
that he therefore speaks the sense of the town 
which he disquiets and endangers ; or, still more 
preposterously, that because he has disquieted 
and endangered half a dozen neighborhoods in 
their turn, he is, therefore, the organ of them all, 
and through them, of the whole British people. 

Such are the stupid fallacies which the law of 
the last session has extinguished ! and such are 
the object and effect of the measures which Brit- 
ish liberty is not to survive ! 

To remedy the dreadful wound thus inflicted 
Parliamentary upou British liberty — to restore to the 
Reform. people what the people have not lost 

— to give a new impulse to that spirit of freedom 
which nothing has been done to embarrass or re- 
strain, we are invited to alter the constitution of 
that assembly through which the people share in 
the Legislature ; in short, to make a radical re- 
form in the House of Commons. 

It has always struck me as extraordinary that 
What is there should be persons prepared to en- 
n)eantbyit.= Certain the question of a change in so 
important a member of the Constitution, without 
con.sidering in what way that change must affect 



the situation of the other members, and the ac- 
tion of the Constitution itself. 

I have, on former occasions, stated here, and 
I have stated elsewhere, questions on this sub- 
ject, to which, as yet, I have never received an 
answer. " You who propose to reform the House 
of Commons, do you mean to restore that branch 
of the Legislature to the same state in which it 
stood at some former period ? or do you mean to 
reconstruct it on new principles?"' 

Perhaps a moderate Reformer or Whig will an- 
swer, that he means only to restore the House of 
Commons to what it was at some former period. 
I then beg to ask him — and to that question, also, 
I have never yet received an answer — "At what 
period of our history was the House of Commons 
in the state to which you wish to restore it?" 

The House of Commons must, for the purpose 
of clear argument, be considered in The commons 
two views. First, with respect to its T/popX^un 
agency as a third part in the Consti- =>^ present. 
tution ; secondly, with respect to its composition, 
in relation to its constituents. As to its agency 
as a part of the Constitution, I venture to say, 
without hazard, as I believe, of contradiction, that 
there is no period in the history of this countrv 
in which the House of Commons will be found to 
have occupied so large a share of the functions 
of government as at present. Whatever else may 
be said of the House of Commons, this one point, 
at least, is indisputable, that from the earliest in- 
fancy of the Constitution, the power of the House 
of Commons has been growing, till it has almost, 
like the rod of Aaron, absorbed its fellows. 1 
am not saying whether this is or is not as it ought 
to be. I am merely saying why I think that it 
can not be intended to complain of the want of 
power, and of a due share in the government, as 
the defect of the modern House of Commons. 

I admit, however, very willingly, that the 
greater share of power the House of Commons 
exercises, the more jealous we ought to be of its 
composition ; and I presume, therefore, that it is 
in this respect, and in relation to its constituents, 
that the state of that House is contended to w^ant 
revision. Well, then, at what period of our his- 
tory was the composition of the history of the 
House of Commons materially different from 
what it is at present ? Is there any period of 
our history in which the rights of election were 
not as various, in which the influence of proper- 
ty was not as direct, in which recommendations 
of candidates were not as efficient, and some bor- 
oughs as close as they are now ? I ask for in- 
formation ; but that information, plain and simple 
as it is, and necessary, one should think, to a clear 
understanding, much more to a grave decision of 
the point at issue, I never, though soliciting it 
with all humility, have ever yet been able to ob- 
tain from any reformer. Radical or Whig. 

The Radical reformer, indeed, to do him jus- 
tice, is not bound to furnish me with an T,,e objects of 
answer to this question, because with ^''^ Hadicai r^ 

^ former mcon- 

his View of the matter, precedents ••= intent w;th 
(except one, which I shall mention "^"""'^ ^" 
presently) have nothing to do. The Radical re* 



870 



MR. CANNING 



[1820. 



former would, probably, give to my first question 
an answer very different from that which I have 
supposed his moderate brother to give. He will 
tell me fairly, that he means not simply to bring 
the House of Commons back, either to the share 
of power which it formerly enjoyed, or to the 
modes of election by which it was formerly cho- 
sen ; but to make it what, according to him, it 
ought to be — a direct, effectual representative 
of the people ; representing them not as a dele- 
gate commissioned to take care of their interests, 
but as a deputy appointed to speak their will. 
Now to this view of the matter I have no other 
objection than this : that the British Constitution 
is a limited monarchy; that a limited monarchy 
is, in the nature of things, a mixed government; 
but that such a House of Commons as the Radi- 
cal reformer requires would, in effect, constitute 
a pure democracy — a power, as it appears to me, 
inconsistent with any monarchy, and unsuscepti- 
ble of any limitation. 

I may have great respect for the person who 
The question theoretically prefers a republic to a 
northTdniV monarchy. But even supposing me 
fore us. iQ agree with him in his preference, 

I should have a preliminary question to discuss, 
by which he, perhaps, may not feel himself em- 
barrassed ; which is this, whether I, born as I am 
(and as /think it is my good fortune to be) under 
a monarchy, am quite at liberty to consider my- 
self as having a clear stuge for political experi- 
ments ; whether I should be authorized, if I were 
convinced of the expediency of such a change, to 
w^ithdraw monarchy altogether from the British 
Constitution, and to substitute an unqualified 
democracy in its stead ; or whether, whatever 
changes I may be desirous of introducing, I am 
not bound to consider the Constitution which I 
find as at least circumscribing the range, and in 
some measure prescribing the nature of the im- 
provement. 

For my own part, I am undoubtedly prepared 
Buttiie direct to Uphold the ancient monarchy of the 
^re'^ent" i*^ me ^ouutry, by arguments drawn from 
is to destroy w^hat I think the blessings which we 

the monarchy. , . , ■ . . ■ 

have enjoyed under it ; and by argu- 
ments of another sort, if arguments of another 
sort shall ever be brought against it. But all 
that I am now contending for is, that whatever 
reformation is proposed, should be considered 
with some reference to the established Constitu- 
tion of the country. That point being conceded 
to me, I have no diificulty in saying, that I can 
not conceive a Constitution of which one third 
part shall be an assembly delegated by the )ieo- 
ple — not to consult for the good of the nation, 
but to speak, day by day, the people's will — 
which must not. in a few days' silting, sweep 
away every other branch of the Constitution that 
might attempt to oppose or control it. I can not 
conceive how. in fair reasoning, any other branch 
of the Constitution should pretend to stand against 
it. If government be a matter of will, all that 
we have to do is to collect the will of the nation, 
and, having collected it by an adequate organ, 
that will is paramount and supreme. By what 



pretension could the House of Lords be main- 
tained in equal authority and jurisdiction with 
the House of Commons, when once that House 
of Commons should become a direct deputation, 
speaking the people's will, and that will the rule 
of the government? In one way or other the 
House of Lords must act, if it be to remain a 
concurrent branch of the Legislature. Either it 
must uniformly affirm the measures which come 
from the House of Commons, or it must occa- 
sionally take the liberty to reject them. If it 
uniformly affirm, it is without the shadow of au- 
thority. But to presume to reject an act of the 
deputies of the whole nation ! — by what assump- 
tion of right could three or four hundred great 
proprietors set themselves against the national 
will •? Grant the reformers, then, what they ask, 
on the principles on which they ask it, and it is 
utterly impossible that, after such a reform, the 
Constitution should long consist of more than one 
body, and that one body a popular assembly. 

Why, gentlemen, is this theory ? or is it a the- 
ory of mine ? If there be, among those prooffrom 
who hear me, any man who has been pa^'ii'stoo- 
(as in the generous enthusiasm of youth any man 
may blamelessly have been) bitten by the doc- 
trines of reform, I implore him, before he goes 
forward in his progress to embrace those doc- 
trines in their radical extent, to turn to the his- 
tory of the transactions in this country in the year 
1648, and to examine the bearings of those trans- 
actions on this very question of radical reform.'^ : 
He will find, gentlemen, that the House of Com- 
mons of that day passed the following resolu- 
tion : 

^'Resolved, That the people are, under God, the 
original of all just power." 

Well ! can any sentiment be more just and 
reasonable ? Is it not the foundation of all the 
liberties of mankind ? Be it so. Let us pro- 
ceed. The House of Commons followed up this 
resolution by a second, which runs in something 
like these terms : 

" Resolved. That the Commons of England, 
assembled in Parliament, being chosen by and 
representing the people, have the supreme au- 
thority of this nation." il 

In this resolution the leap is taken. Do the V 

Radical reformers deny the premises or the infer- 
ence ? or do they adopt the whole of the tempt- 
ing precedent before them ? 

But the inference did not stop there. The 
House of Commons proceeded to deduce from 
these propositions an inference, the apparently 
logical dependence of which upon these proposi- 
tions I wish I could see logically disproved. 

^''Resolved (without one dissenting voice). That 
whatsoever is enacted and declared law by the 
Commons of England, assembled in Parliament, 
hath the force of law, and all the people of this 
nation are included thereby, although the consent 
and concurrence of the King and House of Peers 
be not had thereunto.'''' 

2 It is hardly necessary to remind the reader, that 
Mr. Canning here goes back to the days of Cromwell 
and the dejjosition of Charles I. 



1820.] 



ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



871 



Such was the theory : the practical inferences 
were not tardy in their arrival after the theory. 
In a few weeks the House of Peers was voted 
useless. We all know what became of the 
Crown. 

Such, I say, were the radical doctrines of 
Such the result 1648, and such the con.sequences to 
of radical reform, ^.^^ich they naturally led. If we 
are induced to admit the same premises now, 
who is it, I should be glad to know, that is to 
guarantee us against similar conclusions ? 

These, then, are the reasons why I look with 
. , , . , jealousy at schemes of parliamentary 

And this the J Til 1 • . -n 

pniy consist- rctorm. 1 look at them with still more 

ent scheme. • , , . r ^\ j. 

jealousy, because, m one of the two 
classes of men who co-operate in support of that 
question, I never yet found any two individuals 
who held the same doctrines : I never yet heard 
any intelligible theory of reform, except that of 
the Radical reformers. Theirs, indeed, it is easy 
enough to understand. But as for theirs, I cer- 
tainly am not yet fully prepared. I, for my part, 
will not consent to take one step, without know- 
ing on what principle I am invited to take it, 
and (which is, perhaps, of more consequence) 
without declaring on what principle, I will not 
consent that any step, however harmless, shall 
be taken. 

What more harmless than to disfranchise a 
Nochanpetobe co^i'upt boiough in Comwall, which 
attempted with- has cxcrcised its franchise amiss, 

out settling the . , , , 

principle im and brought shame on itselt, and on 

which it is made, .i . ' r \.- i. •, • .. n 

the system ot which it is a part f 
Nothing. I have no sort of objection to doing, 
as Parliament has often done in such cases (sup- 
posing always the case to be proved), to disfran- 
chising the borough, and rendering it incapable 
of abusing its franchise in future. But though 
I have no objection to doing this, I will not do it 
on the principle of speculative improvement. I 
do it on the principle of specific punishment for 
111 offense. And I will take good care that no 
inference shall be drawn from my consent in this 
specific case, as to any sweeping concurrence in 
a scheme of general alteration. 

Nay, I should think it highly disingenuous to 
Boroughs suffer the Radical reformers to imagine 
FrK°id[ised'for that they had gained a single step to- 
their crimes, vi'ard thc admissiou of their theory, by 
any such instance of particular animadversion on 
proved misconduct. I consent to such disfran- 
chisement ; but I do so, not with a view of fur- 
thering the Radical system — rather of thwarting 
it. I am willing to wipe out any blot on the 
present system, because I mean the present sys- 
tem to stand. I will take away a franchise, be- 
cause it has been practically abused ; not because 
I am at all disposed to inquire into the origin or 
to discuss the utility of all such franchises, any 
more than I mean to inquire, gentlemen, into 
your titles to your estates. Disfranchising Gram- 
pound (if that is to be so), I mean to save Old 
Sarum. 

Now, sir, I think I deal fairly with the Radical 
reformers ; more fairly than those who would 
suffer it to be supposed by them that the disfran- 



chisement of Grampound is to be the beginning 
of a system of reform : while they know, ^^^ ^^^ ^^ 
and I hope mean as well as I do, not t'"'" p/incipie 

' „ of reforming 

to reform (in the sense ot change) but ti.erepre- 
to preserve the Constitution. I would ''="'*^'"" 
not delude the reformers, if I could ; and it is 
quite useless to attempt a delusion upon per- 
sons quite as sagacious in their generation as 
any moderate reformers or anti-reformers of us 
all. They know full well that the Whigs have 
no more notion than 1 have of parting with the 
close boroughs. Not they, indeed! A large, 
and perhaps the larger, part of them are in their 
hands. Why, in the assembly to which you send 
me, gentlemen, some of those who sit on the 
same side with me represent, to be sure, less 
popular places than Liverpool — but on the bench 
immediately over against me, I descry, among 
the most eminent of our rivals for power, scarce 
any other sort of representatives than members 
for close, or, if you will, for rotten boroughs. To 
suppose, therefore, that our political opponents 
have any thoughts of getting rid of the close 
boroughs, would be a gross delusion ; and, I have 
no doubt, they will be quite as fair and open 
with the reformers on this point as I am. 

And why, gentlemen, is it that I am satisfied 
with a system which, it is said, no man , 

•^ . ' . ' It endangers 

can support who is not in love with the monnrchy 
n T • .1 . T .1 ofEnsrliiud. 

corruption .■' is it that 1, more than 
any other man, am afraid to face a popular elec- 
tion ? To the last question you can give the 
answer. To the former I will answer for my- 
self. I do verily believe, as I have already said, 
that a complete and perfect democratical repre- 
sentation, such as the reformers aim at, can not 
exist as part of a mixed government. It may 
exist, and, for aught I know or care, may exist 
beneficially as a whole. But I am not sent to 
Parliament to inquire into the question whether 
a democracy or a monarchy be the best. My 
lot is cast under the British monarchy. Under 
that I have lived — under that I have seen my 
country flourish — under that I have seen it enjoy 
as great a share of prosperity, of happiness, and 
of glory, as I believe any modification of human 
society to be capable of bestowing ; and I am 
not prepared to sacrifice or to hazard the fruit 
of centuries of experience, of centuries of strug- 
gles, and of more than one century of liberty, as 
perfect as ever blessed any country upon the 
earth, for visionary schemes of ideal perfectibili- 
ty, or for doubtful experiments even of possible 
improvement. 

I am, therefore, for the House of Commons as 
a part, and not as the whole, of the „, 

r 1 1 Tliegovern- 

government. And as a part ot the gov- mem to he 

^Tiii-.^ir X-. taken as It 18. 

ernment, 1 hold it to be trantic to sup- 
pose, that from the election of members of Par- 
liament you can altogether exclude, by any con- 
trivance, even if it were desirable to do so, the 
influence of property, rank, talents, family con- 
nection, and whatever else, in the radical lan- 
guage of the day, is considered as intimidation 
or corruption. I believe that if a reform, to the 
extent of that demanded by the Radical reform- 



872 



MR. CANNING 



[1820. 



ers, were granted, you would, before an annual 
election came round, find that there were new 
connections grown up which you must again de- 
stroy, new influence acquired which you must 
dispossess of its authority ; and that in these 
fruitless attempts at unattainable purity, you 
were working against the natural current of hu- 
man nature. 

I believe, therefore, that, contrive how you 
will, some such human motives of action will 
find room to operate in the election of members 
of Parliament. I think that this must and ought 
to be so, unless you mean to exclude from the 
concerns of the nation all inert wealth, all inact- 
ive talent, the retired, the aged, and the infirm, 
all who can not face popular assemblies or en- 
gage in busy life ; in short, unless you have 
found some expedient for disarming property of 
influence, without (what I hope we are not yet 
ripe for) the abolition of property itself. 

I would have by choice — if the choice were 
„ . ^ J yet to be made — I would have in the 

Varied modes tt r- /^ 

of election best Housc of Commons great variety of 
interest^ and I would have them find 
their way there by a great variety of rights of 
election ; satisfied that uniformity of election 
would produce any thing but a just representa- 
tion of various interests. As to the close bor- 
oughs, I know that through them have found 
their way into the House of Commons men whose 
talents have been an honor to their kind, and 
whose names are interwoven with the brightest 
periods in the history of their country. I can 
not think that system altogether vicious which 
has produced such fruits. Nor can I think that 
there should be but one road into that assembly, 
or that no man should be presumed fit for the 
deliberations of a Senate, who has not had the 
nerves previously to face the storms of the hust- 
ings. 

I need not say, gentlemen, that I am one of 
the last men to disparage the utility and dignity 
of popular elections. I have good cause to speak 
of them in far diflTerent language. But, among 
numberless other considerations which endear 
to me the favors which I have received at your 
hands, I confess it is one that, as your represent- 
ative, I am enabled to speak my genuine senti- 
ments on this (as I think it) vital question of 
parliamentary reform, without the imputation of 
shrinking from popular canvass, or of seekinir 
shelter for myself in that species of representa- 
tion which, as an element in the composition of 
Parliament. I never shall cease to defend. 

In truth, gentlemen, though the question of 
Tiie most vio- rcform is made the pretext of those 
a^re^wming\'o" pcrsons who have vexed the country 
8it for boroughs, ^qj. gomc months, I verily believe 
that there are very few even of them who either 
give credit to their own exaggerations, or care 
much about the improvements which they rec- 
ommend. Why, do we not see that the most vio- 
lent of the reformers of the day are aiming at seats 
in that assembly, which, according to their own 
theories, they should have left to wallow in its 
own pollution, discountenanced and unredeemed ? 



It is true, that if they found their way there, they 
might endeavor to bring us to a sense of our 
misdeeds, and to urge us to redeem our charac- 
ter by some self-condemning ordinance ; but 
would not the authority of their names, as our 
associates, have more than counterbalanced the 
force of their eloquence as our reformers? 

But, gentlemen, I am for the whole Constitu- 
tion. The liberty of the subject as much de- 
pends on the maintenance of the constitutional 
prerogatives of the Crown — on the acknowledg- 
ment of the legitimate power of the other House 
of Parliament, as it does in upholding that su- 
preme power (for such is the power of the purse 
in one sense of the word, though not in the sense 
of the resolution of 1648) which resides in the 
democratical branch of the Constitution. What- 
ever beyond its just proportion was gained by 
one part, w-ould be gained at the expense of the 
whole ; and the balance is now, perhaps, as near- 
ly poised as human wisdom can adjust it. I fear 
to touch that balance, the disturbance of which 
must bring confusion on the nation. 

Gentlemen, I trust there are few, very few, 
reasonable and enlightened men ready sucii a .subject 
to lend themselves to projects of con- befamplred 
fusion. But I confess I very much ^'"'• 
wish that all who are not ready to do so would 
consider the ill effect of any countenance given 
publicly or by apparent implication, to those 
whom in their hearts and judgments they de- 
spise. I remember that most excellent and able 
man, Mr. Wilberforce, once saying in the House 
of Commons that he '" never believed an opposi- 
tion really to wish mischief to the country"; that 
they only wished just so much mischief as might 
drive their opponents out, and place themselves 
in their room." Now, gentlemen, I can not help 
thinking that there are some persons tampering 
with the question of reform something in the 
same spirit. They do not go so far as the re- 
formers ; they even state irreconcilable differen- 
ces of opinion ; but to a certain extent they agree, 
and even co-operate with them. They co-oper- 
ate with them in inflaming the public feeling not 
only against the government, but against the sup- 
port given by Parliament to that government, in 
the hope, no doubt, of attracting to themselves 
the popularity which is lost to their opponents, 
and thus being enabled to correct and retrieve 
the errors of a displaced administration. Vain 
and hopeless task to raise such a spirit and then 
to govern it ! They may stimulate the steeds 
into fury, till the chariot is hurried to the brink 
of a precipice ; but do they flatter themselves tha'. 
thev can then leap in, and, hurling the incompe- 
tent driver from his seat, check the reins just in 
time to turn from the precipice and avoid the fall ? 
I fear they would attempt it in vain. The im- 
pulse once given may be too impetuous to be con- 
trolled ; and intending only to change the guid- 
ance of the machine, they may hurry it and them- 
selves to irretrievable destruction. 

May every man who has a stake in the coun- 
try, whether from situation, from character, from 
wealth, from his family, and from the hopes of 



1823] 



ON VISITING PLYMOUTH. 



873 



his children — may every man who has a sense ' is but that line of demarkation. On which side 

of the blessings for which he is indebted to the of that line we, jrentlemen, shall range ourselves, 

form of government under which he lives, see our choice has long ago been made. In acting 

that the time is come at which his decision must upon that our common choice, with my best ef- 

be taken, and, when once taken, steadfastly acted forts and exertions, I shall at once failhfully rep- 

upon — for or against the institutions of the Brit- resent your sentiments, and satisfy my own judg- 

ish monarchy ! The time is come at which there ment and conscience. 



SPEECH 

OF MR. CANNING, DELIVERED AT PLYMOUTH, IN THE YEAR 1823. 

INTRODUCTION. 
Mr. Canning having visited Plymouth and inspected the Dock-yards in 1823, the freedom of the town 
was presented him through the Mayor and other public officers. He returned thanks in the following 
speech, vchich was much admired at the time not only for the political views which it expressed, but es- 
pecially for his beautiful allusion to the ships in ordinary as an emblem of England while reposing in the 
quietude of peace. 

SPEECH, &c. 

Mr. Mayor and Gentlemen, — I accept with I Gentlemen, the end which I confess I have al- 



thankfulness, and with greater satisfaction than 
can express, this flattering testimony of your 
good opinion and good will. I must add that the 
value of the gift itself has been greatly enhanced 
by the manner in which your worthy and honor- 
able Recorder has developed the motives which 
suggested it, and the sentiments which it is in- 
tended to convey. 

Gentlemen, your recorder has said very truly, 
Tiieiifrofev. that whoever in this free and enlight- 
Bubieot 10 ""'*" ^"®^' state, aims at political eminence, 
scrutiny. and dischargcs political duties, must 

expect to have his conduct scrutinized, and ev- 
ery action of his public life sifted with no ordi- 
nary jealousy, and with no sparing criticism ; and 
such may have been my lot as much as that of 
other public men. But, gentlemen, unmerited 
obloquy seldom fails of an adequate, though 
perhaps tardy, compensation. I must think my- 
.self, as my honorable friend has said, eminently 
fortunate, if such compensation as he describes 
has fallen to me at an earlier period than to many 
others; if I dare flatter myself (as his partiality 
has flattered me), that the sentiments that you are 
kind enough to entertain for me, are in unison 
with those of the country ; if, in addition to the 
justice done me by my friends, I may, as he has 
assured me, rely upon a candid construction, even 
from political opponents. 

But, gentlemen, the secret of such a result 
does not lie deep. It consists only in 

Success depends , i i ■ ^• 

on very simple au houGSt and undcviatmg pursuit 
principles. ^j. ^^,]^j^^ ^j^g Conscientiously believes 

to be one's public duty — a pursuit which, stead- 
ily continued, will, however detached and sepa- 
rate parts of a man's conduct may be viewed 
under the influence of partialities or prejudices, 
obtain for it, when considered as a whole, the 
approbation of all honest and honorable minds. 
Any man may occasionally be mistaken as to the 
means most conducive to the end which he has in 
view ; but if the end be just and praiseworthy, 
it is by that he will be ultimately judged, either 
by his contemporaries or by posterity. 



ways had in view, and which ap- The views of a 

.,,•• , -x • ^ c British politician 

pears to me the legitnnate object oi siiouid I'e con- 
pursuit to a British statesman, I can esfs^'of' Great*" 
describe in one word. The Ian- Britain. 
guage of modern philosophy is wisely and dif- 
fusely benevolent ; it professes the perfection of 
our species, and the amelioration of the lot of all 
mankind. Gentlemen, I hope that my heart beats 
as high for the general interest of humanity — I 
hope that I have as friendly a disposition toward 
other nations of the earth, as any one who vaunts 
his philanthropy most highly ; but I am content- 
ed to confess that, in the conduct of political af- 
fairs, the grand object of my contemplation is the 
interest of England. 

Not, gentlemen, that the interest of P^ngland 
is an interest which stands isolated and 
alone. The situation which she holds noprmupieof 
forbids an exclusive selfishness; her 
prosperity must contribute to the prosperity of 
other nations, and her stability to the safety of the 
world. But intimately connected as we are with 
the system of Europe, it does not follow that we 
are, therefore, called upon to mix ourselves on 
every occasion, with a restless and meddling act- 
ivity, in the concerns of the nations which sur- 
round us. It is upon a just balance of conflicting 
duties, and of rival, but sometimes incompatible 
advantages, that a government must judge when 
to put forth its strength, and when to husband it 
for occasions yet to come. 

Our ultimate object must be the peace of the 
world. That object may sometimes rue peace of 
be best attained by prompt exertions I'^I^aruitiml'te 
— sometimes by abstinence from in- "''K'^i- 
terposition in contests which we can not prevent. 
It is upon these principles that, as has been most 
truly observed by my worthy friend, it did not 
appear to the government of this country to be 
necessary that Great Britain should mingle in the 
recent contest between France and Spain. 

Your worthy recorder has accurately classed 
the persons who would have driven us into that 
contest. There were undoubtedly among them 



874 



MR. CANNING 



[1823. 



those who desired to plunge this country into the 
difficuhies of war, partly from the hope that those 
difficulties would overwhelm the administration ; 
but it would be most unjust not to admit that 
there were others who were actuated by nobler 
principles and more generous feelings, who would 
have rushed forward at once from the sense of 
indignation at aggression, and who deemed that 
no act of injustice could be perpetrated from one 
end of the universe to the other, but that the 
sword of Great Britain should leap from its scab- 
bard to avenge it. But as it is the province of 
law to control the excess even of laudable pas- 
sions and propensities in individuals, so it is the 
duty of government to restrain within due bounds 
the ebullition of national sentiment, and to regu- 
late the course and direction of impulses which it 
can not blame. Is there any one among the latter 
class of persons described by my honorable friend 
(for to the former I have nothing to say) who con- 
tinues to doubt whether the government did wise- 
ly in declining to obey the precipitate enthusiasm 
which prevailed at the commencement of the 
contest in Spain ?^ Is there any body who does 
not now think that it was the office of govern- 
ment to examine more closely all the various 
bearings of so complicated a question, to consider 
whether they were called upon to assist a united 
nation, or to plunge themselves into the internal 
feuds by which that nation was divided — to aid 
in repelling a foreign invader, or to take part in 
a civil war ? Is there any man that does not now 
see what would have been the extent of burdens 
that would have been cast upon this country ? 
Is there any one who does not acknowledge that, 
under such circumstances the enterprise would 
have been one to be characterized only by a term 
borrowed from that part of the Spanish literatuie 
with which we are most familiar — Quixotic ; an 
enterprise romantic in its origin, and thankless 
in the end ? 

But while we thus control even our feelings 
But peace by our duty, let it not be said that we 
should be cultivate peace either because w^e fear, 

sought by i^ ' 

being ready or bccausc wc are unprepared for war; 
on the contrary, if eight months ago the 
government did not hesitate to proclaim that the 
country was prepared for wur, if war should be 
unfortunately necessary, every month of peace 
that has since passed has but made us so much 
the more capable of exertion. The resources 
created by peace are means of war. In cher- 
ishing those resources, we but accumulate those 
means. Hjur present repose is no more a proof 
of inability to act, than the state of inertness and 
inactivity in which I have seen those mighty masses 
thai float in the waters above your town, is a proof 
that they are devoid of strength, and incapable of 
being fitted out for action. You well knoto, gen- 
tlemen, how S0071 one of those stupendous masses, 

1 See this subject explained in the introduction to 
Mr. Brougham's speech respecting it, page 904. 



now reposing on their shadows in perfect stillness 
— how soon, upon any call of patriotism, or of 
necessity, it would assume the likeness of an ani- 
mated thing, instinct with life and motion — hoio 
soon it would ruffle, as it were, its swelling plum- 
age — how quickly it would put forth all its beauty 
and its bravery, collect its scattered elements of 
strength, and awaken its dormant thunder. Such 
as is one of these magnificent machines when 
springing from inaction into a display of its 
might — such is England herself, while, apparent- 
ly passive and motionless, she silently concentrates 
the power to be put forth on an adequate occasion.'^- 
But God forbid that that occasion should arise. 
After a war sustained for near a quarter of a cen- 
tury — sometimes single-handed, and with all Eu- 
rope arranged at times against her, or at her side, 
England needs a period of tranquillity, and may 
enjoy it without fear of misconstruction. Long 
may we be enabled, gentlemen, to improve the 
blessings of our present situation, to cultivate the 
arts of peace, to give to commerce, now reviv- 
ing, greater extension, and new spheres of em- 
ployment, and to confirm the prosperity now 
generally diffiised throughout this island. Of 
the blessing of peace, gentlemen, I trust that 
(his borough, with which I have now the honor 
and happmess of being associated, will receive 
an ample share. I trust the time is not far dis- 
tant, when that noble structure of which, as I 
learn from your Recorder, the box with which 
you have honored me, through his hands, formed 
a part, that gigantic barrier against the fury of 
the waves that roll into your harbor, will protect 
a commercial marine not less considerable in its 
kind than the warlike marine of which your port 
has been long so distinguished an asylum, when 
the town of Plymouth will participate in the com- 
mercial prosperity as largely as it has hitherto 
done in the naval glories of England. 

2 It will interest the reader to compare this pas- 
sage with one conceived in the same spirit by the 
poet Campbell, on the launchins: of a ship of the line. 

" Those who have ever witnessed the s[)ectacle 
of the launching of a ship of the line will perhaps 
forgive me for adding this to the examples of the 
sublime objects of artificial life. Of that s[)ectacle 
I can never forget the impression, and of having wit- 
nessed it reflected from the faces of ten thousand 
spectators. They seem yet before me — I sym pathize 
with their deep and silent expectation, and with 
their final burst of enthusiasm. It was not a vulgar 
joy, but an affecting national solemnity. When the 
vast bulwark sjjrang from her cradle, the cahn water 
on which she swung majestically round, gave the im- 
agination a contrast of the stormy element on which 
she was soon to ride. All the days of battle, and 
the nights of danger which she had to encounter — 
all the ends of the earth which she had to visit — and 
all that she had to do and to suffer for her country, 
rose in awful presentiment before the mind ; and 
when the heart gave her a benediction, it was like 
one pronounced on a living being." — Essay on En- 
glish Poetry. 



ON AFFORDING AID TO PORTUGAL. 



875 



SPEECH 



OF MR. CANNING ON AFFORDING AID TO PORTUGAL WHEN INVADED FROM SPAIN, DELIVERED 
IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, DECEMBER 12, 1826. 

INTRODUCTION. 

England had been for near]y two centuries the ally and protector of Portugal, and was bound to defend 
her when attacked. 

In 1826, a body of absolutists, headed by the Queen Dowager and the Marquess of Chaves, attempted 
to destroy the existing Portuguese government, which had been founded on the basis of constitutional 
liberty. This government had been acknowledged by England, France, Austria, and Russia. It was, 
how^ever, obnoxious to Ferdinand, king of Spain ; and Portugal was invaded from the Spanish territory 
by large bodies of Portuguese absolutists, who had been there organized with the connivance, if not the 
direct aid, of the Spanish government. 

The Portuguese government now demanded the assistance of England. Five thousand troops were, 
therefore, instantly ordered to Lisbon, and Mr. Canning came forward in this speech to explain the reasons 
of his prompt intervention. "This," says his biographer, "is the master-piece of his eloquence. In pro- 
priety and force of diction— in excellence of appropriate and well-methodized arrangement — in elevation 
of style and sentiment ; and in all the vigorous qualities of genuine manly eloquence — boldness — judgment 
— firmness, it fully sustains its title to the high eulogy given it by Mr. Brougham at the close of the debate." 



Mr. Speaker. — In proposin<]f to the House of 
Design ofthe Commons to acknowledge, by an hum- 
speaker. ^jjg a.nd dutiful addrcss, his Majesty's 
most gracious message, and to reply to it in terms 
which will be, in effect, an echo of the sentiments 
and a fulfillment of the anticipations of that mes- 
sage, I feel that, however confident I may be in 
the justice, and however clear as to the policy 
of the measures therein announced, it becomes 
me, as a British minister, recommending to Par- 
liament any step which may approximate this 
country even to the hazard of a war, while I ex- 
plain the grounds of that proposal, to accompany 
ray explanation with expressions of regret. 

I can assure the House, that there is not with- 
Hijh sense en- in its walls any set of men more deep- 
imponancio'r ^Y couvinccd than his Majesty's min- 
peace. istcrs — nor any individual more inti- 

mately persuaded than he who has now the hon- 
or of addressing you — of the vital importance of 
the continuance of peace to this country and to 
the world. So strongly am I impressed with this 
opinion — and for reasons of which I will put the 
House more fully in possession before I sit down 
— that I declare there is no question of doubtful 
or controverted policy — no opportunity of present 
national advantage — no precaution against re- 
mote difficulty — which I would not gladly com- 
promise, pass over, or adjourn, rather than call 
on Parliament to sanction, at this moment, any 
measure which had a tendency to involve the 
country in war. But, at the same time, sir, I 
feel that which has been felt, in the best times 
of English history, by the best statesmen of this 
country, and by the Parliaments by whom those 
statesmen were supported — I feel that there are 
two causes, and but two causes, which can not 
be either compromised, passed over, or adjourn- 



SPEECH, &c. 

ed. These causes are, adherence to the national 
faith, and regard for the national honor. 

Sir, if I did not consider both these causes as 
involved in the proposition which I 

, 1 • 1 , Till B"^ national 

have this day to make to vcni, 1 should faith and honor 



not address the House, as I now do, proposed meas- 
in the full and entire confidence that "''^*" 
the gracious communication of his Majesty will 
be met by the House with the concurrence of 
which his Majesty has declared his expectation. 
In order to bring the matter which I have to 
submit to you, under the cognizance of part First. 
\ the House, in the shortest and clearest J/,^^^^ "„''" 
I manner, I beg leave to state it, in the f<»-tu-ai. 

first instance, divested of any collateral consider- 
! ations. It is a case of law and of fact : of na- 
tional law on the one hand, and of notorious fact 
on the other ; such as it must be, in my opinion, 
as impossible for Parliament, as it was for the 
j government, to regard in any but one light; or 
j to come to any but one conclusion upon it. 
[ Among the alliances by which, at different 
I periods of our history, this country has ^ , 
been connected with the other nations ofthoseobii- 

f T-i • .... cations. 

ol i^urope, none is so ancient in origin, 
' and so precise in obligation — none has continued 
so long, and been observed so faithfully — of none- 
j is the memory so intimately interwoven with the 
most brilliant records of our triumphs, as that by 
which Great Britain is connected with Portugal. 
It dates back to distant centuries; it has survived 
an endless variety of fortunes. Anterior in ex- 
istence to the accession of the house of Braganza 
to the throne of Portugal — it derived, however, 
fresh vigor from that event ; and never, from that 
epoch to the present hour, has the independent 
monarchy of Portugal ceased to be nurtured by 
the friendship of Great Britain. This alliance 



876 



MR. CANNING 



[1826. 



has never been seriously interrupted ; but it has 
been renewed by repeated sanctions. It has 
been maintained under difficulties by which the 
fidelity of other alliances were shaken, and has 
been vindicated in fields of blood and of glory. 

That the alliance with Portugal has been al- 
No one i.ns ever wavs unqualifiedly advantageous to 
ougi'r.VbT this^ country— that it has not been 
bro\eti()H. sometimes inconvenient and some- 

times burdensome — I am not bound nor prepared 
to maintain. But no British statesman, so far as 
I know, has ever suggested the expediency of 
shaking it off; and it is assuredly not at a mo- 
ment of need that honor and, what I may be al- 
lowed to call national sympathy, would permit 
us to weigh, with an over-scrupulous exactness, 
the amount of difficulties and dangers attendant 
upon its faithful and steadfast observance. What 
feelings of national honor would forbid, is for- 
bidden alike by the plain dictates of national 
faith. 

It is not at distant periods of history, and in 
Solemnly re bygo^^ agcs ouly, that the traces of 
newedi.11815. ^^g union bctwecn Great Britain and 
Portufjal are to be found. In the last compact 
of modern Europe, the compact which forms the 
basis of its present international law — I mean the 
treaty of Vienna of 1815 — this country, with its 
eyes open to the possible inconveniences of the 
connection, but with a memory awake to its past 
benefits, solemnly renewed the previously exist- 
ing obligations of alliance and amity with Portu- 
gal. I will take leave to read to the House the 
third article of the treaty concluded at Vienna, 
in 1815, between Great Britain on the one hand, 
and Portugal on the other. It is couched in the 
following terms : " The treaty of Alliance, con- 
cluded at Rio de Janeiro, on the 19th of Febru- 
ary, 1810, being founded on circumstances of a 
temporary nature, which have happily ceased to 
exist, the said treaty is hereby declared to be 
void in all its parts, and of no efTect ; without 
prejudice, however, to the ancient treaties of alli- 
ance, friendship, and guarantee, which have so 
long and so happily subsisted between the two 
Crowns, and which are hereby renewed by the 
high contracting parties, and acknowledged to be 
of full force and effect. ^^ 

In order to appreciate the force of this stipu- 
lation — recent in point of time, re- 

Circumstanres , . , . r t-> i • 

connected with ccnt, also, lu thc sauction 01 rariia- 
that renewal, j^ent— the Housc will, perhaps, al- 
low me to explain shortly the circumstances in 
reference to which it was contracted. In the 
year 1807, when, upon the declaration of Bona- 
parte, that the house of Braganza had ceased to 
reign, the King of Portugal, by the advice of 
Great Britain, was induced to set sail for the 
Brazils ; almost at the very moment of his most 
faithful Majesty's embarkation, a secret conven- 
tion was signed between his Majesty and the 
King of Portugal, stipulating that, in the event 
of his most faithful Majesty's establishing the 
seat of his government in Brazil, Great Britain 
would never acknowledge any other dynasty than 
that of the house of Brajjanza on the throne of 



Portugal. That convention, I say, was contem- 
poraneous with the migration to the Brazils ; a 
step of great importance at the time, as remov- 
ing from the grasp of Bonaparte the sovereign 
family of Braganza. Afterward, in the vear 
1810, when the seat of the King of Portugal's 
government was established at Rio de Janeiro, 
and when it seemed probable, in the then appar- 
ently hopeless condition of the affairs of Europe, 
that it was likely long to continue there, the se- 
cret convention of 1807, of which the main ob- 
ject was accomplished by the fact of the emigra- 
tion to Brazil, was abrogated, and a new and pub- 
lic treaty was concluded, into which was trans- 
ferred the stipulation of 1807, binding Great 
Britain, so long as his faithful Majesty should 
be compelled to reside in Brazil, not to acknowl- 
edge any other sovereign of Portugal than a 
member of the house of Braganza. That stip- 
ulation which had hitherto been secret, thus be- 
came patent, and part of the known law of na- 
tions. 

In the year 1814, in consequence of the hap- 
py conclusion of the war, the option was afford- 
ed to the King of Portugal of returning to his 
European dominions. It was then felt that, as 
the necessity of his most faithful Majesty's ab- 
sence from Portugal had ceased, the ground for 
the obligation originally contracted in the secret 
convention of 1807, and afterward transferred to 
the patent treaty of 1810, was removed. The 
treaty of 1810 was, therefore, annulled at the 
Congress of Vienna ; and in lieu of the stipula- 
tion not to acknowledge any other sovereign of 
Portugal than a member of the house of Bra- 
ganza, was substituted that which I have just 
read to the House. 

Annulling the treaty of 1810, the treaty of 
Vienna renews and confirms (as the House will 
have seen) all former treaties between Great 
Britain and Portugal, describing them as "an- 
cient treaties of alliance, friendship, and guaran- 
tee ;" as having " long and happily subsisted be- 
tween the two Crowns ;" and as being allowed, 
by the tw^o high contracting parties, to remain 
"in full force and effect." 

What, then, is the force — what is the effect of 
those ancient treaties? I am pre- ,, , ,. , 

I l:,nf;lanil bound, 

pared to show to the House what it ""' ^y "''^- i^ut 

• T» X 1 p T 1 T . °y previous 

is. But before 1 do so. 1 must say, treaties t.) pro- 
that if all the treaties to which this "^'^^ ''°""sai. 
article of the treaty of Vienna refers, had perished 
by some convulsion of nature, or had by some ex- 
traordinary accident been consigned to total ob- 
livion, still it would be impossible not to admit, as 
an incontestible inference from this article of the 
treaty of Vienna alone, that in a moral point of 
view, there is incumbent on Great Britain, a de- 
cided obligation to act as the eflectual defender 
of Portugal. If I could not show the letter of a 
single antecedent stipulation, I should still con- 
tend that a solemn admission, only ten years old, 
of the existence at that time of •"treaties of al- 
liance, friendship, and guarantee,"' held Great 
Britain to the discharge of the obligations which 
that very description implies. But fortunately 



1826.] 



ON AFFORDING AID TO PORTUGAL. 



877 



there is no such difficulty in specifying the na- 
ture of those obligations. All of the preceding 
treaties exist — all of them are of easy reference 
— all of them are known to this country, to 



Spain, to every nation of the civilized world. 
They are so numerous, and their general result 
is so uniform, that it may be sufficient to select 
only two of them to show the nature of all. 

The first to which I shall advert is the treaty 
By treaty of 1661, which was coucludcd at the 
of 1661. ^i(^g of fj^g marriage of Charles the Sec- 
ond with the Infanta of Portugal. After reciting 
the marriage, and making over to Great Britain, 
in consequence of that marriage, first, a consid- 
erable sum of money, and, secondly, several im- 
portant places, some of w^hich, as Tangier, we no 
longer possess ; but others of which, as Bombay, 
still belong to this country, the treaty runs thus : 
'• In consideration of all which grants, so much to 
the benefit of the King of Great Britain and his 
subjects in general, and of the delivery of those 
important places to his said Majesty and his heirs 
forever, &c., the King of Great Britain does pro- 
fess and declare, with the consent and advice of 
his council, that he will take the interest of Port- 
ugal and all its dominions to heart, defending the 
same with his utmost power by sea and land, 
even as England itself ;'''' and it then proceeds to 
specify the succors to be sent, and the manner of 
sending them. 

I come next to the treaty of 1703, a treaty of 
By treaty alUancc cotemporancous with the Me- 
of 1703. thuen treaty, which has regulated, for up- 
ward of a century, the commercial relations of 
the two countries. The treaty of 1703 was a 
tripartite engagement between the States Gen- 
eral of Holland, England, and Portugal. The 
second article of that treaty sets forth, that " If 
ever it shall happen that the Kings of Spain and 
France, either the present or the future, that both 
of them together, or either of them separately, 
shall make war, or give occasion to suspect that 
they intend to make war upon the kingdom of 
Portugal, either on the continent of Europe, or on 
its dominions beyond the .seas ; her Majesty the 
Queen of Great Britain, and the Lords the States 
General, shall use their friendly offices with the 
said Kings, or either of them, in order to persuade 
them to observe the terms of peace tow^ard Port- 
ugal, and not to make war upon it." The third 
article declares, "That in the event of these good 
offices not proving successful, but altogether in- 
effectual, so that war should be made by the 
aforesaid Kings, or by either of them upon Port- 
ugal, the above-mentioned powers of Great Brit- 
ain and Holland shall make war with all their 
force upon the aforesaid Kings or King who shall 
carry hostile arms into Portugal ; and toward 
that war which shall be carried on in Europe, 
they shall .supply twelve thousand men, whom 
they shall arm and pay, as well when in quarters 
as in action ; and the said high allies shall be 
obliged to keep that number of men complete, 
by recruiting it from time to time at their own 
expense." 

I am aware, indeed, that with respect to either 



of the treaties which I have quoted, it is possible 
to raise a question — whether varia- ^ ., ,. 

^ Further ai8cu»- 

tion of circumstances or change of sion <.i' these 

, , , two treaties. 

times may not have somewhat relax- 
ed its obligations. The treaty of 1661, it might 
be said, was so loose and prodigal in the word- 
ing — it is so unreasonable, so wholly out of na- 
ture, that any one country should be expected to 
defend another, '■''even as itself;'' such stipula- 
tions are of so exaggerated a character, as to re- 
semble effusions of feeling, rather than enuncia- 
tions of deliberate compact. Again, with re- 
spect to the treaty of 1703, if the case rested on 
that treaty alone, a question might be raised, 
whether or not, when one of the contracting par- 
ties — Holland — had since so changed her rela- 
tions with Portugal, as to consider her obligations 
under the treaty of 1703 as obsolete — whether 
or not, I say, under such circumstances, the ob- 
ligation on the remaining party be not likewise 
void. I should not hesitate to answer both these 
objections in the negative. But without enter- 
ing into such a controversy, it is sufficient for me 
to say that the time and place for taking such ob- 
jections was at the Congress at Vienna. Then 
and there it was that if you, indeed, considered 
the.se treaties as obsolete, you ought frankly and 
fearlessly to have declared them to be so. But 
then and there, with your eyes open, and in the 
face of all modern Europe, you proclaimed anew 
the ancient treaties of alliance, friendship, and 
guarantee, "so long subsisting between the 
Crowns of Great Britain and Portugal," as still 
" acknowledged by Great Britain," and still "of 
full force and effect." It is not, however, on spe- 
cific articles alone — it is not so much, General in- 
perhaps, on either of these ancient treat- [re^^y^obh-" 
ies, taken separately, as it is on the spir- gat'ons- 
it and understanding of the whole body of treat- 
ies, of which the essence is concentrated and pre- 
served in the treaty of Vienna, that we acknowl- 
edge in Portugal a right to look to Great Britain 
as her ally and defender. 

This, sir, being the state, morally and polit- 
ically, of our obligations toward Port- p„ri Second. 
ugal, it is obvious that when Portugal, t^on'm'w de- 
in apprehension of the coming storm, "'''"Jed. 
called on Great Britain for assistance, the only 
hesitation on our part could be — not whether that 
assistance was due, supposing the occasion for 
demanding it to arise, but simply whether that 
occasion — in other words, whether the casus fa;- 
deris had arisen. 

I imderstand, indeed, that in some quarters it 
has been imputed to his Majesty's Answer to the 
ministers that an extraordinary delay some that the 
intervened between the taking of the i;'^'i",ovedir,> 
determination to give assistance to s'^vviy. 
Portugal and the carrying of that determination 
into effect. But how stands the fact ? On Sun- 
day, the third of this month, we received from the 
Portuguese embassador a direct and formal de- 
mand of assistance against a hostile aggression 
from Spain. Our answer was, that although 
rumors had reached us through France, his Maj- 
esty's government had not that accurate inform- 



878 



MR. CANNING 



[1826. 



ation — that official and precise intelligence of 
facts — on which they could properly found an ap- 
plication to Parliament. It was only on last Fri- 
day night that this precise information arrived. 
On Saturday his Majesty's confidential servants 
came to a decision. On Sunday that decision 
received the sanction of his Majesty. On Mon- 
day it was communicated to both Houses of Par- 
liament ; and this day, sir, at the hour in which 
I have the honor of addressing you, the troops 
are on their march for embarkation. 

I trust, then, sir, that no unseemly delay is im- 
, putable to government. But un- 

They were bound ^ , ,, ^ , , , i , 

to have evidence douDtedly, ou thc othcr hand, when 
the claim of Portugal for assistance 
— a claim clear, indeed, in justice, but at the 
same time fearfully spreading in its possible con- 
sequences, came before us, it was the duty of his 
Majesty's government to do nothing on hearsay. 
The eventual foi'ce of the claim was admitted ; 
but a thoi'ough knowledge of facts was necessa- 
ry before the compliance with that claim could 
be granted. The government here labored un- 
der some disadvantage. The rumors which 
reached us through iMadrid were obviously dis- 
torted, to answer partial political purposes ; and 
the intelligence through the press of France, 
though substantially correct, was, in particulars, 
vague and contradictory. A measure of grave 
and serious moment could never be founded on 
such authority ; nor could the ministers come 
down to Parliament until they had a confident 
assurance that the case which they had to lay 
before the Legislature was true in all its parts. 
But there was another reason which induced 
a necessary caution. In former in- 

That evidence ^ ^ , ,. . 

deiajeJ by the stauccs, whcH Portugal applied to 
Por"tugi?ese^ this country for assistance, the whole 

government. ^^^^^^ ^f ^^^ g^^^^ j^^ PorlUgal WaS 

vested in the person of the monarch. The ex- 
pression of his wish, the manifestation of his de- 
sire, the putting forth of his claim, was sufficient 
ground for immediate and decisive action on the 
part of Great Britain, supposing the casus fade- 
ris to be made out. But, on this occasion, in- 
quiry was in the first place to be made whether, 
according to the new Constitution of Portugal, 
the call upon Great Britain was made with the 
consent of all the powers and authorities compe- 
tent to make it, so as to carry with it an assur- 
ance of that reception in Portugal for our army, 
which the army of a friend and ally had a right to 
expect. Before a British soldier should put his 
foot on Portuguese ground, nay, before he should 
leave the shores of England, it was our duty to 
ascertain that the step taken by the Regency of 
Portugal was taken with the cordial concurrence 
of the Legislature of that country. It M'as but 
this morning that we received intelligence of the 
proceedings of the Chambers at Lisbon, which 
establishes the fact of such concurrence. This 
intelligence is contained in a dispatch from Sir 
W. A'Court, dated 29th of November, of which 
I will read an extract to the House. "The day 
after the news arrived of the entry of the rebels 
into Portugal, the ministers demanded from the 



Chambers an extension of power for the execu- 
tive government, and the permission to apply for 
foreign succors, in virtue of ancient treaties, in 
the event of their being deemed necessary. The 
deputies gave the requisite authority by accla- 
mation ; and an equally good spirit was mani- 
fested by the peers, who granted every power 
that the ministers could possibly require. They 
even went further, and. rising in a body from their 
seats, declared their devotion to their country, 
and their readiness to give their personal serv- 
ices, if necessaiy, to repel any hostile invasion. 
The Duke de Cadaval, president of the Chamber, 
was the first to make this declaration ; and the 
minister who described this proceeding to me, 
said it was a movement worthy of the good days 
of Portugal !"' 

I have thus incidentally disposed of the sup- 
posed imputation of delay in comply- proof that the 
ing with the requisition of the Portu- i^'^'^nfls""^ 
guese government. The main ques- neeJed. 
tion, however, is this : Was it obligatory upon us 
to comply with that requisition ? In other words, 
had the casus /(sderis arisen? In our opinion it 
had. Bands of Portuguese rebels, armed, equip- 
ped, and trained in Spain, had crossed the Span- 
ish frontier, carrying terror and devastation into 
their own country, and proclaiming sometimes 
the brother of the reigning Sovereign of Portu- 
gal, sometimes a Spanish Princess, and some- 
times even Ferdinand of Spain, as the rightful 
occupant of the Portuguese throne. These reb- 
els crossed the frontier, not at one point only, 
but at several points ; for it is remarkable that 
the aggression, on which the original application 
to Great Britain for succor was founded, is not 
the aggression with reference to which that ap- 
plication has been complied with. 

The attack announced by the French newspa- 
pers was on the north of Portugal, in „ , , . 

1 • r- m -yii ^ Portugal m- 

the province of Tras-os-Montes ; an vaded from 
official account of which has been re- fem"t quar- 
ceived by his Majesty's government ^^"' 
only this day. But on Friday an account was 
x-eceived of an invasion in the south of Portugal, 
and of the capture of Villa Viciosa, a town lying 
on the road from the southern frontier to Lisbon. 
This new fact established even more satisfacto- 
ril}^ than a mere confirmation of the attack first 
complained of would have done, the .systematic 
nature of the aggression of Spain against Portu- 
gal. One hostile irruption might have been made 
by some single corps escaping from their quar- 
ters — by some body of stragglers, who might 
have evaded the vigilance of Spanish authorities ; 
and one such accidental and unconnected act of 
violence might not have been conclusive evidence 
of cognizance and design on the part of those au- 
thorities ; but when a series of attacks are made 
along the whole line of a frontier, it is difficult 
to deny that such multiplied instances of hostili- 
ty are evidence of concerted aggression. 

If a single company of Spanish soldiers had 
crossed the frontier in hostile array, _, „ ■,„,.,,^„ . 

J ' The invasion a 

there could not, it is presumed, be a Spanish one in 
doubt as to the character of that m- 



1826.] 



ON AFFORDING AID TO PORTUGAL. 



879 



vasion. Shall bodies of men, armed, clothed, and 
regimented by Spain, carry fire and sword into 
the bosom of her unotfending neighbor, and shall 
it be pretended that no attack, no invasion has 
taken place, because, forsooth, these outrages are 
committed against Portugal by men to whom 
Portugal had given birth and nurture ? What 
petty quibbling would it be to say, that an in- 
vasion of Portugal from Spain was not a Spanish 
invasion, because Spain did not employ her own 
troops, but hired mercenaries to effect her pur- 
pose ? And what difference "s it, except as an 
aggravation, that the mercenaries in this in- 
stance were natives of Portugal. 

I have already stated, and I now repeat, that 
^ , , .„ it never has been the wish or the pre- 

England will . /. . -n • • i • 

not interfere tcnsion 01 the British government to in- 
Portuguese tcrfcrc in the internal concerns of the 
at home. Portuguese nation. Questions of that 
kind the Portuguese nation must settle among 
themselves. But if we were to admit that hordes 
of traitorous refugees from Portugal, with Span- 
ish arms, or arms furnished or restored to them 
by Spanish authorities, in their hands, might put 
off their country for one purpose, and put it on 
again for another — put it off for the purpose of 
attack, and put it on again for the purpose of im- 
punity — if, I say, we were to admit this juggle, 
and either pretend to be deceived by it ourselves, 
or attempt to deceive Portugal, into a belief that 
there was nothing of external attack, nothing of 
foreign hostility, in such a system of aggression 
— such pretense and attempt would, perhaps, be 
only Hdiculous and contemptible; if they did not 
require a much more serious character from be- 
ing employed as an excuse for infidelity to an- 
cient friendship, and as a pretext for getting rid 
of the positive stipulations of treaties. 

This, then, is the case which I lay before the 
But thu is a House of Commons. Here is, on the 
-re^skfn^rom o"*^ hand, an undoubted pledge of na- 
abroad. tioual faith — not taken in a corner — 

not kept secret between the parties, but publicly 
recorded among the annals of history, in the face 
of the world. Here are, on the other hand, un- 
deniable acts of foreign aggression, perpetrated, 
indeed, principally thx-ough the instrumentality 
of domestic traitors, but supported with foreign 
means, instigated by foreign councils, and direct- 
ed to foreign ends. Putting these facts and this 
pledge together, it is impossible that his Majesty 
should refuse the call that has been made upon 
him ; nor can Parliament, I am convinced, refuse 
to enable his Majesty to fulfill his undoubted ob- 
ligations. I am willing to rest the whole ques- 
tion of to-night, and to call for the vote of the 
House of Commons upon this simple case, divest- 
ed altogether of collateral circumstances ; from 
which I especially wish to separate it, in the 
minds of those who hear me, and also in the 
minds of others, to whom what I now say will 
find its way. If I were to sit down this mo- 
ment, without adding another word, I have no 
doubt but that I should have the concurrence of 
the House in the address which I mean to pro- 
pose. 



When I state this, it will be obvious to the 
House, that the vote for which I am in protecting 
about to call upon them, is a vote for Tia,' j^^oes'^not 
the defense of Portugal, not a vote for "'^ °" Spain. 
war against Spain. I beg the House to keep 
these two points entirely distinct in their con- 
sideration. For the former I think I have said 
enough. If, in what I have now further to say, 
I should bear hard upon the Spanish government, 
I beg that it may be observed that, unjustifiable 
as I shall show^ their conduct to have been — con- 
trary to the law of nations, contrary to the law 
of good neighborhood, contrary, I might say, to 
the laws of God and man — with respect to Port- 
ugal — still I do not mean to preclude a locus 
pasnitentice, a possibility of redress and repara- 
tion. It is our duty to fly to the defense of Port- 
ugal, be the assailant who he may. And, be it 
remembered, that, in thus fulfilling the stipula- 
tion of ancient treaties, of the existence and ob- 
ligation of which all the world are aware, we, 
according to the universally admitted construc- 
tion of the law of nations, neither make war upon 
that assailant, nor give to that assailant, much 
less to any other power, just cause of war against 
ourselves. 

Sir, the present situation of Portugal is so 
anomalous, and the recent years of p^,.^ 77,;,.,^ 
her history are crowded with events viewofthepo- 
so unusual, that the House will, per- Ponngai with 
haps, not think that I am unprofitably the'^dutiel o" 
wasting its time, if I take the liberty ^"si^nd. 
of calling its attention, shortly and succinctl}-, to 
those events, and to their influence on the polit- 
ical relations of Europe. It is known that the 
consequence of the residence of the ^ 

,_. n n 1 • T-. -1 Separation ot 

King ot Portugal in Brazil was to Brazil from 
raise the latter country from a colo- """'"sa- 
nial to a metropolitan condition ; and that, from 
the time when the King began to contemplate 
his return to Portugal, there grew up in Brazil 
a desire of independence that threatened dissen- 
sion, if not something like civil contest, between 
the European and American dominions of the 
house of Braganza. It is known, also, that Great 
Britain undertook a mediation between Portugal 
and Brazil, and induced the King to consent to a 
separation of the two Crowns — confirming that 
of Brazil on the head of his eldest son. The 
ink with which this agreement was written was 
scarcely dry, when the unexpected death of the 
King of Portugal produced a new state of things, 
which reunited on the same head the two Crowns 
which it had been the policy of England, as well 
as of Portugal and of Brazil, to separate. On 
that occasion. Great Britain, and another Euro- 
pean court closely connected with Brazil, ten- 
dered advice to the Emperor of Brazil, now be- 
come King of Portugal, which advice it can not 
be accurately said that his Imperial Majesty fol- 
lowed, because he had decided for himself before 
it reached Rio de Janeiro ; but in conformity with 
which advice, though not in consequence of it, 
his Imperial ^Majesty determined to abdicate the 
Crown of Portugal in favor of his eldest daugh- 
ter. But the Emperor of Brazil had done more. 



830 



MR. CANNING 



[1826. 



What had not been foreseen — what would have 
A constitution- been beyond the province of any for- 
eitabirshed'in' ^^g" powef to advise — his Imperial 
the latter. Majesty had accompanied his abdica- 

tion of the Crown of Portugal with the grant of 
a free constitutional charter for that kingdom. 

It has been surmised that this measure, as well 
Tiiis not (lone as the abdication which it accompa- 
giiXmterfer- "i^d, was the offspring of our advice, 
ence. j^q such thing — Great Britain did not 

suggest this measure. It is not her duty nor 
her practice to offer suggestions for the internal 
regulation of foreign states. She neither ap- 
proved nor disapproved of the grant of a consti- 
tutional charter to Portugal : her opinion upon 
that grant was never required. True it is, that 
the instrument of the constitutional charter was 
brought to Europe by a gentleman of high trust 
in the service of the British government. Sir C. 
Stuart had gone to Brazil to negotiate the sepa- 
ration between that country and Portugal. In 
addition to his character of Plenipotentiary of 
Great Britain, as the mediating power, he had 
also been invested by the King of Portugal with 
the character of his most faithful Majesty's Plen- 
ipotentiary for the negotiation with Brazil. That 
negotiation had been brought to a happy conclu- 
sion ; and therewith the British part of Sir C. 
Stuart's commission had terminated. But Sir C. 
Stuart was still resident at Rio de Janeiro, as the 
Plenipotentiary of the King of Portugal, for nego- 
tiating commercial arrangements between Port- 
ugal and Brazil. In this latter character it was 
that Sir C. Stuart, on his return to Europe, was 
requested by the Emperor of Brazil to be the 
bearer to Portugal of the new^ constitutional char- 
ter. His Majesty's government found no fault 
with Sir C. Stuart for executing this commission ; 
but it was immediately felt that if Sir C. Stuart 
were allowed to remain at Lisbon, it might ap- 
pear, in the eyes of Europe, that England was 
the contriver and imposer of the Portuguese Con- 
stitution. Sir C. Stuart was, therefore, directed 
to return home forthwith, in order that the Con- 
stitution, if carried into effect there, might plain- 
ly appear to be adopted by the Portuguese na- 
tion itself, not forced upon them by English in- 
terference. 

As to the merits, sir, of the new Constitution 
The merits of of Portugal, I have neither the inten- 
nient"'o7now ^iou uor thc right to offer any opinion, 
the question. Personally, I may have formed one ; 
but as an English minister, all I have to say is, 
" May God prosper this attempt at the establish- 
ment of constitutional liberty in Portugal ! and 
may that nation be found as fit to enjoy and to 
cherish its new-born privileges, as it has often 
proved itself capable of discharging its duties 
among the nations of the world !" 

I, sir, am neither the champion nor thc critic 
It is arknowi- of the Portugucsc Constitution. But 
edged to be a jj j^^ admitted on all hands to have pro- 

legitimate one, . . ' 

and approved cccdcd from 3 legitimate source — a 

hy the people. . , . i • i i • i 

consideration w^hich has mainly recon- 
ciled continental Europe to its establishment ; and 
to us, as Englishmen, it is recommended by the 



ready acceptance which it has met with from all 
orders of the Portuguese people. To that Con- 
stitution, therefore, thus unquestioned in its ori- 
gin, even by those who are most jealous of new 
institutions — to that Constitution, thus sanctioned 
in its outset by the glad and grateful acclama- 
tions of those who are destined to live under it — 
to that Constitution, founded on principles, in a 
great degree, similar to those of our own, though 
differently modified — it is impossible that En- 
glishmen should not wish well. But it would 
not be for us to force that Constitution on the 
people of Portugal, if they were unwilling to re- 
ceive it, or if any schism should exist among the 
Portuguese themselves, as to its fitness and con- 
geniality to the wants and wishes of the nation. 
It is no business of ours to fight its battles. We 
go to Portugal in the discharge of a sacred obli- 
gation, contracted under ancient and modern 
treaties. When there, nothing shall be done by 
us to enforce the establishment of the Constitu- 
tion ; but we must take care that nothing shall 
be done by others to prevent it from being fairly 
carried into effect. Internally, let the Portuguese 
settle their own affairs ; but with respect to ex- 
ternal force, while Great Britain has an arm to 
raise, it must be raised against the efforts of any 
power that should attempt forcibly to control the 
choice, and fetter the independence of Portugal. 
Has such been the intention of Spain ? Wheth- 
er the proceedings which have lately ^, . 

'^ . ^ •' This govern- 

been practiced or permitted in Spain, mem is assailed 

* ^ P ^ ^ ^ . ' from Spam. 

were acts ot a government exercising 
the usual power of prudence and foresight (with- 
out which a government is, for the good of the 
people which live under it, no government at all), 
or whether they were the acts of some secret il- 
legitimate power — of some furious fanatical Ac- 
tion, over-riding the counsels of the ostensible 
government, defying it in the capital, and diso- 
beying it on the frontiers — I will not stop to in- 
quire. It is indifferent to Portugal, smarting un- 
der her wn-ongs — it is indifferent to England, who 
is called upon to avenge them — whether the pres- 
ent state of things be the result of the intrigues 
of a faction, over which, if the Spanish govern- 
ment has no control, it ought to assume one as 
soon as possible — or of local authorities, over 
whom it has control, and for whose acts it must, 
therefore, be held responsible. It matters not, 
I say, fi'om which of these sources the evil has 
arisen. In either case, Portugal must be pro- 
tected ; and from England that protection is due. 
It would be unjust, however, to the Spanish 
government, to say that it is only Free institutions 
among the members of that govern- Jl^n^^tof'the"''^" 
ment that an unconquerable hatred sr^"'-'''' I'fopie. 
of liberal institutions exists in Spain. However 
incredible the phenomenon may appear in this 
country, I am persuaded that a vast majority of 
the Spanish nation entertain a decided attach- 
ment to arbitrary power, and a predilection for 
absolute government. The more liberal institu- 
tions of countries in the neighborhood have not 
yet extended their influence into Spain, nor awak- 
ened any sympathy in the mass of the Spanish 



1826.] 



ON AFFORDING AID TO PORTUGAL. 



mentofspain^ Spain. If, though partaking in the 



people. Whether the public authorities of Spain 
did or did not pai'take of the national sentiment, 
there would almost necessarily grow up between 
Portugal and Spain, under present circumstances, 
an opposition of feelings which it would not re- 
quire the authority or the suggestions of the 
government to excite and stimulate into action. 
Without blame, therefore, to the government of 
Spain — out of the natural antipathy between the 
two neighboring nations — the one prizing its re- 
cent freedom, the other hugging its traditionary 
servitude — there might arise mutual provoca- 
tions and reciprocal injuries which, perhaps, even 
the most active and vigilant ministry could not 
altogether restrain. I am inclined to believe 
that such has been, in part at least, the origin 
of the differences between Spain and Portugal. 
That in their progress they have been adopted, 
matured, methodized, combined, and brought into 
more perfect action, by some authority more 
united and more efficient than the mere feeling 
disseminated through the mass of the communi- 
ty, is certain ; but I do believe their origin to 
have been as much in the real sentiment of the 
Spanish population, as in the opinion or contriv- 
ance of the government itself. 

Whether this be or be not the case, is pre- 
if the govern- ciscly the qucstiou between us and 

ment of Spain 
has not acted 
this case, Ea 
gland does not 

war on her. tion, the Spanish government has, 
nevertheless, done nothing to embody those feel- 
ing.s, and to direct them hostilely against Portu- 
gal ; if all that has occurred on the frontiers 
has occurred only because the vigilance of the 
Spanish government has been surprised, its con- 
fidence betrayed, and its orders neglected — if its 
engagements have been repeatedly and shame- 
fully violated, not by its own good-wnll, but 
against its recommendation and desire — let us 
see some symptoms of disapprobation, some signs 
of repentance, some measures indicative of sor- 
row for the past, and of sincerity for the future. 
In that case, his Majesty's message, to which I 
propose this night to return an answer of con- 
currence, will retain the character which I have 
ascribed to it — that of a measure of defense for 
Portugal, not a measure of resentment against 
Spain. 

With these explanations and qualifications, let 
Facts as to ^^^ "^^^ procccd to thc rcvicw of facts, 
existing dif- Great desertions took place from the 

ferences be- • o • i 

tween Portu- Portugucsc army mto Spam, and some 
ga an pain. (jggg^^JQj^g ^^^^ placc from thc Spanish 
army into Portugal. In the first instance, the 
Portuguese authorities were taken by surprise; 
but in every subsequent instance, where they 
had an opportunity of exercising a discretion, it 
is but just to say that they uniformly discour- 
aged the desertions of the Spanish soldiery. 
There exist between Spain and Portugal spe- 
cific treaties, stipulating the mutual surrender 
of deserters. Portugal had, therefore, a right to 
claim of Spain that every Portuguese deserter 
should be forthwith sent back. I hardly know 
whether from its own impulse, or in consequence 
Kk K 



of our advice, the Portuguese government waved 
its right under those treaties ; very wisely re- 
flecting that it would be highly inconvenient to 
be placed by the return of their deserters in the 
difficult alternative of either granting a danger- 
ous amnesty, or ordering numerous executions. 
The Portuguese government, therefore, signified 
to Spain that it would be entirely satisfied if, in- 
stead of surrendering the deserters, Spain would 
restore their arms, horses, and equipments ; and, 
separating the men from their officers, would re- 
move both from the frontiers into the interior of 
Spain. Solemn engagements were entered into 
by the Spanish government to this effect — first 
with Portugal, next with France, and afterward 
with England. Those engagements, concluded 
one day, were violated the next. The deserters, 
instead of being disarmed and dispersed, were 
allowed to remain congregated together near the 
frontiers of Portugal, where they were enrolled, 
trained, and disciplined for the expedition which 
they have since undertaken. It is plain that in 
these proceedings there was perfidy ^ ^^^^^ ^^^ 
somewhere. It rests with the Span- dy on the part 
ish government to show that it was ° ^*'°' 
not with them. It rests with the Spanish gov- 
ernment to prove that, if its engagements have 
not been fulfilled — if its intentions have been 
eluded and unexecuted — the fault has not been 
with the government, and that it is ready to make 
every reparation in its power. 

I have said that these promises were made to 
France and to Great Britain as well France and En- 
as to Portugal. I should do a great fn:".u;rby"her 
injustice to France if I were not to conduct. 
add, that the representations of that government 
upon this point to the cabinet of Madrid, have 
been as urgent, and, alas! as fruitless, as those 
of Great Britain. Upon the first irruption into 
the Portuguese territory, the French government 
testified its displeasure by instantly recalling its 
embassador; and it further directed its charge 
d'affaires to signify to his Catholic Majesty, 
that Spain was not to look for any support from 
France against the consequences of this aggres- 
sion upon Portugal. I am bound, I repeat, in 
justice to the French government, to state, that 
it has exerted itself to the utmost in urging Spain 
to retrace the steps which she has so unfortu- 
nately taken. It is not for me to say whether 
any more efficient course might have been adopt- 
ed to give effect to their exhortations ; but as 
to the sincerity and good faith of the exertions 
made by the government of France, to press 
Spain to the execution of her engagements, I 
have not the shadow of a doubt, and I confident- 
ly reckon upon their continuance. 

It will be for Spain, upon knowledge of the 
step now taken by his Majesty, to consider in 
what way she will meet it. The earnest hope 
and wish of his Majesty's government is, that 
she may meet it in such a manner as to avert 
any ill consequences to herself from the meas- 
ure into which we have been driven by the un- 
just attack upon Portugal. 

Sir, I set out with .saying that there were rea- 



882 



MR. CANNING ON AFFORDING AID TO PORTUGAL. 



[1826. 



sons which entirely satisfied my judgment that 
Peroration: The nothing short of a point of national 
Eurol'e win be'" f^ith or national honor would justify, 
one o( opinions, ^t the present moment, any volunta- 
ry approximation to the possibility of war. Let 
me be understood, however, distinctly as not 
meaning to say that I dread war in a good cause 
(and in no other may it be the lot of this country 
ever to engage !) from a distrust of the strength 
of the country to commence it, or of her resour- 
ces to maintain it. I dread it, indeed — but upon 
far other grounds : I dread it from an appre- 
hension of the tremendous consequences which 
might arise from any hostilities in which we 
might now be engaged. Some years ago, in 
the discussion of the negotiations respecting the 
French war against Spain, I took the liberty of 
adverting to this topic. I then stated that the 
position of this country in the present state of 
the world w^as one of neutrality, not only be- 
tween contending nations, but between conflict- 
ing principles ; and that it was by neutrality 
alone that we could maintain that balance, the 
preservation of which I believed to be essential 
to the welfare of mankind. I then said, that I 
feared that the next war which should be kin- 
dled in Europe would be a war not so much of 
armies as of opinions. Not four years have 
elapsed, and behold my apprehension realized ! 
It is, to be sure, within narrow limits that this 
war of opinion is at present confined ; but it is 
a war of opinion that Spain (whether as govern- 
ment or as nation) is now waging against Port- 
ugal ; it is a war which has commenced in ha- 
tred of the new institutions of Portugal. How 
long is it reasonable to. expect that Portugal will 
abstain from retaliation ? If into that war this 
country shall be compelled to enter, we shall 
enter into it with a sincere and anxious desire 
to mitigate rather than exasperate — and to min- 
gle only in the conflict of arm.s, not in the more 
fatal conflict of opinions. But I much fear that 
this country (however earnestly she may en- 
deavor to avoid it) could not, in such case, avoid 
seeing ranked under her banners all the restless 
and dissatisfied of any nation with which she 
might come in conflict. It is the contemplation 
of this new power in any future war which ex- 
cites my most anxious apprehension. It is one 
thing to have a giant's strength, but it would be 
another to use it like a giant. The conscious- 
ness of such strength is, undoubtedly, a source 
of confidence and security ; but in the situation 
in which this country stands, our business is not 
to seek opportunities of displaying it, but to con- 
tent ourselves with letting the professors of vio- 
lent and exaggerated doctrines on both sides 
feel, that it is not their interest to convert an 
umpire into an adversary. The situation of En- 
gland, amid the struggle of political opinions 



which agitates more or less sensibly diflTerent 
countries of the world, may be compared to that 
of the Ruler of the Winds, as described by the 
poet : 

" Celsa sedet ^olus area, 
Sceptra tenens ; mollitque animos et temperat iras ; 
Ni faciat, maria ac ten-as ccElumque proftindura 
Cluippe ferant rapidi secum, verrantque per auras."i 

The consequence of letting loose the passions at 
present chained and confined, would be to pro- 
duce a scene of desolation which no man can 
contemplate without horror ; and I should not 
sleep easy on my couch, if I were conscious that 
I had contributed to precipitate it by a single 
moment. 

This, then, is the reason — a reason very dif- 
ferent from fear — the reverse of a consciousness 
of disability — why I dread the recurrence of 
hostilities in any part of Europe ; why I would 
bear much, and would forbear long ; why I would 
(as I have said) put up w4th almo.st any thing that 
did not touch national faith and national honor, 
rather than let slip the furies of war, the leash 
of which we hold in our hands — not knowing 
whom they may reach, or how far their ravages 
may be carried. Such is the love of peace w^hich 
the British government acknowledges ; and such 
the necessity for peace which the circumstances 
of the world inculcate. I wull push these topics 
no further. 

I return, in conclusion, to the object of the 
Address. Let us fly to the aid of Portugal, by 
whomsoever attacked, because it is our duty to 
do so ; and let us cease our interference where 
that duty ends. We go to Portugal not to rule, 
not to dictate, not to prescribe constitutions, but 
to defend and to preserve the independence of an 
ally. We go to plant the standard of England 
on the w^ell-known heights of Lisbon. Where 
that standard is planted, foreign dominion shall 
not come. 



The House gave an almost unanimous sup- 
port to an Address approving of the measures 
adopted ; and the insurrection w^as at once sup- 
pressed in every part of Portugal. 

Mr. Canning gained very great and merited 
applause by this intervention in behalf of a con- 
stitutional government. His prediction that the 
next great war in Europe would be one of opin- 
ions, is yet to' be accomplished ; and events since 
the usurpation of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, at 
the close of 1851, seem clearly to indicate that 
such a contest may not be far remote. 



^ iEolus sits upon his lofty tower 
And holds the scepter, calming all their rage : 
Else would they bear sea, earth, and heaven pro- 
found 
In rapid flight, and sweep them through the air. 
VirgiVs yEneid, book i., lines 56-9. 



1823.] 



EXTRACTS. 



EXTRACTS. 



Foreign Enlistment Bill. April 16, 1823. 

What, sir ! is it to become a maxim with this 
country that she is ever to be a belligerent ? Is 
she never, under any possible state of circum- 
stances, to remain neutral ? If this proposition 
be good for any thing, it must run to this extent 
— that our position, insulated as it is from all the 
rest of the world, moves us so far from the scene 
of continental warfare, that we ought always to 
be belligerent — that we are bound to counteract 
the designs of Providence, to reject the advanta- 
ges of nature, and to render futile and erroneous 
the description of the poet, who has said, to our 
honor, that we were less prone to war and tumult, 
on account of our happy situation, than the neigh- 
boring nations that lie conterminous with one an- 
other. But wherefore this dread of a neutrali- 
ty ? If gentlemen look to the page of history, 
they will find that for centuries past, whenever 
there has been a war in Europe, we have almost 
always been belligerent. The fact is undoubt- 
edly so ; but I am not prepared to lay it down as 
a principle, that if, at the beginning of a war, we 
should happen to maintain a species of neutrali- 
ty, it was an unnatural thing that we should do 
so. Gentlemen say that we must be drawn into a 
war, sooner or later. Why, then, I answer, let it 
be later. I say, if we are to be drawn into a war, 
let us be drawn into it on grounds clearly Brit- 
ish. I do not say — God forbid I should — that it 
is no part of the duty of Great Britain to protect 
what is termed the balance of power, and to aid 
the weak against the insults of the strong. I 
say, on the contrary, that to do so is her bounden 
duty ; but I affirm, also, that we must take care 
to do our duty to ourselves. The first condition 
of engaging in any war — the sine qua non of ev- 
ery such undertaking — is, that the war must be 
just ; the second, that being just in itself, we can 
also with justice engage in it : and the third, that 
being just in its nature, and it being possible for 
us justly to embark in it, we can so interfere 
without detriment or pi'ejudice to ourselves. I 
contend that he is a visionary politician who 
leaves this last condition out of the question ; and 
I say further, that though the glorious abandon- 
ment of it may sound well in the generous speech 
of an irresponsible orator — with the safety of a 
nation upon his lips, and none of the responsibil- 
ity upon his shoulders — it is matter deeply to be 
considered ; and that the minister who should lay 
it out of his view, in calling on the country to 
undertake a war, would well deserve that uni- 
versal censure and reprobation with which the 
noble Lord opposite has this night menaced me. 
If it be wise for a government, though it can not 
prevent an actual explosion, to endeavor to cir- 
cumscribe the limits, and to lessen the duration 



of a war, then 1 say that the position we have 
taken in the present instance is of more probable 
efficacy than that in which we should have stood 
had we suffered ourselves to be drawn into a par- 
ticipation in the contest. Participation, did I 
say ? Sir ! is there any man who hears me — is 
there any man acquainted with the history of the 
country for the last twenty years, who does not 
know the way in which Great Britain has been 
accustomed to participate in a war? Do not 
gentlemen know that if we now enter into a war, 
we must take the whole burden of it upon our- 
selves, and conduct the whole force and exertions 
of the peninsula ? But supposing such to be our 
course, how different must be our situation, as 
compared with former periods. When we last 
became the defenders of Spain, we fought for and 
with a united people. What would be the case 
at present ? Any interference on our parts in 
favor of Spain must commence with an attempt 
to unite contending factions, and to stimulate men 
of opposite interests and opposite feelings to one 
grand and simultaneous effort. Now I do not 
hesitate to say that the man who would under- 
take to do this under present circumstances, must 
either be possessed of supernatural means of in- 
formation, or of a hardihood which I may envy, 
but shall not attempt to imitate. I say that those 
men will not consult the true dignity of the coun- 
try, who, finding fault with the part we have 
adopted, wush to indemnify themselves by endeav- 
oring to make us perform that part amiss. Out 
course is neutrality — strict neutrality ; and in the 
name of God, let us adhere to it. If you dislike 
that course — if you think it injurious to the hon- 
or or interests of the country — drive from their 
places those neutral ministers who have adopted 
it ; but until you are prepared to declare war, 
you are bound to adhere to and to act upon the 
system which ministers have laid down. 

I stated, a few evenings ago, that we could have 
no difficult}' in the course which we had to pursue 
in observance of a strict neutrality. We have 
spent much time in teaching other powers the 
nature of a strict neutrality ; and, generally speak- 
ing, we found them most reluctant scholars. All 
I now call upon the House to do, is to adopt the 
same course which it has recommended to neu- 
tral powers upon former occasions. If I wished 
for a guide in a system of neutrality, I should 
take that laid down by America in the days of 
the Presidency of Washington and the Secreta- 
ryship of Jefferson 



On the King's Speech. February 15, 1825. 

I now turn to that other part of the honorable 
and learned gentleman's [Mr. Brougham] speech, 



884 



MR. CANNING. 



[1825. 



in which he acknowledges his acquiescence in the 
passages of the address echoing the satisfaction 
felt at the success of the liberal commercial prin- 
ciples adopted by this country, and at the steps 
taken for recognizing the new states of Ameri- 
ca. It does happen, however, that the honorable 
and learned gentleman being not unfrequently a 
speaker in this House, nor very concise in his 
speeches, and touching occasionally, as he pro- 
ceeds, on almost every subject within the range 
of his imagination, as well as making some ob- 
servations on the matter in hand — and having at 
different periods proposed and supported every in- 
novation of which the law or Constitution of the 
country is susceptible — it is impossible to inno- 
vate, without appearing to borrow from him. Ei- 
ther, therefore, we must remain forever absolutely 
locked up as in a northern winter, or we must 
break our way out by some mode already sug- 
gested by the honorable and learned gentleman, 
and then he cries out, " Ah, I was there before 
you ! That is what I told you to do ; but as you 
would not do it then, you have no right to do it 
now." In Queen Anne's reign there lived a 
very sage and able critic, named Dennis, who, in 
his old age, was the prey of a strange fancy, that 
he had himself written all the good things in all 
the good plays that w-ere acted. Every good 
passage he met with in any author he insisted 
was his own. " It is none of his," Dennis would 
always say; "no, it's mine!" He went one 
day to see a new tragedy. Nothing particularly 
good to his taste occurred, till a scene in which 
a great storm was represented. As soon as he 
heard the thunder rolling over head, he exclaim- 
ed, " That's my thunder !" So it is with the 
honorable and learned gentleman ; it's all his 
thunder. It will henceforth be impossible to 
confer any boon, or make any innovation, but he 
will claim it as his thunder. But it is due to 
him to acknowledge that he does not claim ev- 
ery thing ; he will be content with the exclusive 
merit of the liberal measures relating to trade 
and commerce. Not desirous of violating his 
own principles, by claiming a monopoly of fore- 
sight and wisdom, he kindly throws overboard to 
my honorable and learned friend [Sir J. Mackin- 
tosh] near him, the praise of South America. 1 
should like to know whether, in some degree, 
this also is not his thunder. He thinks it right 
itself; but lest we should be too proud if he ap- 
proved our conduct in toto. he thinks it wrong in 
point of time. I differ from him essentially ; for 
if I pique myself on any thing in this affair, it is 
the time. That, at some time or other, states 
which had separated themselves from the mother 
country should or should not be admitted to the 
rank of independent nations, is a proposition to 
which no possible dissent could be given. The 
whole question was one of time and mode. There 
were two modes : one a reckless and headlong 
course, by which we might have reached our ob- 
ject at once, but at the expense of drawing upon 
us consequences not highly to be estimated ; the 
other was more strictly guarded in point of prin- 
ciple ; so that, while we pursued our own inter- 



ests, we took care to give no just cause of of- 
fense to other powers. 



On unlawful Societies in Ireland. Febru- 
ary 15, 1825. 

In the next place, are we prepared to say that 
these and other acts of the Catholic Association 
have no tendency to excite and inflame animos- 
ities ? I affirm, without hesitation, that they 
have directly that tendency ; and in support of 
this affirmation I must beg leave to recur, how- 
ever solemnly warned against the recurrence, to 
an expression which I was the first to bring to 
the notice of the House, but which has been since 
the subject of repeated animadversion ; I mean 
the adjuration " by the hate you bear to Orange- 
men," wliich was used by the association in their 
address to the Catholics of Ireland. 

Various and not unamusing have been the at- 
tempts of gentlemen who take the part of the as- 
sociation, to get rid of this most unlucky phrase, 
or at least to dilute and attenuate its obvious and 
undeniable meaning. It is said to be unfair to 
select one insulated expression as indicating the 
general spirit of the proceedings of any public 
body. Granted ; if the expression had escaped 
in the heat of debate, if it had been struck out 
by the collision of argument, if it had been thrown 
forth in haste, and had been, upon reflection, re- 
called. But if the words are found in a document 
which was prepared with care and considered 
with deliberation — if it is notorious that they 
were pointed out as objectionable when they were 
first proposed by the framers of the address, but 
were, nevertheless, upon argument retained — 
surely we are not only justified in receiving them 
as an indication, at least, of the animus of those 
who used them ; but we should be rejecting the 
best evidence of that animus, if we passed over 
so w^ell-weighed a manifestation of it. 

Were not this felt by honorable gentlemen on 
the other side to be true, we should not have seen 
them so anxious to put forced and fanciful con- 
structions on a phrase which is as plain in its 
meaning as any which the hand of man ever 
wrote or the eye of man ever saw. The first 
defense of this phrase was by an honorable mem- 
ber from Ireland, who told us that the words do 
not convey the same meaning in the Irish lan- 
guage which w^e in England naturally attach to 
them. I do not pretend to be conversant with 
the Irish language ; and must, therefore, leave 
that apology to stand for what it may be worth, 
on the learned gentleman's erudition and author- 
ity. I will not follow every other gentleman 
who has strained his faculties to explain away 
this unfortunate expression ; but will come at 
once to my honorable and learned friend [Sir 
James Mackintosh], the member for Knaresbor- 
ough, to whom the palm in this contest of inge- 
nuity must be conceded by all his competitors. 
My honorable friend has expended abundant le- 
search and subtilty upon this inquiry, and having 
resolved the phrase into its elements in the cru- 
cible of his philosophical mind, has produced it 



1825.] 



EXTRACTS. 



885 



to us purified and refined to a degree that must 
command the admiration of all who take delight 
in metaphysical alchemy. My honorable and 
learned friend began by telling us that, after all, 
hatred is no bad thing in itself. "I hate a 
Tory," says my honorable friend — " and another 
man hates a cat ; but it does not follow that he 
would hunt down the cat, or I the Tory." Nay, 
so far from it — hatred, if it be properly managed, 
is, according to my honorable friend's theory, no 
bad preface to a rational esteem and affection. 
It prepares its votaries for a reconciliation of dif- 
ferences — for lying down with their most invet- 
erate enemies, like the leopai'd and the kid, in 
the vision of the prophet. 

This dogma is a little startling, but it is not 
altogether without precedent. It is borrowed 
from a character in a play which is, I dare say, 
as great a favorite with my learned friend as it 
is with me — I mean the comedy of The Rivals ; 
in M'hich Mrs. Malaprop, giving a lecture on the 
subject of marriage to her niece (who is unrea- 
sonable enough to talk of liking as a necessary 
preliminary to such a union), says, " What have 
you to do with your likings and your preferences, 
child? depend upon it, it is safest to begin with 
a little aversion. I am sure I hated your poor 
dear uncle like a blackamoor before we were 
married ; and yet you know, my dear, what a 
good wife I made him." Such is my learned 
friend's argument to a hair. 

But finding that this doctrine did not appear 
to go down with the House so glibly as he had 
expected, my honorable and learned friend pres- 
ently changed his tack, and put forward a the- 
ory, which, whether for novelty or for beauty, I 
pronounce to be incomparable ; and, in short, as 
wanting nothing to recommend it but a slight 
foundation in truth. " True philosophy," says 
my honorable friend, " will always contrive to 
lead men to virtue by the instrumentality of their 
conflicting vices. The virtues, where more than 
one exist, may live harmoniously together ; but 
the vices bear mortal antipathy to one another, 
and therefore furnish to the moral engineer the 
power by which he can make each keep the oth- 
er under control." Admirable ! — but, upon this 
doctrine, the poor man who has but one single 
vice must be in a very bad way. ^o fulcrum^ 
no moral power for effecting his cure. Where- 
as his more fortunate neighbor, who has two or 
more vices in his composition, is in a fair way of 
becoming a very virtuous member of society. I 
wonder how my learned friend would like to have 
this doctrine introduced into his domestic estab- 
lishment. For instance, suppose that I discharge 
a servant because he is addicted to liquor, I could 
not venture to recommend him to my honorable 



and learned friend ; it might be the poor man's 
only fault, and therefore clearly incorrigible. But 
if I had the good fortune to find out that he was 
also addicted to stealing, might I not, with a safe 
conscience, send him to my learned friend with a 
very strong recommendation, saying, I send you 
a man whom I know to be a drunkard ; but I am 
happy to assure you he is also a thief: you can 
not do better than employ him ; you will make 
his drunkenness counteract his thievery, and no 
doubt you will bring him out of the conflict a 
very moral personage. My honorable and learn- 
ed friend, however, not content with laying down 
these new rules for reformation, thought it right 
to exemplify them in his own person, and, like 
Pope's Longinus, to be " himself the great sub- 
lime he drew." My learned friend tells us that 
Dr. Johnson was what he [Dr. Johnson himself] 
called a good hater ; and that among the qual- 
ities which he hated most were two which my 
honorable friend unites in his own person — that 
of Whig and that of Scotchman. " So that," says 
my honorable friend, " if Dr. Johnson were alive, 
and were to meet me at the club, of which he 
was a founder, and of which I am now an un- 
worthy member, he would probably break up the 
meeting rather than sit it out in such society." 
No, sir, not so. My honorable and learned friend 
forgets his own theory. If he had been only a 
Whig, or only a Scotchman, Dr. Johnson might 
have treated him as he apprehends ; but being 
both, the great moralist would have said to my 
honorable friend, " Sir, you are too much of a 
Whig to be a good Scotchman ; and, sir, you are 
too much of a Scotchman to be a good Whig." 
It is no doubt from the collision of these two vices 
in my learned friend's person, that he has become 
what I, and all who have the happiness of meet- 
ing him at the club, find him — an entirely fault- 
less character. 

For my own part, however, I must say, that I 
can not see any hope of obtaining the great mor- 
al victoi-y which my learned friend has antici- 
pated — of winnino: men to the practice of virtue 
by adjurations addressed to their peculiar vices. 
I believe, after all these ratiocinations and refine- 
ments, we must come back to the plain truth, 
which is felt even while it is denied — that the 
phrase "by the hate you bear to Orangemen." 
is an indefensible phrase ; that it is at least — 
what alone I am contending that it is — incon- 
testable evidence of the allegation that the Cath- 
olic Association does excite animosities in Ire- 
land. It is an expression calculated to offend, 
provoke, and exasperate the Orangemen, how- 
ever palatable to those whose hatred of Orange- 
men it predicates, and, to say the least, does not 
disapprove. 



LORD BROUGHAM. 

Henry Brougham is the last among the orators embraced in this collection ; and 
as he is still living, only a brief notice will be given of his hfe and character. 

The family vi^as one of the most ancient in "Westmoreland, England. Brougham 
Castle is older than the days of King John ; and the manor connected with it, after 
passing out of the family for a time, was regained by purchase and entailed on the 
oldest descendant in the male line. Toward the close of the last century, it fell to 
a young man who was studying in the University of Edinburgh, and who married, 
while there, a niece of the celebrated historian, Dr. Robertson. The first-fruit of this 
union was a son named Henry, who was born at Edinburgh in 1779. 

The family appear to have resided chiefly or wholly in the Scottish capital ; the 
boy received the rudiments of his education at the High School of Edinburgh, under 
the celebrated Dr. Adam, and was even then distinguished for his almost intuitive 
perception of whatever he undertook to learn. " He was wild, fond of pleasure, 
taking to study by starts, and always reading with more effect than others (when 
he did read), because it was for some specific object, the knowledge of which was 
to be acquired in the shortest possible time." We have here a perfect picture of 
Lord Brougham's mode of reading for life. Eager, restless, grasping after informa- 
tion of every kind, he has brought into his speeches a wider range of collateral thought 
than any of our orators, except Burke ; and he has done it in just the way that might 
be expected from such a man, with inimitable freshness and power, but with those 
hasty judgments, that want of a profound knowledge of principles, and that frequent 
inaccuracy in details, which we always see in one who reads " for some specific object," 
instead of taking in the whole range of a science, and who is so much in a hurry, 
that he is constantly aiming to accomplish his task in " the shortest possible time." 
He entered the University of Edinburgh in the sixteenth year of his age, and soon 
gained the highest distinction by his extraordinary mathematical attainments. He 
gave in solutions of some very difficult theorems, which awakened the admiration of 
his instructors ; and before he was seventeen, produced an essay on the "Flection 
and Reflection of Light," which was estimated so highly as to be inserted in the Ed- 
inburgh Philosophical Transactions. His supposed discoveries, so far as they were 
correct, proved, indeed, to have been anticipated by earlier writers ; but they were 
undoubtedly the result of his own investigation ; and they showed so remarkable a 
talent for mathematical research, that he was rewarded, at ^ somewhat later period 
(1803), with an election as member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. It is a cu- 
rious fact that Lord Brougham has again taken up his favorite pursuits in optics at 
the age of seventy, and made recent communications to the French Institute, from his 
chateau at Cannes, in the south of France, on the same branch of science which 
called forth his early efforts in the University of Edinburgh. 

Having completed his college course, Mr. Brougham entered with indefatigable 
zeal upon the study of the law, in conjunction with Jeffery, Horner, and several other 
young men, who, only a few years after, stood foremost among the leading advocates 
of the country. He had commenced the practice of extemporaneous speaking some 
years before in the Speculative Society, that great theater of debate for the Univers- 
ity of Edinburgh. He now carried it to a still greater height in the immediate 
prospect of his professional duties, and " exercised the same superiority over his 



LORD BROUGHAM. 887 

youthful competitors (though some of them were then and afterward remarkable for 
their ability) which he held at a later period as Chancellor over the House of Lords." 
He was called in due course to the Scottish bar, and commenced business in Edin- 
burgh with the most encouraging prospects of success. In 1803, he published his 
first work, in two octavo volumes, entitled " The Colonial Policy of the European 
Powers," containing an immense amount of information, and distinguished by the 
daring spirit of philosophical inquiry which he carried into this vast and complicated 
subject. He now removed to London, and, in addition to his practice at the bar, 
entered warmly into politics ; producing a volume on the " State of the Nation," which 
awakened the liveliest interest by its eloquent assertion of Whig principles, and ulti- 
mately procured him a seat in Parliament by means of the K-ussell family. 

Before his removal to London, he united with the companions mentioned above in 
establishing the Edinburgh Review. He was for nearly twenty years one of its most 
regular contributors ; and to him more than any other man was the work indebted 
for its searching analysis, its contemptuous and defiant spirit, its broad views of po- 
litical subjects, and its eloquent exposition of Whig principles. Its motto, ^ whether 
selected by him or not, was designed to justify that condemnatory spirit which is so 
striking a trait in his character. A great part of his life has been spent in beating 
doivn ; in detecting false pretensions whether in literature or politics ; in searching 
out the abuses of long established institutions ; in laying open the perversions of pub- 
lic charities ; in exposing the cruelties of the criminal code ; or in rousing public at- 
tention to a world of evils resulting from the irregularities in the administration of 
municipal law. The reader will be amused to trace this tendency of his mind, in 
turning over the four octavo volumes of his speeches as edited by himself, and observ- 
ing their titles. We have "Military Flogging," with an exposure of its atrocities — 
" Glueen Caroline," defended at the expense of her husband — " The Durham Clergy," 
lashed urunercifully for their insulting treatment of the dueen — "The Orders in 
Council," with the folly of abusing the Americans because they had suffered from 
the abuse of France — "Agricultural Distress" and " Manufacturing Distress," as re- 
sulting from the rashness and incompetency of ministers — "Army Estimates," under 
which millions were lavished for mere military show in time of peace — "The Holy 
Alliance," with its atrocious attack on the constitutional government of Spain through 
the instrumentality of France — " The Slave Trade" — " The Missionary Smith," mur- 
dered in Demerara under a false charge of having excited insurrection — "Negro Ap- 
prenticeship," its inadequacy and folly — "The Eastern Slave Trade," or the cruelty 
and guilt of transporting coolies from Hindostan to be made laborers in the West 
India Islands — " Law Reform" — " Parliamentary Reform" — " Education," and the 
abuse of Educational Charities — " Scotch Parliamentary and Burgh Reform" — " Scotch 
Marriage and Divorce Bill," showing that the existing laws are " the worst possible" 
— " The Poor Laws," with "the deplorably corrupting effects of this abominable sys- 
tem" — "Neutral Rights," exposing their invasion by Great Britain — "Administra- 
tion of Law in Ireland," showing that " she had received penal statutes from En- 
gland almost as plentifully as she had received blessings from the hands of Provi- 
dence" — " Change of Ministry in 1834," with the gross, glaring, and almost incred- 
ible inconsistencies of Lord Wellington — "Business of Parliament," or "the abuses 
which prevail in the mode of conducting its business" — " Maltreatment of the North 
American Colonies" — "The Civil List," or men's voting an allowance, to the Glueen 
" under the influence of excited feelings, and without giving themselves time to re- 
flect." No orator certainly, since the days of Pym and Charles I., could furnish such 
another list. 

1 " Judex damnatur dum noceiis absolvitur," the Judge is condemned when the guilty is suffered 
to escape. 



888 LORD BROUGHAM. 

The character of his eloquence corresponds to the subjects he has chosen. " For 
fierce, vengeful, and irresistible assault," says John Foster, " Brougham stands the 
foremost man in all this world." His attack is usually carried on under the forms 
of logic. For the materials of his argument he sometimes goes off to topics the most 
remote and apparently alien from his subject, but he never fails to come down upon 
it at last with overwhelming force. He has wit in abundance, but it is usually 
dashed with scorn or contempt. His irony and sarcasm are terrible. None of oui 
orators have ever equaled him in bitterness. 

His style has a hearty freshness about it, which springs from the robust constitu- 
tion of his mind and the energy of his feelings. He sometimes disgusts by his use 
of Latinized English, and seems never to have studied our language in the true 
sources of its strength — Shakspeare, Milton, and the English Bible. His greatest 
fault lies in the structure of his sentences. He rarely puts forward a simple, distinct 
proposition. New ideas cluster around the original frame- work of his thoughts ; and 
instead of throwing them into separate sentences, he blends them all in one ; enlarg- 
ing, modifying, interlacing them together, accumulating image upon image, and ar- 
gument upon argument, till the whole becomes perplexed and cumbersome, in the 
attempt to crowd an entire system of thought into a single statement. Notwith- 
standing these faults, however, we dwell upon his speeches with breathless interest. 
They are a continual strain of impassioned argument, intermingled with fearful sar- 
casm, withering invective, lofty declamation, and the earnest majesty of a mind which 
has lost every other thought in the magnitude of its theme. 

Lord Brougham has been in opposition during the greater part of his political life. 
He came in as Lord Chancellor with Earl Grey at the close of 1830, and retained 
his office about four years. Of late he has withdrawn, to a great extent, from pub- 
lic affairs, and spent a considerable part of his time on an estate which he owns in 
the south of France. 

The following comparison between the subject of this sketch and his great parlia- 
mentary rival will interest the reader, as presenting the characteristic qualities of 
each in bolder relief from their juxtaposition. It is from the pen of one who had 
watched them both with the keenest scrutiny during their conflicts in the House of 
Commons. The scene described in the conclusion arose out of a memorable attack 
of Mr. Canning on Lord Folkestone for intimating, that he had " truckled to France." 
" The Lacedaemonians," said Mr. C, " were in the habit of deterring their children 
from the vice of intoxication by occasionally exhibiting their slaves in a state of dis- 
gusting inebriety. But, sir, there is a moral as well as a physical intoxication. Never 
before did I behold so perfect a personification of the character which I have some- 
where seen described, as ' exhibiting the contortions of the Sibyl without her inspira- 
tion.' Such was the nature of the noble Lord's speech." Mr. Brougham took occa- 
sion, a few evenings after, to retort on Mr. Canning and repeat the charge, in the 
manner here described : but first we have a sketch of their characteristics as orators. 

" Canning was airy, open, and prepossessing ; Brougham seemed stern, hard, low- 
ering, and almost repulsive. Canning's features were handsome, and his eye, though 
deeply ensconced under his eyebrows, was full of sparkle and gayety ; the features 
of Brougham were harsh in the extreme : while his forehead shot up to a great ele- 
vation, his chin was long and square ; his mouth, nose, and eyes seemed huddled to- 
gether in the center of his face, the eyes absolutely lost amid folds and corrugations ; 
and while he sat listening, they seemed to retire inward or to be vailed by a filmy 
curtain, which not only concealed the appalling glare which shot from them when 
he was aroused, but rendered his mind and his purpose a sealed book to the keenest 
scrutiny of man. Canning's passions appeared upon the open champaign of his face, 
drawn up in ready array, and moved to and fro at every turn of his own oration and 



LORD BROUGHAM. 889 

every retort in that of his antagonist. Those of Brougham remained within, as in a 
citadel which no artillery could batter and no mine blow up ; and even when he 
was putting forth all the power of his eloquence, when every ear was tingling at 
what he said, and while the immediate object of his invective was writhing in help- 
less and indescribable agony, his visage retained its cold and brassy hue ; and he tri- 
umphed over the passions of other men by seeming to be without passion himself. 
When Canning rose to speak, he elevated his countenance, and seemed to look round 
for applause as a thing dear to his feelings ; while Brougham stood coiled and con- 
centrated, reckless of all but the power that was within himself 

" From Canning there was expected the glitter of wit and the glow of spirit — some- 
thing show^ and elegant ; Brougham stood up as a being whose powers and inten- 
tions were all a mystery — whose aim and effect no living man could divine. You 
bent forward to catch the first sentence of the one, and felt human nature elevated 
in the specimen before you ; you crouched and shrunk back from the other, and 
dreams of ruin and annihilation darted across your mind. The one seemed to dwell 
among men, to join in their joys, and to live upon their praise ; the other appeared 
a son of the desert, who had deigned to visit the human race merely to make it trem- 
ble at his strength. 

*' The style of their eloquence and the structure of their orations were just as dif- 
ferent. Canning arranged his words like one who could play skillfully upon that 
sweetest of all instruments, the human voice ; Brougham proceeded like a master of 
every power of reasoning and the understanding. The modes and allusions of the one 
were always quadrable by the classical formulae ; those of the other could be squared 
only by the higher analysis of the mind ; and they soared, and ran, and pealed, and 
swelled on and on, till a single sentence was often a complete oration within itself; 
but still, so clear was the logic, and so close the connection, that every member car- 
ried the weight of all that went before, and opened the way for all that was to fol- 
low after. The style of Canning was like the convex mirror, which scatters every 
ray of light that falls upon it, and shines and sparkles in whatever position it is 
viewed ; that of Brougham was like the concave speculum, scattering no indiscrim- 
inate radiance, but having its light concentrated into one intense and tremendous 
focus. Canning marched forward in a straight and clear track ; every paragraph 
was perfect in itself, and every coruscation of wit and of genius was brilliant and 
delightful ; it was all felt, and it was felt all at once : Brougham twined round and 
round in a spiral, sweeping the contents of a vast circumference before him, and unit- 
ing and pouring them onward to the main point of attack. 

" Such were the rival orators, who sat glancing hostility and defiance at each other 
during the session of eighteen hundred and twenty-three — Brougham, as if wishing 
to overthrow the Secretary by a sweeping accusation of having abandoned all prin- 
ciple for the sake of office ; and the Secretary ready to parry the charge and attack 
in his turn. An opportunity at length offered. Upon that occasion the oration of 
Brougham was disjointed and ragged, and apparently without aim or application. 
He careered over the whole annals of the world, and collected eveiy instance in 
which genius had prostituted itself at the footstool of power, or principle had been 
sacrificed for the vanity or the lucre of place ; but still there was no allusion to Can- 
ning, and no connection, that ordinary men could discover, with the business before 
the House. When, however, he had collected every material which suited his pur- 
pose — when the mass had become big and black, he bound it about and about with 
the cords of illustration and argument ; when its union was secure, he swung it 
round and round with the strength of a giant and the rapidity of a whirlwind, in 
order that its impetus and its effects might be the more tremendous ; and while do- 
ing this, he ever and anon glared his eye, and pointed his finger, to make the aim 



890 LORD BROUGHAM. 

and the direction sure. Canning himself was the first that seemed to be aware 
where and how terrible was to be the collision ; and he kept writhing his body in 
agony and rolling his eye in fear, as if anxious to find some shelter from the impend- 
ing bolt. The House soon caught the impression, and every man in it was glancing 
fearfully, first toward the orator, and then toward the Secretary. There was, save 
the voice of Brougham, which growled in that under tone of muttered thunder which 
is so fearfully audible, and of which no speaker of the day was fully master but him- 
self, a silence as if the angel of retribution had been flaring in the faces of all parties 
the scroll of their personal and political sins. The stiffness of Brougham's figure had 
vanished ; his features seemed concentrated almost to a point ; he glanced toward 
every part of the House in succession ; and, sounding the death-knell of the Secre- 
tary's forbearance and prudence with both his clinched hands upon the table, he 
hurled at him an accusation more dreadful in its gall, and more torturing in its ef- 
fects, than had ever been hurled at mortal man within the same walls. The result 
was instantaneous — was electric. It was as when the thunder-cloud descends upon 
the Giant Peak ; one flash — one peal — the sublimity vanished, and all that remained 
was a small and cold pattering of rain. Canning started to his feet, and was able 
only to utter the unguarded words, 'It \^ false!' to which followed a dull chapter of 
apologies. From that moment the House became more a scene of real busmess 
than of airy display and angry vituperation." 



SPEECH 



OF MR. BROUGHAI^I ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 

MARCH 11, 1816. 

INTRODUCTION. 

Lord Castlereagh and his ministry, elated by their triumph over Bonaparte at the battle of Water- 
loo, had the ambition of still continuing an immense militaiy establishment after the return of peace had 
rendered it wholly unnecessary. ^^ 

For the year 1816, they proposecHf standing force of o«e hundred and seventy-six thousand men, when 
the country was suffering under extreme embarrassments in every branch of its industry. A part of these 
forces consisted of the Household Troops, as they were called, to the number of ten thousand men, sup- 
ported for mere parade in London or its vicinity, and confessedly of no use except in the case of mobs, 
■which were then wholly out of the question. 

When the debate took place on the army estimates, March 11, 1816, Mr. Calcraft moved to reduce the 
appropriation for the Household Troops to one half the sum proposed, intending, if this motion prevailed, 
to carry out the principle of retrenchment into the other branches of the army. In support of this motion, 
Mr. Brougham delivered the following speech, which is marked by that mixture of bold assertion, rapid 
argument, and fervid declamation which so generally characterized his speaking. 



Sir, 



SPEECH, &c. 

-Although I on a former occasion deliv- 



ered my opinion generally upon these 
caiieif^ortu estimates, yet I am anxious now to 
from the rafn- statc my scntimeuts in more detail upon 
'*"'*'• a subject of such great importance, 

and the rather because of the defiances flung out 
from the other side to all of us to go into the ex- 
amination of it. I stand forward to take up the 
gauntlet which has thus been thrown down ; and 
I affirm that the more minutely you scrutinize 
the several items of this bill, brought in against 
the country, the more objectionable you will find 
them. 

I object, in the first place, altogether to the 
Objection to large force of guards which it is in- 
" RToul^ehoM tended to keep up : and I even protest. 
Troops." though that is a trifle in comparison, 
but I do protest against the new-fangled French 
name of Household Troops, under which they 
are designated — a name borrowed from countries 
where this portion of the national force is exclu- 
sively allotted to pi'otect the Prince against a 
people in whom he can not trust — is the appoint- 
ed means given him to maintain his arbitrary 
power — is the very weapon put into his hands 
to arm* him against the liberties of his country. 
However appropriate the appellation may be 
there, it can not be endured in this nation, where 
the Sovereign ought never to have any reason 
for distrusting his subjects, and never can be in- 
trusted with any force except that which the de- 
fense of his people requires. But the name is 
of far less importance than the thing. Has the 
noble Lord [Lord Castlereagh] made out any 
thing like a case for raising the amount of this 
force to more than double of what it was in 1791? 
Objection to I^^ ^ny such proof had been given, I 
their number, should not havc bccn found among the 
opposers of the proposition. But the truth is, 



that, with all the professed anxiety of the noble 
Lord and his friends to go through the estimates, 
item by item ; with all their pretended readiness 
and even desire to court full investigation ; with 
all the bluster of their defiance to us, and the 
bravado more than once used, that we durst not 
grapple wnth the question in detail, they have 
themselves wholly shrunk from the inquiry, fled 
from all particulars, and abandoned all attempts 
at showing, in any one instance, from any one 
conclusion, with a view to any single circum- 
stance in the present situation of the country, 
that there is the shadow of a ground for this in- 
crease of force. We had the subject debated 
generally, indeed, but at great length, a few days 
ago, on bringing up the report ; and it had been 
repeatedly before the House on former occasions. 
We have now renewed the discussion on the mo- 
tion for going into this committee. We have 
been in the committee for some hours. At this 
very advanced stage of the debate have we ar- 
rived, and though all the members of the govern- 
ment have addressed themselves to the question, 
many of them once and again, yet I defy any one 
to point out a single fact that has been stated, a 
single argument urged, a single topic used, to 
prove the necessity which alone can justify the 
scale these estimates are framed upon. It has, 
indeed, been said that 2400 of the guards aire 
destined for France, where I suppose the army 
of occupation is required in order to demonstrate 
how tranquil our famous negotiators have left the 
whole Continent — how perfectly successful — 
how absolutely final — the grand settlement of all 
Europe is. upon which we so greatly plume our- 
selves, and upon which, above all, the political 
reputation of the noble Lord is built.' But sup- 



After the deposition of Bonaparte, the allied Sov- 



892 



MR. BROUGHAM 



[1816. 



pose I pass over this, and do not stop to ask what 
reason there can be for these 2400 men being 
guards, and not simply troops of the line — those 
troops required to maintain our final and conclu- 
sive settlement, and enforce the profound tran- 
quillity in which Europe is every where enwrapt ; 
suppose I admit, for argument' sake, and in my 
haste to get at the main question, that these 2400 
guards may be necessary — what is to be said of 
all the rest? There remain no less than 7600 
to account for. What reason has been assigned, 
what attempt ever made by the noble Lord to 
assign a reason why 3600 more guards should 
be wanted more than in Mr. Pitt's celebrated 
establishment of 1792? I desire, however, to 
have this explained — I demand the ground for 
this enormous augmentation of w^hat you call 
your " household force" — I have a right to know 
why this increase is called for — I call for the rea- 
son of it, and the reason I will have. Deduct all 
you require, or say you require, for France ; what 
has happened since Mr. Pitt's time to justify you 
in nearly doubling the number of the guards ? 
That is the question, and it must be answered to 
Parliament and to the country — answered, not 
by vague generalities — by affected anxiety for 
discussion — by shallow pretenses of desire to 
have the fullest investigation — by blustering de- 
fiances to us — and swaggering taunts that we 
dare not investigate. We do investigate — we do 
advance to the conflict — we do go into the de- 
tails — we do enter upon the items one by one ; 
and the first that meets us on the very thresh- 
old, and as soon as we have planted a foot upon 
it, is this doubling of the guards. Then how do 
you defend that ? Where is the ground for it ? 
What is there to excuse it or to explain ? Mr. 
No disorders Pitt fouud 4000 cuough in 1792 — then 



the country 

to require ^q^, 

these troops 



? Look at home. Is the country 
less peaceable now than it was then ? 
Quite the contrary. It was then disturbed ; it is 
now profoundly quiet. Then, although there was 
no insurrection, nor any thing that could be called 
by such a name, unless by those who sought a 
pretext for violating the Constitution, and, by sus- 
pending its powers, securing their own, yet still 
no man could call the state of the country tran- 
quil. Universal discontent prevailed, here and 
there amounting to disaffection, and even break- 
ing out into local disorders ; rumors of plots float- 
ed every where about ; while meetings were held 
— unmeasured language was used — wild schemes 
were broached — dangerous associations were 
formed. Though no man had a right to say that 
the government was entitled to pursue unconsti- 
tutional courses for meeting those evils, every 
man felt obliged to admit that there was reason 
for much anxiety — that the aspect of things was 
lowering ; the alarm was a natural feeling — that 
the duty of the executive was to be vigilant and 
to be prepared. The fears of men, whose loyal- 



ereig^ns kept for a time a large body of troops in 
France, to secure the execution of the treaty made 
by the Bourbon government. 



ty was unquestioned, though their wisdom might 
be doubted, led them a good deal further than 
this. Meetings were encouraged to address the 
Crown, and testify the resolution to support its 
prerogatives. Bonds were entered into for de- 
fending the Constitution, believed to be threat- 
ened. Pledges of life and fortune were given to 
stand by the established order of things, and re- 
sist to the death all violence that might be di- 
rected against it. Parliament was not alone in 
countenancing these measures, proceeding from 
alarm. Both Houses addressed the Throne ; both 
joined in asserting the existence of great peril to 
the Constitution; both declared that the public 
peace was in danger from the designs of the evil- 
disposed. To read the language of those times, 
both in public meetings and their addresses, and 
in parliamentary debates, and resolutions of the 
two Houses, any one would have thought that a 
wide-spreading disafleOtion had shot through the 
land ; that the materials of a vast rebellion were 
every where collected : and that the moment was 
tremblingly expected when some spark lighting 
on the mass should kindle the whole into a flame, 
and wrap the country in destruction. Yet in that 
state of things, and with these testimonies to its 
menacing aspect, Mr. Pitt, at the very time when 
he was patronizing the doctrines of the alarmists, 
encouraging their movements, and doing all he 
could to increase rather than allay their fears ; 
when he was grounding on the panic that pre- 
vailed, those measures out of which his junction 
with a part of the Whigs arose, whereby he suc- 
ceeded in splitting that formidable party — yet 
never dreamed of such a force as we are now 
told is necessary for preserving the public peace. 
He proposed no more than 4000 guards ; and 
held that amount to be sufficient. 

We are challenged to go into particulars ; we 
are defied to grapple with the ques- The increase not 
tion in detail. Then I come to par- secuHo*? ortaf 
ticulars and details w^ith the noble metropolis. 
Lord. The main duty of the guards is the Lon- 
don service — that is the district to which their 
force is peculiarly applicable. To keep the peace 
of this great metropolis is their especial province ; 
and I grant the high importance of such functions. 
Then I ask when London was ever more quiet 
than at this moment? When were its numer- 
ous inhabitants ever more contented, more obe- 
dient to the laws, more disinclined to any thing 
like resistance ? At what period of our history 
was the vast mass of the people, by whom we 
are surrounded, ever more peaceably disposed, 
more unlikely to engage in any thing approach- 
ing to tumult than now ? Why, they have even 
given over going to public meetings ; the very 
trade of the libeler languishes, if it be not at 
end, in the general tranquillity and stagnation 
of these quiet times. All is silence, and indif- 
ference, and dullness, and inertness, and assured- 
ly inaction. To the unnatural and costly excite- 
ment of war has succeeded a state of collapse, 
perhaps from exhaustion, but possibly from con- 
trast alone. The mighty events of the latter 
days, when the materials for the history of a 



I 



1816.] 



ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 



893 



country were crowded into the space of a few 
months, have left the public mind listless and 
vacant. The stimulus is withdrawn, and change 
has had its accustomed sedative influence. They 
who had been gazing till their eyes ached, and 
they doubted if they were awake, upon the most 
prodigious sights ever presented in the political 
and the moral world — upon empires broken up 
and formed anew — dynasties extinguished or 
springing up — the chains cast off by not merely 
a people, but a hemisphere : and half the globe 
suddenly covered with free and independent 
states — wars waged, battles fought, compared to 
which the heroes of old had only been engaged 
in skirmishes and sallies — treaties made which 
disposed of whole continents, and span the fate 
of millions of men — could hardly fail to find the 
contemplation of peace flat, stale, and unprofit- 
able. The eye that had been in vain attempt- 
ing to follow the swift march of such gigantic 
events, could not dwell with much interest upon 
the natural course of affairs, so slow in its mo- 
tion as to appear at rest. And hence, if ever 
there was a time of utter inaction, of absolute 
rest to the public mind, it is the hour now chosen 
for supposing that there exists some danger 
which requires defensive preparation, and the 
increase of the garrison with which the listless 
and motionless mass of the London population 
may be overawed. Why, my honorable and 
learned friend [the Attorney General] has had 
nobody to prosecute for some years past. It is 
above two years since he ha,s filed an ex-officio 
information, unless in the exchequer against 
smugglers. Jacobinism, the bugbear of 1792, 
has for the past six years and more never been 
even named. I doubt if allusion to it has been 
made in this House, even in a debate upon a 
King's speech, since Mr. Pitt's death. And to 
produce a Jacobin, or a specimen of any other 
kindred tribe, would, I verily believe, at this 
time of da}', baffle the skill and the perseverance 
of the most industrious and most zealous col- 
lector of political curiosities to be found in the 
whole kingdom. What, then, is the danger — 
what the speculation upon some possible and 
expected, but non-existing risk — which makes 
it necessary at this time to augment the force 
applied to preserve the peace of the metropolis ? 
But I fear there are far other designs in this 
measure, than merely to preserve a peace which 
no man living can have the boldness to contend 
is in any danger of being broken, and no man 
living can have the weakness really to be ap- 
prehensive about. Empty show, vain parade, 
will account for the array being acceptable in 
some high quarters; in others, the force may be 
recommended by its tending to increase the 
powers of the executive government, and ex- 
tend the influence of the prerogative. In either 
light, it is most disgustful, most hateful to the 
eye of every friend of his country, and every one 
who loves the Constitution — all who have any 
regard for public liberty, and all who reflect on 
the burdens imposed upon the people. 

But if the internal state of the country offers 



not the shadow of justification for this increase 
of force, what shall we say of the jj^,^,, .^^^ ^^^3 
state of foreign affairs ? Above all, H'^ '■^^^^ "t" 

, 1 11 r ^1 • Jorcign affairt 

what shall we say of the comparison demand these 
between the face of those aflfairs now °^'^^^' 
and its aspect in 1792? That was really a 
period of external danger. Never was there 
greater room for anxiety ; never had the states- 
men, not of England only, but of all Europe, 
more cause for apprehension and alarm — more 
occasion for wakefulness to passing events — 
more ground for being prepared at every point. 
A prodigious revolution had unchained twenty- 
six millions of men in the heart of Europe, gal- 
lant, inventive, enterprising, passionately fond of 
military glory, blindly following the phantom of 
national renown. Unchained from the fetters 
that had for ages bound them to their monarchs, 
they were speedily found to be alike disentan- 
gled from the obligations of peaceful conduct 
toward their neighbors. But they stopped not 
here. Confounding the abuses in their political 
institutions with the benefits, they had swept 
away every vestige of their former polity ; and, 
disgusted with the rank growth of corruption to 
which religion had afforded a shelter, they tore 
up the sacred tree itself, under whose shade 
France had so long adored and slept. To the 
fierceness of their warfare against all authority, 
civil and religious at home, was added the fieiy 
zeal of proselytism abroad, and they had rushed 
into a crusade against all existing governments, 
and on behalf of all nations throughout Europe, 
proclaiming themselves the redressers of every 
grievance, and the allies of each people that 
chose to rebel against their rulers. The uniform 
triumph of these principles at home, in each suc- 
cessive struggle for supremacy, had been fol- 
lowed by success almost as signal against the 
first attempts to overpower them from without, 
and all the thrones of the Continent shook before 
the blast which had breathed life and spirit into 
all the discontented subjects of each of their 
trembling possessors.^ This was the state of 
things in 1792, when Mr. Pitt administered the 
affairs of a nation, certainly far less exposed 
either to the force or to the blandishments of the 
revolutionary people, but still very far from be- 
ing removed above the danger of either their 
arts or their arms ; and the existence of peril in 
both kinds, the fear of France menacing the in- 
dependence of her neighbors, the risk to our do- 
mestic tranquillity from a party at home strong- 
ly .sympathizing with her sentiments, were the 
topics upon which both he and his adherents 
were most prone to dwell in all their discourses 
of state affairs. Yet in these circumstances, 
the country thus beset with danger, and the 
peace thus menaced, both from within and from 
without, Mr. Pitt was content with half the es- 
tablishment we are now required to vote ! But 
see only how vast the difference between the 



2 This is a favorable specimen of Mr. Brougham's 
free, bold, animated painting and declamation, al- 
ways made directly subservient to his argument, 
and filling his speeches with life and interest. 



894 



MR. BROUGHAM 



[1816. 



present aspect of affairs and that which I have 
been feebly attempting to sketch from the rec- 
ords of recent history, no page of which any of 
us can have forgotten ! The ground and cause 
of all peril is exhausted — the object of all the 
alarms that beset us in 1792 is no more — France 
no longer menaces the independence of the 
world, or troubles its repose. By a memorable 
reverse, not of fortune, but of Divine judgments 
meting out punishment to aggression, France, 
overrun, reduced, humbled, has become a subject 
of care and protection, instead of alarm and dis- 
may. Jacobinism itself, arrested by the Direct- 
ory, punished by the Consuls, reclaimed by the 
Emperor, has become attached to the cause of 
good order, and made to serve it with the zeal, 
the resources, and the address of a malefactor 
engaged by the police after the term of his sen- 
tence had expired. All is now, universally over 
the face of the world, wrapped in profound repose. 
Exhausted with such gigantic exertions as man 
never made before, either on the same scale or 
with the like energy, nations and their rulers 
have all sunk to rest. The general slumber of 
the times is every where unbroken ; and if ever 
a striking contrast was offered to the eye of the 
observer by the aspect of the world at two dif- 
ferent ages, it is that which the present posture 
of Europe presents to its attitude in Mr. Pitt's 
time, when, in the midst of wars and rumors of 
wars, foreign enemies and domestic treason vieing 
together for the mastery, and all pointed against 
the public peace, he considered a military estab- 
lishment of half the amount now demanded to 
be sufficient for keeping the country quiet, and 
repelling foreign aggression, as well as subduing 
domestic revolt. 

Driven from the argument of necessity, as the 
Respect for the uoblc Lord sccmcd to feel assured he 



troops^iio'rea- should bc the momcut any one exam- 
keeprnglbim ^"^^ ^^® ^^^®' ^^ skillfully prepared 
oa foot"! for his retreat to another position, 

somewhat less exposed, perhaps, but far enough 
from being impregnable. You can not, he said, 
disband troops who have so distinguished them- 
selves in the late glorious campaigns. This topic 
he urged for keeping up the guards. But I ask, 
which of our troops did not equally distinguish 
themselves ? What regiment engaged in the 
wars failed to cover itself with their glories ? 
This argument, if it has any force at all, may be 
used against disbanding a single regiment, or dis- 
charging a single soldier. Nay, even those who 
by the chances of war had no opportunity of dis- 
playing their courage, their discipline, and their 
zeal, would be extremely ill treated if they were 
now to be dismissed the service merely because 
it was their misfortune not to have enjoyed the 
same opportunity with others in happier circum- 
stances of sharing in the renown of our victories. 
It is enough to have been deprived of the laurels 
which no one doubts they would equally have 
won had they been called into the field. Surely, 
surely, they might justly complain if to the disap- 
pointment were added the being turned out of the 
service, which no act of theirs had dishonored. 



I am now speaking the language of the noble 
Lord's argument, and not of my own. He holds 
it to be unfair toward the guards that they should 
be reduced, after eminently meritorious service 
— he connects merit with the military state — 
disgrace, or at least slight, with the loss of this 
station. He holds the soldier to be preferred, 
rewarded, and distinguished, who is retained in 
the army — him to be neglected or ill used, if not 
stigmatized, who is discharged. His view of the 
Constitution is, that the capacity of the soldier is 
more honorable and more excellent than that of 
the citizen. Accox'ding to his view, therefore, 
the whole army has the same right to complain 
with the guards. But his view is not my view ; 
it is not the view of the Constitution ; it is not 
the view which I can ever consent to assume as 
just, and to inculcate into the army by acting as 
if it were just. I never will suffer it to be held 
out as the principle of our free and popular gov- 
ernment that a man is exalted by being made a 
soldier, and degraded by being restored to the 
rank of a citizen. I never will allow it to be 
said that in a country blessed by having a civil, 
and not a military government ; by enjoying the 
exalted station of a constitutional monarch}', and 
not being degraded to that of a military despot- 
ism, there is any pre-eminence whatever in the 
class of citizens which bears arms, over the class 
which cultivates the arts of peace. When it 
suits the purpose of some argument in behalf of 
a soldiery who have exceeded the bounds of the 
law in attacking some assembled force of the peo- 
ple, how often are we told from that bench of of- 
fice, from the Crown side of the bar, nay, from 
the bench of justice itself, that b}' becoming sol- 
diers, men cease not to be citizens, and that this 
is a glorious peculiarity of our free Constitution ? 
Then what right can the noble Lord have to con- 
sider that the retaining men under arms, and in 
the pay of the state, is an exaltation and a dis- 
tinction which they cease to enjoy if restored to 
the status of ordinary citizens ? I read the Con- 
stitution in the very opposite sense to the noble 
Lord's gloss. I have not sojourned in congress- 
es with the military representatives of military 
powers^ — I have not frequented the courts, any 
more than I have followed the camps of these 
potentates — I have not lived in the company of 
crowned soldiers, all whose ideas are fashioned 
upon the rules of the drill and the articles of the 
fifteen maneuvers — all whose estimates of a coun- 
try's value are framed on the number of troops it 
will raise, and who can no more sever the idea 
of a subject from that of a soldier, than if men 
were born into this world in complete armor, as 
Minerva started from Jupiter's head. My ideas 
are more humble and more civic, and the only 



3 The unusual course taken by Loi-d Castlereagb, 
as minister, of going himself to the various con- 
gresses on the Continent in 1815, instead of sending 
an embassador, had before this drawn forth the se- 
verest strictures from the Opposition, who considered 
him as inflated by vanity, and in danger of being se- 
duced iuto measures unbecoming the representative 
of a free people. 



1816.] 



ON THE ARMY ESTIMATES. 



language I know, or can speak, or can under- 
stand in this House, is the mother tongue of the 
old English Constitution. I will speak none oth- 
er — I will suffer none other to be spoken in my 
presence. Addressing the soldier in that lan- 
guage — which alone above all other men in the 
country he ought to know — to which alone it pe- 
culiarly behooves us that he, the armed man, 
should be accustomed — I tell him, " You have 
distinguished yourself — all that the noble Lord 
says of you is true — nay, under the truth — you 
have crowned yourself with the glories of war. 
But chiefly you, the guards, you have outshone 
all others, and won for yourselves a deathless 
fame. Now, then, advance and receive your re- 
ward. Partake of the benefits you have secured 
for your grateful country. None are better than 
you entitled to share in the blessings, the inesti- 
mable blessings of peace — than you whose valor 
has conquered it for us. Go back, then, to the 
rank of citizens, which, for a season, )^ou quitted 
at the call of your country. Exalt her glory in 
peace, whom you served in war ; and enjoy the 
rich recompense of all your toils in the tranquil 
retreat from dangers, which her gratitude be- 
stows upon you." I know this to be the lan- 
guage of the Constitution, and time was when 
none other could be spoken, or would have been 
understood in this House. I still hope that no 
one will dare use any other in the country ; and, 
least of all, can any other be endured as addi-ess- 
ed to the soldiery in arms, treating them as if 
they were the hired partisans of the Prince, a 
caste set apart for his service, and distinguished 
from all the rest of their countrymen, not a class 
of the people devoting themselves for a season to 
carry arms in defense of the nation, and when 
their services are wanted no more, retiring nat- 
urally to mix with and be lost in the mass of 
their fellow-citizens. 

But it has been said that there is injustice and 
„ -J ingratitude in the country turning adrift 

Nordoesjus- ,°,f., \, =, 

lice require hcr deicnders as soon as the war is end- 
ed, and we are tauntingly asked, "Is 
this the return you make to the men who have 
fought your battles? When the peace comes 
which they have conquered, do you wish to starve 
them or send them off to sweep the streets ?" I 
wish no such thing ; I do not desire that they 
should go unrequited for their services. But I 
can not allow that the only, or the best, or even 
a lawful mode of recompensing them, is to keep 
on foot during peace the army which they com- 
pose, still less that it is any hardship whatever 
for a soldier to return into the rank of citizens 
when the necessity is at an end, which alone 
justified his leaving those ranks. Nor can I be- 
lieve that it is a rational way of showing our 
gratitude toward the army, whose only valuable 
service has been to gain us an honorable peace, 
to maintain an establishment for their behoof, 
which must deprive the peace of all its value, 
and neutralize the benefits which they have con- 
ferred upon us. 

See. too, the gross inconsistency of this argu- 
ment with your whole conduct. How do you 



treat the common sailors who compose our in- 
vincible navy ? All are at once dismissed. The 
Victory, which carried Nelson's flag to his inva- 
riable and undying triumphs, is actually laid up 
in ordinary, and her crew disbanded to seek a 
precarious subsistence where some hard fortune 
may drive them. Who will have the front to 
contend that the followers of Nelson are less the 
glory and the saviors of their country than the 
soldiers of the guards ? Yet who is there can- 
did enough to say one word in their behalf when 
we hear so much of the injustice of disbanding 
our army after its victories? Who has ever 
complained of that being done to the seamen 
which is said to be impossible in the soldier's 
case ? But where is the difference ? Simply 
this : That the maintenance of the na\y in time 
of peace never can be dangerous to the libei'ties 
of the country, like the keeping up a standing 
army ; and that a naval force gives no gratifica- 
tion to the miserable, paltry love of show which 
rages in some quarters, and is to be consulted in 
all the arrangements of our affairs, to the exclu- 
sion of every higher and worthier consideration. 
After the great constitutional question to 
which I have been directing your at- ^^^^^^ ^^^^ 
tention, you will hardly bear with me f" more ex- 

, ., T . ^. "^ ^. ^ . pensive than 

while I examine these estimates in those of the 
any detail. This, however, I must ''"^" 
say, that nothing can be more scandalous than 
the extravagance of maintaining the establish- 
ment of the guards at the expense of troops of 
the line, which cost the country so much less. 
Compare the charge of two thousand guards with 
an equal number of the line, and you will find 
the difference of the two amounts to be above 
c£l 0,000 a year. It is true that this sum is not 
very large, and compared with our whole ex- 
penditure it amounts to nothing. But in a state 
burdened as ours is, there can be no such thing 
as a small saving ; the people had far rather see 
millions spent upon necessary objects, than thou- 
sands squandered unnecessarily, and upon mat- 
ters of mere superfluity ; nor can any thing be 
more insulting to their feelings, and less bear- 
able by them, than to see us here underrating 
the importance even of the most inconsiderable 
sum that can be added to or taken from the in- 
tolerable burdens under which they labor. 

As for the pretext set up to-night that the 
question is concluded by the vote of last Friday, 
nothing can be more ridiculous. This House 
never can be so bound. If it could, then may it 
any hour be made the victim of surprise, and the 
utmost encouragement is held out to tricks and 
maneuvers. If you voted too many men before, 
you can now make that vote harmless and inop- 
erative by withholding the supplies necessary for 
keeping those men on foot. As well may it be 
contended that the House is precluded from 
throwing out a bill on the third reading, because 
it affirmed the principle by its vote on the sec- 
ond, and sanctioned the details by receiving the 
committee's report. 

The estimate before you is c£385,000, for the 
support of eight thousand one hundred guards. 



896 



MR. BROUGHAM 



[1822. 



J uncus sys 
tern is pur- 
sued. 



Atlopt my honorable friend's amendment [Mr. 
Calcraft], and you reduce them to about four 
thousand, which is still somewhat above their 
number in the last peace. 

Sir, I have done. I have discharged my duty 
Peroration : to the country ; I havc accepted the 
frelfroma" challenge of the ministers to discuss 
tyTthe ia-" the qucstioii ; I have met them fairly, 
and grappled with the body of the ar- 
gument. I may very possibly have 
failed to convince the House that this establish- 
ment is enormous and unjustifiable, whether we 
regard the burdened condition of the country, or 
the tranquil state of its alTairs at home, or the 
universal repose in which the world is lulled, or 
the experience of former times, or the mischiev- 
ous tendency of large standing armies in a con- 
stitutional point of view, or the dangerous nature 
of the arguments urged in their support upon 
the present occasion. All this I feel very deep- 
ly ; and I am also very sensible how likely it is 
that, on taking another view, you should come 
to an opposite determination. Be it so ; I have 
done my duty ; I have entered my protest. It 
can not be laid to my charge that a force is to 
be maintained in profound and general peace 



tw^ice as great as was formerly deemed sufficient 
when all Europe was involved in domestic troub- 
les, and war raged in some parts, and was about 
to spread over the whole. It is not my fault 
that peace will have returned without its accus- 
tomed blessings ; that our burdens are to remain 
undiminished ; that our liberties are to be men- 
aced by a standing army, without the pretense 
of necessity in any quarter to justify its continu- 
ance. The blame is not mine that a brilliant 
and costly army of household troops, of unpre- 
cedented numbers, is allowed to the Crown with- 
out the shadow of use, unless it be to pamper a 
vicious appetite for militaiy show, to gratify a 
passion for parade, childish and contemptible ; 
unless, indeed, that nothing can be an object of 
contempt which is at once dangerous to the Con- 
stitution of the country, and burdensome to the 
resources of the people. I shall further record 
my resistance to this system by my vote ; and 
never did I give my voice to any proposition with 
more hearty satisfaction than I now do to the 
amendment of my honorable friend. 



The amendment was voted down by a major- 
ity of eighty. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. BROUGHAM IN BEHALF OF WILLIAMS WHEN PROSECUTED FOR A LIBEL ON THE CLERGY 
OF DURHAM, DELIVERED AT DURHAM BEFORE THE COURT OF KING'S BENCH, AUGUST 9, 1822. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Mr. Williams was editor of the Chronicle, a paper published at Durham, in the north of England, 
and disting-uished for its assertion of free principles in Church and State. 

When dueen Caroline died, August 7, 1821, the established clergy of Durham would not allow the 
bells of their churches to be tolled in the ordinary manner as a token of respect to her memory. This 
fact called out the following remarks from Mr. WilUaras, in his paper of August 10, 1821 : 

"So far as we have been able to judge from the accounts in the public papers, a mark of respect to 
her late Majesty has been almost universally paid throughout the kingdom, when the painful tidings of 
her decease were received, by tolling the bells of the cathedrals and churches. But there is one excep- 
tion to this very creditable fact which demands especial notice. In this episcopal city, containing six 
churches independently of the cathedral, not a single bell announced the departure of the magnanimous 
spirit of the most injured of queens— the most persecuted of women. Thus the brutal enmity of those who 
embittered her mortal existence pursues her in her shroud. 

"We know not whether any actual orders were issued to prevent this customary sign of mourning; 
but the omission plainly indicates the kind of spirit which predominates among our clergy. Yet these 
men profess to be followers of Jesus Christ, to walk in his footsteps, to teach his precepts, to inculcate 
his spirit, to promote harmony, charity, and Christian love ! Out upon such hypocrisy ! It is such con- 
duct which renders the very name of our established clergy odious, till it stinks in the nostrils ; that makes 
our churches look like deserted sepulchers, rather than temples of the living God ; that raises up con- 
venticles in every corner, and increases the brood of wild fanatics and enthusiasts; that causes our ben- 
eficed dignitaries to be regarded as usurpers of their possessions; that deprives them of all pastoral in- 
fluence and respect; that, in short, has left them no support or prop in the attachment or veneration of 
the people. Sensible of the decline of their spiritual and moral influence, they cling to temporal power, 
and lose in their ofHciousness in political matters, even the semblance of the character of ministers of re- 
hgion. It is impossible that such a system can last. It is at war with the spirit of the age, as well as 
with justice and reason, and the beetles who crawl about amid its holes and crevices act as if they were 
striving to provoke and accelerate the blow, which, sooner or later, will inevitably crush the whole fab- 
ric and level it with the dust." 

Mr. Williams was prosecuted for these remarks as a libel on the clergy of Durham, and was defend- 
ed by Mr. Brougham in the following speech, which for bitter irony and withering invective has hardly 
its equal in our language. 



1822.] 



AGAINST THE DURHAM CLERGY. 



897 



SPEECH, &c. 



Gentlemen of the Jury, — My learned 
friend [Mr. Scarlett], the Attorney General for 
the Bishop of Durham, having at considerable 
length offered to you various conjectures as to 
the line of defense which he supposed I should 
pursue upon this occasion ; having nearly ex- 
hausted every topic which I was not very likely 
to urge, and elaborately traced, w^ith much fan- 
cy, all the ground on which I could hardly be 
expected to tread — perhaps it may be as well 
that / should now, in my turn, take the liberty 
of stating to you what really is the defendant's 
case, and that you should know from myself 
what I do intend to lay before 3^ou. As my 
learned friend has indulged in so many remarks 
Remarks on upon what I shall not say, I may take 
the Attorney Icavc to ofler a Single observation on 
^i^wi^ghow what he has said ; and I think I may 
tte'difficuules appeal to any onc of you who ever 
of'hiscase. scrvcd upou a jury Or witncsscd a tri- 
al, and ask if you ever before this day saw a pub- 
lic prosecutor who stated his case with so much 
art and ingenuity — wrought up his argument 
with such pains — wandered into so large a field 
of declamation — or altogether performed his task 
in so elaborate and eloquent a fashion as the At- 
torney General has done upon the present occa- 
sion. I do not blame this course. I venture not 
even to criticise the discretion he has exercised 
in the management of his cause ; and I am far, 
indeed, from complaining of it. But I call upon 
you to declare that inference which I think you 
must already have drawn in your own minds, 
and come to that conclusion at which I certainly 
have arrived — that he felt what a laboring case 
he had — that he was aware how very different 
his situation to-day is from any he ever before 
knew in a prosecution for libel — and that the ex- 
traordinary pressure of the difficulties he had to 
struggle with drove him to so unusual a course. 
He has called the defendant " that unhappy 
man.'^ Unhappy he will be, indeed, but not the 
only unhappy man in this country, if the doc- 
trines laid down by ray learned friend are sanc- 
tioned by your verdict ; for those doctrines, I 
fearlessly tell you, must, if established, inevita- 
bly destroy the whole liberties of us all. Not 
that he has ventured to deny the right of discus- 
sion generally upon all subjects, even upon the 
present, or to screen from free inquiry the foun- 
dations of the Established Church, and the con- 
duct of its ministers as a body (which I shall sat- 
isfy you are not even commented on in the pub- 
lication before you) . Far from my learned friend 
is it to impugn those rights in the abstract ; nor, 
indeed, have I ever yet heard a prosecutor for 
libel — an Attorney General (and I have seen a 
good many in my time), whether of our Lord the 
King or our Lord of Durham, who, while in the 
act of crushing every thing like unfettered dis- 
cussion, did not preface his address to the jury 
with " God forbid that the fullest inquiry should 
not be allowed." But then the admission had 
L L L 



invariably a condition following close behind, 
which entirely retracted the concession — " pro- 
vided always the discussion be carried on harm- 
lessly, temperately, calmly" — that is to say, in 
such a manner as to leave the subject untouched, 
and the reader unmoved ; to satisfy the public 
prosecutor, and to please the persons attacked. 

My learned friend has asked if the defendant 
knows that the Church is established The church, 
by law? He knows it, and so do L ilfslnliriotrf 
The Church is established by law, as '''^ ^l",''!?''^ 

. ./ ' 13 established 

the civu government — as all the insti- bylaw, 
tutions of the country are established by law — 
as all the offices under the Crown are estab- 
lished by law, and all who fill them are by the 
law protected. It is not more established, nor 
more protected, than those institutions, officers, 
and office-bearers, each of which is recoo-nized 
and favored by the law as much as the Church ; 
but I never yet have heard, and I trust I never 
shall ; least of all do I expect, in the lesson which 
your verdict this day will read, to hear that those 
officers and office-bearers, and all those institu- 
tions, sacred and secular, and the conduct of all, 
whether laymen or priests, who administer them, 
are not the fair subjects of open, untrammeled, 
manly, zealous, and even vehement discussion, 
as long as this country pretends to liberty, and 
prides herself on the possession of a free press. 

In the publication before you the defendant 
has not attempted to di-spute the high itisHabie, 
character of the Church ; on that Es- {he%eve"es° 
tablishment, or its members generally, scrutiny. 
he has not endeavored to fix any stigma. Those 
topics, then, are foreign to the present inquiry, 
and I have no interest in discussing them ; yet, 
after what has fallen from my learned friend, it 
is fitting that I should claim for this defendant, 
and for all others, the right to question — freely 
to question — not only the conduct of the ministers 
of the Established Church, but even the founda- 
tions of the Church itself It is, indeed, unnec- 
essary for my present purpose, because I shall 
demonstrate that the paper before you does not 
touch upon those points ; but unnecessary thouo-h 
it be, as my learned friend has defied me, I will 
follow him to the field and say that if there is 
any one of the institutions of the country which, 
more emphatically than all the rest, justifies us 
in arguing strongly, feeling powerfully, and ex- 
pressing our sentiments as well as urgino- our 
reasons with vehemence, it is that branch of the 
state which, because it is sacred, because it bears 
connection with higher principles than any in- 
volved in the mere management of worldly con- 
cerns — for that very reason, entwines itself with 
deeper feelings, and must needs be di.scussed, if 
discussed at all, with more warmth and zeal than 
any other part of our system is fitted to rouse. 
But if any hierarchy in all the world „,, ^, , , 

. , , •' ■'..,- Tlie Church of 

IS bound on every principle of con- England ought 
sistency — if any Church should be courtulaV 
forward, not only to suffer, but pro- '""''"^- 



898 



MR. BROUGHAM 



voke discussion; to stand upon that title and 
challenge the most unreserved inquiry — it is the 
Protestant Church of England; first, because she 
has nothing to dread from it ; secondly, because 
she is the very creature of free inquiry, the off- 
spring of repeated revolutions, and the most re- 
formed of the reformed churches of Europe. 
But surely if there is any one corner of Protest- 
ant Eui'ope whei'e men ought not to be rigorous- 
ly judged in ecclesiastical controversy — where a 
large allowance should be made for the conflict 
of in-econcilable opinions — where the harshness 
of jarring tenets should be patiently borne, and 
strong, or even violent language be not too nar- 
rowly watched — it is this very realm, in which 
we live under three different ecclesiastical or- 
ders, and owe allegiance to a Sovereign who in 
one of his kingdoms is the head of the Church, 
acknowledged as such by all men ; while, in an- 
other neither he nor any earthly being is al- 
lowed to assume that name — a realm composed 
For the country ^^ three great divisions, in one of 
ij'Sfaid'op. ^l"c^i Prelacy is favored by law 
posing church and approved in practice by an 

organizations. t-i- t i ^ ■^ • 

Ji.piscopalian people ; while in an- 
other it is protected, indeed, by law, but abjured 
in practice by a nation of sectaries, Catholic and 
Presbyterian ; and in a third, it is abhorred alike 
by law and in practice, repudiated by the whole 
institutions of the country, scorned and detested 
by the whole of its inhabitants. His Majesty, 
almost at the time in which I am speaking, is 
about to make a progress through the northern 
provinces of this island, accompanied by certain 
of his chosen counselors — a portion of men who 
enjoy, unenvied, and in an equal degree, the ad- 
miration of other countries and the wonder of 
their own — and there the Prince will see much 
loyalty, great learning, some splendor, the re- 
mains of an ancient monarchy, and of the insti- 
tutions which made it flourish.^ But one thing 
he will not see. Strange as it may seem, and 
to many who hear me incredible, from one end 
of the country to the other he will see no such 
thing as a Bishop ; not such a thing is to be 
found from the Tweed to John O' Groats ; not 
a mitre ; no, nor so much as a minor canon, or 
even a rural dean ; and in all the land not one 
single curate, so entirely rude and barbarous are 
they in Scotland ; in such outer darkness do they 
sit, that they support no cathedrals, maintain no 
pluralists, suffer non-residence ; nay, the poor be- 
nighted creatures are ignorant even of tithes ! 
Not a sheaf, or a lamb, or a pig, or the value of 
a plow-penny do the hapless mortals render from 
year's end to year's end ! Piteous as their lot 
is, what makes it infinitely more touching is to 
witness the return of good for evil in the de- 
meanor of this wretched race. Under all this 
cruel neglect of their spiritual concerns, they are 
actually the most loyal, contented, moral, and re- 
ligious people any where, perhaps, to be found 

^ The King visited Scotland on this occasion for 
the first time, leaving London on the tenth of Au- 
gust, 1822, and spending nearly three weeks on his 
tour. 



[1822. 

in the M-orld. Let us hope (many indeed there 
are, not afar off, who will, with unfeigned devo- 
tion, pray) that his Majesty may return safe from 
the dangers of his excursion into such a coun- 
try — an excursion most perilous to a certain por- 
tion of the Church, should his royal mind be in- 
fected with a taste for cheap establishments, a 
working clergy, and a pious congregation ! 

But compassion for our brethren in the North 
has drawn me aside from my pur- Durham, espe- 
pose, which was merely to remind blfopel^lf/We" 
you how preposterous it is in a coun- f'^'^^st remarks, 
try of which the ecclesiastical polity is framed 
upon plans so discordant, and the religious ten- 
ets themselves are so various, to require any very 
measured expressions of men's opinions upon 
questions of church government. And if there 
is any part of England in which an ample license 
ought more especially to be admitted in handling 
such matters, I say, without hesitation, it is this 
very Bishopric, where, in the nineteenth century, 
you live under a Palatine Prince, the Lord of 
Durham ; where the endowment of the hie- 
rarchy — I may not call it enormous, but I trust 
I shall be permitted, without ofli^nse, to term 
splendid ; where the Establishment — I dare not 
whisper — proves grinding to the people, but I 
will rather say is an incalculable, an inscrutable 
blessing — only it is prodigiously large — show- 
ered down in a profusion somewhat overpower- 
ing ; and laying the inhabitants under a load of 
obligation overwhelming by its weight. It is in 
Durham, where the Church is endowed with a 
splendor and a power unknown in monkish times 
and Popish countries, and the clergy swarm in 
every corner an' it were the patrimony of St. 
Peter ; it is here, where all manner of conflicts 
are at each moment inevitable between the peo- 
ple and the priests, that I feel myself warranted, 
on their behalf and for their jjrotection — for the 
sake of the Establishment, and as the discreet 
advocate of that Church and that clergy ; for the 
defense of their very existence — to demand the 
most unrestrained discussion for their title, and 
their actings under it. For them in this age 
to screen their conduct from investigation, is to 
stand self-convicted ; to shrink from the discus- 
sion of their title is to confess a flaw ; he must 
be the most shallow, the most blind of mortals 
who does not at once perceive that if that title 
is protected only by the strong arm of the law, 
it becomes not worth the parchment on M^hich it 
is engrossed, or the wax that dangles to it for a 
seal. I have hitherto all along assumed that 
there is nothing impure in the practice under the 
system ; I am admitting that every person en- 
gaged in its administration does every one act 
which he ought, and which the law expects hira 
to do ; I am supposing that up to this hour not 
one unworthy member has entered within its 
pale ; I am even presuming that up to this mo- 
ment not one of those individuals has stepped be- 
yond the strict line of his sacred functions, or 
given the slightest offense or annoyance to any 
human being. I am taking it for granted that 
they all act the part of good shepherds, making 



1 



1822.] 



AGAINST THE DURHAM CLERGY. 



899 



the welfare of their flock their first care, and 
onl}'' occasionally bethinking them of shearing, 
in order to prevent the too luxuriant growth of 
the fleece proving an encumbrance, or to erad- 
icate disease. If, however, those operations be 
so constant that the flock actually live under the 
knife ; if the shepherds are so numerous, and 
employ so large a troop of the watchful and 
eager animals that attend them (some of them, 
too, with a cross of the fox, or even the wolf, in 
their breed) can it be wondered at, if the poor 
creatures thus fleeced, and hunted, and bai'ked 
at, and snapped at, and from time to time wor- 
ried, should now and then bleat, dream of prefer- 
ring the rot to the shears, and draw invidious, 
possibly disadvantageous comparisons between 
the wolf without and the shepherd within the 
fold — it can not be helped ; it is in the nature 
of things that suffering should beget complaint ; 
but for those who have caused the pain to com- 
plain of the outcry and seek to punish it — for 
those who have goaded to scourge and to gag, 
is the meanest of all injustice. It is, moreover, 
the most pitiful folly for the clergy to think of 
retaining their power, privileges, and enormous 
wealth, without allowing free vent for complaints 
against abuses in the Establishment and delin- 
quency in its members ; and in this prosecution 
they have displayed that folly in its supreme de- 
gree. I will even put it that there has been an 
attack on the hierarchy itself; I do so for argu- 
ment's sake only ; denying all the while that 
any thing like such an attack is to be found with- 
in the four corners of this publication. 

But suppose it had been otherwise ; I will show 
, - you the sort of language in which the 

Example of •' . i i i r- 

Milton in wiscst and the best oi our countrymen 

tiiarespec |jg^yg gp^J^gl^ of ^J^g^^ Eg^g^jjjJgJ^fjjgj^j J 

am about to read a passage in the immortal 
writings of one of the greatest men, I may say, 
the greatest genius which this country or Eu- 
rope has in modern times produced. You shall 
hear what the learned and pious Milton has said 
of prelacy. He is arguing against an Episcopa- 
lian antagonist, whom, from his worldly and un- 
scriptural doctrines, he calls a '^Carnal Text- 
man ;" and it signifies not that we may differ 
widely in opinion with this illustrious man ; I 
only give his words as a sample of the license with 
which he was permitted to press his argument, and 
which in those times went unpunished : " That 
which he imputes as sacrilege to his countr}'-, is 
the only way left them to purge that abominable 
sacrilege out of the land, which none but the 
prelates are guilty of; who for the discharge of 
one single duty receive and keep that which 
might be enough to satisfy the labors of many 
painful ministers better deserving than themselves 
— who possess huge benefices for lazy perform- 
ances, great promotions only for the exercise 
of a cruel disgospelling jurisdiction — who en- 
gross man}'^ pluralities under a non-resident and 
slumbering dispatch of souls — who let hundreds 
of parishes famish in one diocese, while they the 
prelates are mute, and yet enjoy that wealth that 
would furnish all those dark places with able 



supply ; and yet they eat and yet they live at 
the rate of earls, and yet hoai'd up ; they who 
chase away all the faithful shepherds of the flock, 
and bring in a dearth of spiritual food, robbing 
thereby the Church of her dearest treasure, and 
sending herds of souls starving to hell, while they 
feast and riot upon the labors of hireling curates, 
consuming and purloining even that which by 
their foundation is allowed and left to the poor, 
and the reparation of the Church. These are they 
who have bound the land wnth the sin of sacrilege, 
from which mortal engagement we shall never 
be free till we have totally removed wnth one 
labor, as one individual thing, prelaty and sac- 
rilege." "Thus have ye heard, readers" (he 
continues, after some advice to the Sovereign to 
check the usurpations of the hierarchy), " how 
many shifts and wiles the prelates have invented 
to save their ill got booty. And if it be true, as 
in Scripture it is foretold, that pride and covet- 
ousness are the sure marks of those false proph- 
ets which are to come, then boldly conclude these 
to be as great seducers as any of the latter times. 
For between this and the judgment-day do not 
look for any arch-deceivers, w^ho, in spite of ref- 
ormation, will use more craft or less shame to de- 
fend their love of the world and their ambition, 
than these prelates have done."'' 

If Mr. Williams had dared to publish the tithe 
part of what I have just read ; if any thing ^^^^ ^ 
in sentiment or in language approaching of Bishop 

. : . 1 /• 1 " 1 ■ r Burnet. 

to It were to be tound m his paper, 1 
should not stand before you with the confidence 
w^hich I now feel ; but what he has published 
forms a direct contrast to the doctrines contained 
in this passage. Nor is such language confined 
to the times in which Milton lived, or to a period 
of convulsion when prelacy was in danger. I 
wnll show you that in tranquil, episcopal times, 
when the Church existed peacefully and securely 
as by law established, some of its most distin- 
guished members, who have added to its stabili- 
ty as well as its fame, by the authority of their 
learning and the purity of their lives, the fathers 
and brightest ornaments of that Church, have 
used expressions nearly as free as those which I 
have cited from Milton, and ten-fold stronger 
than any thing attributed to the defendant. I 
will read you a passage from Bishop Burnet, one 
of those Whig founders of the Constitution, whom 
the Attorney General has so lavishly prai.sed. He 
says, " I have lamented during my whole life 
that I saw so little true zeal among our clergy ; 
I saw much of it in the clergy of the Church of 
Rome, though it is both ill directed and ill con- 
ducted ; I saw much zeal, likewise, throughout 
the foreign churches." 

Now comparisons are hateful to a proverb; 
and it is for making a comparison that the de- 
fendant is to-day prosecuted ; for his words can 
have no application to the Church generally, ex- 
cept in the way of comparison. And with whom 
does the venerable Bishop here compare the cler- 



gy 



? Whv, with anti- Christ— with the Church 



Apology for Smcctymnus — published in 1642. 



900 



MR. BROUGHAM 



[1S22. 



of Rome — casting the balance in her favor — 
giving the advantage to our ghostly adversary. 
Next comes he to give the Dissenters the prefer- 
ence over our own clergy ; a still more invidious 
topic ; for it is one of the laws which govern 
theological controversy almost as regularly as 
gravitation governs the universe, that the mutu- 
al rancor of conflicting sects is inversely as their 
distance from each other ; and with such hatred 
do they regard those who are separated by the 
slightest shade of opinion, that your true intoler- 
ant priest abhors a pious sectary far more de- 
voutly than a blasphemer or an atheist ; yet to 
the sectary also does the good Bishop give a de- 
cided preference : " The Dissenters have a great 
deal (that is of zeal) among them, but I must 
own that the main body of our clergy has always 
appeared dead and lifeless to me ; and instead of 
animating one another, they seem rather to lay one 
another asleep." " I say it with great regret" 
(adds the Bishop), "I have observed the clergy 
in all the places through which I have traveled. 
Papists, Lutherans, Calvinists, and Dissenters ; 
but of them all, our clergy is much the most re- 
miss in their labors in private, and the least se- 
vere in their lives. And let me say this freely 
to you, now I am out of the reach of envy and 
censure" (he bequeathed his work to be given to 
the world after his death), "unless a better spir- 
it possess the clergy, arguments and, which is 
more, laws and authority wnll not prove strong 
enough to preserve the Church."^ 

I will now show you the opinion of a very 
learned and virtuous writer, who was 
much followed in his day, and whose 
book, at that time, formed one of the manuals by 
which our youth were taught the philosophy of 
morals to prepare them for their theological stud- 
ies, I mean Dr. Hartley : " I choose to speak of 
what falls under the observation of all serious, 
attentive persons in the kingdom. The superior 
clergy are in general ambitious, and eager in the 
pursuit of riches — flatterers of the great, and 
subservient to party interest — negligent of their 
own particular charges, and also of the inferior 
clerg3^ The inferior clergy imitate their supe- 
riors, and in general take little more care of their 
parishes than barely what is necessary to avoid 
the censure of the law ; and the clergy of all ranks 
are in general either ignorant, or, if they do apply, 
it is rather to profane learning, to philosophical 
or political matters, than in the study of the 
Scriptures, of the Oriental languages, and the 
Fathers. I say this is, in general, the case ; that 
is, far the gi-eater part of the clergy of all ranks 
in the kingdom are of this kind." 

I here must state that the passage I have just 
read is very far from meeting my approval, any 
more than it speaks the defendant's sentiments, 
and especially in its strictures upon the inferior 
clergy ; for certainly it is impossible to praise too 
highly those pious and useful men, the resident, 
working parish priests of this country. I speak 
not of the dignitaries, the pluralists and sinecur- 



^ History of His own Times, il., 641. 



ists, but of men neither possessing the higher 
preferments of the Church, nor placed in that sit- 
uation of expectancy so dangerous to virtue ; the 
hard-working, and I fear too often hard-living, 
resident clergy of this kingdom, who are an or- 
nament to their station, and who richly deserve 
that which in too many instances is almost all 
the reward they receive, the gratitude and ven- 
eration of the people committed to their care. 
But I read this passage from Dr. Hartley, not as 
a precedent followed by the defendant ; for he 
has said nothing approaching to it — not as pro- 
pounding doctrine authorized by the fact : or 
which in reasoning he approves — but only for 
the purpose of showing to what lengths such dis- 
cussion of ecclesiastical abuses (which, it seems, 
we are now^, for the first time, to hold our peace 
about) was carried near a century ago, when the 
freedom of speech, now to be stifled as hcen- 
tiousness, went not only unpunished, but unques- 
tioned and unblamed. 

To take a much later period, I hold in my 
hand an attack upon the hierarchy by ofaciergj'man 
one of their ow n body — a respectable '" Chester. 
and beneficed clergyman in the sister countv Pal- 
atine of Chester, who undertook to defend the 
Christian religion, itself the basis, I presume I 
may venture to call it, of the Church, against 
Thomas Paine. In the course of so pious a work, 
which he conducted most elaborately, as you may 
perceive by the size of this volume, he inveighs 
in almost every page against the abuses of the 
Establishment, but in language which I am very 
far from adopting. In one passage is the fol- 
lowing energetic, and I may add, somewhat vio- 
lent invective, which I will read, that you may 
see how a man, unwearied in the care of souls, 
and so zealous a Christian that he is in the act 
of confuting infidels and putting scoffers to si- 
lence, may yet, in the very course of defending the 
Church and its faith, use language, any one word 
of which, if uttered by the defendant, would 
make my learned friend shudder at the license 
of the modern press upon sacred subjects. " We 
readily grant, therefore, you see, my country- 
men, that the corruptions of Christianity shall be 
purged and done away ; and we are persuaded 
the wickedness of Christians so called, the luke- 
warmness of professors, and the reiterated at- 
tacks of infidels upon the Gospel, shall all, under 
the guidance of infinite Wisdom., contribute to 
accomplish this end." 

I have read this sentence to show you the 
spirit of piety in which the work is composed ; 
now see what follows : 

" The lofty looks of lordly prelates shall be 
brought low ; the supercilious airs of downy doc- 
tors and perjured pluralists shall be humbled ; 
the horrible sacrilege of non-residents, who shear 
the fleece, and leave the flock thus despoiled to 
the charge of uninterested hirelings that care not 
for them, shall be avenged on their impious 
heads. Intemperate priests, avaricious clerks, 
and buckish parsons, those curses of Christen- 
dom, shall be confounded. All secular hierarch- 
ies in the Church shall be tumbled into ruin ; luke- 



1822.] 



AGAINST THE DURHAM CLERGY 



901 



warm formalists of every denomination shall call 
to the rocks and mountains to hide them from the 
wrath of the Lamb." 

This is the language — these are the lively de- 
ifthecierey oi' scriptions — these the warm, a,nd I 
c'hurdfare will uot hcsitatc to say, exaggerated 
tbe^ity may P'ctures which those reverend au- 
certainiybe tliors prcscnt of themsclvcs ; these 

free m their re- t^ . . , • , , , 

marks. arc thc testunonics which they bear 

to the merits of one another ; these are opinions 
coming, not from the enemy without, but from 
the true, zealous, and even intemperate friend 
within. And can it be matter of wonder that 
laymen should sometimes raise their voices tuned 
to the discords of the sacred choir '? And are 
they to be punished for what secures to clergy- 
men followers, veneration, and — preferment? 
But I deny that Mr. Williams is of the number 
of followers ; I deny that he has taken a leaf or 
a line out of such books ; I deny that there is any 
sentiment of this cast, or any expression ap- 
proaching to those of Dr. Simpson, in the publi- 
cation before you. But I do contend that if the 
real friends of thc Church, if its own members 
can safely indulge in such language, it is ten 
thousand times more lawful for a layman, like 
the defendant, to make the harmless observations 
which he has published, and in which I defy any 
man to show me one expi'ession hostile to our 
ecclesiastical Establishment. 

[Mr. Brougham then read the following pas- 
sage from the libel :] 

" We know not whether any actual orders 
were issued to prevent this customary sign of 
mourning ; but the omission plainly indicates the 
kind of spirit which predominates among our 
clergy. Yet these men profess to be follow- 
ers of Jesus Christ, to walk in his footsteps, to 
teach his precepts, to inculcate his spirit, to pro- 
mote harmony, charity, and Christian love ! Out 
upon such hypocrisy !" 

That you may understand the meaning of this 
Comments on passagc, it is ucccssary for me to set 
atfoM matfe"^ Ijeforc you the picture my learned 
eyalntfar" fnend was pleased to draw of the 
touching the clergy of the Diocese of Durham, and 

Durham cler- oj : 

gy. I shall recall it to your minds almost 

in his own words. According to him, they stand 
in a peculiarly unfortunate situation ; they are, 
in truth, the most injured of men. They all, it 
seems, entertained the same generous sentiment 
with the rest of their countrymen, though they 
did not express them in the old, free, English 
manner, by openly condemning the proceedings 
against the late Queen ; and after the course of 
unexampled injustice against which she victori- 
ously struggled had been followed by the need- 
less infliction of inhuman torture, to undermine 
a frame whose spirit no open hostility could 
daunt, and extinguish a life so long embittered 
by the same foul arts — after that great Princess 
had ceased to harass her enemies (if I may be 
allowed thus to speak, applying, as they did, by 
the perversion of all language, those names to 
the victim which belong to the tormentor), after 
her glorious but unhappy life had closed, and 



that princely head was at last laid low by death, 
which, living, all oppression had only the more 
illustriously exalted — the venerable the Clergy 
of Durham, I am now told for the first time, 
though less forward in giving vent to their feel- 
ings than the rest of their fellow-citizens — though 
not so vehement in their indignation at the match- 
less and unmanly persecution of the Queen — 
though not so unbridled in their joy at her im- 
mortal triumph, nor so loud in their lamentations 
over her mournful and untimely end — did, nev- 
ertheless, in reality, all the while deeply sympa- 
thize with her sufferings in the bottom of their 
reverend hearts ! When all the resources of the 
most ingenious cruelty hurried her to a fate 
without parallel — if not so clamorous as others, 
they did not feel the least of all the members of 
the community — their grief was in truth too 
deep for utterance — son-ow clung round their 
bosoms, weighed upon their tongues, stifled ev- 
ery sound — and, when all the rest of mankind, 
of all sects and of all nations, freely gave vent to 
feelings of our common nature, their silence, 
the contrast which they displayed to the rest of 
their species, proceeded from the greater depth of 
their affliction ; they said the less, because they felt 
the more ! Oh ! talk of hypocrisy after this ! 
Most consummate of all the hypocrites ! After 
instructing your chosen, oflScial advocate to stand 
forward with such a defense — such an exposition 
of your motives — to dare utter the word '• hypoc- 
risy," and complain of those who charged you 
with it ! This is indeed to insult common sense 
and outrage the feelings of the whole human 
race ! If you were hypocrites before, you were 
downright, frank, honest hypocrites to what you 
have now made yourselves — and surely, for all 
you have ever done, or ever been charged with, 
your worst enemies must be satiated with the hu- 
miliation of this day, its just atonement, and am- 
ple retribution ! 

If Mr. Williams had known the hundredth part 
of this at the time of her Majesty's Mr. waiiams left 
demise — if he had descried the least '" ignorance or 

• 1 1 • f 1 1 ■ I 1-11 ^"^ feenngs now 

twinkhng oi the light which has now attributed to the 
broke upon us as to the real motives ^"'''*'" '^ ^'^^'• 
of their actions — I am sure this cause would nev- 
er have been tried ; because to have made any 
one of his strictures upon their conduct, would 
have been not only an act of the blackest injus- 
tice — it would have been perfectly senseless. 
But can he be blamed for his ignorance, when 
such pains were taken to keep him in the dark ? 
Can it be wondered at that he was led astray 
when he had only so false a guide to their mo- 
tives as their conduct, unexplained, afl!()rded ? 
When they were so anxious to mislead by facts 
and deeds, is his mistake to be so severely criti- 
cised ? Had he known the real truth, he must 
have fraternized with them ; embraced them 
cordially ; looked up with admiration to their 
superior sensibility ; admitted that he who feels 
most, by an eternal law of our nature, is least 
disposed to express his feelings ; and lamented 
that his own zeal was less glowing than theirs ; 
but, ignorant and misguided as he was, it is no 



902 



MR. BROUGHAM 



[1822. 



great marvel that he did not rightly know the 
real history of their conduct, until about three 
quarters of an hour ago, when the truth burst in 
upon us that all the while they were generously 
attached to the cause of weakness and misfor- 
tune ! 

Gentlemen, if the country, as well as Mr. 
Yet they ought, Williams, has been all along so de- 
tloi^tohave"'^ ceived, it must be admitted that it is 
felt iims. jjQj. fi-Q^^ tj^e probabilities of the case. 

Judging beforehand, no doubt, any one must have 
expected the Durham clergy, of all men, to feel 
exactly as they are now, for the first time, ascer- 
tained to have felt. They are Christians ; out- 
wardl}-, at least, they profess the gospel of char- 
ity and peace ; they beheld oppression in its foul- 
est shape ; malignity and all uncharitableness 
putting on their most hideous forms ; measures 
pursued to gratify prejudices in a particular quar- 
ter, in defiance of the wishes of the people and 
the declared opinions of the soundest judges of 
each party ; and all with the certain tendency to 
plunge the nation in civil discord. If for a mo- 
ment they had been led away by a dislike of 
cruelty and of civil war, to express displeasure 
at such perilous doings, no man could have 
charged them with political meddling ; and 
w^hen they beheld truth and innocence triumph 
over power, they might, as Christian ministers, 
calling to mind the original of their own Church, 
have indulged without offense in some little ap- 
pearance of gladness ; a calm, placid satisfaction 
on so happy an event would not have been un- 
becoming their sacred station. When they found 
that her sufferings were to have no end ; that 
new pains were inflicted in revenge for her es- 
cape from destruction, and new tortures devised 
to exhaust the vital powers of her whom open, 
lawless violence had failed to subdue — we might 
have expected some slight manifestation of dis- 
approval from holy men who, professing to incul- 
cate loving-kindness, tender-mercy, and good-will 
to all, offer up their daily prayers for those who 
are desolate and oppi'cssed. When at last the 
scene closed, and there was an end of that per- 
secution which death alone could stay ; but when 
not even her unhappy fate could glut the revenge 
of her enemies ; and they who had harassed her 
to death now^ exhausted their malice in reviling 
the memory of their victim ; if among them had 
been found, during her life, some miscreant un- 
der the garb of a priest, who, to pay his court to 
power, had joined in trampling upon the defense- 
less ; even such an one, bear he the form of a man, 
with a man's heart throbbing in his bosom, might 
have felt even his fawning, sordid, calculating 
malignity assuaged by the hand of death ; even 
he might have left the tomb to close upon the 
sufferings of the victim. All probability certain- 
ly favored the supposition that the clergy of Dur- 
ham would not take part against the injured be- 
cause the oppressor was powerful ; and that the 
prospect of emolument would not make them wit- 
ness with dry eyes and hardened hearts the close 
of a life which they had contributed to embitter 
and destroy. But I am compelled to say that 



their whole conduct has falsified those expecta- 
tions. They sided openly, strenuous- Butthe.rcou- 
ly, forwardly, officiously, with power, reXth.% 
in the oppression of a woman whose ''■^"^■ 
wrongs this day they, for the first time, pretend 
to bewail in their attempt to cozen you out of a 
verdict, behind which they may skulk from the 
inquiring eyes of the people. Silent and subdued 
in their tone as they were on the demise of the 
unhappy Queen, they could make every bell in 
all their chimes peal when gain was to be ex- 
pected by flattering present greatness. Then 
they could send up addresses, flock to public 
meetings, and load the press with their libels, 
and make the pulpit ring with their sycophancy, 
filling up to the brim the measure of their adula- 
tion to the reigning Monarch, Head of the Church, 
and Dispenser of its Patronage. 

In this contrast originated the defendant's feel- 
ings, and hence the strictures which Hence the 
form the subject of these proceedings, ifrirof m"?*' 
I say the publication refers exclu- ^VllIiams. 
sively to the clergy of this city and its suburbs, 
and especially to such parts of that clergy as 
were concerned in the act of disrespect toward 
her late Majesty, which foi'ms the subject of the 
alleged libel ; but I deny that it has any refer- 
ence whatever to the rest of the clergy, or 
evinces any designs hostile either to the stability 
of the Church or the general character and con- 
duct of its ministers. My learned friend has said 
that Mr. Williams had probably been bred a 
sectary, and retained sectarian prejudices. No 
argument is necessary to refute this supposition. 
The passage which has been read to you carries 
with it the conviction that he is no sectary, and 
entertains no schismatical views against the 
Church ; for there is a more severe attack upon 
the sectaries themselves than upon the clergy 
of Durham. No man can have the least hesita- 
tion in saying that the sentiments breathed in it 
are any thing but those of a sectary. For my- 
self, I am far from approving the contemptuous 
terms in which he has expressed himself of those 
who dissent from the Establishment ; and I think J 
he has not spoken of them in the tone of decent * 
respect that should be observed to so many wor- 
thy persons, who, though they differ from the 
Church, differ from it on the most conscientious 
gi-ounds. This is the only part of the publica- 
tion of which I can not entirely approve, but it 
is not for this that he is prosecuted. Then, what 
is the meaning of the obnoxious remarks ? Are 
they directed against the Establishment? Are 
they meant to shake or degrade it ? I say that 
no man who reads them can entertain a moment's 
doubt in his mind that they were ex- These strict- 
cited by the conduct of certain individ- "'■^* Y^^^ '^^' 

111 1-11 f S'S"ed, not to 

uals, and the use which he makes of injure, but to 
that particular conduct, the inference K<='tabiished 
which he draws from it, is not invec- *^''"'''-'^- 
tive against the Establishment, but a regret 
that it should by such conduct be lowered. He 
says no more than this : " These are the men 
who do the mischief; ignorant and wild fanatics 
are crowding the tabernacles, while the Church 



1822.] 



AGAINST THE DURHAM CLERGY. 



903 



is deserted," and he traces, not with exultation, 
but with sorrow, the cause of the desertion of 
the Church, and the increase of conventicles. 
" Here," says he, " I have a fact which accounts 
for the clergy sinking in the estimation of the 
communit}', and I hold up this mirror, not to ex- 
cite hostility toward the Established Church, nor 
to bring its ministers into contempt among their 
flocks, but to teach and to reclaim those partic- 
ular persons who are the disgrace and danger of 
the Establishment, instead of being, as they ought, 
its support and its ornament." He holds up to 
them that mirror in which they may see their 
own individual misconduct, and calculate its in- 
evitable effects upon the security and honor of the 
Establishment which they disgrace. This is no 
lawyer-like gloss upon the passage — no special 
pleading construction, or far-fetched refinement 
of explanation — I give the plain and obvious 
sense which every man of ordinary understand- 
ing must affix to it. If you say that such an one 
disgraces his profession, or that he is a scandal 
to the cloth he wears (a common form of speech, 
and one never more in men's mouths than within 
the last fortnight, when things have happened to 
extort an universal expression of pain, sorrow, 
and shame), do you mean by such lamentations 
to undermine the Establishment ? In saying that 
the purity of the cloth is defiled by individual 
misconduct, it is clear that you cast no imputa- 
tion on the cloth generally ; for an impure per- 
son could not contaminate a defiled cloth. Just 
so has the defendant expressed himself, and in 
this light I will put his case to you. If he had 
thought that the whole Establishment was bad ; 
that all its ministers were time-servers, who, like 
the spaniel, would crouch and lick the hand that 
fed it. but snarl and bite at one which had noth- 
ing to bestow — fawning upon rich and liberal 
patrons, and slandering all that were too proud 
, or too poor to bribe them ; if he painted the 
Ciiurch as founded upon imposture, reared in 
time-serving, cemented by sordid interest, and 
crowned with spite, and insolence, and pride — 
to have said that the Durham clergy disgraced 
such a hierarchy, would have been not only gross 
inconsistency, but stark nonsense. He must 
rather have said that they were worthy members 
of a base and groveling Establishment — that the 
Church was as bad as its ministers — and that it 
was hard to say whether they more fouled it or 
were defiled by it. But he has said nothing that 
can bring into jeopardy or discredit an institution 
which every one wishes to keep pure, and which 
has nothing to dread so much as the follies and 
crimes of its supporters. 

Gentlemen, you have to-day a great task com- 
Peroration: mittcd to your hands. This is not 
churchlslts ^^^® ^=6 — ^^^^ spirit of the times is not 
own worst en- sucli — as to make it safe, either for 

emy in seeking , r i ' 

to crush free- thc country or lor the government, 

dom of remark. ^^ ^^^ ^^^ Church itSClf, tO Vail itS 

mysteries in secrecy; to plant in the porch of 
the temple a prosecutor brandishing his flaming 
sword, the process of the law, to prevent the 
prying eyes of mankind from wandering over the 



structure. These ai-e times when men will in- 
quire, and the day most fatal to the Established 
Church, the blackest that ever dawned upon its 
ministers, will be that which consigns this de- 
fendant, for these remarks, to the horrors of a 
jail, which its false friends, the chosen objects 
of such lavish favor, have far more richly de- 
served. I agree with my learned friend, that 
the Church of England has nothing to dread from 
external violence. Built upon a rock, and lift- 
ing its head toward another world, it aspires to 
an imperishable existence, and defies any force 
that may rage from without. But let it beware 
of the corruption engendered within and beneath 
its massive walls ; and let all its well-wishers — 
all who, whether for religious or political inter- 
ests, desire its lasting stability — beware how they 
give encouragement, by giving shelter to the 
vermin bred in that corruption, who " stink and 
sting' ^ against the hand that would brush the rot- 
tenness away. My learned friend has sympa- 
thized with the priesthood, and innocently enough 
lamented that they possess not the power of de- 
fending themselves through the public press. 
Let him be consoled ; they are not so very de- 
fenseless — they are not so entirely destitute of 
the aid of the press as through him they have 
represented themselves to be. They have large- 
ly used that press (I wish I could say " as not 
abusing it"), and against some persons very near 
me — I mean especially against the defendant, 
whom they have scurrilously and foully libeled 
through that great vehicle of public instruction, 
over which, for the first time, among the other 
novelties of the day, I now hear they have con- 
trol. Not that they wound deeply or injure 
much ; but that is no fault of theirs — without 
hurting, they give trouble and discomfort. The 
insect brought into life by corruption, and nestled 
in filth, though its flight be lowly and its sting 
puny, can swarm and buzz, and irritate the skin 
and oflTend the nostril, and altogether give nearly 
as much annoyance as the wasp, whose nobler 
nature it aspires to emulate. These reverend 
slanderers — these pious backbiters — devoid of 
foi-ce to wield the svv'ord, snatch the dagger, and 
destitute of wit to point or to barb it, and make 
it rankle in the wound, steep it in venom to make 
it fester in the scratch. The much-venerated 
personages whose harmless and unprotected state 
is now deplored, have been the wholesale dealers 
in calumny, as well as largest consumers of the 
base article — the especial promoters of that vile 
traffic, of late the disgrace of the country — both 
furnishing a constant demand for the slanders by 
which the press is polluted, and prostituting 
themselves to pander for the appetites of others ; 
and now they come to demand protection from 
retaliation, and shelter from just exposure ; and, 
to screen themselves, would have you prohibit 
all scrutiny of the abuses by which they exist, 
and the malpractices by which they disgrace 
their calling. After abusing and well-nigh dis- 
mantling, for their own despicable purposes, the 
great engine of instruction, they would have you 
annihilate all that they have left of it, to secure 



904 



MR. BROUGHAxM 



[1823. 



their escape. They have the incredible assiu-- 
ance to expect that an English jury will conspire 
with them in this wicked design. They expect 
in vain ! If all existing institutions and all pub- 
lic functionaries must henceforth be sacred from 
question among the people ; if at length the free 
press of this country, and with it the freedom it- 
self, is to be destroyed — at least let not the heavy 
blow fall from your hands. Leave it to some 
profligate tyrant : leave it to a mercenary and 
effeminate Parliament — a hireling army, degrad- 
ed by the lash, and the readier instrument for 
enslaving its country ; leave it to a pampered 
House of Lords — a venal House of Commons — 
some vulgar minion, servant-of-all-work to an 
insolent court — some unprincipled soldier, un- 
known, thank God ! in our times, combining the 
talents of a usurper with the fame of a captain ; 
leave to such desperate hands, and such fit tools, 
so horrid a work ! But you, an English jury, 
parent of the press, yet supported by it, and 
doomed to perish the instant its health and 
strength are gone — lift not you against it an un- 
natural hand. Prove to us that our rights are 
safe in your keeping ; but maintain, above all 



things, the stability of our institutions, by well 
guarding their corner stone. Defend the Church 
from her worst enemies, who, to hide their owni 
misdeeds, would vail her solid foundations in 
darkness ; and proclaim to them, by your verdict 
of acquittal, that henceforward, as heretofore, all 
the recesses of the sanctuary must be visited by 
the continual light of day, and by that light its 
abuses be explored ! 



After the judge had summed up to the jury, 
they retired, and remained inclosed for above five 
hours. They then returned the following special 
verdict, viz. : " Guilty of so much of the matter 
in the first count as charges a libel upon the 
clergy residing in and near the city of Durham, 
and the suburbs thereof ; and as to the rest of the 
fix-st count, and the other counts of the informa- 
tion. Not Guilty." 

Mr. Brougham now moved for a new trial, 
and obtained one ; but the prosecutors did not 
again appear, and no judgment was therefore 
pronounced in the case. Thus Mr. Williams 
was let go free, as if he had been acquitted al- 
together by the jury. 



SPEECH 



OF MR. BROUGHAM ON THE INVASION OF SPAIN BY FRANCE, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COM- 
MONS, FEBRUARY 4, 1823. 

INTRODUCTION. 

A CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT was established in Spain by the Cortes, or states of the kingdom, in 
the year 1812, and was recognized as legitimate by England, Russia, Prussia, and other leading powers. 
After being set aside by Ferdinand VII. in 1814, it was proclaimed anew in January, 1820, by the Span- 
ish military, headed by Riego and other gallant officers, who rebelled against the tyranny of Ferdinand, 
and were sustained by a large part of the kingdom. The flame spread into Naples and Piedmont, where 
constitutional governments were also speedily established. This alarmed the Allied Powers, embracing 
Russia, Austria, Prussia, and France, who at once decreed the overthrow of the whole system. Naples 
and Piedmont were successively overrun by Austria, and the new governments destroyed. The fate of 
Spain was deferred two years longer, and was committed to France. 

Ferdinand, in the mean time, had yielded to the wishes of his people, and in March, 1820, had sworn 
to maintain the Constitution, and to administer the laws according to its provisions. But his friends, with 
his connivance, attempted, in 1822, to restore him to absolute power by an insun*ection ; and failing in 
this, they established a regency in Catalonia, near the French borders, in the name of the " imjmsoned 
King." France had before this begun to collect troops on the same borders, first under the name of a 
sanitary cordon to prevent the introduction of disease, and afterward of an array of observation. In De- 
cember, 1822, Louis XVIII. demanded of the Spanish government to restore Ferdinand to absolute pow- 
er, under penalty of an immediate invasion of the country by the French troops. Austria, Prussia, and 
Russia united in this demand, and urged it in the strongest terms. The government of Spain replied, on 
the 9th of January, 1823, in a note addressed to the different powers of Europe, repelling with indigna- 
tion this interference of the Allied Sovereigns in the internal affairs of Spain. 

Parliament met about three weeks after, February 4, 1823, and Mr. Canning, the Secretary of Foreign 
Affairs, had the same abhorrence which was felt by the nation at large for this crusade against the con- 
stitutional government of Spain. Within forty-eight hours after he came in as minister (September 18, 
1822), he had sent the Duke of Wellington to the Congress at Verona with a remonstrance against the 
proposed intervention ; and he now brought forward tbe subject in the King's speech, " His Majesty has 
declined being party to any proceedings at Verona which could be deemed an interference with the in- 
ternal concerns of Spain ; and his Majesty has since used, and continues to use, his most anxious en- 
deavors to allay the irritation subsisting between the French and Spanish governments, and to avert, if 
possible, the calamity of war between France and Spain." The ground taken by the government was 
highly gratifying to the Whigs, and Mr. Brougham expressed their sentiments in the following speech. 
It is one of the most striking specimens we have of his leading characteristics — strong argument inter- 
mingled with bold declamation, scathing invective, irony, sarcasm, and contempt. 



1823.] 



ON THE INVASION OF SPAIN BY FRANCE. 



90£ 



S P E E C H, &0. 



I rise in consequence of the appeal made to 
every member of the House by the gallant officer 
[Sir J. Yorke] who has just sat down, to declare 
Answer to my scntimcnts. I answer that appeal, 
ofUieTat'J* which docs credit to the honor, to the 
speaker. English feeling of that gallant officer ; 
and I join with him, and with every man who de- 
serves the name of Briton, in unqualified abhor- 
rence and detestation of the audacious interfer- 
ence to which he has alluded ; or, if that execra- 
tion is at all qualified, it can only be by contempt 
and disgust at the canting hypocrisy of the lan- 
guage in which the loathsome principles of the 
tyrants are promulgated to the world. I have 
risen to make this declaration, called upon as I 
am, in common with every member, but I should 
ill discharge my duty if I did not mark my sense 
of the candor of the two honorable gentlemen 
[Mr. Childs and Mr. Wildman] who have moved 
and seconded the address, and express my satis- 
faction at what, in the House, however divided 
upon other points, will be almost, and certainly 
in the country will be quite unanimously felt to 
be the sound and liberal view which they have 
taken of this great afiair. Indeed, I know not. 
Wise and lion- circumstauced as they were, that they 
takelfbrtir could go further; or even that his 
ministry. Majcsty's ministers, in the present 

state of this very delicate question, ought to have 
gone beyond the communication of to-day. That 
communicatjon, coupled with the commentary of 
the honorable mover, will be the tidings of joy, 
and the signal for exultation to England — it will 
spread gladness and exultation over Spain — will 
be a source of comfort to all other free states — 
and will bring confusion and dismay to the Allies, 
who, with a pretended respect, but a real mock- 
ery of religion and morality, make war upon lib- 
erty in the abstract ; endeavor to crush national 
independence wherever it is to be found ; and 
are now preparing, with their armed hordes, to 
carry into execution their frightful projects. 
That Spain will take comfort from the principles 
avowed in the House this evening, I am certain ; 
and I am not less clear that the handful of men 
at present surrounding the throne of our nearest 
and most interesting neighbor [Louis XVIIL] 
(who, by-the-way, has, somehow or other, been 
induced to swerve from the prudent counsels 
which had, till of late, guided his course) will feel 
astonished and dismayed with the proceedings 
of this day, in proportion as others are encour- 
aged.^ Cheering, however, as is the prevalence 
of such sentiments ; highly as they raise the char- 
acter of the nation, and much as may be augured 



1 Louis XVIII., as here intimated, was, in the 
early part of his reign, a friend of constitutional 
principles, and pursued a policy which gained him 
the support of men of liberal sentiments throughout 
his kingdom. But at the assassination of the Dake 
of Berri in 1820, his feelings became alienated, and 
the ultra- Royalists gradually gained the ascendant 
in his councils. 



from their effects, still I think no man can deny 
that the country is at present approaching to a 
crisis such as has not occurred, perhaps, for above 
a century, certainly not since the French Revo- 
lution. Whether we view the internal condition 
of the kingdom, and the severe distress which 
press upon that most important and most useful 
branch of the community, the farmers ; or east 
our eyes upon our foreign relations, our circum- 
stances must appear, to the mind of every think- 
ing man, critical and alarming. They may, it is 
true, soon wear a better aspect, and we may es- 
cape the calamities of war : bul he must be a 
bold, and possibly a rash man, certainly not a 
very thoughtful one, who can lake upon him to 
foretell that so happy a fortune shall be ours. 

It is the deep consideration of these things 
which induces me to come forward and Necessity of 
make a declaration of my principles ; femg^'reldy 
and to state that, with a strict adher- ^'"' "'•"■• 
ence to the most rigid economy in every depart- 
ment, the reduction of establishments, which I 
am at all times, if not the first, at least among 
the foremost to support, and which is so neces- 
sary in the ordinary circumstances of the coun- 
try, must now be recommended, with a certain 
modification, in order to adapt our policy to the 
present emergency. I am guilty of no incon- 
sistency whatever in thus qualifying the doctrine 
of unsparing retrenchment ; indeed, the greater 
the chance of some extraordinary demand upon 
our resources from the aspect of affairs abroad, 
the more imperious is the necessity of sparing 
every particle of expense not absolutely requi- 
site. Economy to its utmost extent I still rec- 
ommend as politic, and urge as due to the peo- 
ple of right ; and every expense is now to be re- 
garded as more inexcusable than ever, both be- 
cause the country is .suflTering more severel}^, and 
because it may become necessary soon to increase 
some parts of our establishment. I say I am 
certainly not prepared to propose, or to suflTer, 
as far as my voice goes, any the least reduction 
of our naval force, to the extent even of a single 
ship or seaman ; on the contrary, I fear the time 
may not be distant when its increase will be re- 
quired. Any such augmentation of the army I 
can not conceive to be justifiable in almost any 
circumstances ; for, happen what may, a war on 
our part, carried on with the wasteful and .scan- 
dalous profusion of the last, and upon the same 
vast scale, or any thing like it, is wholl}^ out of 
the question. 

[Mr. Brougham entered at some length into 
the internal state of the country — the indications 
of distress at the various meetings — the incon- 
sistency of the violent attacks made upon the 
Norfolk Petition by those who had passed the 
Gold Coin Bill of 1811, which enacted the parts 
of the Norfolk plan most liable to objection — the 
inadequacy of any relief to be obtained from re- 
peal of taxes that only aflfected small districts 
— the absolute necessity of repealing a large 



906 



MR. BROUGHAM 



[1833. 



amount of the taxes pressing generally on all 
classes — and for this purpose, he urged the ne- 
cessity of a saving wherever it could be effected 
with safety; and, at any rate, of giving up the 
sinking fund. He then proceeded :] 

I think, then, that if w^ar were once com- 
Hei interveu- mcnccd, wc should soou bc Compelled 
demandedles- to takc somc part in it, one way or 
haii'ofVortu- othcr, and that, for such an emergen- 
gai- cy, every shilling which can be saved 

by the most rigid economy should be reserved. 
I think our intervention in some shape will be- 
come unavoidable. We are bound, for instance, 
to assist one party, our old ally Portugal, if she 
should be attacked ; and it is not likely that she 
can remain neuter, if the present hateful con- 
spiracy against Spain shall end in open hostility.^ 
It is in this view of the question that I differ 
from the gallant officer [Sir J. Yorke] who last 
spoke, and I am glad that I could not collect 
from the honorable mover or seconder the omin- 
ous words ''strict neutrality ^''^ as applied to this 
country in the threatened contest. A state of 
declared neutrality on our part would be nothing 
less than a practical admission of those princi- 
ples which we all loudly condemn, and a license 
to the commission of all the atrocities which 
we are unanimous in deprecating. I w411 say, 
therefore, that it is the duty of his Majesty's 
ministers (with whom I should rejoice in co-op- 
erating on the occasion ; and so, I am certain, 
would every one who now hears me, waving for 
a season all differences of opinion on lesser mat- 
ters) to adopt and to announce the resolution, that 
when certain things shall take place on the Con- 
tinent, they will be ready to assist the Spaniards 
— a measure necessary to avert evils, which 
even those the least prone to war (of which 1 
avow myself one) must admit to be inevitable, 
should a wavering or pusillanimous course be 
pursued. Our assistance will be necessary to 
resist the wicked enforcement of principles con- 
trary to the law of nations, and repugnant to the 
idea of national independence. 

To judge of the principles now shamelessly 
Conduct promulgated, let any man read patient- 
ofthllfued ly, if he can, the declarations in the 
Powers. notes of Russia, Prussia, and Austria ; 
and, with all due respect to those high authori- 
ties, I will venture to say that to produce any 
thing more preposterous, more absurd, more ex- 
travagant, better calculated to excite a mingled 
feeling of disgust and derision, would baffle any 
chancery or state-paper office in Europe. I 
shall not drag the House through the whole 
nauseous details ; I will only select a few pas- 
sages, by way of sample, from those notable pro- 
ductions of legitimate genius. 

In the communication from the minister of his 
Prussian Majesty, the [Spanish] Constitution of 
1812, restored in 1820, and now established, is 
described as a system which, "confounding all 

2 The reader is already aware, from the speech 
of Mr. Canning on a preceding page, that in 1826, 
this intervention became necessary in behalf of 
Portugal. 



elements, and all power, ana assuming only the 
single principle of a permanent and (i.)Tiiegov- 
legal opposition against the govern- conT.nnedTy 
ment, necessarily destroys that cen- pov^rs^taa 
tral and tutelary authority which con- formerly rerog- 

, "^ PI nized as legiti- 

stitutes trie essence ot the monai'ch- mate. 
ical system." Thus far the King of Prussia, in 
terms which, to say the least, afforded some 
proof of the writer's knowledge of the monarch- 
ical system, and of the contrast which, in his 
opinion, it exhibited to the present government 
of Spain. The Emperor of Russia, in terms not 
less strong, calls the constitutional government 
of the Cortes, " that which the public reason of 
Europe, enlightened by the experience of all ages, 
stamps with its disapprobation;"' and complains 
of its wanting the " conservative principle of so- 
cial order." Where, in the conservative char- 
acter of keeper of the peace of Europe, does his 
Imperial Majesty discover that the Constitution 
of Spain had been stamped with the disapproba- 
tion of the public reason of Europe ? Let the 
Hou.se observe that the "public reason of Eu- 
rope, enlightened by the experience of all ages," 
happens to be that of his Imperial Majesty him- 
self for the last ten years exactly, and no more ; 
for, notwithstanding that he had the " experience 
of all ages" before his eyes, he did, in the year 
1812, enter into a treaty with Spain, with the 
.same Cortes, under the same Constitution, not 
one iota of which had been changed up to that 
very hour. In that treaty, his Imperial jNIajesty, 
the Emperor of all the Russias, speaking of the 
then government, did use the very word by which 
he and his allies would themselves be designated 
— the word, by the abuse of which they are 
known — he did call the Spanish government of 
the Cortes '' a legitimate government," that very 
government — that very Constitution — of which 
the Spaniards have not changed one word ; and 
God forbid they should change even a letter of 
it, while they have the bayonet of the foreign sol- 
dier at their breast ! I hope, if it has faults — 
and some faults it may have — that when the 
hour of undisturbed tranquillity arrives, the Span- 
iards themselves will correct them. If they will 
listen to the ardent wish of their best friends — 
of those who have marked their progress, and 
gloried in the strides they have made toward 
freedom and happiness — of those who would go 
to the world's end to serve them in their illus- 
trious struggle — of those, above all, who would 
not have them yield an hair's breadth to force 
— my counsel would be to disarm the reasona- 
ble objections of their friends, but not to give up 
any thing to the menaces of their enemies. 1 
shall not go more into detail at the present mo- 
ment ; for ample opportunities will occur of dis- 
cussing this subject ; but I will ask, in the name 
of common sense, can any thing be more absui'd, 
more inconsistent, than that Spain should now be 
repudiated as illegitimate by those, some of 
whom have, in treaties with her-, described her 
government in its present shape by the very 
term "legitimate government?" In the treaty 
of friend.ship and alliance, concluded in 1812, 



1823] 



OX THE INVASION OF SPAIN BY FRANCE. 



907 



between the Emperor of all the Russias and the 
Spanish Cortes, Ferdinand being then a close 
prisoner in France, his Imperial Majesty [of 
Russia], by the third article, acknowledges in 
express terms the Cortes, '■ and the Constitu- 
tion sanctioned and decreed by it." This arti- 
cle I cite from the collection of Treaties by Mar- 
tens, a well known Germanic, and therefore a 
laborious and accurate compiler. 

But not only is the conduct of the Allies to- 
ward Spain inconsistent with the 

(2.) Interven- • ^ n , • , 

tion forbidden trcatics 01 somc amonrj them with 



A^x-ia-cha-^ ° Spain — I will show that their prin- 
P^"^" ciple of interference, in any 



man- 



ner of way, is wholly at variance with treaties 
recently made among themselves. I will prove 
that one of the fundamental principles of a late 
treaty is decidedly opposed to any discussion 
whatever among them respecting the internal 
situation of that country. By the 4th article 
of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, November, 
1818, it is laid down that a special congress 
may be held, from time to time, on the affairs 
of Europe. Using the words, and borrowing the 
hypocritical cant of their predecessors, the same 
three powers who basely partitioned Poland — 
who, while they despoiled a helpless nation of 
its independence, kept preaching about the quiet 
of Europe, the integrity of its states, and the 
morality and happiness of their people — talking 
daily about the desire of calm repose (the at- 
mosphere, I well know, in which despotism loves 
to breathe, but which an ancient writer elo- 
quently painted, when he said that tyrants mis- 
take for peace the stillness of desolation'^) — fol- 
lowing the vile cant of their ancestors — the Al- 
lies declared, at Aix-la-Chapelle, that their ob- 
ject was to secure the ti'anquillity, the peace 
(which I, giving them credit for sincerity, read 
the desolation of Europe), and that their funda- 
mental principle should be, never to depart from 
a .strict adherence to the law of nations. " Faith- 
ful to these principles" (continued this half-ser- 
mon, half-romance, and half-state-paper), "they 
will onl}' study the happiness of their people, the 
progress of the peaceful arts, and attend care- 
fully to the interests of morality and religion, 
of late years unhappily too much neglected" — 
here, again, following the example of the Au- 
tocratrix Catharine — the spoiler of Poland — 
who, having wasted and pillaged it, province 
after province, poured in hordes of her barba- 
rians, which hewed their way to the capital 
through myriads of Poles, and there, for one 
whole day, from the rising of the sun to the going 
down thereof, butchered its unoffending inhab- 
itants, unarmed men, and women, and infants ; 
and not content with this work of undistinguish- 
ing slaughter, after the pause of the night had 
given time for cooling, rose on the morrow and 
renewed the carnage, and continued it through- 
out that endless day ; and after this, a Te Deum 
was sung, to return thanks for her success over 

3 Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant. 

Speech of Galgacus respecting the Romans, in 
Tacitus' Life of Agricola, cap. 30. 



the enemies^ that is, the natives of Poland. That 
mild and gentle Sovereign, in the midst of these 
most horrible outrages upon every feeling of 
human nature, issued a proclamation, in which 
she assured the Poles (I mean to give her very 
words) that she felt toward them " the solicitude 
of a tender mother, whose heart is oidy filled 
with sentiments of kindness for all her children." 
Who can, or who dares doubt that she was all 
she described herself; and who can, after the 
experience of the la.st year, dispute the legiti- 
mate descent of the allied powers, and the puri- 
ty of their intentions toward Spain ? But along 
with this declaration of the object of future con- 
gresses, came the article which I should like to 
see some German statist — some man versed in 
the manufacture of state papers — compare with, 
and reconcile (if it only may be done within a 
moderate compass) to the notes fashioned at 
Verona, not unlikely by the very hands which 
produced the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. The 
article is this : " Special congresses concerning 
the affairs of states not parties to this alliance, 
shall not take place, except" (and here I .should 
like to know how Spain, which was no party to 
the alliance, has brought herself within the ex- 
ception) — '• except in consequence of a formal in- 
vitation from such states ;''' "and their embas- 
sadors shall assist at such congresses." How 
will any German commentator reconcile these 
contradictions ? Here the interference in the 
internal affairs of Spain is not only not "by spe- 
cial invitation" from, but is in downright oppo- 
sition to, the wnll of Spain. Thus stands the con- 
duct of those Holy Allies diametrically opposed to 
their own professions and engagements, and by 
such means is the attempt now made to crush 
the independence of a brave people. 

But it is not in the case of Spain alone that the 
consideration of these papers is import- , ^^^^ ^^^ 
ant — they furnish grounds of rational ^on^ whi<^i> 

» ',-,.■, , liave been 

lear to all mdependent governments ; given forthis 
for I should be glad to learn what case '"^^'^^^°'^'°"' 
it is (upon the doctrines now advanced) to which 
this principle of interference may not be extend- 
ed ? or what Constitution or what act of state it 
is on which the authority to comment, criticise, 
and dictate may not be assumed '? The House 
is not aware of the latitude to which the inter- 
ference of those armed legi-slators may be, nay, 
actually is extended. The revolt of the colonies 
is distinctly stated as one ground of interposi- 
tion ! The allies kindly offer their "interven- 
tion" to restore this great branch of " the strength 
of Spain." There is no end of the occasions 
for interfering which they take. One is rather 
alarming — the accident of a sovei-eign having 
weak or bad mini.sters. Russia, forsooth, was 
anxious to see Ferdinand surrounded with " the 
most enlightened — most faithful of his subjects" 
— men " of tried integrity and superior talents" 
— men, in a word, who should be every way 
worthy of himself. So that, accord- , . „, 

-' , . r-TT / 1 ^"* The extent 

mg to these wise men of Verona (and oftbeir ajipii- 

this is a consideration which should 

be looked to in some other countries as well as 



908 



MR. BROUGHAM 



[1823. 



Spain), the existence of an inefBcient or unprin- 
cipled administration, would be of itself a just 
ground of interference. The principle does not 
stop here. "Ruinous loans" form another 
ground, and "contributions unceasingly renew- 
ed;" "taxes which, for year after year, ex- 
hausted the public treasures and the fortunes of 
individuals" — these are instances in which the 
principle of interference may apply to other 
powers besides Spain ; and I have no doubt that 
when the same doctrines are extended to certain 
countries, the preparatory manifesto will make 
mention of agricultural distress, financial em- 
barrassment, and the sinking fund. But, to com- 
plete all the charges against Spain, the Russian 
Emperor finishes his invective with the awful 
assertion that, on the 7th of July, " blood was 
seen to flow in the palace of the King, and a 
civil war raged throughout the Peninsula." It 
is true that a revolt had been excited in some 
of the provinces. But by whom? Anally. It 
was produced by those cordons of troops which 
were posted [by France] on the Spanish frontier, 
armed with gold and with steel, and affording 
shelter and assistance by force, to those in whose 
minds disaffection had been excited by bribery. 
It is also true that blood has been shed. But 
would it not be supposed, by any person unac- 
quainted with the fact, and who only read the 
statement in the manifesto, that this was blood 
shed in an attempt to dethrone Ferdinand, and 
introduce some new and unheard of form of gov- 
ernment ? At any rate, does not this statement 
plainly intend it to be supposed that the Constitu- 
tional party had made the onset, and shed royal- 
ist, if not royal blood ? But what is the fact ? 
A few persons were killed who had first attacked 
the Constitutionalists, in other words, mutinied 
against the established government — the gov- 
ernment which the Emperor Alexander himself 
recognized as legitimate in 1812; and this he 
has now the audacity to call the shedding of 
blood by Spaniards in the palace of the King ! 
As well might he accuse the People, the Parlia- 
ment, and the Crown of England of causing 
"blood to flow in the palace of the King," for 
ordering their sentinels to fire on some person 
whom they found attempting to assassinate the 
Sovereign, as accuse the Spaniards of such a 
crime, for the events which happened in July, 
1822. 

I shall pass over many other heavy charges 
(b) Some of Icvclcd at the Spaniards, in phrases of 
tou^and^m- terrible import — as harboring a " dis- 
Buiting. organized philosophy," "indulging in 
dreams of fallacious liberty," and the want of 
"venerable and sacred rights," with which the 
Prussian note is loaded to repletion ; and shall 
proceed to the Russian, which objects to the 
Spaniards their want of the "true conservative 
principle of social order" — or, in other words, 
of despotic power, in the hands of one man, 
for his own benefit, at the expense of all man- 
kind besides; and to their not falling within the 
scope of those " grand truths," which, though 
they were ever in ♦.heir mouths, were nowhere 



explained by any one of the three sovereigns. 
The Austrian note discourses largely of "the 
solid and venerable claims" which the Spanish 
nation has upon the rest of Europe; prays it to 
adopt a better form of government than it has at 
present ; and calls upon it to reject a system 
which is at once " powerful and paralyzed." It 
would be di.sgusting to enter at any length into 
papers at once so despicable in their execution, 
and in their plan so abominably iniquitous. 
There is but one sentiment held regarding them 
out of the House ; and my excuse for taking no- 
tice of them now, is my desire to call forth a 
similar expression of feeling from the House it- 
self. Monstrous, and insolent, and utterly un- 
bearable, as all of them are, I consider that of 
Russia to be more monstrous, more insolent, and 
more prodigiously beyond all^endurance than the 
rest. It is difficult to determine which most to 
admire, the marvelous incongruity of her lan- 
guage and conduct now, with her former most 
solemn treaties, or the incredible presumption 
of her standing forward to lead the. aggression 
upon the independence of all free and polished 
states. Gracious God ! Russia ! Russia ! a 
power that is only half civilized — which, with 
all her colossal mass of physical strength, is still 
quite as much Asiatic as European — whose prin- 
ciples of policy, foreign and domestic, are com- 
pletely despotic, and whose practices are almost 
altogether Oriental and barbarous ! In all these 
precious documents there is, with a mighty num- 
ber of general remarks, mixed up a wondrous 
affectation of honest principles — a great many 
words covering ideas that are not altogether clear 
and intelligible; or, if they happen to be so, only 
placing their own deformity in a more hideous 
and detestable light ; but, for argument, or any 
thing like it, there is none to be found from the 
beginning to the end of them. They reason not. 
but speak one plain language to Spain and to 
Europe, and this is its sum and substance : " We 
have hundreds of thousands of hired mercenaries, 
and we will not stoop to reason with those whom 
we would insult and enslave." 

I admire the equal frankness with which this 
haughty lantTuajre had been met by , , ^, , 

n J !- o J (0) The reply 

the Spanish government : the papers c.rspain an ad- 

,.,.,,, iPi !• 1 niirable one. 

which it had sent forth are plain and 
laconic ; and borrowing for liberty, the ancient 
privilege of tyrants — to let their will stand in the 
place of argument — they bluntly speak this lan- 
guage : " We are millions of freemen, and will 
not stoop to reason with those who threaten to 
enslave us." They hurl back the menace upon 
the head from which it issued, little caring wheth- 
er it came from Goth, or Hun, or Calmuc ; with 
a frankness that outwitted the craft of the Bohe- 
mian, and a spirit that defied the ferocity of the 
Tartar, and a firmness that mocks the obstinacy 
of the Vandal. If they find leagued against them 
the tyrants by whom the world is infested, they 
may console themselves with this reflection, that 
wherever there is an Englishman, either of the 
Old World or of the New — wherever there is a 
Frenchman, with the miserable exception of that 



1823.] 



ON THE INVASION OF SPAIN BY FRANCE. 



909 



little band which now, for a moment, sways the 
destinies of France in opposition to the wishes 
and interests of its gallant and liberal people — 
a people which, after enduring the miseries of 
the Revolution, and wading through its long and 
bloody wars, are entitled, Heaven knows, if ever 
any people were, to a long enjoyment of peace 
and liberty, so dearly and so honorably pur- 
chased — wherever there breathes an English- 
man or a true-born Frenchman — wherever there 
beats a free heart or exists a virtuous mind, there 
Spain has a natural ally, and an inalienable friend. 
For my own part, I can not but admire the 
(d) Retort mixture of firmness and forbearance 
^giitha%'i" which the government of Spain has 
Cs^'^Ttbeir exhibited. When the Allied Mon- 
own conduct, archs Were pleased to adopt a system 
of interference with the internal policy of Spain 
— when they thought fit to deal in minute and 
paltry criticisms upon the whole course of its do- 
mestic administration — when each sentence in 
their manifestoes was a direct personal insult to 
the government, nay to every individual Span- 
iard — and when the most glaring attempts were 
made in all their state papers to excite I'ebellion 
in the country, and to stir up one class of the 
community against the other — it would not have 
surprised me if, in the replies of the Spanish gov- 
ernment, some allusion had been made to the do- 
mestic policy of the Allied Sovereigns ; or if some 
of the allegations which had been so lavishly cast 
upon it, had been scornfully retorted upon those 
who had so falsely and so insolently called them 
forth. What could have been more pardonable, 
Pru«s • "^'^'' "^^'^^^ more natural, than for the Span- 
ish government to have besought his Prus- 
sian Majesty, w^ho was so extremely anxious for 
the welfare and good government of Spain — who 
had shown himself so minute a critic on its laws 
and institutions, and who seemed so well versed 
in its recent history — to remember the promises 
which he had made some years ago to his own 
people, by whose gallant exertions, on the faith 
of those promises, he had regained his lost crown ? 
What would have been more natural than to have 
suggested that it would be better, ay, and safer 
too in the end, to keep those promises, than to 
maintain, at his people's cost, and almost to their 
ruin, a prodigious armj^, only safely employed 
when in the act of ravaging the territories or 
putting down the liberties of his neighbors ? The 
government of Spain would have had a right to 
make such representations, for his Prussian INIaj- 
esty owed much, very much, to its exertions ; 
indeed, the gallant I'csistance which it made to 
the invasion of Bonaparte had alone enabled 
Prussia to shake off the yoke ; while, on the other 
hand, the Spaniards owed a debt of gratitude to 
the brave and honest people of Prussia for begin- 
ning the resistance to Bonaparte in the north. 
Could any thing, I will also ask, have been more 
natural for the Spanish government, than 

Austria. ■* " ' 

to have asked the Emperor of Austria 
whether he who now pretended to be so scrupu- 
lously fond of strict justice in Ferdinand's case, 
when it cost him nothing, or must prove a gain. 



had always acted with equal justice toward oth- 
ers when he was himself concerned ? Could any 
thing have been more natural than suggesting to 
him that, before he was generous to King Ferdi- 
nand, he might as well be just to King George ; 
that he had better not rob the one to pay the oth- 
er — nay, that he ought to return him the v/hole, 
or, at any rate, some part of the millions, prin- 
cipal and interest, which he owed him ? a debt 
which, remaining unpaid, wastes the resources 
of a faithful ally of Spain, and tends mightily to 
cripple his exertions in her behalf. I wish like- 
wise to know what could have been more natu- 
ral — nay, if the doctrine of interference in the 
internal concerns of neighboring nations be at all 
admitted — what could have been more rightful, 
in a free people, than to have asked him how it 
happened that his dungeons were filled wnth all 
that was noble, and accomplished, and virtuous, 
and patriotic in the Milanese ? to have called on 
him to account for the innocent blood which he 
had shed in the north of Italy ? to have required 
at his hands satisfaction for the tortures inflicted 
in the vaults and caverns where the flower of his 
Italian subjects were now languishing ? to have 
demanded of him some explanation of that iron 
policy which has consigned fathers of families 
the most virtuous and exalted in Europe, not to 
the relief of exile or death, but to a merciless 
imprisonment for ten, fifteen, and twenty years, 
nay, even for life, without a knowledge of the 
charge against them, or the crime for which they 
are punished ? Even the Emperor Alexander 
himself, tender and sensitive as he is at . 
the sight of blood flowing within the pre- 
cincts of a royal palace — a sight so monstrous 
that, if his language could be credited, it had 
never before been seen in the history of the world 
— might have been reminded of passages in that 
history calculated to lessen his astonishment at 
least, if not to soothe his feelings ; for the Em- 
peror Alexander, if the annals of Russian story 
may be trusted, however pure in himself, and 
however happy in always having agents equally 
innocent, is nevertheless descended from an il- 
lustrious line of ancestors, who have, with ex- 
emplary uniformity, dethroned, imprisoned, and 
slaughtered husbands, brothers, and children. 
Not that I can dream of imputing those enormi- 
ties to the parents, or sistei's, or consorts ; but it 
does happen that those exalted and near relations 
had never failed to reap the whole benefit of the 
atrocities, and had ever failed to bring the per- 
petrators to justice.* In these circumstances, if 
I had had the honor of being in the confidence 
of his Majesty of all the Russias, I should have 
been the last person in the w-orld to counsel my 



* Paul I., father of the Emperor Alexander, was 
murdered by conspirators in his own palace, on the 
11th of March, 1801. No one supposes that Alex- 
ander was personally concerned in the plot, though 
he succeeded to the government. But in no part of 
Europe have assassinations been so common in the 
royal line as in Russia, and there is singular force 
in the manner in which Mr. Brougham dwells on 
this topic. 



910 



MR. BROUGHAM 



[1823. 



Imperial Master to touch upon so tender a topic 
— I should humbly have besought him to think 
twice or thrice, na}'^, even a third and a fourth 
time, before he ventured to allude to so delicate 
a subject — I should, with all imaginable defer- 
ence, have requested him to meddle with any- 
other topic — I should have directed him by pref- 
erence to every other point of the compass — I 
should have implored him rather to try what he 
could say about Turkey, or Greece, or even Mi- 
norca, on which he has of late been casting many 
an amorous glance — in short, any thing and 
every thing, before he approached the subject of 
" blood flowing within the precincts of a royal 
palace," and placed his allusion to it, like an art- 
ful rhetorician, upon the uppermost step of his 
climax. 

I find, likewise, in these self-same documents, 
(e) Retorts a topic for which the Spanish gov- 

whicli m' " 



have been given cmment, had it been so inclined, 

as to their Ian- j^yiight have administered to the Holy 

Alliance another severe lecture. I 



guage about 
Bonaparte. 



allude to the glib manner in which the three 
Potentates now talk of an individual who, let his 
failings or even his crimes be what they may, 
must always be regarded as a great and a re- 
splendent character — w^ho, because he was now 
no longer either upon a throne or at liberty, or 
even in life, is described by them, not merely as 
an ambitious ruler, not merely as an arbitrary 
tyrant, but as an upstart and an usurper. This 
is not the language which those Potentates for- 
merly employed, nor is it the language which 
they were now entitled to use regarding this 
astonishing individual. Whatever epithets En- 
gland, for instance, or Spain, may have a right 
to apply to his conduct, the mouths of the Allies, 
at least, are stopped : they can have no right to 
call him usurper — they who, in his usurpations, 
had been either most greedy accomplices or most 
willing tools. What entitles the King of Prussia 
to hold such language now? he who followed 
his fortunes with the most shameless subservien- 
cy, after the thorough beating he received from 
him, when trampled upon and trodden down in 
the year 1806 ? Before he had risen again and 
recovered the upright attitude of a man, he fell 
upon his knees, and still crouching before him 
who had made him crawl in the dust, kissed the 
blood-stained hand of Napoleon for leave to keep 
his Britannic Majesty's foreign dominions, the 
Electorate of Hanover, which the Prussian had 
snatched hold of while at peace with England. 
So the Emperor Alexander, after he had also 
undergone the like previous ceremony, did not 
disdain to lick up the crumbs which fell from the 
table of his more successful rival in usurpation. 
Little, it is true, was left by the edge of Gallic 
appetite ; but rather than have nothing — rather 
than desert the true Russian principle of getting 
something on every occasion, cither in Europe 
or in Asia (and of late years they have even 
laid claim to an almost indefinite naval dominion 
in America) — rather than forego the Calmuc 
policy for the last century and a half, of always 
addinii somethinof. be it ever so little, to what 



was already acquired, be it ever so great — he 
condescended to receive from the hand of Bona- 
parte a few square leagues of territory, with an 
additional population of some two or three thou- 
sand serfs. The object was trifling indeed, but 
it served to keep alive the principle. The ten- 
der heart of the father, overflowing, as his im- 
perial grandmother had phrased it, with the milk 
of human kindness for all his children, could not 
be satisfied without receiving a further addition 
to their numbers ; and theretbre it is not surpris- 
ing that, on the next occasion, he should be ready 
to seize, in more effectual exemplification of the 
principle, a share of the booty large in propor- 
tion as his former one had been small. The 
Emperor of Austria, too, who had entered be- 
fore the others into the race for plunder, and 
never weary in ill doing, had continued in it till 
the very end — he who, if not an accomplice with 
the Jacobins of France in the spoliation of Ven- 
ice, was at least a receiver of the stolen proper- 
ty — a felony, of which it was well said at the 
time in the House, that the receiver was as bad 
as the thief — that magnanimous Prince, who, 
after twenty years alternation of truckling and 
vaporing — now the feeble enemy of Bonaparte, 
now his willing accomplice — constantly punished 
for his resistance by the discipline invariably ap- 
plied to those mighty Princes in the tenderest 
places, their capitals, from which they were suc- 
cessively driven — as constantly, after punish- 
ment, joining the persecutor, like the rest of 
them, in attacking and plundering his allies — 
ended by craving the honor of giving Bonaparte 
his favorite daughter in marriage. Nay, after 
the genius of Bonaparte had fallen under the still 
more powerful restlessness of his ambition — 
when the star of his destiny had waned, and the 
fortune of the Allies was triumphant, through 
the roused energies of their gallant people, the 
severity of the elements, his own turbulent pas- 
sions and that without which the storms of pop- 
ular ferment, and Russian winter, and his own 
ambition would have raged in vain, the aid of 
English arms, and skill, and gallantry — strange 
to tell, these vei'y men were the first to imitate 
that policy against which they had inveighed 
and struggled, and to carry it further than the 
enemy himself in all its most detestable points. 
I maintain that it is so ; for not even by his bit- 
terest slanderers was Bonaparte ever accused of 
actions so atrocious as was the spoliation of Nor- 
way, the partition of Saxony, the transfer of Ge- 
noa, and the cession of Ragusa, perpetrated by 
those in whose mouths no sound had been heard 
for years but that of lamentation over the French 
attacks upon national independence* It is too 
much, after such deeds as these — it is too much 
after the Allies had submitted to a long course 
of crouching before Bonaparte, accompanied by 



5 The annexation of Norway to Sweden, of Genoa 
to Sardinia, and other arrangements of territory 
made by the Allied Powers after the dethronement 
of Bonaparte, excited general indignation througii- 
out the free countsies of Europe. 



1823.] 



ON THE INVASION OF SPAIN BY FRANCE. 



911 



every aggravation of disgrace — it is too much for 
them now to come forth and cakimniate his mem- 
orj' for transactions in the benefits of which they 
participated at the time, as his accomplices, and 
the infamy of which they have since surpassed 
with the usual exaggeration of imitators. I re- 
joice that the Spaniards have only such men as 
these to contend with. I know that there are 
fearful odds when battalions are arrayed against 
principles. I may feel solicitous about the issue 
of such a contest. But it is some consolation to 
reflect that those embodied hosts are not aided 
by the merits of their chiefs, and that all the 
weight of character is happily on one side. 

It gives me, how^ever, some pain to find that 
(f) Reasons a monarch so enlightened as the King 
andTegreuhat of France has shown himself on va- 
Siou'iV^^ou^e rious occasions, should have yielded 
this cause. obcdience, even for an instant, to the 
arbitrary mandates of this tyrannic junto. I 
tru.st that it will only prove a temporary ab- 
erration from the sounder principles on which 
he has hitherto acted ; I hope that the men 
who appear to have gained his confidence only 
to abuse it, will soon be dismissed from his coun- 
cils ; or if not, that the voice of the country, 
whose interests they are sacrificing to their 
wretched personal views, and whose rising lib- 
erties they seem anxious to destroy, in gratifi- 
cation of their hatred and bigotry, will compel 
them to pursue a more manly and more liberal 
policy. Indeed, the King of France has been 
persuaded, by the parasites who at present sur- 
round him, to go even beyond the principles of 
the Holy Alliance. He has been induced to tell 
the world that it is from the hands of a tyrant 
alone that a free people can hold a Constitution. 
That accomplished Prince — and all Europe ac- 
knowledges him to be, among other things, a 
finished scholar — can not but be aware that the 
wise and good men of former times held far oth- 
er opinions upon this subject ; and if I venture 
to remind him of a passage in a recently recov- 
ered work of the greatest philosopher of the an- 
cient w^orld, it is in the sincere hope that his 
Majesty will consider it with all the attention 
that is due to such high authority. That great 
man said, " Non in ulla civitate, nisi in qua sum- 
ma potestas populi est, ullum domiciliura liber- 
tas habet.''^ I recommend to his most Christian 
Majesty the reflection that this lesson came not 
only from the wisdom of so great a philosopher, 
but also from the experience of so great a states- 
man. I would have him remember that, like 
himself, he lived in times of great difficulty and 
of great dangei- — that he had to contend with 
the most formidable conspiracy to which the life, 
property, and liberty of the citizen had ever been 
exposed — ^that, to defeat it, he had recourse only 
to the powders of the Constitution — thi'ew himself 

^ Never has liberty had a home, except in a coun- 
try where the power was ia the hands of the peo- 
ple. The words are from the treatise of Cicero, De 
Republica, a considerable part of which was for the 
first time brought to lidit by Maio, and given to the 
world in the year 1822. 



on the good-will of his patriotic countrymen — and 
only put forth the powers of his own genius, and 
only used the wholesome vigor of the law. He 
never thought of calling to his assistance the 
Allobroges, or the Teutones, or the Scythians of 
his day ; and I now say that if Louis XVIII. 
shall call upon the modern Teutones or Scythi- 
ans to assist him in this unholy war. the day 
their hordes move toward the Rhine, judgment 
will go forth acrainst him, and his family, and 
his counselors ; and the dynasty of Gaul has 
ceased to reign. 

What, I ask, are the grounds on which the 
necessity of this war is defended? (4.) The real 
It is said to be undertaken because suuction'cff'^^ 
an insurrection has broken out with [io.'is'"f,rou^h- 
success at Madrid. I deny this to be out Europe, 
the fact. What is called an insurrection, was 
an attempt to restore the lawful Constitution of 
the country — a Constitution which was its es- 
tablished government, till Ferdinand overthrew 
it by means of a mutiny in the army ; and, there- 
fore, when a military movement enabled the 
friends of liberty to recover wiiat they had lost, 
it is a gross perversion of language to call this 
recovery, this restoration, by the name of insur- 
rection — an insidious confusion of terms, w^hich 
can only be intended to blind the reason, or play 
upon the prejudices of the honest part of man- 
kind. Let the pretext, however, for the war be 
what it may, the real cause of it is not hard to 
conjecture. It is not from hatred to Spain or to 
Portugal that the Allied Sovereigns are for 
marchinsf their sw'ai'ms of barbarians into the 
Peninsula — it is not against freedom on the Ebro, 
or freedom on the Mincio, they make war. No, 
it is agSimst freedom ! — against freedom where- 
ever it is to be found — freedom by whomsoever 
enjoyed — freedom by w^hatever means achieved, 
by whatever institutions secured. Freedom is 
the object of their implacable hate. For its de- 
struction they are ready to exhaust every re- 
source of force and fraud. All the blessings 
which it bestow\s — all the establishments in 
which it is embodied, the monuments that are 
raised to it, and the miracles that are wrought 
by it — they hate with the malignity of demons, 
who tremble while they are compelied to adore ; 
for they quiver by instinct at the sound of its 
name. And let us not deceive ourselves ; these 
despots can have but little liking toward this na- 
tion and its in.stitutions, more especially our Par- 
liament and our press. As long as England re- 
mains unenslaved ; as long as the Parliament con- 
tinues a free and open tribimal, to which the op- 
pressed of all nations under heaven can appeal 
against their oppressors, however mighty and 
exalted — and with all its abuses (and no man 
can lament them more than I do, because no 
man is more sensible of its intrinsic value, which 
those abuses diminish), with all its imperfections 
(and no man can be more anxious to remove 
them, because none washes more heartily, by re- 
storing its original purity, to make it entirely 
worthy of the country's love) — it is still far too 
pure and too free to please the taste of the con- 



912 



MR. BROUGHAM 



[1823. 



tinental despots — so long would England be the 
object of their hatred, and of machinations, 
sometimes carried on covertly, sometimes open- 
ly, but always pursued with the same unremit- 
ting activity, and pointed to the same end. 

But it is not free states alone that have to 
and the &g- dread this system of interference ; this 
grandizeraent plan of marchinfj armies to improve 

of Russia at ^ ,• • i "v.- p f ■ 

the expense tlic political coiiditiou ot loreigu na- 
"'^^^' tions. It is idle to suppose that those 
armed critics will confine their objections to the 
internal policy of popular governments. Can 
any one imagine that, if there be a portion of 
territory in the neighborhood of the Emperor 
Alexander peculiarly suited to his views, he will 
not soon be able to discover some fault, to spy 
out some flaw in its political institutions requir- 
ing his intervention, however little these may 
savor of democracy, supposing it even to be a 
part of the Ottoman government itself? If his 
Imperial Majesty be present in council with his 
consistory of jurists and diplomatists, I believe 
that it will be in vain for the Ulemah to send a 
deputation of learned Muftis, for the purpose of 
vindicating the Turkish institutions. These 
sages of the law may contend that the Ottoman 
government is of the most " venerable descrip- 
tion" — that it has " antiquity in its favor" — that 
it is in full possession of " the conservative prin- 
ciple of social order" in its purest form — that it 
is replete with " grand truths ;" a system "pow- 
erful and paralyzed" — that it has never lent an 
ear to the doctrines of a " disorganized philoso- 
phy" — never indulged in "vain theories," nor 
been visited by such things as " dreams of falla- 
cious liberty." All this the learned and rever- 
end deputies of the Ulemah may urge, and may 
maintain to be true as holy Koran ; still " The 
Three Gentlemen of Verona," I fear, will turn 
a deaf ear to the argument, and set about pry- 
ing for some imperfection in the " pure and ven- 
erable system" — some avenue by which to enter 
the territory : and, if they can not find a way, 
will probably not be very scrupulous about mak- 
ing one. The windings of the path may be hard 
to trace, but the result of the operation will be 
plain enough. In about three months from the 
time of deliberation, the Emperor Alexander 
M^ill be found one morning at Constantinople — 
or, if it suit him, at Minorca — for he has long 
shown a desire to have some footing in what he 
pleasantly termed the "western provinces" of 
Europe, which, in the jNIuscovite tongue, signi- 
fies the petty territories of France and Spain, 
while Austria and Prussia will be invited to look 
for an indemnity elsewhere ; the latter, as for- 
merly, taking whatever the King of England 
may have on the Continent. The principles on 
which this band of confederated despots have 
shown their readiness to act are dangerous in 
the extreme, not only to free states (and to those 
to which no liberty can be imputed), but also to 
the states over which the very members of this 
unholy league preside. 

Resistance to them is a matter of duty to all 
nations, and the duty of this country is especially 



plain. It behooves us, however, to take care 
that we rush not blindly into a war. peroratio.. .• 
An appeal to arms is the last al- i^"'.v"fEn- 

*■ * gland lo be pre- 

ternative we should try, but still it v^^^'^ f<"- "^ar. 
ought never to be so foreign to our thouf^hts as 
to be deemed very distant, much less impossible; 
or so foreign from our councils as to leave us 
unprepared. Already, if there is any force in 
language, or any validity in public engagements, 
we are committed by the defensive treaties into 
which we have entered. We are bound by va- 
rious ties to prevent Portugal from being overrun 
by an enemy. If (which Heaven avert !) Spain 
were overrun by foreign invaders, what would 
be the situation of Portugal ? Her frontier on 
the side of Spain can scarcely be said to have 
an existence ; there is no defending it any where ; 
and it is in many places a mere imaginary' line, 
that can only be traced on the page of the ge- 
ographer ; her real frontier is in the Pyrenees ; 
her real defense is in their fastnesses and in the 
defense of Spain ; whenever those passes are 
crossed, the danger which has reached Spain 
will hang over Portugal. If we acknowledge 
the force of treaties, and really mean that to be 
performed for which we engaged, though we 
may not be bound to send an army of observa- 
tion to watch the motions of the French by land, 
because that would be far from the surest way 
of providing for the integrity of our ally, at least 
we are bound to send a naval armament ; to aid 
with arms and stores ; to have at all times the 
earliest information ; and to be ready at any 
moment to give effectual assistance to our an- 
cient ally. Above all things, we ought to do 
that which of itself will be a powerful British 
armament by sea and by land — repeal without 
delay the Foreign Enlistment Bill — a measure 
which, in my opinion, we ought never to have 
enacted, for it does little credit to us either in 
policy or justice. I will not. however, look 
backward to measures on the nature of which 
all may not agree ; I will much rather look for- 
ward, to avoid every matter of vituperation, re- 
serving all blame for the foreign tyrants whose 
profligate conduct makes this nation hate them 
with one heart and soul, and my co-operation for 
any faithful servant of the Crown, who shall, in 
performing his duty to his country, to freedom, 
and to the world, speak a language that is truly 
British — pursue a policy that is truly free — and 
look to free states as our best and most natural 
allies against all enemies whatsoever : allies upon 
principle, but whose friendship was also closely 
connected with our highest interests; quarreling 
with none, whatever may be the form of their 
government, for that would be copying the faults 
we condemn ; keeping pace wherever we could, 
but not leaving ourselves a moment unprepared 
for war ; not courting hostilities from any quar- 
ter, but not fearing the issue, and calmly resolved 
to brave it at all hazards, should it involve us in 
the aflTray with them all ; determined to main- 
tain, amid every sacrifice, the honor and dignity 
of the Crown, the independence of the country, 
the ancient law of nations, the supremacy of all 



1823.] 



ON THE INVASION OF SPAIN BY FRANCE. 



913 



separate states ; all those principles which are 
cherished as most precious and most sacred by 
the whole civilized world. 



The views of England were wholly disregard- 
ed by the Allied Sovereigns, and on the 9th of 
April, 1823, the French army of nearly one 
hundred thousand men, under the Duke of An- 
gouleme, entered the Spanish territory. They 
were received with open arms by the priests 
and the lower classes of the people, and after 
some severe conflicts forced their way to Cadiz 
within six months, October 4th, 1823. The En- 
glish having no treaty with Spain which laid the 
foundation of their interposing to assist her, re- 
mained neutral, prepared instantly to strike if 
Portugal should be attacked. Ferdinand was 
invested with absolute power ; and in direct vio- 
lation of the terms of capitulation, a persecuting 
and vindictive policy was adopted toward the 
partisans of the constitutional government. Ri- 
ego was executed at Madrid, November 6th, and 
great cruelty exercised toward his leading as- 
sociates. Portuguese absolutists now put forth 
every efTort in their power, conjointly with Fer- 
dinand, to break down the constitutional govern- 
ment of Portugal, and in 1826 that country was 
invaded from Spain. The result has been al- 
ready stated in connection with Mr. Canning's 
speech on this subject. The insurrection was 
put down within tw^o months, and Ferdinand, 
fearing an invasion from England, was driven 
from his favorite design. 

The student in oratory will be interested, in 
connection with this speech, to read that of Mr. 
Webster on the Greek revolution, delivered in 
the House of Representatives of the United 
States, on the 1 9th of January, 1824. In the for- 
mer part of this speech, the reader will find the 
subject of "Intervention" discussed not merely 
in the spirit of just invective against those con- 
cerned, but of searching analysis into its grounds 
and its consequences. He will find himself in 
communion with a mind of a much higher order 
than that of Lord Brougham — richer in its com- 
binations, wider in its reach, more elevated in sen- 
timent, more self-possessed in its loftiest flights 
of eloquence. Mr. Webster concludes this part 
of his subject in a passage which, though often 
quoted, may be given with peculiar propriety in 
this place, not only for the views which it pre- 
sents of the remedy for these interventions, but 
for its prophetic intimations of the fate of the 
Duke of Augoulcme and of the Bourbon race. 

" It may, in the next place, be asked, perhaps, 
supposing all this to be true, what can we do ? 
Are we to go to w^ar? Are we to interfere in 
the Greek cause, or any other European cause ? 
Are w^e to endanger our pacific relations ? No, 
certainly not. What, then, the question recurs, 
remains for us? If we will not endanger our 
own peace ; if we wall neither furnish armies 
nor navies to the cause which we think the just 
one, what is there within our power ? 

" Sir, this reasoning mistakes the age. The 
time has been, indeed, when fleets, and armies, 

M M M 



and subsidies were the principal reliances even 
in the best cause. But, happily for mankind, 
there has arrived a great change in this respect. 
Moral causes come into consideration, in propor- 
tion as the progress of knowledge is advanced ; 
and the public opinion of the civilized world is 
rapidly gaining an ascendency over mere brutal 
force. It is already able to oppose the most 
formidable obstruction to the progress of injus- 
tice and oppression ; and, as it grows more in- 
telligent and more intense, it will be more and 
more formidable. It may be silenced by mili- 
tary power, but it can not be conquered. It 
is elastic, irrepressible, and invulnerable to the 
w^eapons of ordinary w^arfare. It is that impas- 
sable, unextinguishable enemy of mere violence 
and arbitrary rule which, like Milton's angels, 
"Vital in every part, 
Can not, but by annihilating, die." 

" Until this be propitiated or satisfied, it is 
vain for powder to talk either of triumphs or of 
repose. No matter what fields are desolated, 
what fortresses surrendered, what armies sub- 
dued, or what provinces overrun. In the his- 
tory of the year that has passed by us, and in 
the instance of unhappy Spain, we have seen the 
vanity of all triumphs, in a cause w^hich violates 
the general sense of justice of the civilized 
world. It is nothing that the troops of France 
have passed from the Pyrenees to Cadiz ; it is 
nothing that an unhappy and prostrate nation has 
fallen before them ; it is nothing that arrests, 
and confiscation, and execution sweep away the 
little remnant of national resistance. There is 
an enemy that still exists to check the glory of 
these triumphs. It follow^s the conqueror back 
to the very scene of his ovations ; it calls upon 
him to take notice that Europe, though silent, is 
yet indignant ; it shows him that the scepter of 
his victory is a barren scepter ; that it shall con- 
fer neither joy nor honor, but shall molder to dry 
ashes in his grasp. In the midst of his exulta- 
tion it pierces his ear with the cry of injured 
justice ; it denounces against him the indigna- 
tion of an enlightened and civilized age ; it turns 
to bitterness the cup of his rejoicing, and wounds 
him with the sting which belongs to the con- 
sciousness of having outraged the opinion of 
mankind." 

It was, indeed, to the Duke of Angouleme 
and his family, 

A barren scepter in their gripe, 

Thence to be wrenched by an unlineal hand, 

No son of theirs succeeding. 

His uncle, Louis XVIII., died the next year ; 
his father, Charles X., succeeded, and in less than 
six years was driven, with his branch of the 
family, from the throne (July, 1830) ; Louis 
Philippe, of the Orleans branch, succeeded, and 
met with the same fate in less than eighteen 
years (June, 1848) ; and the prediction of Lord 
Brougham as to Louis XVIII. and his dynasty 
was verified, even without his calling in " the 
modern Teutones and Scythians to assist him ;" 
"judgment" did "go forth against him, and his 
family, and his coimselors ; and the dynasty of 
the Gaul has ceased to reian '" 



914 LORD BROUGHAM [1831. 



SPEECH 



OF LORD BROUGHAM ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS, OC- 
TOBER 7, 183L 

INTRODUCTION. 

Earl Grey came into power November 22d, 1830, being the first Whig minister since the days of Lord 
Greuville in 1806-7. His life had been devoted to parliamentary reform, and he made this the leading 
object of his administration. 

Ages had passed away since the apportionment of members for the House of Commons. The popula- 
tion of England had five-folded. Many of the largest towns in the kingdom, such as Liverpool, Manches- 
ter, &c., had sprung into existence, and were without representatives; while a large number of places, 
sending two members each to Parliament, had sunk into mere villages or hamlets, and some, like Old 
Sarum, Gatton, &c., were actually left without an inhabitant. These places passed into the hands, or 
under the control, of the nobility and men of wealth, so that seats in the House of Commons, by scores 
upon scores, were bought and sold in the market. When Lord Grey first took up the subject in 1793, 
he offered to prove that seventy-one peers, by direct nomination or influence, returned one hundred and 
sixty-three members, and ninety-one commoners one hundred and thirty-nine members. Thus, in En- 
gland and Wales (exclusive of the forty-five for Scotland), three hundred and two members, being a de- 
cided majority of the Commons, were returned by one hundred and sixty-two individuals ! These state- 
ments made a deep impression on the public mind; but such was the dread inspired by the French Rev- 
olution and its misguided friends in England, and such the reluctance of the higher classes to part with 
power, that every attempt at reform was instantly voted down, until 1830, when Earl Grey came into 
power. 

On the first of March, 1831, the new ministry brought forward their Reform Bill in the House of Com- 
mons. It was designed to meet three evils : first, the appointment of members by individuals ; secondly, 
the small number of voters in most boroughs and in the counties ; and, thirdly, the expenses of elections. 
To meet the first evil, it proposed that sixty boroughs, enumerated in a schedule marked A, having each 
a population under two thousand, should be totally disfranchised ; and that forty-seven others, in a sched- 
ule marked B, with a like population under four thousand, should each be allowed only one member. 
Weymouth, which sent four members, was to have but two. In this way, one hundred and sixty-eight 
vacancies would be created, which might be supplied by giving representatives to the large towns, and 
by increasing the number of county members. In respect to the second evil, it proposed to give the 
right of voting in boroughs to all householders paying a £10 rent, and in the counties to copyholders of 
£,10 a yeai*, and to leaseholders of £50 a year. In regard to the third evil, that of election expenses, it 
disfranchised all non-resident electors, thus saving vast sums paid for their transportation to the polls ; 
and shortened the duration of elections by increasing the facilities for receiving votes. 

This bill was debated in the Commons with great ability on both sides for seven weeks, and was 
finally rejected by a majority of eight. The ministry immediately tendered their resignations, but the 
King (William IV.), who was in favor of reform, refused to accept them ; he preferred to dissolve Parlia- 
ment, and refer the question to the decision of the people in a new House of Commons. The elections, 
in all places where the popular voice could prevail, went strongly for the bill, eighty of the county mem- 
bers being chosen under pledges to vote for reform. 

The bill, with some slight modifications, was brought again into the House on the 24th of June, 1831. 
Here it was debated under various foi-ms for nearly three months, and was finally passed on the 19th of 
September, by a majority of one hundred and six. It was now carried to the House of Lords, a large 
majority of whom were known to be bitterly opposed to the measure. The great body of the nation 
were equally resolved it should pass; petitions came in by thousands from every part of the kingdom; 
and the feeling seemed to be almost universal, " through Parliament or over Parliament, this measure 
must be earned." 

In this state of the public mind, the House of Lords took up the subject on the 3d of October, 1831, and 
discussed it in a debate of five nights, which, "for skill, force, and variety of argument; for historical, 
constitutional, and classical information," says an able writer, "was never surpassed." Lord Brougham 
reserved himself until the fifth night; and after Lord Eldon had spoken with all the weight of his age 
and authority against the bill, the Lord Chancellor came down from the wool-sack to reply. His speech 
was intended as an answer to all the important arguments which had been urged against reform during 
this protracted discussion. He began in a mild and conciliatory manner, unwilling to injure his cause by 
the harshness in which he too commonly indulged, and answered a part of the arguments in a strain of 
good-humored wit and pleasantry which has rarely been surpassed. But after repeated interruptions 



ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



915 



1831.] 

some of them obviously designed to put him down, he changed his tone, and spoke for nearly three hours 
more with a keenness of rebuke, a force of argument, and a boldness of declamation which secured him 
a respectful hearing, and extorted the confession from his adversary Lord Lyndhurst, that a more pow- 
erful speech of the kind had never been delivered in the House of Lords. 



SPEE 

My Lords, — I feel that I owe some apology 
to your Lordships for standing in the way of any 
noble Lords^ who wish to address you ; but alt- 
er much deliberation, and after consulting with 
several of my noble friends on both sides of the 
House, it did appear to us, as I am sure it will 
to your Lordships, desirable, on many grounds, 
that the debate should be brought to a close this 
night ; and I thought I could not better contrib- 
ute to that end than by taking the present op- 
portunity of addressing you. Indeed, I had 
Anxiety of the scarcely any choice. I am urffcd on 
P?o'chu4"the" hy the anxiety I feel on this mighty 
subj'-ict. subject, which is so great that I 

should hardly have been able to delay the ex- 
pression of my opinion much longer ; if I had, I 
feel assured that I must have lost the power to 
address you. This solicitude is not, I can as- 
sure your Lordships, diminished by my recollec- 
tion of the great talents and brilliant exertions 
of those by whom I have been preceded in the 
discussion, and the consciousness of the difficul- 
ties wuth which I have to contend in follow- 
ing such men. It is a deep sense of these dif- 
ficulties that induces me to call for your patient 
indulgence. For, although not unused to meet 
public bodies, nay, constantly in the habit, dur- 
ing many yeai-s, of presenting myself before 
great assemblies of various kinds, yet I do sol- 
emnly assure you that I never, until this mo- 
ment, felt what deep responsibility may rest on 
a member of the Legislature in addressing ei- 
ther of its Houses. And if I, now standing with 
your Lordships on the brink of the most moment- 
ous decision that ever human assembly came to 
at any period of the world, and seeking to arrest 
you while it is yet time, in that position could, 
by any divination of the future, have foreseen in 
my earliest years that I should live to appear 
here, and to act as your adviser, on a question 
of such awful importance, not only to yourselves, 
but to your remotest posterity, I should have de- 
Tiieprepara- votcd cvcry day and every hour of 
!i^hthave'' that life to preparing myself for the 
"^^^- task which I now almost sink under — 

gathering from the monuments of ancient ex- 
perience the lessons of wisdom which might 
guide our course at the present hour — looking 
abroad on our own times, and these not unevent- 
ful, to check by pi-actice the application of those 
lessons — chastening myself, and sinking within 
me every infirmity of temper, every wayward- 
ness of disposition which might by possibility 
impede the discharge of this most solemn duty ; 
but above all, eradicating from my mind every 
thing that, by any accident, could interrupt the 
most perfect candor and impartiality of judg- 
ment. I advance thus anxious and thus humbled 



1 The Marquess of Cleveland and several others 
had risen and given way. 



C H, &c. 

I to the task before me ; but cheered, on the other 
hand, with the intimate and absolute persuasion 
that I have no personal interest to serve — no 
i sinister views to resist — that there is nothing in 
my nature or in my situation which can cast 
even the shadow of a shade across the broad 
[ path, I will not say of legislative, but of judicial 
duty, in which I am now to accompany your 
Lordships. 

I have listened, my Lords, with the most pro- 
found attention, to the debate on this .„ „ , 
' question, which has lasted during the f^^^e who 
j five past days ; and having heard a a^aiiist the*" 
vast variety of objections brought 
I against this measure, and having also attended 
to the ai-guments which have been urged to re- 
pel those objections, I, careless whether I give 
ofTense in any quarter or no, must, in common 
^ fairness, say, on the one hand, that I am so far 
I moved by some of the things which I have heard 
j urged, as to be inclined toward the reconsider- 
ation of several matters on w^hich I had conceiv- 
I ed my mind to be fully made up ; and, on the 
other, that in the great majority of the objections 
I which have been ingeniously raised againist this 
bill, I can by no means concur ; but viewing 
I them as calmly and dispassionately as ever man 
listened to the arguments advanced for and 
against any measure, I am bound by a sense of 
' duty to say, that those objections have left my 
mind entirely unchanged as to the bulk of the 
principles upon which the bill is framed. If I 
presumed to go through those objections, or 
even through the majority of them, in detail, I 
should be entering upon a tedious and also a su- 
! perfluous work ; so many of them have been re- 
moved by the admirable speeches which you 
' have already heard, that I should only be wast- 
I ing your time w-ere I once more to refute them ; 
I should only be doing worse what my precur- 
sors have already done far better. I will begin, 
' however, with what fell from a noble Earl [Earl 
I Dudley] with whose display I was far (,.) Lord 
less struck than others, because I was ^'"'^'^y- 
more accustomed to it — who, viewing this bill 
from a remote eminence, and not coming close, 
or even approaching near, made a reconnois- 
sance of it too far off to see even its outworks 
— who, indulging in a vein of playful and ele- 
gant pleasantry, to which no man listens in pri- 
I vate with more delight than myself, knowing 
I how well it becomes the leisure hours and famil- 
iar moments of my noble friend, delivered with 
I the utmost purity of diction, and the most felic- 
I itous aptness of allusion — I was going to say a 
discourse — but it was an exercise or essay — of 
the highest merit, which had onl}^ this fault, that 
it was an essay or exercitation on some other 
I thesis, and not on this bill. It was as if some 
I one had set to my noble friend, whose acconi- 



916 



LORD BROUGHAM 



[1831, 



plishments I know — whose varied talents I ad- 
mire, but in whom I certainly desiderate sound- 
ness of judgment and closeness of argument — a 
theme de rebuspublicis, or de motu civium^ or de 
novarum rerum cupiditate" — on change, on de- 
mocracies, on republicanism, on anarchy ; and 
on these interesting but somewhat trite and even 
threadbare subjects, my noble friend made one 
of the most lucid, most terse, most classical, and, 
us far as such efforts will admit of eloquence, 
most eloquent exercitations that ever proceeded 
Hi? argument from mortal pen. My noble friend 
veo"polnt'at pfoceedcd altogether on a false as- 
jbsue. sumption ; it was on a fiction of his 

own brain, on a device of his own imagination, 
that he spoke throughout. He first assumed 
that the bill meant change and revolution, and 
on change and revokuion he predicted volumin- 
ously and successfully. So much for the critic- 
al merits of his performance ; but. practically 
viewed, regarded as an argument on the ques- 
tion before us, it is to be wholly left out of view ; 
it was quite beside the matter. If this bill be 
change and be revolution, there is no resisting 
the conclusions of my noble friend. Btt on that 
point I am at issue with him ; and he begins by 
taking the thing in dispute for granted. I deny 
that this bill is change, in the bad sense of the 
word ; nor does it lead to, nor has it any con- 
nection with revolution, except so far as it has 
a direct tendency to prevent revolution. 

My noble friend, in the course of his essay, 
His charses talked to you of this administration as 

against the . , i_ ^ i j xi ^ 

minii^try as One pronc to changc ; he told you that 
forTnnOTa' i^s whoIc systcm was a system of 
^'°"' changes ; and he selected as the first 

change on which he would ring a loud peal, that 
which he said we had made in our system of 
finance. If he is so averse to our making alter- 
ations in our scheme of finance the very first year 
we have been in oflice, what does he think, I ; 
ask, of Mr. Pitt's budgets, of which never one j 
passed without undergoing changes in almost ev- 
ery one tax, besides those altogether abandoned ? 
If our budget had been carried as it was origin- 
ally brought in, with a remission of the timber 
duty, and the candle duty, and the coal duty, it j 
would have been distinguished beyond all others 
only as having given substantial relief to the peo- 
ple on those very trivial and unnecessary arti- 
cles, I suppose, of human life — fire, and light, 
and lodging. Then, our law reform is another 
change which my noble friend charged the gov- 
ernment with being madly bent on effecting. 
Scarcely had the Lord President of the Council 
risen to answer the objection raised against us 
on this score, than up started my noble friend to 
assert that he had not pressed any such objection 
into his service. My Lords, I am not in the 
habit of taking a note of what falls from any 
noble Lord in debate — it is not my practice — 
but by some fatality it did so happen that, while 
my noble friend was speaking, I took a note of 
his observations, of which 1 will take the liberty 
^ Concerning public affairs, or civil commotions, 
or the love of political change 



of reading you the very first line. " Change and 
revolution; all is change; among the first — 
law." I took that note, because I was some- 
what surprised at the observation, knowing, as 
I did, that this law reform had met with the ap- 
probation of my noble friend himself; and, what 
was yet more satisfactory to my mind, it had re- 
ceived the sanction of your Lordships, and had 
been passed through all its stages without even 
a division. My noble friend then told us, still 
reconnoitering our position at a distance, or, at 
most, partaking in an occasional skirmish, but 
holding himself aloof from the main battle — he 
told us that this bill came recommended neither 
by the weight of ancient authority nor ^^ regard- 
by the spirit of modern refinement ; that j;^e^,"au"' 
this attack on our present system was ti'ority, 
not supported by the experience of the past, nor 
sanctioned by any appearance of the great mind 
of the master genius of our precursors in later 
times. As to the weight of ancient authority, 
skilled as my noble friend is in every branch of 
literary history, I am obliged to tell him he is in- 
accurate ; and, because it may afford him some 
consolation in this his day of discomfiture and 
anguish, I will supply the defect which exists in 
his historical recollections ; for an author, the 
first of satirists in any age — Dean Swift, with 
whom my noble friend must have some sym- 
pathy, since he closely imitates him in this re- 
spect, that as the Dean satirized, under the name 
of m§n, a beino- who had no existence save in 
his own imagination, so my noble friend attacks, 
under the name of the bill, a fancy of his own, a 
creature of his fertile brain, and which has no 
earthly connection with the real ink and parch- 
ment bill before you — Dean Swift, who was never 
yet represented as a man prone to change, who 
was not a Radical, who w^as not a Jacobin (for, 
indeed, those terms were in his day unknown) — 
Dean Swift, who was not even a Whig, but, in 
the language of the times, a regular, stanch, 
thick-and-thin Tory, while enumerating the ab- 
surdities in our system, which required an ade- 
quate and efficient remedy, says : " It is absurd 
that the boroughs, which are decayed, and des- 
titute both of trade and population, are not ex- 
tinguished" (or, as we should say, in the lan- 
guage of the bill, which was as unknown to Dean 
Swift as it is now to my noble friend, put into 
schedule A.), "because," adds the Dean, " they 
return members who represent nobody at all ;" 
so here he adopts the first branch of the measure ; 
and next he approves of the other great limb, 
for the second grand absurdity which he remarks 
is, "that several large towns are not represent- 
ed, though they are filled with those who in- 
crease mightily the trade of the realm." Then 
as to shortening the duration of Parliaments, on 
which we have not introduced a single provision 
into the bill — if we had, what a cry should we 
have heard about the statesmen in Queen Anne's 
day, the great men who lived in the days of 
Blenheim, and during the period sung of by my 
noble friend, from Blenheim to Waterloo ; how 
we should have been taunted with the Somerses 



1831.] 



ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



917 



and Godolphins, and their cotemporaries, the 
Swifts and the Addisons ! What would they 
have said of such a change ? Yet what did the 
same Dean Swift, the cotemporary of Somers 
and Godolphin, the friend of Addison, who sang 
the glories of Blenheim, the origin of my noble 
friend's period — what did the Dean, inspired by 
all the wisdom of ancient times, say to shorten- 
ing the duration of Parliaments ? " I have a 
strong love for the good old fashion of Gothic 
Parliaments, which were only of one year's du- 
ration." Such is the ground, such the vouch- 
ers, upon the authority of which my noble friend, 
in good set phrase, sets the weight of ancient 
wisdom against the errors of the Reformers, and 
triumphs in the round denial that we have any 
thing in our favor like the sanction of authority; 
and it turns out, after all, that the wise men of 
the olden time promulgated their opinions on the 
subject in such clear, and decisive, and vigorous 
terms, that if they were living in our days, and 
giving utterance to the same sentiments, they 
would be set down rather for determined Rad- 
icals than for enemies of reform. 

Then my noble friend, advancing from for- 
ami its (Jesti- nicr timcs to our own, asked who and 
tute of talent ^^j^j^j j j^^y ^j.g j-^at form the cabinet 
of the day ? To such questions it would be un- 
becoming in me to hazard a reply. I do not find 
fault with my noble friend for asking them ; I 
admit that it is fair to ask who are they that pro- 
pound any measure, especially when it comes in 
the shape of a great change. The noble Earl 
then complained of our poverty of genius — ab- 
sence of commanding talents — want of master 
minds — and even our destitution of eloquence, a 
topic probably suggested by my noble friend's 
[Lord Grey] display, who opened the debate, and 
whose efforts in that kind are certainly very dif- 
ferent from those which the noble Earl seems to 
admire. But if it be a wise rule to ask by whom 
a measure is propounded before you give it im- 
plicit confidence, it certainly can not be an un- 
wise rule to ask, on the other hand, who and 
what be they by whom that measure is resisted, 
before you finally reject it on their bare author- 
ity. Nor can I agree w^ith a noble friend of 
mine [Lord Caernarvon], who spoke last night. 
Remarks in ^"^ who laid down One doctrine on 
iirustmion o" ^^^^ subject at which I marveled great- 
Loni caernar- ly. It was onc of his many allego- 

von. • ,. , . 

ries — lor they were not metaphors, 
nor yet similes — some of them, indeed, were 
endless, especially when my noble friend took to 
the water, and embarked us on board of his ship 
— for want of steam, I thought we should never 
have got to the end of our voyage. When we 
reply to their arguments against our measure, by 
asking what reform they have got of their own 
to offer, he compares us to some host, who, hav- 
ing placed before his friends an uneatable din- 
ner, which they naturally found fault with, should 
say, •' Gentlemen, you are very hard to please ; 
I have set a number of dishes before you which 
you can not eat ; now, what dishes can you dress 
yourselves?" My noble friend says that such 



an answer would be very unreasonable ; for, he 
asks, ingeniously enough, how can the guests 
dress a dinner, especially when they have not 
possession of the kitchen ? But did it never 
strike him that the present is not the ease of 
guests called upon to eat a dinner ; it is one of 
rival cooks who want to get into our kitchen. 
We are here all on every side cooks — a synod 
of cooks (to use Dr. Johnson's phrase), and noth- 
ing but cooks ; for it is the very condition of our 
being — the bond of our employment under a com- 
mon master — that none of us shall ever taste the 
dishes we are dressing. The Commons House 
may taste it ; but can the Lords ? We have noth- 
ing to do but prepare the viands. It is, there- 
fore, of primary importance, when the authority 
of the two classes of rival artists is the main ques- 
tion, to inquire what are our feats severally in our 
common calling. I ought, perhaps, to ask your 
Lordships' pardon for pursuing my noble friend's 
allegory; but I saw that it produced an impres- 
sion by the cheers it excited, and I was desirous 
to show that it was in a most extraordinary de- 
gree inapplicable to the question, to illustrate 
which it was fetched from afar off. I, therefore, 
must think myself entitled to ask who and what 
be they that oppose us, and what dish they are 
likely to cook for us, when once again they get 
possession of the kitchen ? I appeal to any can- 
did man who now hears me, and I ask him 
whether, it being fair to consider who are the 
authors of the bill, it is not equally fair to con- 
sider from whom the objections come ? I, there- 
fore, trust that any impartial man, unconnected 
with either class of statesmen, when called upon 
to consider our claims to confidence before he 
adopts our measures, should, before he repudi- 
ates us in favor of our adversaries, inquire, Are 
they likely to cure the evils and remedy the de- 
fects, of which they admit the existence in our 
system ? and are their motives such as ought to 
win the confidence of judicious and calmly re- 
flecting men ? 

One noble Lord [Lord Winchelsea] there is 
whose judgment we are called upon im- (o ^ ^-oni 
plicitly to trust, and who expressed him- "^'^''"chei^ea. 
self with much indignation, and yet with entire 
honesty of purpose, against this measure. No 
man is, in my opinion, more single-hearted ; no 
man more incorruptible. But in his present en- 
mity to this bill, which he describes as pregnant 
with much mischief to the Constitution, he gives 
me reason to doubt the soundness of the resolu- 
tion which would take him as a guide, from the 
fact of his having been not more than five or six 
months ago most friendly to its provisions, and 
expressed the most unbounded confidence in the 
government which proposed it. Ought not this 
to make us pause before we place our conscien- 
ces in his keeping — before we surrender up our 
judgment to his prudence — before we believe ia 
his cry that the bill is revolution, and His self contra- 
the destruction of the empire — when <^"=^on. 
we find the same man delivered diametrically 
opposite opinions only six months ago ? 

Lord Winchelsea here shouted out " No." 



918 



LORD BROUGHAM 



[1831. 



The Lord Chancellor. Then I have been prac- 
„ ticed upon, if it is not so ; and the noble 
Earl's assertion should be of itself suflicient 
to convince me that I have been practiced on. 
But I can assure the noble Earl that this has been 
handed to me as an extract from a speech vi'hich 
he made to a meeting of the county of Kent, held 
at Maidstone, on the 24th of last March : " They 
have not got reform yet ; but when the measure 
does come, as I am persuaded it vi'ill come, into 
the law of the land — " (a loud cry of "No," 
from the opposition Lords) . Then, if noble Lords 
will not let me proceed quietly, I must begin 
again, and this time I will go further back. The 
speech represents the noble Earl to have said, 
"His INIajesty's government is entitled to the 
thanks of the country. Earl Grey, with his dis- 
tinguished talents, unites a political honesty not 
to be surpassed, and leaves behind him, at an 
immeasurable distance, those who have aban- 
doned their principles and deceived their friends. 
The noble Lord is entitled to the eternal grati- 
tude of his country for the manner in which he 
has brought forward this question. I maintain 
that he deserves the support of the country at 
large." And, my Lords, the way in which I was 
practiced on to believe that all this praise was 
not referable to the timber duties, but to reform, 
I shall now explain. It is in the next passage 
of the same speech : " They have not got reform 
yet ; but when the measure does come, as I am 
persuaded it will come, into the law of the land, 
it will consolidate, establish, and strengthen our 
glorious Constitution ; and not only operate for 
the general welfare and happiness of the country, 
but will also render an act of justice to the great 
and influential body of the people. The meas- 
ure has not yet been introduced to that House of 
which I am a member." (Lord Winchelsea and 
his friends here cheered loudly.) Ay, but it had 
been debated in the House of Commons for near 
a month — it had been published in all books, 
pamphlets, and newspapers — it had been dis- 
cussed in all companies and societies — and I will 
undertake to assert that there was not one single 
man in the county of Kent who did not know 
that Lord John Russell's bill was a bill for par- 
liamentary reform. The speech thus concludes : 
'• When the bill is brought forward in that House 
of which I am a member, I shall be at my post, 
ready to give it my most hearty and cordial" — 
opposition? no — "support." But why do I al- 
lude to this speech at all ? Merely to .show that 
if those who oppose the bill say to us, " Who are 
you that propound it?" and make our previous 
conduct a ground for rejecting it, through dis- 
trust of its authors, we have a right to reply to 
them with another question, and to ask, " Who 
are you that resist it, and what were your pre- 
vious opinions regarding it?" 

Another noble Lord [Lord Mansfield] has ar- 
gued this question with great ability and show 
of learning ; and if we are to take him as our 
(3.) Lord Mans guide, wc must also look at the pan- 
of the'queelf.'m ^cca which hc providcs for us in case 
fr^rtwo^ears. of rejection. That noble Lord, look- 



ing around him on all sides — surveying what had 
occurred in the last forty or fifty years — glanc- 
ing above him and below him, around him and 
behind him — watching every circumstance of the 
past — anticipating every circumstance of the fu- 
ture — scanning every sign of the times — taking 
into his account all the considerations upon which 
a lawgiver ought to reckon — regarding also the 
wishes, the vehement desires, not to say absolute 
demands, of the whole country for some imme- 
diate reform — concentrates all his wisdom in this 
proposition — the result, the practical result of all 
his deliberations, and all his lockings about, and 
all his scannings of circumstances — the whole 
produce of his thoughts, by the value of which 
you are to try the safety of his counsels — name- 
ly, that you should suspend all your operations 
on this bill for two years, and, I suppose, two 
days, to give the people — what ? breathing time. 
The noble Lord takes a leaf out of the book of 
the noble Duke near him — a leaf, which I be- 
lieve the noble Duke himself would now wish 
canceled. The noble Duke, shortly before he 
proposed the great measure of Catholic emanci- 
pation, had said, "Before I can support that 
measure, I should wish that the whole question 
might sink into oblivion." But the proposition 
of the noble Earl, though based on the same idea, 
goes still further. "Bury," says he, "this 
measure of reform in oblivion for two years and 
two days, and then see, good people, what I will 
do for you." And then what will the noble 
Lord do for the good people ? Why, nothino- — 
neither more nor less than nothing. We, inno- 
cents that we were, fancied that the noble Lord 
must, after all his promises, really mean to do 
something ; and thought that he had said some- 
what of bribery — of doing a little about bribery 
— which was his expression ; but when we men- 
tioned our supposition that he really meant to go 
as far as to support a bill for the more efTectual 
prevention of bribery at elections, the noble Lord 
told us he would do no such thing. 

The Earl of Mansfield. I gave no opinion on 
the point. 

The Lord Chancellor. Exactly so. The noble 
Lord reserves his opinion as to whether he would 
put down bribery, for two years and two days ; 
and when they are expired, he, peradventure, 
may inform us whether he will give us leave to 
bring in a bill to prevent bribery ; not all kinds 
of bribery — that would be radical work — but as 
far as the giving away of ribbons goes, leaving 
beer untouched, and agreeably to the venerable 
practice of the olden time. 

Another noble Lord, a friend of mine, whose 
honesty and frankness stamp all he (4^ Lo^d 
says with still greater value than it de- 'wiiarnciiffe. 
rives from mere talent [Lord Wharncliffe], would 
have you believe that all the peti- Denies nmt the 
tions under which your table now fen'tedT^h^ fa- 
groans are indeed for reform, but not ^or of the bin. 
for this bill, which he actually says the people 
dislike. Now is not this a droll way for the peo- 
ple to act, if we are to take my noble friend's 
statement as true ? First of all, it is an odd 



1831.] 



ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



919 



time they have taken to petition for reform, if 
they do not like this bill. I should say that if 
they petition for refoi'm while this particular 
measure is passing through the House, it is a 
proof that the bill contains the reform they want. 
Surely, when I see the good men of this country 
— the intelligent and industrious classes of the 
community — now coming forward, not by thou- 
sands, but by hundreds of thousands, I can infer 
nothing from their conduct but that this is the 
bill, and the only bill, for which they petition ? 
But if they really want some other than the bill 
proposes, is it not still more unaccountable that 
they should one and all petition, not for that other 
reform, but for this very measure ? The propo- 
sition of my noble friend is, that they love reform 
in general, but hate this particular plan ; and the 
proof of it is this, that their petitions all pray 
earnestly for this particular plan, and say not a 
w^ord of general reform. Highly as I prize the 
integrity of my noble friend — much as I admire 
his good sense on other occasions — I must say 
that, on this occasion, I descry not his better 
judgment, and if I estimate how far he is a safe 
guide, either as a witness to facts or as a judge 
of measures, by his success in the present in- 
stance ; in either capacity, I can not hesitate in 
recommending your Lordships not to follow him. 
As a witness to facts, never was failure more 
complete. The bill, said he, has no friends 
_, any where : and he mentioned Bond 

The way in •' ' . 

wiiiciiiieismet Strcct as onc of his walks, where he 
y le peop e. ^^^^j j ^^^^ enter a shop without find- 
ing its enemies abound. No sooner had Bond 
Street escaped his lips, than up comes a petition 
to your Lordships from nearly all its shop-keep- 
ers, afTuming that their sentiments have been 
misrepresented, for they are all champions of the 
bill. My noble friend then says, " Oh, I did not 
mean the shop-keepers of Bond Street in partic- 
ular ; I might have- said any other street, as St. 
James's equally." No sooner does that unfortu- 
nate declaration get abroad, than the shopkeep- 
ers of St. James's Street are up in arms, and forth 
comes a petition similar to that from Bond Street. 
M}^ noble friend is descried moving through Re- 
gent Street, and away scamper all the inhabit- 
ants, fancying that he is in quest of anti-reform- 
ers — sign a requisition to the church-wardens — 
and the householders, one and all, declare them- 
selves friendly to the bill. Whither shall he go 
— v.'hat street shall he enter, in what alley shall 
he take refuge — since the inhabitants of every 
street, and lane, and alley, feel it necessary, in 
self-defense, to become signers and petitioners, 
as soon as he makes his appearance among them ? 
If harassed by reformers on land, my noble friend 
goes down to the water, the thousand reformers 
greet him, whose petition [Lambeth's] I this day 
presented to your Lordships. If he were to get 
into a hackney-coach, the very coachmen and 
their attendants would feel it their duty to assem- 
ble and petition. Wherever there is a street, an 
alley, a passage, na}'^, a river, a wherry, or a 
hackney-coach, these, because inhabited, become 
forbidden and tabooed to my noble friend. I may 



meet him not on " the accustomed hill," for 
Hay-hill, though short, has some houses on its 
slope, but on the south side of Berkeley Square, 
wandering " remote, unfriended, melancholy, 
slow" — for there he finds a street without a sin- 
gle inhabitant, and therefore without a single 
friend of the bill.' If, in despair, he shall flee 
from the town to seek the solitude of the coun- 
try, still will he be pursued by cries of " Peti- 
tion, petition ! The bill, the bill !" His flight 
will be through villages placarded with " The 
Bill" — his repose at inns holden by landlords 
who will present him with the bill — he will be 
served by reformers in the guise of waiters — 
pay tribute at gates where petitions lie for sign- 
ing — and plunge into his own domains to be 
overwhelmed with the Sheflield petition, signed 
by 10,400 friends of the biU. 
" Me miserable ! which way shall I fly 
Infinite wrath and infinite despair? 
Which way I fly, Reform — myself Reform !" 
for this is the most serious part of the whole-— 
my noble friend is himself, after all, a reformer. 
I mention this to show that he is not more a safe 
guide on matters of opinion than on matters of 
fact. He is a reformer — he is not even a bit-by- 
bit reformer — not even a gradual reformer — but 
that which, at any other time than the present, 
would be called a wholesale and even a radical 
reformer. He deems that no shadowy unsub- 
stantial reform — that nothing but an efl^ectual 
remedy of acknowledged abuses will satisfy the 
people of England and Scotland ; and this is a 
fact to which I entreat the earnest and unremit- 
ting attention of every man who wishes to know 
what guides are safe to follow on this subject. 
Many now follow men who say that reform is 
necessary, and yet object to this bill as being too 
large ; that is, too efficient. This may be very 
incorrect ; but it is worse ; it is mixed up with 
a gross delusion which can never deceive the 
country ; for I will now say, once for all, that 
every one argument which has been urged by 
those leaders is as good against moderate reform 
as it is against this bill. Not a single reason 
they give, not a topic they handle, not an illustra- 
tion they resort to, not a figure of speech they 
use, not even a flower they fling about, that does 
not prove or illustrate the position of "wo re- 
form.'^ All their speeches, from beginning to 
end, are railing against the smallest as against 
the greatest change, and yet all the while they 
call themselves reformers ! Are they, then, safe 
guides for any man who is prepared to allow 
any reform, however moderate, of any abuse, 
however glaring ? 

Of another noble Earl [Lord Harrowby], 
whose arguments, well selected and (5.) Lord 
ably put, were yet received with such """""by. 
exaggerated admiration by his friends as plainly 
showed how pressing were their demands for a 
tolerable defender, we have heard it said, again 
and again, that no answer whatever has been 
given to his speech. I am sure I mean no dis- 
respect to that noble Earl when I venture to re- 
mark the infinite superiority in all things, but es- 



920 



LORD BROUGHAM 



[1831. 



pecially in argument, of such speeches as those of 
the noble Marquess [Marquess Lansdowne] and 
the noble Viscount [Viscount Melbourne]. The 
former, in his most masterly answer, left but lit- 
tle of the speech for any other antagonist to de- 
stroy. The latter, while he charmed us with 
the fine eloquence that pervaded his discourse, 
and fixed our thoughts by the wisdom and depth 
of reflection that informed it, won all hearers by 
his candor and sincerity. Little, indeed, have 
they left for me to demolish ; yet if any thing re- 
main, it may be as well we should take it to 
pieces. But I am first considering the noble 
Earl in the light of one pi'ofessing to be a safe 
guide for your Lordships. What, then, are his 
claims to the praise of calmness and impartial- 
ity ? For the constant cry against the govern- 
charges mcnt is, " You are hasty, rash, intem- 
try wi't"r perate men. You know not what you 
and'pfe-* do ; your advei-saries are the true state 
cipitamry. physiciaus ; look at their considerate 
deportment ; imitate their solemn caution." 
This is the sort of thing we hear in private as 
well as public. " See such an one — he is a man 
of prudence, and a discreet (the olden times 
called such a sad) man ; he is not averse to all 
innovation, but dislikes precipitancy ; he is calm ; 
just to all sides alike ; never gives a hasty opin- 
ion; a safe one to follow; look how he votes." 
I have done this on the present occasion ; and, 
understanding the noble Earl might be the sort 
of personage intended, I have watched him. 
Common consistency was, of course, to be, at all 
events, expected in this safe model — some con- 
nection between the premises and conclusion, the 
speech and the vote. I listened to the speech, 
and also, with many others, expected that an 
avowal of all, or nearly all the principles of the 
bill would have ended in a vote for the second 
reading, which might sufl^er the committee to 
discuss its details, the only subject of controversy 
with the noble Earl. But no such thing ; he is 
a reformer, approves the principle, objecting to 
the details, and therefore he votes against it in 
the lump, details, principle, and all. But soon 
after his own speech closed, he interrupted an- 
other, that of my noble and learned friend [Lord 
Plunkett] to give us a marvelous sample of calm 
and impai'tial judgment. What do you think of 
And then shows the cool hcad, the unrufiled temper, 
the same things the Unbiased mind of that man — 

himself. 1-11 

most candid and most acute as he 
is, when not under the domination of alarm — 
who could listen, without even a gesture of dis- 
approbation, to the speech of one noble Lord 
[Lord Mansfield], professedly not extemporane- 
ous ; for he, with becoming, though unnecessary 
modesty, disclaims the faculty of speaking ofi- 
hand, but elaborately prepared, in answer to a 
member of the other House, and in further an- 
swer to a quarto volume, published by him — si- 
lent and unmoved, could hear another speech, 
made up of extracts from the House of Com- 
mons' debates — could listen and make no sign 
when a noble Marquess [Marquess London- 
derry] referred to the House of Commons' 



speeches of my noble friend by his House of 
Commons' name, again and again calling him 
Charles Grey, without even the prefix of Mr. ; 
nay, could himself repeatedly comment upon 
those very speeches of the other House — what 
will your Lordships say of the fatal effects of 
present fear in warping and distorting a natu- 
rally just mind, when you find this same noble 
Earl interrupt the Chancellor of Ireland [Lord 
Plunkett], because he most regularly, most or- 
derly, referred to the public conduct of a right 
honorable Baronet [Sir Robert Peel], exhibited 
in a former Parliament, and now become a mat- 
ter of history ? Surely, surely, nothing more is 
wanted to show that all the rashness, all the 
heedlessness, all the unreflecting precipitancy is 
not to be found upon the right hand of the wool- 
sack [ministerial side of the House] ; and that 
they who have hurried across the sea, in breath- 
less impatience, to throw out the bill, might prob- 
ably, had they been at home, and allowed them- 
selves time for sober reflection, have been found 
among the friends of a measure which they now 
so acrimoniously oppose ! So much for the qual- 
ifications of the noble Lords to act safely as our 
guides, according to the general view of the ques- 
tion as one of mere authority, taken by my no- 
ble friend [Lord Dudley]. But I am quite will- 
ing to rest the subject upon a higher ground, 
and to take it upon reason, and not upon author- 
ity. I will therefore follow the noble Earl [Lord 
Harrowby] somewhat more closely through his 
argument, the boast of our antagonists. 

He began with historical matter, and gave a 
very fair and manly explanation of ^ord H.rrowby 
his family's connection with the bor- may control Tiv- 

u r T'- * T'U- 1 -1 "">" by official 

OUgh Ot 1 IVertOn. 1 his, he said, influence as well 

would set him rectus in curia ^ as he '^^ ^ property. 
phrased it. If by this he meant that he should 
thence appear to have no interest in opposing 
the bill, I can not agree with him ; but certain- 
ly his narrative, coupled with a few additions by 
way of reference, which may be made to it, 
throws considerable light upon the system of rot- 
ten boroughs. The influence by which his fam- 
ily have so long returned the two members is, it 
seems, personal, and in no way connected with 
property. This may be very true ; for certainly 
the noble Lord has no property within a hundred 
miles of the place ; yet, if it is true, what be- 
comes of the cry, raised by his Lordship, about 
property ? But let that pass — the influence, 
then, is personal — ay, but it may be personal, 
and yet be official also. The family of the noble 
Earl has for a long series of years been in high 
office, ever since the time when its founder also 
laid the foundations of the borough connection, 
as Solicitor General. By some accident or other, 
they have always been connected with the gov- 
ernment, as well as the borough. I venture to 
suspect that the matter of patronage may have 
had some share in cementing the attachment of 
the men of Tiverton to the house of Ryder. I 
take leave to suggest the bare possibility of many 
such men having always held local and other 
places — of the voters and their families having 




1831.] 



ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



921 



always jjot on in the world through that patron- 
age. If it should turn out that I am right, there 
may be no very peculiar blame imputable to the 
noble Earl and his Tiverton supporters ; but it 
adds one to the numberless proofs that the bor- 
ough system affords endless temptations to bar- 
ter political patronage for parliamentary power 
— to use official influence for the purpose of ob- 
taining seats in the Commons, and, by means of 
those seats, to retain that influence. 

The noble Earl complained that the Reform 
Proof that the ^'^^ ^^^^^ ^^^® doors of Parliament 
bill does not ajjainst the eldest sons of Peers, and 

necessarily ex- = . ' 

ciuiie the sons thus deprived our successors oi the 
"he hJusb'^o? best kind of political education. My 
Commons. Lords, I frccly admit the justice of 
his panegyric upon this constitutional training, 
by far the most useful which a statesman can 
receive ; but I deny that the measure proposed 
will affect it — will obstruct the passage to the 
House of Commons ; it will rather clear and wid- 
en it to all who, like your Lordships' sons, ought 
there to come. My noble friend [Lord Gode- 
rich], who so admirably answered the noble Earl 
in a speech distinguished by the most attractive 
eloquence, and which went home to every heart 
from the honest warmth of feeling, so character- 
istic of his nature, that breathed through it — has 
already destroyed this topic by referring to the 
most notorious facts, by simply enumerating the 
open counties represented by peers' eldest sons. 
But I had rather take one instance for illustra- 
tion, because an individual case always strikes 
into the imagination, and rivets itself deep in the 
memory. I have the happiness of knowing a 
young nobleman — whom to know is highly to 
esteem — a more virtuous, a more accomplished 
I do not know — nor have any of your Lordships, 
rich as you are in such blessings, any arrow in 
all your quivers of which you have more reason 
to be proud. He sat for a nomination borough ; 
formed his own opinion ; decided for the bill ; dif- 
fered with his family — they excluded him from 
Parliament, closing against him at least that 
avenue to a statesman's best education, and an 
heir-apparent's most valued preparation for dis- 
charging the duties of the peerage. How did 
this worthy scion of a noble stock seek to reopen 
the door thus closed, and resume his political 
schooling, thus interrupted by the borough pa- 
trons ? Did he resort to another close borough, 
to find an avenue like that which he had lost 
under the present system, and long before the 
wicked bill had prevented young lords from duly 
finishing their parliamentary studies? No such 
thing. He threw himself upon a large commu- 
nity — canvassed a populous city — and started as 
a candidate for the .suffrages of thousands, on the 
only ground which was open to such solicitation 
— he avowed himself a friend of the bill. 3Iu- 
tato nomine de te? The borough that rejected 
him was Tiverton — the young nobleman was the 



^ Mutato nomine de te 

Fabula narratur. 
Change but the name, the tale is of yourself. 
Horace, Satires, Book i., Sat. i., line 69, 70. 



heir of the house of Ryder — the patron was the 
noble Earl, and the place to which the ejected 
member resorted for the means of completing his 
political education in one house, that he might 
one day be the ornament of the other, was no 
small, rotten, nomination borough, but the great 
town of Liverpool.'* 

Lord Harrowby begged to set the noble and *"»^" 
learned Lord right. He was himself abroad at 
the time, fifteen hundred miles off; and his fam- 
ily had nothing to do with the tran.saction. His 
son was not returned, because he did not offer 
himself. [Cries of Hear I^ 

The Lord Chancellor continued. I hope the 
noble Lords will themselves follow j^gj^rt,, „„ 
the course their cries seem to recom- V"^ opposition 
mend, and endeavor to hear. Ex- temptuous 
cess of noise may possibly deter some '^''^^"• 
speakers from performing their duty ; but my 
political education (of which we are now speak- 
ing) has been in the House of Commons ; my 
habits were formed there ; and no noise will stop 
me. I say so in tenderness to the noble persons 
who are so clamorous ; and that, thus warned, 
they may spare their own lungs those exertions 
which can have no effect except on my ears, and 
perhaps to make me more tedious^ As to the 
noble Earl's statement, by way of setting me 
right, it is wholly unnecessary, for I knew he was 
abroad — I had represented him as being abroad, 
and I had never charged him with turning out 
his son. The family, however, must have done 
it, (Lord Harrowby said No.) Then so much '■^'^' 
the better for my argument against the system, 
for then the borough itself had flung him out, 
and prevented him from having access to the 
political school. I believe the statement that the 
family had nothing to do with it, because the 
noble Earl makes it ; but it would take a great 
deal of statement to make me believe that nei- 
ther the patron nor the electors had any thing to 
do with the exclusion, and that the member had 
voluntarily given up his seat, and indeed his 
office with his seat, besides abandoning his polit- 
ical studies, when he could have continued them 
as representative of his father's borough. 

But the next argument of the noble Earl I am, 
above all, anxious to grapple with, because it 
brings me at once to a direct issue with him 
upon the great principle of the measure. The 
grand charge iterated by him, and re- His Lordship's 
echoed by his friends, is, that popula- "oXtiiu'-l"" 
tion, not property, is assumed by the ^wered. 



* Nothing could be more felicitous than this nar- 
ration of Mr. Brougham, commencing so far off as to 
preclude all thought of any personal application, and 
gradually advancing until the fact comes out that a 
son of Lord Harrowby himself was thus brought into 
Parliament. Such a passage may serve as a study 
for the young orator. Let him remark how differ- 
ent the effect from that of a bald announcement of 
the fact, in contradiction of Lord Harrowby. Let 
him notice the delicate compliment contained in the 
passage, both to his Lordship and his son, and the 
force they give to the argument. In these and oth- 
er respects the passage shows great dexterity and 
rhetorical skill. 



922 



LORD BROUGHAM 



[1831 



bill as the basis of representation. Now this 
is a mere fallacy, and a gross fallacy. I will 
not call it a willful misstatement ; but I will de- 
monstrate that two perfectly different things are, 
in different parts of this short proposition, care- 
fully confounded, and described under the same 
equivocal name. If, by basis of representation 
IS meant the ground upon which it was deemed 
right, by the framers of the bill, that some places 
should send members to Parliament, and others 
not, then I admit that there is some foundation for 
the assertion ; but then it only applies to the new 
towns, and also it has no bearing whatever upon 
the question. For the objection — and I think 
the sound objection — to taking mere population 
as a criterion in giving the elective franchise, is, 
that such a criterion gives you electors without 
a qualification, and is, in fact, universal suffrage. 
And herein, my Lords, consists the grievous un- 
fairness of the statement I am sifting ; it purpose- 
ly mixes together different matters, and clothes 
them with an ambiguous covering, in order, by 
means of the confusion and the disguise, to in- 
sinuate that universal suffrage is at the root of 
the bill. Let us strip off this false garb. Is 
The bill founds ^bcre in the bill any thing resem- 
representation blinij uuivcrsal Suffrage ? Is it not 

on property as " ^ 

weiiaspopuia- Iramcd upon the very opposite prm- 
ciples ? In the counties, the exist- 
ing qualification by freehold is retained in its 
fullest extent ; but the franchise is extended to 
the other kinds of property, copyhold and lease- 
hold. It is true that tenants at will are also to 
enjoy it, and their estate is so feeble, in contem- 
plation of law, that one can scarce call it prop- 
erty. But whose fault is that? Not the au- 
thors of the bill, for they deemed that terms of 
years alone should give a vote ; but they were 
opposed and defeated in this by 'the son of my 
noble friend [the Duke of Buckingham] near me, 
and his fellow-laborers against the measure. Let 
us now look to the borough qualification. [Some 
noise from conversation here took place.) Noble 
Lords must be aware that the chancellor, in ad- 
dressing your Lordships, stands in a peculiar sit- 
uation. He alone speaks among his adversaries. 
Other peers are at least secure against being in- 
terrupted by the conversation of those in their im- 
mediate neighborhood. And for myself, I had 
far rather confront any distant cheers, however 
hostile, than be hai'assed by the talk of those close 
by. No practice in the House of Commons can 
ever accustom a person to this mode of annoy- 
ance, and I expect it, in fairness, to cease.^ 

To resume the subject where I was forced to 
Proof of this break off. I utterly deny that popula- 
'^'^^- tion is the test, and property disregard- 

ed, in arranging the borough representation. 
The franchise is conferred upon householders 
only. Is not this a restriction ? Even if the 
right of voting had been given to all household- 



^ The repeated insults to which Lord Brougham 
was thus subjected soon induced him to change his 
tone, and we find him, on the next page and on- 
ward, assuming that bold defiant manner which was 
60 natural to him in debate. 



ers, still the suffrage would not have been uni- 
versal ; it would have depended on property, not 
on numbers ; and it would have been a gross 
misrepresentation to call population the basis of 
the bill. But its framers restricted that gener- 
ality, and determined that property, to a certain 
considerable amount, should alone entitle to elect. 
It is ti-ue, they did not take freehold tenure of 
land, as that qualification is inconsistent with 
town rights — nor did they take a certain amount 
of capital as the test — for that, besides its man- 
ifest inconvenience, would be a far more start- 
ling novelty than any the measure can be charged 
with. But the renting a 6£lO house is plainly 
a criterion both of property and respectability. 
It is said, indeed, that we have pitched this qual- 
ification too low — but are we not now debating 
on the principle of the bill ? And is not the 
committee the place for discussing whether that 
principle should be carried into effect by a qual- 
ification of dfilO, or a higher? I have no ob- 
jection, however, to consider this mere matter 
of detail here ; and if I can satisfy the noble Earl 
that all over England, except in London and a 
few other great towns, c^lO is not too low, I 
may expect his vote after all. Now, in small 
towns — I speak in the hearing of noble Lords 
who are well acquainted with the inhabitants of 
them — persons living in c£lO houses are in easy 
circumstances. This is undeniably the general 
case. In fact, the adoption of that sum was not 
a matter of choice. We had originally preferred 
r£20, but, when we came to inquire, it appeared 
that very large places had a most inconsiderable 
number of such houses. One town, for instance, 
with 17,000 or 18,000 inhabitants, liad not 
twenty who rented houses rated at c£20 a year. 
Were we to destroy one set of close boroughs, 
the Old Sarums and Gattons, which had at least 
possession to plead for their title, in order to 
create another new set of boroughs just as close, 
though better peopled ? In the large town I 
have alluded to, there were not three hundred 
persons rated at c£lO. Occupiers of such houses, 
in some country towns, fill the station of inferior 
shop-keepers — in some, of the better kind of 
tradesmen — here they are foremen of work-shops 
— there, artisans earning good wages — some- 
times, but seldom, laborers in full work ; general- 
ly speaking, they are a class above want, having 
comfortable houses over their heads, and fami- 
lies and homes to which they are attached. An 
opinion has been broached, that the qualification 
might be varied in different places, raised in the 
larger towns, and lowered in the smaller. To 
this I myself, at one time, leaned very strongly ; 
I deemed it a great improvement of the measure. 
If I have since yielded to the objections which 
were urged, and the authorities brought to bear 
against me, this I can very confidently afilirm, 
that if any one shall propound it in the commit- 
tee, he will find in me, I will not say a sup- 
porter, but certainly an ample security, that the 
doctrine, which I deem important, shall undergo 
a full, and candid, and scrutinizing discussion. I 
speak for myself only — I will not even for my- 



1831.] 



ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



923 



itsell an ini 
cation of 
property. 



self say, that were the committee so to modify 
the bill, I would accept it thus changed. Can- 
dor prevents me from holding out any such 
prospect ; but I do not feel called upon to give 
any decisive opinion now upon this branch of 
the details, not deeply affecting the principle ; 
only, I repeat emphatically, that I shall favor its 
abundant consideration in the proper place — the 
committee. 

My Lords, I have admitted that there is some 
Population is truth in the assertion of population be- 
ing made the criterion of title in towns 
to send representatives, though it has 
no application to the present controversy. Some 
criterion we were forced to take ; for nobody 
holds that each place should choose members 
severally. A line must be di-avvn somewhere, 
and how could we find a better guide than the 
population ? That is the general test of wealth, 
extent, importance ; and therefore substantially, 
though not in name, it is really the test of prop- 
erty. Thus, after all, b}' taking population as 
the criterion of what towns shall send members, 
we get at propert}^ by almost the only possible 
road, and property becomes substantially the 
basis of the title to send representatives ; as it 
confessedly is, in name as well as in substance, | 
the only title to concur in the election of them. I 
The whole foundation of the measure, therefore, i 
and on which all its parts rest, is property alone, 
and not at all population. 

But then, says the noble Earl, the population \ 
of a town certaining four thousand 
souls may, for any provision to the ' 
conti-ary in the bill, be all paupers ! [ 
Good God ! Did ever man tax his | 
ingenuity so hard to find an absurdly I 
extreme case ? What ! a town of four thousand 
paupers ! Four thousand inhabitants, and all 
quartered on the rates ! Then, w^ho is to pay 
the rates ? But if extreme cases are to be put 
on the one side, why may not I put one on the 
other ? What say you to close boroughs coming, 
by barter or sale, into the hands of Jew jobbers, 
gambling loan-contractors, and scheming attorn- 
eys, for the materials of extreme cases ? What 
security do these afford against the machinations 
of aliens — ay, and of alien enemies ? What 
against a nabob of Arcot's parliamentary and 
financial speculations ? What against that tru- 
ly British potentate naming eighteen or twenty 
of his tools members of the British House of 
Commons ? But is this an extreme case, one 
that stands on the outermost verge of possibility, 
and beyond all reach of probable calculation? 
Why. it once happened ; the Nabob Wallajah 
Cawn Bahauder had actually his eighteen or 
twenty members bought with a price, and sent 
to look after his pecuniary interests, as honest 
and independent members of Parliament. Talk 
now of the principle of property — the natural 
influence of great families — the sacred rights of 
the aristocracy — the endearing ties of neighbor- 
hood — the paramount claims of the landed inter- 
est ! Talk of British duties to discharge — Brit- 
ish trusts to hold — British rights to exercise ! 



When an ex- 
treme case is 
put to answer 
this argument, 
it may be met 
with another 
extreme case. 



Behold the Sovereign of the Carnatic, who re- 
gards nor land, nor rank, nor connection, nor 
open country, nor populous city ; but his eye 
fastens on the time-honored relics of departed 
greatness and extinct population — the walls of 
Sarum and Gatton ; he arms his right hand with 
their venerable parchments, and, pointing with 
his left to a heap of star pagodas too massive to 
be carried along, lays siege to the citadel of the 
Constitution, the Commons House of Parliament, 
and its gates fly open to receive his well-disci- 
plined band. Am I right in the assertion that a 
foi-eign Prince obtaining votes in Parliament, 
under the present system, is no extreme case ? 
Am I wrong in treating w4th scorn the noble 
Earl's violent supposition of a town with four 
thousand souls, and all receiving parish relief? 
But who are they that object to the bill its 
disregard of property ? Is a care for But the borough 
property that which peculiarly dis- reslTd"to*prop- 
tinguishes the system they uphold? ^f'JlleSocra* 
Surely the conduct of those who con- cy. 
tend that property alone ought to be considered 
in fixing the rights of election, and yet will not 
give up one freeman of a corporation to be dis- 
franchised, presents to our view a miracle of in- 
consistency. The right of voting, in freemen, is 
wholly unconnected with any property of any 
kind whatever ; the being freemen is no test of 
being worth one shilling. Freemen may be, and 
very often are, common day-laborers, spending 
every week their whole weekly gain.s — menial 
servants, having the right by birth — men living 
in alms-houses — parish paupers. All who have 
been at contested elections for corporate towns 
know that the question constantly raised is upon 
the right to vote of freemen receiving parish re- 
lief. The voters in boroughs, under the present 
system, are such freemen, non-resident as well 
as resident (a great abuse, because the source 
of a most grievous expense to candidates), in- 
habitants paying scot and lot, w'hich is only an 
imperfect fox-m of the qualification intended by 
the bill to be made universal, under wholesome 
restrictions, and burgage tenants. I have dis- 
posed of the two fir.st classes ; there remains the 
last. Burgages, then, are said to be property 
and no doubt they resemble it a good deal 
more than the rights of freemen do. In one 
sense, property they certainly are. But whose ? 
The Lord's who happens to have them on his 
estate. Are they the property of the voter, 
who, to qualify him for the purposes of election, 
receives his title by a mock conveyance at two 
o'clock in the afternoon, that he may vote at three 
for the nominee of the real owner, and at four 
returns it to the solicitor of that owner, to be 
ready for the like use at the next election ? This 
is your present right of voting by burgage, and 
this you call a qualification by virtue of proper 
ty. It is a gross abuse of terms. But it is 
worse ; it is a gross abuse of the Constitution — 
a scandal and an outrage no longer to be en- 
dured. That a peer, or a speculating attorney, 
or a jobbing Jew, or a gambler from the Stock 
Exchange, by vesting in his own person the old 



924 



LORD. BROUGHAM 



[1831. 



\valls of Sarum, a few pitj-sties at Bletchingly, 
or a summer-house at Gatton, and making ficti- 
tious, and collusiv'e, and momentary transfers of 
them to an agent or two, for the purpose of en- 
abling them to vote as if they had the property, 
of which they all the while know they have not 
the very shadow, is in itself a monstrous abuse, 
in the form of a gross and barefaced cheat ; and 
becomes the most disgusting hypocrisy, when it 
is seriously treated as a franchise by virtue of 
property. 

I will tell those peers, attorneys, jobbers, loan- 
. . contractors, and the Nabob's agents, 

The existing i -i i i 

abuses in this if such there Still be among us, that 

respect will not ., ^- ■ , ..i " ^i • 

be endured the tinic IS coiTic whcu thcsc things 
much longer. ^^^ ^^ longcr bc bomc, and an end 
must at length be put to the abuse which suffers 
the most precious rights of government to be 
made the subject of common barter — the high 
office of making laws to be conveyed by traffic, 
pass by assignment under a commission of bank- 
rupt, or the powers of an insolvent act, or be 
made over for a gaming.debt. If any one can 
be found to say that the abuses which enable a 
man to put his livery servants in the House of 
Commons as lawgivers, are essential parts of the 
British Constitution, he must have read its his- 
tory with better eyes than mine : and if such per- 
son be right, I certainly am wrong — but if I am, 
then also are all those other persons far more in 
the wrong who have so lavishly, in all times and 
countries, sung the praises of the Constitution. 
I well remember, when I argued at that bar the 
great case of my noble friend [Lord Segrave] 
claiming a barony by tenure, it was again and 
again pressed upon me by the noble and learned 
Earl [Earl of Eldon], as a consequence of the 
argument absurd enough to refute it entirely, 
that a seat in this House might become vested, 
as he said, in a tailor, as the assignee of an in- 
solvent's estate and effects. I could only meet 
this by humbly suggesting that the anomaly, the 
grossness of which I was forced to admit, already 
existed in every day's practice ; and I reminded 
your Lordships of the manner in which seats in 
the other House of the Legislature are bought 
and sold. A tailor may by purchase, or by as- 
instancesof signmcnt undcT a bankruptcy, obtain 
abus^s°oahi3 the right of sending members to Par- 
^^"^- liament, and he may nominate himself 

— and the case has actually happened. A wait- 
er at a gambling-house did sit for years in that 
House, holding his borough property, for aught 
I can tell, in security of a gambling debt. By 
means of that property, and right of voting, he 
advanced himself to the honors of the baronetcy. 
Fine writing has been defined to be right words 
in right places ; so may fine acting be said to 
consist of right votes in right places, that is, on 
pinching questions ; and in the discharge of my 
professional duty on the occasion of which I am 
speaking, 1 humbly ventured to approach a more 
awful subject, and to suggest the possibility of 
the worthy baronet rising still higher in the state : 
and, by persisting in his course of fine acting 
and judicious voting, obtaining at length a seat 



among your Lordships — ^which he would then 
have owed to a gambling debt. Certain it is, 
that the honors of the peerage have been be- 
stowed before now upon right voters in right 
places. 

While I am on this subject, I can not but ad 
vert to the remarks of my noble and incidental 
learned friend [Lord Wynfoid] who re'":",r,.rea* 
was elevated from the bench to this »'»" »i" Peers. 
House, and who greatly censured the ministers 
for creating some peers who happened to agree 
with them in politics. The coronation was. as 
all men know, forced upon us ; nothing could be 
more against our will ; but the Opposition abso- 
lutely insisted on having one, to show their loy- 
alty ; a creation of peers was the necessary con- 
sequence, and the self-same number were made 
as at the last coronation ten years ago. But we 
did not make our adversaries peers — we did not 
bring in a dozen men to oppose us — that is my 
noble friend's complaint ; and we did not choose 
our peers for such merits as alone, according to 
his view, have always caused men to be en- 
nobled. Merit, no doubt, has opened to many 
the doors of this House. To have bled for their 
country — to have administered the highest offices 
of the state — to have dispensed justice on the 
bench — to have improved mankind by arts in- 
vented, or enlightened them by science extend- 
ed — to have adorned the world by letters, or won 
the more imperishable renown of virtue — these, 
no doubt, are the highest and the purest claims 
to public honors ; and from some of these sources 
are derived the titles of some among us — to oth- 
ers, the purest of all, none can trace their nobil- 
ity — and upon not any of them can one single 
peer in a score rest the foundation of his seat in 
this place. Service without a scar in the polit- 
ical campaign — constant presence in the field of 
battle at St. Stephen's chapel — absence from all 
other fights, from " Blenheim down to Water- 
loo" — but above all, steady discipline — right 
votes in right places — these are the precious, 
but, happily, not rare qualities, which have gen- 
erally raised men to the peerage. For these 
qualities the gratitude of Mr. Pitt showered dov^-n 
his baronies by the score, and I do not suppose 
he ever once so much as dreamed of ennobling 
a man who had ever been known to give one vote 
against him. 

My Lords, I have been speaking of the man- 
ner in which owners of boroughs traffic. Return to 
and exercise the right of sending mem- o^trii'ffic^i^n 
bers to Parliament. I have dwelt on ^^"roughs. 
no extreme cases ; I have adverted to what pass- 
es every day before my eyes. See now the fruits 
of the system, also, by every day's experience. 
The Crown is stripped of its just weight in the 
government of the country by the masters of rot- 
ten boroughs ; they may combine ; they do com- 
bine, and their union enables them to dictate 
their own terms. The people are stripped of 
their most precious rights by the masters of rot- 
ten boroughs, for they have usurped the elective 
franchise, and thus gained an influence in Parlia- 
ment which enables them to prevent its restora- 



1831.] 



ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



925 



tion. The best interests of the country are sac- 
rificed by the masters of rotten boroughs, for 
their nominees must vote according to the mter- 
est not of the nation at large, whom they affect 
to represent, but of a few individuals, whom alone 
they represent in reality. But so perverted have 
men's minds become, by the gross abuse to which 
they have been long habituated, that the grand 
topic of the noble Earl [Lord Harrowby], and 
other debaters — the master-key which instantly 
unlocked all the sluices of indignation in this 
quarter of the House against the measure — 
which never failed, how often soever used, to let 
loose the wildest cheers, has been, that our re- 
form will open the right of voting to vast num- 
bers, and interfere with the monopoly of the few ; 
while we invade, as it is pleasantly called, the 
property of the peers and other borough-holders. 
Why, say they, it absolutely amounts to repre- 
sentation ! And wherefore should it not, I say ? 
and what else ought it to be ? Are we not upon 
the question of representation, and none other ? 
Are we not dealing with the subject of a repre- 
sentative body for the people ? The question is 
how we may best make the people's House of 
Parliament represent the people ; and, in answer 
to the plan proposed, we hear nothing but the 
exclamations, " Why, this scheme of yours is a 
rank representation ! It is dowairight election ! 
It is nothing more nor less than giving the peo- 
ple a voice in the choice of their own represent- 
atives ! It is absolutely most strange — unheard 
of — unimagined — and most abominable — intol- 
erable — incredibly inconsistent and utterly per- 
nicious novelty, that the members chosen .should 
have electors, and that the constituents should 
have something to do with returning the mem- 
bers !'' 

But we are asked at what time of our history 
Historical v^ew ^".^ ^^^^ systcm as we propose to 
The present bor- establish was cver known in En- 
ough system not , , j ^i • i i 

«xed ami >m- gland, and this appeal, alw^ays con- 
changeabie. fidcntly made, was never more 
pointedly addressed than by my noble and 
learned friend [Lord Wynford] to me. Now 
I need not remind your Lordships that the pres- 
ent distribution of the right to send members is 
any thing rather than very ancient ; still less 
has it been unchanged. Henry VIII. created 
twenty boroughs ; Edward VI. made twelve ; 
good Queen Elizabeth created one hundred and 
twenty, revived forty-eight; and in all, there 
were created and revived two hundred down to 
the Restoration. I need only read the words of 
Mr. Prynne upon the remote antiquity of our bor- 
ough system. He enumerates sixty-four bor- 
oughs — fourteen in Cornwall alone — as all new ; 
and he adds, " for the most part, the Universi- 
ties excepted, very mean, poor, inconsiderable 
boroughs, set up by the late returns, practices 
of sheriffs, or ambitious gentlemen desiring to 
serve them, courting, bribing, feasting them for 
their voices, not by prescription or charter (some 
few excepted), since the reign of Edward IV., be- 
fore whose reign they never elected or returned 
members to any English Parliament as now they 



do." Such, then, is the old and venerable dis- 
tribution of representation time out of mind, had 
and enjoyed in Cornwall and in England at large. 
Falmouth and Bossiney, Lostwithiel and Gram- 
pound, may, it seems, be enfranchised, and wel- 
come, by the mere power of the Crown. But 
let it be proposed to give Birmingham and Man- 
chester, Leeds and Sheffield, members by an act 
of the Legislature, and the air resounds with 
cries of revolution ! 

But I am challenged to prove that the pres- 
ent system, as regards the elective ^ot the original 
franchise, is not the ancient parlia- constitution of 
mentary Constitution ot the country 
— upon pain, says my noble and learned friend, 
of judgment going against me if I remain silent. 
My Lords, I will not keep silence, neither will I 
answer in my own person, but I wall refer you 
to a higher authority, the highest known in the 
law, and in its best days, when the greatest law- 
yers were the greatest patriots. Here is the 
memorable report of the committee of the Com- 
mons in 1 623-4, of which committee Mr. Ser- 
geant Glanville was the chairman, of which re- 
port he was the author. Among its members 
were the most celebrated names in the law — 
Coke, and Selden, and Finch, and Noy. after- 
w^ai'd Attorney General, and of known monarch- 
ical principles. The first resolution is this : 

"There being no certain custom, nor prescrip- 
tion, w'ho should be electors and who not, we 
must have recourse to common right, which, to 
this purpose, was held to be, that more than the 
freeholders only ought to have voices in the 
election ; namely, all men inhabitants, household- 
ers, resiants [residents] within the borough.''^ ' 

What, then, becomes of the doctrine that our 
bill is a mere innovation ; that, by the The bui not an 
old law of England, inhabitants house- LTtuTto old 
holders had no right to vote; that pf'^^^'i'ies. 
owners of burgage tenements, and freemen of 
corporations, have in all times exclusively had 
the franchise ? Burgage tenants, it is true, of 
old had the right, but in the w^ay I have al- 
ready described — not as now, the nominal and 
fictitious holders for an hour, merely for election 
purposes, but the owners of each, the real and 
actual proprietors of the tenement. Freemen 
never had it at all, till they usurped upon the in- 
habitants and thrust them out. But every house- 
holder voted in the towns without regard to val- 
ue, as before the eighth of Henry VI. every free- 
holder voted without regard to value in the coun- 
ties — not merely jCIO householders, as we pro- 
pose to restrict the right, but the holder of a 
house worth a shilling, as much as he whose 
house was worth a thousand pounds. But I 
have been appealed to ; and I will take upon 
me to affirm, that if the Crown were to issue a 
writ to the .sheriir, commanding him to send his 
precept to Birmingham or Manchester, requiring 
those towns to send burgesses to Parliament, the 
votes of all inhabitant householders must needs 
be taken, according to the exigency of the writ 
and precept, the right of voting at common law, 
and independent of any usurpation upon it, be- 



926 



LORD BROUGHAM 



[1831. 



longing to every resident householder. Are, 
then, the King's ministers innovators, revolution- 
ists, v^'ild projectors, idle dreamers of dreams and 
feigners of fancies, when they restore the ancient 
common law right, but not in its ancient com- 
mon law extent, for they limit, fix, and contract 
it ? They add a qualification of c£lO to restrain 
it, as our forefathers, in the fifteenth century, re- 
strained the county franchise by the freehold 
qualification. 

But then we hear much against the qualifica- 
Answ to Ob ^^^^ adopted ; that is, the particular 
jectiftns against sum fixcd upon, and the noble Earl 
[Lord Harrowby] thinks it will only 
give us a set of constituents busied in gaining 
their daily bread, and having no time to study 
and instruct themselves on state aflfairs. My 
noble friend, too [Lord Dudley], who lives near 
BirminghEmi, and may therefore be supposed to 
know his own neighbors better than we can, 
sneers at the statesmen of Birmingham and at 
the philosophers of jManchester. He will live — 
I tell him he will live to learn a lesson of practic- 
al wisdom from the statesmen of Birmingham, 
and a lesson of forbearance from the philosophers 
of Manchester. My noble friend was ill advised 
when he thought of displaying his talent for sar- 
casm upon one hundred and twenty thousand 
people in the one place, and one hundred and 
eighty thousand in the other. He did little, by 
such exhibitions, toward gaining a stock of credit 
for the order he belongs to — little toward con- 
ciliating for the aristocracy which he adorns, by 
pointing his little epigrams against such mighty 
masses of the people. Instead of meeting their 
exemplary moderation, their respectful demean- 
or, their afTectionate attachment, their humble 
confidence, evinced in every one of the peti- 
tions, wherewithal they have in myriads ap- 
proached the House, with a return of kindness, 
of courtesy, even of common civility, he has 
thought it becoming and discreet to draw him- 
self up in the pride of hexameter and pentame- 
ter verse — skill in classic authors — the knack of 
turning fine sentences, and to look down with 
derision upon the knowledge of his unrepresent- 
ed fellow-countrymen in the weightier matters 
of practical legislation. For myself, I, too, know 
Retort on Lord whcrc they arc defective : I have no 
conternpt"of"^ dcsirc cvcr to hear them read a Lat- 
Kngham""'^ iu Unc, or hit off' in the mother tongue 
politicians. r^ny epigram, whether in prose or in 
numerous verse. In these qualities they and I 
freely yield the palm to others. I, as their rep- 
resentative, yield it. I once stood as such else- 
where, because they had none of their own ; and 
though a noble Earl [Lord HaiTOwby] thinks 
they suffer nothing by the want, I can tell him 
they did severely suffer in the greatest mercan- 
tile question of the day, the Orders in Council, 
when they were fain to have a professional ad- 
vocate for their representative, and were only 
thus allowed to make known their complaints to 
Parliament. Again representing them here, for 
them I bow to my noble friend's immeasurable 
superiority in all things classical or critical. In 



book lore — in purity of diction — in correct proso- 
dy — even in elegance of personal demeanor, I and 
they, in his presence, hide, as well we may, our 
diminished heads. But to say that I will take 
my noble friend's judgment on any grave pi-ac- 
tical subject, on any thing touching the great in- 
terests of our commercial country, or any of those 
manly questions which engage the statesman, the 
philosopher in practice ; to say that I could ever 
dream of putting the noble Earl's opinions, ay, 
or his knowledge, in any comparison with the 
bold, rational, judicious, reflecting, natural, and 
because natural, the trustworthy opinions of those 
honest men, who always give their strong natu- 
ral sense fair play, having no affections to warp 
their judgment — to dream of any such compari- 
son as this, would be, on my part, a flattery far 
too gross for any courtesy, or a blindness which 
no habits of friendship could excuse ! 

When I hear so much said of the manufac- 
turers and artisans being an inferior Evidence of 
race in the political world, I, who well senJe^rnd 
know the reverse to be the fact, had ^''''''^'• 
rather not reason with their contemners, nor give 
my own partial testimony in their favor : but I 
will read a letter which I happen to have re- 
ceived within the three last days, and since the 
Derby meeting. "Some very good speeches 
were delivered," says the writer, "and you will 
perhaps be surprised when I tell you that much 
the best was delivered by a common mechanic. 
He exposed, with great force of reasoning, the 
benefits which the lower classes would derive 
from the Reform Bill, and the interest they had 
in being well governed. Not a single observa- 
tion escaped him, during a long speech, in the 
slightest degree disrespectful to the House of 
Lords, and he showed as much good taste and 
good feeling as he could have done had he been 
a member of St. Stephen's. He is, of course, a 
man of talent ; but there are many others also 
to be found not far behind him. The feeling in 
general is, that their capacity to judge of political 
measures is only despised by those who do not 
know them." These men were far from im- 
puting to any of your Lordships, at that time, a 
contempt for their capacities. They had not 
heard the speech of the noble Earl, and they did 
not suspect any man in this House of an inclina- 
tion to despise them. They did, however, as- . 
cribe some such contemptuous feelings — horrcsco 
refer ens — to a far more amiable portion of the 
aristocracy. " They think," pursues the writer, 
"they are only treated with contempt by a few 
women (I suppress the epithets employed), who, 
because they set the tone of fashion in London, 
think they can do so here too." 

The noble Earl behind [Lord Harrowby] ad- 
dressed one observation to your Lord- some talent 
ships, which I must in fairness con- i^,g^Hoit°eby 
fess I do not think is so easily answer- means of the 

, , T , ■• 11- -1 bill, but this IS 

ed as those I have been deahng with, incidental to a 
To the Crown, he says, belongs'the un- g-^'^s""-^- 
doubted right, by the Constitution, of appointing 
its ministers and the other public servants ; and 
it ought to have a free choice, among the whole 



1831.] 



ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



927 



community, of the men fittest to perform the 
varied ofHces of the executive government. But, 
he adds, it may so happen that, the choice having 
fallen on the most worthy, his constituents, when 
he vacates his seat, may not re-elect him, or he 
may not be in Parliament at the time of his pro- 
motion ; in either case he is excluded till a gen- 
eral election ; and even at a general election, a 
discharge of unpopular, but necessary duties, may 
exclude him from a seat through an unjust and 
passing, and, possibly, a local disfavor with the 
electors. I have frankly acknowledged that I 
feel the difficulty of meeting this inconvenience 
with an apt and safe remedy, without a great in- 
novation upon the elective principle. In the 
committee, others may be able to discover some 
safe means of supplying the defect. The matter 
deserves fuller consideration, and I shall be most 
ready to receive any suggestion upon it. But 
one thing I have no difficulty in stating, even 
should the evil be found remediless, and that I 
have only the choice between taking the reform 
with this inconvenience, or perpetuating that 
most corrupt portion of our system, condemned 
from the time of Swift down to this day, and 
which even the most moderate and bit-by-bit re- 
formers have now abandoned to its fate — my 
mind is made up, and I cheerfully prefer the re- 
form. 

The noble Earl [Lord Harrowby] has told my 
Defense of the uoblc friend at the head of the gov- 
seekhigsup- ernnient [Lord Grey] that he might 
Eody'if tue''^ have occupied a most enviable posi- 
peopie. tion, had he only abstained from med- 

dling with parliamentary reform. He might 
have secured the support and met the wishes 
of all parties. "He stood," says the noble Earl, 
" between the living and the dead."^ All the 
benefit of this influence, and this following, it 
seems, my noble friend has forfeited by the meas- 
ure of reform. My Lords, I implicitly believe 
the noble Lord's assertion, as far as regards him- 
self. I know him to be sincere in these expres- 
sions, not only because he tells me so, which is 
enough, but because facts are within my knowl- 
edge thoroughly confirming the statement. His 
support, and that of one or two respectable per- 
sons around him, we should certainly have had. 
Believe me, my Lords, we fully appreciated the 
value of the sacrifice we made ; it was not with- 
out a bitter pang that we made up our minds to 
forego this advantage. But I can not so far 
flatter those noble persons as to say that their 
support w^ould have made the government suf- 
ficiently strong in the last Parliament. Honest, 
and useful, and creditable as it would havi3 been, 
it never could have enabled us to go on for a 
night without the support of the people. I do, 
not mean the populace — the mob ; I never have 
bowed to them, though I never have testified any 
unbecoming contempt of them. Where is the 

6 This is a misapplication, apparently, of the noble 
allusion of one of our greatest orators (Mr. Wilber- 
force), who said of Mr. Pitt and Revolution — "He 
stood, between the living and the dead, and the plague 
was stayed." 



man who has yielded less to their demands than 
he who now addresses you ? Have I not op- 
posed their wishes again and again ? Have I 
not disengaged myself from them on their most 
favorite subject, and pronounced a demonstration, 
as I deemed it, of the absurdity and delusion of 
the ballot ? Even in the most troublous times 
of party, who has gone less out of his course to 
pay them court, or less submitted his judgment 
to theirs ? But if there is the mob, there is the 
people also. I speak now of the m.iddle classes 
— of those hundreds of thousands of respectable 
persons — the most numerous, and by far the 
most wealthy order in the community ; for if all 
your Lordship's castles, manors, rights of warren 
and rights of chase, with all your broad acres, 
were brought to the hammer, and sold at fifty 
years' purchase, the price would fly up and kick 
the beam when counterpoised by the vast and 
solid riches of those middle classes, who are also 
the genuine depositaries of sober, rational, in- 
telligent, and honest English feeling. Unable 
though they be to round a period or point an 
epigram, they ai-e solid, right-judging men, and, 
above all, not given to change. If they have a 
fault, it is that error on the right side, a suspicion 
of state quacks — a dogged love of existing in- 
stitutions — a perfect contempt of all political 
nostrums. They will neither be led character and 
astray by false reasoning nor deluded 5iijj[e"cias3. 
by impudent flattery ; but so neither ^^■ 
will they be scared by classical quotations or 
browbeaten by fine sentences ; and as for an 
epigram, they care as little yor it as they do for 
a cannon-hall. Grave — intelligent — rational — 
fond of thinking for themselves — they consider a 
subject long before they make up their minds on 
it ; and the opinions they are thus slow to form 
they are not swift to abandon. It is an egre- 
gious folly to fanc}' that the popular clamor for 
reform, or whatever name you please to give 
it, could have been silenced by a mere change 
of ministers. The body of the people, such as 
I have distinguished and described them, had 
weighed the matter well, and they looked to the 
government and to the Parliament for an cfTcctual 
reform. Doubtless they are not the only classes 
who so felt; at their backs were the humbler 
and numerous orders of the state ; and may God 
of his infinite mercy avei't any occasion for rous- 
ing the might which in peaceful times slumbers 
in their arms ! To the people, then, it was nec- 
essary, and it was most fit that the government 
should look steadily for support — not to save this 
or that administration ; but because, in my con- 
science, I do believe that no man out of the pre- 
cincts of Bethlem Hospital — nay, no thinking 
man, not certainly the noble Duke, a most saga- 
cious and reflecting man — can, in these times, 
dream of carrying on any government in despite 
of those middle orders of the state. Their sup- 
port must be sought, if the government would 
endure — the support of the people, as distin- 
guished from the populace, but connected with 
that populace, who look up to them as their kind 
and natural protectors. The middle class, in- 



928 



LORD BROUGHAM 



[1831, 



deed, forms the link which connects the upper 
and the lower orders, and binds even your Lord- 
ships with the populace, whom some of you are 
wont to despise. This necessary support of the 
country it was our duty to seek (and I trust we 
have not sought it in vain), by salutary reforms, 
not merely in the representation, but in all the 
branches of our financial, our commercial, and 
our legal polity. But when the noble Earl talks 
of the government being able to sustain itself by 
the support of himself and his friends, does he 
recollect the strong excitement which prevailed 
last winter ? Could we have steered the vessel 
of the state safely through that excitement, either 
within doors or without, backed by no other sup- 
port ? I believe he was then on the Bay of Na- 
ples, and he possibly thought all England was 
slumbering like that peaceful lake — when its 
state was more like the slumbers of the mount- 
ain upon its margin. " Stand between the living 
and the dead," indeed ! Possibly we might; for 
we found our supporters among the latter class, 
and our bitter assailants among the former. 
True it is, the noble Earl would have given us 
his honest support ; his acts would have tallied 
with his professions. But can this be said of 
others ? Did they, who used nearly the same 
language, and avowed the same feelings, give 
any thing to the government but the most fac- 
tious opposition ? Has the noble Earl never 
heard of their conduct upon the timber duties, 
when, to thwart the administration, they actually 
voted against measures devised by themselves — 
ay, and threw them out by their division ? Ex- 
ceptions there w^ere, no doubt, and never to be 
mentioned without honor to their names, some 
of the most noble that this House, or indeed any 
country of Europe can boast [Mr. T. P. Cour- 
tenay]. They would not, for spiteful purposes, 
suffer themselves to be dragged through the mire 
of such vile proceedings, and conscientiously re- 
fused to join in defeating the measures themselves 
had planned. These were solitary exceptions; 
the rest, little scrupulous, gave up all to wreak 
their vengeance on the men who had committed 
the grave offense, by politicians not to be for- 
given, of succeeding them in their offices. I do 
not then think that, in making our election to pre- 
fer the lavors of the country to those of the noble 
Earl, we acted unwisely, independent of all con- 
siderations of duty and of consistency ; and I fear 
I can claim for our conduct no praise of disinter- 
estedness. 

My Lords, T have followed the noble Earl as 
Answer to the closely as I could through his argu- 
objection that mcnts, and I will not answer those 

the bill will ' ... 

make members w'ho Supported him With coual mi- 
their constitu- nutcucss, bccausc, m answering him, 
*"'*' I have really ansvi^ered all the argu- 

ments against the bill. One noble Lord [Lord 
Falmouth] seems to think he has destroyed it, 
when he pronounces, again and again, that the 
members chosen under it will be delegates. 
What if they were delegates ? What should a 
representative be but the delegate of his constit- 
uents ? But a man may be the delegate of a 



single person, as well as of a city or a town ; 
he may be just as much a delegate when he has 
one constituent as when he has 5000 — with this 
material difference, that, under a single constit- 
uent, who can turn him off in a moment, he is 
sure to follow the orders he receives implicitly, 
and that the service he performs will be for the 
benefit of one man, and not of many. The giv- 
ing a name to the thing, and crying out Delegate ! 
Delegate ! proves nothing, for it only raises the 
question, who should be the delegator of this 
public trust — the people or the borough-holders ? 
Another noble Lord [Lord Caernarvon], profess- 
ing to wish well to the great unrepresented 
towns, complained of the bill on their , 

' 1 . and prevent 

behalf, because, he said, the first thins mercantile men 

• 1 • 1 , , . r f"""'" buying 

it does IS to close up the access which seats in Parlia- 

they at present possess to Parliament, "^^'^ ' 
by the purchase of seats for mercantile men, who 
may represent the different trading interests in 
general. Did ever mortal man contrive a sub- 
tlety so absurd, so nonsensical as this ? What ! 
Is it better for Birmingham to subscribe, and 
raise 665000, for a seat at Old Sarum, than to 
have the right of openly and honestly choosing 
its own representative, and sending him direct to 
Parliament ? Such horror have some men of 
the straight, open highway of the Constitution, 
that they would, rather than travel upon it, sneak 
into their seats by the dirty, winding by-ways of 
rotten boroughs. 

But the noble Earl behind [Lord Harrowby] 
professed much kindness for the great Foiiy of waiting 
towns— he had no objection to give SnSd"^ 
Birmingham, Manchester, and Shef- '"'•crimes, 
field representatives as vacancies might occur, 
by the occasional disfranchisement of boroughs 
for crimes. Was there ever any thing so fan- 
tastical as this plan of reform ? In the first 
place, these great towns either ought to have 
members or they ought not. If they ought, why 
hang up the possession of iheir just rights upon 
the event of some other place committing an of 
fense ? Am I not to have my right till another 
does a wrong ? Suppose a man wrongfully keeps 
possession of my close ; I apply to him, and say, 
" Mr. Johnson, give me up my property, and 
save me and yourself an action of ejectment." 
Should not I have some cause to be surprised, 
if he answered, " Oh no, I can't let you have it 
till Mr. Thomson embezzles oG 10,000, and then 
I may get a share of it, and that will enable me 
to buy more land, and then I'll give you up your 
field." " But I want the field, and have a right 
to get it ; not because Thomson has committed 
a crime, but because it is my field, and not yours 
— and I should be as great a fool as you are a 
knave, were I to wait till Thomson became as 
bad as yourself." I am really ashamed to detain 
your Lordships with exposing such wretched tri- 
fling. 

A speech, my Lords, was delivered by my 
noble friend under the opposite gallery [Lord 
Radnor], which has disposed of much that re- 
mains of my task. I had purposed to show the 
mighty change which has been wrought in later 



1831.] 



ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



929 



times upon the opinions, the habits, and the intel- 
ligence of the people, by the universal diffusion 
of knowledge. But this has been done by my 
noble friend with an accuracy of statement, and 
a power of language which I should in vain at- 
tempt to follow : and there glowed through his 
admirable oration a natural warmth of feeling to 
which every heart instinctively responded. I 
have, however, lived to hear that great speech 
talked of in the language of contempt. A noble 
Lord [Lord Falmouth], in the fullness of his ig- 
norance of its vast subject, in the maturity of his 
incapacity to comprehend its merits, described it 
as an amusing — a droll speech ; and in this pro- 
found criticism a noble Earl [Earl Caernarvon] 
seemed to concur, whom I should have thought 
capable of making a moi-e correct appreciation. 
Comparisons are proverbially invidious ; yet I 
can not help contrasting that speech with another 
which I heard not very long ago, and of which 
my noble friend [Earl Caernarvon] knows some- 
thing ; one not certainly much resembling the 
luminous speech in question, but a kind of chaos 
of dark, disjointed figures, in which soft profes- 
sions of regard for friends fought with hard cen- 
sures on their conduct, frigid conceptions with 
fiery execution, and the lightness of the materials 
with the heaviness of the workmanship — 
"Frigida puguabant calidis, humentia siccis, 
MoUia cum duris, sine pondere habentia pondus."'' 

A droll and amusing speech, indeed ! It was 
worthy of the same speaker of whom both Mr. 
Windham and Mr. Canning upon one occasion 
said, that he had made the finest they ever heard. 
It was a lesson deeply impregnated with the best 
wisdom of the nineteenth century, but full also 
of the profoundest maxims of the seventeenth. 
There was not a word of that speech — not one 
proposition in its luminous context — one sentence 
of solemn admonition or of touching regret — fell 
from my noble friend [Lord Radnor] — not a se- 
vere reproof of the selfishness, nor an indignant 
exclamation upon the folly of setting yourselves 
against the necessary course of events, and re- 
fusing the rights of civilization to those whom 
you have suffered to become civilized — not a 
sentiment, not a topic, which the immortal elo- 
quence and imperishable wisdom of Lord Bacon 
did not justify, sanction, and prefix. 

They who are constantly taunting us with 
The sole object Subverting the system of the repre- 
m^enu^'trcon- sentation, and substituting a parlia- 
ti'ie"Jiroi"?9s'of mentary Constitution unknown in car- 
the times. Her timcs, must be told that we are 

making no change — that we are not pulling 
down, but building up — or, at the utmost, adapt- 
ing the representation to the altered state of the 
community. The system which was hardly fit- 
ted for the fourteenth century can not surely be 
adapted to the nineteenth. The innovations of 
time, of which our detractors take no account, 
are reckoned upon by all sound statesmen ; and 

' The cold and hot contended— dry and wet — 
Things hard and soft — those with weight and with- 
out it. — Ovid's Metamp. [Chaos], Book i., 1. 19. 

N N N 



in referring to them, my noble friend [Lord Rad- 
nor] has only followed in the footsteps of the 
most illustrious of philosophers. " Stick to your 
ancient parliamentary system," it is said ; " make 
no alteration ; keep it exactly such as it was in 
the time of Harry the Third, when the two Hou- 
ses first sat in separate chambers, and such as it 
has to this day continued !" This is the igno- 
rant cry ; this the very shibboleth of the par- 
ty. But I have joined an issue with our antag- 
onists upon the fact ; and I have given the evi- 
dence of Selden, of Glanville, of Coke, of Noy, 
and of Prynne, proving to demonstration that the 
original right of voting has been subjected to 
great and hurtful changes — that the exclusive 
franchise of freemen is a usurpation upon house- 
holders — and that our measure is a restoration 
of the rights thus usurped upon. I have .shown 
that the ministers are only occupied in the duty 
of repairing what is decayed, not in the work of 
destruction, or of violent change. Your Lord- 
ships were recently assembled at the great so- 
lemnity of the coronation. Do you call to mind 
the language of the primate, and in which the 
monarch swore, when the sword of kingly estate 
was delivered into his hands ? " Restore the 
things that are gone into decay ; maintain that 
which is restored ; purify and reform what is 
amiss ; confirm that which is in good order !" 
His sacred Majesty well remembers his solemn 
vow, to restore the Constitution, and to reform 
the abuses time has introduced ; and I, too, 
feel the duty imposed on me, of keeping fresh 
in the recollection of the prince, whom it is my 
pride and my boast to serve, the parts of oar sys- 
tem which fall within the scope of his vow. But 
if he has sworn to restore the decayed, so has he 
also sworn to maintain that which is restored, 
and to confirm that which wants no repairing; 
and what sacrifice soever may be required to 
maintain and confirm, that sacrifice I am ready 
to make, opposing myself, with my sovereign, to 
the surge that may dash over me, and saying to 
it, " Hitherto shalt thou come ; here shall thy 
waves be stayed." For while that sovereign tells 
the enemies of all change, " I have sworn to re- 
store !" so wuU he tell them who look for change 
only, "I have also sworn to maintain !" 

" Stand by the whole of the old Constitution!" 
is the cry of our enemies. I have 
disposed of the issue of fact, and surdi'iv ortbe 
shown that what we attack is any p^««^"' ^^•«««'"- 
thing but the old Constitution. But suppose, for 
argument's sake, the question had been decided 
against us — that Selden, Coke, Noy, Glanville, 
Prynne, were all wrong — that their doctrine and 
mine was a mere illusion, and rotten boroughs 
the ancient order of things — that it was a fun- 
damental principle of the old Constitution to have 
members without constituents, boroughs with- 
out members, and a representative Parliament 
without electors. Suppose this to be the nature 
of the old, and much admired, and more be- 
praised, government of England. All this I will 
assume for the sake of the argument ; and I so- 
licit the attention of the noble Lords who main- 



930 



LORD BROUGHAM 



[1831. 



tain that argument, while I show them its utter 
absurdity. Since the early times of which they 
speak, has there been no chance in the very na- 
ture of a seat in Parliament ? Is there no differ- 
ence between our days and those when the elect- 
ors eschewed the right of voting, and a seat in 
Parliament, as well as the elective franchise, was 
esteemed a burden ? Will the same principles 
apply to that age and to ours, when all the people of 
the three kingdoms are more eager for the power 
of voting than for any other earthly possession ; 
and the chance of sitting in the House of Com- 
mons is become the object of all men's wishes ? 
Even as late as the union of the Crowns, we 
have instances of informations filed in the courts 
of law to compel Parliament men to attend their 
duty, or punish them for the neglect — so ill was 
pi'ivilege then understood. But somewhat earli- 
er we find boroughs petitioning to be relieved 
from the expense of sending members, and mem- 
bers supported by their constituents as long as 
they continued their attendance. Is it not clear 
that the parliamentary law applicable to that 
state of things can not be applied to the present 
circumstances, without in some respects making 
a violent revolution ? But so it is in the prog- 
ress of all those changes which time is perpetu- 
ally working in the condition of human affairs. 
They are really the authors of change, who re- 
sist the alterations w^hich are required to adjust 
the system, and adapt it to new circumstances ; 
who forcibly arrest the progress of one portion 
amid the general advancement. Take, as an il- 
lustration, the state of our jurisprudence. The 
old law ordained that a debtor's property should 
be taken in execution. But in early times there 
were no public funds, no paper securities, no ac- 
counts at bankers ; land and goods formed the 
property of all ; and those were allowed to be 
taken in satisfaction of debts. The law, there- 
fore, which only said, let land and goods be tak- 
en, excluded the recourse against stock and 
credits, although it plainly meant that all the 
property should be liable, and would clearly have 
attached stock and credits, had they then been 
known. But when nine tenths of the property 
of our richest men consist of stock and credits, 
to exempt these under pretense of standing by 
the old law, is manifestly altering the substance 
for the sake of adhering to the letter : and sub- 
stituting for the old law, that all the debtor's 
property should be liable, a new and totally dif- 
ferent law, that a small part only of his property 
should be liable. Yet in no part of our system 
has there been a greater change than in the es- 
timated value attached to the franchise, and to 
a seat in Parliament, from the times when one 
class of the community anxiously shunned the 
cost of electing, and another as cautiously avoid- 
ed being returned, to those when both classes 
are alike anxious to obtain these privileges. 
Then, can any reasonable man argue that the 
same law should be applied to two states of 
things so diametrically opposite ? Thus much I 
thought fit to say, in order to guard your Lord- 
ships against a favorite topic, one sedulously 



urged by the adversaries of reform, who lead 
men astray by constantly harping upon the string 
of change, innovation, and revolution. 

But it is said, and this is a still more favorite 
argument, the system works well. How Answer lo 
does it work well ? Has it any preten- ^'"^ '"■g"- 

1 • 11 n "lent, that 

sions to the character oi workmg well? it work* 
What say you to a town of five or six 
thousand inhabitants, not one of whom has any 
more to do with the choice of its representatives 
than any of your Lordships sitting round that 
table — indeed, a great deal less — for I see my 
noble friend [the Duke of Devonshire] is there ? 
It works well, does it ? How works well ? It 
would work well for the noble Duke, if he chose 
to carry his votes to market ! Higher rank, in- 
deed, he could not purchase than he has : but he 
has many connections, and he might gain a title 
for every one that bears his name. But he has 
always acted in a manner far more worthy of his 
own high character, and of the illustrious race of 
patriots from whom he descends, the founders 
of our liberties and of the throne which our Sov- 
ereign's exalted house fills ; and his family have 
deemed that name a more precious inheritance 
than any title for which it could be exchanged. 
But let us see how the system works for the 
borough itself, and its thousands of hon- Kot for tbe 
est, industrious inhabitants. My Lords, JIJ-' lhe'bo"r^ 
I once had the fortune to represent it °"g''''- 
for a few weeks ; at the time when I received 
the highest honor of my life, the pride and ex- 
ultation of which can never be eradicated from 
my mind but by death, nor in the least degree 
allayed by any lapse of time — the most splendid 
distinction which any subjects can confer upon 
a fellow-citizen — to be freely elected for York- 
shire, upon public grounds, and being unconnect- 
ed with the county. From having been at the 
borough the day of the election, I can give your 
Lordships some idea how well the system works 
there. You may be returned for the place, but 
it is at your peril that you show j'ourself among 
the inhabitants. There is a sort of polling; that 
is, five or six of my noble friend's tenants ride 
over from another part of the country — receive 
their burgage qualifications — vote, as the ene- 
mies of the bill call it, '"in right of pi-operty," 
that is, of the Duke's property — render up their 
title-deeds — dine, and return home before night. 
Being detained in court at York longer than I 
had expected on the day of this elective proceed- 
ing, I arrived too late for the chairing, and there- 
fore did not assist at that awful solemnity. See- 
ing a gentleman with a black patch, somewhere 
about the size of a sergeant's coif, I expressed 
my regret at his apparent ailment ; he said, " It 
is for a blow I had the honor to receive in repre- 
senting you at the ceremony." Certainly no con- 
stituent ever owed more to his representative 
than I to mine : but the blow was severe, and 
might well have proved fatal. I understand this 
is the common lot of the members, as my noble 
friend [Lord Tankerville], who once sat for the 
place, I believe, knows ; though there is some 
variety, as he is aware, in the mode of proceed- 



1831.] 



ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



931 



ing, the convenient neighborhood of a river with 
a rock}'^ channel sometimes suggesting operations 
of another kind. I am very far, of course, from 
approving such marks of public indignation ; but 
I am equally far from wondering that it should 
seek a vent ; for I confess, that if the thousands 
of persons whom the well working of the pres- 
ent system insults with the farce of the Knares- 
borough election (and whom the bill restores to 
their rights) were to bear so cruel a mockery with 
patience, I should deem them degraded indeed. 

It works well, does it ? For whom ? For 
the Constitution ? No such thing. For bor- 
ough proprietoi-s it works well, who can sell 
seats or traffic in influence, and pocket the gains. 
Upon the Constitution it is the foulest stain, and 
eats into its very core. 

It works well "? For the people of England ? 
„ . ^ ., For the people, of whom the many ex- 

Not for the ,,,/^ , iri 

people of eluded electors are parcel, and lor whom 
"^'"' ' alone the few actual electors ought to 
exercise their franchise as a trust ! No such 
thing. As long as a member of Parliament 
really represents any body of his countrymen, 
be they freeholders, or copyholders, or leasehold- 
ers — as long as he represents the householders 
in any considerable town, and is in either way 
deputed to watch over the interests of a portion 
of the community, and is always answerable to 
those who delegate him — so long has he a par- 
ticipation in the interests of the whole state, 
whereof his constituents form a portion — so long 
may he justly act as representing the whole com- 
munity, having, with his particular electors, only 
a general coincidence of views upon national 
questions, and arigox'ous coincidence where their 
special interests are concerned. But if he is 
delegated by a single man, and not by a county 
or a town, he does not represent the people of 
England ; he is a jobber, sent to Parliament to 
do his own or his patron's work. But then we 
are told, and with singular exultation, how many 
great men have found their way into the House 
of Commons by this channel. My Lords, are 
we, because the only road to a place is unclean, 
not to travel it ? If I can not get into Parlia- 
ment, where I may render the state good serv- 
ice, by any other means, I will go that way, de- 
filing myself as little as I can, either by the filth 
of the passage or the indifferent company I may 
travel with. I won't bribe ; I won't job, to get 
in ; but if it be the only path open, I will use it 
for the public good. But those who indulge in 
this argument about great men securing seats, 
do not. I remark, take any account of the far 
greater numbers of very little men who thus find 
their way into Parliament to do all manner of 
public mischief. A few are, no doubt, independ- 
ent; but many are as docile, as disciplined in 
the evolutions of debate, as any troops the noble 
Duke had at Waterloo. One borough proprie- 
tor is well remembered, who would display his 
forces, command them in person, carry them over 
from one flank to the other, or draw them off al- 
together, and send them to take the field against 
the larks at Dunstable, that he might testify his 



displeasure. When conflicting bodies are pretty 
nearly matched, the evolutions of such a corps 
decide the fate of the day. The noble Duke 
[Wellington] remembers how doubtful even the 
event of Waterloo might have been had Grouchy 
come up in time. Accordingly, the fortunate 
leader of that parliamentary force raised him- 
self to an Earldom and two Lord Lieutenancies, 
and obtained titles and blue ribbons for others 
of his family, who now fill most respectable sta- 
tions in this House. 

The system, we are told, works well, because, 
notwithstanding the manner of its elec- ^ . , 

" It IS alxvavR 

tion, the House of Commons some- behmdpui.iic 

J. ^ , . . . sentiment. 

times concurs immediately in opinion 
with the people ; and, in the long run, is seldom 
found to counteract it. Yet sometimes, and on 
several of the most momentous questions, the 
run has, indeed, been a very long one. The 
slave trade continued to be the signal disgrace 
of the country, the unutterable opprobrium of the 
English name, for many years after it had been 
denounced in Parliament, and condemned by the 
people all in one voice. Think you this foul stain 
could have so long survived, in a reformed Par- 
liament, the prodigious eloquence of my venera- 
ble friend, Mr. Wilberforce, and the unanimous 
reprobation of the country ? The American 
war might have been commenced, and even for 
a year or two persevered in, for, though most 
unnatural, it was, at first, not unpopular. But 
could it have lasted beyond 1778, had the voice 
of the people been heard in their own House ? 
The French war, which in those days I used to 
think a far more natural contest, having in my 
youth.leaned to the alarmist party, might possi- 
bly have continued some years. But if the rep- 
resentation of the country had been reformed, 
there can be no reason to doubt that the sound 
views of the noble Earl [Lord Grey], and the 
immortal eloquence of my right honorable friend 
[Mr. Fox], whose great spirit, now freed from 
the coil of this world, may be permitted to look 
down complacent upon the near accomplishment 
of his patriotic desires, would have been very 
differently listened to in a Parliament unbiassed 
by selfish interests ; and of one thing I am as cer- 
tain as that I stand here, that ruinous warfare 
never could have lasted a day beyond the arrival 
of Bonaparte's letter in 1800. 

But still it is said public opinion finds its wav 
more speedily into Pai'liament upon „., 

^ •' . ^ Whentl).itseii- 

gi-eat and interesting emergencies, timent reaches 
How does it so ? By a mode contra- is'bV umlesir'a- 
ry to the whole principles of repre- "^'^ '"^-w^- 
sentative government — by sudden, direct, and 
dangerous impulses. The fundamental princi- 
ple of our Constitution, the great political dis- 
coveiy of modern times — that, indeed, which en- 
ables a state to combine extent with liberty — the 
system of representation, consists altogether in 
the perfect delegation by the people, of their 
rights and the care of their interests, to those 
wiio are to deliberate and to act for them. It i.s 
not a delegation which shall make the represent- 
ative a mere organ of the passing will, or mo- 



932 



LORD BROUGHAM 



[1831. 



mentary opinion, of his constituents. I am aware, 
my Lords, that in pursuing this important topic, 
I may lay myself open to uncandid inference 
touching the present state of the country ; but I 
feel sure no such unfair advantage will be tak- 
en, for my whole argument upon the national en- 
thusiasm for reform rests upon the known fact 
that it is the growth of half a century, and not 
of a few months ; and, according to the soundest 
views of representative legislation, there ought 
to be a general coincidence between the conduct 
of the delegate and the sentiments of the elect- 
ors. Now, when the public voice, for want of a 
regular and legitimate organ, makes itself, from 
time to time, heard within the walls of Parlia- 
ment, it is by a direct interposition of the people, 
not in the way of a delegated trust, to make the 
laws ; and every such occasion presents, in truth, 
an instance where the defects of our elective sys- 
tem introduce a recurrence to the old and bar- 
barous schemes of government, known in the 
tribes and centuries of Rome, or the assemblies 
of Attica. It is a poor compensation for the 
faults of a system which suffers a cruel grievance 
to exist, or a ruinous war to last twenty or thir- 
ty years after the public opinion has condemned 
it, that some occasions arise when the excess of 
the abuse brings about a violent remedy, or some 
revolutionary shock, threatening the destruction 
of the whole. 

But it works well ! Then why does the table 
Tu .-.• groan with the petitions against it, of 

The petitions ",, , , *^ „ , » . ' 

against the all that pcople, lor whose mterests 

present system , . . . , . ^ ^^ n 

show it does thcrc IS any use m it workmg at all ? 
not work well ^y^^ ^-^ ^^^ countrj^ at the last elec- 
tion, without exception, wherever they had the 
franchise, return members commissioned to com- 
plain of it, and amend it ? Why were its own 
produce, the men chosen under it, found voting 
against it by unexampled majorities ? Of eighty- 
two English county members, seventy-six have 
pronounced sentence upon it, and they are joined 
by all the representatives of cities and of great 
towns. 

It works well ! Whence, then, the phenom- 
ena of Political Unions — of the peo- 

The combina- i r • i i 

tions not to pay pie cvcrv whcrc lorming themselves 

taxes show . " . . 1 

how odious the mto associations to put down a sj's- 
systera is. ^^^ which you Say well serves their 
interests? Whence the congregating of one 
hundred and fifty thousand men in one place, the 
whole adult male population of two or three 
counties, to speak the language of discontent, 
and refuse the payment of taxes ? I am one 
who never have either used the language of in- 
timidation, or will ever suffer it to be used to- 
ward me ; but I also am one who regard those 
indications with unspeakable anxiety. With all 
respect for those assemblages, and for the hon- 
esty of the opinions they entertain, I feel myself 
bound to declare, as an honest man, as a minis- 
ter of the Crown, as a magistrate, nay, as stand- 
ing, by virtue of my office, at the head of the 
magistracy, that a resolution not to pay the 
KLog's taxes is unlawful. When I contemplate 
the fact, I am assured that not above a few thou- 



sands of those nearest the chairman could know 
for what it was they held up their hands. At 
the same time, there is too much reason to think 
that the rest would have acted as they did had 
they heard all that passed. My hope and trust 
is, that these men and their leaders will mature- 
ly reconsider the subject. There are no bounds 
to the application of such a power ; the difficulty 
of counteracting it is extreme ; and as 
it may be exerted on whatever question theslcom- 
has the leading interest, and every ques- '"°*^'°"^- 
tion in succession is felt as of exclusive import- 
ance, the use of the power I am alluding to 
really threatens to resolve all government, and 
even society itself, into its elements. I know the 
risk I run of giving offense by what I am saying. 
To me, accused of worshiping the democracy, 
here is, indeed, a tempting occasion, if in that 
charge there were the shadow of truth. Before 
the great idol, the Juggernaut, with his hund- 
red and fifty thousand priests, I might prostrate 
myself advantageously. But I am bound to do 
my duty, and speak the truth ; of such an assem- 
bly I can not approve ; even its numbers obstruct 
discussion, and tend to put the peace in danger — 
coupled with such a combination against payment 
of taxes, it is illegal ; it is intolerable under any 
form of government ; and as a sincere well-wish- 
er to the people themselves, and devoted to the 
cause which brought them together, I feel so- 
licitous, on every account, to bring such proceed- 
ings to an end. 

But, my Lords, it is for us to ponder these things 
well ; they are material facts in our .^^^-^ danger 
present inquiry. Under a system of ai^'^es from 

■^ , ' •' . . •' , denying the 

real representation, in a country where people their 
the people possessed the only safe and ^'^ '*" 
legitimate channel for making known their 
wishes and their complaints, a Parliament of 
their own choosing, such combinations would be 
useless. Indeed, they must always be mere 
brutum ficlnien, unless where they are very gen- 
eral ; and where they are general, they both in- 
dicate the universality of the grievance and the 
determination to have redress. Where no safe- 
ty-valve is provided for popular discontent, to 
prevent an explosion that may shiver the ma- 
chine in pieces — where the people, and by the 
people, I repeat, I mean the middle classes, the 
wealth and intelligence of the country, the glory 
of the British name — where this most important 
order of the community are without a regular 
and systematic communication with the Legis- 
lature — where they are denied the Constitution 
which is their birth-right, and refused a voice in 
naming those who are to make the laws they 
must obey, impose the taxes they must pay, and 
control, without appeal, their persons as well 
as properties — where they feel the load of such 
grievances, and feel, too, the power they possess, 
moral, intellectual, and, let me add, without the 
imputation of a threat, physical — then, and only 
then, are their combinations formidable ; when 
they are armed b}' their wrongs, far more for- 
midable than any physical force — then, and only 
then, they become invincible. 



1831.] 



ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



933 



be conciliateil, 
not treated witli 
contempt. 



Do you ask what, in these circumstances, we 
The people must ought to do ? I answcr, simply our 
duty. If there were no such com- 
binations in existence — no symptom 
of popular excitement — if not a man had lifted up 
his voice against the existing system, we should 
be bound to seek and to seize any means of fur- 
thering the best interests of the people, with 
kindness, with consideration, with the firmness, 
certainly, but with the prudence, also, of states- 
men. How much more are we bound to con- 
ciliate a great nation anxiously panting for their 
rights — to hear respectfully their prayers — to 
entertain the measure of their choice with an hon- 
est inclination to do it justice ; and if. while we 
approve its principle, we yet dislike some of its 
details, and deem them susceptible of modifica- 
tion, surely we ought, at any rate, not to reject 
their prayers for it with insult. God forbid we 
should so treat the people's desire ; but I do fear 
that a determination is taken not to entertain it 
with calmness and impartiality. (Cries of No ! 
No ! from the Opposition.) I am glad to have 
been in error ; I am rejoiced to hear this disclaim- 
er, for I infer from it that the people's prayers 
are to be granted. You will listen, I trust, to the 
advice of my noble and learned friend [Lord 
Plunkett], who, with his wonted sagacity, rec- 
ommended you to do as you would be done by. 
This wise and Christian maxim will not, I do 
hope, be forgotten. Apply it, my Lords, to the 
case before you. Suppose, for a moment, that 
your Lordships, in your wisdom, should think it 
expedient to entertain some bill regulating mat- 
ters in which this House alone has any concern, 
as the hereditary privileges of the peerage, or 
the right of voting by proxy, or matters relative 
to the election of peers representing the aristoc- 
racy of Ireland and Scotland, or providing against 
the recurrence of such an extraordinary and, in- 
deed, unaccountable event as that which decided 
on the Huntingdon peerage without a commit- 
tee ; suppose, after great exertions of those most 
interested, as the Scotch and Irish peers, or this 
House at large, your Lordships had passed it 
through all its stages by immense majorities, by 
fifty or a hundred to one, as the Commons did 
the Reform. (Cries of No.) I say an over- 
whelming majority of all who represented any 
body, all the members for counties and towns ; 
but, to avoid caviling, suppose it passed by a 
large majority of those concerned, and sent down 
to the Commons, whom it only remotely afiect- 
ed. Well — it has reached that House ; and sup- 
pose the members were to refuse giving your 
measure any examination at all in detail, and to 
reject it at once. What should you say ? How 
should you feel, think you, when the Commons 
arrogantly turned round from your request, and 
said, " Let us fling out this silly bill without 
more ado; true, it regulates matters belonging 
exclusively to the Lords, and in which we can 
not at all interfere without violating the law of 
the land ; but still, out with it for an aristocratic, 
oligarchical, revolutionary bill — a bill to be abom- 
inated by all who have a spark of the true demo- 



cratic spirit in their composition." What should 
you think if the measure were on such grounds 
got rid of, without the usual courtesy of a pre- 
tended postponement, by a vote that this Lord's 
bill be rejected? And should you feel much 
soothed by hearing that some opposition Chester- 
field had taken alarm at the want of politeness 
among his brethren, and, at two o'clock in the 
morning, altered the words, retaining their oflTens- 
ive sense — I ask, would such proceedings in the 
Commons be deemed by your Lordships a fair, 
just, candid opposition to a measure affecting 
your own seats and dignities only? Would you 
tolerate their saying, " We don't mind the pro- 
visions of this Lord's bill ; we don't stop to dis- 
cuss them ; we won't parley with such a thing ; 
we plainly see it hurts our interest, and checks 
our own patronage ; for it is an aristocratic bill, 
and an oligarchical bill, and withal a revolution- 
ary bill ?" Such treatment would, I doubt not, 
rufile the placid tempers of your Lordships ; you 
would say somewhat of your order, its rights, 
and its privileges, and buckle on the armor of a 
well-founded and natural indignation. But your 
wonder would doubtless increase if you learned 
that 3'our bill had been thus contemptuously re- 
jected in its first stage by a House in which only 
two members could be found who disapproved of 
its fundamental principles. Yes, all avow them- 
selves friendly to the principle ; it is a matter of 
much complaint if you charge one with not being 
a reformer ; but they can not join in a vote which 
only asserts that principle, and recognizes the ex- 
pediency of some reform. Yes, the Commons all 
allow your peerage law to be an abomination ; 
your privileges a nuisance : all cry out for some 
change as necessary, as imperative ; but they, 
nevertheless, will not even listen to the proposi- 
tion for effecting a change, which you, the most 
interested party, have devised and sent down to 
them. Where, I demand, is the difference be- 
tween this uncourteous and absurd treatment of 
your supposed bill by the Commons, and that 
which you talk of giving to theirs ? You ap- 
prove of the principle of the measure sent up by 
the other House, for the sole purpose of amend- 
ing its own Constitution ; but you won't sanc- 
tion that principle by your vote, nor afford its 
friends an opportunity of shaping its features, so 
as, if possible, to meet your wishes. Is this fair ? 
Is it candid ? Is it consistent ? Is it wise ? Is 
it, I ask you, is it at this time very prudent ? Did 
the Commons act so by you in Sir Robert Wal- 
pole's time, when the bill for restraining the cre- 
ation of peers went down from hence to that 
House ? No such thing ; though it afterward 
turned out that there was a majority of one hund- 
red and twelve against it, they did not even di- 
vide upon the second reading. Will you not ex- 
tend an equal courtesy to the bill of the Com- 
mons and of the people ? 

I am asked what great practical benefits are 
to be expected from this measure? rmcticai ben- 
And is it no benefit to have the gov- pec'edfror 
ernment strike its roots into the hearts ""efo™- 
of the people ? Is it no benefit to have a calm 



934 



LORD BROUGHAM 



1831. 



and deliberative, but a real organ of the public 
opinion, by which its course may be known, and 
its influence exerted upon state affairs regularly 
and temperately, instead of acting convulsively, 
and, as it were, by starts and shocks? I will 
only appeal to one advantage, which is as certain 
to result from this salutary improvement of our 
system as it is certain that I am at^lressing your 
Lordships. A noble Earl [Lord Winchelsea] 
inveighed strongly against the licentiousness of 
the press ; complained of its insolence ; and as- 
serted that there was no tyranny more intolera- 
ble than that which its conductors now exer- 
cised. It is most true that the press has great 
influence, but equally true that it derives this 
influence from expressing, more or less correct- 
ly, the opinion of the country. Let it run coun- 
ter to the prevailing course, and its power is at 
an end. But I will also admit that, going in the 
same general direction with public opinion, the 
pi-ess is oftentimes armed with too much power 
in particular instances ; and such power is always 
liable to be abused. But I will tell the noble 
Earl upon what foundation this overgrown power 
is built. The press is now the only organ of 
public opinion. This title it assumes ; but it is 
not by usurpation ; it is rendered legitimate by 
the defects of your parliamentary Constitution ; 
it is erected upon the ruins of real representa- 
tion. The periodical press is the rival of the 
House of Commons ; and it is, and it will be, 
the successful rival, as long as that House does 
not represent the people — but not one day lon- 
ger. If ever I felt confident in any prediction, it 
is in this, that the restoration of Parliament to its 
legitimate office of representing truly the public 
opinion will overthrow the tyranny of which no- 
ble Lords are so ready to complain, who, by 
keeping out the lawful sovereign, in truth sup- 
port the usurper. It is you who have placed 
this unlawful authority on a rock : pass the bill, 
it is built on a quicksand. Let but the country 
have a full and free representation, and to that 
will men look for the expression of public opin- 
ion, and the press will no more be able to dic- 
tate, as now, when none else can speak the sense 
of the people. Will its influence wholly cease ? 
God forbid ! Its just influence will continue, 
but confined within safe and proper bounds. It 
will continue, long may it continue, to watch the 
conduct of public men — to watch the proceed- 
ings even of a reformed Legislature — to watch 
the people themselves — a safe, an innoxious, a 
useful instrument, to enlighten and improve man- 
kind ! But its overgrown power — its assump- 
tion to speak in the name of the nation — its pre- 
tension to dictate and to command, will cease 
with the abuse upon which alone it is founded, 
and will be swept away, together with the other 
creatures of the same abuse, which now " fright 
our isle from its propriety." 

Those portentous appearances, the growth of 
later times, those figures that stalk abroad, of 
unknown stature and strange form — unions of 
leagues, and musterings of men in myriads, and 
conspiracies against the exchequer j whence do 



they spring, and how come they to haunt our 
shores? What power engendered Ai)ti,eovi!g 
those uncouth shapes, what multi- experienred in 

,. 1 , 1-1 '11 1 Ireland May be 

plied the monstrous births till they expected in 
people the land? Trust me, the tTiefe"rigi,tLre 
same power which called into fright- '*^''i'''^'J- 
ful existence, and armed with resistless force the 
Irish Volunteers of 1782 — the same power which 
rent in twain your empire, and raised up thir- 
teen republics — the same power which created 
the Catholic Association, and gave it Ireland for 
a portion. What power is that? Justice de- 
nied — rights withheld — wrongs perpetrated — 
the force which common injuries lend to millions 
— the wickedness of using the sacred trust of 
government as a means of indulging private 
caprice — the idiotcy of treating Englishmen like 
the children of the South Sea Islands — the frenzy 
of believing, or making believe, that the adults 
of the nineteenth century can be led like chil- 
dren, or driven like barbarians ! This it is that 
has conjured up the strange sights at which we 
now stand aghast ! And shall we persist in the 
fatal error of combating the giant progeny, in- 
stead of extirpating the execrable parent ? Good 
God ! Will men never learn wisdom, even from 
their own experience ? Will (hey never believe, 
till it be too late, that the surest way to prevent 
immoderate desires being formed, ay, and unjust 
demands enforced, is to grant in due season the 
moderate requests of justice ? You stand, my 
Lords, on the brink of a great event ; you are in 
the crisis of a whole nation's hopes and fears. 
An awful importance hangs over your decision. 
Pause, ere you plunge ! There may not be any 
retreat ! It behooves you to shape your conduct 
by the mighty occasion. They tell you not to be 
afraid of personal consequences in discharging 
your duty. I too would ask you to banish all 
fears ; but, above all, that most mischievous, 
most despicable fear — the fear of being thought 
afraid. If you won't take counsel from me, take 
example from the statesman-like conduct of the 
noble Duke [Wellington], while you also look 
back, as you may, with satisfaction upon your 
own. He was told, and you were told, that the 
impatience of Ireland for equality of civil rights 
was partial, the clamor transient, likely to pass 
away with its temporary occasion, and that yield- 
ing to it would be conceding to intimidation. I 
recollect hearing this topic urged within this 
hall in July, 1828 ; less regularly I heard it than 
I have now done, for I belonged not to your 
number — but I heard it urged in the self-same 
terms. The burden of the cry was — it is no 
time for concession ; the people are turbulent, 
and the Association dangerous. That summer 
passed, and the ferment subsided not ; autumn 
came, but brought not the precious fruit of peace 
— on the contrary, all Ireland was convulsed 
with the unprecedented conflict which returned 
the great chief of the Catholics to sit in a Prot- 
estant Parliament; winter bound the earth in 
chains, but it controlled not the popular fury, 
whose surge, more deafening than the tempest, 
lashed the frail bulwarks of law founded upon 



1831.] 



ON PARLIMAENTARY REFORM. 



935 



injustice. Spring came ; but no ethereal mild- 
ness was its harbinger, or followed in its train ; 
the Catholics became stronger by every month's 
delay, displayed a deadlier resolution, and pro- 
claimed their wrongs in a tone of louder defiance 
than before. And what course did you, at this 
moment of greatest excitement, and peril, and 
menace, deem it most fitting to pursue ? Eight 
months before, you had been told how unworthy 
it would be to yield when men clamored and 
threatened. No change had happened in the in- 
terval, save that the clamors were become far 
more deafening, and the threats, beyond com- 
parison, more overbearing. What, nevertheless, 
did your Lordships do ? Your duty ; for you 
despised the cuckoo-note of tlie season, " be not 
intimidated." You granted all that the Irish 
demanded, and you saved your country. Was 
there in April a single argument advanced w^iich 
had not held good in July? None, absolutely 
none, except the new height to which the dan- 
gers of longer delay had risen, and the increased 
vehemence with which justice was demanded ; 
and yet the appeal to your pride, wiiich had pre- 
vailed in July, was in vain made in April, and 
you wisely and patriotically granted what was 
asked, and ran the risk of being supposed to yield 
through fear. 

But the history of the Catholic claims conveys 
another important lesson. Though 

Delay will . it , . . 'T 

only aggravate m right, and policy, and justice, the 
measure of relief could not be too 
ample, half as much as w^as received with little 
gratitude when so late wrung from you, would 
have been hailed twenty years before with de- 
light ; and, even the July preceding, the measure 
would have been received as a boon freely given, 
which, I fear, was taken with but sullen satisfac- 
tion in April, as a right long withheld. Yet, 
blessed be God, the debt of justice, though tar- 
dily, was at length paid, and the noble Duke won 
by it civic honors which rival his warlike achieve- 
ments in lasting brightness — than which there 
can be no higher praise. What, if he had still 
listened to the topics of intimidation and incon- 
sistency which had scared his predecessors ? 
He might have proved his obstinacy, and Ireland 
would have been the sacrifice. 

Apply now this lesson of recent history — I 
The aristoc may Say of our own experience to the 
am?rcfto"° measure before us. We stand in a truly 
^^ndsltthe critical position. If we reject the bill, 
people. through fear of being thought to be 

intimidated, we may lead the life of retirement 
and quiet, but the hearts of the millions of our 
fellow-citizens are gone forever : their aflections 
are estranged ; we and our order and its privi- 
leges are the objects of the people's hatred, as 
the only obstacles which stand between them 
and the gratification of their most passionate de- 
sire. The whole body of the aristocracy must 
expect to share this fate, and be exposed to feel- 
ings such as these. For I hear it constantly 
said that the bill is rejected by all the aristoc- 
racy. Favor, and a good number of supporters, 
our adversaries allow it has among the people ; 



the ministers, too, are for it ; but the aristoc- 
racy, say they, is strenuously opposed to it. I 
broadly deny this silly, thoughtless assertion. 
What, my Lords ! the aristocracy set themselves 
in a mass against the people — they who sprang 
from the people — are inseparably connected with 
the people — are supported by the people — are 
the natural chiefs of the people ! They set them- 
selves against the people, for whom peers are 
ennobled — bishops consecrated — Kings anointed 
— the people to serve whom Parliament itself 
has an existence, and the monarchy and all its 
institutions are constituted, and without whom 
none of them could exist for an hour ! The as- 
sertion of unreflecting men is too monstrous to 
be endured — as a member of this House, I deny 
it with indignation. I repel it with scorn, as a 
calumny upon us all. And yet there are those 
who even within these walls speak of the bill 
augmenting so much the strength of the democ- 
racy as to endanger the other orders of the state ; 
and so they charge its authors with promoting 
anarchy and rapine. Why, my Lords, have its 
authors nothing to fear from democratic spolia- 
tion ? The fact is, that there are members of 
the present cabinet, who possess, one or two of 
them alone, far more property than any two ad- 
ministrations within my recollection ; and all of 
them have ample wealth. I need hardly say, I 
include not myself, who have little or none. But . 
even of myself I will say. that w^hatever I have 
depends on the stability of existing institutions ; 
and it is as dear to me as the princely posses- 
sions of any among you. Permit me to say, that, 
in becoming a member of your House, I staked 
myall on the aristocratic institutions of the state. 
I abandoned certain wealth, a large income, and 
much real power in the state, for an office of 
great trouble, heavy responsibility, and very un- 
certain duration. I say, I gave up substantial 
power for the shadow of it, and for distinction 
depending upon accident. I quitted the eleva- 
ted station of representative for Yorkshire, and a 
leading member of the Commons. I descended 
from a position quite lofty enough to gratify any 
man's ambition, and my lot became bound up 
in the stability of this House. Then, have I not 
a right to throw myself on your justice, and to 
desire that you will not put in jeopardy all I 
have now left ? 

But the populace only, the rabble, the ignoble 
vuljiar, are for the bill ! Then what it is not the 
is the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal 'v;to'are?a'fa. 
of England ? What the Duke of Dev- ^"^ °^^^^ bill. 
onshire ? What the Duke of Bedford ? (Cries 
of order from the Opposition.) I am aware it is 
irregular in any noble Lord that is a friend to 
the measure ; its adversaries are patiently suf- 
fered to call peers even by their Christian and 
surnames. Then I shall be as regular as they 
were, and ask, Does my friend John Russell, my 
friend William Cavendish, my friend Harry Vane, 
belong to the mob, or to the aristocracy ? Have 
they no possessions ? Are they modern names ? 
Are they wanting in Norman blood, or whatev- 
er else you pride yourselves on ? The idea is 



LORD BROUGHAM ON PARLIAMENTARY REFORM. 



[1831. 



too ludicrous to be seriously refuted ; that the 
bill is only a favorite with the democracy, is a 
delusion so wild as to point a man's destiny to- 
ward St. Luke's. Yet many, both here and 
elsewhere, by dint of constantly repeating the 
same cry, or hearing it repeated, have almost 
made themselves believe that none of the nobili- 
ty are for the measure. A noble friend of mine 
has had the curiosity to examine the list of peers, 
opposing and supporting it, with respect to the 
dates of their creation, and the result is some- 
what remarkable. A large majority of the peers, 
created before Mr. Pitt's time, are for the bill ; the 
bulk of those against it are of recent creation ; 
and if you divide the whole into two classes, 
those ennobled before the reign of George IIL 
and those since, of the former, fifty-six are friends, 
and only twenty-one enemies of the reform. So 
much for the vain and saucy boast that the real 
nobility of the country are against reform. I 
have dwelt upon this matter more than its intrin- 
sic importance deserves, only through my desire 
to set right the fact, and to vindicate the ancient 
aristocracy from a most groundless imputation. 
My Lords, I do not disguise the intense solic- 
itude which I feel for the event of this 

Peroratron: 

Danger of debate, because I know full well that 
^^^' the peace of the country is involved in 

the issue. I can not look without dismay at the 
, rejection of the measure. But grievous as may 
be the consequences of a temporary defeat — 
temporary it can only be ; for its ultimate, and 
even speedy success, is certain. Nothing can now 
stop it. Do not suffer yourselves to be persuaded 
that even if the present ministers were driven from 
the helm, any one could steer you through the 
troubles which surround you without reform. 
But our successors would take up the task in cir- 
cumstances far less auspicious. Under them, 
you would be fain to grant a bill, compared with 
which the one we now proffer you is moderate 
indeed. Hear the parable of the Sibyl ; for it 
conveys a wise and wholesome moral. She now 
appears at your gate, and offers you mildly the 
volumes — the precious volumes — of wisdom and 
peace. The price she asks is reasonable ; to re- 
store the franchise, which, without any bargain, 
you ought voluntarily to give ; you refuse her 
terms — her moderate terms — she darkens the 
porch no longer. But soon, for you can not do 
without her wares, j^ou call her back ; again she 
comes, but with diminished treasures ; the leaves 
of the book are in part torn away by lawless 
hands — in part defaced with characters of blood. 
But the prophetic maid had risen in her demands 
— it is Parliaments by the year — it is vote by the 
ballot — it is suffrage by the million ! From this 
you turn away indignant, and for the second time 
she departs. Beware of her third coming ; for 
the treasure you must have ; and what price she 
may next demand, who shall tell ? It may even 
be the mace which rests upon that wool-sack. 
What may follow your course of obstinacy, if 
persisted in, I can not take upon me to predict, 
nor do I wish to conjecture. But this I know 
lull well, that, as sure as man is nlortal, and to 



err is human, justice deferred enhances the price 
at which you must purchase safety and peace ; 
nor can you expect to gather in another crop 
than they did who went before you, if you per- 
severe in their utterly abominable husbandry, of 
sowing injustice and reaping rebellion. 

But among the awful considerations that now 
bow down my mind, there is one which stands 
pre-eminent above the rest. You are the high- 
est judicature in the realm ; you sit here as judg- 
es, and decide all causes, civil and criminal, with- 
out appeal. It is a judge's first duty never to 
pronounce sentence in the most triffing case 
without hearing. Will you make this the ex- 
ception ? Are you really prepared to determine, 
but not to hear, the mighty cause upon which a 
nation's hopes and fears hang ? You are. Then 
bcNvare of your decision ! Rouse not, I beseech 
you, a peace-loving, but a resolute people ; alien- 
ate not from your body the affections of a v/hole 
empire. As your friend, as the friend of my 
order, as the friend of my country, as the faith- 
ful servant of my Sovereign, I counsel you to as- 
sist with your uttermost efforts in preserving the 
peace, and upholding and perpetuating the Con- 
stitution. Therefore, I pray and exhort you not 
to reject this measure. By all you hold most dear 
— by all the ties that bind ever}- one of us to our 
common order and our common country, I sol- 
emnly adjure you — I warn you — I implore you 
— ^yea, on my bended knees, I supplicate you — re- 
ject not this bill ! 



So completely had Lord Brougham wrought 
up his own feelings and those of his hearers at 
the close of this speech, that it was nothing 
strained or unnatural — it was, in fact, almost a 
matter of course — for him to sink dow^n upon one 
of his knees at the table where he stood, when 
he uttered the last words, " I supplicate you — 
reject not this bill !" But the sacrifice was too 
great a one for that proud nobility to make at 
once, and the bill was rejected by a majority of 
forty-one, of whom twenty-one belonged to the 
board of bishops of the Established Church. 

The question, " What will the Lords do .?" 
which had agitated and divided the public mind 
for some months, was now answered, and a 
burst of wounded and indignant feeling followed 
throughout the whole country. The London 
papers were many of them arrayed in mourn- 
ing ; some of the Lords who had opposed the 
bill were assaulted by the populace in the streets ; 
others were burned in effigy in the neighbor- 
hoods where they lived ; riots took place in many 
of the large towns, at which the property of the 
anti-Reformers was destroyed ; and in the vicin- 
ity of Nottingham the ancient palace of the Duke 
of Newcastle was consumed by fire. The great 
body of the nation, while they disapproved of 
these excesses, were wrought up to the highest 
pitch of determination that, come what might, the 
bill should be carried. Public meetings, embrac- 
ing a large part of the entire population, were 
held in all parts of the kingdom, and men of the 
highest standing and ability came forwai'd to 



1825.] 



INAUGURAL DISCOURSE OF MR. BROUGHAM, ETC. 



937 



form tliem into one compact body, with the King 
in tlieir midst, to press with the united force of 
millions on the House of Lords. Before such 
an array the aristocracy of England, for the first 
time, with all its wealth, and talent, and hered- 
itary claims on the respect of the people, were 
seen to be uttei'ly powerless. They were even 
treated with contempt. " The efforts of the 
Lords to stop the progress of reform," said the 
Rev. Sydney Smith at the Taunton meeting, " re- 
minds me very forcibly of the great storm at 
Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent 
Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the win- 
ter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that 
town ; the tide rose to an incredible height, the 
waves rushed in upon the houses, and every 
thing was threatened with destruction. In the 
midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame 
Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen 
at the door of her house with mop and pattens, 
trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea-water, 
and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. 



The Atlantic was roused, Mrs. Partington's spirit 
was up, but I need not tell you that the contest 
was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. 
Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a 
puddle, but she should not have meddled with a 
tempest. Gentlemen, be at your ease — be quiet 
and steady. You will beat I\Irs. Partington. "s 
On the 12th of December, 1831, the bill was 
introduced into the House of Commons for the 
third time, and was passed by a majority of one 
hundred and sixty-two ; but was rejected in the 
House of Lords on the 7th of May, 1832, by a 
majority of thirty-nine. The ministry instantly 
resigned, and the King, after an ineffectual ef- 
fort to form another, invited them back, on the 
condition that he would create enough new Lords 
to carry through the bill. This ended the con- 
test. To escape such an indignity, a large num- 
ber of the anti-Reformers signified their inten- 
tion of being absent when the bill came up anew, 
and it finally passed the Upper House on the 
4th of June, 1832, by a vote of 106 to 22. 



INAUGURAL DISCOURSE 

OF MR. BROUGHAM WHEN ELECTED LORD RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW DELIV- 
ERED APRIL 6, 1825. 

INTRODUCTION. 

At Glasgow a Lord Rector is annually chosen by a major vote of the members of the University. The 
station is simply one of honor, like that of Chancellor in the English Universities, involving no share in the 
government or instruction, and is usually awarded to some public man who has a distinguished name in 
literature or politics. 

When inducted into office, the Lord Rector returns thanks in an address which is usually short, as a 
mere matter of form and compliment, expressing his sense of the honor conferred, and his best wishes for 
the prosperity of the institution. Lord Brougham, however, when called to this office, took a dijSerent 
course. He prepared an elaborate address on " the stxidy of the Rhetorical Art, and the purposes to ivhick 
a proficiency in this art should he made subservient." He urges the study of rhetoric, however, not in 
mere treatises on the subject, but (as in the case of the sculptor and painter) in the direct study of the 
great productions of the art itself, and especially of the Greek orators ; of whom he affirms, " the w^orks 
of the English chisel fall not more short of the wonddrs of the Acropolis, than the best productions of 
modern pens fall short of the chaste, finished, nervous, and overwhelming compositions of them "that 
fulmined over Greece." The discourse is full of striking remarks, many of them of great value as the 
result of the author's own experience, and it therefore forms a very appropriate close to this volume. 
One fact respecting it is certainly remarkable, that, containing so many and such extended quotations, it 
was written not at home among his books, but "during the business of the Northern Circuit." 



DISCOU 

It now becomes me to return my very sincere 
and respectful thanks for the kindness which has 
placed me in a chair filled at former times by 
so many great men, whose names might well 
make any comparison formidable to a far more 
worthy successor. 

While I desire you to accept this nnexagger- 
Rsasons for a atcd cxprcssiou of gratitudc, I am 
a"cid're«Tthan^'^ anxious to address you rather in the 
usual. form which I now adopt, than in the 

more usual one of an unpremiCditatcd discourse. 
I shall thus at least prove that the remarks 
which I deem it my duty to make are the fruit 
of mature reflection, and that I am unwilling to 
discharge an important oflSce in a perfunctory 
manner. 



RSE, &o. 

I feel very sensibly that if I shall now urge 
you by general exhortations to be Transition: 
instant in the pursuit of the learning ig°nce7n'^^^dl 
which, in all its branches, flourishes 'eg«iife. 
under the kindly shelter of these roofs, I may 
weary you with the unprofitable repetition of a 
thrice-told tale ; and if I presume to offer my 
advice touching the conduct of your studies, I 
may seem to trespass upon the province of those 
venerable persons under whose care you have 
the singular happiness to be placed. But I 
would nevertheless expose myself to either 
charge, for the sake of joining my voice with 

8 It scarcely need be said that this mention of the 
good lady gave rise to the frequent occurrence of 
her name in the newspapers of the present day. 



INAUGURAL DISCOURSE OF MR. BROUGHAM, ETC. 



[1825. 



theirs in anxiously entreating you to believe how 
incomparably the present season is verily and 
indeed the most precious of your whole lives. 
It is not the less true, because it has been often- 
times said, that the period of youth is by far the 
best fitted for the improvement of the mind, and 
the retirement of a college almost exclusively 
adapted to much study. At your enviable age 
every thing has the lively interest of novelty and 
freshness ; attention is perpetually sharpened by 
curiosity ; and the memory is tenacious of the 
deep impressions it thus receives, to a degree 
unknown in after life ; while the distracting cares 
of the world, or its beguiling pleasures, cross 
not the threshold of these calm retreats ; its dis- 
tant noise and bustle are faintly heard, making 
the shelter you enjoy more grateful ; and the 
struggles of anxious mortals embarked upon that 
troublous sea are viev^^ed from an eminence, the 
security of which is rendered more sweet by the 
prospect of the scene below. Yet a little while, 
and you too will be plunged into those waters 
of bitterness ; and will cast an eye of regret, as 
now I do, upon the peaceful regions you have 
quitted forever. Such is your lot as members 
of society ; but it will be your own fault if you 
look back on this place with repentance or with 
shame ; and be well assured that, whatever time 
— ay. every hour — you squander here on un- 
profitable idling, will then rise up against you, 
and be paid for by years of bitter but unavailing- 
regrets. Study, then, I beseech you, so to store 
your minds with the exquisite learning of former 
ages, that you may always possess within your- 
selves sources of rational and refined enjoyment, 
which will enable you to set at naught the 
grosser pleasures of sense, whereof other men 
are slaves ; and so imbue yourselves with the 
sound philosophy of later days, forming your- 
selves to the virtuous habits which are its le- 
gitimate offspring, that you may walk unhurt 
through the trials which await you, and may 
look down upon the ignorance and error that 
surround you, not with lofty and supercilious 
contempt, as the sages of old times, but with 
the vehement desire of enlightening tho.se who 
wander in darkness, and who are by so much 
the more endeared to us by how much they want 
our assistance. 

Assuming the improvement of his own mind 
Subject: The ^^^ of thc lot of his fcliow-creaturcs 
study of Rhet- to bc the cfrcat end of every man's 

one and its . ^ . ^ 

proper appiica- existcucc, who IS rcmovcd abovc the 
care of providing for his sustenance, 
and to be the indispensable duty of every man, 
as far as his own immediate wants leave him 
any portion of time unemployed, our attention is 
naturally directed to the means by which so 
great and urgent a work may best be performed ; 
and as in the limited time allotted to this dis- 
course, I can not hope to occupy nmore than a 
small portion of so wide a field, I shall confine 
myself to two subjects, or rather to a few obser- 
vations upon two subjects, both of them appro- 
priate to this place, but either of them aflTording 
ample materials for an entire course of lectures 



— the study of the rhetorical art, by which use- 
ful truths are promulgated with effect, and the 
purposes to which a proficiency in this art should 
be made subservient. 

It is an extremely common error among young 
persons, impatient of academical dis- p^^^ ^.^^^ 
cipline, to turn from the painful study The study of 

p • 1 .11 p . • Khetoric. 

ot ancient, and particularly ol Attic Thi.s simuid be 
composition, and solace themselves aim>"g tuV^ ^ 
with works rendered easy by the fa- ^'^"^ °™^°"- 
miliarity of their own tongue. They plausibly 
contend, that as powerful or captivating diction 
in a pure English style is, after all, the attain- 
ment they are in search of, the study of the best 
English models affords the shortest road to this 
point ; and even admitting the ancient examples 
to have been the great fountains from which all 
eloquence is drawn, they would rather profit, as 
it were, by the classical labors of their English 
predecessors, than toil over the same path them- 
selves. In a woi'd, they would treat the perish- 
able results of those labors as the standard, and 
give themselves no care about the immortal 
originals. This argument, the thin covering 
which indolence weaves for herself, would speed- 
ily sink all the fine arts into barrenness and in- 
significance. Why, according to such reason- 
ers, should a sculptor or painter encounter the 
toil of a journey to Athens or to Rome ? Far 
better work at home, and profit by the labor of 
those who have resorted to the Vatican and 
the Parthenon, and founded an English school 
adapted to the taste of our own country. Be 
j'OU assured that the works of the En- . 

glish chisel fall not more short of the aii F.ngiish 
wonders of the Acropolis, than the ™° ^*' 
best productions of modern pens fall short of 
the chaste, finished, nervous, and overwhelming 
compositions of them that " resistless fulmined 
over Greece." Be equally sure that, with 
hardly any exception, the great things of poetry 
and of eloquence have been done by men who 
cultivated the mighty exemplars of Athenian 
genius with daily and with nightly devotion. 
Among poets there is hardly an exception to 
this rule, unless may be so deemed|fehakspeare, 
an exception to all rules,\and DantoT familiar as 
a cotemporary with the works of Koman art, 
composed in his mother tongue, having taken, 
not so much for his guide as for his "master,' 
Virgil, himself almost a translator from the 
Greeks. But among orators I know of none 
among the Romans, and scarce any in our own 
times. Cicero honored the Greek masters with 
such singular observance, that he not xe-otimonyof 
only repaired to Athens for the sake cirerotothe 

-' » . pre emjneiK e 

of finishing his rhetorical education, of Greek onc 
but afterward continued to practice °^^' 
the art of declaiming in Greek ; and although 
he afterward fell into a less pure manner through 
the corrupt blandishments of the Asian taste, yet 
do we find him ever prone to extol the noble 
perfections of his first masters, as something 
placed beyond the reach of all imitation. Nay, 
at a mature period of his life, he occupied him- 
self in translating the greater orations of the 



1825.] 



INAUGURAL DISCOURSE OF MR. BROUGHAM, ETC. 



Greeks, which composed ahnost exclusively his 
treatise " De optimo genere Oratoris ;'''' as if to 
write a discourse on oratorial perfection were 
merely to present the reader with the two im- 
mortal speeches upon the Crown. Sometimes 
we find him imitating, even to a literal version, 
the beauties of those divine originals — as the 
beautiful passage of ^schines, in the Timar- 
chus, upon the torments of the guilty, which the 
Roman orator has twice made use of, almost 
word for word ; once in the oration for Sextus 
Roscius, the earliest he delivered, and again in 
a more mature effort of his genius, the oration 
against L. Piso.^ 

I have dwelt the rather upon the authority of 
Inferiority of M. Tullius, becausc it enables us at 
Roman eio- ^j^^g ^^ auswcr the Question, Whether 

qU6iiCc as a *■ ' 

model. a Study of the Roman orators be not 

sufficient for refining the taste ? If the Greeks 
were the models of an excellence which the first 
of Roman orators never attained, although ever 
aspiring after it — nay, if so far from being satis- 
fied with his own success, he even in those his 
masters found something which his ears desid- 
erated (ita sunt avidae et capaces ; et semper 
aliquid immensum infinitumque desiderant [so 
eager are they and capacious, so continually de- 
sirous of something boundless and infinite])- — he 
either fell short while copying them, or he failed 
by diverting his worship to the false gods of the 
Asian school. In the one case, were we to rest 



^ M^ yap oleadt, rag tuv u6LKT]fj.dru)v dpxug d~6 
5ewv, d?i?J ovx VTV^ uvOp^-Kiov a(5tkytiaq jiveoOaf 
firjSe rovg rjneSrjKOTag, Kaddrrep kv ralq rpayudlaLg, 
Uoivug eXavveLV Kal KOAa^eiv daalv Tjfi/xivaig • u'AA' 
at 7rpoTT£Ts~ig rov aufj-arog i]6oval, Koi to firjdev 
licavov TiyeladaL, ravra ttXtjpoI rd 7.riaTT]pLa — ravr' 
elg Tov knaKTpoKEATjra £/j,,3ti3d(^eL — ravrd kanv 
eKuaru Tioivfj, k. t. %. — 'AI2XIN. Kara Tifidp- 
Xov. Let no one think that ci'imes arise from the 
instigation of the gods, and not from the rash intem- 
perance of men ; or that the profane are driven and 
chastized, as we see them on the stage, by furies 
with blazing torches. The eager lusts of the flesh, 
and the msatiable desire for more — these swell the 
ranks of the robber, and crowd the deck of the pi- 
rate — these are to every one his own fury ! 

Nolite enim putare, quemadmodum in fabulis 
saepenumero videtis, eos, qui aliquid impie scelera- 
teque commiserint, agitari et perterreri Furiarum 
taedis ardentibus. Sua quemque fraus, et suus teiTor 
maxime vexat; suum quemque scelus agitat, araen- 
tiaque afiicit; suce maloecogitationes couscientiaeque 
auuni teiTcnt. Hae sunt impiis assiduae domesti- 
caeque Furije; quae dies noctesque parentum poenas 
a consceleratissimis filiis repetant. — Pro Sexto Ros- 
cio Amerino. 

Nolite enim puta/e, ut in scena videtis, homines 
consceleratos impulsu deorum terreri Furiarum 
tajdis ardentibus. Sua quemque fraus, suum faci- 
nus — suum scelus — sua audacia, de sanitate ac 
mente deturbat. Hee sunt impiorum Furiae — hae 
flammse — hae faces. — In Luc. Calp. Pisojiem. 

The great improvement in Cicero's taste between 
the first and the second of these compositions is 
manifest, and his closer adherence to the original. 
He introduces the same idea, and in very similar 
language, iu the Treatise De Legg., Lib. 1. — 
Brougham. 2 Orator., c. 29. 



satisfied with studying the Roman, we should 
only be imitating the imperfect copy, instead of 
the pure original — like him who should endeavor 
to catch a glimpse of some beauty by her reflec- 
tion in a glass, that weakened her tints, if it did 
not di.stort her features. In the other case, we 
should not be imitating the same, but some less 
perfect original, and looking at the wrong beau- 
ty ; not her whose chaste and simple attractions 
commanded the adoration of all Greece, but some 
garish damsel from Rhodes or Chios, just brill- 
iant and languishing enough to captivate the less 
pure taste of half-civilized Rome. 

But there are other reasons too weighty to be 
passed over, which justify the same .p,,g ^t^jg ^^^ 
decided preference. Not to mention manner of cic- 

, '- ero not suited 

the mcomparable beauty and power to the present 
of the Greek language, the study of "^' 
which alone affords the means of enriching our 
own, the compositions of Cicero, exquisite as they 
are for beauty of diction, often remarkable for in- 
genious argument and brilliant wit, not seldom 
excelling in deep pathos, are nevertheless so ex- 
tremely rhetorical, fashioned by an art so little 
concealed, and sacrificing the subject to a dis- 
play of the speaker's powers, admirable as those 
are, that nothing can be less adapted to the 
genius of modern elocution, which requires a 
constant and almost exclusive attention to the 
business in hand. In all his orations which were 
spoken (for, singular as it may seem, the remark 
applies less to those which were only written, as 
all the Verrine, except the first, all the Philip- 
pics, except the first and ninth, and the Pro Mi- 
lone) hardly two pages can be found wiiich a 
modern assembly would bear. Some admirable 
arguments on evidence, and the credit of wit- 
nesses, might be urged to a jury ;^ several pas- 
sages, given by him on the merits of the case, 
and in defense against the charge, might be spo- 
ken in mitigation of punishment after a convic- 
tion or confession of guilt ; but, whether we re- 
gard the political or forensic orations, the style, 
both in respect of the reasoning and the orna- 
ments, is wholly unfit for the more severe and 
less trifling nature of modern affairs in the Senate 
or at he bar. Now it is altogether otherwise 
with the Greek masters. Changing That of the 
a few phrases, which the difference J'adapt^e'd'fo'' 
of religion and of manners might ren- modem times. 
der objectionable — moderating, in some degi'ee, 
the virulence of invective, especially against pri- 
vate character, to suit the chivalrous courtesy of 
modern hostility — there is hardly one of the po- 
litical or forensic orations of the Greeks that 



^ There is a singular example of this in the re- 
marks on the evidence and cross-examination in the 
oration for L. Flaccus, pointed out to me by my friend 
Mr. Scarlett (now Lord Abiuger), the mention of 
whose name affords an illustration of my argument, 
for, as a more consummate master of the forensic art 
in all its branches never lived, so no man is more 
conversant with the works of his predecessors in 
ancient times. Lord Erskine, too, perhaps the first 
of judicial orators, ancient or modern, had well stud- 
ied the noble remains of the classic age. — Brousrham 



940 



INAUGURAL DISCOURSE OF MR. BROUGHAM, ETC. 



[1825. 



mifiht not be delivered in similar circumstances 
before our Senate or tribunals ; while their fu- 
neral and other panegyrical discourses are much 
less inflated and unsubstantial than those of the 
most approved masters of the epideictic style, the 
French preachers and academicians. Whence 
this difference between the master-pieces of Greek 
and Roman eloquence ? Whence but from the 
rigid steadiness with which the Greek orator 
keeps the object of all eloquence perpetually in 
view, never speaking for mere speaking's sake ; 
while the Latin rhetorician, " ingcnii sui nimium 
amator'''' [too fond of his own ingenuity], and, as 
though he deemed his occupation a trial of skill 
or display' of accomplishments, seems ever and 
anon to lose sight of the subject-matter in the 
attempt to illustrate and adorn it ; and pours 
forth passages sweet indeed, but unprofitable — 
fitted to tickle the ear, without reaching the 
heart. Where, in all the orations of Cicero, or 
of him who almost equals him, Livy, '"'' mir(2 fa- 
cundicE homo''' [admirable for his command of 
language],* shall we find any thing like those 
thick successions of short questions in which De- 
mosthenes oftentimes forges, as it were, with a 
few rapidly following strokes, the whole massive 
chain of his argument ; as in the Chersonese, 
Et d' uTTof diacpOap^ocTat nai 6ia7\.vdf]aeraL, ri 
T^oiTiaofiev, av km Xff)f)6vi]Gov f»7 ; Kptvovfj,ev Aio- 
ireWijv ; vrj Ala. Kal tL to. TrpuyfiaTa earai (Se?,.- 
Tio) ; d/l/l' evdivSe l3o7jdr/(jn/jev avToig ■ uv 6' vnb 
TCJv TTvevfidrov jir] dwufieda ; aAAa ^a At' ovx 
Tj^eL ■ Kal TLc eyyv7]T^(; hart tovtov ; [Let this 
force be once destroyed or scattered, and what are 
we to do if Philip marches on the Chersonese? 
Put Diopeithes on his trial ? But how will that 
better our condition ? And how shall we send 
them succor if prevented by the winds ? But, by 
Jupiter, he will not march ! And who is our sure- 
ty for that?] or, comprising all of a long narrative 
that suits his argument in a single sentence, pre- 
senting a lengthened series of events at a single 
glance ; as in the UapanpeaBeia : Uevre yap ye- 
yovaaiv rj/xepai fiovai, hv alq — ovToq airrjyyeL'he to, 
Tpevd^ — vfielg ETricTevaaTE — ol ^uKeig envdovro — 
evedcjKav kavTovg — uttuTiovto. [There were only 
five days in which this man (Eschines, who had 
been sent as an embassador) brought back those 
lies — you believed — the Phocians listened — gave 
themselves up — perished .'] 

But though the more business-like manner 
^ .... . of modern debate approaches much 

Qualities in p i Vi i i i 

whicii it.svir- nearer the style of the Greek than the 

passes the best -^ . . . . ^, , . 

specimens of Latm compositions, it must be admit- 

modern debate, ^^j ^|^^^ j^ j-^jj^ ^^^^^ ^f ^^^ „^,^^^ 

originals in the closeness, and, as it were, densi- 
ty of the argument ; in the habitual sacrifice of 
all ornament to use, or rather in the constant 
union of the two ; so that, while a modern ora- 
tor too frequently has his speech parceled out 
into compartments, one devoted to argument, 
another to declamation, a third to mere orna- 
ment, as if he should say, " Now your reason 
shall be convinced ; now I am going to rouse 



* duintilian. 



your passions ; and now you shall see how I can 
amuse your fancy," the more vigorous ancient 
argued in declaiming, and made his very boldest 
figures subservient to, or rather an integral part 
of his reasoning. The most figurative and high- 
ly wrought passage in all antiquity is the famous 
oath in Demosthenes ; yet, in the most pathetic 
part of it, and when he seems to have left the 
furthest behind him the immediate subject of his 
speech, led away by the prodigious interest of 
the recollections he has excited ; when he is 
naming the very tombs where the heroes of Mar- 
athon lie buried, he instantly, not abruptly, but 
by a most felicitous and easy transition, returns 
into the imdst of the main argument of his whole 
defense-Cthat the merits of public servants, not 
the success of their councils, should be the meas- 
ure of the public gratitude toward them-^a po- 
sition that runs through the whole speech, and 
to which he makes the funeral honors bestowed 
alike on all the heroes, serve as a striking and 
appropriate support. With the same ease does 
Virgil manage his celebrated transition in the 
Georgics ; where, in the midst of the Thracian 
war, and while at an immeasurable distance from 
agricultural topics, the magician strikes the 
ground on the field of battle, where helmets are 
buried, and suddenly raises before us the lonely 
husbandman, in a remote age, peacefully tilling 
its soil, and driving his plow among the rusty 
armor and moldering remains of the warrior.^ 

But if a further reason is required for giving 
the preference to the Greek orators, , 

* r> 1 • • 1 !• • The admirable 

we may find it in the greater diversi- variety of its 
ty and importance of the subjects upon ^°^"^*' 
which their speeches were delivered. Besides 
the number of admirable orations and of written 
arguments upon causes merely forensic, we have 
every subject of public policy, all the great af- 
fairs of state, successively forming the topics of 
discussion. Compare them with Cicero in this 
particular, and the contrast is striking. His 
finest oration for matter and diction together is 
in defense of an individual charged with murder, 
and there is nothing in the case to give it a pub- 
lic interest, except that the parties were of op- 
posite factions in the state, and the deceased a 
personal as well as political adversary of the 
speaker. His most exquisite performance in 
point of diction, perhaps the most perfect prose 
composition in the language, was addressed to 
one man, in palliation of another's having borne 
arms again.st him in a war with a personal rival. 
Even the Catilinarians, his most splendid decla- 



^ Georgicon, i., 493 : 
Scilicet et tempus veniet, cum finibus illis 
Agricola, incurvo terram molitus avatro, 
Exesa inveniet scabra rubigine pila : 
Aut gravibus rastris galeas pulsabit inanes. 
Grandiaque efFossis mirabitur ossa sepulcris. 
The time shall come when in these borders round, 
The swain who turns the soil with crooked plow, 
Shall javelins find, and spears eaten with rust; 
Or with his harrows strike on empty helmets, 
And see with wonder the gigantic bones 
Of opened graves. 



1825.] 



INAUGURAL DISCOURSE OF MR. BROUGHAM, ETC. 



941 



mations, are principally denunciations of a single 
conspii-ator ; the Philippics, his most brilliant in- 
vectives, abuse of a profligate leader ; and the 
Verrine orations, charges against an individual 
governor. Many, indeed almost all the subjects 
of his speeches, rise to the rank of what the 
French term Causes celebres ; but they seldom 
rise higher.^ Of Demosthenes, on the other 

^ The cause of this difference between the Greek 
and Roman orators has been so strikingly described 
by a learned friend of mine, in the following note 
upon the above passage, that the celebrity of his 
name, were I at liberty to mention it, is not required 
to attract the reader's notice. " In Athens," says 
he, " an incessant struggle for independence, for 
power, or for liberty, could not fail to rouse the gen- 
ius of every citizen — to force the highest talent to 
the highest station — to animate her councils with a 
holy zeal — and to afford to her orators all that, ac- 
cording to the profouudest writers of antiquity, is 
necessary to the sublimest strains of eloquence. 
'Magna eloqueutia sicut flamma materia alitur, a 
motibus excitatur, urendo clarescit.' Hers were not 
the holiday contests of men who sought to dazzle by 
the splendor of their diction, the grace of their de- 
livery, the propriety and richness of their imagery. 
Her debates were on the most serious business 
which can agitate men — the preservation of nation- 
al liberty, honor, independence, and gloiy. The gifts 
of genius and the perfection of art shed, indeed, a 
luster upon the most vigorous exertions of her ora- 
tors — but the object of their thunders was to stir the 
energies of the men of 'Athens, and to make tyrants 
tremble, or rivals despair. Rome, on the other 
hand, mistress of the world, at the time when she 
was most distinguished by genius and eloquence, 
owned no superior, hated no rival, dreaded no equal. 
Nations sought her protection. Kings 'Itowed before 
her majesty; the bosom of her sole dominion was 
distiarbed by no struggle for national power, no alarm 
of foreign danger. While she maintained the au- 
thority of her laws over the civilized earth, and em- 
braced under the flattering name of allies those who 
could no longer resist her arms, the revolt of a bar- 
baj-ian King, or the contests of bordering nations with 
each other, prolonged only till she had decided be- 
tween them, served to amuse her citizens or her 
Senate, without affecting their tranquillity. Her 
government, though essentially free, was not so pop- 
ular as the Athenian. The severity of her discipline, 
and the gravity of her manners, disposed her citi- 
zens less to those sudden and powerful emotions 
which both excited and followed the efforts of the 
Greek orators. It seems, therefore, reasonable to 
conclude that the character of Roman eloquence 
would be distinguished more by art than by passion, 
by science than by nature. The divisions and ani- 
mosities of party, no doubt, would operate, and did 
operate with their accustomed force. But these are 
not like the generous flame which animates a whole 
nation to defend its liberty or its honor. The dis- 
cussion of a law upon which the national safety- 
could not depend, the question whether this or that 
general should take the command of an army, wheth- 
er this or that province should be allotted to a par- 
ticular minister, whether the petition of a city to be 
admitted to the privileges of Roman citizens should 
be granted, or whether some concession should be 
made to a suppliant King; these, with the excep- 
tion of the debates on the Catiline conspiracy, and 
one or two of the Philippics, fonn the subjects of a 
public nature, on which the mighty genius and con- 



hand, we have not only many arguments upon 
cases strictly private, and relating to pecuniary 
matters (those generally called the 'I^iutikoi), 
and many upon interesting subjects, more near- 
ly approaching public questions ; as the speech 
against Midias, which relates to an assault on 
the speaker, but excels in spirit and vehemence, 
perhaps, all his other efforts ; and some which, 
though personal, involve high considerations of 
public policy, as that most beautiful and en- 
ergetic speech against Aristocrates ; but we 
have all his immortal orations upon the state af- 
fairs of Greece — the Uspi I,Te^uvov, embracing 
the history of a twenty years' administration dur- 
ing the most critical period of Grecian story ; 
and the Philippics, discussing every question of 
foreign policy, and of the stand to be made by 
the civilized world against the enci'oachments of 
the barbarians. Those speeches were delivered 
upon subjects the most important and affect- 
ing that could be conceived to the whole com- 
munity ; the topics handled in them were of uni- 
versal application and of perpetual interest. To 
introduce a general observation, the Latin orator 
must quit the immediate course of his argument ; 
he must for a moment lose sight of the object in 
view. But the Athenian can hardly hold too 
lofty a tone, or carry his view too extensively 
over the map of human affairs, for the vast range 
of his subject — the fates of the whole common- 
wealth of Greece, and the stand to be made by 
free and polished nations against barbaric ty- 
rants. 

After forming and chastening the taste by a 
diligent study of those perfect models, j,^^^^-^^ 
it is necessary to acquire correct hab- in composi- 

.^ P :' . . ^ , tion. 

Its ol composition m our own language, 
I first by studying the_ _best_writers, and next by 
^a nsjat)ng ^ copiously into it from the Greek. 
This is by far the best exercise tliat'Tlinf*a[1?r 
quainted with for at once attaining a pure En- 
glish diction, and avoiding the tameness and reg- 
ularity of modern composition. But the English ^^ 
writers who really unlock the rich (, N-witjia f^VO^ 
sources of the language are those who diii.gentMuiiy .^ m *,- 
flourished from the end of Elizabeth's English writ 
to the end of Queen Anne's reign ; ^jg/^ mL, 0£»4.Ol 
who used a good Saxon dialect with ease, out .f , 
correctness and perspicuity — learned in the an-^^- ' 
cient classics, but only enriching their mother jO*'ly- 
tongue where the Attic could supply its defects /]/ J 
— not overlaying it with a profuse pedantic coin-^j-/^^" 
age of foreign words — well practiced in the^^iv- 
old rules of composition, or rather collocation 
{avvBeaic), which unite natural ease and variety* 

summate art of Cicero were bestowed. We are not, 
therefore, surprised to find that those of his orations 
in which he bears the best comparison with his rival 
Demosthenes were delivered in the forum in private 
causes. In some of these may be found examples 
of perhaps the very highest perfection to which the 
art can be carried, of clear, acute, convincing argu- 
ment, of strong natural feeling, and of sudden bursts 
of passion ; always, however, restrained by the pre- 

[ dominating influence of a highly cultivated art — an 

i art little concealed." — Brous^ham. 



fc^ 



942 



INAUGURAL DISCOURSE OF MR. BROUGHAM, ETC. 



[1825 



with absolute harmony, and give the author's 
ideas to develop themselves with the more truth 
and simplicity when clothed in the ample folds 
of inversion, or run from the exuberant to the 
elliptical without ever being either redundant or 
obscure. Those great wits had no foreknowl- 
edge of such times as succeeded their brilliant 
age, when styles should arise, and for a season 
prevail over both purity, and nature, and antique 
recollections — now meretriciously ornamented, 
more than half French in the phrase, and to mere 
figures fantastically sacrificing the sense — now 
heavily and regularly fashioned as if by the plumb 
and rule, and by the eye rather than the ear, 
with a needless profusion of ancient words and 
flexions, to displace those of our own Saxon, in- 
stead of temperately supplying its defects. Least 
of all could those lights of English eloquence 
have imagined that men should appear among 
us professing to teach composition, and ignorant 
of the whole of its rules, and incapable of I'elish- 
ing the beauties, or indeed apprehending the 
very genius of the language, should treat its pe- 
culiar terms of expression and flexion as so many 
inaccuracies, and practice their pupils in cor- 
recting the faulty English of Addison, and train- 
ing down to the mechanical rhythm of Johnson 
the lively and inimitable measures of Boling- 
broke. 

But in exhorting you deepl}'- to meditate on 
(2.) With a the beauties of our old English au- 
aSfthe"''" thors, the poets, the moralists, and 
^'^fGreek"" pei'haps morc than all these, the 
composition, prcachcrs of the Augustan age of 
English letters, do not imagine that I would pass 
over their great defects when compared with the 
renowned standards of severe taste in ancient 
times. Addison may have been pure and ele- 
gant; Dryden airy and nervous; Taylor witty 
and fanciful ; Hooker weighty and various ; but 
none of them united foi'ce with beauty — the per- 
fection of matter with^theTiiost renned and chast- 
ened style ; and to one charge all, even the most 
faultless, are exposed — the offense unknown in 
ancient times, but the besetting sin of later days 
— they always overdid — never knowing or feel- 
ing when they had done enough. In nothing, 
not even in beauty of collocation and harmony 
of rhythm, is the vast superiority of the chaste, 
vigorous, manl}^ style of the Greek orators and 
writers more conspicuous than in the abstinent 
use of their prodigious faculties of expression. A 
single phrase — sometimes a word — and the work 
is done — the desired impression is made, as it 
were, with one stroke, thei'e beingAiothing su- 
perfluous inteniosed to weaken the blow or 
break its fall. ^ The commanding idea is singled 
out ; it is made to stand forward ; all auxiliaries 
are rejected ;V^s the Emperor Napoleon selected 
one point in tile heart of his adversary's strength, 
and brought all his power to bear upon that, 
careless of the other points, 'which he was sure 



carried in vain if he left the center unsubdued 
Far othei-wise do modern writers make their on- 
set ; they resemble rather those campaigners 



who fit out twenty little expeditions at a time 
to be a laughing-stock if they fail, and 
useless if they succeed ; or if they do onnocfern' 
attack in the right place, so divide "^"'^""■ 
their forces, from the dread of leaving any one 
point unassailed, that they can make no sensible 
impression where alone it avails them to be felt. 
It seems the principle of such authors never to 
leave any thing unsaid that can be said on any 
one topic ; to run down every idea they start ; to 
let nothing pass ; and leave nothing to the reader, 
but harass him with anticipating every thing that 
could possibly strike his mind. Compare with 
this efleminate laxity of speech the Manner of 
manly severity of ancient eloquence ; ^rlZltd"^^ 
or of him who approached it, by the ^ contrast. 
happy union of natural genius with learned 
meditation; or of him who so marvelously ap- 
proached still nearer with only the familiar knowl- 
edge of its least perfect ensamples. Mark, I do 
beseech you, the severe simplicity, the subdued 
tone of the diction, in the most touching parts 
of the "old man Eloquent's"^ loftiest passages. 
In the oath, when he comes to the burial-place 
where they repose by whom he is swearing, if 
ever a grand epithet were allowable, it is here 
— yet the only one he applies is dyaOovg — ^^a 
Tovg iv MapaOuvt irpoKLvdwevaavrag tuv npoyo- 
V(j)v — Kol Tovg h UTiaraialg Trapara^afxevovg — kqc 
Tovg h 'LaXanlvL vaviiaxvaavrag — kol -ovg en' 
'ApTSfiialu, Kal izoT^Xovg irepovg Tovg hv Tolq 6t]- 
fiooLoig fivrjfiaat Keifievovc 'AFAGOTS uvdpac.^ 
When he would compare the effects of the The- 
ban treaty in dispelling the dangers that com- 
passed the state round about, to the swift pass- 
ing away of a stormy cloud, he satisfies himself 
with two words, uanep vecpog — the theme of just 
admiration to succeeding ages ; and when he 



"> Milton applied this phrase to Plato, as well he 
might; but of the orator it is yet more descriptive. 

8 We have no word in our language which is at 
once simple and strong enough to give the true force 
of ayadohg in this passage. Brave is perhaps the 
nearest. Gallant, which Lord Brougham elsewhere 
uses, is wanting in that very attribute of simplicity 
which he here speaks of. The whole passage is, in 
fact, untranslatable. It is impossible to give the 
mere English reader any true conception of its maj- 
esty and force. We have no words corresponding 
to those fine participles which bring before the eye 
at the same moment an act and s.pictnre, TrpOKivSvv- 
evaavrag, napara^auevovg, vai\uuxv<y(ivTag. Add 
to this the magnificent roll of the sound, and the 
kindling associations in the mind of every Greek at 
the bare mention of Marathon, Platasa, Salamis, and 
Artemisium. It has all that there is in poetry to 
rouse the imagination, and all there is in truth to 
move the feelings and the heart. 

The following is Lord Brougham's version of the 
passage, in his translation of the entire oration, made 
some years after : 

"No! By your forefathers, who for that cause 

rushed upon destruction at Marathon, and by those 

who stood in battle array at Plataea, and those who 

to carry if he w^on the center, as sure to have fougjn ti,e sea-fight at Salamis, and by the warriors 



■^ of Artemisium, and by all the others who now re- 
pose in the sepulchers of the nation — gallant 
men!" 



1825.] 



INAUGURAL DISCOURSE G^' MR. BROUGHAM, ETC. 



943 



would paint the sudden approaeh of overwhelm- 
ing peril to beset the state, he does it by a strWce 
the picturesque effect of which has not, perhaps, 
been enough noted — likening it to a whirlwind 
or a winter torrent, uairep aKyjirrbg y x£t-l^<J-PP^v^- 
It is worthy of remark, that in by far the first of 
all j\Ir. Burke's orations, the passage which is, 
I believe, universally allowed to be the most 
striking, owes its effect to a figure twice intro- 
duced in close resemblance to these two great 
expressions, although certainly not in imitation 
of either ; for the original is to be found in Livy's 
description of Fabius's appearance to Hannibal. 
Hyder's vengeance is likened to " a black cloud, 
that hung for a while on the declivities of the 
mountains," and the people who suffered under 
its devastations are described as "enveloped in 
a whirlwind of cavalry." Whoever reads the 
whole passage will, I think, admit that the effect 
is almost entirely produced by those two strokes ; 
that the amplifications which accompany them, 
as the " blackening of the horizon" — the " men- 
acing meteor" — the " storm of unusual fire,"^ 
rather disarm than augment the terrors of the 
original black cloud: and that the "goading 
spears of the drivers," and "the trampling of 
pursuing horses," somewhat abate the fury of the 
whirlwind of cavalry. Aov?^evoval ye [xaaTtyov- 
fievoL Kal aTpe6?iOv/j.evoi [They are slaves — lashed 
and racked], says the Grecian master, to describe 
the wretched lot of those who had yielded to the 
wiles of the conqueror, in the vain hope of secur- 
ing their liberties in safety. Compare this with 
the choicest of Mr. Burke's invectives of derision 
and pity upon the same subject — the sufferings 
of those who made peace with regicide France 
— and acknowledge the mighty efl^ect of relying 
upon a single stroke to produce a great effect — 
if you have the master-hand to give it. " The 
His want of ^^'^^g of Prussia has hj'potheeated in 
coDdensat.on. tj-^gj- ^-g ^j^g Regicidcs his rich and fer- 
tile territories on the Rhine, as a pledge of his 
zeal and affection to the cause of liberty and 
equality. He has been robbed with unbounded 
liberty, and with the most leveling equality. 
The woods are wasted ; the country is ravaged ; 
property is confiscated ; and the people are put 
to bear a double yoke, in the exactions of a ty- 
rannical government, and in the contributions of 
a hostile conscription." " The Grand Duke of 
Tuscany, for his early sincerity, for his love of 
peace, and for his entire confidence in the amity 
of the assassins of his family, has been compli- 
mented with the name of the ' ivisest Sovereign 
in Europe.^ This pacific Solomon, oi his philo- 
sophic cudgeled ministry, cudgeled by English 



' ducting from memoiy, Lord Brougham here puts 
into the mouth of Mr. Burke one of the tamest of all 
possible expressions, "a storm oi unusual fire," in- 
stead of the one actually used, " a stoi'm oi universal 
fire blasted every field, consumed every house, de- 
stroyed every temple." As Jirc was the chief in- 
strument of destruction used by Hyder Ali, the men- 
tion of it (whether it served or not to disarm the 
terrors of the original black cloud) was essential to 
the truth of his description. 



and by French, whose wisdom and philosophy 
between them have placed Leghorn in the hands 
of the enemy of the Austrian family, and driven 
the only profitable commerce of Tuscany from 
its only port."^° Turn now for refreshment to 
the Athenian artist — KaA^i; / ol noT^lol vvv 
d-sLTiTJcpacriv 'QpeiTuv x^P'''^^ ^^^ ''"^'f '^iXLtttzov 
<pL7iOig kiieTpeipav avrovc rov 6' ^ixppalov kudovv ' 
Ka7j]v y' 6 Sr'/fiog 6 tuv 'EiperpLEUv, on rovg vfie- 
Tepovg fj.£v TrpeaGEig anrfKaat, K2.eLTdpx({i S' eve- 
duKEv avTov • dovTiEvovai ye fiaartyovnEvoL kqI 
aTpE^lovfievot [Much, forsooth, did the Oreitoe 
gain when they yielded to the friends of Philip, 
and thrust out Euphraeus ; and much the people 
of Eretria, when they drove off your embassa- 
dors, and gave themselves up to Kleitarchus ! 
They are now slaves — lashed and racked]. — Phil. 
3. Upon some very rare occasions, indeed, the 
orator, not content with a single blow, pours him- 
self forth in a full torrent of invective, and then 
we recognize the man who was said of old to eat 
shields and steel — aa~l6ag Kal KaTa-nD^raq eadluv. 
But still the effect is produced without repetition 
or diffuseness. I am not aware of any such ex- 
panded passage as the invective in the TlEpl 2r£- 
cpdvov against those who had betrayed the vari- 
ous states of Greece to Philip. It is, indeed, a 
noble passage ; one of the most brilliant, perhaps 
the most highly colored of any in Demosthenes ; 
but it is as condensed and rapid as it is rich and 
varied : 'kvOpuKoi [iLapol Kal KoTiaKEg Kal d\da- 
TopE^, TjKpuTTjpiaGfiivoL Tag EavTGJv EKacTOL naTpt- 
dag, TTiv tlEvBEpLav TrponETTUKOTEC irpoTEpov filv 
^iAiTTTTO), vvv 6e 'ATiE^dvdpo) — r?) yaarpl [lErpovv- 
TEg Kal Tolc alcxtOTOtg tt/v Evdatfiovcav — ttjv (V 
fAEvOepiav Kal to firjdeva exsi^v dEaTzdrrjv avruv {a 
Tolg TTpoTEpoig 'Y^TilriOLv opoc tuv dyaOibv rjoav Kal 
KavovEg), dvaTETpo(^6TEg (Ilepi l,TE(p.). [Base and 
fawning creatures, wretches who have mutilated 
the glory each of his own native land — toasting 
away their liberties to the health first of Philip, 
then of Alexander ; measuring their happiness 
by their gluttony and debauchery, but utterly 
overthrowing those rights of freemen, and that 
independence of any master, which the Greeks 
of former days regarded as the test and the sum- 
mit of all felicity. ]^^ This requires no contrast 
to make its merit shine forth ; but compare it 
with any of Cicero's invectives — that, for in- 
stance, in the third Catilinarian. against the con- 
spirators, where he attacks them regularly under 
six different heads, and in above twenty times as 
many words ; and ends with the known and very 

1° Lord Brougham does injustice to Mr. Burke in 
this quotation. The passage, instead of being one 
of the " choicest," is one of the most careless, in 
point of style, to be found in the Regicide Peace. 

^^ The object of chief abhorrence to the old Greeks 
is remarkably expressed in this passage : dea-OTi^c 
is the correlative of 6ov7Mg; and the meaning of 
deaTTOTTjv ex^''^ avTcjv is, "having an owner or pro- 
prietor of themselves," that is, " being the property, 
the chattels of any one ;" and this they justly deem- 
ed the last of human miseries. The addition of the 
cart- whip, and a tropical climate, would not proba- 
bly have been esteemed by them an alleviation of 
the lot of slavery. — Brougham. 



944 



INAUGURAL DISCOURSE OF MR. BROUGHAM, ETC 

Scor- 



[1825. 



moderate jest of their commander keepin 
torum cohortem Prsetoriam." 

The great poet of modern Italy, Dante, ap- 
Dante as an in- proached nearcst to the ancients in 
dSouXng the quality of which I have been 
modern poets, speaking. In his finest passages 
you rarely find an e}>ithet ; hardly ever more than 
one ; and never two efforts to embody one idea. 
" A guisa di Leon quando si posa''' [Like the lion 
when he lays himself down], is the single trait 
by which he compares the dignified air of a stern 
personage to the expression of the lion slowly 
laying him down. It is remarkable that Tasso 
copies the verse entire, but he destroys its whole 
effect by filling up the majestic idea, adding this 
line, " Girando gli occhi e non movendo il passo''' 
[Casting around his eyes, but not hastening his 
pace]. A better illustration could not easily be 
found of the difference between the ancient and 
the modern style.'^ Another is furnished by a 
later imitator of the same cfreat master. I know 



12 Lord Brougham here cites a number of passages 
from Dante, as specimens of the brief energy of his 
descriptions. In some of these cases, however, an 
explanation of the circumstances, or a longer quota- 
tion, is necessary to exhibit the true force and beauty 
of the original. These will therefore be given. 

(1.) "The flight of doves." This passage, from 
the fifth Canto of the Inferno, relates to the ghosts 
of two lovers, Paulo and Francesca, whom the poet 
calls to him from a distance, that they may tell their 
mournful story. They come, 

duali colombe, dal disio chiamate. 
Con V ali aperte e ferme al dolce nido 
Volan per 1' aer dal voler portate. 

As doves, by instinct led, 
With outstretched wings and steady, through the 

air, 
Seek their sweet nest, borne on by strong desire. 

(2.) " The gnawing of a skull by a mortal enemy." 
The passage here referred to is from the most ter- 
rific description contained in the Inferno (Canto 
xxxiii.), where Count Ugolino has seized on the 
head of his enemy, the Archbishop of Pisa, from be- 
hind, as he endeavored to escape, and was gnawing 
into his skull like a dog. Ugolino turns at the call 
of the poet, wipes his bloody jaws on the hair of his 
victim, and tells the well-known story of his being 
shut up in a tower through the arts of his enemy, 
and left with his two sons and two grandsons to die 
the lingering death of starvation. Then follows the 
passage, 

duand' ebbe detto cio, con gli occhi torti 
Riprese '1 teschio misero co' denti, 
Chefuro aW osso, come d' tin ca7i,forti. 
He spoke, and turning with his eyes askance. 
Again he seized upon that wretched skull 
IVith teeth strong grinding to the bone, like dog's ! 
(3.) " The venality and simoniacal practices of the 
Romish Church." In the Paradise (Canto xvii.) the 
poet meets one of his ancestors, who predicts his 
banishment from Florence a^ procured for money 
of Boniface VIII. , then Pope at Rome, and adds. 
La dove Cristo tutto di si merca. 
There Christ himself is daily bought and sold ! 
(4.) "The perfidy of a Bourbon," viz., Charles of 
Valois, who, coming from France in the guise of 
peace, gained the mastery of Florence by a treach- 
ery which the poet could compare to nothing but 



no passage of the Divina Commedia more ex- 
cursive than the description of evening in the 
Purgatorio ; yet the poet is content with some- 
what enlarging on a single thought — the tender 
recollections which that hour of meditation gives 
the traveler, at the fall of the first night he is to 
pass away from home, when he hears the distant 
knell of the expiring day. Gray adopts the idea 
of the knell in nearly the words of 
the origmal, and adds eight other pieciexpan- 
circumstances to it, presenting a kind ^'°"' 
of ground-plan, or at least a catalogue, an accu- 
rate enumeration (like a natural historian's) of 
every one particular belonging to nightfall, so as 
wholly to exhaust the subject, and leave nothing 
to the imagination of the reader. Dante's six 
verses, too, have but one epithet, dolci, applied 
to amici. Gray has thirteen or fourteen ; some 
of them mere repetitions of the same idea which 
the verb or the substantive conveys — as drowsy 
tinkling lulls — the moping owl complains — the 
plowman plods his weary way. Surely, when 
we contrast the simple and commanding majesty 
of the ancient writers with the superabundance 
and difl^usion of the exhaustive method, we may 
be tempted to feel that there lurks some alloy of 
bitterness in the excess of sweets.'^ This was 



that of Judas Iscariot. The image is that of a knight 
entering the lists of a tournament. 

Senza arme n'esce, e solo con la lancia 
Con la qual giostro Giuda. 
Unarmed he came, save only with the lance 
That Judas fought with ! 
(5.) The pains of dependence (Paradiso xvii.). 
Tu proverai si come sa di sale 
II pane altrui, e com' e duro calle 
Lo scendere e 1' salir per 1' altrui scale. 
Thou shalt learn 
How bitter is the taste of others' bread; 
How hard the path to climb and to descend 
Another's stairs ! 
1^ In this criticism. Lord Brougham falls into the 
not uncommon error of making one kind of excel- 
lence the standard in every case. He forgets that 
we may admire the rapid sketches of Dante without 
condemning the minuter pictures of Gray. 

There is also a distinction to be made as to the 
proper place for dwelling on particulars and using 
epithets. When the mind is on the ascendant scale 
of feeling, and pressing forward to some great result, 
conciseness is demanded — detail and epithet are out 
of place. But when the pursuit is over, and we look 
back with tender or melancholy feelings on the past, 
it is natural to dwell in fond detail on the objects 
we have left behind, and to accumulate those epi- 
thets which mark their distinctive qualities. Thus 
when Othello, who was at first so rapid, so concise, 
so eager to go forward, feels himself at last to be a 
ruined man, and cries out, " Othello's occupation's 
gone," it is striking to observe how he dwells in 
minute detail, and with accumulated epithets, on 
those warlike scenes in which he once delighted. 
Farewell the tranquil mind, farewell content, 
Farewell the plumed troops, and the big war 
That makes ambition virtue ! oh, farewell ! 
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, 
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, 
Tlie royal banner, and all quality. 
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war ! 



1825.] 



INAUGURAL DISCOURSE OF MR. BROUGHAM, ETC. 



945 



so fully recognized by the wise ancients, that it 
became a proverb among them, as we learn from 
an epigram still preserved. 

E/f rffv fj.ETpt6T7jTa. 

Ildv TO TceptTTov uKatpov, eTzel Xoyo^ earl Tzakaiog, 

'Qg Kal Tov /a^Xtrog to ttXeov eoTt xoXrj. 

[to moderation. 
All excess is inappropriate ; hence the proverb, 
Too much even of honey turns to gall.] 

In forming the taste by much contemplation 
In addition to of those antique models, and acquir- 
"tmfv^'of7i'ieto- i"g the habits of easy and chaste com- 
ric each eHort position, it must not be imagined that 

to be a labored i ' • i i 

one. all the labor of the orator is ended, or 

that he may then dauntless and fluent enter upon 
his office in the public assembly. Much prep- 
aration is still required before eacluexertion, if 
rhetorical excellence is aimed at. 11 should lay 
it down as a rule, admitting of no e^eption, that 
Writing to be a man will speak well in proportion 
^vtltnplrane- ^s hc has written much^nd that with 
ous address, equal talcnts, he will b^he finest ex- 
tempore speaker, when no time for preparing is 
allowed, who has prepared himself the most sed- 
ulously when he had an opportunity of deliver- 
ing a premeditated speech^jl All the exceptions 
which I have ever heard ciAm to this principle are 
apparent ones only ; proving nothing more than 
that some few men of rare genius have become 
great speakers without preparation ; in nowise 
showing that with preparation they would not 
have reached a much higher pitch of excellence. 
The admitted superiority of the ancients in all 
oratorial accomplishments is the best proof of 
my position ; for their careful preparation is un- 
deniable ; nay, in Demosthenes (of whom Quin- 
lilian says that his style indicates more premed- 
itation — plus aircE — than Cicero's) we can trace, 
by the recurrence of the same passage, with 
progressive improvements in different speeches, 
how nicely he polished the more exquisite parts 
of his compositions. I could point out favorite 
passages, occurring as often as three several 
times with variations, and manifest amendment. 
I am now requiring not merely great prep- 
Tb.is labor to be ^ration while the speaker is learning 
carried through- jijs art, but after he has accomplish- 
out the orator's i , • i • mi i i • i 

wiioie course cd his cducation. i he inost splendid 
effort of the most mature orator will 
be always finer for being previously elaborated 
with much care. There is, no doubt, a charm 
in extemporaneous elocution, derived from the 
appearance of artless, unpremeditated effusion, 
called forth by the occasion, and so adapting 
itself to its exigencies, which may compensate 
the manifold defects incident to this kind of com- 
position : that which is in.spired by the unfore- 
seen circumstances of the moment, will be of 
necessity suited to those circumstances in the 
choice of the topics, and pitched in the tone of 

On the same principle, Gray's minuteness of de- 
tail, when meditating in a country church-yard, is 
perfectly appropriate. Every one's heart tells him 
that it is the nice and delicate shading of the picture 
*Imt forms its chief excellence. 



the execution, to the feelings upon which it is 
to operate. These are great virtues : it is an- 
other to avoid the besetting vice of modern ora- 
tory — the overdoing every thing — the exhaust- 
ive method — which an off-hand speaker has no 
time to fall into, and he accordingly will take only 
the grand and effective view ; nevertheless, in or- 
atorical merit, such effusions must needs be very 
inferior; much of the pleasure they produce de- 
pends upon the hearer's surprise, that in such 
circumstances any thing can be delivered at all, 
rather than upon his deliberate judgment, that 
he has heard any thing very excellent in itself. 
We may rest assured that the highest reaches of 
the art, and without any necessary sacrifice of 
natural effect, can only be attained by him who 
well considers, and maturely prepares, and often- 
times sedulously corrects and refines his oration. 
Such preparation is quite consistent with the in- 
troduction of passages prompted by the occasion, 
nor will the transition from the one to the other 
be perceptible in the execution of a practiced 
master. I have known attentive and skillful 
hearers completely deceived in this matter, and 
taking for extemporaneous passages which pre- 
viously existed in manuscript, and were pro- 
nounced without the variation of a particle or a 
pause. Thus, too, we are told by Cicero, in one 
of his epistles, that having to make, in Pompey's 
presence, a speech, after Crassus had very unex- 
pectedly taken a particular line of argument, he 
exerted himself, and it appears successfully, in a 
marvelous manner, mightily assisted in what he 
said extempore by his habit of rhetorical prep- 
aration, and introducing skillfully, as the inspira- 
tion of the moment, all his favorite common- 
places, with some of which, as we gather from a 
good-humored joke at his own expense, Crassus 
had interfered : " Ego autem ipse, Di Boni ! 
quomodo henepTtepEVCTdfirjv novo auditori Pom- 
peio ! Si unquam mihi Tzeplodoc, si Ka/inac, si 
hdvfx^fxaTa, si KaraaKevaU suppeditaverunt, illo 
tempore. Quid multa '? clamores. Etenim haec 
erat vnodeaig, de gravitate ordinis, de equesfri 
Concordia, de consensione Italiae, de immortuis 
reliquiis conjurationis, de vilitate, de otio — nosti 
jam in hac materia sonitus nostros ; tanti fue- 
runt, ut ego eo brevior sim, quod eos usque 
isthinc exauditos putem." — Ep. ad Att., i., 14.^"' 
II. If, from contemplating the means of ac- 

1* This passage is a curious specimen of Cicero's 
habit of sportive boasting in familiar intercourse 
with his friends. 

But for myself, good Gods, how I launched out be- 
fore my new auditor Pompey ! Then, if ever, I had 
an abundant supply of rounded sentences, graceful 
transitions, striking rhetorical proofs, and amplifica- 
tions to illustrate and confirm my sentiments. Why 
should I say more ? Shouts of applause followed. 
My subject was, the dignity of the Senate, the con- 
cord of the Knights, the union of all Italy, the ex- 
piring remains of the conspiracy — corruption de- 
stroyed, peace established. You know how I can 
raise my voice on these topics ; and I now say the 
less, because it swelled so loud that I should think 
you might have heard it even at the distance you 
are off! 



^ir^-t; 



/ 



h 



tit4MA.U-0- 



946 



INAUGURAL DISCOURSE OF MR. BROUGHAM, ETC. 



[1825. 



quiring eloquence, we turn to the noble purposes 

to which it may be made subservient, we at 

once perceive its prodigious importance to the 

, best interests of manirind. The great- 
Part Second. '^ 

The uses of est mastCFS of the art have concurred, 
eloquence. ^^^ upou the greatest occasion of its 
display, in pronouncing that its estimation de- 
pends on the virtuous and rational use made of 
it. Let their sentiments be engraved on your 
memory in their own pure and appropriate dic- 
tion. KaTiou (says ^schines) ryv fiev didvoiav 
TTpoaipeiadac to, [SeXTicTTa, ttjv 6e TraiSecav rr]v tov 
^^Topog Koi TOV \6yov rcziQziv rovq uKOVov-ag — ei 
6e fj.}}, T7]v evyvufJ.oavuTjv ael TTporanTiov tov Tioyov 
[It is well that the intellect should choose the 
best objects, and that the education and eloquence 
of the orator should obtain the assent of his hear- 
ers ; but if notj that sound judgment should be 
preferred to mere speech.] "Ecrri (says his il- 
lustrious antagonist) f5' ovx o 'koyoq tov pfjTopoq 
TlfjLioc, ov6' 6 Tovog r?/f (puvjjc, aXka to Tama irpo- 
aipeladat Tolg iroTiXolc [It is not the language 
of the orator or the modulation of his voice that 
deserves your praise, but his seeking the same 
interests and objects with the body of the people]. 
It is but reciting the ordinary praises of the art 
Multiplied of persuasion, to remind you how sacred 
^ts of'sod- truths may be most ardently promulga- 
^^^- ted at the altar-^the cause of oppressed 

innocence be most powbrfully defended — the 
march of wicked rulers be most triumphantly re- 
sisted — defiance the most terrible be hurled at 
the oppressor's head. In great convulsions of 
public affairs, or in bringing about salutary chan- 
ges, every one confesses how important an ally 
eloquence must be?yBut in peaceful times, when 
the progress of events is slow and even as the 
silent and unheeded pace of time, and the jars 
of a mighty tumult in foreign and domestic con- 
cerns can no longer be heard, then too she flour- 
ishes — protectress of liberty — patroness of im- 
provement — guardian of all the blessings that 
can be showered upon the mass of human kind ; 
nor is her form ever seen but on ground conse- 
crated to free institutions. " Pacis comes, oti- 
ique socia, et jam bene constitute reipublicae al- 
umna eloquentia" [Eloquence is the compan- 
ion of peace and the associate of leisure ; it is 
trained up under the auspices of a well-estab- 
lished republic]. To me, calmly revolving these 
things,rsuch pursuits seem far^ gj^Qxe noble ob- 
jects ot qjnbition than any upon which the vul- 
gar herd of busy men lavish prodigal their res^:- 
less exertion^. J To diffuse useful information — 
to further intwlectual refinement, sure forerun- 
ner of moral improvement — to hasten the com- 
ing of the bright day when the dawn of general 
knowledge shall chase away the lazy, lingering 
rnists, even from the base of the great social 
pyramid — this indeed is a high calling, in which 
the most splendid talents and consummate virtue 
may well press onward eager to bear a part. I 
know that 1 speak in a place consecrated by the 
pious wisdom of ancient times to the instruction 
of but a select portion of the community. Yet 
^rom this classic ground have fione forth those 



whose genius, not their ancestry, ennobled them ; 
whose incredible merits have opened to all ranks 
the temple of science ; whose illustrious exam- 
ple has made the humblest emulous to climb 
steeps no longer inaccessible, and enter the un- 
folded gates, burning in the sun. I speak in that 
city where Black having once taught, and Watt 
learned, the grand experiment was afterward 
made in our day, and with entire success ; to 
demonstrate that the highest intellectual cultiva- 
tion is perfectly compatible with the daily cares 
and toils of working-men ; to show by thousands 
of living examples that a keen relish for the most 
sublime truths of science belongs alike to every 
class of mankind. 

To promote this, of all objects the most im- 
portant, men of talents and of influ- Men of the 
ence I rejoice to behold pressinfj for- i^igheststa- 

, . "^ r. , ■ ° , tion aiut at- 

ward m every part of the empn-e ; but tainments 
1 wait With impatient anxiety to see the field of its 
the same course pursued by men of ^'''^°^^- 
high station in society, and by men of rank in 
the world of letters. It should seem as if these 
felt some little lurking jealousy, and those were 
somewhat scared by feelings of alarm — the one 
and the other surely alike groundless. No man 
of science needs fear to see the day when scien- 
tific excellence shall be too vulgar a commodity 
to bear a high price. The more widely knowl- 
edge is spread, the more will they be prized 
whose happy lot it is to extend its bounds by 
discovering new truths, or multiply its uses by 
inventing new modes of applying it in practice. 
Their numbers will indeed be increased, and 
among them more Watts and more Franklins 
will be enrolled among the lights of the world, 
in proportion as more thousands of the working 
classes, to which Franklin and Watt belonged, 
have their thoughts turned toward philosophy ; 
but the order of discoverers and inventors will 
still be a select few, and the only material vari- 
ation in their proportion to the bulk of mankind 
will be, that the mass of the ignorant multitude 
being progressively diminished, the body of those 
will be incalculably increased who are worthy 
to admire genius, and able to bestow upon its 
possessors an immortal fame. 

To those, too, who feel alarmed as statesmen, 
and friends of existing establishments. True knowi- 
I would address a few words of com- l^^f„^l^'^^^°' 
fort. ifReal knowledjre never promot- ,^"< '^e '-" en- 

1 . V IT 1 T r> 1 lightened and 

ed either turbulence or unbelief ; but stkuie sov- 
its progress is the forerunner of liber- ^™"*" • 
ality and enlightened tolcrationr\A'Vhoso dreads 
these, let him tremble ; for he m^y be well as- 
sured that their day is at length come, and must 
put to sudden flight the evil spirits of tyranny 
and persecution which haunted the long night 
now gone down the sky^ As men will no lon- 
ger sufler themselves to be led blindfolded in ig- 
norance, so will they no more yield to the vile 
principle of judging and treating their fellow- 
creatures, not according to the intrinsic merit 
of their actions, but according to the accidental 
and involuntai'y coincidence of their opinions^^ 
The great truth has finally gone forth to all the 



1825.] 



INAUGURAL DISCOURSE OF MR. BROUGHAM, ETC. 



947 



ends of the earth, That man shall no more 

RENDER ACCOUNT TO MAN FOR HIS BELIEF, OVER 



WHICH HE HAS HIMSELF NO CONTROL. 



Hence- 



forward, nothing shall prevail upon us to praise 
or to blame any one for that which he can no 
more change than he can the hue of his skin or 
the height of his stature }■' Hencelorward, treat- 
ing with entire respect those who Qonscientious- 
ly differ from ourselves, the only practical effect 
of the difference will be, to make us enlighten 
the ignorance on one side or the other from 
which it springs, by instructing them, if it be 
theirs •, ourselves, if it be our own, to the end 
that the only kind of unanimity may be pro- 
duced which is desirable among rational beings 
— the agreement proceeding from full conviction 
after the freest discussion. Far then, very far, 
from the universal spread of knowledge being 
the object of just apprehension to those who 
watch over the peace of the country, or have a 
deep interest in the permanence of her institu- 
tions, its sure effect will be the removal of the 



15 This is one of those hasty statements so char- 
acteristic of Lord Brougham. In his eagerness to 
do away religious intolerance, he puts belief, or the 
assent we give to probable evidence, on the same 
footing with our assent to a mathematical demon- 
stration ; declaring it to be involuntary, and the re- 
sult of a necessity of our nature. Such a sentiment 
does not need to be discussed. It is refuted by the 
universal experience of mankind. Every one knows 
— it has, indeed, passed into a proverb — that a man 
can make himself believe almost any thing he 
pleases. Under the influence of feeling and preju- 
dice, men look only at the proof on one side ; they 
turn away from evidence which makes against their 
wishes. Oi-, if they do contemplate it, every one 
knows it requires far more evidence to gain a man's 
assent against his wishes than in favor of them, so 
that Butler says in his Hudibras, 

He who's convinced against his will, 

Is of the same opinion still. 
Bat, according to Lord Brougham, there is no room 
for the man's " will" in the case ; it is wholly involun- 
tary, a thing " over which he himself has no control !" 
All this he contradicts, under other aspects, on every 
page of his speeches. He condemns men for being 
nncandid, when such a thing as candor or the want 
of it could not exist on his scheme : nobody talks 
about candor in studying the mathematics. If there 
was ever a man who held others responsible for 
their opinions, it is Lord Brougham ; he is perpet- 
ually finding fault with men for their political views. 
It is unnecessary to add, that the whole tenor of the 
Scriptures is against this principle. They make 
beUef the condition of salvation, and represent it as 
springing from a right state of heart; "With the 
heart man believeth unto righteousness." They 
treat unbelief as sinful; "Ye believe not because of 
the hardness of your hearts." On Lord Brougham's 
principle, Paul was free from blame before his con- 
version, for he "Verily thought that he ought to do 
many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Naza- 
reth ;" but the Apostle decided differently, and de- 
clared his guilt to have been great, though he acted 
"ignorantly and in unbeHef." 



only dangers that threaten the public tranquil- 
lity, and the addition of all that is wanting to 
confirm her internal strength. 

T,et rae, therefore, indulge in the hope that, 
among the illustrious youths whom peroration: 
this ancient-kinsrdom, famed alike for The high object 

^. ' . and reward of 

its iiobihty and its learning, has pro- cultivated m- 
duced, to continue her fame through 
after ages, possibly among those I now address, 
there may be found some one — I ask no more — 
■willing to give a bright example to other nations 
in a path yet untrodden, by taking the lead of 
his fellow-citizens, not in frivolous amusements, 
nor in the degrading pursuits of the ambitious 
vulgar, but in the truly noble task of enlighten- 
ing the mass of his countrymen, and of leaving 
his own name no longer encircled, as heretofore, 
with barbaric splendor, or attached to courtly 
gewgaws, but illustrated by the honors most 
worthy of our rational nature — coupled with the 
diffusion of knowledge — and gratefully pro- 
nounced through all ages by millions w^hom his 
wise beneficence has rescued from ignorance 
and vice. To him I will say, "Homines ad 
Decs nulla re propius accedunt quam salutem 
hominibus dando : nihil habet nee fortuna tua 
majus quam ut possis, nee natura tua melius 
quam ut veils servare quamplurimos" [In noth- 
ing do men approach more nearly to the Di- 
vinity than in ministering to the safety of their 
fellow-men ; so that fortune can not give you 
any thing greater than the ability, or nature any 
thing better than the desire to extend relief to 
the greatest pcssible number]. This is the true 
mark for the aim of all who either prize the en- 
joyment of pure happiness, or set a right value 
upon a high and unsullied renown. And if the 
benefactors of mankind, when they rest from 
their pious labors, shall be pernmitted to enjoy 
hereafter, as an appropriate reward of their 
virtue, the privilege of looking down upon the 
blessings with which their toils and sufferings 
have clothed the scene of their former existence, 
do not vainly imagine that, in a state of exalted 
purity and wisdom, the founders of mighty dy- 
nasties, the conquerors of new empires, or the 
more vulgar crowd of evil-doers, who have sac- 
rificed to their own aggrandizement the good of 
their fellow-creatures, will be gratified by con- 
templating the monuments of their inglorious 
fame — theirs will be the delight — theirs the tri- 
umph — who can trace the remote effects of their 
enlightened benevolence in the improved condi- 
tion of their species, and exult in the reflection 
that the prodigious change they now survey, 
with eyes that age and sorrow can make dim 
no more — of knowledge become power — virtue 
sharing in the dominion — superstition trampled 
under foot — tyranny driven from the world — are 
the fruits, precious, though costly, and though 
late reaped, yet long-enduring, of all the hard- 
ships and all the hazards they encountered here 
below ! 



THE END. 



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